Professor Julian Womble (7:43)
The first thing that I want to talk about is the saying Curiosity killed the cat. This is something that came up for many of you was the title, or at least a derivation of it was the title of the episode and many of you brought up in the comments on the post episode chat. The reality that that is not the whole saying. Seri wrote, curiosity killed the cat is not the whole saying. The saying actually goes curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back and goes on to say, I think this is saying in particular. This saying in particular applies to the schemers and scammers that we see in Ravenclaw because that's why they do it. They satisfy their intellect by being scammers, by being the scammers that they always are, always getting what they want. Curiosity may kill them in the end, but what does it matter if they're never discovered or found out. And I think that this is really fascinating. And Rachel wrote, it's not curiosity that killed the claw, it's the ungrounded curiosity without guardrails, without morality. You either find another structure or risk becoming unhinged like Lockhart or Barty Crouch Jr. Or Quirrell. Emma wrote, I think a good Ravenclaw is open to the possibilities of new information and that that could take knowledge as an iterative approach to an issue, living, etc. And Nadia wrote, both Draco and Hermione value their intelligence and we know Hermione enjoys people asking her why she wasn't in Ravenclaw, even though she always says she respects Harry for his bravery and considers other things more important than book smarts. I think curiosity and the need to question what they are told is the difference. Draco follows his parents supremacist beliefs without question. He takes orders from Voldiva and is happy to do so, at least initially, because he unquestioningly thinks he should. I think a Ravenclaw would be more considered in their choices. And Hermione struggles to accept foreign concepts such as the Hallows. For her to question what she believes is challenging, as pointed out by Xenophilius Lovegood. Considering she is the daughter of dentist who discovered she's a witch, you would imagine her to be open to questioning her perceptions and beliefs. Her parents come from a scientific background and would have been taught to question things they read and then her world would have been turned upside down. Yet she remained somewhat rigid, brave and accepting of her new life to the extent of pretty much rejecting her old life. She could be an adult Ravenclaw if changing House was allowed. And I think that this is really fascinating because what all of these comments bring to bear is where we see curiosity fitting into our understandings of Ravenclaws. Because as I said in the other episode, you know, curiosity is not one of the. It's not one of the attributes that's given to the house when we talk about it on a number of dimensions. And then someone else wrote this is Tash who wrote a comment not in the post episode chat but in the Spotify comments. I never thought of Ravenclaws as curious and I still don't see it in the context even after listening to this whole episode. I don't find Luna curious either. I find her to be clever and an outside of the box thinker certainly, but very close minded actually. She holds onto her beliefs even when everything she experiences proves them wrong. She never lets go of the idea of Snorkax existing and still thinks Sirius is stubby Boardman with when context could tell her he's not. Still love her though. And I think that this is fascinating because as we try to kind of think about the notion of what it means to be a Ravenclaw and in particular where Curiosity fits into the way that Ravenclaws operate, I think that we also have to invite ourselves to realize that we're looking at this concept, this house, and we're trying to kind of create a box into which all of these individuals that we meet at different points in Harry's journey can fit. And I think that this is part of the problem of the House system, which is that like, no, that's impossible, it's an impossibility to do. And that what I think the kind of inclusion of curiosity in the realm of other Ravenclaw attributes allows us to do is realize that we're looking at all of this on a spectrum and that, you know, I think part of the issue with the way that the house system operates is that it tends to suggest that these are the things that make you a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff or a Slytherin or a Gryffindor, but that there's obviously varying levels of those things and also different iterations of those things and also various ways in which certain aspects of one's identity might lend itself more to, for a specific person than others, right? Like one person may be crazily witty, another person may be super, super book smart. Another person may be very, very curious. And then. And so, and so all those individuals are very different in their approach to kind of the overall Ravenclaw ness while simultaneously still kind of fitting into the bounds of the house. And then there is the question of what it is that you do with that, right? Like what it is that you do with any of those things, with your wit, with your book smarts, with your, you know, curiosity, how it is that you use those things and what is it that you use them for. And I think that I like the inclusion of curiosity because I think at the root of so many things, curiosity is there, right? When it comes to learning something. Obviously, like, we go to school and some of us just excel for the sake of excelling and. But I think that, you know, what I have found is that when you can pique someone's curiosity and basically invite them to find something that they are interested in and they go and research and learn about it, it is a much more fulfilling experience, right? And so much of the way that Hermione operates, even though I know that she's not a Ravenclaw, is that she is somewhat curious about things. But we can also see the juxtaposition of moments where she's curious and moments where she is feeling overwhelmed and trying to overcompensate, right? Like she is curious about what is happening with house elves because she goes and does, like, extra research to find out what's going on. She is trying to find books that don't exist. She is trying to go and break the rules to go and go down to the kitchens to talk to them, right? Like there is a curiosity about that, right? We also see that same level of curiosity, right, that invokes and leads to a certain kind of behavior on her part, whether it be her going and diving deeper in research when we look at her trying to figure out who the Half Blood Prince is in Half Blood Prince, Right. And she, you know, goes and finds Eileen Prince and, you know, looks at all of these things and goes into archives that, you know, we didn't even know existed. Right. Because her curiosity leads her to that place. And we can also see how that could ultimately be a bad thing, because like we talked about in the last episode, rabbit holes are not necessarily always the healthiest things to fall down if you don't have anything that's anchoring you. And so that we can see that sometimes intellectual pursuits are ones that kind of start with curiosity sometimes. Right. Like, you know, we go to school and there are things that we do, but, you know, if you have to go write a paper, you know, when I was in high school, my teachers once I got into like, junior senior year were basically like, read this book and find something that you find interesting about it and write about that. And so then from there I had to go and allow my curiosity to be the thing that guides me to the question that I wanted to ask. And then I had to go and do research to find it. Right. And so in doing so, you end up learning a lot about whatever topic you were curious about. And I don't know about you, but I'm also a person that, like, I will go down rabbit holes and I will get hyper focused on a thing and I will learn as much as I can learn about that topic. Right. And. And it all starts with curiosity. And so I think that, you know, even though curiosity is not necessarily a trait that is attributed to Ravenclaws, in many ways, it is the foundation on which a lot of the other things that we tend to associate with Ravenclaws are built on. Right. You know, we imagine that Helena Ravenclaw had to have been curious about the diadem to understand how it worked, how it would work for her, and that's why she then goes and she steals it. Right. And in doing so, I think that that really tells us a very particular kind of story about the relationship between curiosity and Ravenclaws and the spectrum within which many Ravenclaws kind of live. And I love the invocation of that because I think that, again, it's very easy for us to try and pigeonhole people who fit into these paradigms in very particular ways. And I would, I would argue, I would submit to you that that's what the Sorting hat high key does. The Sorting Hat doesn't kind of give us the belief that there is a spectrum, both in terms of one's experience, but also in terms of how one's kind of house identity comes up and so then you end up having children molding themselves to what they believe is true for these things. And in many ways I think that that's one of the more detrimental aspects of the housing system is that it doesn't leave room for people to grow into things or leave room for the recognition that, you know, intelligence manifests in a lot of different ways. And I think that that is a really important piece for us to think about as we think about kind of the role that curiosity plays in Ravenclaw ness. The other thing that came up quite a bit for us in the conversation in the last episode was really about our understanding of Ravenclaw House and whether or not it was misunderstood. Many of us said that we felt like there were some things about Ravenclaw House that people just didn't get. And so when I asked that question and I kind of posed it to the broader listening audience, if you said that you didn't think that they were understood, what did you think was missing? And you all delivered as you all so often do. Dylan wrote as a Ravenclaw, I said Ravenclaws were misunderstood. But because we often think of Hermione types, ferocious readers, ferocious I put voracious and ferocious together, ferocious readers, straight A's love school as the stereotypical Ravenclaws. But Hermione is not a Ravenclaw. What makes a Ravenclaw is the curiosity, not the academics. But the academic side of intelligence is what we focus most on. Ravenclaws are supposed to be wise, clever, quick thinking, curious and creative. None of those traits are inherently academic and you can be all of those things and not do well in school. And Britt Reid said something as well writing I think that my thinking that the Ravenclaw house is misunderstood is because it feels a bit one dimensional compared to some of the other houses. Like I get that the house is smart, intellectual, etc. But what else? Where is the depth? I know that as we've all been sorted into the houses and maybe paired up with other folks IRL in casual conversations or in more organized fashions from our houses, we filled in some of the blanks that have been left out in the text and movies of qualities. But I still don't think, but I still don't get a multi dimensional feel for the depth of who and what Ravenclaw House is. Obviously just cause it's seen doesn't mean it's not there. So I'm always curious about what else does it mean to be a Ravenclaw beyond the mind. Jazz wrote, people largely box Ravenclaws as the smart house. And in doing so, forget about the witty, creative, individualistic side. And then Keisha wrote, this house has a cookie cutter idea of what they look like. If everyone is told that they are super smart, it only breeds competition within students. And what I think is really fascinating about this and what all of you brought up is what's left out. And I think Brit brings up a really good point about what we tend to do in this series, not just for the houses, but for many things, right? When we are feeling bereft of information, we fill it in. We imbue our characters with the things that we like. We imbue the houses with the things that we believe. And especially when it is a character that we identify with. When it's a house that we have been sorted into, we take all the things that we either want to be or believe we are and we place it in. And so, in doing so, we've created this kind of big bevy of what it actually means to be, you know, whatever house we're in. But the reality is that the books don't give us that. And I do think that after reading these comments and thinking about it a lot, that there is this kind of misunderstanding and misconception of Ravenclaw and what it means to be in that house. And one of the things that I thought about a lot was the fact that, you know, one of the big things that they say about Hermione, right? I think someone is like, you should have been in Ravenclaw because you have the brains. And I actually, like you, all, have changed my mind. Well, I understood why she was in Gryffindor, but we've spent some time talking about hats, dolls, right? About Minerva McGonagall, about Hermione, about Harry, about Flitwick, right? But I think the thing that Hermione lacks and why Ravenclaw is not the house for her is something that was brought up in one of the comments from the. The theme we just talked about. But her inability to move outside of her rigidity, I think is the thing that kind of locks her in to not really being a Ravenclaw. Her belief that there is an answer to a thing and not a bevy of answers. One of the biggest pushbacks I've gotten, I posted a video once about, like, how, you know, getting into the Ravenclaw house, you have to, you know, solve the riddle. And I assumed, right, that there was an answer and many Ravenclaws in The comment of that video, in the comments of that video were like, that's not how it works. It's really about how you answer it, not the answer itself. And I think that that would drive Hermione crazy because the way that her intellect is set up is in this very kind of formulaic way, right in the first book. And this is not supposed to be an episode about Hermione. We're going to get to her. But I think that she really exemplified a lot of what people perceive as Ravenclaw ness. And I think it's actually interesting to deconstruct a little bit of why she doesn't fit into the paradigm, right? And Dylan brought a little bit of that to bear. And so I just want to expand on that a bit because when we think about what we saw in Sorcerer, Philosopher Stone when. And this is not in the movies, and I know that for sure, so no one needs to DM me. But when she has to do the potions, right, in the. When they're going down in the kind of maze of different things that they have to do to get to the Sorcerer's Stone and she and Harry are in the room and they have to do the logic test that was basically set up by Snape. And she says, you know, a lot of wizards wouldn't be able to do this because it's, you know, is not magic. But the other thing is about that is that there was a right answer, right? Like there was the rules and the instructions were very clear. And that's where Hermione thrives when you give her something and she can just follow the rules. It's why, again, we've talked about this a little bit, why she doesn't like Divination. And I think that there is a way in which her mind, to the point of Trelawney, right, is not expansive enough. So that when we get to stories like the Deathly Hallows and the Tale of the Three Brothers, and she is not willing to open her mind to really appreciate and allow that to be true for her. And I think that this is really important because I think as we think about what makes a Ravenclaw a Ravenclaw, I think the expansiveness of one's imagination, of one's curiosity, of one's intellect is really what sets them apart because they can kind of see beyond the. What is right and wrong and move into spaces and places that may be in between those things. And that is also how we can imagine. We get the schemers and the scammers in Ravenclaw house, right, is that, you know, there's a way that you can see right and wrong, and then there's a way that you can see possibilities. And I would say if I had to romanticize Gilderoy Lockhart, he's like, I'm a possibilities man. I see someone who has a story that's good, they're not doing it right. I see the possibility of what that story could be, and if it were in my hands, I could make it great. And so now I'm going to. Now, of course, like, we have to get into the minutiae of, like, memories and blah, blah, blah, and I have to move the memories and, like, you know, ruin people's lives. But the story, though, right? Like, there has to be a vision. Barty Crouch Jr. Right? Like, two, be able to have the vision that he did, to be able to both work for Lord Voldemort and go in and impersonate Mad Eye Moody while simultaneously getting revenge on his father. And also, like, exacting his own desire to make sure that no child that he teaches experiences what he experienced in terms of being put under the imperious curse. That is a level of. Of. That's a massive amount of brain power that's being put into something. And I think that, you know, in thinking about the kind of oversimplification of Ravenclaw, which I think is what many of you are pointing to, it speaks to the. I think what we do, when we only couch it in terms of intellect, in terms of academics, is we deny the reality that so many of these individuals are people who have meaningful and expansive brains and who, you know, may be good at school, but that is not the end all. Be all of their. Of their skill set. And I think, again, Hermione offers us the ability to see that for why she's not there. Because I think Hermione's quest, on average, not always, but on average, is to be right. And I'm not convinced that many Ravenclaws are interested in the rightness. They're much more interested in the journey than the destination. They're interested in learning the things that they want to learn on the way than they are at being right. Right. And I think that that's also so fascinating, too, because it makes me think of Snape and it makes me think of, you know, him as this student who is out here, you know, making these potions and changing the rules in order to get to be, you know, to the destination. But he's having fun. He's, like, intrigued at the prospect of not cutting this bean, but rather squeezing it and using the back of the night. Like, there is a creativity that comes along with the focus on the journey and not the destination. That I think is true for many, many, many Ravenclaws. And I think that there are. That's a reason why many people might not have done as well. And there are people who we might have said, oh, that person is a Ravenclaw, or has Ravenclaw attributes. But that's why they weren't in the house. Because for many people there is an investment in being right. And that's not to say that there aren't Ravenclaws who want to be right. I'm sure there are. But I think that there is a much bigger investment in getting in how you get there than just getting there. One of the things that we discussed in the Ravenclaw episode that some of you did not necessarily agree with was that I said that I did not think that J.K. rowling wrote Luna to be seen as a quintessential Ravenclaw, despite the fact that many of you said that she was. And that in fact, even when we broke it out by house, across all the houses, Luna was the character that everyone said perfectly and truly captured what it meant to be a Ravenclaw. And I think that what is true in this moment is that many of us have found a really beautiful and like, meaningful soft spot for Luna, myself included. And I think that we're doing the thing that we do sometimes where we make it the thing we want it to be versus the thing that it actually is. And so some of us in the post episode chat kind of brought this up and I think that this is really important because I think it's going to push us a little bit harder on how we view Ravenclaw House and how we view Luna's place in in it. Icheris says even in the text, Luna does seem to be the quintessential Ravenclaw. Honestly, when it comes to define what defines Ravenclaw, I think that sometimes we get caught up in what the text says about them as opposed to what it shows. The door knocker riddles are fascinating to me, this is conjecture on my end, but it seems like it doesn't tell people that they're right or wrong. Sure, Luna says, says if you get it wrong, you have to wait. But the door knocker never says correct or that's right in the text, the two times we see it, it says nicely phrased and well reasoned. To me, that would suggest that there are multiple correct answers and the door knocker is more focused on the reasoning ability. Luna always has reasons, even if they're wrong. The point is to think, not just to know. In other words, you can never be wrong if you engage thoughtfully. And I think that this is really fascinating to think about in terms of kind of making the case for why Luna fits this house so well. And I also do think as well that, you know, there's another gap to think about, which is what the house was meant to be at its onset. Like when we're talking about Rowena Ravenclaw and the other founders and what they wanted the house to be and what it became. And I think that that's true for all of the houses. Right. I think that one thing that we don't spend a considerable amount of time talking about is the reality that the houses themselves evolve over time based on nothing more than word of mouth, familial connections to the house, and kind of commonly understood stereotypes and perceptions of the houses themselves. And so no, very few people, I should say, not no one, but very few people are coming in with no concept of what it means to be in any of these houses. And so I think that part of what that then means when we think about characters like Luna is that when you hear of things like intelligence and you hear of things like wit, and then you meet a Luna who just thinks outside the box and doesn't necessarily hit the same way that you might want them to for, you know, these other. In these other domains, it feels like she doesn't quite fit the mold. And so maybe what ID Shareese is highlighting for us is the fact that, you know, if. If we take the door and the door knocker as an indicator of what it means to be a Ravenclaw, that Luna fits this fairly well. But other people are less convinced by this. Nadia writes, I don't think Luna is a good Ravenclaw. She is creative and intelligent, but. But if the source of information is her father, she will believe it blindly, regardless the consequences. I don't think this fits with the curious mind we expect from Ravenclaws. I love her character and I don't know where else I would place her. I just don't think she's the best Ravenclaw. And y', all, you know, as my brain is moving, I'm wondering, though, are there more. Are there more Lunas in Ravenclaw than they care to admit? Right. Maybe the perception of the academic success and the intellectual prowess in terms of one schooling is kind of what they want you to understand Ravenclaws as and. But like that there are more Lunas at work here because I'm like, well, you know, I just went on this whole thing about how it's the journey and it's more than just the destination and blah, blah, blah. And like Luna kind of does that. And the reality of it is, right, like that's part of the problem of Ravenclaw House is that sometimes when you go down those rabbit. Rabbit holes, like I said in the reflection, you don't know where you're going to end up. And there are some people who don't care and there are some people who. They're very focused on the end game and Luna is very focused on the journey. But the problem is it's like Luna's focused on the journey and she doesn't have a map. You see what I'm saying? And there's something very beautiful about that in context, where the stakes are low, where it's just like you're aimlessly wandering. I've been running a lot. I'm on vacation right now and I've been running a lot and I've been getting lost because I have a terrible sense of direction. But I can always kind of find my way back. But what I've learned is that I begin to understand where I'm at after my run and after I've gotten lost because I've been paying attention to street signs, I've been paying more attention to landmarks, but I know where my destination is. Like, I know I have to get back to the house that I'm staying in, right? And I know at least in part how to get there. Luna is just a person who strikes me as is she. It's interesting, right? What's the saying is, like, all that wander are not lost. And that strikes me as true for Luna, my personality type. I don't mind getting lost when I have nowhere to be and when I know that there's a way that I can find my way back home. Like if I have to pull out my cell phone and like direct myself, I can. I don't mind wandering around and exploring things as long as I know that I can get back to where I need to be. And that is the thing that I think for some Ravenclaws is that their destination is not fixed. And like I said before, right? When you are kind of wandering or wading through the intellectual waters without an anchor, it can lead you to places and spaces that are interesting but not necessarily good. And I feel like for Luna, that is it. And I think that, you know, depending on how you define Ravenclaw House, some of us may like that, right? Some of us may want to shunt the rigidity that tends to be placed on Ravenclaws and really focus more on the journey itself. That gives me anxiety because I'm a person who needs to. I hate surprises and so I need to know what's going on. But I do think though that there's a way in which Luna kind of embodies some of that particular idea and that expansiveness of Ravenclaw House. But I'm not convinced that like other people in Ravenclaw ascribe to that and Kayla says the fact that she is picked on and made fun of within her own house, I've always had a hard time with Ravenclaw has been the hardest house for me to understand because you're told that they prize uniqueness and curiosity and thinking outside the box. But the one Ravenclaw that you get that does that is a pariah in the house. You could tell that those traits were added after the books were made. And I also think that that feels right to me. And I think that there is a way in which a lot of the houses buy into the hype of the houses. And what is it that Ravenclaws are known for? Intellectual. And so it begins to become a self fulfilling prophecy that you need to be able to be a specific thing. I also wonder, and this just came to me, but I also wonder about the extent to which Luna cost Ravenclaw's points in class because she is in there and she depending on the class, she's in History of Magic just talking and saying what she believes. But if it's not right, if it's false, we can imagine that she might get in trouble, she might lose points, she might cost Ravenclaws and maybe not just reputationally, but in very tangible ways. And so that might also lend itself to the experiences that she has. And I don't agree with the recourse, I don't agree with the bullying, but I'm just trying to think about, you know, how is it that we square, you know, this idea that, you know, she is a quintessential Ravenclaw with the reality that people in her own house don't treat her that way and somehow she is seen as an outsider. I want us to have that conversation in the post episode chat like I want us to talk about that because I think, you know, many of you said that she was a Quintessential Ravenclaw. Why do you think that other Ravenclaws don't feel that way? Have they just like drunk the Ravenclaw Kool Aid? Is it that maybe she's not? Is it that maybe we wish she was? You know what I mean? Like, I have a lot of questions and I hope that you all have answers. You generally do. So I hope you bring them to bear. Jas wrote when they go to Luna's house and she's painted her friends on the ceiling of her bedroom and there's not one Ravenclaw in sight. She's been at Hogwarts for five years at that point and not made a single friend in her own house. Sad face. And the ones she's painted are friends she's only just made in the past couple years. And I think that there's something about this tension that we need. Oh, we need to get into it in the post episode chat. Why is it that Ravenclaw House rejects Luna when you all have said that she's the quintessential Ravenclaw? Is this revisionist history on our part? Like, is there anything canonically that makes us feel other than what was presented to us in terms of the knocker, which could give us a good indication of, you know, the ideal aspect of it in terms of the institution. But socially, it seems like Luna's not really giving Ravenclaw to the Ravenclaws. Why might that be the case? What is she missing? Is it because they've bought into the more rigid, like, perspective on what it means to be Ravenclaw? Anyways, meet me in the post episode chat. We need to have this conversation. One of the things that came up in the conversation on the post episode chat was this relationship between Slytherins and Ravenclaws. Now, as you all know, the next house we're going to be talking about is Slytherin House. If you have not done your Slytherin survey, it is in the Patreon. I will probably post it again as like a last chance to fill it out a little bit later on this week. So you can wait, I guess, if you follow me on social media, I've been posting little snippets of like, what people are saying and you can find it there as well. But you need to fill it out. It's important. People are already ranting and raving and, you know, I'm a Slytherin. Okay. And so many of you brought this up and I thought it was interesting. And so what we're going to do is we're going to kind of I'm going to give you some of the content of what you all put into the chat and then I'm going to give a little mini reflection on the relationship between these two because I felt like it was a good transition, a nice bridge into our conversation about Slytherin house that we will have next week. Dylan wrote, I've always seen Ravenclaw and Slytherin as sister houses. I learning is ambitious, but what separates them is that a good Slytherin would have succeeded. MacKenzie wrote, the trait that both Slytherins and Ravenclaws possess that can lead them to the dark side is definitely ambition. Slytherins seem rooted in personal gain, whereas Ravenclaws are rooted in information. And Kiley wrote, while the text leads us to believe Hufflepuff is Ravenclaw's foil, in reality it is the Slytherin Ravenclaws each are delightfully cunning but with varying motives and outcome desires. Now you all know that I often joke that I am a Slytherin sun, Ravenclaw Moon. There is a like a survey that was done where like a housing quiz thing where it would kind of give you the percentages of your house and I went Slytherin like 70 some odd percent then Ravenclaw, then Hufflepuff than Gryffindor. And so I don't remember the quiz. So I'm so sorry. I'm sure it's somewhere but I don't remember when I took it. This was ages and ages ago. And the more that I think about the relationship between Slytherin and Ravenclaw, the more I see why so many of our Ravenclaws that we are introduced to are schemers and scammers. Because look, the books pretend that these two houses are very different, right? Slytherins, cunning, ambitious, power hungry Ravenclaws are clever and curious and wise. But if you look at who we actually meet, we can see the similarities. They're basically cousins. They go to the same family reunions, they just happen to sit at different tables. They might start at the same place, but the mess, the mess is also the same. Because here's the thing I keep coming back to. Raymond Claus often operate from the assumption that they are the smartest person in the room. That's what you all said, right? That there is this kind of absorption of the idea of intellect and thus like I'm in this house. So if I'm not the smartest person in the room, I'm certainly part of the smartest House in the castle. And they're not wrong. So whenever they plan, whatever plan they come up with right, they believe it's going to work. Whereas Slytherins, they might be the smartest in the room, they might not, but they always know exactly where they stand in the room's hierarchy. There's a perception, I believe, about Slytherins. We are very observant and we know how to use our perceptions and our observations to our advantage. We play the game in real time. So a Ravenclaw will launch something because it's logical and elegant, with the perception and question of, like, how could it fail? But a Slytherin is making sure that by the time they launch, there is no way that it can fail. Or at least if they do, no one can prove that it was them. There is a way within the intellectual space, the academic space of the scientific method, of you ask your question, you have your hypotheses, you run your test, and you see what happens. I think that if we take this as an example, I think that most Ravenclaws are less interested in the answer and more interested in how you set everything up. And you don't really care about the outcome, because no matter what, it's interesting. And one of the things that I've learned after being in academia for quite a while at this point is that the best questions are the ones where your answer, even if whatever intervention you've put in doesn't work, the answer is still interesting. And so I often try to find questions and use questions that do that. I think that Slytherins are like, no, no, no, I actually want to be correct. And we've lived in this moment now where lots of people are cooking the books in terms of their experiments. We're seeing this a lot in hard sciences, where it's coming out that scholars are changing things and doing things. And I'm like, that's Slytherin behavior. Because they're like, actually, no, I don't care about the journey. I care about the rightness, because the rightness will then yield me being able to have opportunities, it might yield me getting a good publication that people will look at and want to hire me for things. And so we can see that, like, in this kind of similarity space that they're in, where their focus is, where we might see divergence. That's why I think, like, Lockhart is a peak Ravenclaw scammer. The whole scheme, the most harebrained nonsense I've ever seen. And yet it lasts longer than it has any right to because people assume, well, he's smart. He's a Ravenclaw. It must be true. And more than that, right? And we talked a little bit about this in the chronic Overthinkers discussion on Ravenclaws. But charisma and wit and navigating people is a really, really good skill. And while Lockhart is stupid in that he thinks that he is the smartest person in the room and that no one can see through his facade, right? Like, that's his Achilles heel, it's not that he's not smart. It's that he is so stupid in his belief that he is the smartest person person. And so he just rides the wave of people's assumptions about him. A Slytherin Lockhart would have made sure the COVID stories had layers and escape plan, and he would have had an amazing PR team. There would have been no question, right? Those people who he stole those stories from, we would have never heard from them again. And if I was him, I would have literally been like, the people who I put in jail or whatever I did, they're telling the story about how I did it. You know what I mean? I'm going through and through because I think at the end of the day, ambition and the theater of it all is what kind of makes it work for Slytherins. And here's where the overlap starts to get a little spicy. Because Ravenclaw, ambition is about mastery, about solving the puzzle and perfecting the theory and getting the idea right? But Slytherin, ambition, it's about mastery and making sure that everyone knows you mastered it. They want their name engraved on a plaque in a hallway and the lips and their name on everyone's lips. And I think we were talking about this in the Chronic Overthinkers episode. For those of you who watch Game of Thrones, you'll remember Lady Elaena saying to Jamie Lannister, tell Cersei it was me. Like, I want her to know that I killed her kid. And that's so Slytherin, right? Like, there's no question about, like, who was. Who orchestrated this? She's like, no, no, no, no, no. I want her to know that it was me. And I think that that really matters because I think that a lot of the methodology and the directionality of what Slytherins and Ravenclaws do is similar. But the desire to be seen and acknowledged for the outcome is where we see some differences. Ravenclaws are often believable because they're smart. And so, of course, they're telling the truth, right? Like, that's the presumption, especially out in the world. And we know that houses matter out in the world, right? Like, you've given these kids basically seven years of their formative years forming an identity around this thing. It's gonna matter when you leave Hogwarts. And Slytherins, on the other hand, will dazzle you so hard with the performance that you forget to check the premise, even if it makes sense. It's exclusivity and drama and symbolism. And you're so caught up in the show that by the time you think, wait a minute, it's already over. Both houses can be brilliant and dangerous, but they can both be messy. And I think the person who best conjures this idea of the messiness of it all is Voldemort. Because, yes, like, canonically, he is a Slytherin, obviously. But tell me that this man does not have a Ravenclaw moon. From the time he was a kid, he was obsessed with death, and not just avoiding it, but defeating it in the most magically sophisticated, mathematically perfect way possible. Seven Horcruxes. Seven? Why? Because seven is the most magically powerful number. That's not casual. This is an academic exercise. The amount of research that you had to figure out in order to do this, right? He enjoyed the journey, right? When we think about the cave and the locket, it's not just that he, like, hid the locket. There's a boat, there's a blood ritual, there's a lake full of bodies. Like, that's not security. That is a production. It's the same thing with the Chamber of Secrets, right? Not just a room where you're taking down your Slytherin students to teach them your secret magic. But you've got to speak Parseltongue and you have to get a primordial pet. Like, really, that's what you're doing. And so, in many ways, right, like, we can see the connection. I think the difference between Slytherins and Ravenclaws, it's all in the show, it's all in the drama, it's all in the execution. And I think that the other thing that, as we begin to think about our Slytherins and Slytherin house, the overconfidence that Slytherins have, I think, is where we also see a big difference. Both houses are prone to it, though. And they both think that their plan is too perfect to fail until it does. And it tells us that the border between Ravenclaw and Slytherin is fuzzy because they both value cleverness and strategy and the long game. And they can both innovate in ways that make other houses look like they're playing checkers while they're playing magical chess. Right? Wizards chess. Magical chess. Wizards chess. And both can absolutely self destruct if they lose sight of the reality in favor of what it is that they're hoping to accomplish. The difference though, and I think that this is really important, the difference is motivation. Ravenclaws chase the satisfaction of solving a problem while Slytherins chase the advantage of solving the problem. Right. Like if I know how to solve the problem, I'm better than you versus I'm interested in figuring out what the problem is. They are already thinking about the finish line while Ravenclaws are thinking about the root. And sometimes you get both in the same person. And so that's why I've been thinking like, well, maybe, maybe I've been a big time slitherclaw this whole time. So here's the question that I want us to think about as we leave Ravenclaw House and we move into the Chamber of Secrets. Is your ambition about the process or about the performance? Because if curiosity can morph into ambition and ambition can thrive on curiosity, then maybe these houses aren't as far apart as they like to pretend they are. And in the next episode we're going to see what it looks like when a house takes ambition, cranks it up to 11, and builds an entire identity around it. So get ready because I'm excited for this and you need to fill out those surveys, friends, because it's going to be a ride. 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 where pods are cast again. I'm going to keep reminding you because you cannot forget to fill out the Slytherin survey. You can find it on our website, criticalmagic theory.com on Patreon patreon.com criticalmagictheory. You can find it on social media, Prof. W on TikTok, Prof. JW on Instagram. If you want to join as a paid subscriber, there are many options for you on our Patreon. There are post episode chat that you can join in on. Y', all, it's all there for you. Okay? I cannot wait for our post episode chat here. Don't forget we have some things that we need to talk about. And again, this is my last reminder. The Slytherin survey is there for you. Please feel free to share it with your friends. Y', all, I can't wait to hear what you think. Until then, be critical and stay magical, my friends. Bye.
