Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Ch 15-18

[00:00:00] Welcome to the podcast. I'm Jon. I'm Lizzie. And this is Harry Potter and the Second Time Reader. All right, we are on 15, 16, 17, and 18 of Chamber of Secrets. Okay, you give me a rundown.

[00:00:28] I'll give you a rundown this time. We'll switch it up. I like that. All right, chapter 15 is Aragog. Ron and Harry go into the forest and meet Aragog, and they get all sorts of information,

[00:00:40] but really the big crux of the information is they realize that Hagrid wasn't guilty. He didn't open the Chamber of Secrets, and that Aragog was not the monster in the Chamber of Secrets, which Tom Riddle had previously said that Hagrid was the one who opened it and the

[00:00:59] monster was Aragog. They find out that that's not true. They narrowly escape with their lives, and they just narrowly escape with their lives. Wait, Tom Riddle thought the monster in the Chamber was the spider. No, he lied about it. Because Tom Riddle knew that Tom Riddle put the

[00:01:18] monster in the Chamber of Secrets. Tom Riddle knew that it was the one, and he had a basilisk in there. So he purposefully lied about it and tried to deceive Harry into thinking that it was Hagrid,

[00:01:28] but then when Hagrid was arrested, he went and Aragog confirmed that it was a lie. Evil. I know, right? Manipulated evil. Injustice. Terrible. Hagrid's probably so nice as a teenager.

[00:01:38] I know! It breaks my heart that he got expelled. Crushes me that he got expelled. I think I would be such good friends with Hagrid. I think you would, yeah. You guys are just talking about

[00:01:48] magical creatures all day long. Yeah. Just tending to magical creatures. So fun. Going on like nature walks. That would be good. Nature walks with Hagrid. Next chapter is the Chamber of Secrets, where they go into the Chamber of Secrets. They finally find out how to unlock...

[00:02:12] They finally find out how to un... I'm having a stroke right now. They finally figure out how to open... Open the Chamber of Secrets. Thank you. And they go in. There's a man in the sink. Huh? Well, under the sink. Oh yeah. There's a man under the sink?

[00:02:31] Tom Riddle is in the chamber and the chamber's in the sink. Yeah, yeah. Right over my head. Sorry. Your humor is too advanced for me. My humor's too dry. Chapter 17 is the Era of Slytherin. That's when they get through the entire chamber and they

[00:02:50] finally meet the Era of Slytherin, who is Tom Riddle. And then chapter 18 is Dobby's Reward. And before you see that, they meet the Era of Tom Riddle. They get through the Basilisk.

[00:03:03] The Basilisk hits Harry in the arm with the fang. But Harry then takes the fang that is in his arm, takes it, kills the journal, and then the journal dies. Tom Riddle dies. All the life goes back

[00:03:17] to Ginny. Ginny wakes up. Harry's about to die because the Basilisk stung him. Fox comes in and cries on him. Single drop of tear heals him because the phoenixes have healing tears, tears of healing.

[00:03:30] And they're able to fly out because phoenixes can also carry immense weight, which is very convenient that they can carry immense weight because they're all the way down the chamber and they have to be

[00:03:38] let back up. So the phoenixes carry all four of them out and they end up in the hospital wing. All sorts of stuff happens. Or not in the headmaster's office. All sorts of stuff happens there.

[00:03:51] And Dobby gets his reward, which is a sock, which is his freedom. The book ends. That's like a big movie quote, right? Like, master has given Dobby a sock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dobby is free. It's cute. Would you follow spiders into the woods?

[00:04:10] Depends who's with me. Depends what I got on me. What kind of weapons are we talking about you got on you? Bug zappers. You're gonna need one big bug zapper for Aragog. Yeah, like they're really big, right? Yeah, they're huge. Aragog is massive.

[00:04:32] Because I imagine it's like the Lord of the Rings spider. Yeah, that's like Aragog's size. She loves. I hate that scene. It is terrible. It's an awful scene. It looks like so ugly. It's like, case the hobbit. Oh, I know. I hate that.

[00:04:48] When he has to like take the web off from him and Frodo is just like sitting there like. I hate that. Pure white. It's gross. Let's see. Am I walking into the woods? I don't know. I'd probably follow them to the

[00:05:02] Forbidden Forest and then I'd stop and go. They live in the forest and then I'd turn around. I don't think I would follow them that deeply in there. I would definitely not do it alone. But I had someone with me. I'll do it.

[00:05:18] You also have the kind of instruction from Hagrid, who's like the master of all these creatures. But he's not. He's the master. Oh yeah. So he's kind of the master of these creatures. So he tells him to do this and then the spiders almost kill Ron and Harry.

[00:05:32] But everything almost always kills Hagrid too. Yeah, that's kind of true. Yeah. Hagrid's just used to it so he can fend for himself. He sends two little kids in there to fend for themselves, which is a little wild.

[00:05:43] And they literally they were going to kill him, but they crashed their car earlier. So what goes around comes around a little car karma right there. Karma. Karma. I don't know. I can't imagine following them in. I have one story. It's a little bit of a creepy story.

[00:06:05] I was in college and we were just finished with finals. I was doing my last finals and the library was a take home finals. And all my friends were around. We were all like doing it together.

[00:06:13] You could do it together. So it was great. We were all doing it. One of my friends finished really fast and we were going to celebrate by having a fire in the back where we were going to celebrate.

[00:06:21] And we were going to have a fire. And we were going to have a fire. And we were going to celebrate by having a fire in the backwoods of our school, which is illegal. You can do that. We were still just going to do it anyway.

[00:06:29] So we would go out there all the time, have fires and he had a fire. So he decides to go early. So he goes early and starts his fire.

[00:06:36] And it's like kind of not in the middle of the day, but it was still like getting to be dark. And I'm still up there for like an hour and I finished mine.

[00:06:42] And it starts to get dark. And as soon as I finished mine, my friend calls me and he's like. There is a woman and she is crying bloody murder in the woods right now. And I'm like, what are you talking about, Joe? This is terrifying.

[00:06:57] And he's like, he it was like literally like a horror movie. He takes the phone and he puts it against his like chest or something like that. He goes, hello, who's there? Hello. Like I'm hearing him, his muffled voice yelling out, hello, who's there?

[00:07:11] And he picks up the phone. John, I swear on my life. There is a woman screaming bloody murder in the woods right now. And then I heard faint noises over the phone. And I was like, OK, it sounds weird.

[00:07:22] I don't know what this is, but it sounds really weird. So I threw all my stuff in my dorm room and me and one of my other friends, Sam, sprint up to the woods because we're like, we got to figure out what's going on here.

[00:07:34] We get to the we get to the edge of the woods right where the woods becomes the woods. And we hear this ear curdling scream, this scream, this scream that I had never heard before in my entire life.

[00:07:47] And I was I was about to step into the woods and I crapped my pants. I was mortified about this. It sounded like a woman being murdered, murdered in the middle of the woods. Horrified. Never heard this before in my life.

[00:08:06] So we might me and Sam looked at each other and we had a decision in that moment. We looked at each other and said, do we go get Joe? Or do we run away? We obviously were like, we have to go get him.

[00:08:20] Sam was like, we have to go. Joe is like in the woods. Joe's in the middle of the woods. Probably like probably not deep into the woods, probably like four or five hundred yards into the woods. But he's and he's in the woods.

[00:08:28] So me and Sam were like, all right, we're going. We start sprinting. We're hearing this this noise get closer and closer. And we're terrified. We're sprinting into the woods as fast as we can. All of a sudden we run into Joe and Joe is like, just turns around.

[00:08:41] He goes, we're getting out of here. We're getting out of here. We were both like, yep. And we book it out of there. Sprint as fast as we can away. We go to security and we're like, hey, guys, there, you know, woman is screaming into the woods.

[00:08:54] And there's one security officer who was just sitting in the office. And he goes, hold on, guys. And he pulls up a video on his phone. He goes, is this what the noise sounded like? And as a fox, I was so I felt so dumb.

[00:09:06] But I was like, it sounded like a woman being murdered. I'd never heard of being a fox call before, but it was terrifying. Yeah, it is terrifying. So all that to say, I wouldn't go into the woods unless I had a friend. If I had a friend, maybe.

[00:09:21] But we would have to mutually agree upon going to the woods. Yeah. Based on your experience of mutually agreeing. See? It was awful. In the next chapter, they do find out the truth about Lockhart, though. Everything that Lockhart was is kind of a lie.

[00:09:44] Obviously, you kind of knew that going into it. But you really don't like Lockhart, right? No, I don't. I like I don't passionately hate him, but he's just like blah to me. Yeah, because he's just a fraud. And yeah, I don't know why Dumbledore did that.

[00:10:03] Why is he here? He's annoying. But it kind of comes to a sad ending. Like, I don't love that he's all his memory is erased and he's like, oh, gotta go. Like that feels wrong to me. Do you remember what he did?

[00:10:23] Like how he was stealing other people's works and then brainwashing them. Yeah. Yeah. Brainwashing them. I mean, it's sad. It's sad that his memory got erased. But he stole all of these books because he erased other people's memories and pride into their minds.

[00:10:45] So he's an exceptional wizard as far as manipulation and something there's there. It's slightly debatable with what this is or not. I think that he was just a good communicator, so he knew how to talk people into like giving him information.

[00:11:03] But there's another branch of magic called legitimacy, which is literally prying into people's minds. And there's a possibility that he could be exceptional at this because if he gets all these stories about these people and he writes through, you know what these books are, then

[00:11:20] he's a pretty skilled wizard. But it's beyond disturbing that he's actually able to do this. So I don't love that he gets obliviated. But at the same time, I'm like, I'm glad that he didn't just flat out die.

[00:11:39] It was kind of like, you know, he deserved that to some extent. Yeah. I think there's also worse punishment too because if you didn't fully erase his memory, you could just publicly shame him. Yeah, for sure. And he could just live forever. Great point.

[00:11:56] In agony and regret of what he did, which maybe erasing his memory is the nicest thing you could have done to him. That's a great point. Because Dumbledore likes him. Dumbledore has a crush on him.

[00:12:11] So that's what he said before you guys go into the Chamber of Secrets when you beat Lockhart, don't kill him, please. Don't do anything. Just erase his memory. I still want to look at him. I hate that theory. I hate that I came up with that.

[00:12:29] Can you bring back the memories of those other people, though? Or is it just what's gone is gone? It takes a lot of time. I think this is somewhat comparable to real life situations when people shut out memories on their own because of some type of trauma.

[00:12:49] Being able to work through those things and recall those memories and is an almost a near impossibility. I think it's not completely impossible, but you have to be able to master whatever that trauma is, be able to master whatever disability or disorder comes from that.

[00:13:07] Because sometimes someone I had a therapist tell me that they actually believe that multiple personality disorder is a trauma response in that. Well, obviously, but it's a trauma response in that it's someone reverting back to their

[00:13:20] pre not necessarily abused, but in this situation, it was pre abused state. And it's not like the person has multiple personalities, it is simply just the person doing the only thing that they can to keep their like in a weird way, their soul intact

[00:13:43] to keep one part of themselves alive still. And so like every other part has been abused and diminished and defeated, but that one little part is still there. I don't know a ton about personality theory or personality disorders or anything like

[00:14:00] that, but I thought that was actually really compelling. And the idea of gaining a memory back seems like an impossibility to me. A near impossibility. I think some people can do it, but I think it's just really difficult once you've experienced

[00:14:12] that level of trauma and gone that far down like this level of not like your mind being addled that much that you can actually come back from that. Yeah, because I think there's it's a human thing at that point where you'd almost have

[00:14:30] to be taught who you were and like, yes, here's the story of what you did rather than just do a counter curse or something on you. Yeah, for sure. Because you might be able to take them back to their original state if the magic altered

[00:14:45] them in some wizarding way. But then there's just like the brain needs to just like relearn. But that doesn't even make it reality. You can hear a story and that's not true. Because when I got my concussion, I don't remember anything.

[00:15:04] And the thing I remember is not real. And when I realized I was like making up a story, I was like, oh my gosh, like it was so trippy. It just like made me so sad.

[00:15:16] Yeah, but and people have told me the story and like what was happening. And it's just like you can't like that will never be my reality. That's just like someone else's story, which is crazy. It is. It's absolutely it's nuts.

[00:15:32] It's hard to like be able to process through those things on your own, to be honest. And I think it's going to be different for different people. So in this people who are like someone who is just simply obliviated for a certain part

[00:15:48] of their memory, I think their memory could more easily come back. But someone who's like entire memory is still on. I think that'd be more difficult. And then there's also another level to it where there are some people in the in these

[00:15:59] series who they've been tortured so deeply that their minds have been addled and they don't remember who they are. And that is an impossibility, I think, to come back from. I think that's really, really I think you can't really come back from that because

[00:16:15] that's maybe more of the trauma response that I was talking about. But something like like even what you were saying, like even with the concussions, that whole idea is really the human side of things is really intriguing for the magical world, because.

[00:16:30] Ginny has almost the same experience like when she has this grooming, abusive person taking over, she doesn't remember those moments that she was at. She tries to piece those things together and tries to piece these like little moments

[00:16:42] together and she just cannot remember it, which is just tragic because it's like it has to be one of the scariest things to experience the lack of control, the lack of like knowing where you were, what you did or like what happened in your life at that point.

[00:16:59] Which is why I like having a concussion like that and like not being able to experience that. It's like that's a part of you, but you didn't really experience it because it's like you don't even remember the story. That has to be such a scary feeling.

[00:17:13] Yeah, and that's what Ginny's experiencing because she's getting told the story and she's realizing what she did in a way where like it was confusion in the moment of like why is there feathers on me? What blah, blah, blah.

[00:17:28] And then she kind of gets told the story and it's like it's traumatic. And I like I don't know if she'll ever she would ever get to the place where like she actually has like true and like real guilt from that because she can't identify with

[00:17:46] like I actually did that. It's just like this weird vague memory. But even like that whole situation is so crazy with being groomed. I know it's like you just you probably feel awful after that. I know. Violated. Yeah.

[00:18:01] Ginny's journey of like how she became whole again would be really interesting, serious to be honest. Like what she encountered in the next book, how she's actually able to bounce back and that quick. I do think there's something in kids when they are younger, they're actually able to

[00:18:13] be more resilient towards some of those things. Would they wipe her memory? Fascinating. Dang. Because in a kindness way. Yeah, because can you just pick and choose what memories go? Because even if you wipe this whole semester, what's lost, you know? Yeah. So what?

[00:18:39] That would be so interesting if they actually did something like that out of a kindness rather than a weapon. If we go with the way that Lockhart's doing it instead of living in shame forever, that's also kind of a kindness. Yeah, for sure.

[00:18:56] Because all those people that actually did the real magic, they're never going to get to the point of like where they were in their glory of doing those amazing things. Yes. So why?

[00:19:07] Then why make Lockhart live in so much shame of like you're a fake, you're a fraud, everybody knows this. And then they just all go in the same boat and that boat just peacefully sails away. Never to be spoken of again. I actually kind of love that.

[00:19:23] It would be such a service to Ginny too if you think about it. Like the only people that really know what happened in the chamber are Harry and Ginny. Ron doesn't really know because. And Ginny was like dead for half of it. Yeah, exactly.

[00:19:37] So to like alleviate Ginny from that, just her Dumbledore, you don't really trust Dumbledore, but let's say you did. Her Dumbledore and Harry would just go into an office and be like, hey, Ginny, this is what we're going to do. Would they even? I mean like.

[00:19:56] Oh, a debrief of we're going to wipe your memory. Oh my gosh, what would that look like? I'm trying to think through that. You obviously need the parents there, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley have to be there.

[00:20:05] But would they ever approve of something like that to say like, hey, let's wipe your memory for some of the things that happened. So I don't know. I don't. To be honest, I didn't know there would have to be some kind of like I the ethics of this

[00:20:24] are so shady to me. I'm thinking I don't think they would do it. I don't think you can do it because if you tell the person that you're wiping their memory. There will be a lot of.

[00:20:34] Issues with that, but if you don't tell the person, the parents think it's the best thing to wipe the memory of the child for this whole year, then there's obviously going to be issues with that too.

[00:20:41] When they find out the parents said, wait, my memory for this year, Jenny is like what? Yeah, because yeah, the discrepancy like if you don't tell Jenny she's old enough to like she's she's old enough, but then everybody else might talk about this. Exactly.

[00:20:56] It might come up and she could deny it and say I don't I didn't do that. That wasn't me. And then that creates a whole myriad of issues for her because she's now a liar. But in reality, she got her brain cleansed. Lizzie, dang.

[00:21:09] I don't think they would do it. I don't agree with that. Yeah, I don't agree with that. Because why wouldn't you do it for Harry? Yeah, I agree. Or like anyone else, you could pick 100 things. It's like once you do it for one person, where's your line?

[00:21:21] But there is a small case where I think it could be used as a not a comfort, but as like. Yeah, a kindness to someone. It's still so unfair, though, because you have to be in Dumbledore's Circle. Yeah. To get it. Yeah, for sure. 100%.

[00:21:44] The whole thing is just icky. It's weird. It's a weird branch of magic. It's an icky branch of magic. What is it called? Legilimency. Legilimency is the invading of someone's mind. Occupancy is the shutting off of your mind against someone else.

[00:21:58] And then what they're doing is the obliviating charm, which is I don't know if it's a charm. I don't know if it's a charm. It might be a spell to wipe someone's memory for a specific period of time.

[00:22:11] So this is obliviate is something a little bit different from legilimency and occupancy. Interesting. Yeah, Lockhart's a creepy dude. That's for sure. I'm glad he's gone. Yeah, I know. Like I'm glad he has a end to him. Yeah. And we know he will not be back. Yeah.

[00:22:31] It's like we can just forget that ever happened. Yeah, forget it. I can wipe my memory of him. What do you think about the whole era of Slytherin? That like everything that's happening in that one where they're in this little chamber and

[00:22:48] they're he's fighting a basilisk and they what do you think even like what do you think this diary even is like Harry stabs us with the basilisk fang and kills it. What is and then it and eventually kills Tom Riddle. Like what was actually going on there?

[00:23:07] I don't understand. You're gonna hate that I says, but this is like a Hallmark movie to me because, you know, when they have like like the finger on the trigger confession of everything they ever done instead of just like killing the person.

[00:23:22] I don't get why this didn't happen so fast. Like to me, it's just like Harry could have died so fast. And like just having Tom Riddle just like. Play with his wand and like stand there.

[00:23:36] It's just this thing of like, why are you having this conversation right now? Yeah, just kill. I'm with you. It was like useless to me. I think this is the Hallmark movie.

[00:23:45] So I mean, as far as a writing perspective is, this is I think her laziest writing because of that fact, because the end she just tries to squeeze everything in because someone's playing with their food and wants to say it.

[00:23:57] She covered over her tracks a little bit when she's talking about the character of Voldemort and that Voldemort, he's not necessarily so much showboaty as he is. Like. Tom Riddle himself is just very charming and very manipulative. So in this moment, I think he's trying to exercise those.

[00:24:23] He's trying to manipulate Harry himself, even to the point of death. He's trying to be charming in this. He's trying to be like winsome. But Tom Riddle wants Harry dead, right? Because then Voldemort prevails. Yeah, right. That's like just for sure. So.

[00:24:42] Like the whole point of Harry, the Harry Potter series is just like kill Harry so that Voldemort can win. It is a little bizarre, too, because Tom Riddle is someone who doesn't tell his secrets, but he does tell his secrets here.

[00:24:54] Because this was like some big elaborate plan to trap him. Yeah, for sure. In a death trap. But where does the snake come from? Where does the snake come from or the snake? The basilisk. That was the monster.

[00:25:08] Yeah, it's just been chilling in the chamber of secrets for years. That I don't get either. Like why did he know that he was going to someone was going to come? You know what I mean? Yeah, just reawaken from his. But like if you're Voldemort on the rise.

[00:25:29] Or no, you're a salad or that was our salad was our salad bar. He knew that Harry Potter was going to come like he knew that someone. I know it was his. I got it. He knew Salazar knew that.

[00:25:56] He was going to have an heir or like he got banished from Hogwarts or something, but he knew that something good was going to come from him. So he has like this idea that big bad Voldemort is going to come and then the snake is there

[00:26:11] because they want to eat all the. Muggle born. Muggle born. Thank you because he wants to purify air quotes the world and then it was more of just a genocide than like actually having Voldemort be a thing and then Voldemort just happened to be having

[00:26:36] this whole world domination scheme and happened to be Slytherin's heir. Yep, OK, I think you kind of nailed it. But I still don't get why they had like he slides down the thing. Boom, dead. Yeah, OK, so there's also a point where he's not fully.

[00:26:57] Human yet he is still the memory. What is Tom Riddle? It's a fantastic question. What like that's the that's my answer to your question before was at this moment in the books

[00:27:11] this moment in the books part of the reason he might have to be gushing is because he is still part of this diary. This diary is weird. He's being essentially like. Remade.

[00:27:26] In this really weird way of taking the soul of Ginny, we're taking like the essence of Ginny, like the body of Ginny, not necessarily even the body, like taking the life form of Ginny and converting it into him, which is this diary.

[00:27:39] But then this diary is then going to become Tom Riddle to some extent. I'm explaining it terribly. That's not really like the explanation of it, really. But I get really confused and caught up with this one because the diary is such a strange little piece.

[00:27:54] But I think part of the reason why he's playing with his food here is because a diary is just about information. So he almost is forced to give away information because he kind of is. This like little item is Voldemort. The diary is Voldemort. Yeah, it's weird.

[00:28:11] I think that's what's probably throwing both of us off is that the diary is like an inanimate object. Yeah. And Voldemort needs life. Yeah, Voldemort is animate. Interesting. And then Ginny's soul or her energy is in the diary. I just don't compute that like an object.

[00:28:35] She was pouring out her soul into this object. Yeah. So now the object has life because it's a magical object. Yeah. So every time Ginny sat there and wrote, it's like the idea of writing.

[00:28:46] It's like you write in a diary or a journal, you know, for a guy. If you're writing this thing, you're pouring out your soul to this thing and you're writing like, you know, the inner workings of your soul. Like what is going on in your heart?

[00:29:00] What is going on in like in who in your mind, who you are? And so when every time she does that again, this is such disgusting grooming. This is grooming 101. He is taking every moment that she has that she's pouring into this and he's taking life from that.

[00:29:17] Ginny is getting her life sapped away from it. And then finally, when he goes to the chamber, Ginny is taken. That's like the final transfer of this. It's gross. And we're assuming that he this works because Ginny's writing about Harry and that's how he knows Harry's there.

[00:29:34] Yeah, probably. Yeah. And then what he have known he would have known without Ginny. Yeah, but it was yeah, he definitely knows Harry's there because she's writing about Harry Potter. And then all of a sudden the diary just happened to fall into Harry Potter's lap in the bathroom,

[00:29:47] which is a coincidence, which is pretty crazy. Really? Yeah. I think this whole like Ginny with the diary was not obvious enough in the beginning of the book. It kind of came out of left field for me.

[00:30:03] And I think she should have had more teasers or something where my suspicions could have grown because I don't think you don't want to be spoon fed a mystery, but you want to have it on the plate. This one has just felt like it wasn't there.

[00:30:20] This that's why a lot of people like the first one a little bit better than the second one for this one, because the first one, there was things that you could piece together that were clues when you reread it.

[00:30:27] You're like, oh, for the second one, you're like, I would you would never you would never guess this. You can guess some parts of the plot, but you would never guess this if you didn't have didn't finish the end. And like, you're like, oh, OK.

[00:30:41] So it's not so much a mystery as is like. It's a mystery that you just don't know what's happening. Yeah, she just didn't tell you. Yeah, exactly. She didn't give you any clues.

[00:30:50] Because even when I went back to look at where was Ginny and when was she writing in the journal? It still wasn't. It's not like it was there between the lines. You like you can just assume, OK, when that scene was happening, that was actually Ginny doing it.

[00:31:07] Yeah, but it's still like it wasn't there enough for me. So I don't know. That's my only like critique about this, I guess, is that like this long confession conversation at the end and then just like, yeah, I didn't expect it to be Ginny anyway.

[00:31:25] Yeah, there are parts of this book that dragged or parts that rushed. The end just seemed to like, OK, I need to tie a lot of things up. Let me just tie a lot of things up here. Everything kind of was just yeah.

[00:31:35] I love this book with everything, but it's my least favorite of the seven. That's crazy. Was it your least favorite? Do you remember like reading it? Yeah. The first time? Even reading it for the first time, I remember finishing this book and be like, it was good

[00:31:48] because I was still caught up in the Harry Potter hubbub and it was good, but it was just still it wasn't quite it for me. It was like the other the other ones were just better.

[00:31:55] The first one was better when I and when I read them, I read through the first I had the first four when I first did my first read. So I finished first four and I was like, the second one is definitely my least favorite.

[00:32:07] I think I love the third. I probably like the fourth the most in the third and the first and the second. I had those. So we'll get there. Interesting. Anything else in these? I mean, Harry starts to learn about that. He's kind of a horcrux.

[00:32:25] Which is a big deal. That's like the last chapter. Because they're talking about that. And there's a few lines in there that they kind of like mentioned. It's like Voldemort put a bit of himself in me.

[00:32:37] Because I still don't entirely remember all this horcrux stuff, but I know that Harry's one of them and like has to die so that Voldemort can have all his power back. But I don't know.

[00:32:52] I guess Dumbledore knew that already and he's like giving him just enough information to get by. That's what he's doing. He's spoon feeding him tiny little tidbits of information here and there. Just kidding. I know it's a little annoying for sure.

[00:33:05] But yeah, he says like he talks about how he gave him a piece of himself. And it's interesting right now because in season one we are currently at the Godric's Hollow chapter.

[00:33:16] And I'm not going to give away a ton for you because you probably don't remember a lot of this stuff, but they're making predictions on like what they think the horcruxes are, what they think like how this connection between Harry and Voldemort is.

[00:33:29] And Jen has made these two wild things that she's like we've been talking about horcruxes. And I'm like, OK, guys, the book says there's six of them. I was like, do you believe there's six or do you believe that Voldemort actually accomplished the seventh?

[00:33:41] And they're both kind of like, oh, we're not sure on the fence of it. But I'm like, OK, let's just like, you know, for a running gag, let's try to come up with seven.

[00:33:48] So they come up with seven and they're pretty close to nailing all what the horcruxes are. And then I'm like, what's the seventh one, guys? And they're guessing all sorts of things. And Jen just goes once she goes, you know, like Harry's glasses or his scar.

[00:34:02] And then she goes, oh, you know what? I think Harry's a horcrux. And she like flat out said that. And I remember I sat there and I like gave a nervous little laugh and I was like, oh, that's crazy that you think that Harry's a horcrux.

[00:34:14] Inwardly, I'm like sweating. I'm like, oh my gosh. She just predicted this perfectly. Inwardly, I'm sweating. Inward sweat. That is crazy. I would not be able to hold my composure. I know it's hard to hold composure for some of these.

[00:34:30] Because like how far can you actually run with that theory before you like mess it up yourself? I know it's brutal. It's tough. I don't run. We don't talk about a lot of stuff like we'll rule. We'll talk about it for a little bit.

[00:34:43] But if she's mentioning something that explicit, I'll just run to the next one, you know. But yeah, the end little download with him and Dumbledore is good. I really like that. But I like Dobby's little reward a little bit more at the end where Dobby is finally free.

[00:35:05] It was nice. But also like, oh. He goes, Harry Potter is greater by far than Dobby ever knew. What are you saying? I was gonna say, you don't know what Dobby's future is though. Because what if he just goes into a life of homelessness and starvation?

[00:35:29] So that's the ethical question that we'll talk about tonight. Do house elves need humans? Yes. No. I don't know. I thought about this. Okay, I was all week thinking about the ethics of house elves. I was really building up an argument.

[00:35:53] In this one Mary Oliver poem from Dog Songs, it's her grave, which is one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems. There's this stanza that's like, a dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house,

[00:36:07] but you do not therefore own him the same way that you don't own the rain or the trees or the logs which pertain to them. I was like, a house elf, it's like a dog in that sense because my dog needs me to live.

[00:36:23] I can't just be like, be free dog, because the dog is gonna die without me. But a house elf is caring for me. If I let my house elf go, it's fine. It can be living its own life.

[00:36:37] So it's kind of independent of me, which I don't feel like I should own it then. If it doesn't depend on me, I shouldn't really own it. So they're not on the same plane as animals to me. Yeah, I don't think they're magical beasts.

[00:36:51] I think they're magical beings. That I don't understand. Yeah, it's a weird distinction for what makes a magical beast versus a magical being. I don't understand it either, but they're not fantastic beasts and we're defining them. That's for sure. Is that canon? Yeah, absolutely. That's canon.

[00:37:12] JK or Newt Scamander wrote that, but I don't know the pseudonym. But like, I don't know, maybe in different podcasts, I can get into this whole debate. But because in book four, it comes up the ethics a lot more, because that's when Hermione starts her house elf crusade.

[00:37:34] Yeah, yeah. But I don't like that house elves don't need humans. That's the thing. Or wizards or witches. You don't like that? No. They don't need humans? I don't like that because then we shouldn't treat them as the dregs of the wizarding world.

[00:37:53] We definitely shouldn't treat them as the dregs of the wizarding world. Okay. You haven't really said what your stance on this is. You are just more obsessed with what their classification is. No, my stance is a little strange. Not a little strange. I think that they deserve freedom.

[00:38:20] I think there needs to be... My stance is very legal. So it's boring. I think there needs to be a lot of laws in place when they're given their freedom for what they are. I don't know what it would be called.

[00:38:37] Some of the things that I would call it almost like rehabilitation programs, which sounds almost weird. But they need to be unbrainwashed. I don't know how you unbrainwash someone. Like when they're released? Yeah. So honestly, sometimes I think the best way to unbrainwash is just let them be.

[00:38:55] Let them do what they want. I think all house elves should be freed immediately and they do what they want. The majority of house elves will go to... Probably go back to their masters and go back to their owners.

[00:39:16] But maybe you have laws in place that you must pay house elves. That is, it is illegal to have a free house elf in your house. There'd be probably a small contingent of house elves who are like Dobby. Dobby is a forerunner among house elves. He's like strange.

[00:39:34] We'll talk about him even later because he pops up later, obviously. But he's an anomaly with house elves. But there's probably a few that are kind of like him out there. That they'll be maybe like the forerunners of house elves and start their own little communities.

[00:39:48] And I love it because they'll probably be great at serving each other. They'll probably be great at putting other house elves needs above their own needs. It seems like a beautiful little community to live in. And I would love to just sit and observe a house elf community

[00:40:04] and how they serve and love one another. And if you pay them, you can use their service. Exactly, for sure. They're like the greatest service ever. But you have to pay them. You are required by law to pay them. I would agree.

[00:40:17] If you have a house elf, it has to be paid. And you have to be nice to it too. Like you can't just... Yeah, for sure. There's a quote that I love in these books. And then we'll talk about this one later.

[00:40:33] Maybe this is a quiz time for you. Who says this in Harry Potter? Quiz time. You know the measure of a man not by how they treat their superiors, but how they treat their inferiors. Mr. Weasley. Sirius Black. Come on, you should have known that!

[00:40:55] I'll write that in my Sirius quotes list. And I think that's a great defining characteristic of this series. You know the measure of a person not by how they treat their superiors, but how they treat their inferiors. So-called inferiors.

[00:41:11] I don't think necessarily anybody's really an inferior versus superior. But in societal structures, how those things work. There's always some power dynamic. Yeah, for sure. So that's what I think of house elves. I'm glad Dobby's free. Dobby's an anomaly of a freaking house elf.

[00:41:27] He's so strange, but I love him. Yeah, I don't know. He's still more to be discovered there. More to be discovered. Yeah. I still don't get why, like what is Tom Riddle? I know. Is he like a phantom?

[00:41:42] We will talk about this more as we go through the series, I promise. Because we will talk about how much of an anomaly this section is. This section has plagued me. I've talked about this one for years with people, and I have not gotten satisfactory answers.

[00:41:58] There's been lots of theorizing about this specific moment, but- Like how you split? Yeah, until you understand further things that happen in the books, like you refresh your memory, then we can have more productive discussions on that. But this one is just bizarre.

[00:42:14] It's something that I do not really fully understand. Because he's like fully human here. Kind of. So here's, I'll give you a small snapshot of my conundrum. Great. The soul of Voldemort, you know about Horcruxes, correct? You know about what a Horcrux does?

[00:42:39] It tethers your soul to earth. Yes. So when you die, your soul does not depart this earth, your soul is bound to this earth. So the soul of Voldemort is still out there somewhere. It is subsisting in currently rats, it is subsisting in like,

[00:43:01] it's being a parasite out there somewhere. All of a sudden this diary comes along, and this diary is essentially looking to become Voldemort, which is not exactly how Horcruxes really work. Horcruxes are just tether points. But this diary seems like it's almost a respawn point

[00:43:25] rather than a tether point. And what I mean by like, it's like if you use this Horcrux, then Voldemort will rise to power again and this Horcrux now has no use anymore. Because the diary is becoming like, Tom Riddle is the diary, which is bizarre.

[00:43:42] I don't fully understand it. But then my conundrum is, if Tom Riddle succeeds in this moment, and he becomes Tom Riddle again, which will then move to Lord Voldemort, what happens to the soul of Voldemort that is still out there somewhere?

[00:44:00] What if that soul came to power or became a thing again? Would there be two, would there be a Tom Riddle and would there be a Lord Voldemort out there? And we're gonna talk about that more as we go on. Because that's a question that plagues me

[00:44:12] and I've gotten a few answers for that. But I think they're somewhat decent answers. But... Tom Riddle kill Voldemort's Horcruxes? Yeah, some people think that there would be murders involved. Some people talk about it, how one would subsume the other.

[00:44:27] So like as soon as Tom Riddle would be created and the other soul would like kind of die off. But maybe there's an answer out there that I just haven't come into contact with, but I haven't found it yet. That's crazy.

[00:44:42] So that's what's plaguing me about these chapters. We'll talk about this later. I can feel the gap in the information. Yeah, 100%. It's tough. That's what I got. I'm gonna go favorites. What's your favorite? Anything else on these before we go? I don't know. That felt good.

[00:45:04] That was good. Good. Confusion, lots of confusion before we end this one. Yeah. Confused as always. I think let's just kind of collectively say our favorite is Harry. Yeah. I think that's like the best. The star. Yeah, and then our favorite moment is Dobby being freed.

[00:45:22] Yeah, I'll go with that. I'm down. Or like stabbing the journal. That's pretty cool. Oh yeah, that was satisfying. All the ink like splattering up from it kind of feels good. I'm a fan of that one. That's good. Or the Phoenix.

[00:45:36] I know there's actually a few moments in this one. The Phoenix is great. Which Dumbledore didn't even send the Phoenix. No, the Phoenix just came of its own accord. I know. Which did Dumbledore know was going on? Didn't offer help. It's an interesting one. Yeah.

[00:45:53] Well, yeah, there's more to talk about with that one. All these things that you're bringing up, there's like we'll have better discussions in like two months. Maybe not two months, but like when we actually get to that those points in these books,

[00:46:04] that's when the discussion will really kick off. Anyway, thanks for joining us on the podcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks for joining us on our journey of Harry Potter and the Second Time Reader. Bye.