Professor Julian Womble (0:01)

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 we are doing our Prof. Response episode on Hufflepuff House. Y' all, listen to me, listen to me. There was a battle raging in the post episode chat about Hufflepuff's, what it meant to be a Hufflepuff, how we understand the notions of loyalty. It was a lot and I loved it and you knew that I would. I also realized and many of you brought to my attention the fact that we left out one very pivotal Hufflepuff character in these books, Nymphador Tonks. And I want to begin by apologizing and saying yes. I realize that that was a mistake that I made and has been rectified. In this episode we will be spending some time talking about Yalls favorite and so get off my back. Okay, everyone relax, okay? You were really out there making sure that I knew and now I know. And so now we're going to ensure that she is someone that we discuss and so worry not, be not concerned. But what you do need to be concerned about is the bop because it's coming to us. It's coming to us soon. I'm vamping right now because I want to make sure that you all have time to get yourselves ready for the bob because sometimes you're still stretching. But you have three, two, one. Let's pop. We need to talk about Harry Potter. I hope you danced, y'. All. You already know how this goes. We're diving right in. But I do want to take a quick moment to thank those of you who participated in the post episode chat for the Hufflepuff episode. I didn't quite know how these House episodes were going to go and so I'm really happy that you all are enjoying them and really diving in and really going on this journey with me. I'm glad that you all liked the kind of inter house statistical breakdown. I'm going to get better at it, I promise. It's going to be. The Ravenclaw episode is going to be much smoother. Sometimes you have to learn your lessons, okay? And I learned it, so don't worry about that. It's going to be fine. But as you know, we dive right in. So we're diving right into this theme that came up a lot in the post episode chat for many of you, which is how do we understand, reconcile and deal with the fact that Some of the traits that are associated with Hufflepuff loyalty, fairness can easily go bad. Several of you wrestled with the idea of how the very traits that define Hufflepuff loyalty, fairness, patience, hard work can quietly enable harm, especially, especially when left unexamined or unquestioned. Rather than being universally virtuous, these traits have breaking points and darker counterpoints. And so I spent a little time talking about what it would mean to be a dark Hufflepuff. But I want us to think a little bit harder about kind of how it is that we understand some of these things. Right. Eric wrote, loyalty can be misplaced. Fairness is not the same as equality or equity. Hard workers, especially when surrounded by other hard workers, have a tendency to look down on people who don't put the same effort in as lazy and I imagine could be workaholics. I think this is important, right, Because I think, and it makes sense as to why we're doing this, but I think that we approach some of this with the perspective of our own, again, idealized understandings of some of these things. And I feel like sometimes it does not necessarily give us the tools we need to deconstruct in a way that I think is helpful or meaningful. And I also think that there are. And so this is an invitation for us to kind of think about how this could go awry. And we did a little bit of this work when I talked about Luna in her episode Many Many Moons Ago. Luna and Moon. That's funny. And it wasn't intentional. My brain just works that way. But I think that we talked a little bit about, you know, how her free spirit and her creativity and curiosity is a wonderful thing, but it can also be costly because it can also lead her down paths that are problematic because she then believes things that are actively not true. Right. And so we go from a place of, like, curiosity into. Into another place of conspiracy theories. And I think that that's true for all the houses and the traits they're in, where we have individuals who, you know, might embody these things in the way that we kind of perceive them. But at the same time, there are ways that, you know, there are downsides to being loyal or being fair. Right. And Pezi highlights this writing. A Hufflepuff might stay in an abusive situation out of a misplaced sense of duty. Their desire to create harmony and avoid conflict can lead them to suppress their own needs, slowly eroding their mental health and self worth. This is really, really important because when we think of loyalty, it's not Only just the like, loyal to whom or loyal to what. It is also the idea of being loyal to something that is bad for you. And there are a lot of people who have loyalty, even outside of interpersonal dynamics, right, where your loyalty can cost you something. I mean, we've all. Well, I'll say all, but maybe some of us haven't. But we've all been in relationships, whether it be romantic, whether it be friendship, whether it be professional. Professional. Whether it be professional that we. Where we are either giving up too much, we are hoping that the person who is on the other end of this relationship will somehow see the light and change their ways. And so we stick around and we wait for them to do that. And sometimes that is a friend of yours who has been your friend for a very long time, and you all are in different places in your life and then you're waiting for them to change because you want to stay their friend, because you feel guilty, right? Because that's the thing about loyalty, right? Like, it also engenders a sense of guilt. It engenders this idea of needing to stay dedicated to something and sometimes it's dead weight and you have to trim it. And I think that that's a really hard part because when we think about the idealized version of loyalty, we don't necessarily think about that. Sometimes you have to be loyal to yourself, and being loyal to someone or something else can sometimes cost you that. And I think that it's interesting because I think that, you know, Narcissa kind of brings this to bear for us a little bit, right, because she has a loyalty to Voldemort, but it has limits, it has bounds. Even Bellatrix's loyalty has bounds, right? Like she does not completely castigate Narcissa when Narcissa is basically undermining Voldemort. And I think that part of the reason why that's the case is because she's like, listen, there are bounds to loyalty and there are other kinds of loyalty, right? Like loyalty to family. Something that both Narcissa and Bellatrix exhibit a lot. And we see that it stands in the face of their loyalty to Voldemort time and time again in really interesting and meaningful ways. And so I think we have to think about the absolutism of loyalty and question whether or not it's applicable and whether or not it's a good thing. Michelle wrote, One trait I forgot about, Hufflepuffs, is that they are patient. And that can be scary. If a friend of theirs was innocent and got hurt, the Puff could see justice and lay out a revenge plan that might take a while to pay off. And I think that this is the other thing, right. In some ways embedded in Michelle's comment is not only just the notion of patience, but also the idea of what it actually means to kind of be someone who might exact revenge in a very specific way. And I feel like I went because I was looking at the post episode chat and Britt wrote something about the notion of honey badgers. And so I was like, oh, you know what I didn't do? And I think I'll do this for the other episodes, but I'm making amends now. For the Hufflepuff episode, I went and looked up badgers. And the Internet tells us that badgers are known for their strength, their tenacity, and their prowess, that they are surprisingly tidy, resourceful, but they can be fearless when defending their territory. And I think that this is something that we don't necessarily always take into account, which is the reality of, like, oh, no, but like, Hufflepuffs can be relentless and that they can be. And we saw a little bit of that in Goblet of Fire, right when we looked at the way that they were kind of coming to protect Cedric and defend him and be upset about the fact that Harry had gotten his name in the Goblet of Fire and became a champion. And so we can see some of that. And I think that what is terrifying about this notion of patience is that, you know, the worst villains and the worst kind of people who are exacting revenge are the ones who wait. It makes me think of, like, Count of Monte Cristo, like Edmond Dantes waited for a very long time to exact his revenge and put together a really good plan. And. And I could see some Hufflepuffs putting that together. Now, this is also a comment that I wanted us to get into because it also gets into the notion of the traits and how we understand who Hufflepuffs are. And it comes from Kmetzful, who wrote, I think, a good adjective to describe Hufflepuff that builds off of loyalty would be traditional. And isn't that just a loaded term these days? I can clearly see someone like Ernie saying, well, this is how it's always been done. And. And letting that thinking carry them through some truly ridiculous and harmful actions. And so, like, when we try to put these things together right, like, what these quotes and comments highlight is that Hufflepuff's commitment to doing the right thing isn't always actually right. And that loyalty, without reflection and fairness without justice, and all of these things without questioning can turn into a vice more than a virtue. And it's not about, you know, villainizing Hufflepuffs, but really kind of creating a level of nuance that we like to get into on this podcast and thinking about what does it mean to be loyal, like when your calling card is loyalty, which again, is something that can be easily warped and twisted and flipped and dipped and tossed up. And you get it that I think it's important for us to really think about this. And I, and I want us to spend a little time thinking about this notion of traditionalism, because I think that this is something that came up in the conversation that I had with the chronic overthinkers a few weeks ago about ravenclaws. And so you'll hear some of their thoughts in the ravenclaw episode. But that's not what we're talking about right now. Speaking of Ravenclaws, don't forget to do the survey, if you haven't already. But back to your regular, regularly scheduled program. I think one of the things, one of the questions was how can you operate as a harbinger of justice in a unjust and prejudicial system? And we're going to get into that. But I want to talk a little bit about that here, because when we think about the notions of loyalty, again, I want us to bring up the fact that sometimes we are loyal to systems and structures without even realizing that we are. Sometimes these things are socialized and we have a very particular kind of understanding of them. And it isn't until those, until certain things are brought to light. I think that, you know, I think a lot about patriotism. And I think that when we think about the notion of patriotism and being loyal to our respective countries or lands of origin or whatever, right? Like sometimes, especially as kids, it's absolute. And we are loyal no matter what because we really don't know any better. And it's upon learning more about the places that we live, how government works, and all of these things that we really begin to start to question and shift. And there may. And that doesn't necessarily mean that loyalty goes away completely. This is not a zero sum game. But it does mean that there are ways that we have to think about what is it that we are loyal to? Are we loyal to the system as is or the system as we want it to be? And how do we mind that gap? And I think that when we think about Hufflepuffs and we think about the notions of traditionalism. And we think about, you know, being in abusive situations, right? Like sometimes when we are in situations that feel very normal and we are not invited to question what it is that makes us feel good about the situation that we're in, bad, it can really undermine the good parts of the trait. And so, you know, when we think about the magical world and we've spent a lot of time talking about this and the fact that it upholds, you know, pure blood supremacy and all of these things, if we take the idea of traditionalism as a way to think about Hufflepuffs, which I don't think is off the mark. And in fact, I would argue that traditionalism is probably part of. And the notion of being loyal to the system is something that we see across all the houses because I think that that's what is fostered in the magical world is this idea of being loyal to the world that you live in. And I think that that extends beyond Hufflepuffs. But I think we have to think about when you're loyal to a system because you've not been kind of conditioned to be crit of that system, is your loyalty a good thing or is it costing you? Is that the abusive relationship that you might be in? Right. And I'm sure that some of us would say, like many of us feel like we're in an abusive relationship with our respective countries right now for one reason or another. And I think that there are ways that we have to think about, you know, what does that mean? What does that look like? And how do we reconcile that with our understanding of loyalty and fairness as we think about what it means to be a Hufflepuff Us. The next theme that I want to talk about is one that I think is a continuation of this question of loyalty and how we understand it, but particularly, particularly in relation to broader justice. Many of you question whether Hufflepuff's devotion to community prioritized who is served over what and whether or not that is something that alters their kind of fundamental morality. Right? Like, is their morality conditioned on who they're being loyal to? Rachel wrote, we see loyalty to Hufflepuff House trumped loyalty to Hogwarts when the students supported Cedric instead of him and Harry. Are Hufflepuffs pushing back on the system? And then Rachel P. This is important because we have many Rachels. Hello, all the Rachels. Rachel P. Wrote, Pups will save their besties and not care about strangers. Gryffindors will try and save everyone because it's the Right thing to do. And I think that that distinction is super important. Now this is where we get into it, right? Because this explores the notion of loyalty and fairness and how they're not inherently moral because we don't necessarily have their direction. Right. And so both of these comments, I guess they both are Rachel's. I didn't even realize that when I said that out loud. But both Rachel's challenge us to think about loyal to whom. And. And then Sarah Marie had a comment that I also thought was really good because it's about Luna, but it discusses the notion of like, selective loyalty. Right. And Sarah wrote, you asked why Luna? Why Luna was someone that the Gryffindors, you know, of the survey said was most like Hufflepuff. And Sarah wrote, I pictured who is the most loyal. And she's the kind of loyal that calls in her friends. And I think that this is really important because it's again, kind of bringing us back to the question of loyal to whom. And how is it that we understand what loyalty means in the context of, you know, certain, of certain contexts, right? Like, Rachel P. Highlights the reality of like, oh, I'm loyal to you, but not to you. And have you all ever been in a situation where it's like, you're dealing with like, your friend and your friend might have done something messy and to someone else that is a third party person that you may or may not know, and you're talking to them and you're giving them feedback and you respond like, no, no, no, I don't care about them. Like, I'm loyal to you even if your friend is being messy and not right. And I think that that's what these comments are inviting us to think about, right? Because sometimes, right, like, we allow people in our orbit to get away with things and we call that loyalty because it's like, oh, no, I love you. And I think that one thing that Sarah's comment about Luna brings up is that in some ways Luna doesn't do this, right? Like she calls, she will say she calls Enron, but she is someone who's very clear about saying, like, no, what? That, that wasn't good. Like, that was bad what you said. That wasn't very nice. And I think that that is a really interesting thing because we then see people like Hermione kind of being like, oh, well, you know, I'm loyal to the da so whatever happens to Marietta Edgecombe is not my business. And we, and, and what's more, and this is really funny, so. And I'VE made this joke before, but I posted something on social media about Hermione once and someone wrote, I support her rights and, and her wrongs. And whenever I bring up the fact that Hermione, like, put Rita Skeeter in a jar, people are like, she deserved it. And many of you have said this to me. And so that when we think about the notion of what is right and wrong and the idea that we expect Hufflepups to then do what's right no matter what, are we holding them to a standard that we don't hold ourselves? Because I guarantee you, when we get to the Hermione Jean Granger episode and I bring up Rita Skeeter, Mary to Edgecomb, like any of the other women, girls and some of the men, sometimes that she's done wrong, many of you will stand there and be like, they all deserved it. Our queen is a queen and she can never do anything wrong. And so why then would we look at Hufflepuffs and give them such a high bar to clear? And how then do we reconcile the idea of doing what is right, what is fair, what is just in context where we are bending the rules left and right, depending on who the person is, how much we have an affinity for them, towards them, how much we see ourselves in their actions. And I'm not saying that we need to operate with the level of such a high level of absolutism when it comes to the notions of justice and loyalty, but that's the bar that it seems that we are holding Hufflepuffs to. And I have questions about, and some of you may say, well, I'm not a Hufflepuff, so it doesn't matter. And isn't that just proving the point? Isn't that doing the exact thing? I think it's fascinating the way that we are willing to kind of think about notions of fairness and justice and not necessarily consider all of the conditions that we set for our understanding of those things. Right? You know, the notion of an eye for an eye seemingly is one that is just right. You do this to me, I do that to you. But then we also live in a world where it's like, well, two wrongs don't make a right. And so how do we reconcile the idea of fairness and justice when we have been conditioned in so many different ways to really contextualize the idea of those things, right? And really kind of give ourselves outs in certain context, right? To say, well, I'm not loyal to that person, I'm loyal to you. Like, I'VE had people, I've heard people say, you know, well, you know, if that person is flirting with you and they're in a bad relationship, then, like, it's not your fault. Because, like, they're the ones who are in the committed relationship, not you. That sounds like some warped stuff to me, friends. It doesn't. And people feel like that is just like that is truth. And so that when we think about the notions of loyalty and what it means, I want us to really kind of get a sense of the nuance and the trickiness of the idea. Because as we approach each of these houses, I want us to really unpack what it means to be that thing, what it means to be loyal, what it means to be intelligent or witty or wise, what it means to be ambitious, what it means to be brave. Like, I want us to really dive into those things because I think that as children we really are invited to think of them in these very kind of inherently positive ways. Except for Slytherins, because ambition is bad. You heard it here first. But what you all are bringing to bear in this conversation and in the post episode chat is that there are ways that these things can be bad and all. And what I love about that is that it really does shine a light on who Hufflepuffs can be and who some of them are and the way that we have kind of romanticized them without really taking into account some of the more negative aspects that we are that we would undoubtedly see because we exhibit them all the time. There's no reason for us to believe that Hufflepuffs would be, you know, these kind of bastions of goodness. And that would be so boring. And I just don't think that that's who they are. I think that they are people who can be messy and can have kind of selective loyalty. And again, part of the reason why that's the case is because we're in a system that kind of incentivizes selective fairness and selective justice. And I think it would be a very tall order for us to expect that. We would expect that Hufflepuffs would inherently recognize injustice when they saw it. And this came up in the post episode chat as well as a comment that someone made. I want to say that it was actually kmet's full again, but this was a comment that was on Spotify, don't forget that you can do that. But. And it was about Spew and a question of whether or not they would be like, whether or not Hufflepuffs would be supportive of Spew. And many of us brought up the idea that they love animals and all of these things. And the point that was made was that if we allow for us to understand the notion of traditionalism as part of loyalty, a loyalty to what exists already, that Hufflepuffs would not be pro s p e w And Cassidy saw this comment and then came to the post episode chat and disputed it and said that Hufflepuff House is about inclusion, allowing yourself and others to grow and settle into our true selves. We're talking about taking off the armor that we've put on to defend ourselves against the world and settling in for a cup of tea and a long awaited rest. Ingrained in that is the idea of change and movement throughout our lives. So I hard disagree that Hufflepuffs would be anti s p e w in fact we'd be organizing cocktail hours. So this is a really fascinating thing to think about, right? Especially when we think about the notion of kind of selective justice, conditional morality, and the way in which like we change the rules depending on the context. Here's the thing though, and we're going to talk about this a little bit in this kind of mini reflection that I'm going to give at the end of the episode. I think that this is one of those things where it's like we it could be that upon learning about what's happened to house elves that people would be outraged. But here's the thing. The reason why Hermione is outraged is because she grew up in a world where the understanding of enslavement is very particular and very specific. And so that's the work that she's doing. When the system that you are in is one that does not necessarily dictate that as wrong, the notion of enslavement as incorrect. It stands to reason then that perhaps your perspective would be wrong, would be different. And in fact someone else brought up in the comments, I'm surprised we didn't talk about Hagrid because he loves animals. And I think that this is a really interesting thing because Hagrid in theory should have supported spew, right? Because he is someone who loves animals and cares a lot about these things and making sure that people who are or creatures that are treated negatively get their rightful due. And yet when Hermione comes to him with Spew, he responds with you would be doing them a disservice. And so here in this place where Hagrid, who I think has a lot of ways of like Hufflepuffian characteristics, is not pro s p Ew. On the grounds that it would be unfair to the house elves. Like, which feels very Hufflepuffian to me. Right? Because the notion of it is. Hey, no, actually that would be unfair to them because the system is created in a very specific way. So again, it begs a larger question of how can we have justice and fairness in a system where neither one of those things is at the forefront of the kind of convention that is the political system and the social structure of the wizarding world. And so when we think about how Hufflepuffs would engage with the idea of spew, I think we have to then tackle the question of, you know, would they recognize the enslavement of house elves who are for all intents and purposes, quote, unquote, happy? I'm doing air quotes right now. How would. Would they see it as an injustice? Would they see it as not fair? Because Hermione's bringing a very particular context, a very particular moral conditioning that people in the magical world don't have. And so then how do we reconcile that particular idea? And then when we look at someone like Hagrid who would in theory be on her side and she went to him under the auspices that he would be, only to find that he's not, and it's not because he's like pro enslavement, but rather because he believes it is unfair to those individuals, to those creatures, he says, you would be doing them a disservice. How do we reconcile that? How do we think about what that means and understand justice in such a very specific way? Oof, that one got me. That one got me, y'. All. I really hope we can talk about this in the post episode chat. I know we probably will because people are gonna have thoughts and I'm excited to hear them because how do we reconcile this and what does it mean for our expectations for Hufflepuffs? Because yeah, they're, you know, people who are about loyalty and they are about fairness, but they are also just citizens of a world. They are people who are learning in the same way that anybody else in the world is. And so is it fair for us to have these expectations of them? And how realistic is that? The next theme that came up for us was a question about this perceived harmlessness of Hufflepuffs. Right? Many of you reflected on the idea that there is this notion that they are the kind of soft, cuddly teddy bears of Hogwarts. And again, referencing back to kind of Britt's comment in the post episode chat. And also my own little research on badgers. Nothing about them is cuddly. And I think that in the kind of revisionist notion that we have of the houses, we tend to kind of ascribe this to them in ways that I don't think is actually warranted. And. And so I'm excited that you all brought this to bear because I think it really will shine a light on some of the things. Right. Eric wrote, my flabbers were appropriately gassed in this episode. I have been racking my brain for the past few days to come up with an example of of it, but I can't think of a single time the hat says these are the guys that make responsible moral choices. I guess I had always assumed it was Hufflepuff's because it definitely isn't Slytherin or Gryffindors. And it's very easy to see how an intellectual Ravenclaw could justify all sorts of disgusting things. And we've talked about many of them. It's true that we don't see any outright evil Hufflepuffs, but Ernie and Justin certainly come off as pompous twits and Zachariah Smith is a coward and a snob. And I think. And so then with this I went back and I looked to see and listened to. I found this video of someone who's singing all of the Hogwarts Hat songs, the Sorting Hat songs. And then I look and it turns out that I went to college with this person. Plot twist. Wasn't ready. Surprises abound. Anyways, that's not the point. Just a little piece of kismet. Anyways, what is interesting about this, right, is that Eric is right, right? The Sorting Hat songs. And someone else brought this up in the post episode chat and I can't remember who, but someone else brought up the idea that the Sorting Hat never actually says any of this. Kind of very nice pieces of what it is to be a Hufflepuff. Right? Loyal, just hard working. We get the sense that Helga Hufflepuff was like, I'll teach everyone and treat them all the same. And maybe so we've been able to glean from these things something, but none of it suggests anything other than these are people who are ideal students in that they, you know, work hard and care about one another and believe in fairness. But as we've discussed, we've discussed loyalty and fairness ad nauseam, so we can see how those things can be kind of messed up. And working hard doesn't always mean working smart. It also doesn't always mean working for the right thing and taking all the students and teaching them all the same is a beautiful sentiment. And I think, you know, maybe it's from there that we, we derive these, this sense of things. But I do think that we kind of have romanticized the notion of Hufflepuffs. Cassie wrote, I do believe that Hufflepuffs are some of the hardest working and most open minded. They just get a bad rap. While they are kind, they can still be absolutely ruthless when the need arises. And I think that this is the part of it that we're not discussing. We're not discussing the ruthlessness and we need to discuss the ruthlessness because again, as I said in the last episode, right, like Hufflepuffs are people. And I think that that's really important for us to remember. And we see some of that ruthlessness again. And Sarah H. Brings it up writing, no beef with puffs disclaimer. But I think that people misunderstand the House in the sense that we praise them for their morality and kindness, et cetera. But they went in with many ends on Harry and Goblet of Fire. A school wide bullying campaign is not proportional to me. And not only that, right. They did this in concert with Slytherins, the house that we would be the quickest to say is the problem. And I know that many of us have issues with the kind of Hufflepuff Slytherin best friend dynamic that is kind of going out into the ether and I'm not even going to touch that. What I will say though is that it is fascinating that we see them working together in this way when it seems to me, you know, based on the data that we had before, right, that Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs are much more aligned. But it's not those groups that do this. It is Slytherins and Hufflepuffs. And I think there's something about that that makes sense and that we need to consider. And it's. And even Cedric says to Harry, I've asked them to not wear the badges, right. Like he is recognizing in his own house the messiness of it all and asking them to not be messy. And I think I understand the impulse to kind of rebuild Hufflepuff House in the image of what we want it to be because it very rarely gets justice, it very rarely gets anything from the author of this text. It very rarely gets the praise that it is due. And so by virtue of making it a house that is seemingly infallible, it justifies why people who are in Hufflepuff House and proud of it. It justifies that. But I also think it does a disservice to those people, and I think it does a disservice to the house because I think it also takes away some of the more interesting. This Hufflepuff House is incredibly interesting because it invites us to really have to grapple with our own morality and our own understanding of things like justice and fairness and kindness and hard work, which are all things that, like, we are taught as people in our own real world society to prize. And yet, at the same time, what we're able to see is that any of those things could be shifted, twisted, flipped, and dipped and we could be on the wrong side of things. Right? And I think that, you know, in a perfect world, we would have had more time with the Hufflepuffs, but I do think that we, the Hufflepuffs that we do get saves Cedric, give us a sense of what it means to be in this house. And I think that we've just not. We don't want that to be the picture because we don't want that to be the thing that people walk away with. And I understand that. But I also think that we're doing a bit of ourselves, a bit of a disjustice, an injustice in allowing that to be the perspective that we take. And so I love the idea of pushing ourselves to see the mess, to see the madness, to see the mayhem in all of these houses, because I think in other houses, it's much clearer. And admittedly, until these two episodes, I had not really thought about some of these things as it pertained to Hufflepuff House. But I do think that there is something to be said about what we are given in the text and how it really does highlight a lot of really meaningful things for who these individuals are. And I listen. I invite the Hufflepuffs who listen. Be messier. Be like a badger. Go for it. But we're about to talk about a Hufflepuff who is, well, not that messy, but somewhat messy. We're going to talk about Tonks now. As I said before, many of you were not pleased about the omission of tongs in the episode. That was not intentional. Admittedly, many of you didn't necessarily bring her up, and so I didn't flag it, but now you did, and so now I am. And Miroslava just wrote, we're forgetting tonks. And we love that. Just a reminder of what's happening. And Girl Blue wrote, she. She being Tonks definitely fits many of the Hufflepuff's traits and values. We also see what happens when those attributes lead her down a dark place in Half Blood Prince. And I love that. I love this because, again, I think that that's what makes Tonks such a compelling and human character, is that her loyalty to the Order, her loyalty to Remus, it all comes at a price when the things don't necessarily go the way that we want them to. We're going to talk about the. That a little bit in the. In the reflection, Emma wrote, Tonks and Hannah Abbott are Hufflepuffs as well. For me, something about Hufflepuff in the not afraid to be human category is the inherent braveness of Hufflepuff to be authentic and to be themselves and are at least. And are the least conformist. I think that that's really fascinating, right, because we do see. We do see, especially when we first meet Tonks. In Order of the Phoenix. She is living her best. She is. The hair is pink, the nose is nosing. It's doing whatever she wants it to do. And then we see a shift a bit in Half Blood Prince and she's not herself anymore. And so, again, we get to see the downside of this and also, you know, potentially the cost of being Hufflepuff. And. And what that means when you are in a situation where the things that you are loyal to are not reciprocating what you're offering. And I think that Tonks kind of embodies the kind of messy humanness of that that I think really does define Hufflepuffs. Right? She is fierce, she's emotionally complex and unconcerned with fitting into the rigid ideals. And it's fascinating, too, because, like, when you think about the fact that her mother is Andromeda Black, who obviously jettisoned her family because she fell in love. But some of those things are hard to shake, right? We even see Sirius struggling with his own socialization. So we can imagine Tonks living and growing up in a family where, yes, there was a lot of love. We can see that. But also, we can imagine that there was probably some rigidity. There was probably. Because what else is Andromeda gonna do? Like, what else is she going to know? And Ted Tonks has no frame of reference. He's a Muggle born, right? And so we can imagine a context in which Tonks grew up in a space that was not nearly as rigid as the Black household, but that there was kind of rules and regulations, and she operates from A space of doing her own thing. And that level of authenticity is beautiful. And I think that that's what Hufflepuff House invites, right? It invites you to be authentically yourself and invites you to truly kind of come as you are and grow into who you either want to be, who you hope to be, or who you simply become by virtue of just being in the space. And I think Tonks offers us that, but at the same time, she offers us the ability to see what happens when that journey becomes defined by externalities, what happens when you've allowed an individual or an institution or a system to dictate how you understand who you are and how your abandonment of self leads you to make particular kinds of choices for your own life. And sometimes those choices are not on purpose. Sometimes those choices are the byproduct of just the reality of what it means to be in relationship with someone or a desire to be in a relationship with someone, or when the things that you're offering are not being given back to you in the same way. And things shift. And I think that. You know what? And shifting is interesting when we think about the fact that she's a metamorpho. Shoot. I was gonna blend it with Animagi. No, that's not right. But you know what I'm talking about. But I think it's fascinating to think about, right? Like, the way that the essence of who she is. Right. Shifts and changes, and we see this in her magic. But I think that Tonks also does offer us the ability to understand the kind of humanity of Hufflepuffs and both the highs and lows of what it means to occupy the space as someone who does believe in authenticity and who does believe in justice. Right? She's an Auror. She is someone who fights dark wizards, and we see someone who. She's also someone who makes, like, the ultimate sacrifice for what she believes and hopes that the world that she leaves behind is one that will represent more of what she believes. And I think at the end of the day, like, I can understand why you all were not pleased that I excluded her, which was accidental, but I do think that she does embody a lot of the way that we understand who Hufflepuffs are. We've now reached the point in the episode where I want to reflect on something that's a little bit heavier, but something that I think sits at the core of not just our conversation about Hufflepuffs, but about the series as a whole. And it's a question that I think we're going to have to grapple with for all the houses. And so I want to introduce it now. How can one be just or fair in a system that is inherently unjust and prejudicial? Because, listen, loyalty, fairness, kindness, those are beautiful values. And they can come up again and again in how we talk about Hufflepuffs. And what we want to believe is that those values, when strongly held, will lead someone to do the right thing. But again, what if they don't? What if those values, when filtered through fear or power or privilege, actually help keep the system intact? Because justice is not some objective, immovable truth, right? It's shaped by who we are and what we believe and how we're taught, conditioned and socialized to see the world. And sometimes the thing you believe is fair is actually just what's familiar. And so what I want us to think about, and when we think about that question, how to be just in an unjust system, I want us to think about kind of the juxtaposition of an Ernie McMillan and Tonks, right? Two Hufflepuffs, two very different lived experiences. Now, I want to highlight the reality that I know that Ernie is a child and Tonks is not. But let's suspend that for a second and really get down to the nitty gritty of how we understand who they are as Hufflepuff people. When Ernie says to Harry, after Justin has been hiding and Harry sees him, he says, my blood is pure in Chamber of Secrets, and we could read that as fear, but I also think it's something more nuanced, something deeper. Right? He's not pushing against what's happened. He's clarifying that the rules of the petrification that's been going on in the castle, that whatever the Heir of Slytherin is up to, they don't apply to him. He's saying, I know what's going on here, and I'm not the kind of person that is supposed to get hurt here. I'm pure blood. You're getting Muggle Borns. That's not my business. And that is such a crazy amount of privilege to give voice to, even at that age. That's the understanding of conditional fairness and conditional justice. Right? And what's worse is that this happened to his housemate, Justin Finch Fletchley, and he's the one hiding. One Hufflepuff is hiding from violence, and the other one is aligning with a logic that not only justifies what's happening to Justin. Justin, but also protects Ernie. Right? Like, that's not Community. And that is not loyalty. That is someone who is leveraging their position in an unjust hierarchical system to protect themselves over someone else. And that's a different kind of thinking, right? Like Ernie is loyal to himself. It's giving Slytherin, by the way, that we define Slytherin House, right? The notion of self serving, the notion of getting ahead no matter what, that's what this is offering us. But this is a Hufflepuff person. And I guarantee you that in his head he's like, listen, I didn't make the rules, I just followed them. And I want you to follow them too. It would be unfair if I got messed up because that's not how the system is supposed to work. And I think that that's a really important thing for us to consider because again, we. Part of our journey with Hufflepuffs is realizing how easily warped the notion of loyalty, fairness, kindness and et cetera can be. And then on the other side of this, we have tonks, right? Also a Hufflepuff, but she chooses the notion of fairness and justice differently. She walks away from safety, from institutional power, kind of. She's an Auror, so she's still part of the structure, right? But she also works for the Order of the Phoenix. She puts her life and her job and her future on the line because it's the right thing to do. Like she embodies doing the right thing for the right thing's sake, but also it cost her, right? Not just in a big dramatic way. And we're going to talk about more about her decision to leave Teddi with her mom and go fight at the Battle of Hogwarts. We're going to talk about that in her episode, which is going to happen as a kind of palate cleanser, though probably won't be that much of one after we talk about Snape and Dumbledore. But I think that there is another moment, right? This kind of slow emotional unraveling that happens before she makes the decision to leave Teddi with her mother. When Remus rejects her, she loses who she is. Her brightness fades, her power of changing, her appearance fades. Her spark goes dim, right? The behavior and actions of a man changes exactly who she is fundamentally. And we are kind of guided to see this as romance. And once we figure out what's happened, once we realize that this is not some weird incestual thing that's happening and that this isn't about serious, but rather this is about. This is about Lupin, we are like, oh, wow, what a time. And I think that there's something really meaningful about the way that we're presented with the idea of, like, this being love, right? That everything shifts and everything changes. Your patronus changes, who you are changes, what you look like changes. But it also shines a really kind of important light on what it is to lose yourself, right, in something and how loyalty can lead you there. Right? And also we have to kind of name the gender of it, all, right? Because Remus walks away and we call it tragic. Right? Tonk stays and we call it noble. She bends and seemingly breaks and shrinks herself down and changes herself. And we are invited to see this as strength and loyal and good and fair and just. Right? She's, you know, the standby your man. There's no stand by your woman or partner. Or, like, it's stand by your man is the song. And, you know, when we think about the notions of ride or dies in romance, it tends to be women riding and dying and men are driving the car and then somehow have an eject button that gets them out and they have a parachute, right? Like, if we're thinking about this in this kind of very heterosexual way, which we are invited to do, because that's how the books are written, what we see from Tonks is that she loses herself because she begins to define herself in a very specific way. And we can see how Hufflepuff Ness aids in that. That loyalty can lead you to make decisions. And we talked a little bit about the notion of conditional morality. I think that's important. But we also have to talk about the idea of what it means when you say I'm loyal to you and what you're willing to give up. And I came back to my queen, the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba. Now, I know that some people push back against the idea of her being Hufflepuff. I respect your position, but I think that what's fascinating about Elphaba here and thinking about this kind of the notion of relational loyalty is that her sense of justice is unwavering, but she's also outlandishly loyal to people who I don't actually think deserve it all the time. Glinda, Nessa, even the wizard, right? Like all of these people assist in ruining her. Now, this is not quite a spoiler alert for those of you who don't know the musical or haven't read the book. If you have and if you don't want to know kind of what happens, maybe skip ahead a little bit. But her loyalty bends towards others, right? It bends her out of shape, and it puts her in situations where she kind of has to compromise her principles in her attempts to protect the people that she loves. And in the end, she ends up enabling the very thing she wanted to fight in the first place, while also then being villainized for trying to save these people and being loyal to them. And that's Tonks. That's Elphaba. That's what happens when the system weaponizes your values against you and when your kindness has to be silenced and your loyalty becomes martyrdom. Right? Because again, we're back to the question of how can one be just in a system that is unjust? And I don't know that there's like a super clean answer, but I think that it starts with the notion that you can't mistake comfort for fairness and you can't confuse rules with justice, right? Like, Umbridge had a lot of rules. We would not call any of them just. And you have to know what you believe, like, really, fully, truly understand, like, your values. Because if not, then the system that you're in and you're taught to respect and be loyal to will define them for you. And again, that this is not just for Hufflepuffs, right? Like, this is just setting the stage and the foundation for us to think about what this means for the other Houses. Because if Hufflepuff teaches us that goodness can be corrupted, then Ravenclaw will show us how intellect can be manipulated or be used to manipulate. How brilliance can justify what you are doing to other people and how reason can serve power just as easily as it can resist it. So buckle up, because this is just the beginning. 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 casting, y'. All. If you have not filled out the Ravenclaw episode survey, please do. I'm gonna repost it sometime this week so that you all can have access to it. I'll probably drop it on Friday. Pay attention and do it, y'. All. I don't want to hear any of this. I missed the survey. Okay, don't. And if you do miss it, you can't blame me because I'm giving you all the chances. If you want to join us on our Patreon, please feel free to do so. Patreon.com criticalmagictheory Check out our website, criticalmagictheory.com Please feel free to send me an email criticalmagictictheorygmail.com Follow me on social media, ROFW on TikTok and Prof. JW on Instagram. Do the Ravenclaw survey. Thank you all so much. And until next time, be critical and stay magical, my friends. Bye.