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Professor Julian Womble (15:19)

So we're going to go a little bit out of order because my reflection is going to involve my favorite Pure Blood moments. And so we're going to dive right on in with the first question that we always began every survey with, which is who is the best person? Now this is interesting because admittedly we have a tie. So here's what we're going to do. I want you to guess. I want you to guess who you think it is. And I will say that there are two for each, two for the best people and two for the worst people. Okay, so for the best people, who do you think it is? I'll wait. It's Neville and Luna, which is not surprising. And the reason there's a tie is that 99.7% of us said that Neville was a good person, and 99.4% of us said that Luna was a good person. And I felt like that 0.03% difference was not enough for me to disqualify Luna, who very much wear their hearts on their sleeves in ways that are just leaps and bounds ahead of so many of the other characters. The other thing is that, you know, what's so fascinating is that they both have, like, familial trauma, and yet in spite of that, they still find ways to be such good and present people for the people who need them. And it is fascinating that, you know, in the movies, right, they put them together, and I think that's, you know, was due in large part to fan service. But it also is interesting that they seemingly are paired together in this way. When we think about, you know, who the best people in this series are, Neville and Luna will always be at the top of the list because we don't really get any negative things about them, right? Like, I think it's. I mean, you know, I gave a little bit for Luna, but not so much about her as a person. Maybe you know her as a Ravenclaw, but not necessarily as a person. I think that she and Neville both, you know, are so unapologetically themselves, but also so open and affirming of other people. It's like you want them in your orbit. And what I also love is that particularly for Neville, long may he reign. He. His arc is so incredible, and I think one of the most, kind of the steepest arcs, if you will, for a character in the series. And it just strikes me that, like, you know, one of the things about them, no matter when you're reading it, whether you're a child or whether you're an adult, is that they both just give you the warm fuzzies. They both are misunderstood. They both are in positions where they are bullied by people. And it's all of these things, right? Like, we spend so much time in society making the claims, like, hurt people, hurt people, right? And we talk a lot about that, particularly as it pertains to, like, Snape. And, you know, some people have used similar justifications to explain Draco's behavior. And yet we have these two characters, both of whom experience, like explicit bullying very, very, very frequently throughout their time at Hogwarts and yet are so grounded and real and present as friends, as people. They have such a good moral compass. And so it just like, it makes so much sense that we would look at them and say, yeah, these are two just like fundamentally good people. And what is so amazing about them, and it's something that I say about Harry often is that like, honestly, they don't have to be good people and we would be able to make excuses for them. Like if they were jerks, I think we would be able to say, well, like they're bullied, you know, Luna lost her mother at an early age. Neville lost both his parents to torture. All of these things befell both of them in ways that I think we could then use as a way to justify their behavior. But they don't even do it. They don't even go to a place that would be so reasonable for them to go to. And I think that that's why we love them so much. But it's also one of the things that for me, like in both their episodes I got very emotional because I think so much of the way that we understand people in this series is that it's us as listeners and readers, however we consume the books, making excuses for some of their negative behavior. And sometimes those excuses are warranted. But we don't have to do that for Neville and Luna because they've somehow found a way to overcome the negatives in their life and still be good people. And it's kind of crazy to me that J.K. rowling could write two characters like this because, like, that's just not her particular vibe. But I'm grateful that she did because I think may we all aspire to be like Neville and Luna, particularly in this time that we find ourselves where it feels so easy to be filled with like reasonable levels of vitriol and distinct for any number of reasons. And we would be completely justified in that. But may we all be like Neville and Luna where when it's easy to do it, we decide not to. And we still bring our best selves forward and I love them for that. And now to get to the worst people. Another nail biter who I want you to guess. I want you to guess Bellatrix and Lucius. Not cousins by marriage. Well, and also probably in real life too, because pure bloodedness, which messy. But also this makes sense to me. These are two people who are very much uninvested in being good. It doesn't serve them. So they don't do it. And they find a way to kind of be evil just for the sake of being evil because it, like, I don't know, gives them something to do. It's interesting because when I think about Bellatrix and Luna as kind of, you know, woman, girl pairs, it strikes me that, like, yeah, Bellatrix believes what she wants to believe. Bellatrix does what she wants to do. She buys into things that are not necessarily grounded in truth in a way that is similar to Luna. Right? Like we could imagine a world where Luna allowed the trauma of losing her mother to take her to a place where she would look not necessarily exactly like Bellatrix because I don't think that Luna would ever fully subscribed to Pure Blood supremacy, but she could go to a place like that that's a little bit unhinged. And I don't think that Luna would ever rejoice in like, the torturing of other people. But I do think that, and I said this in Luna's episode, right, that we could imagine a world where, you know, she would be in a cult, right? Which is for all intents and purposes what the Death Eaters are. Right? Like she could be brought in because her grounding, in fact is not necessarily particularly solid and she has belief structures that might lend itself to her moving in a direction. Maybe not as far as Bellatrix, but we could see that. Now, I can't draw any parallels between Lucius and Neville because it's just, it's not the same. I think that Neville's, you know, initial fear that he wasn't actually magical really does set the stage for who he is and how he behaves in a way that just is not true for Lucius, who undoubtedly was a pampered little thing. Because you don't, like, spend your time on your hair when you're worried about whether or not you belong in a society, which is what Neville does, right? And so it strikes me that, you know, I can see and build a bit of a connection between Luna and Bellatrix but not between Lucius and Neville. But like Lucius and Bellatrix are people who, because of everything around them, right? Because of the socialization, because of the kind of investment in maintaining a status and the fallacy of what it means to be a pureblood. They are 10 toes down, ready to do whatever it takes to maintain their status in society. Lucius, even more than Bellatrix, because Bellatrix went to Azkaban and was like, I'm good here. Because where she finds meaning is less so in the kind of pure bloodedness of it all. And more in the praise from Voldemort right. Now, don't get me wrong, she cares about being seen a certain way in society as a pure blood. Like that matters to her. But I think that that's more of a socialized concern than it is one that is something that she, you know, is trying to maintain in the way. Not. Certainly not in the same way that like Narcissa and Lucius are right, where it's all about being seen in certain lights, you know, being in certain places and being perceived in certain ways. Like they care very much about that. And so in some way, right. It's interesting because Neville and Luna care so little about the world around them. You know, at a certain point they're just like, I am who I am and you get what you get from me. And then you get Bellatrix and Lucius who are so concerned about the external forces and sources of validation that they get and that the decisions that they make are all in, you know, pursuit of being validated, whether it be from Voldemort, whether it be from society, whether it be from other Death Eaters. Right. Like they are all looking for that external validation in a way that Luna and Neville are not. And it's interesting to think about kind of how that desire for external validation lends itself to, you know, the kinds of decisions that you make and what it then means for how you understand other people around you. There's something to that. Think about it. Choose an American Express card that can earn you rewards for your purchases. Explore benefits from Green, Gold and Platinum cards. Put some cash back into your wallet from everyday purchases with Blue Cash every day and Blue Cash Preferred cards. 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Professor Julian Womble (27:40)

Let's talk about who the best and worst parents are. I'm going to give you a second to guess. Narcissa and Lucius. 72% of us said that Narcissa was a good mother, and only 13% of us said that Lucius was a good parent. Y'all, I don't know what this means for Draco. And I think when I think about why we've arrived at this particular result, I think it's due in large part to, obviously, Narcissa's sacrifice of, you know, telling Voldemort that Harry was dead. It also has a lot to do with the fact that she went to Spinner's End to try to preempt what Voldemort had planned for Draco. We spend such a considerable amount of time with Narcissa in the role of a mother. We don't really see her doing much of anything else. And I think that, you know, we talk a lot about, you know, within the series, the way that motherhood plays a big part in the way that women characters in particular are portrayed. So that when we look at Narcissa, we see an amazing mom who is really willing to do whatever it takes to keep her child safe. And I think that that feels real to me. And again, it feels very on brand for the way that we know women characters in these books tend to be written. And I think that Narcissa really does kind of go above and beyond in ways that we know, like, Bellatrix wouldn't do, right? Like, we know that she was not about to be out here, you know, making all these kinds of sacrifices. If Voldemort wanted her kids gone, she was gonna offer those kids up because it was gonna be the highest honor. I do think, though, that it is interesting. And I did a bonus episode, this would have been almost a year ago on Patreon, about mothers. And I had just compared Molly and Narcissa. And it's fascinating to me because we're so hard on Molly, right? Molly got 51% of people saying that she was a good mother. We're so hard on Molly because of the way that she treats Fred and George. And in Molly's episode, I spend a considerable amount of time really unpacking just the sheer anxiety and fear that she undoubtedly operates with, which is something that Narcissa, on the day to day doesn't necessarily have to start thinking about until Voldemort comes back. And now all of a sudden, and even when he returns, she's not that worried about it until his eyes are set on Draco. And now she's in this place where she's making these sacrifices. But. And I made this point in that bonus episode where I said Molly is constantly sacrificing her children to the Order from a very, very, very early age. Right? Like, she is losing Ron to go as he runs off and does all of these things with Harry, you know, Ginny, you know, is possessed. And then when the Order of the Phoenix is kind of reemerging, we see Fred and George, Bill and Charlie all return. And it just strikes me that we don't necessarily give Molly the same kind of grace when it comes to the sacrifices that she makes for her kids by virtue of just allowing them to be a part of this entire thing. Draco is brought in not by his own volition. And so I can understand why there are meaningful differences, but I do find it so fascinating. And I also wonder the extent to which this is because we see Narcissa. Not necessarily. Like, we never see Narcissa with Draco. Well, no, no, no. We see her one time at the Quidditch World cup when they're walking into the event. But on average, we very rarely see her with him in the capacity of a mother. Right. Like, we don't see her in the same way that we see Molly with her kids, constantly disciplining them while Arthur's, like, running around doing whatever he's doing. We don't get to see in that capacity. And so what we know of Narcissa is that she is making these sacrifices. And I don't want to take away from the fact that she is a good mom, but I do want to highlight the reality that, like, we are harder on Molly because we see her do more parenting things than we do for Narcissa. And what we see from Narcissa is, like, behind the scenes work that Molly is undoubtedly doing, we just don't see. And so I don't. I just. I'm remiss because I think that while, yes, Narcissista does make meaningful sacrifices for her child, so does Molly, but the sacrifice is her children. And I think that I feel very compelled to point that out. Now, y'all, we don't see Lucious do anything. Okay? We see him that one time in Borgen and Brooks. Although I will say, and someone brought this up in their comment, I remember when we did Lucius episode about how when Buckbeak scratches Draco, Lucius is there ready to burn it all to the ground for his baby boy. And it's also fascinating because someone else brought this up. You know, there's a reason why Draco is constantly saying my father will hear about this. Right. And he's not saying my mother. And that could just be patriarchy, but it could also be the belief that like he understands that his dad is going to support him and do what needs to be done. And so it is fascinating then when we think about that, you know, how we arrive at the fact that Lucius is the worst parent of the bunch. Right? So the parents that we have are Lucius, Narcissa, Molly, Arthur, Merope and Sirius. I didn't put James in because we don't really get to see him in the capacity of a father. And I also silly sillily, foolishly silly sillily. I also foolishly didn't include Barty Crouch Sr. Cause me thinks that he probably would have dethroned Lucious, but maybe not. We'll talk about that in the post episode chat because there's something to be said about that. But there's also something to be said about the gendered nature of our understanding of parents and the way that they're presented to us in these books. Right. Like it's not lost on me that, you know, it's a mom who's the best parent and a dad who's the worst. And you know, and the reasons why. Right? Cause again, we don't see Narcissa on the day to day with Draco. All we see are the big things. We only see her really willing to sacrifice herself, her livelihood, her well being for the sake of keeping him alive. Which cannot be understated. But it is a very different thing than watching Molly take her kids to the Hogwarts Express and yell at Fred and George because they are trying to make illegal jokes. Right. And I just, it strikes me as very, very, very fascinating the way that we arrive at this particular one. The best and the worst. And it's also fascinating that it is a couple that it is Narcissa and it is Lucious together who comprise the best and the worst of the bunch that we had.

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Professor Julian Womble (36:07)

So we've talked about the best parent, but who is the best and worst child that we've discussed? Okay, so for reference, our children are Ron, Percy, Fred and George, Ginny, Neville, Luna, Cedric, Draco and Barty Crouch Jr. I'll give you a second best child, Neville worst child, Barty Crouch Jr. Now, I want to start with Barty Crouch Jr. Because this feels. Well, okay, I was going to say one thing, but then I thought about it for just like literally a clock tick and I said, wait a minute, one second, Julian, you need to think about what you're going to say. Okay, y'all, I'm so sorry. Okay, y'all, I know that he killed his dad and turned him into a bone, and that is not funny. And so you all need to stop laughing right now. I know that he did that, but honestly, y'all, this is an important question, but do we blame him? Honestly, do we blame him? Like, I know that he did that. I know that he turned his dad into a bone, put him and buried him in the forbidden forest. I know that that's wrong and that's not the mark of a good child. However, simultaneously, concurrently, as well, his dad put him on the imperious curse for 10 years. So, like, he had a couple of things to work through. He was also not all the way mentally there. And I feel like many of us make lots of excuses for lots of these characters. And I just don't understand why Barty Crouch Jr. Can't be one of those people. When he was in school, he gave his dad everything he wanted. He made his dad look good. He did all the stuff. And we know that his father was fairly absentee, or at least we assume it is alleged that his father was fairly absentee when it came to all the things that Barty Crouch Jr. Was doing. And so I'm looking at y'all like, okay, 75% of us said he wasn't a good child. Like, that's crazy work. I mean, he wasn't. Well, no, he was a good child. He just had to navigate a few things on the Back end. And honestly, it's not his fault. Like, I just feel like it's not his fault. Like, he's deranged. He went to Azkaban for a long time and we're not even gonna get into that, right? Like, I'm not mad that he went to Azkaban. He broke the law. He probably did it. Some of us said that it is very likely that he did commit this, right? That he did do the. Or at least contribute to, you know, the torturing of the Longbottoms. So fine, he did his time. He was removed early. And honestly, that's not his fault either. If he had stayed in there, Barty Crouch wouldn't be a bone. And honestly, this is an important point to make and I think we brought it up in his episode. He might not have been a good son to Barty Crouch Sr. But he was a great son to Voldemort, all right? Like, he did everything that Voldemort wanted. Voldemort knew that he could count on him. So much so that he risked discovery to go and get him from his father's house and rescue him and bring him back into his former mental place, which was not as solid as it might have been in other circumstances, but still. So I don't know, y'all. I think it's, it's. This is. This is a tricky one for me. I'm, I'm conflicted on this because I'm like, yeah, no, I wouldn't say he was even a bad son to Barty Crouch Sr. I think Barty Crouch Sr. Had a level of expectation of this child that he met at every level and still didn't get the attention and affection that he wanted. And so he turned to a different life. And like, that is not Barty Crouch Jr. S fault. Now, is he a psychopath? Yes. Is he a killer? Absolutely. Does that mean he's a bad son? Who's to say? Honestly? Because, honestly, I'm like, his dad brought a lot of this on himself because frankly, if he had just kept him in Azkaban, none of this would have happened. And it just strikes me as like, none. Like, none of the things that led to the thing that makes us think he's a bad son are Barty Crouch Jr. S fault. There, I said it. All right, feel free to disagree with me. I know some people. I know that that's going to feel like a hot take. And feel free to take it to the post episode chat. We can chat about it there. As for the best child, it should Come as no surprise that the best child is Percy. I'm joking. I'm joking. I know that some of you just gasped and screamed, no, the best child is Neville. And honestly, yeah, Neville got 95% of people saying, yes, he's a good child. Followed very closely, as per usual, by Luna, who got 94%. Neville is in a family that does not appreciate him. His parents are, you know, not in their right minds, and he, again, still finds a way to be present. He still tries to make his grandmother happy, even though she's basically made that nearly impossible. And he still tries his best, and he doesn't resent her for it, Right? Like, he is still. Even after all the madness, absurdity and foolishness that she puts him through, never making him feel like what he's done is good enough, he still is trying to please her, which is probably a trauma response. But we know that trauma responses can go in other ways, too. Look at the person who we just said was the worst child, right? Like, when you juxtapose these two people, right? Oh, my God, this is just coming to me. But there are so many similarities between the two of them, right? Like, they are both. I mean, the difference is obviously that, you know, Barty Crouch Jr. Was exceptional at magic, and Neville was really never given the opportunity to, for one reason or another. But they both had guardians who really wanted them to kind of rise to the occasion. And no matter what they did, it kind of never quite gave them enough to be able to get the affection and things that they wanted. Right? And I really. And you can see, you know, what a traumatic response to that kind of treatment can do to a child and where they can turn and where they can end up. And so this drives home the point for me that not only is Neville an amazing child, but again, it drives home the point of what an incredible person he is. Not this episode just being like a Neville lovefest, right? Because I'm like, he could have gone the same way as Barty Crouch Jr. And it would have been like. It wouldn't have felt crazy to me, at least I would have been like, yeah, well, you know, Graham kind of earned it because she literally allowed people to throw you out of windows to make sure you were magical. And what we can glean from that particular instance is that this is not just her, right? Like, this is everyone else around him who are not his parents, right. That are trying to force him to be a thing. And so this just drives home the point of what an amazing child Neville is, but also amazing person. Because when you look at the alternative, it could have easily gone another way.

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Professor Julian Womble (44:38)

Who are the best and worst Purebloods? So here we go. All right, now we're really getting down to the nitty and the gritty of it. I've been giving you all. I feel like it's been so long since I've given you a vocal. I've given you a couple in this one. So yeah, you're welcome. Okay, this question was admittedly hard because we did not have a very strong working definition. So many of us would define what we meant when we answered the question in the survey responses. But the way that I've come to understand the way that many of us, most of us kind of conceptualize this is that a good pure blood is someone who upholds Pure Blood supremacy, and a bad pure blood is someone who stands in the face of it. With that in mind, I want you all to think of who we have as the best and the worst. I'm not going to read all 14 names because that's aggressive. You all know who we've talked about with 59% of people saying yes, they are a good pure blood, we have Narcissa malfoy. And with 14% of people saying yes, we have Cedric Diggory. Now, Narcissa makes sense to me, especially if we use the definition that many of us kind of adopted, which is this idea of upholding the pure blood supremacist structure. I think that Narcissa is someone who, more than most of the characters that we're able to see, kind of benefits from the pure blood supremacist structure, but also doesn't play a very active role in its maintenance. Right? Like she just yields the benefits from it, but she's not doing anything to like undo it. But she's also not doing anything to, like, make it crazier or make it better. She's just kind of allowing it to be what it is. And in some ways, that feels like the most insidious kind of pure blood, right? Like someone who just recognizes the privileges that they get, right? Like, the Weasleys don't necessarily always recognize the privileges that they have because they're seen as blood traders as they don't have a lot of money, right? And so to them, they're like, well, we can't be, you know, we're not like the Malfoys. And there's some truth to that. But Narcissa is a Malfoy. She comes from the black family. She is someone who knows exactly what it means to be pureblood in a pureblood society and what that offers her. And she lives it up and she doesn't try to change anything about it. And her whole thing, and we talked about this in her episode, her whole thing is, you know, going along to get along so that she can maintain the status that she's used to living at, right? Like, she did everything that she was supposed to do. She married a pure blood man, she had a pure blood son, right? That keeps the line going. She's done all of those things. And so she's just sitting back here enjoying the benefits of all that her deeds have done for her in a society that, you know, privileges women who do the things that she has done the way that she has done it. And so in some ways, like, she is the best pure blood, because while, yeah, she's not like Bellatrix out here fighting, you know, and torturing people, but the only way that you can keep a pure blood supremacist society alive is by making people not recognize that it's there, by making people just believe that, like, this is just the way that things are. This is how we understand the world that we live in. And Narcissa does that. She doesn't try to rock the boat at all because she's like, if the water gets choppy, people are gonna start asking questions. And so she has this investment in making sure that, like, her lifestyle is maintained and all the things that she believes are still true but not necessarily at the forefront of, you know, what it means to be a Malfoy. That's why they give to good causes. That's why they do all of these things. Narcissa is not interested in trying to kind of be like Bellatrix. Narcissista wants to live a comfortable life. Narcissista wants to be someone in society, right? I think there's a reason why in all these fanfics that she is present in, she's a socialite. And I think that at the root of it, that's what she wants. She wants people to look up to her and be like, wow, I want to be like her someday. She doesn't need them to know about all the stuff that's happening in the back rooms at Malfoy Manor. And that, I think, is really the thing that separates her from Bellatrix, right? Whereas Bellatrix is like, no, no, no, no, no. I want to exact some sort of revenge against the people who I perceive have wronged us, which are Muggle borns and Muggle people. Narcissa's like, I don't care about any of that. I just want to be able to live the life that I want to live and that I can afford. And that's why when Voldemort returns, her, Lucius and Draco are like, what the heck is going on? We don't like this. This isn't really what we paid for because it disturbs the thing. And so in a lot of ways, she is a really good pureblood because she's very invested in maintaining the system in the way that she believes it should be maintained for the sake of her own status. On the other hand, Cedric is not seemingly, from what we can get a sense of, we don't get a sense that he is someone who's invested in that at all. And, like, while his parents are particularly his father is invested in him, like, being a winner, it's not necessarily on the grounds of him being pure blood, but just being better than. And he is willing to kind of push back against some of the injustices that we ultimately see happening during the Triwizard Tournament and things like that. But we don't get the same sense of investment in the system that Narcissa has from Cedric. And so this makes sense. Although we don't really get a lot from Cedric, we can understand how he might be at the bottom of this list, I think. Another. Let me look and see who the other people were who were bad on this list for Pure Bloods. Lavender was another one who was seen as not a good pure blood. Percy was another one, surprisingly, who I think comes in third, who is seen as not a good pure blood, which is interesting. But I think some of this is also the byproduct of the fact that the question itself is very trickily worded and we were all coming in with very different definitions which we are going to amend for Half Bloods. There is a Question of the week that is coming. Spoiler alert. That's gonna be asking us this coming Sunday. What do we think a good Half Blood is? Get your answers ready, y'all, because it's coming and you all need to be ready to answer it so that we can come up with a solid definition for when you all begin to do the surveys. Okay.

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Professor Julian Womble (52:28)

Who of the purebloods that we discussed is the best friend? It should come as no surprise that 99% of us said that Luna Lovegood is the best friend. As for the worst friend, Percy WEASLEY, with only 13% of us saying that he was a good friend. Now admittedly, I think that this is because we don't really get to see Percy in the capacity of being a friend, and we don't really get to see him be a friend to anyone throughout the series because he's so busy bossing people around and then later on he's like, got a job and he doesn't have time for friends because he's busy trying to take over the world. And so I can understand why he would be the person. And in the future it might behoove me to change it so that we only really ask that question of people who we get to see be friends to others. But that is what it is. Hindsight's 20 20. Let's focus on Luna and what an amazing friend she is. And I spent a considerable amount of time in her episode really discussing what a beautiful friend she is to people like Harry, namely because she holds them accountable when they need to be held accountable. She is such a steadfast support system for Harry during a very dark moment when his friends are not necessarily what he needs them to be in that time right And I think this is a very interesting. A very interesting thing about friendship that I've, like, noticed as I've gotten older is, like. It is a beautiful thing to have friends who know you for a very long time because they just know you. But it's also very different when you meet people at very specific junctures in your life and they don't really know you prior to this particular juncture. And I think that Luna meeting Harry at this very low moment after Cedric's death, after kind of dealing with everything at the Ministry, was just the right time for her to arrive in his life and in his orbit, to be the support system that he needed her to be. And I think that, like, there's something so beautiful about that because she knows what it is to deal with grief in a meaningful way. And so she's able to bring her own experiences. But she does it in a way that's not judgmental. She does it in a way that's not condescending. She does it in a way that doesn't make Harry feel weak or bad because he's Harry Potter and he needs to be strong all the time. It's such a beautifully human way of approaching his grief and validating it while also still being there for him in the way that she does best. And I think that, like, she arrives as the friend that he needs her to be when he needs her to be it. When Hermione and Ron, not for lack of trying, but just because they just don't necessarily have the tools in that moment to be what he needs. And I think, again, because Ron and Hermione know Harry so well by this point, they're trying to approach him like they would any other context, and this isn't any other context. And Luna is equipped to be able to navigate that. Which is funny because, you know, we spend so much time, particularly in Order of the Phoenix, talking about people's emotions and this and that. And, like, Luna feels very kind of distant emotionally in a lot of ways because she's just Nargles, right? But in this moment, she shows up in a way that I think is really important and really, really meaningful. And I think there's a reason why. And not even just for Harry, right? Like, we see her then show up for the Department of Mysteries. Like, she is there and she is willing to be what people need her to be when they need her to be it. And I think that that's why she turns out to be the person who we all see as the best friend.

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Professor Julian Womble (57:19)

For our last, best and worst we're going to talk about who is the biggest hero, the most heroic if you will, and who is the most villainous. I'll let you guys It's a doozy. Maybe not so much, but you get it. About 97% of us said that Neville was a hero, and that is compared to serious Ron, Percy, Luna, Slughorn, Ginny, Fred and George, Cedric, Arthur, James, Lavender and Molly. And yeah, Neville comes in hot. No one's even close to him. The closest other person is Luna, but she comes in at 83% of us saying yes. And then the most villainous is none other than Bellatrix Lestrange, who again, like Neville, is by far and away the most villainous as far as we're concerned. Compared to Barty Crouch Jr. Merope, Barty Crouch Sr. And Lucius, this makes sense to me. I think part of the reason why we see Neville as being so heroic is one, because he is, but also the arc. It's the way that he arrives at his heroism. I think that from the very beginning, when we look at Harry, we see someone who is already ready to go for broke and go full tilt. And we don't necessarily get that from Neville, right? We see someone who has to learn how to kind of embody this thing that may have always been in him or may not have and was a learned skill, a learned belief structure about himself. But when we look at him, by the time we get to Deathly Hallows, he's a completely different person. And I'm not talking about the glow up. Okay? He is someone who is filled with confidence. He is someone who is ready to fight against the powers that be. Actively, he's willing to sacrifice himself even without Harry and the Golden Trio being present. He takes charge. He gets the sword of Gryffindor he cuts off Nagini's head like he is this hero. And I think it's the hero's journey that he goes on. You know, I think for Harry, again, it feels like so much of the way we understand him as the protagonist, as the namesake of the series, is like, we know that he's gonna be able to pull it off one way or the other. We know he's gonna be able to do it. But when we first meet Neville, by the time we meet him and we experience him, there's no guarantee that he's gonna be able to do much of anything, right? Like, he is a scared boy who wanted to make his family proud, who wasn't sure of his place in the magical world despite being pureblood, who was really fighting for every bit that he could get, whether it be from attention from his teachers, whether it be good grades. He was working so hard so that when he arrives at the moment where he is able and strong enough and strong willed enough to be able to do the things he needs to do, we are on our feet applauding because we have seen him go from this very kind of small person to this gigantic force. And so that's the hero's journey that we really do get to see him go on. And what's more is that he had a choice in this. Harry didn't. He was given a choice because Voldemort didn't choose him to go after. And so he chose to do this. He chose to go to the Department of Mysteries. He chose to do. And so we get to see him not only grow, but we also recognize that, like, he had a choice in the matter and he still said yes. And that is what I think separates him in a very big way from Harry because Harry obviously kind of sort of had a choice. But, like, the prophecy kind of negates your ability to say no. Like, if you want Voldemort gone, you gotta do a thing, right? Neville didn't have that sort of supernatural. What's the word I'm looking for? Supernatural compulsion, Right? Like, he made the choice to say, this is what I want to do. And I think that that makes a really big difference. And I think that that's why we would see him as the hero. As for Bellatrix, y'all, the thing about Bellatrix is it all feels like overcompensation for me. And I think that part of the reason why she is the most villainous is because I think in her mind, she has the most proof. I think again, and we talked a Little bit about this in her episode. The idea that she is a pure blood woman married to a pure blood man without any pure blood kids in a society that is as back ass words as the magical world speaks volumes about how we're meant to understand like who she is. And I think that she does a lot of this work. And I know that some people disagreed with this take and that's totally fine, of course, but I think that it makes a difference. I think that she, as the oldest child of three girls, one of whom ran off with a muggleborn, the other of whom did all the things correct. Like, I feel like she feels like she has something to prove to people and that's, I think, something that connects her to Voldemort because he operates from a very similar space, which we'll talk about in the next episode. But like so much of her villainy feels like you are working so hard to try to convince people that you are scary, that you are worth being seen. And the thing is, is like, no matter what she does, she's still always overlooked where like Snape still gets to be the lieutenant, which she's envious up. And I would be too. I went to ask band for you and this guy was sitting pretty at Hogwarts. And I feel like so much of the villainy is not only just her bloodthirst, which obviously exists. And I think it's also, you know, probably some sort of mental situation that comes from being inbred. Right? We know that we can look at the Gaunts and see that as well. But I think at the heart of this is also a desire to be seen and heard and affirmed by Voldemort in a way that she hasn't been. And I feel like so much of her villainy comes from that. She's like, if I just kill the most people, if I just work super hard, then he will reward me with whatever it is that I want. A kiss, I don't know. And I'm like, girl, this isn't a meritocracy. He doesn't care about any of that. The metrics that you're using are not the ones that he cares about. He's uninterested in that. And yet she still persists. And I think that we would be remiss to not acknowledge the fact that I think the way that society views her motivates a lot of the choices that she makes. And to be clear, I'm not saying that any of this is justified, but as we kind of think about who she is and how she arrives at this particular place. Her bloodthirst does not come from nowhere. Right. And we can say and attribute some of it to kind of what we believe as the kind of Pure Blood madness. Right, that comes along with being inbred. Again, we've seen that in other characters. But I also think that what we also see is a conjunction of, you know, a desire to be more with this Pure Blood madness that comes. And I think that Bellatrix embodies that in a very intense way that prompts her to be so villainous, to go so over the top, to work so much harder. And, yeah, it just. It feels like she really is offering, like, she's trying to prove herself so much. It kind of gives, like, very strong, like, dark Hermione vibes, like, prodigious. A thirst to prove yourself, not a little bit unhinged. This people are going to be mad about this. But it's okay. It's all right. I said what I said. And I'll say it again, not the cackle, but you got it. We've now reached a point in the episode where I'm going to reflect and this reflection is going to be kind of me using my favorite Pure Blood moments as a way to really close out how we understand Pure Bloods and also give us a sense sense of what we might be looking for when we start discussing Half Bloods in the next episode. So when I had to think about my favorite Pure Blood moment, I came up with three. And they are three different moments for three different reasons that I think will really help us round out how we understand Pureblood people and our favorite Pureblood characters. And so the first moment is when we meet Draco in Philosopher Sorcerer's Stone, in Madame Malkin's Shop, and he's talking to Harry. And I love this moment because I think it shines a very specific light on the socialization of Pure Blood people and the segregation of Pure Blood society insofar that once we meet Draco in this moment. But what's clear, at least to me, is that, like, Draco has never, ever, ever met anyone who wasn't Pureblood. Like, his understanding of what magical is, is literally like no Pure Bloods. And so he's struggling to even conceptualize the idea of what it means to be anything other than that. And we get that sense when he asks Harry, like, well, both your parents are magical. Like, they are. And Harry's like, yeah, if you mean they're a witch and a wizard, then yes. But, like, what Harry doesn't Understand is the internal politic of that, right? Because yes, both his parents are magical, but his mother's Muggle born, which means that Harry is half blood. But in Draco's mind, if you can do magic, you are a pureblood. And I think that there's something so telling about that because it speaks to the fact that they do not kind of tarry outside of their own group of people. And so when you're growing up in that particular kind of section of wizarding society, all you know is pure blood people. And in Draco's case, all you know is pure blood supremacy, right? Like, all you know is that we are better. And his understanding of like being a magical person is to be inherently pure blood. And I think that that really messes with him. Then when he meets a Hermione who is not only magical, but exceptional and not pure blood. And so we can imagine the cognitive dissonance that he has to experience once he realizes that. And then once he realizes, you know, who Harry is and that Harry is a half blood, even this person who's like the Chosen one, right, he's getting all of these accolades and all of this stuff, and everyone's kind of fawning over him and he's a half blood. And this all stands in the face of how Draco understands the world. And so we can understand, like, how other pure blood children, your pansies, your crabs, your goyles, like all these other people who, particularly those who have this very supremacist belief, walk into Hogwarts with a very particular belief about who they are relative to everyone else in the castle, and also what everyone else's ability looks like. And it's all torn asunder very quickly and very easily, if for no other reason, because Hermione is so much better than literally everyone else. And so even I would argue that even Ron has some trepidation about this. And I've gotten into trouble on the Internet about this, right? But I think that when you are coming from a space where all you know is you and people like you, and all of a sudden someone else rolls in who, for all intents and purposes, shouldn't be as good, and yet they are, it shatters your worldview and shows us how pure blood, supremacist and otherwise, are raised to understand the world, whether it be explicitly or implicitly, right? And so I think this is really important and I just love this moment because I think it really does shine an important light. Inherent ignorance of a lot of pure blood people. And if it's happening For Draco's generation, which obviously is probably more diverse in terms of blood statuses coming into Hogwarts, we can imagine what this would mean for generations beforehand when Muggle born understanding was even less and when pure blood supremacy was much more implicit, but also ubiquitous in a way that wasn't kind of dampened by a desire to be seen positively in society. So you weren't necessarily giving to a lot of the kind of vitriol you might have or the ignorance that you have about Muggle borns and Muggles. Right. And so when we think about some of the adult purebloods that we have talked about, this ignorance is rampant. And we. And we spent some time talking about that as we talked about Lucius, as we talked about Arthur, as we talked a little bit about Molly. Right. Narcissa, like all of these adults have this. And I think we can see the seeds of it very clearly when we look at Draco. Okay, so that's the first moment. The second one is when we meet Ron and Harry asks him, hey, are all your family magical? And he goes, yes, except for a second cousin who's an accountant, I think. And I think this is really interesting because we meet a few squibs throughout our time in the magical world in the canonical series, but this is one of the first moments that we are introduced to the idea that there are purebloods that have non pureblood people in their family and they still claim the name pureblood. Right. And that there is such an investment in maintaining that status within society. Even amongst the Weasleys, right, who are not our supremacists, like, these are our good pure bloods. And yet somehow they are like, yeah, we have this one person, but we don't talk about him. He doesn't come to family events, he's out. Like he has been sent off into the Muggle world, which is what we know that tends to happen for squibs. And so I think what this moment shows us is the idea of the investment of what it means to be pureblood, even if you're not a supremacist. And it gives us some sense of understanding about how we're to understand what it means to be a pureblood. And even when you are pureblood and you have relatives who are not even magical at all, you still get to lay claim to that if you get rid of them. And I think that that's really important because the fact that it's the Weasleys that have done this tells us a story, although I think it is It Molly's second cousin, it might be a Pruitt, but either way, these are supposed to be like our good Pure Blood people who are still making these kind of social choices in order to maintain some kind of status. And that's coming from a group of people who within the Pure Blood circles are looked down upon. And so again, this kind of. It gives us a really interesting story right from the very beginning of the series about who these people are and who the people within this group are. And the first point is coming from a more supremacist perspective. The second point is coming from a much more accepting and inclusive perspective. And then my third favorite moment. Oh, I love this moment so much. It's Sassy Harry. And it's the moment where they are in the Department of Mysteries and Harry tells Bellatrix and other Death Eaters who are present, you know, your boss is a half blood. And Bellatrix loses her mind. And I love it so much because it speaks to the fallacy of pure bloodedness and pure blood supremacy. Because at that moment she's like, you shut up. She's not like, you're a liar. Hold on, let me check that. Though she might be, she does not call him a liar. She's ready to attack him though. And I think that the fact that she's like you are just what she calls him, a filthy half blood. Right, Tells us a very particular kind of story. Cause she doesn't. She's not like, you're a liar. I can't believe that you. She is mostly shook by the fact that it's possible that he knows something that she has known implicitly, but she doesn't care. And I've said this many, many times on social media and in my class about the idea that, you know, it is very, very, very likely that the OG Death Eaters know that Voldemort is not a Pure Blood, but they do not care because he represents something that they believe in and he's doing the dirty work. And so why wouldn't you allow them to do that? Now, obviously, later generations and later recruits who come in are much more likely to believe that he is probably pureblood because he's related to Salazar Slytherin, who is notorious for being perceived as a Pure Blood supremacist. And so why wouldn't he be? Right? And he kind of rides those coattails. But I care to wager that Bellatrix knows because, y'all, if he was a true pureblood, like an OG OG Pureblood, like one of the real ones, why wouldn't he have a vault, why wouldn't he have a manner? He doesn't have any of that stuff. No, something is amiss and she would know that. I just don't think she cares. I don't think any of them care at all. And that's the thing about Pure bloodedness, right? Like, it's so fake. It's so fake because you really just have to believe what they believe and they make it so stringent, they make the idea of being a pureblood so stringent, right? So it's not just having two magical parents, but it's actually having two magical parents who come from a pureblood lineage. But at the end of the day, the biggest proponent of Pure Blood supremacy is a half blood, right? Like his lieutenant Snape is a half blood. And everybody knows that about Snape. Nobody's asking any questions because they're like, whatever, it doesn't matter. As long as these people are willing to execute the plans and the ideological beliefs of other Purebloods, there is so little concern about the actual makeup of their family. It's also why it's so easy for people like Dolores Umbridge to fake being pureblood or Dumbledore's mother, right? Like, the idea of pure Bloodedness is absolutely fake. It doesn't mean anything. And you can probably in very, very meaningful and convincing ways so that no one is asking any follow up questions. And I think this moment with Harry and Bellatrix in the Department of Mysteries really highlights this reality, right? And so to bring it all together, right, when we think about, you know, what these moments kind of teach us about Pure bloodedness, right? The first is that these individuals are socialized to understand the world in such a microscopic way. They don't really know very much about the wizarding world broadly construed around them because they're so cloistered in their own space. And that there is such an investment in maintaining this notion of pure bloodedness that they will allow other people who are not pureblood to enter into the space without much provocation. Because they are very much invested in maintaining the idea of pure bloodedness, right? Hagrid tells Harry in the beginning of Philosopher Sorcerer's Stone that most people cannot be pure Blood because they all would have died out by now, right? And so that there has to be enough intermarriage to keep the kind of magical world afloat. And yet we still have a number of people laying claim to the idea of pure bloodedness. All the while the Weasleys have a second cousin who is absolutely a Squib. And that's not even counting for the other people who are also, also running around here. It's all fake. I think if, if I had to find a word, right, if I had to find a word to describe Pure Bloodedness and kind of the notion of it, it's fake, it is not real. It is based. It's a social construct wherein individuals who are very much invested in their own superiority make things up and they pass all that stuff down to these individuals so that they can like believe that they are better than everyone else, right? And that's how you get the Gaunts, that's how you get Marvolo, that's how you get Morphin, right? Who believe in the fallacy of pure bloodedness, even though they are dead broke with nothing but a couple of trinkets with some images on it that make them feel important and better than everyone else, right? The notion of pure Bloodedness is steeped in this idea of superiority. At all costs, no matter what it takes, we will remain superior. And if it so happens that we have to induct other people in who are not Pure blood to maintain supremacy, we will do it because it's not real. And this is a really important thing for us to think about and to keep in the forefront of our minds as we move into Half Bloods. Because when we think about what the goal of some Half Bloods is, it's going to be to blend in with purebloods. It's going to be to want to be at the top of the Wizarding Society. And the ease with which they're able to accomplish that is due in large part to the fact that the thing that they're trying to kind of take on or the group that they're trying to join in is fake. It's completely and utterly made up under the auspices of biology. But we know that that's not real because they move people around left and right. And Squibs are a really, really great example of this reality because they are probably mostly Pure Blood people. Because only Pure Blood people would be so invested in making sure that your lineage remains magical, right? And so if that's the case, then more often than not your Squibs are gonna be coming from Pure blood families and they are given a completely different moniker, a completely different status, right? In order to maintain the sanctity and purity of blood, so that there's a lot of moving around that can happen. So when we think about Half Bloods and what their goals are and who it is that they're trying to fit in with and what it is that they're trying to accomplish. It's important for us to remember what the structure has set up in the way of kind of what it means to be successful and what it means to be like a good person in wizarding society, who that is. And it's purebloods. And so this is a really solid kind of transition for us because it helps us understand what the motivation for some of these Half Bloods might be and why they make particular choices moving forward. Which is why I wanted to start with purebloods, because, like I said, there's a method to the madness. And that method is an understanding of what the societal goal structure is. And that goal structure is to be as close to pure bloodedness as possible, because they make it so hard, but there are so many rewards that go along with it, if you play the game correctly. And we're going to see some of these hot Bloods that we're going to be talking about playing it really, really, really well. And now we know why they're doing it. And so we have a really solid foundation on which to build our understanding of a lot of the characters that are to come. And just like that, we have completely finished our journey into the pure Bloods of Harry Potter. Y'all, what a time it has been. I listened back to some of those old episodes and I was like, oh, baby, baby, baby, you were so young, so green, you didn't know what you were doing. And the truth is I still don't. But this has been such a beautiful journey and I really hope you enjoyed this episode because I really liked it. I liked going back and kind of rehashing what we discussed. I liked comparing all of these characters in ways. And what's fascinating is the relationships that we were able to see, right? Like, you know, best parent, worst parent being Narcissa and Lucius, having Neville and Bellatrix be the hero and the villain, like all of these connections that we have and the different kind of through lines that we can see across these different groups of people was really, really fascinating. And I can't wait to dive in more as we move on to Half Bloods, y'all. How exciting. Thank you all so much as always, for your participation in the surveys. I can't wait until we dive back into our discussion of the one and only Voldi V. This is going to be a really, really good time and I can't wait to see what you all bring to bear, Y'all, I just have to say thank you one more time. This is a really crazy thing that we've been doing, and our community is steadily growing and we are, like, having a lot of fun and learning about this world that we love. We're learning about ourselves. Anyways, I am so fortunate and so lucky to be able to do this. To read your words, to kind of put your thoughts and synthesize them into something that that's somewhat coherent. And I feel very honored to be able to do that because, yeah, it's cool. And I think that in a time where we do feel so alone, like I said earlier in the episode, it's always fun to be able to come together and just nerd out a little bit. And so thank you all for giving me the opportunity to do that. And I hope that we get to do more and more of it with more and more people as we move into the real meat and potatoes of this, of this world, of this universe. With Half Bloods, y'all, I want you to bring it for the Voldemort episode. Okay? I need you all to give me your best. I want essays, I want it all. Don't let me down. This has been another episode of Critical Magic Theory. I'm Professor Julian Womble, and if you enjoyed 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, y'all. Again, the next episode is going to be about the one and only Lord Voldemort. And I can't wait to see what you all have cooked up for me. Please feel free to join us on patreon@patreon.com criticalmagictheory for this, the post episode chat as well, for the question of the week and all the other things that we have going on there, y'all. It's a wonderland, a treasure trove if you will, y'all. I cannot wait until the next episode when we dive into our Half bloods. Until then, be critical and stay magical, my friends. Bye.