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Critical Magic Theory: An Analytical Harry Potter Podcast
The Chaotic Neutrality of Horace Slughorn
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Professor Julian Womble
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 going to be talking about Horace Slughorn. Y'all. Admittedly, I had not thought about Horace Slughorn when I conceptualized this particular unit, if you will, of our discussion surrounding purebloods. He never even popped into my head. And some of us may not have even recognized that he was pureblood. But his family name is in the sacred 28 which is an anonymously written tome that tells us the prominent pureblood families of wizarding society. And Slughorn is one of those names. So he fits. He fits into the theme. And he also introduces for us something that we haven't quite had yet. Like, we've had our morally gray characters, our characters who have occup a particular space but we've always known kind of either where they ended up or what side they were aligned with. Slughorn does not give us the ability to really have a sense of that. Right. We recognize, you know, that he's not necessarily a Death Eater, but is he an Order member? We'll talk about that. I think I'm mostly excited because there are so many things that came up for many of you about this character and you couldn't quite place, you know, is he a good person? Is he a good teacher? Is he a good pureblood? And you know that I love chaos. And to me, Horace Slughorn is the personification of that chaos. Have you ever wondered where Slughorn stood on pure blood supremacy? Or whether he was an effective Potions master or. Or whether him giving Harry and Dumbledore that crucial memory makes him a hero? We are getting into all of it today, and I cannot wait because you all. It's always so funny when we bring in characters that we only meet once or we don't spend a lot of time and people are like, we don't really know a lot about that person. And then you all write essays, full on, like, essays. And you all did that today. And I'm so excited to dive in. But you know what we have to do first. You know, I haven't given you a vocal in a while, so I just had to just throw that in. This might be a musical episode. I don't know. I haven't. I haven't decided yet. But either way, whether or not it's music coming from me or the theme song, you know, that you have to. Bop along, Stretch. Get yourselves Together. We're bopping in three, two, one. Let's go. We need to talk about Harry Potter. Oh, shoot. I'm back, I'm back, I'm back and I hope you danced. I have to say this, you all really showed out in the post episode chat on Patreon for the James Potter episode. And I always find it so funny because we don't get a lot of James Potter. We don't spend a lot of time with him, we only get him in memories. And yet somehow you all find a way to really excavate any number of things that I hadn't thought about. You're pushing me, you're pushing each other and it just is, it's so beautiful. But it is so funny because I feel like we don't have nearly as much to say about some of the characters that we spend a lot of time with, but the ones that we don't, everyone is like, oh, I have thoughts on that. And you know, I just, it just makes me really appreciate this community. And so I want to say thank you to those of you who did participate in the chat. I'll thank even those individuals who, you know, looked in and saw what was going on. Admittedly, it wasn't as dramatic as some other post episode chats have been. I think this one's going to have a bit of drama because I feel like I have a lot of takes on Horace Slughorn that some of us may agree with, but some of us may be like, what the absolute heck is he talking about? And so before we even get into all of that, I do want to take a moment to thank the new Chronic overthinkers who have joined the Patreon. So I want to thank Morgan, Magical Girl in Training, Jo and Abigail. And if you read the episode summary, you will also see thanks to those individuals who joined via paid subscription as deep diversity. I really just want to take a moment to thank you so much for your investment and your support in this community. It means a lot to me. It means a lot to all of us who get to partake in your thoughts and who also get to take part in all of the cool perks and things that I provide on the Patreon. For those individuals with paid subscriptions. If joining the Patreon for free or via subscription is something that you are interested in, please feel free to go to patreon.com criticalmagictheory if you follow me on social media, there's a link in my social media bio both on TikTok and on Instagram where you can go and you can find the link to the Patreon and all other things. Also, I say this at the end of every episode, but I know that many of us don't necessarily make it all the way to the end. If you don't follow me on social media and you're like a social media person, please feel free to follow me on TikTok for as long as we have it. ROFW P r o f w and on Instagram. Prof. J.W. p r o f dot J.W. we have a good time. I post snippets from my class. We chat about the episodes. It's all there. It's all fun. Please feel free to join if you want to see real chaos. Like that's really where we get it and then we transfer it to the Patreon. Okay? So please again feel free to join for free and join in on the post episode chats because again, I guarantee that this episode is going to have a lot of things because Horus is. Well, I love that I call him Horus. Like he's my best friend, but he is a piece of work. And you know that that kind of chaos is the type of thing that we thrive on here at Critical Magic Theory. Next episode, though, I have to say, and I have to say this because again, I normally say that at the end of the episode, but I want to make sure you all know what we're getting ourselves into for the next episode before we dive into to my friend Sluggy, we're talking about Barty Crouch Sr. And I just have to say this. I have nothing but contempt for this man. Nothing but disdain, dislike, and disrespect for this man. There is nothing that any of you are going to be able to write in your responses that's going to change my mind. Nope. I dare you to try. If you're feeling froggy, if you're feeling argumentative, if you're feeling persuasive, I invite you to try and change my mind about him. But I'm so sorry, I don't have it. We're talking about Barty Crouch Senior. Not Junior. Not Junior. We'll be talking about him in the next episode after Barty Crouch Senior. But next episode, we're talking about Barty Crouch Sr. And I am already upset. I'm already angry, and I just need to pull it back. I need to pull it back. And you know what makes me happy, though? Hmm? You know, merch. I have received numerous emails and messages from individuals who have been so kind as to share their portfolios for their artistic prowess and their graphic designing skills. And so I want to extend the invitation one more time. I know that I have not responded to the individuals who have reached out to me and I will. I went out of town last week, but now I'm back. I'm back and so you will hear from me. But I also want to leave space for those of us who may have thought to do it but then didn't, because life. And if that's the case for you, and you want to reach out, please feel free to reach out to me@criticalmagictheorymail.com and send me your website, your rates, because I believe in paying people for their art because it feels very important to me. And so please feel free to do that. And I will be in touch with those of you who have reached out and just getting a sense of things. I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to do this. I will figure it out though. In the meantime, between time, if you are an artist or a graphic designer and have not reached out to me, but are interested in thinking about designing things for our merch, which we have decided we want, please send me an email. If you follow me on social media, please feel free to send me a dm. Anyways, reach out, let me know. But y'all, now's the time. I feel like we're all in the Slug Club right now. Like, we're all the chosen people and we are going to be talking about the orchestrator of that very club, the Messi. The Messi's the only word that I can come up with. It took me a while to figure out what my favorite moment for Slughorn was, but then it came to me. And it is the moment in the memory that Harry and Dumbledore fight so hard to get. And it's the moment in particular in this memory where Slughorn realizes just how depraved Tom Riddle is. And it's a moment where the kind of ambivalent nature of his character, which is something that we're gonna talk about a lot throughout this episode, really does get pushed because Tom Riddle comes to him and is like, what's a Horcrux? And he offers this explanation very candidly, a little bit hesitantly, but is willing to kind of tell him about this. And when Tom Riddle says, okay, but like, making one Horcrux really kind of seems dumb, why not make seven? Slughorn then has to kind of grapple with this, right? Because now he's told Tom Riddle, hey, you gotta kill people in order to successfully do this. And Tom Riddle's like, great, okay, but what if I wanted to do it seven times, which means I have to kill seven people? And Slugorn's like, mm. And so now he has to grapple with a reality about this student that he has kind of prized and recognized. Earlier in that conversation, he tells Tom Riddle, I think you could be the Minister of magic in 15 to 20 years. And so this is a character that he has some level of admiration for. And in this moment, he has to kind of realize a thing which is that ambition can be dangerous. And that all of the things that he kind of promotes in his students, both as the head of house, but also as the kind of orchestrator of the Slug Club, is something that can be warped into a really bad and dangerous thing. And it is a rarity when we get to see this reality dawn for him. And I also think it's a moment that for me, scares Slughorn the most. Because I think one of the facets of Slughorn that I find so fascinating is the fact that I think he sees in all of the students in Slug Club, he sees himself, he wants to offer opportunities to them because he believes that, you know, it makes him better, it reflects better on him, it shows his power, it shows his prowess, it shows his influence. And so he creates this club as a means by which to really, I mean, it's just self aggrandizement, right? It's just this kind of self obsessed way to be like, look at me, I did that. You're a success. Because I made it so I have an entire wall dedicated to all of the people who I help, who now help me. And if you get in line with me, you could be on the wall. And also I can help you achieve greatness. And so as much as it is about his connections, it's also simply about making himself feel better. But in this moment with Tom Riddle, all of that is turned sour because he realizes that you can do all of these things, but there is a dark side to it. And that there can be a way that these things can be warped and turned into things that are bad and evil and terrible. And what we know about Slughorn is that he turns a blind eye to a lot of the kind of more base impulses that individuals may have. But in this moment, he's confronted with it head on and he can't avoid it. And he is having to answer questions that he isn't ready to answer. And he has to grapple with the reality that all of the things that he prizes, glory, power, ambition, all of those things in this moment are the very reason why this person is standing in front of him talking about murdering seven people. And he has to grapple with all of that. Particularly because he sees in each of these students, particularly I think Tom Riddle, he sees himself, he sees the things that he wants. And he is scared. Because my thought also is, and this was something that I was thinking about as I was reading the passage to make sure that I didn't misinterpret it. Why does he know so much about Horcruxes to begin with? Tom Riddle saw something in him that said, you're the guy, you know about this. And he says, in the passage, he says that the desire to understand something about immortality or the desire to figure out how to kind of tether oneself to this earth is something that people who are very talented and want power, it's something that they do. And I think he's one of those people. And I think that part of his fear and concern is the fact that he tried this. And I think Tom Riddle knew that. Because I think Tom Riddle also recognized in Slughorn things that were in him. And so there's this relationship that they have where they see each other for who they are. And Slughorn sees Tom Riddle for who he could have been if he had gone down a different path and really allowed his ambition and desire for power to dictate his his actions. And I think that that scares him because there's nothing worse for a self obsessed person than a mirror that shows them the truth. And that's what Tom Riddle is to Slughorn in this moment. And that's why I love it. What word best describes Horace Slughorn? The top three were opportunistic, selfish and self serving. I can't argue with any of those. I think that what we see is that Horus is a person who, and this is something that you all say a lot in your comments, really is in it for himself. He is someone who will take any opportunity offered to him. If he thinks it's going to up his cachet, if it's going to up his ability to brag, if it's going to up his ability to feel superior to other people, he's in right. He wants that. And to me it's fascinating because all of these words really do speak to something inside of him that he is not necessarily okay with. There is an insecurity, there's a lack of fulfillment. He is trying to find something and he does that by way of his connections. He does that by way of upping his kind of social status. And it's fascinating because he presents as someone who has it all, but in reality it just feels like he has nothing. Like he doesn't have a lot unless he is able to brag. And I think we really do see that in Half Blood Prince when we meet him for the first time. And he kind of waxes poetic on the reality of all the connections that he had and how little it all means in the context of the war with Voldemort and how he can't, you know, go to Quidditch games, you know, with Gwyneth Jones, or he can't send things to the Daily Prophet and that all of that kind of goes away. And now he's just this person on the run and he doesn't really have anything meaningful going for him. And I think that that's part of the reason why Dumbledore was able to so easily convince him. I think obviously Harry played a big part in this. But I also think that Horace Stockhorn is a person who doesn't have a life. He doesn't have anyone who cares about him. And that could be the byproduct of just like his own kind of predisposition and the opportunism and the self serving and the selfishness. But it is also possible that all of those things are the byproduct of simply being someone without anything to truly care about. And so he's fashioned a life that he thinks makes people envious. When in reality, if we think hard enough about it, it strikes me that he is someone who is outrageously lonely in a world of people who are celebrating him and bringing him to games and doing all of these things. He really has no one. And so he creates the Slug Club and he creates all of this fanfare and all of these students. And he does it all to fulfill a part of himself that I think is just deficient for him. I think he is wanting connection, he's wanting those things. And he is not a person who particularly, at least it seems, isn't adept at getting it in a sincere way. And so he does it by way of leveraging the things that he has, which is influence and power. And I literally just thought of this and it makes me very sad for him. And it makes me really kind of at least understand him on a deeper level about why he does what he does the way that he does it. And I don't want to excuse any of the opportunistic or the selfish or the self serving. But I think just thinking about kind of the way he operates, I understand it a bit more because I don't think that he's a person who, who is ultimately truly happy. He strikes me as a person who is searching for happiness in whatever way he can find it. And I think in this moment, when we meet him, in this moment where all of the accoutrements that he's so used to being surrounded by, all of it is gone, his influence has waned significantly. He is, for all intents and purposes an individual who lives, you know, by himself on an island. And that is a sad state of affairs and I think plays a really big part in the way that he operates as a professor, as a teacher, as a person. I think all he has is himself and his reputation and he is terrified of what it means to lose those things because he has nothing else. And that is how he defines himself. And so we can imagine why he would be so hard pressed to make sure that that memory, the true memory, never got out because all he has is his reputation. All he has is what people think of him. And that is a terrifyingly fragile thing to try to hold onto as tightly as he does. And the cracks begin to show because he's grasping it so hard. And I think that there's something so, oh, heartbreaking about that, actually. And again, my goal here isn't to make us feel bad for Slughorn, but it is to help us kind of see maybe where some of the selfishness and the self servingness and the opportunism come from. And you all may disagree with that, but. And that's okay, you know. You know, I don't mind your disagreement, but it really does throw into sharp relief the choices that he makes. It's time for our arithmancy lesson. For this episode's arithmancy Lesson, we had 203 responses. And the first question is, is Horace Slughorn a good person? This is a first for us. So about 30% said yes, about 36% said no and about 35% said don't know. We have yet to have a character that has divided us basically into thirds across our three options. So Horace Leghorn really is living up to the kind of morally gray not good, not bad character. And someone wrote at first for good person. I said I don't know. But I changed it to yes. The more I thought about it, from what we know, he has no interest in joining Death Eaters and doesn't uphold their values in the same way. That doesn't mean he doesn't uphold them at all. Someone else wrote, horace Slughorn is a self serving person who doesn't seem to care about anyone unless it serves him. This is very self evident in his little elite club that he has when he's teaching at Hogwarts. Slughorn might act like he has your back, but as soon as you don't serve him a purpose, or ditching or maybe even betraying or hurting you helps him more, he will do it. He is not one that I ever thought of as outright bad like Voldy or Umbridge, but as I've gotten older and started to more critically analyze these characters, he is definitely not good. It's just more hidden or nuanced. And one more person wrote, I think Horus is an interesting character because we don't see many in this story who are just on the edge of decency. Typically we know who the good guys are and who the baddies are, even if some think a handful of characters switch sides throughout the series. I don't believe Horace is a good person because he presents as someone who puts himself first and any beliefs he has are not strong enough in conviction to stand up for and put himself in danger. These are really interesting points that are being made here because I think what it kind of brings us to is the very thing that you all brought to bear in your description of him through the three words selfish, self serving and opportunistic. And what I think is true for Horace Slughorn, that works to his disadvantage in thinking about him and whether or not he's a good person is that all the characters that we've looked at thus far have all fallen on one side of the spectrum. There are be people who have done certain things that might make us look at them differently, but ultimately we know they are good. Like we know that Sirius was a good person. He had, he made bad choices in his youth, but we knew where he stood ultimately. And so like in terms of where he sat in the kind of social hierarchy and the social order, we knew where he was, we knew he was a member of the Order, we knew that he was anti Voldemort, we knew that he was someone who was fighting against kind of all that Voldemort represented, we don't have that for Slughorn. We know the Weasleys, we know their story, we know where they sit and where they stand. We know the Malfoys, we know Bellatrix, we know all of these individuals, we know where they are. We don't have any of that information for Slughorn. He lives in this in between space and he seems to do it intentionally. And so I think this question, at least for me, is a really difficult one to answer because using the benchmarks set forth by all the other characters that we've talked about, he sits smack dab in the middle. He is not a person. He is a man without a cause. He is simply a man who just wants to live a fine life that is luxurious and really has no care about any of the other things that are going on in and around him unless they are affecting his ability to live the luxurious life he wants to live. And there is something about that that gives me the ick. And there is something about that that feels disconcerting. But it's difficult to be able to determine what that means in terms of whether or not he's a good or a bad person, because he is not a person who's on a side. And I think, you know, there is this saying, you know, if you. What is it like, if you're a person who is silent to people's oppression, then you've chosen the side of the oppressor or something along those lines. And so if we take that particular line of thinking, then we can recognize that, you know, his not necessarily being outspoken against Voldemort means that he is kind of pro Voldemort. For those of us in the United States right now, we are living in a moment where this feels very real for us, right? Where we are kind of really pushing people to give voice to their beliefs as it pertains to the individuals who are running for president right now. And I know that some of us may not like me getting political, but I'm a political scientist, so. Sorry. Not sorry. But I think that there's something really fascinating about this because, you know, Horace Lockhorn sits in this kind of in between purgatory space, and it's really hard to place him. And that's made so evident in the fact that basically, yes, no, and don't know for this question were split into a. Into thirds, which we generally do not have. And so I don't, you know, moving forward, we have to think about what this means for how we approach him. And I think that there is something so fascinating about, you know, how we understand Horace Slughorn as a person, as an individual in this society that is so easily bifurcated. And there are not a lot of characters that we meet in these books who we can't categorize. And he is one of the ones that we really have to fight to do. And I think he does it on purpose because all he wants to do is live a good life. And whoever can offer him that life is the way that he's gonna go. And I think that that's the opportunism that you all discussed and gave voice to in your words, for describing him. And I think that there is something really, really gross about that. And it makes me. And maybe it's because it's hitting too close to home in this particular moment that we're in, but it strikes me that, you know, it's not even that he's just silent. He is actively avoiding choosing sides. And when it's brought to his, brought to his attention by Harry, that, like, you know, hey, I don't think it really matters because you're not really fighting for Voldemort, so he's gonna assume you're against him. It's then that Slughorn's like, oh, yeah, that's a really good point. And he makes a choice, but not even really makes a choice. He makes a choice to go to Hogwarts not in support of anything, but rather for his own protection. And I don't know. And maybe it's because I feel like in this particular moment that we find ourselves in socially, and I think that that's true globally, that it's really hard to figure out what to do with people like Horace Leghorn. And so I'm kind of at a loss. Foreign a good teacher. I chose this question because he's the first teacher that we've had that we've talked about on the podcast. And I think it's a really interesting question that I can't wait to get into for the others because, you know, I know that many of us, myself included, teach children. Now I teach college kids, which is different. And I shouldn't even call them kids because they're full grown adult people. So I teach college adults people and you know, which is obviously very different than individuals who are teaching high school, elementary school, middle school. That's a whole different ball game. God bless you, you deserve the world. But it's also interesting for us to think about what this means in terms of what does the politic that he presents mean for the way that he teaches? And, you know, how do we compare him to other teachers? Anyways, the answer to this question, about 47% of us said, yes, he's a good teacher. About 36% of us said, no, he isn't. And about 17% said, don't know. Someone wrote, horace Slughorn is not a good teacher. His methods of teaching and evaluating students progress was too surface level and based on shallow favoritism instead of actually determining why some students were succeeding and why others were struggling and figuring out how to help all students gain a better understanding and improve their practical skills. Someone else wrote, not to start chaos, famous last words, but the only one I put yes to was is he a good teacher? While he clearly has some ingrained pure blood supremacy philosophies, surprised about Muggle Borns being good at magic, et cetera, and clearly has some favoritism going on, he he still treats students from all the houses and from all backgrounds with equal respect and rewards points based on merit and not based on them being in his house. He tries to make lessons fun and is kind to students even when they mess up. He never shames or humiliates them for making mistakes. Is he a perfect teacher? No. But everything is relative and in the context of Hogwarts and some of the other professors, I think overall Sluckhorn is a good teacher who genuinely enjoys teaching kids and wants to uplift them and see them succeed. Okay, these are interesting points. Very interesting points to think about. What is it that we think of when we think of a good teacher? Now, many of us often give voice to the fact that some of the questions are too normative when it comes to being a good sibling or a good parent. But it seems to me that we have decided that there are objective things that make an individual a good teacher. And what we have from these first two passages is is kind of a conflict because there's an open acknowledgment of the fact that he does have biases in favor of certain students, but that he creates a classroom environment that at least facilitates a better place for learning than some of the other teachers. Snape, someone wrote, Horace is a better teacher of potions than Snape, but nonetheless his gathering of favorites is problematic. Someone else wrote, as a teacher myself, I initially reached for yes on is he a good teacher? Because he really does push students to excel. And in comparison to Snape, he seemed so much better. But I actually ended up saying, no, he isn't a good teacher because he only really pushes students to be the best they can if they fit his preconceived notions of a successful student. I love this, you know, I love this chaos, you know that. I love that there's not a consensus on this answer because I think it is a really difficult question because the thing that we have to kind of think about is what are the deliverables that we're looking for? What are the outcomes that we're hoping for? I think that some other people wrote in their comments that they weren't convinced that he was a good teacher because he didn't actually teach them. He just told them to open the book and do the assignments. He didn't push them to try and figure things out. He didn't kind of give them any guidance. He just was more of a facilitator than he was or even like just an arbitrator. He didn't actually provide any insight into things insofar that he said, open the book. Now, I could make an argument for why at this point in their careers they have passed their OWLS and they are in this class. And so maybe he doesn't think that they really need him at certain points because he's like, you all are already here. I'm just here to help expose you to different kinds of potions that may help you later on in your careers. But it is not incumbent upon me to actually teach you how to do this, because in theory, you should already know. Now, personally, I don't agree with this pedagogical approach. I think that if they are in your classroom, it is incumbent upon you as a teacher to figure out a way to make yourself useful. Because at the end of the day, if all you're gonna do is say, open the book and just like, go around and judge whether or not they've done it well enough, well, then, you know, they could do that at home. So what is it that you're bringing to the table? I think that Slughorn uses his classroom as a way to both kind of instruct, insofar that he is there to kind of point out what people have done wrong, but he's not exactly teaching them. And again, maybe it's because he assumes a level of explanation. And we know that Harry doesn't have that expertise, but that, you know, a young Severus Snape does in the form of the Half Blood Prince in his book. And it is interesting. And someone else brought this up in their comments about the fact that, you know, there are clearly other ways and more effective ways to make these potions. And you would want someone who has experimented and figured things out like a Snape to teach a class like this because it's so clear how adept he is at really bringing out the best in people when he is not trying to, like, you know, completely deride them and subjugate them because of, like, trauma. But Harry performs really, really well when not in a stressful situation and when given instructions that seemingly are a bit of off the cuff, right against the grain, if you will. And I think that Slughorn's approach here feels very lackadaisical to me because it's not necessarily even really pushing them. He's giving them hard potions, but he's not asking them to do anything outside of correctly administer what's done in the book. And what's so clear from what Snape shows us in the Half Blood Prince's book is that there are ways to be creative, there are ways to do it better, there are ways that you can improve even on what's in the book. And so you know, what's the goal for us as we think about what it is that we want from these professors? And it sounds to me like you want a professor who's going to be active and is going to actually teach you things. And Slughorn doesn't seem to be about that life, at least as we see him at this point in Harry's career. Slughorn seems to be someone who's there to make sure that no one is grievously injured and not necessarily to teach them how to be a better potion maker. Is Horace Slughorn a member of the Order of The Phoenix? About 84% of us said no, about 6% of us said yes and about 10% of us said no. Someone wrote whether he's in the Order. For me it's a no. He's never at the meetings in Order of the Phoenix. And although he does help the Order in the final book, I don't think he was ever an official member. I think he really tried to toe the neutral line to save his skin, but when the battle came to his doorstep, he knew he wasn't going to be able to aid the Death Eaters in killing students, etc. Someone else wrote, although he acted in a heroic way in the Battle of Hogwarts, I would not consider him a member of the Order. That requires, in my opinion, ongoing commitment to the cause. And someone else wrote, I don't believe he was in the Order, but he wasn't rooting for the bad side or good side until it got real. He was like Fudge with different Delulu, as if he could hide from Volde V. In short, he is only good at potions and for himself he doesn't really improve other circumstances like how Ron almost died from that poison and Harry had Snape's book which was helpful and did the trick he returned to Dumbledore scared like Peter did to Voldi V and to be a groupie to a big wizard celeb during their fame. Instead of seeing their potential and reaping benefits later. Him giving them the final piece of the memory was the key to bringing down Voldi as Peter revived him. But he only did it to preserve his life. He did not contribute much otherwise. Was he even in the Order? Probably did enough to not arise suspicion with both sides. To me this was an easier question to answer, so you're welcome. I think the answer's clear. He's not in the Order. I think that he is someone who would never join an organization that would force him to have to choose a side. I think speaking to what you all have spoken to in your comments and earlier in the survey about what the words that you chose to describe him, he is someone who not only likes to be in a neutral space, but thrives in it. This is a person who wants to be able to pick and choose the moments when he is a part of anything and only and if only it benefits him. And being a part of the Order is not necessarily a thing. He even says it. He's like, the Order people are dying, Sirius Black died. He's like, I don't like the numbers. And he is all about self preservation. He is all about making sure that he is taken care of. And even though like he doesn't really have a lot of things around him that kind of support him or give him anything, he is nothing if not going to ensure that he is taken care of and that he is okay. And the reality is of it is there on either side. Nothing is safe because you're either dealing with Dumbledore, who at any given moment isn't particularly interested in your safety and or Voldemort who compromises it at any given moment because he doesn't care about it either. And so no, Slughorn would never join the Order. He may help you adjacent. He may be Order adjacent for the sake of, you know, trying to do the right thing. Because I think he ultimately does have a pretty decent moral compass. But if that compass is pointing towards group affiliation, he's not going with it. But you know what group. I think Horace Slughorn was actually okay with being in Slytherin House. And so the next question that was our Patreon exclusive question asked, is Horace Slughorn a good Slytherin? 85% of us said yes, 7% said no, and 8% said don't know. Jasmine wrote, absolutely. One of the defining Traits of a good Slytherin is their resourcefulness. Slughorn's biggest resource is the large scale social capital he has built over the years that has afforded him all of the luxury, privilege and help that he could ever want. He's very adept at accessing people's potential and forming the right connections that could benefit him later down the line. Peak Slytherin behavior, Nadia wrote. Everyone is forgetting cleverness. Horace is not clever and I will die on this hill. Don't do that. But we hear you, Nadia. She wrote. He is a Potions teacher which requires only attention to detail which should be ideally suited to a Slytherin. Yet he fails to notice errors in the textbook and leaves his students floundering. Snape wrote the instructions on the board for his students to work from and even worked out corrections when he was a student. A far superior Slytherin, Horace allowed Tom Riddle to recruit Death Eaters right under his nose in Slug Club meetings. And in the unadulterated memory I have the distinct impression he was too arrogant to notice them sharing sly glances and laughing at him behind his back. Janice wrote. Yes, the Slug Club and even the way in which he altered his memories to protect his involvement with providing Voldemort with the Horcrux information. Surely it was mainly out of guilt, but it also showed a cunning way to protect his own identity and self interest. This is interesting. And you all know that I'm a Slytherin and so you know that there are aspects of what you've written that I am grappling with because are you all trying to drag me? Hmm, what about that? But I do think that there are aspects of Slughorn that really do resonate with me as a Slytherin. And I think one of the things that we've talked a lot about for the other Slytherins, for the Malfoys is this notion of self preservation. And if we ever had to characterize Slughorn as anything, it's going to be the self preserving. He is a person who is going to do the whatever it takes to ensure that he is good. Whatever else is happening with all those other people really is not his business. He's going to take care of himself if nothing else. And I think that there is something to that that feels so quintessentially Slytherin to me. I also think that there was an interesting point made by Eric in the comments on Patreon where he said that Slughorn is a pre Voldemort Slytherin. Which means that, you know, we aren't Associating him with the kind of dark arts kind of vibe that we tend to associate with Slytherins, right? He is someone who is to his core, a person who has the kind of ambition, who has the power, who has the connections, the self preservation. And I love this idea that Janese introduces, which is this kind of self preservation and cunning in the way of altering the memory. And this is something that really resonated with me because I'm like, it seems like a very difficult thing to do. I mean, even the way he did it was clearly shoddy, right? But we know that memory charms are difficult to perform on other people, let alone on yourself. And it also strikes me that it takes a level of, kind of delusion in order for it to really take hold in you. Like, you have to believe this because if you keep remembering the thing, right? Like, I don't even know how, how like an auto memory charm works. But it seems to me that there is more than just the charm itself that has to go into this. Like you have to recreate this moment and then convince yourself that it's true and then allow that to kind of take root in your mind and then do the spell. And so it strikes me that, you know, there's. And there's something so quintessentially Slytherin about that as well, right? This kind of desire to preserve yourself and your reputation. And as I said earlier, for someone like Slughorn, who doesn't really have anything else going for him, no other like interpersonal connections that are meaningful, that aren't transactional, the idea that you would be kind of aligned with Voldemort and the reason why he kind of figured out, you know, how to stay immortal tells us a very specific kind of story. And it's something that he wouldn't want to get out because part of straddling the fence means that people can't have like very overwhelming perspectives on you. And so I think, you know, I struggled with this question because I think that there is this kind of thirst to prove himself that feels very juvenile to me. I think a lot of the other Slytherins that we meet are people who are very self assured and who are very aware of who they are. But then I thought about Lucius. I thought about the bust down, I thought about the luscious locks and I thought, never mind. Because Lucius was all about making sure that the facade stayed in place. So was Narcissa. And that feels very much like something that is true for Pure Bloods in general, but particularly those whose kind of Existence in a space is purely reputational and that the veneer of their existence is all about looking shiny. And for a person like Horace Slughorn, that is really important. And, you know, the way that he goes about maintaining that veneer, I think is where we really do get to see his Slytherin ness really rise to the fore. And so, yeah, I think he's a great Slytherin. I think he is a Slytherin of old, though. I think that he is a Slytherin where, you know, the idea that he gets to not choose a side tells us a story about the distance between the Slytherins that we meet, right? The Malfoys, Draco and even Snape, right? And the old school Slytherins who were really just about connections, reputation and power. And so I think that to me, without the kind of bastardization that we get from the Voldemort era Slytherins to me, Horace Slughorn is this kind of quintessential poster child for what Slytherin house is meant to be without the kind of corruption that comes along with aligning yourself with the dark arts. And it's with that in mind that the next question falls into place which is, is Horace Slughorn a good pureblood? So we've talked about the distance that he creates between himself and other Death Eaters. We've talked about the distance that he creates between himself and the Order. And so questions remain about whether or not he is like the other girls or is he cutesy and is he demure? So about 41% of us said that he is a good pureblood. 26% said no and 33% said, don't know. Someone wrote, I think Slughorn is a good pure blood in the sense that he does almost anything to raise himself above in society. He collects children who show promise and grooms them to feel as though they owe him something. He isn't willing to risk his own life for any cause which we see when he initially refuses Dumbledore's offer to return to Hogwarts. And he is hiding from the Death Eaters. He doesn't care about the rest of the wizarding world. He only cares about his status and society's perception of him. Someone else wrote, horace is the token, I'm not racist, I have a black friend kind of guy. That's the vibe I get now. Is he a bigot and a pureblood supporter and that he believes purebloods are better? Yes, simply because he qualifies that he isn't a pureblood supremacist because the smartest witches he's known haven't been pureblood. He doesn't say that as a testament to their capabilities. He says that to negate any connection between him and the negative connotations of pureblood. However, if the status pureblood were too good for him, you best believe that he would be pointing out, hey, I'm not. That someone else wrote, Slughorn comes from a pre Voldemort generation of Slytherins. While not blatantly racist or subscribed to Voldemort's cause, he believes magical people to be of a higher worth. He is self serving and doesn't seem to want to use his power as a pure blood in society to advance it. So here's the thing. I think that Horace Slughorn is a pure blood supremacist. I think that he simply believes that they are better than everyone. And I think he just makes exceptions to his rule. I've talked about this for other characters, but I am not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as it pertains to this. Because he said that like, oh, you know, Lily was my favorite student. Okay, you are surprised that she was good. You are surprised that Hermione was good. You sat there and told Tom Riddle that you knew he was successful because he came from good wizarding stock. You are the byproduct of a society that benefits pureblood people. And you as a pureblood have benefited immensely from those beliefs. Of course you are a pure blood supremacist in some ways. You are not someone who buys into the active violence that comes along with pure blood supremacy. So there's a distinction we can make. You're not like the other girls insofar that you don't necessarily believe in the active violent subjugation. But at the end of the day you believe that pure bloods are better. And you are surprised when others who aren't pure blood are good. And that tells us that implicit in that assumption and in that surprise is the notion that you actually do believe in the inferiority of half bloods and Muggle borns. And that is supremacist ideology made manifest. And so again, I think what he introduces to us, and I think that the point about him being an old school Slytherin is important here because I think in addition to being old school Slytherin, he's an old school pureblood. Which is to say that he's not someone who is actively like, we need to round them up. But he is saying you all are not as good as us. You can't sit with us. You all are not on the same level as us. And if you are, that means you are exceptional. And I'm going to put you like an elf on my shelf. And that's what he did with Lily. And that's what he wants to do with Hermione. And I think that, you know, one could make an argument. And I think one of the facets of complexities for Slughorn is that he doesn't just treat Muggle Borns this way, right? Like if you are a pureblood like Neville and you aren't good at magic, you don't make the shelf. Same thing with Draco. And so he believes in the inherent superiority of pure bloods. But that doesn't mean that he is going to just allow you to exist, because you are. You still have to prove yourself. You still have to give him something to work with. And if you don't, he will look down on you. And in fact, it seems to me that he looks down on you even more because you don't fit his preconceived idea of what it means to be pure blood, which is superior. And so if you are in fact inferior, whether it be because of your magical acumen or your reputation, he's not interested in you. Because he believes that you should be behaving in a specific way because of your upbringing. And if you are not, then you are not worthy of his time. You're not worthy of his attention. And that to me still emphasizes this pure blood supremacist ideology. Because he's basically saying you should be better. And the fact that you're not means that I'm gonna punish you for it. And that to me is outrageously telling. Is Horace sluckhorn a hero? 75% of us said no. 13% of us said, don't know. And 11% of us said yes. Someone wrote, is he a hero? I would say yes. At the end of the day, he stayed behind in Deathly Hallows to fight, which he didn't have to do. He could have just left and just lived his pure blood life relatively protected. But he chose to put himself at risk. Anyways, someone else wrote, I do not qualify Slughorn as a hero because one good act does not a hero make. He was drunk when Harry finally was able to collect his memory. And he did fight in the final battle, which I give him credit for. But I do not think that if he hadn't been at Hogwarts when the battle was happening, he would have gone out of his way to be there. Someone else wrote, I would consider him a hero if he had provided his memory of young Voldemort to Dumbledore and Harry willingly. But since he was too concerned with what people might think about him, he didn't want to share that really important information, even if it meant facing and defeating Voldemort. This is the chaos that I love because I think that points have been made, I think that we have to hold in conversation the reality that, one, he was coerced into giving up the memory that was integral to bringing down Voldemort. And he knew, and he still didn't want to give it up because he didn't want to look bad. But we also know that he did fight in the battle. But it's difficult for us to reconcile those two things. And also it's interesting because it's like, well, so much of what we talked about is self preservation. And to me, you know, as I've said about the Weasleys and, you know, when I talk about whether or not they're heroic. And my claim has always been that if you are a pureblood in a space where you know that you are not inherently in danger because you are someone who, who at least Voldemort wants to protect, at least to a certain degree. Right. Especially at the end, which I think is all a ruse on his part, but let's go with it. There's really no need for you to sacrifice yourself. And I think we have to give Slughorn some credit for his involvement in the Battle of Hogwarts, whether or not it was simply because he was there or not. At a certain point he could have apparated out and he didn't. At a certain point he could have run and hidden and he didn't. And I think that there has to be something, some credit given to him for that. Does it mean he's a hero, though? And I think, you know, I struggle with, you know, what it means, what heroism means in this context. But I think at the end of the day, he does make a sacrifice that for the mo. The vast majority of this podcast we have said he would not make, which is he put his life on the line. He did not. And whether or not we know the reasons for that is unclear. But what we do know is that in a moment where those wards around Hogwarts were gone and everybody could have been apparating out like many, many people did, many Death Eaters did. When Harry came back, you know, once Voldemort entered into the fray, Horace Luckwan could have Left, he could have dipped out and said sayonara and he could have gone and he could have lived his life as a pureblood, as one of those comments said. And he didn't. He didn't do that. And for someone like him who is so self preserving, the mere act of staying, to me is heroic because it's not even just fighting against the human desire to survive, it's fighting against a cultivated impulse to do whatever it takes to stay alive. We meet him in Half Blood Prince on the Run. We meet him on the run without an allegiance for the sake of self preservation. And when we see him again at the Battle of Hogwarts, he has staked a claim. He doesn't necessarily need to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix. He is fighting next to them in battles with wizards and witches and magical people who could kill him. And he stayed and he fought. And I don't know, y'all, it seems to me that it would be a big injustice for us to not recognize that particular sacrifice for a person who has basically made it his life mission to not make any sacrifices for a person who has dedicated himself to staying alive at all cost. And he was willing to pay the ultimate cost in this moment. And to me, that's a character arc and we don't really get a sense of what it means because Harry's busy, you know, doing the self sacrificing thing himself in that moment. But at the end of the day, he could have been like the Malfoys and just gotten the heck out of Dodge, protected himself, tried to be safe, and he didn't. He made a conscious choice to stay. And that doesn't negate all of the other messy things that he does and the messy things that he did. But in that moment, in that moment of deciding, I'm going to go against everything that I believe and everything that I've done that's heroic. We've now reached the portion of the episode where I give my reflection on Horace Lockhorn. I didn't know what I was going to say about Horace Slughorn. And as I read through your comments, something really came to me. And so I really want to speak to the idea of who Horace Slughorn is. And to me, Horace Slughorn is everyone in the magical world. He is the vast majority of people in the magical society that we meet. He is someone who has decided that for the sake of their preservation, they aren't going to say anything. They're not going to speak out against the evils, they're not going to speak out against the ills that are happening. They're not going to side explicitly with good. They're going to keep quiet and they're going to just try to ride the wave until things calm down. That's Slughorn. And that's literally everyone that we meet. Everyone is just trying to figure out what to do when Voldemort returns. And it has always struck me as so annoying when everyone is so surprised that Voldemort has come back, as if there hasn't been signs, right? But everyone had their heads in the sand because it was better there. Ignorance is bliss. And they wanted to live blissful lives. They wanted to live in a space and a place where they didn't have to think or worry about their family or their friends. And so they decided that when he vanished from Godric's Hollow, he was finished. And like Sluckhorn, they said, we're not picking a side. And that's how you get a Voldemort rising up again some 13 years later. Because nothing has changed. Because the Slughorns of the world, which is the vast majority of the Wizarding Society, said, well, he's gone. I'm good. I get to live my life. I'm preserving myself, I'm preserving my life. And I think that there is something so fascinating about Slughorn in this way, because the ideology that he operates with is one of neutrality. And what neutrality does is it creates complacency. And everyone in the wizarding world is complacent. No one is working with a sense of urgency. Cornelius Fudge isn't. Everyone is operating from a space of Voldemort is gone. And thus we are fine. We don't need to worry. We are so good. And so no one is concerned. Everyone is just kind of like, well, you know, whatever. And that is the Slughorn mentality made manifest. When we meet Horace Slughorn. He literally has stolen away into some moguls home who are on vacation in the Canary Islands. And he has brought all of his accoutrement with him. I've said that word twice now because I'm fancy. But he's brought it all with him. He's brought his world, his life with him while he is on the run, trying to live a life as if Voldemort isn't back, as if the Death Eaters aren't running around. And he is not the only one. In fact, a lot of the people in the magical world are not even on the run. They're just at home. And so I think that part of what I noticed about the way that we kind of talked about Horace Slughorn and the criticism that we leveraged against him, all of which I believe is warranted, speaks to a lot of what is happening in the magical world, broadly construed. Part of the reason why Voldemort can come back is because no one tried to change anything. Everyone was silent and okay because he was gone. They let a 1 year old do the heavy lifting and once he was lifted, they were fine. And Horace Slughorn is that. And I think the only difference that we see is that we meet him in a moment where things have shifted. But at the end of the day, Horace Slughorn is simply trying to live a cute, demure life away from all of the things. And when he can't, he makes a choice. But he operates from a space of, well, it's not happening to me. We'll let them handle it. I'll let Dumbledore take care of it. I hear Harry Potter's out here running around at school, dying almost every day. He can take care of it. We're good over here. We're fine. And I think that there is something very specific about that that resonates with me both in terms of our understanding of who Slughorn is. But the reality is, is that he is not alone in this. And that part of the reason why Voldemort could come back and take over the Ministry as quickly and as easily as he was able to do is because there are a lot more Slughorns running around that world than we care to admit than that. In fact, the only people that we really get to meet throughout these books are the people who are on the fringes, are on the outside of the bell curve. That is pure blood supremacy and pro Voldemort thinking. And the reality of the situation is, is that Slughorn is not alone in this. This is everyone. This is all of the people who have the privilege of not feeling castigated or being afraid. This is all the people who know their family tree so they know they're not going to be rounded up. This is all the people who are like, it'll blow over. It blew over before and it'll blow over again. It is all of those people. And Horace Lockhorn is not alone. And so while he, yes, he is worthy of all of the judgment, the reality of the situation is, is that he is an example, a single example of what we see from the vast majority of people in the magical world. And we know that because in Deathly Hallows, Kingsley shacklebolt literally has to say, cast protective charms over Muggle dwellings. Like, he has to remind them of their humanity. He has to remind them that it is important for them to act as protectors for people who cannot protect themselves. Suck one is not alone in this, and I think that one of the things that this episode has really shown me is that he did this because he knew that he could, because it had worked before and he just believed it was going to work again and that there are other people in his orbit and in his circle who were doing the exact same thing. Foreign Y'all, we did it. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on our Patreon post episode chat. Please feel free to check it out. As I said, the next episode is going to be on Barty Crouch Senior. Get ready because the angst, the madness, the antics are all coming because I'm bringing it all. I'm bringing the fire. Okay? Don't forget, if you are an artist or know one and you are interested in helping us figure out designs for Merch to, send me an email@criticalmagictheorygmail.com y'all. This was so much fun. Thank you for all who participated in the survey. The next survey is going to be up on Friday on the Patreon so that you will have the weekend before I send it out to everyone else. I can't wait to see your thoughts. Foreign this has been another episode of Critical Magic Theory. I'm Professor Julian Womble and if you like today's episode. First of all, thank you. Please feel free to like, rate, subscribe, share, follow, do all the things that one does to share podcasts where pods are cast One second, I gotta jam a little bit. If you'd like to follow me on social media, please feel free to do so at Prof. W on TikTok and Prof. JW on Instagram. Until next time my friends. Be critical and stay magical. Bye.