← Critical Magic Theory: An Analytical Harry Potter Podcast
Critical Magic Theory: An Analytical Harry Potter Podcast
Ariana & Aberforth Dumbledore & the Price of Secrecy
01:02:42
In the first episode of Critical Magic Theory in 2026, Professor Julian Wamble steps away from the six-part Albus Dumbledore arc for a rant/rave on Ariana and Aberforth Dumbledore—two characters whose stories expose the wizarding world’s obsession...
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- [00:00]
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WSECU isn't just one of Washington's best credit unions. We're the only credit union to be on the Forbes Best in State list five years running. Why? Because we put you first. Lower fees, early paydays, financial guidance and service second to none. As a member owned cooperative, we love Washington as much as you do. From the Olympic Mountains to the Rolling Palouse. Join us and discover how much we care about your financial well being. Because what we really do best is invest in you. Stop by, say hi, we're wsecu. Let's Credit Union.
- [00:32]
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- [01:01]
A
WSECU isn't just one of Washington's best credit unions. We're the only credit union to be on the Forbes Best in State list five years running. Why? Because we put you first. Lower fees, early paydays, financial guidance and service second to none. As a member owned cooperative, we love Washington as much as you do. From the Olympic Mountains to the Rolling Palouse. Join us and discover how much we care about your financial well being. Because what we really do best is invest in you. Stop by, say hi, we're wsecu. Let's Credit Union.
- [01:34]
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Welcome to Critical Magic Theory where we deconstruct the wizarding world of Harry Potter. Because loving something doesn't mean we can't be critical of it. I'm Professor Julian Womble and today, today I'm doing a little rant, a little rave, a little moment for Aberforth and Ariana Dumbledore, y'. All. Happy new year. Happy 2026. For those of you who took time off during this winter break, I hope it was wonderful. For those of you who had holidays intermixed within all those things, I hope your holidays were wonderful. I hope that everyone had a restful in between the holiday season and going back to work. But we're back now and I am very excited. I was thinking about, you know, how we were going to bring back the new year, was I going to do a new survey, what this was all going to look like. And I realized that we've come off of Dumbledore not too long before that, we had done the Snape. We needed a moment. We needed a time to rest. I needed a time to rest. In fact, this episode was contested by many people who said, Prof. How about you just don't do anything? How about you just relax and take a vacation? And to that I say, I am. I leave to go to Italy tomorrow. And I am recording this episode because I'm leaving to go to Italy tomorrow and I'm not gonna do any of this work while I am away. So here we are together in 2026, and I wanted to spend some time talking about characters that we get to know in some way, shape and or form, but also that give us a lot to think about. As I was reflecting with the Chronic Overthinkers a few weeks ago about the great episodes and the things and the ideas that we shared together in 2025, one of the things that came up from many people was the episodes that were really surprising because they are about characters that are kind of obscure, that we don't spend a lot of time with, and yet there's so many rich things for us to dive into. And so I felt like I would be remiss to kind of end Dumbledore and jump straight back into the next character, into a new survey, without talking about Ariana and Aberforth, namely, because so much of Dumbledore's narrative is informed by the experiences of these two people, his two sisters. And we learn a lot about Dumbledore, particularly from Aberforth. But Ariana's experience is one that is not devoid of influence as it pertains to Dumbledore. Albus Dumbledore, that is, I have to be careful because we're talking about Dumbledores in this episode. So, anyways, suffice it to say, I decided that it would be prudent to have this conversation and to bring them in. This is not a Albus Dumbledore episode, but it is a Dumbledore episode. You see what I did there? And I cannot wait to dive in. I hope that this generates a really interesting conversation. I think that it will, because I think that, again, one of our favorite things to do as a community is to look at these characters that we don't get to spend a lot of time with, that we don't get to know a lot about and speculate and think. And I think this episode is gonna do that for us. But you know, what we have to do because just. Just because it's a new year does not mean that old things are Completely gone. It's a new year, but it's the same bop, okay? And I don't really care how you bop. We had the bob bop, we had the beard bop. It's a new year. All right, New year, new bop, same bop, new bop. You get what I'm saying? It's the same music. How you bopped might be new, it might be old, but it's always you bars. Anyways, everyone, let's just. It's also clearly the same me. Anyways, everyone. Ready, set one. No, I count backwards. Do I remember how to do this podcast? I don't know. Get ready to bop in three. In two, in one. Let's bop. Just a vocal for you. New lyrics, new time, new year. Before we dive in, this isn't going to be a full announcement situation, but I do want to highlight that, as I said before we went on our little hiatus, it is important to me that we as a community, as we continue to grow and as we approach our second year, find ways to give back in ways that resonate with us as a community. What we believe. I think that we have been given a lot by virtue of just being able to be in community with one another, with a recognition that there are so many people in this world who are unable to find community for one reason or another. And so I thought it would be cool if we could figure out ways to give back and also kind of uplift those in our community. And so I was talking to people and I thought, oh, it would be cool if we did kind of a listener based merch drop where the designs on the merch were designed by listeners and that we would take those that merch. Rather we take that merch and we would take the proceeds and give it to charities of our choosing. And so I went on Patreon and asked you all what charities you all thought would be good for us to do this with. And you all came through as you often do. And I realized as you all were giving us all of these charities that this is not a one time thing. So worry not if you are not in the position to be able to contribute this time around, worry not whether it be a contribution of financial means by buying something or by giving of your artistic talents. That's okay. We're gonna continue to do this. I think it's important. And so this time, this drop, we have three different designs. Two of them are by Britt and one is by Rachel P. They come in a myriad of different things. We've got stickers, we've got T shirts, we've got sweatshirts. We've got all the things. It's all there. I'm going to post the link in Patreon so that you all can have access to it. And the three organizations that we are going to be sending the proceeds to this time around again. So if one of the charities that you chose was not chosen this time around, that's okay, because we're going to do this more than once, I promise. But for this time around, for our first time, we're looking at Trans Lifeline, which is an organization that is run for and by trans people and offering material goods for them. There is also the Okra Project, which focuses its efforts towards black trans individuals. And then there is the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. And so I'm going to post the link to this drop in the Patreon for you all. Again, there are so many amazing things. There is a couple. There are a couple of designs that are so brilliant. All of them are brilliant. The ones that are not. Are less brilliant are the ones that I've designed myself. But we're not talking about that right now. Okay. This isn't a moment of self deprecation. This is a moment for us to celebrate the work of our listeners. And so please feel free to check those out. Recognize that I will be sending the proceeds of this to these charities. I don't know. Let's think about from now until Valentine's Day. That feels apropos. We will have this drop and then I will divide the proceeds up and they will go to these charities in the name of Critical Magic Theory. So I thank you all in advance for your generosity. I recognize that this is a new year and again, if you are not in the space to be able to provide financial support, share the link to people. Let's get this out there and have people help. I think that this is a great moment for us to do this because the holidays are when people get to be very charitable for one reason or another. But we're past that hump now. And so I'm sure a lot of organizations are still wanting and needing support. And so this is a perfect time for us to offer that. So let's put our money where our mouth is, if that's a possibility. If not, let's put our sharing where our mouth is and let's raise some money for these organizations. And with that said, let's talk about Ariana Grande. Ariana Grande. That just. That slipped out and I'm not editing it out because it's perfect. Let's. Let's talk about Ariana Dumbledore.
- [11:39]
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WSECU isn't just one of Washington's best credit unions. We're the only credit union to be on the Forbes Best in State list five years running. Why? Because we put you first. Lower fees, early paydays, financial guidance and service second to none. As a member owned cooperative, we love Washington as much as you do. From the Olympic Mountains to the Rolling Palouse. Join us and discover how much we care about your financial well being. Because what we really do best is invest in you. Stop by, say hi, we're wsecu. Let's Credit union. If you're an H VAC technician and a call comes in, Grainger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product fast and hassle free. And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat. With Grainger's easy to use website and product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. WSECU isn't just one of Washington's best credit unions. We're the only credit union to be on the Forbes Best in State list five years running. Why? Because we put you first. Lower fees, early paydays, financial guidance and service second to none. As a member owned cooperative, we love Washington as much as you do. From the Olympic Medicine Mountains to the Rolling Palouse. Join us and discover how much we care about your financial well being. Because what we really do best is invest in you. Stop by, say hi, we're wsecu. Let's Credit union.
- [13:30]
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Ariana Dumbledore is one of the most important characters in the Harry Potter series. And we never hear her speak. We don't meet her in the present tense. We don't get her thoughts. We don't see the world through her eyes. Ariana exists only in fragments. In memory, in confession, in, in the aftermath. And yet her story quietly explains more about the wizarding world than almost anything else we're given. When Ariana is very young, her magic begins to manifest as it does for every young magical person. Spontaneous, unintentional, without control. Her magic simply comes out. And she's seen non magical boys, Muggle boys, witness Ariana performing these accidental bouts of magic. They don't attack her immediately. First they demand that she do it again. They want her to repeat it. They want proof they command to see it. And when Ariana can't because she's a child and magic doesn't work that way because this was an accident, not a performance, they turn on her, they attack her in an attempt to force the magic out of her. Ariana isn't simply harmed for being magical, she's harmed because her magic is uncontrollable and unpredictable and therefore unusable to the people who suddenly feel entitled to it. And this is something that made my mind do a couple of flips because we learn very early on from Hagrid a detail that I have always just kind of thrown away as a kind of anti Muggle bias. In the very first book, Hagrid tells Harry that magic has to be kept secret because if non magical people find out about it, they'll want magic for everything, they'll demand it, they'll exploit it, and they would never leave magical people alone. It's a throwaway line that we learn as Harry is escaping from the Dursleys and thus it feels as if it doesn't really matter. And for much of the series we're invited to take that claim with a grain of salt. It sounds very exaggerated and defensive, a lot like wizarding propaganda passed down through the generations without much foundational understanding of what it actually means to be a magical person in a space with non magical people. But Ariana's story gives that claim weight because what happens to her is exactly what Hagrid describes. Not at the levels of government or institutions but at the level of ordinary people encountering magic and immediately wanting access to it. Ariana shows us that the danger isn't just fear of magic, it's the demand for it. It's the fact that these young boys felt entitled to the gifts that this young girl was given. This is also where the story forces us to think seriously about a population that the series almost never children who are younger than Hogwarts age, not trained, not protected by magical institutions, not yet removed from the non magical world. To be clear, we learn about Harry's experiences before he gets his letter, before he understands who he is. We know this, right? We know that he had all of these instances where his magic would manifest. But children whose magic appears before they have the language or control or the protection, we don't really get a large population of them in the text. We only get that fleeting moment with Harry to kind of ground us in how magical he actually is. And when we think about the Statute of Secrecy, about the restrictions of underage magic, about the laws and the norms that govern concealment, we're often encouraged to read them as antiquated or overly cautious. At least that's how I read them. It always feels as if it's stupid, right? The idea that so much of the way that we see magical people engage with non magical people is through the lens of non magical inferiority. I think of Arthur Weasley. I think of the moment with Amos Diggory when he is talking about the policemen and their little guns, right? This sense that none of this stuff actually matters at all and that it's all kind of stupid and unnecessary. But Ariana's situation invites us to ask a different question. Who are these laws? The Statute of Secrecy, the restriction on underage wizardry? Who are they for? Because when you look closely, many of these protections are not about the adults at all. They are about children. Children whose magic makes the community vulnerable. Vulnerable long before they understand what magic is or who they are. Ariana's attack shows us what happens when a magical child is discovered without safeguards in place. And what's striking is all of the laws already exist when Ariana was attacked. The Statute of Secrecy was already in place. The restriction on underage wizardry was already in place. But we know that the latter law was really only comes into play once they are given wands and that it is placed, the responsibility of protecting your child is placed on parents before that moment. And so the Ministry of Magic in some ways absolves itself of the necessity to protect children, especially those who are more likely to expose the world because they can't control their magic. And so in this way, the Ministry of Magic does nothing to protect Ariana. After the attack, Ariana's parents are faced with a decision that no parent, I feel, should have to make. Because once Ariana's magic becomes tied to trauma, once it turns inward, it becomes volatile. And there's suddenly a very real risk that the magical world, the magical institutions, the structures, the governmental places and spaces will step in. And here's the thing, they will step in not to heal her or help her, but to remove her. Percival and Kendra Dumbledore understand what happens to children like Ariana. They understand that if the Ministry gets involved, Ariana is not treated as a child who has been harmed. She is treated as a problem that has to be managed. They recognize that the Ministry of Magic's goal is not to protect its citizenry, but rather to keep everyone secret. And the place that she would likely be sent to in an attempt to do these things is Saint Mungo's. Hospital for magical maladies and injuries. And that is not a space of rehabilitation. It's a space of containment, concealment and secrecy. For witches and wizards whose magic has become dangerous because it's bound up in trauma or they've experienced some sort of magical catastrophe, St. Mungold's functions less like a hospital and more like a holding facility. We see this with Gilderoy Lockhart in a lot of fan fiction. There's a lot of ways in which we as a fandom have recognized the ills of St. Mungo's. And one of the big things that I've seen one of the bigger tropes, particularly in fics about Drake, that involved Draco rather, he's always giving money to St. Mungo's, right? And fixing the hospital up and trying to make it a better place for people. Because as it stands, it's a place where people are kept away from the rest of the world so that their instability doesn't become visible. And Percival and Kendra know that. They know that once Ariana is labeled, once she is institutionalized, she stops getting to be a child in need of care and becomes a cautionary tale. She becomes an example or a warning. She becomes something that says, this is what happens when you're not careful, when your parents aren't careful, when you allow your magic to go wrong. And so, reasonably, Kendra and Percival refuse. They don't go to the ministry, they don't ask for help, they don't invite invitation. And it's not because I didn't love Ariana. But it's because they understand the system that they operate in. They understand the structures that be. And what's more, they understand what those structures are actually designed to do.
- [23:37]
A
WSECU isn't just one of Washington's best credit unions. We're the only credit union to be on the Forbes Best in State list five years running. Why? Because we put you first. Lower fees, early paydays, financial guidance and service second to none. As a member owned cooperative, we love Washington as much as you do. From the Olympic mountains to the rolling Palouse. Join us and discover how much we care about your financial well being. Because what we really do best is investing. Stop by, say hi, we're wsecu. Let's Credit union. If you're an H Vac technician and a call comes in, Grainger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product fast and hassle free. And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat With Grainger's easy to use website and product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything hot coming right along. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. WSECU isn't just one of Washington's best credit unions. We're the only credit union to be on the Forbes Best in State list five years running. Why? Because we put you first. Lower fees, early paydays, financial guidance and service second to none. As a member owned cooperative, we love Washington as much as as you do. From the Olympic mountains to the rolling Palouse. Join us and discover how much we care about your financial well being. Because what we really do best is invest in you. Stop by, say hi, we're wsecu. Let's Credit union.
- [25:10]
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And One of the more devastating realities of Ariana's story is that there may have been a window where real care could have helped her. An early intervention, support or guidance. Something that would have helped her learn that this wasn't her fault, that she was a victim, that she didn't have to allow her magic to go inward, that she didn't have to try to keep it at bay. But that's not the way that the magical world is structured. And that's not a service that it is created to provide. Because the system is not designed to heal, it's designed to hide. And so the options are few and they're limited for the Dumbledore parents. They choose to keep Ariana at home and manage her themselves to protect her from a system that would rather lock her away than reckon with what happened to her, then navigate the instance that apparently the system has been trying to prevent. But in its desire to prevent it, it has done nothing to actually keep people safe from it. And the choice that was made out of love from Kendra and Percival ends up isolating Ariana even further. This is an impossible position that the wizarding world creates for parrots. Either you surrender your child for the system of containment, or you shoulder the burden alone. It reminds me very much of what Remus Lupin's parents had to navigate. What do you do when your 5 year old child is bitten by a werewolf? The burden is yours. There's no support. There are no institutional safeguards in place. There's only stigma, there's only fear. There's only concern that you're going to make us look bad or be seen. And it is in this context, right, this understanding that Percival or Dumbledore's actions have to be understood. After Arianne is attacked, Percival retaliates against the boys who harmed her. And that ends him up in the ban. Within the fandom, there has been speculation about whether or not this moment reflects an underlying anti Muggle sentiment. Right? And part of that comes from the belief that some people had in the canonical text when Dumbledore arrives at Hogwarts at 11 years old. But if we look closely at the circumstances, something else becomes clear. Percival's intervention was not about pure blood supremacy. It wasn't some abstract ideology. This is a parent whose child had been violently harmed and who knows that the system will do nothing to make it right. From Percival's perspective, there is no justice coming. No accountability, no repair. The only response from the magical world is memory modification. A solution that protects secrecy, but it doesn't undo the harm to Ariana. And we spent a considerable amount of time in the past episodes talking a lot about intention versus outcome. And this is another one of these moments where the outcome matters. The fact that the Ministry of Magic, as far as we know, does very little in the way of of navigating the ills of the non magical world outside of modifying memories and avoidance suggests to us that there was no recourse to be taken. And so Percival acts. Not necessarily because he believes that all non magical people are inherently bad or inferior, but because his daughter was victimized by a group of them. And he had no other recourse force. Not in his mind at least. What makes this moment important is that it shows us how anti Muggle sentiment can form after harm, not before it. Percival doesn't need ideology to justify his anger he has experienced. And this is where Ariana's story becomes even more unsettling, if you can imagine. Because the wizarding world is full of people who hold deep resentment toward non magical people without ever having lived through something like what happen to Ariana. People who speak about danger and threat and superiority without having paid any personal cost. Percival, by contrast, is responding to something real. And the tragedy is that his response, however understandable, only deepens the family's isolation. His imprisonment removes one parent entirely. Kendra is left to manage Ariata alone. Albus and Alberforth are left to grow up inside a home shaped by secrecy, grief and fear. Ariana's trauma doesn't just affect her, it reorganizes the entire Dumbledore family. And this is what the wizarding world has never had to reckon with, and never actually reckons with, because its systems are not built to track long term harm. They are built to manage visibility. In one of the bonus episodes that I've given to the chronic overthinkers and the deep divers, I spend a lot of time talking about what the role of the Ministry of Magic actually is. And in this book that I'm working on that's on Harry Potter, I spend a lot of time unpacking what the goal of the Ministry is. And it is not safety, it's silence. And Ariana becomes the example of this. And as a result, Percival becomes a criminal and Kendra becomes a silent caretaker. And throughout all of this, the system moves on. Ariana's story reveals more clearly than almost anything else we have in this series that the magical world often mistakes containment for care and silence for safety. And when that happens, parents, loved ones, guardians, are forced into impossible decisions, decisions that may or may not make sense in the moment, that feel protective, but that can also carry devastating consequences. The reality is that Ariana is not failed by one person. She's failed by a system that knows how to hide problems, but not how to heal them. When we think about the implications of what happens to Ariana, there are a lot of forces at work at the same time. Yes, what happens to her is a crime committed by non magical people, but it isn't random and it isn't inevitable. It's driven in large part by ignorance. And we know, both canonically and through post canonical lore, that there was a time when magical people and non magical people lived alongside one another. Not necessarily just peacefully, but interdependently. Many of the oldest, wealthiest pure blood wizarding families built their power and their land and their money during periods when non magical and magical elites were deeply intertwined. Through land ownership, through gentry, through proximity to power. The worlds weren't always separate. And that matters because when we look at violence, like the hate crime that was perpetuated against this child, attacks against marginalized communities, more often than not, the engine driving that violence is not knowledge, it's the lack of it. It's fear of what isn't understood, panic when something breaks, expectation, entitlement layered on top of curiosity. And that's what we see in Ariana's attack. And this isn't to try and mitigate or excuse what happens to her. But the boys who harm her don't understand what they're seeing. They have no framework, no language. And so instead of stepping back, they demand more. They demand a performance. And when Ariana can't give them what they want, their ignorance turns to violence. And we are living in a time right now where we are watching this in real time around the world. Where we, because we as a society globally, are trying to rewrite our history to get rid of some of the things that make us uncomfortable, to quell concerns about what it means long term if we recognize the ills that our own countries have brought to bear against other communities. As a result, we do not recognize how many things are being repeated. And so we remain ignorant. And that ignorance is dangerous. This is where the wizarding world's logic about secrecy starts to unravel. Because the magical world, through institutions like the Ministry of Magic, operates under the assumption that withholding knowledge produces safety. Pretending that slavery never happened in the United States or in other countries makes us better because no one's being blamed. Well, if we don't talk about the fact that it wasn't until the very recent present that women around the world were given some semblance of equality, if that's what we can call it. If non magical people did not know that magic exists, then the belief is that everyone will be better off. But Ariana's story tells us the opposite. Ignorance does not produce safety. It produces misinterpretation. It produces entitlement and harm. And once we enter the Harry Potter universe, as readers, we see that pattern everywhere. Non magical people are constantly subjected to memory modification. Their experiences are erased without consent. Their objects are bewitched for amusement. They are injured, displaced and killed during conflicts they are never allowed to understand. They remain ignorant the entire time. And at the same time, the same time, I don't know why I said it like that. Magical people are systematically encouraged not to know anything meaningful about non magical people. Mughal studies is a joke. The Mughal Liaison Office is a disaster. There is no serious institutional investment in mutual understanding. Instead, ignorance is framed as protection. Magical people are told non magical people are better off not knowing. And non magical people are treated as fragile, foolish and incapable. And these beliefs have consequences. Because part of the reason magical people are so cavalier about what they do to non magical people is precisely because they do not know them. They believe non magical survival is the result of stupidity and improvisation and ingenuity that comes from not being able to have magic. But everything that non magical people have built without magic is merely compensatory. So on both sides we get the same dangerous logic. That ignorance generates safety, that distance produces harmony, that knowing less is somehow safer than knowing more. And that magical people who have the power, in this case both magical and structural, get to decide who knows what and when. And the victims of this, our children, like Ariana. What Ariana's story shows us, quietly but devastatingly, is that none of these presuppositions are true. Her harm is not the result of too much knowledge. It's the result of none at all. Ignorance creates expectation without understanding, demand without context, and fear without language. And yes, of course, prejudice can exist even when people know better. Bigots will always exist. Knowledge is not a cure all. But ignorance has never been a safeguard. And the tragedy of Ariana Dumbledore is that her suffering is later used to justify the very system that made it possible. Her story becomes proof that secrecy is necessary rather than evidence that ignorance is lethal. Ariana does not show us that magic must be hidden to keep people safe. She shows us what happens when difference is discovered in a world that has been deliberately kept ignorant. And that's a tension that is never resolved by the powers that be within the magical world. And that's due in large part to the fact that it confuses hiding with protection and silence with safety. I think the lesson that we can learn and glean from Ariana is that you can't build peace on ignorance. Only fear grows in that soil. And that fear doesn't disappear. It just waits for the next innocent, unsuspecting, magical child whose magic is pouring out of them as it does to be seen by people who have been made to not understand.
- [39:40]
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WSECU isn't just one of Washington's best credit unions. We're the only credit union to be on the Forbes Best in State list five years running. Why? Because we put you first. Lower fees, early paydays, financial guidance and service second to none. As a member owned corporation, we love Washington as much as you do. From the Olympic mountains to the rolling Palouse. Join us and discover how much we care about your financial well being. Because what we really do best is invest in you. Stop by, say hi, we're wsecu. Let's Credit union.
- [40:12]
B
If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant, you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference. That's why hands down, you count on Grainger for auto reordering. With on time restocks, your team will have the cut resistant gloves they need at the start of their shift. And you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [40:41]
A
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- [41:58]
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I'm so grateful to Ariana because I think that there's a way in which she's another one of these characters who we don't get to spend a lot of time with. And yet I think the lessons that I learned in working through her story, and I didn't even get to all of it really, through the realities of the Ministry of Magic, into sharp relief. It threw the realities of what it must have been like for their parents into sharp relief. And when I think about Out Not Albus. This is not an Albus Dumbledore episode. When I think about Aberforth, I think that if Ariana shows us what happens when magic is forced inward, then Aberforth shows us what happens when grief, resentment, and silence are when we meet Aberforth in earnest, the series encourages us not to take him seriously. He's gruff, unpleasant, dismissive. He runs a shabby publisher, speaks in sharp edges, and seems uninterested in heroism or grand moral narratives. Which doesn't really work when the protagonist of the story is Harry Potter, who lives in a world of heroism and grand moral narratives and monochromatic understandings of who is deserving and who is not and who is good and who isn't. But I don't think that Aberforth is accidental. Aberforth is the sibling who stayed. He is the one who lived inside the aftermath of Ariana's attack in ways that Albus never fully did. And that difference is the key to understanding Everything about who Aberforth is and why he operates the way that he does. Aberforth tells the Golden Trio when they show up at the Hogshead in the final book that Ariana was closest to him, that he was her favorite, that he was the only one who could calm her down when her magic became volatile. And I think that there's a way in which, at the moment when we learn this information, we kind of don't care that much because we're like, dude, Voldemort is literally splitting his soul up and running around. We have been on the run from Death Eaters and we are on the search for a Horcrux that is in a castle that we can't get in. You rock Sympoetic on the Days of old is not really where we're at right now, my guy. Like, that's not the vibe. We've got places to be and diadems to get our hands on. So you telling us this whole story really isn't doing it. But it matters. When Arianne is attacked and Percival is sent to the band, Albus is close to leaving for Hogwarts. He is already recognized as brilliant and exceptional in ways that the wizarding world reveres. And once he leaves, his relationship to the family crisis changes. Yes, he carries guilt and responsibility, but from a distance, and that's not a distance that Aberforth is privileged enough to have. He's younger by two or three years, and so he remains at home longer. He lives inside the bubble of secrecy and containment and constant vigilance. He grows up helping Kendra Dumbledore manage Ariana's trauma day after day, moment after moment. And you can imagine how isolating that must be because he's not really allowed to have friends. Because if friends want to find out about his family, what is he going to say? So he's trapped in his home at Godric's Hollow. And that kind of childhood changes you. Aberforth doesn't experience Ariana as a memory or a regret or a moral lesson. He experiences her as a person, a sister that he loves, who is struggling in real time, whose pain is unpredictable and frightening. He becomes her emotional regulator. And he is still a child, the one who learns how to soothe her, to de escalate, to bring her back when her magic threatens to spiral. That labor is intense. And again, he's a child. And the reality is, is that Aberforth doesn't have what Albus has. He's not a prodigy, he's not dazzling, he's not charming. He doesn't inspire indulgence. In many ways, it feels like Albus's brilliance insulates him. Now, whether or not he experiences the due regret and the cost, we know that he does. But there are ways in which he can distract himself by getting accolades and pouring himself into all of his brilliant pursuits. Albaforth doesn't have that. He has no such cover. He. He pays the price. Ariana is hidden at home. Kendra withdraws from public life and Albus ascends. And Aberforth is left navigating suspicion and stigma and relentless comparison. My little sister, when I was in high school, my parents really wanted her to go to the high school that I went to. And I'm not gonna hold you. I was a bit of a superstar when I was in high school. My high school was the kind of high school that, like, as long as you had an identity, you kind of made it right. And my identity was singing, it was theater, it was all those things. And I was very charming and very charismatic and was able to kind of get myself out of anything if I tried hard enough. And my sister and I are very different people. And my parents really wanted her to go to this high school and she did not want to go. And she did not want to go because she didn't want to live in my shadow. And she said this out loud. I'm not making that up. And this is not me being like, I'm so amazing. And she just. No, she told me. And I get it. I understand that. Because there's a way in which one wants to make their own mark. They want to be their own person. And that's really difficult to do when you know that sharing the last name of another person who has already established themselves means something. And my sister and I are five years apart and so there's a considerable time gap, but at the same time, legacy is going to live on. And so that when we think about what this means for Aberforce, coming into Hogwarts as the brother of one of the most brilliant minds that Hogwarts in the magical world has ever seen, how do you compete with that when so much of your own childhood existence has been marred by trauma that your brother got to kind of create distance from and distract himself from with that brilliance. He lives in the shadow of his brothers whose gifts are revered. And when people realize that he's not like Albus, I imagine people start asking questions. And the soil around Aberforth is already so primed for resentment and I don't know that it's Resentment of envy, but probably a resentment of an unequal burden. Aberforth is carrying the emotional cost of secrecy. He's absorbing the consequences of family scandal and living inside silence with no language for it, no outlet for it. Albus, for all his guilt, finds his outlets. He finds Gellert, Grindelwald. He finds in ideology, abstraction, a way to translate pain into theory, to vision, to world shaping ambition. That's how Albus's brain works. When there's a problem, he comes up with a solution. I don't think that that's true for Aberforth. And so his resentment turns inward and we see it surface in ways the series often invites us to ridicule. Aberforth is persecuted for performing inappropriate charms on a goat, an incident usually treated as proof that he is unserious and deviant. But read it differently and it tells us something else. When you grow up in the shadow of a hyper achieving sibling, one way to survive is to refuse the script entirely, to make it unmistakably clear that you are not trying to be them, that you will not perform respectability just to be tolerated, that you are not going to try to mimic them for the sake of making everyone else comfortable. Aberforth's transgressions are not about ambition. I think they're acts of defiance. They say, I will not become a deluded version of my brother just to make you feel better. And this is also where his resentment toward Albus becomes clearest. Aberforth doesn't resent Albus simply for being brilliant. I think he resents him for leaving, for theorizing, for abstracting, for turning lived harm into a moral calculus. Aberforth lives with the consequences of choices. Albus only later regrets. And crucially, Aberforth experiences Kendra in a way that Albus does not. Children who stay behind often see their parents more clearly, more vulnerably. Aberforth watches his mother manage a household shaped by trauma and fear. He sees the toll of secrecy up close. He understands the emotional labor required to hold everything together. There was an interesting video that was circulating online months and months ago about how no two siblings actually have the same parents, particularly when there's an age gap, because at any given moment your parents are completely different people. And so that there's a way in which the people that you know are not the people that your siblings know. And I think that that's true here. I think that the kindred that Albus got the opportunity to know before Ariana's attack is not necessarily the same one that Aberforth got to know and spent a considerable amount of time with Aberforth. Aberforth umberstands. I'm not editing that out. Aberforth understands something Abbas never fully accepts, that some harms cannot be redeemed by intention. Some losses aren't lessons and some wounds don't justify future control. And I think this is where the parallels between Aberforth and Ariana become unavoidable. Ariana shows us what happens when magic is repressed until it becomes dangerous. Aberforth shows us what happens when grief and resentment are both are shaped by secrecy, both are denied healthy outlets, and both are treated as problems rather than people. The difference is in how the damage manifests. Ariana's repression turns explosive and Aberforth's repression turns corrosive. He becomes reclusive, suspicious, sharp edged. Not because he lacks morality, but because he has seen what happens when ideals are valued more than people. There's another truth about Aberforth that the series barely pauses to acknowledge. When we meet him by name in Deathly Hallows, he's the last Dumbledore standing. Ariana is long dead, Kendra gone, Percival died in Azkaban. And now even Albus is gone. Aberforth outlived his entire family. And I don't think that that kind of survival is triumph. It's a reckoning. Because if secrecy actually worked, if silence truly protected, Aberforth should not be standing alone at the end of the story. But he is. And there's a moment in Deathly Hallows when Aberforth finally tells the Golden Trio what happened to Ariana. And what is striking is not just what he says, but that he says it at all. I'm speculating here, but I think it's plausible that that moment is the first time in almost a century that he has spoken those memories out loud. But he is constantly reminded he has a portrait of his sister there with him day in and day out. His brother comes to the Hogshead frequently. So many reminders. And we talked a lot about the way that Albus desired things, desired a life with his family. I wonder if they would have bonded over that desire. I wonder if they would have been friends, maybe if they had just spoken those words. I want that too. I wonder what it would have looked like for them to give voice to the grievances, to the pain, to the fear, in a way that their sister never could, in a way that their mother never did. In a way that their father used violence to assert himself. A hundred years of holding it in a Hundred years of silence. That moment where he tells Harry, Ron and Hermione, it's a moment of release. I think at that moment, Aberforth understands that secrets didn't save Ariana or Kendra or Percival or Albus. They didn't save Aberforth from being isolated. Aberforth's resentment is not just anger, it's grief, compounded by knowledge that everything that they were told would keep them safe. Safe failed. This is also where I think his frustration with Kendra becomes legible. Kendra Dumbledore was proud, capable, a woman extraordinarily good at secrets, who passed as not Muggle born, a woman who believed concealment was survival. And perhaps for a time for her it was. But here's the uncomfortable truth of Aberforth's life and what it forces us to confront. Sometimes your secrets raise your children. Kendra's secrecy shapes both her sons and daughter in radical but different ways. Albus inherits her facility for concealment. He learns how to compartmentalize, how to withhold, how to be present and control everything in your orbit. Aberforth, in turn, inherits the weight of those secrets without the tools to metabolize them. The same environment produced two different outcomes. One child turned secrecy into strategy. The other turned secrecy into scars. And neither outcome is harmless. Aberforth is also, quite literally, a victim of Albus's ambitions. During the confrontation with Grindelwald, Aberforth is subjected to the Cruciatus Curse. He suffers physically at the hands of the ideology that once captivated his brother by the person his brother called a friend, by the person his brother never fully confronted until he was forced to. And yet Aberforth doesn't turn that pain outward. Despite all of the stuff that I've just said, and I said a lot of stuff, he still protects Harry. He argues with him. He doubts the plan. He tries to get him to leave. But when it matters, he opens his home. He gives them a path to Hogwarts. He shelters the trio. He gives them food. According to the postcanonical lore, he's part of the Order of the Phoenix in the First Wizarding War. And that's astounding to me. Despite the neglect and the dismissal and the ridicule, despite being labeled strange or unstable, Aberforth still finds a way to do good. And he does it without the brilliance and without the prestige and without cover. He just does it. And that's remarkable because Aberforth is not redeemed by greatness or protected by legacy or insulated by power. He's abrasive and Difficult and scarred and hurt. But he's not cruel. And that's why I think Aberforth Dumbledore is a cautionary tale. Not because he fails morally, but because his life shows what happens when secrets are allowed to fester, when resentment becomes a mainstay and when care never arrives. He is warped, but not narrow. His world shrinks. His relationships are thin. His sharpness replaces vulnerability. I think this is the danger of holding onto secrets without releasing them to something or someone. Some people, like Albus, learn to wield secrets. They can turn them into strategy and control. Others, like Aberforth, absorb them until they reshape who they are. Aberforth is not the Dumbledore who shaped the world. He's the Dumbledore who lived with its consequences. And if Ariana shows us what happens when magic is crushed by secrecy, Aberforth shows us what happens when a person is asked to survive alone inside the bubble of those secrets. And that's the warning. One of the questions that we ask for every single one of these characters is, are they a good half blood? And at the onset of our discussion of half bloods, we worked out two different definitions. One is half bloods who uphold pure blood supremacy. People whose proximity to power leads them to disavow part of themselves and align with the exclusionary hierarchies that they benefit from. The second was half bloods who bridge worlds and use their liminal position to translate, empathize and soften the boundaries between the magical and non magical worlds. On paper, this felt right. We were trying to encompass a lot of different things and kind of leave room for people's different experiences. But I think that this look at the Dumbledores makes it really impossible to reconcile. Because when we look at Ariana and Aberforth, neither framework quite fits. And that forces us to think about a much more uncomfortable question is, you know, what does it actually mean again, to be a good half blood? Neither Ariana or Aberforth obviously are pure blood supremacist, that much is clear. But, and this is speaking particularly about Aberforth, right? He's not a bridge between worlds in a romanticized sense. The relationship that the Dumbledores have with the non magical world is not shaped by curiosity or connection or ignorance. It's shaped by harm, secrecy and retreat. Ariana's first meaningful interaction with non magical people is an act of violence. Aberforth's understanding of non magical people is filtered through that violence. Through his follower's retaliation, through his mother's resentment and fear. So when we talk about bridging worlds, we have to ask what happens when the bridge itself is constructed on trauma. This is where Aberforth becomes especially instructive. Because unlike Albus, Aberforth doesn't carry guilt for a flirtation with domination. He doesn't need to atone for a moment of wanting to lord over non magical people. His relationship with non magical people is not tempered by shame in the same way that Albus's is. Right. We talked a lot about how Albus, you know so much of what he did and his desire to fight this war is really a battle with himself and his worst impulses when power is presented to him. Aberforth is not guided by a social justice vision. Aberforth's understanding of the world is shaped by a mother who passed as not muggle born, a household where non magical origins were treated as something to be too obscure, a sister brutalized by non magical children and a father imprisoned for retaliating against them. That's not neutral. And it tells us something crucial. Half blood identity does not automatically produce empathy. Sometimes it produces withdrawal, sometimes it produces ambivalence. Sometimes it produces a deep desire to not engage at all. And that's to say nothing of a system and a world that incentivizes you to completely jettison any connection that one has to the non magical world. So when we ask whether Aberforth is a good half blood, the answer depends entirely on what we think goodness requires. If goodness means actively resisting supremacy, Aberforth qualifies. If goodness means bridging the world through openness and connection, he doesn't. And that tension is the point, because the Dumbledores reveal that half blood identity is not just about lineage, it's about the conditions of socialization. Ariana and Aberforth are raised in a home where secrecy is framed as safety, exposure is framed as danger, and the non magical world is associated with loss and violence. Under those conditions, bridging is not an opportunity, it's a risk. And this is where our definition of pure bloodedness starts to shift. Pureblood supremacy in this context is not just about ideology, it's about who gets to define safety. Albus responds to trauma by trying to manage the world. Aberforth responds by shrinking his and Ariana never gets the chance to respond at all. None of these responses are supremacists in in the formal sense. But all of them are shaped by a system that already treats non magical people as threats and secrecy as protection. So maybe the real lesson is this, that being a good half blood is not about the purity of belief or even a clarity of politics, but rather what you are able to do with the harm you inherit. Some people translate that harm into ideology, some people translate it into control. Some people. Some people translated into silence. Ariana and Aberforth force us to confront the limits of our own framework because they show us that half bloodedness does not guarantee bridge building and that refusing supremacy does not automatically produce connection. Sometimes what half bloods are actually doing is surviving between worlds that have already failed them on both sides. And if we take that same seriously, then good half bloods are not defined by how well they reconcile worlds, but by how much burden they are forced to simply carry for existing between them. And I know that's not a comforting conclusion, but I think it's a more honest one. And in 2026, I think in the world that we live in, sometimes comfort is overrated and honesty is a necessity. This has been another episode of Critical Magic Theory. I'm Professor Julian Womble and if you liked today's episode. First of all, thank you. Please feel free to like rate, subscribe and do all the things that one does. Y', all, we are back. I'm so excited and I hope you enjoyed this episode. There will be a post episode shot. I will be in Rome. I'm going to Italy. I'm living my best Lizzie McGuire dreams. If you know, you know. If you don't know, look it up y'. All. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this episode. Remember, go check out the merch criticalmagictheory.com hit the merch store. You'll go. You'll see the drop. I'm gonna post it on Patreon patreon.com criticalmagictheory Please feel free to join us there for free to be in the post episode chat or as a paid subscriber where you get all kinds of perks y'. All. I can't wait to see what this year has for us. Until then, be critical and stay magical my friends. Byee Sa.