4.2 The Scar (episode transcript)

SPEAKERS
Sam O'Brien, Andrew Whatshisface, Christina Kann
 
Christina Kann  00:02
"I'm okay, mainly because the Dursleys are terrified you might turn up and turn them all into bats if I asked you to. A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt again. Last time that happened it was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don't reckon he can be anyone near me now, can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years afterward? I'll send this with Hedwig when she gets back. She's off hunting at the moment. Say hello to Buckbeak for me. -Harry"
 
Christina Kann  00:56
What's up, Pott-heads? Welcome to The Restricted Section, the show in which a bunch of nerds with potty mouths reread the Harry Potter series for the umpteenth time and discuss the way the story and its themes have a state of the generation into adulthood. Thanks for listening. If you haven't done the reading, don't worry, we did it for you. Here's what we're talking about today. Chapter Two, the scar. Oh, Harry Potter is a most unusual boy who has a very strange scar. And he goes to a very unusual school. And if you look around his room, you'll see the most unusual things. Anyway, he sent Sirius a letter saying his scar hurted.
 
Christina Kann  01:44
Welcome to The Restricted Section, where nightmares are real! Get used to it! I'm delighted to be joined today by my enthusiastic friend, Andrew! Say hello to the listeners, Andrew.
 
Andrew  01:55
Hello.
 
Christina Kann  01:56
Hey, and I'm so stoked that our special guest today is Sam O'Brien, host of our pod sib, Content and Capable! Say hello to the listeners, Sam.
 
Sam O'Brien  02:05
Why hello there.
 
Christina Kann  02:07
We are so glad that you're here! In case there's any chance in hell that a listener of The Restricted Section has no idea what Content and Capable is -- which, I don't think that's possible. I've made a lot of announcements about it. Tell us a little bit about your podcast and what you do over there.
 
Sam O'Brien  02:20
Content and Capable is a podcast -- kind of like, you know, your typical adulting podcast that you see everywhere. But instead of trying to give practical solutions, I sit down and chat to people who've got interesting stories or hobbies or stuff and talk about how they're living an adult life, but also enjoying life as well and feeling content with their hobbies or their jobs and things like that. So it's a really great time, and we chat about a whole bunch of things.
 
Christina Kann  02:55
Yeah, if you haven't listened before, might I recommend starting with maybe the episode that I guested on about book publishing and podcasting? I'll link that in the show notes for everyone. We're so glad you're here, Sam. Especially because we really need some help getting through this chapter.
 
Andrew  03:13
Tina, whatever could you mean?
 
Christina Kann  03:16
Okay, well, Andrew, why don't you just go ahead and give us your first impression reaction of this chapter? As you were reading it, what were you feeling? What were you thinking? What was running through your mind?
 
Andrew  03:25
I mean, I guess the only the only real answer to that is nostalgia. Because not only have I been in this chapter before, but this chapter has existed in every Harry Potter book ever made. So I've been in this chapter many times. Now it has different flavors, it has different little side characters that will come up. This one has an interesting bird. But you know, it's the first Harry Potter chapter of the Harry Potter book, where we learn about his unusualness and his boyishness.
 
Christina Kann  03:56
And Sam, I realized that I forgot to ask you to tell us a little bit about your Harry Potter history.
 
Sam O'Brien  04:01
Well, my older cousins read a lot of Harry Potter. In fact, when they came and babysat me, they would always have a Harry Potter book on hand. And I was always intrigued but never really got into it. And my mother has this rule still, that you could only read the book at what age Harry was. Because she kind of understands that they get darker towards the end. So you needed to be a little bit older to fully grapple with that, at least in her opinion.
 
Christina Kann  04:26
Interesting.
 
Sam O'Brien  04:27
And so I did so I read it once a year, when I was 11 through to about 16. I got to the sixth book and never read the Deathly Hallows.
 
Andrew  04:42
Oh my god.
 
Sam O'Brien  04:43
I'm so sorry.
 
Andrew  04:45
Well, it's been a great episode, y'all. So we're just gonna go ahead and...
 
Sam O'Brien  04:51
I actually struggled because I read so much as a child, my mother had to ban us from reading through the school term. And so by the time gotten around to picking up the next Harry Potter book, the school term ha already started. So I just never got around to like reading it. So I struggled through book five and six -- was just real hard to get through. And then I got to book seven, and I was 17, it was my final year of high school. And I just didn't have the time. I did try to listen to the audiobook. But at that point, I was listening to so many podcasts that I just couldn't handle another audio based thing. I have watched the movies, though, and I had this very interesting discussion with my mother this morning about how crap the Deathly Hallows movies are as compared to the books.
 
Christina Kann  05:43
It's crazy. They like made it into two movies, but it's still lost so many shades of meaning. I don't know. I can relate to -- my parents too had to restrict my reading sometimes to get me tp focus on other stuff. So that's very funny. What Hogwarts house are you?
 
Sam O'Brien  06:00
I am a Ravenclaw. Although sometimes I like to have main character vibes and will sometimes just go "Yeah, I'll be a Gryffindor for today."
 
Christina Kann  06:10
Oh my god, I love that answer. And I feel like I relate to that too. Sometimes you gotta buck up and be a Gryffindor. You know what I mean? Dope. Well, um, so what are your gut reactions to this chapter? I can't even like say it with a straight face.
 
Andrew  06:24
You have two minutes to respond. You must use all two minutes. That is a minimum not a maximum.
 
Christina Kann  06:32
We're not doing that.
 
Sam O'Brien  06:33
This is the weird thing about this whole chapter: We started off, you know, the last chapter with is really great, almost like a murder mystery plot. And we get back to this. And it's like, Why the fuck is this chapter here? We started with a really great start. And we just go on, "Yeah, now we're just going to spend the next 50 pages explaining who Harry Potter is." My first note, actually, is "Book Three Harry has entered the chat," because it reads so much like the first three books, but nothing really like the later half of the fourth book, where things get a little bit more complicated. And there's a lot of about, you know, bullshit that's happening. This is like almost a repeat of Book Three. Obviously, there's some interesting stuff that happened that we'll discuss later. But it's nothing really notable.
 
Christina Kann  07:27
Yeah, the beginning of this book is pretty bullshit heavy. We come out strong with the first chapter, and then the next two chapters are kind of nothing. And then we get to go to the Quidditch World Cup. And then there's like two more chapters of nothing. There's like, Let's sit around the Burrow, let's get on the train. I think it's that they wanted to give us the magic of every little detail of the first couple books, but it's like, honestly, we don't need the train, right? Let's get there, we got stuff to do.
 
Andrew  07:54
I might be wrong here, but this is the first one that I really remember being like a big, big deal. When the fourth book came out was the first time that I remember there being a midnight release. So I think what it might have been, too, is that might have been a publishing decision where they were like, "There might be a bunch of kids that are reading this and that've never read one, two and three, but they hear about number four, and they want to get it." Because that's the only explanation. Because I'll be honest, it feels like she's phoning it in here. It really feels like she had a list of things that she wanted to accomplish. And she just lazy went like bom, bom, bom, bom. There's points where it almost feels like like a fanfiction or something. It feels like it's not written by a real author. It just feels poor, clunky, and blergh. Maybe it's just being critical. I think what happened is she probably wrote the beginning chapter the way that we know it, right? The second and third chapter were just one chapter that was much shorter and was much more of just "Yeah, life sucks. But hey, this cool thing is gonna happen," and then going straight to the World Cup. At least that's the only thing that makes sense to me is that that was the case. And then a publisher was like, "We need more!"
 
Christina Kann  09:07
Yeah, ugh.
 
Andrew  09:08
"Put extra words on the page!"
 
Christina Kann  09:11
I would never do that.
 
Sam O'Brien  09:12
It annoys me because that book is so thick, and as a child in year six, when a friend of mine decided that she was going to read -- I think it was this book -- for reading challenge. I don't know whether you guys have it in America, Accelerated Reader?
 
Christina Kann  09:33
Andrew's bragged about it before
 
Sam O'Brien  09:34
It's the biggest bullshit ever. My brother does it. He's like on four million words this year. So he's very excited about it. Like it counts the words, and so we would get awards for the amount of words and so our class was a little bit low or behind. So she decided she was going to pick up -- I think it was this either that or the Prisoner of Azkaban -- and read it. I'm like, "That is way too thick." And it reads real fast, and it's a real short chapter and I think that that's perfectly fine. But it shouldn't be a chapter by itself.
 
Christina Kann  10:06
Yeah, it's bad writing. If I were this editor, I'd be like, "You should intersperse all of this backstory into your next couple chapters as we need it." Like, you got to cut something. That's my favorite thing to do as an editor, is just cut the bullshit. I'm vicious. Cut it! Andrew, were you at my house on Independence Day, when we watched Independence Day?
 
Andrew  10:29
Absolutely.
 
Christina Kann  10:30
Okay, remember, we were playing a variety of drinking games. And one of one of the rules was that every time the president's daughter came on stage, we all had to go "HER?!??!?!" And I think that in this podcast, we should start doing that whenever JK Rowling's mentioned. HER!?!?!???!!
 
Andrew  10:47
Yeah, I still don't really feel comfortable saying "that bitch." I don't know, for some reason I just don't like that.
 
Christina Kann  10:54
I think Rowldemost is a very appropriate alternative.
 
Andrew  10:57
I just don't even want to -- I just want to give her pronouns. That's all she gets.
 
Christina Kann  11:01
Yeah, HER!??!?!?!?!
 
Andrew  11:03
HER??!?
 
Sam O'Brien  11:06
I feel like we should have a new name for HER?? every season.
 
Andrew  11:13
Oh, we could really piss her off and call her "they."
 
Christina Kann  11:20
Whoa, you figured it out. Well, the funny thing is that at the very beginning of this podcast, all of us had this colloquial thing where we would say "they" the way that you say "they" about, like filmmakers and stuff. And we had to train ourselves to say the author's name -- until she betrayed us. And then we had to train ourselves to not say it anymore. We've been on this journey. And now we're just back to where we started.
 
Andrew  11:43
We should save "they" for book seven. So book four will be HER?? You can just adapt from there.
 
Christina Kann  11:49
All right, everyone, make a note.
 
Andrew  11:52
Also send in your recommendations for book five and six.
 
Sam O'Brien  11:56
Submissions are open. Only the best shall.
 
Andrew  12:00
 Top two will win, so Mats, go ahead and give us the two that we will end up using.
 
Christina Kann  12:09
Okay, I guess let's get to my notes. I don't know. Harry wakes up from the dream of the previous chapter.
 
Andrew  12:18
Yeah, and I already started off with an issue because he wakes up and he struggles to remember who Voldemort was trying to kill. Harry, it's always you, bud. The answer is always Harry Potter. The entirety of your life, the answer to "Who is Voldemort trying to kill?" has been Harry Potter. Other people have gotten in the way and had to be taken care of. But no, you are the target, my friend. And you woke up and you thought, "Who was it?" I don't know. Maybe the guy that's tried to kill you twice in three years. Just a thought. He literally had a previous version of himself who didn't even know who you were that tried to kill you because he figured out who you were. Like, DUH. I'm OVER IT!
 
Christina Kann  13:03
He's not a Ravenclaw! So his his widdle scar hurts him. It hot. It's shaped like lightning. We're like learning all these things.
 
Sam O'Brien  13:09
So formative.
 
Christina Kann  13:25
He really just like meditates for a full page and a half, dude.
 
Sam O'Brien  13:31
So there's a couple of things. First of all, this is where I feel like HER?? finally gets into trusting the readers to understand a couple of things. Yes, you know, she doesn't understand that people read the previous book, but she understands that people have read the previous chapter. So she doesn't have to spell everything out the fact that Harry had a dream. And then, this morning I'm sitting, eating breakfast, while listening to the chapter one more time, and the whole hand movements of Harry Potter having one hand over his face and grabbing the glasses in the pre-dawn. And I'm like, "What is happening here? How does that work?"
 
Christina Kann  14:20
Wow, there are some moments in the series where Harry desperately reaches for his glasses and it always gives me this moment of panic, because I too have before desperately reached for my glasses in a minute of need. So yeah, he doesn't remember everything but like something...
 
Andrew  14:39
This is actually, all kidding aside, a glorious and important moment for us as a podcast, going back through these books, because I contend this is the birth of edgelord/emo Harry. This is when we first started to meet the Harry that we will all come to love and hate and mainly hate and kind of love but really hate. This is where he starts. It starts with the way that he describes, in his own head, Quidditch: "in his opinion, the greatest sport in the world." That is such a 14-year-old edgelord boy thing to say. The next one is the way that it's written: "And yet . . . dot dot dot . . . and YET . . ."
 
Christina Kann  15:36
The angst.
 
Andrew  15:37
The angst is so real. And then later, he talks about --
 
Christina Kann  15:45
Hold on! before we go later -- Wait, what are you about to say?
 
Andrew  15:51
"Harry was no stranger to pain."
 
Christina Kann  15:53
That's what I was going to say!
 
Andrew  15:57
Like oh my god, Harry! Really? These are the first signs of him losing that, like -- what would Haley would call his "good boy status." He's losing being a good little boy. Because like, this is just so bad. And this is what I'm talking about too. It's either the greatest writing in the world because it's incredibly boring and yet perfectly written from the voice of a 14 year old, or it's just really bad writing that sounds like it was written by a 14 year old. And I honestly can't figure out which one it is.
 
Sam O'Brien  16:37
The the thing immediately after, when he start talking about Lockhart and I go, "It's good to see that Lockhart is still mentally scarring Harry here."
 
Christina Kann  16:45
Someone's remembering Lockhart.
 
Andrew  16:47
You're no stranger to pain, Harry, but you will never get over your mental pain. Because this is the wizarding world, and they do not have good mental health services. No one in the wizarding world is mentally sound. I think that can be just agreed upon by everyone.
 
Christina Kann  17:04
No one, I feel like, in the real world this mentally sound either. I mean, the muggle world, sorry.
 
Andrew  17:09
That's pretty true as well.
 
Sam O'Brien  17:12
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  17:12
Um, so we look around Harry's room and there's lots of unusual things. That's so weird. That's so weird.
 
Sam O'Brien  17:21
I have a logistics question. How the fuck do you fit a cauldron in a trunk?
 
Christina Kann  17:28
I know. I don't know if it's maybe not that big of a cauldron. They say the diameters of them at some point.
 
Andrew  17:35
It's like 12 inches, isn't it?
 
Sam O'Brien  17:37
I swear it was like 26 inches.
 
Christina Kann  17:40
Wait, I'm sure the internet knows the answer.
 
Andrew  17:42
Hey, Professor Internet.
 
Sam O'Brien  17:43
It's a  heavy thing.
 
Christina Kann  17:44
No, I wouldn't want to carry this trunk. I think about that when like the twins go get the trunk, which happens like three times, I feel like, within this series. Or whenever anyone's carrying any of the trunks, it sounds nightmarish. Pack differently. Why is it like this? Why is everything made of wood? That's so impractical.
 
Andrew  18:00
Because they still live in the 1850s. You know, the year that technology hit the perfect amount.
 
Christina Kann  18:06
I googled "Harry Potter cauldron size" and you know how sometimes Google's like "Here's your answer, don't look further." It says standard size two. Obviously.
 
Andrew  18:17
Ah, of course!
 
Christina Kann  18:19
Which is what they call them in the Harry Potter universe. Standards size 2, obviously.
 
Andrew  18:25
Translation: HER?? sat there and thought, "How big would a fucking cauldron...? I don't know. Would it be big? They couldn't use a big one. They have to carry -- Standard Size 2."
 
Christina Kann  18:38
This one website says five inches by five inches. That's so small. That can't be right. That's like adorable.
 
Sam O'Brien  18:44
That's like a cup.
 
Christina Kann  18:45
You can make like very jazzy cocktails in something like that.
 
Andrew  18:48
I was gonna say, I would expect that at a decent happy hour. It would be like 12 bucks but it would be like four shots of liquor, so you're kind of okay with it.
 
Christina Kann  18:58
Um, so Harry's like "Oh, the last time my scar hurt me it's because Voldemort was near me. Is he here in --" What is it called? Little Whinging?
 
Andrew  19:12
One other thing really quick that I did notice. "As far as Harry could see through the darkness, there wasn't a living creature in sight, not even a cat." I think I know what this means. McGonagall comes and spies on Harry. Not in a creepy way, just showing up, "You good, bro?"
 
Christina Kann  19:30
Cuz he's used to seeing a cat, huh?
 
Sam O'Brien  19:33
Like a whole mention of like a respectable street. I'm like, what makes and unrespectable street?
 
Andrew  19:38
Oh, Sam, you are so innocent.
 
Christina Kann  19:40
Garbage is a good start. There's a lot of garbage on my street.
 
Andrew  19:45
My mind went way dark.
 
Sam O'Brien  19:46
Then I started thinking about like the unrespectable street in my city, which is right across from the train station where I go to work at the radio station. And half the street is sex shops and sex bars. The other half of the street is bars, like normal bars that will then charge you $10 for entry and then each drink is over 10 bucks each.
 
Andrew  20:11
Oh. Just tostep back a second. Did you say sex bars?
 
Sam O'Brien  20:16
Yeah.
 
Andrew  20:17
So what is that? Exactly? Like, I want a drink and a blowjob.
 
Sam O'Brien  20:24
Yeah.
 
Andrew  20:25
Oh!
 
Sam O'Brien  20:26
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  20:27
That sounds fun!
 
Andrew  20:28
Wait, is sex work legal in Australia?
 
Sam O'Brien  20:31
I believe it is. Uh, yeah. I think it's a state thing. But yeah, I definitely think it is. Yeah.
 
Andrew  20:38
Party at Sam's place. All right. Nice.
 
Christina Kann  20:44
Wow, yeah. That's refreshing. That's fun.
 
Sam O'Brien  20:46
Yeah, it was interesting. I went out the other weekend. I was like, "Oh, I forgot that all these places exist."
 
Christina Kann  20:54
Wow, how to go from sex bar back to the Dursley's house? I don't know.
 
Andrew  20:58
Well, I know the way that we'll get there. Because we'll get there through one of my favorite recurring bits in all of this book. And this is so ramrodded. This has nothing to do with sex bars. But one of my favorite reccurring bits is St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys. Like, can we go harder in the paint to make you sound like an asshole if you go to this school? Like, we want you to feel bad.
 
Sam O'Brien  21:25
Is this like a '90s thing, where they were all phased out by the early 2000s, but somehow these school still existed? It just confuses me as to why we had to make it so obvious that the Dursleys hated him, as if their actions didn't speak any louder.
 
Andrew  21:44
Do we think this is a real school, or supposed to be a real school, though?
 
Christina Kann  21:49
I don't know, because this was kind of before the era of fact checking in that way.
 
Andrew  21:53
Yeah, this was back in the days where like, if the oldest daughter got pregnant, you sent her off to live with her aunt for a year, you know? So like, who knows? I've always wondered, like, Is that a real place? And people are like, Oh, God, he goes there?
 
Christina Kann  22:07
I'll Google it.
 
Andrew  22:08
But it couldn't be, because they don't think he's tough. You know?
 
Sam O'Brien  22:11
Yeah. But then at the same time, I could think of people just not questioning it. Like it's the '90s; no one cares. It sounds like a respectable school, you know, and everyone trusts the Dursleys, because, you know, they're all stupid. And so it could be just, "Oh, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. It must be a school I've never heard of, and they must have done their research proper."
 
Andrew  22:35
Aren't you brave to keep a child that goes to such a place?
 
Christina Kann  22:41
harrypotter.fandom.com says that Vernon Dursley likely made up the school as a cover.
 
Andrew  22:47
Hmm.
 
Christina Kann  22:48
It does sound like the kind of blustery, exaggerated name he would come up with.
 
Andrew  22:54
Yeah, it just rambles on a little bit too long.
 
Christina Kann  22:56
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Very full of itself. Okay, oh, like we get a little refresher like, who are the Dursleys? Why's Harry an orphan? Like? What? Who are his friends? Who are they?
 
Sam O'Brien  23:13
We get back to angsty Harry here, and I go, "Is Harry fangirling over Voldy here?" going, you know, "He's done this and this and this. He's so powerful. And yet I defeated him."
 
Andrew  23:28
He really does, dude. And once again, it's that 14 year old type thing. *scathingly mockingly* "If it hadn't been for Voldemort, Harry would not have the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. If it hadn't been for Voldemort, Harry would still have had parents."
 
Christina Kann  23:46
I want you to read this whole back to me in this voice, Andrew. It's like so perfect.
 
Andrew  23:53
Little did Harry know! Yeah. Seriously, it's like the most in his own head -- I will never be able to understand what it's like to be in his shoes at that age. I admit that. But my God, I think it's because it's so out of nowhere, it's way more abrupt than I thought it would be, the start of angsty Harry.
 
Christina Kann  24:20
He's got things to think about now.
 
Sam O'Brien  24:23
I'm just imagining myself as a 14 year old. I'm sorry for whoever met me at 14 years old. I was an asshole. And I really wish no one had ever met me at 14.
 
Andrew  24:41
There's a good amount of logic and I think solid argumentation that between the ages of 12 and 15, all children should be sent away to boarding school, because they're just going to be awful.
 
Christina Kann  25:00
I've always said I was my funniest when I was in middle school, so I feel strongly that way.
 
Andrew  25:06
I don't like interacting with children that age. They're judgy--
 
Christina Kann  25:12
They're hilarious! Are you joking me? They're so fucking funny and smart, dude, and they have nothing to lose. They're 13. What's going to happen? They're just so upfront with you it's hilarious.
 
Andrew  25:22
That's the problem, though. They just don't give a fuck.
 
Christina Kann  25:28
I respect it.
 
Sam O'Brien  25:30
I'm staying in my parents place right now. I have a 15-year-old, a 14-year-old, and a 12-year-old sibling. Yeah, I'm not enjoying it. I have to go to bed a little bit later. We were up -- it was midnight and my siblings were still awake. I'm like, "Go to bed so I can fucking go to bed!" They stay up talking loudly as well. They've got no respect for like what's happening around them.
 
Christina Kann  26:04
#adulting, am I right Sam?
 
Sam O'Brien  26:06
You're not wrong.
 
Christina Kann  26:09
The reintroduction to Harry's friends Ron and Hermione is done through this very flimsy lens of imagining how they would react to him confiding about his dream and his scar hurting.
 
Andrew  26:24
I genuinely love these. I genuinely love them. I have always loved them. And I am not ashamed of it. I fucking love when Harry imagines his friends' reactions. It's so goddamn funny. It's one of my favorite things in the Harry Potter universe. It happens a few times, where he like imagines what Ron Hurmati would say.
 
Christina Kann  26:45
Is it funny because it's so spot on?
 
Andrew  26:48
Yeah, obviously, it's spot on, because it's the same person that writes all the characters. I just adore it because Harry gets it perfectly in that way where you always kind of exaggerate the little details about your friends that you like the most.
 
Sam O'Brien  27:05
Ahem, "shrilly."
 
Andrew  27:06
Or at least the endearing parts about them. Like, if you have a funny friend, you'll be like, "Oh my God, they're so funny." And then you introduce them to someone, and you're like, "Aren't they funny?" And they're like, "I mean, yeah, they're funny. They're not like the funniest person the world but yeah, they're, they're funny." But that's like your thing, right, that you think of?
 
Christina Kann  27:24
He does call Hermione shrill and panicky.
 
Sam O'Brien  27:27
Which is just his angsty teen, really?
 
Christina Kann  27:33
So finally, in the end, he's like, "Well, I'll write a letter to my new dad that I just got, Sirius Black."
 
Sam O'Brien  27:41
Okay, this is where I have conniptions, watching Harry try to write a letter to someone, even him trying to draft a letter to Dumbledore in his head. I'm sitting here going, "Have you never written a letter in your life?" One of the big issues I have is if you go into writing something without a plan. And so, when we get to the end of the chapter, when he's finally written the letter, it's like, "Heaps of other bits of parchment." And I'm sitting here going, "Why didn't you just write a plan and then write it, and take two pieces of parchment instead of however many you used before?"
 
Christina Kann  28:26
I agree that I perhaps would have taken your path as well.
 
Andrew  28:31
Do y'all know? Are you are you cool enough kids to know?
 
Christina Kann  28:35
What?!
 
Andrew  28:36
That this is one of the biggest fuck ups that HER?? makes in the entire series?
 
Christina Kann  28:44
What?
 
Andrew  28:45
Are you aware of this? Am I about to blow your mind?
 
Christina Kann  28:48
Tell me!
 
Andrew  28:49
In his letter to Sirius, Harry mentions that Dudley threw his PlayStation out of the window. Fun fact: PlayStation wasn't released in the UK until September 29, 1995.
 
Christina Kann  29:03
Oh dear.
 
Andrew  29:03
And this is August of 1994.
 
Christina Kann  29:07
Oh my god.
 
Andrew  29:08
So my it literally would have been impossible for Dudley to have a PlayStation.
 
Christina Kann  29:14
Unless Vernon had some high-up connections at Nintendo. No, PlayStation. I said "Nintendo" automatically. Man, I really do fuck up almost every line I try to deliver. Trying to make a joke about PlayStation, but I literally said "Nintendo" just because I play Nintendo and I'm dreaming about how I'm gonna play my Nintendo later. Okay, we write the letter. Okay, and then Sirius, he must be hiding somewhere tropical because he sends Harry these letters via this large, flashy tropical bird rather than an owl.
 
Andrew  29:51
I always imagined this is like a toucan,
 
Christina Kann  29:55
Yeah, me too.
 
Andrew  29:56
In the book, it's way more of a flamingo thing. It's cool. It looks like it's a cool looking bird. But it's not at all what I imagined my head.
 
Sam O'Brien  30:06
Where would you guys posit that Sirius would be?
 
Christina Kann  30:09
If I were him, I'd probably be in maybe like South America.
 
Andrew  30:14
I'd be in Tahiti, just somewhere like tropical paradise, where you know no bureaucrat from London is going to think of. Bora Bora, maybe. One of those small islands where you have to take a plane to then take a Cessna to then take a boat to get to. That's where my ass would be. In the sand with a big ole strong drink and a lovely view of the ocean. It would look like a Corona commercial basically.
 
Christina Kann  30:42
That's cute. I like that vibe.
 
Sam O'Brien  30:44
Because he says "south." Okay, well, it could be like the south of Europe. But then, that's not even that nice. What about like the north of Africa? No, it's not even that nice. Maybe all the way down in South Africa. Imagine taking a hippogriff all the way down to the other end of the world.
 
Christina Kann  31:05
Whoa, that actually be like a magical experience and probably a terrible one too.
 
Andrew  31:09
Besides the chafing, yeah, it would be magical.
 
Christina Kann  31:12
But like the views, the views! Ugh, I'm weeping thinking about it.
 
Sam O'Brien  31:17
This is the other thing though. It's 1994. This is the height of unrestricted air travel before we hit 9/11 and stuff. So how do you ride a hippogriff through the air for such a long time without being picked up by someone and go "What the fuck is this thing doing flying through here?"
 
Christina Kann  31:35
Yeah, especially because -- I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure he just straight up doesn't have a wand.
 
Andrew  31:41
Doesn't he have ...?
 
Christina Kann  31:43
Why would he have a wand? Where did he get a wand?
 
Andrew  31:46
Pettigrew? Either Pettigrew or Ron. No...
 
Sam O'Brien  31:49
I thought Pettigrew still had his.
 
Andrew  31:51
Pettigrew stole Ron's. I don't know. It's been a while. See, we decided to take this break, so I don't remember. Just kidding!
 
Sam O'Brien  32:04
We've got no nerds on here. It's just us three, who can just speak out our asses for an hour and a half.
 
Christina Kann  32:10
I'm telling you that I don't think he has a wand.
 
Sam O'Brien  32:13
Yeah, I surprised if he didn't.
 
Andrew  32:16
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  32:16
He's desperate for food and stuff. He's on the lam.
 
Andrew  32:21
But he's able to find these wizarding birds that are able to fly these messages super long distances.
 
Christina Kann  32:28
You don't need a wand for that.
 
Andrew  32:30
I'm just saying, I think he has some level of contact with the wizarding world if he's getting those birds.
 
Christina Kann  32:37
You just gotta find the right bird.
 
Andrew  32:39
If he goes to, like, the largest Indian wandmaker, there's no way that shit's being patrolled. There's no way you're going to tell me a Gringott's goblin would not exchange your money outside of the state that you're wanted in. Yeah, if you're wanted in Britain, Gringott's don't give a shit. They'll give you your money in India.
 
Sam O'Brien  32:59
He must have a wand towards the end, though. Because just before he dies, they're in the battle.
 
Christina Kann  33:06
I'm sure they get him a wand eventually.
 
Andrew  33:08
Yeah, but for right now, yeah, you're right. He probably does not have one or he has only just recently acquired one.
 
Christina Kann  33:15
Wow. Okay. Well, we'll check back on that. So Harry, like reads us this letter that he wrote. He omits the whole dream thing because he doesn't want to sound too worried. But like, I mean, that's pretty worrying. Whatever. They said they were gonna murder you.
 
Sam O'Brien  33:28
Such dumb jock vibes. "I don't want to seem too weak."
 
Christina Kann  33:34
Yeah.
 
Andrew  33:35
At one point, Harry says something about like, "He didn't think of Sirius because he'd only known that he was his godfather for two months." But is that right? I thought he knew before the whole escape on the hippogriff that he was his godfather.
 
Christina Kann  33:53
That was like, two months ago.
 
Andrew  33:55
But like, I thought it was before that whole series -- I thought he knew that before he knew that he was actually a good guy.
 
Sam O'Brien  34:01
Maybe? I'm not sure. I feel like that was in the Leaky Cauldron.
 
Christina Kann  34:05
I think it's more of an implied -- That's how long he's had a godfather who is a good godfather that he likes and maybe could send mail to.
 
Andrew  34:13
Gotcha. Okay, that makes more sense. Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  34:15
Yeah, cuz you're right that it was before that.
 
Andrew  34:18
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  34:19
Well, it doesn't even matter because he doesn't even tell Sirius the whole story, but whatever. And then he literally gets up and gets ready for breakfast. So that's like the end of the chapter.
 
Sam O'Brien  34:29
There was an interesting thing about Wormtail. And I only was thinking about it now. Wormtail's following whoever has the most power, right? Made me think -- I'm a journalist, so I often think about Daddy Murdoch, who owns all the newspapers in my state. I was thinking about him, and there's comments that other journalists have made, so they're not mine, about how Rupert Murdoch always goes to whoever is the most popular or whoever is going to give him the most money. He's a businessman, you know, that's what he wants. And so Wormtail has very much got similar parallels. We're equally frustrated with both of them, and we're not quite sure how they got there.
 
Andrew  35:14
The only thing that Wormtail is missing is that he didn't decide to put topless models in his newspapers. That's literally the only big difference between the two.
 
Sam O'Brien  35:26
Our largest Australian export is a media mogul.
 
Christina Kann  35:31
Ew.
 
Sam O'Brien  35:31
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  35:31
Interesting.
 
Andrew  35:32
And he now owns Fox News.
 
Christina Kann  35:34
Huh.
 
Andrew  35:36
Oh, Tina. Yeah, that that's Rupert Murdoch he's talking about, the owner of Fox News.
 
Christina Kann  35:42
Indeed.
 
Sam O'Brien  35:42
And lots of other fun publications. I could probably spend 10 minutes listing newspapers here that he owns. It's kind of sad. Anyway--
 
Andrew  35:52
We'd all just be depressed if you did that.
 
Christina Kann  35:55
Guys, I'm looking for a segue out of this depressing conversation, but I can't because there's fucking nothing going on in this chapter. There's nothing to segue into.
 
Andrew  36:03
And there's nothing going on next chapter.
 
Sam O'Brien  36:05
I have one more question though. Harry mentions Dumbledore on holiday and tries to imagine Dumbledore on holiday. Where do we think Dumbledore would go on holiday?
 
Christina Kann  36:15
I don't know if y'all have seen that Disney's movie "The Sword in the Stone"?
 
Andrew  36:19
Long time ago.
 
Sam O'Brien  36:21
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  36:22
In it, Merlin goes on a trip to Bermuda, and he's like, all dressed up in a Merlin version of like a Bermuda outfit, you know, like a tropical outfit. And that's kind of what I picture, he's in Bermuda.
 
Andrew  36:36
Have y'all heard that Bermuda is like literally on a direct parallel with Virginia?
 
Christina Kann  36:42
Oh, yeah.
 
Andrew  36:43
Like it's directly to our east. My parents apparently had friends back in like the '80s that went to this really shady travel agent, because that was back when you basically had to have a travel agent. And they were looking at these tropical places, and they were trying to save a bunch of money. And they go, "Well, we do have one tropical place you can go to. It'd be really cheap." They were like, "Where?" They go, "You can go to Bermuda." My parents' friends were like, "Oh my gosh, yeah. It's cheaper to go to Bermuda?" and they go, "Yeah, we're gonna send you there in October. It'll be real cheap." And it is. Because it's just like Virginia weather in October. So you're like, bundled up in sweatshirts and shit sitting on the beach.
 
Christina Kann  37:27
Wow. Been there. I'll sit on the beach in any weather.
 
Andrew  37:30
Yeah.
 
Sam O'Brien  37:31
Wow.
 
Christina Kann  37:31
All right, team. That's it. Does anyone have any final thoughts about this chapter?
 
Andrew  37:37
We did our best.
 
Sam O'Brien  37:39
No, I'm glad we did some of the admin work we need to do for the next few chapters.
 
Andrew  37:46
We established some things. We got our new tradition for this season.
 
Christina Kann  37:52
Yup.
 
Andrew  37:52
All in all, a pretty successful stretch for time. We're not gonna lie. We know it. You know it. Everyone knows it.
 
Christina Kann  38:01
If you're new to the podcast, future episodes won't be under an hour, I promise. That's a threat and a warning.
 
Sam O'Brien  38:11
It's so hard to put 20 minutes of content into an hour and a half of podcast content. What the heck are you supposed to talk about?
 
Christina Kann  38:21
Some chapters in this book have literally so much going on. Just like a little redistribution of content is called for here.
 
Andrew  38:31
Just do it better!
 
Christina Kann  38:33
Next week, we're talking about The Invitation. So at least we get a glimpse, a little glimpse of the wizarding world.
 
Andrew  38:40
Yeah.
 
Sam O'Brien  38:41
I think this is where we get proper Dursley abuse. I was thinking the Dursleys seem less mean this time. I was like, "Oh, wait a second. We haven't even met them in person yet."
 
Christina Kann  38:55
Yeah.
 
Andrew  38:56
We've just had the threat of them.
 
Christina Kann  39:01
Alright, well, let's move on to plugs. I would love to start by plugging our Patreon.
 
Andrew  39:08
Yay!
 
Christina Kann  39:10
This season, we're introducing transcripts for every episode to make our podcast more accessible to more people. So please support our efforts to be as inclusive as possible by becoming a Patron. At the $5 tier, you can get bonus episodes. This month, September, we're covering My Immortal, the Harry Potter fan fiction. You don't want to miss it. I can't emphasize that enough.
 
Sam O'Brien  39:37
It's gonna be so fun. I can't wait.
 
Andrew  39:41
So I have been waiting to plug something that I found in the last few weeks that I absolutely love. It's a podcast called Five to Four. It's 5-4. And I think the tagline is "Why the Supreme Court sucks." It is a podcast that literally goes -- and it's not going to be for everyone -- but they take specific cases and break down the case and basically explain how the Supreme Court could fuck up something when it's supposed to be all these grand, scholarly experts and you know, known wizened old people that are in charge of interpreting the sacred document. No, it's all bullshit. it's always been politicized. It's always been exactly what you imagine it is. And it's three lawyers that basically break down, from a very leftist point of view, exactly how they fucked up and how they came to fuck up. And yeah, it's very informative. If you've ever been interested in legal theory, or the way that laws are interpreted, it's a very, very, very user friendly intro into that type of stuff. So like I said, if you're interested in US law at all, and you want to hear some pretty funny people talk about the Supreme Court, it's definitely worth checking out.
 
Christina Kann  41:02
Thank you so much. Sam, where can people find you on the internet?
 
Sam O'Brien  41:07
I'm Sam. If you didn't hear at the start of the episode, I host a podcast called Content and Capable. You can find that pretty much anywhere on the internet that The Restricted Section is, because I basically copy Christina and everything because she's just awesome. You can also find me personally @sam.the.journalist on Instagram and TikTok. I'm planning, once I get my WiFi set up, to upload a lot more to TikTok. And then on twitter @samobjournalist as well. And I am going to plug a TikTok creator -- he's also created stuff on Instagram and YouTube -- called @chanwills0. She is a Harry Potter TikToker. She does some of the best stuff. Her McGonagall impressions are awesome.
 
Christina Kann  42:08
Awesome, thank you so much. I've been your host Christina. You can follow me on Instagram @christinathekann. You can follow me on Twitter @christina_kann. You follow me on TikTok @sproutsprivatestash. This week, I'm going to plug my best friend Adrienne! She does woodburning and she is launching a woodburning business called Mayfields on Fire. And you can check her out on Instagram. It's linked in the show notes. It's very cute. It's earrings and custom woodburned wall stuff. So, Sam, thank you so much for joining us for this super exciting like absolutely riveting chapter.
 
Sam O'Brien  42:45
Thank you so much for having me.
 
Christina Kann  42:48
Definitely more fun than I thought this ever could be. So thank you so much. I laughed. I cried. We had a good time.
 
Andrew  42:54
My jokes aren't THAT bad. You're not physically crying. You just feel like crying on the inside. That's what I go for. If the actual tears come out, I feel bad. Don't make me feel bad. You feel bad on your own. And I get to feel good.
 
Christina Kann  43:11
Well, on that note, Andrew, thank you so much for being here.
 
Christina Kann  43:16
It's always a pleasure.
 
Christina Kann  43:16
You've been a joy. I'm excited to get even further into Goblet of Fire, and maybe we'll find the plot soon. Alright, gang, I gotta go finish reading "101 Clever Ways to Hide Snacks in Your Room" before this book develops a caloric intake. Bye!!!
 
Christina Kann  43:49
I'm excited for this episode. Just because it's basically just like a free form.
 
Andrew  45:34
It's about five minutes of material. We are putting on a master class here, people. This is going to take three professionals.