The Double Disappearing Act of Parvati and Padma Patil

Summary

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Critical Magic Theory, Ep. “The Double Disappearing Act of Parvati and Padma Patil”

Host: Prof. Julian Womble
Date: April 8, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Professor Julian Womble takes listeners on a deep dive into the elusive representation of the Patil twins, Parvati and Padma, within the Harry Potter series. The discussion explores their fleeting yet telling appearances, decoding how their characterization (or lack thereof) informs broader patterns about gender, race, and narrative utility in Rowling’s Wizarding World. Womble critiques the underlying structures that cause these characters—South Asian girls with significant narrative potential—to become little more than decorative or functional side notes, challenging listeners to consider whose stories the text values.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Intentional Tone: Critique and Celebration

• Prof. Womble reaffirms the podcast's guiding belief that critical analysis is an act of love, not disdain:
  • “Because loving something doesn't mean we can't be critical of it.” (01:35)
• The episode continues an ongoing focus on women and especially women of color in Harry Potter.

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2. The Patil Twins' Early Appearances: Parvati’s Quiet Bravery

• Parvati gets more focus than Padma, simply due to proximity to Harry (in Gryffindor).
• Notable scenes:
  • Defending Neville against Malfoy in flying lessons (12:14–14:00).
    • “She’s a girl who sees someone being targeted and decides...to basically be like, shove it, Malfoy.”
  • Comforting and checking in on Hermione after Ron's “know-it-all” insult (14:00–16:30):
    • “She’s not only paying attention, but she’s checking in.”
  • Hugging Hermione after a Quidditch win—small but important acts of empathy.
• These moments signal Parvati’s emotional intelligence and genuine kindness, almost always “quiet but very present.”

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3. Parvati’s Intelligence and Presence in the Early Books

• Parvati challenges Professor Binns in Chamber of Secrets, showing curiosity and courage (19:25):
  • “You’d probably have to use dark magic to open it. Our girl is smart. She’s curious. She’s not scared to talk about it.”
• Prof. Womble emphasizes how these stitches of characterization are meaningful precisely because they are so rare:
  • “These moments happen so fast and seemingly can be so meaningless. But like, I don’t know about you all, but moments where people go out of their way...is really meaningful.” (21:30–22:30)
• Padma, in Ravenclaw, remains almost a blank slate: “We just don’t know.”

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4. The Discrepancy of Narrative Depth: Parvati v. Padma

• Womble draws attention to the imbalance between how much we know about other side characters (Dean, Seamus) and Padma.
  • “We already know more about all of them than we know about Padma.” (21:30–22:30)
• This is attributed to both narrative focus on Gryffindor and, more importantly, the point-of-view limitations driven by Harry’s attention.

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5. Divination and Cultural Tropes in Prisoner of Azkaban

• Parvati’s affinity for Divination (with Lavender) gets her most consistent characterization (24:31–30:00).
  • “She and Lavendaire Brown are Trelawny’s most enthusiastic students. They lean in, they fully believe...”
  • Trelawney credits Parvati as “having the makings of a great seer.”
• Cultural critique: Womble notes the series’ shallow use of “Eastern mysticism” tropes, associating Parvati’s interest in Divination with common stereotypes about South Asian cultures:
  • “It is not lost on me that part of this narrative is, you know, being a great seer when so much of...what we in Western culture come to understand as mysticism has its roots...in Eastern and, you know, South Asian cultures and beliefs...” (30:15)
• The Boggart lesson: Parvati’s revealed fear (a mummy) is one of few moments she stands alone as a character, not in relation to others (31:45):
  • "It comes and it goes, and the lesson moves on, and we move on, and it never returns."
• Overall, even Parvati’s moments tend to serve other characters' arcs or fill narrative space, not offer development.

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6. “Aesthetic Visibility” and the Yule Ball – The Core of the Double Disappearing Act

• The Yule Ball (Goblet of Fire) is the twins’ most “visible” scene, but still, little is revealed beyond aesthetics (35:18–47:28).
  • “The Yule Ball is one of the clearest examples...of what we could call aesthetic visibility...being beautiful, being noticed—and having none of that translate into narrative depth.” (36:18)
• Ron and Harry use the twins as dates out of utility, showing no real interest:
  • “Harry doesn’t seek out Parvati because he knows her...He asks because he needs someone and she’s available.” (38:17)
• Despite being called the “best looking girls in their year,” the text frames their presence as a function for the boys.
• Profound critique of the boys’ self-centeredness; Parvati’s perspective and feelings are ignored:
  • “Harry James Potter deserved to be hexed within an inch of his life for the foolishness...and his disrespect of my girl Parvati.” (39:34)
  • “It’s bad enough that you had to give her sulky-ass Ron and now, now you’re doing this.” (40:34)
• The societal message: Women of color are summoned for others’ convenience and dismissed when their utility is exhausted:
  • “We expect them to show up when we need them to, do the labor and the work...then yield no reward...That is so telling to me about how we’re meant to understand these women.” (44:57)

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7. Later Books: Conditional Visibility, Erasure, and Stereotypes

• In Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince, the pattern of limited engagement continues:
  • The twins join Dumbledore’s Army, are present in important moments, but rarely get personal detail.
  • Parvati is most often “twinning” with Lavender, rather than Padma, reinforcing how house division erases Padma further.
    • “It almost feels as if her identity is to be attached to someone else.” (49:45)
  • Small moment noted: Parvati and Harry commiserate over Ron and Lavender’s cringe PDA (51:15).
• Battle of Hogwarts: Parvati is seen cursing Dolohov in Dean’s defense, suggesting (jokingly) a possible ship.
• In Cursed Child (briefly mentioned), Padma is retconned into marrying Ron—a detail Womble finds both funny and perplexing.

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8. Narrative Reflection – The Function of Women (Especially Women of Color) in HP

• Womble identifies the core pattern for all significant women in the series: their roles organize around utility—for men and/or the plot.
  • “So much of how we understand women and girls in this text is not through who they are, it’s through what they can do, and more importantly, for whom.” (55:21)
• Specifically for women of color:
  • Tonks becomes Lupin’s reason; Fleur is Bill’s choice and a target; Cho is Harry’s lost romance and defined by her tears.
  • The Patils are “dates. Parvati is Lavender’s companion. They are background fighters.”
  • “Their utility ebbs and flows, and when their utility runs out, they disappear.” (56:38)
• Most revealing line:
  • “Their presence is aestheticized, beautiful, culturally marked, visually distinct in ways that make them legible as diversity without making them legible as humans, as people. The text can see them. It just cannot seem to stay with them.” (58:44)

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9. Patriarchy Without Men: Internalized Storytelling and Conditional Visibility

• Womble highlights the gendered patterns are present despite HP being written by a woman:
  • “Patriarchy...does not require men. It only requires internalized assumptions about whose story is worth telling, about whose inner life is worth page space.” (60:10)
• The issue isn’t just Harry’s unreliable narration, but the narrative’s deeply conditioned, biased lens regarding who is noticed and valued:
  • “Harry is not lying to us. He is telling us exactly what he sees. The problem is what he’s been taught to see and notice and observe...” (63:24)
• The intersection of race and gender:
  • “When those two patterns intersect, when you are a woman and a person of color in the text, what you get is what the Patil twins got. Conditional visibility, organized around utility, aestheticized in ways that mark you as other and never developed enough for the reader to feel your absence as a loss...” (67:40)

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10. Broader Societal Reflection and Call to Readers

• The series effectively teaches readers “whose disappearances should register as loss and who should just register as natural movement of a story.” (62:53)
• Womble asserts that acknowledging these patterns is vital—not to excuse them, but to explain and challenge:
  • “Even in these background characters, there is a meaningful amount of humanity.” (61:30)
• The conclusion situates this discussion as a lesson for real-world perspective:
  • “It is societal biases and prejudice made manifest. And we trust it, we go with it...” (65:40)
• Womble’s parting reflection:
  • “So the girl who defended Neville, noticed Hermione crying, asked hard questions in Binns’ class, signed their names up on a dangerous piece of parchment, and practiced spells in a room that moved and stayed when their parents wanted them to leave, who fought Death Eaters in the corridors of Hogwarts and survived a war... all we know is their names.” (71:10)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Parvati’s quiet bravery:
  • “She’s a girl who sees someone being targeted and decides without calculating...to basically be like, shove it, Malfoy.” (13:15)
• On the transactional nature of the Yule Ball:
  • “Harry doesn’t seek out Parvati because he knows her...he asks because he needs someone and she’s available. That is the entirety of the basis on which Parvati Patil and Harry Potter go to the Yule Ball together.” (38:17)
• On race and conditional visibility:
  • “Their presence is aestheticized, beautiful, culturally marked, visually distinct in ways that make them legible as diversity without making them legible as humans, as people.” (58:44)
• On the workings of patriarchy:
  • “It doesn’t take men to make patriarchy work. It’s not an exclusive thing to men. All of the assumptions are available to us. They’re in the water.” (61:03)
• Concluding reflection on impact:
  • “And so the girl who defended Neville...practiced spells...fought Death Eaters...all we know is their names.” (71:17)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:35 — Episode intro and framing of Patil twins discussion
• 12:14–19:25 — Detailed look at Parvati’s early Gryffindor moments
• 24:31–34:12 — Prisoner of Azkaban: Divination, the Boggart, and cultural tropes
• 35:18–47:28 — Goblet of Fire: The Yule Ball, “aesthetic visibility,” and how the twins are used narratively
• 49:11–54:43 — Later books, Dumbledore’s Army, commiseration with Harry, and Battle of Hogwarts
• 55:21–63:24 — Broad thematic analysis: gender, race, and narrative utility
• 67:40–71:17 — On intersectionality: race and gender, and why the Patils “disappear”
• 72:56 — Host reflection and outro

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Summary Takeaways

• Parvati and Padma Patil, despite appearing in every book, are denied narrative depth in favor of serving boys’ stories or the “visual diversity” quota.
• The podcast asserts this is not just a problem of the HP text but a reflection of wider social biases—patriarchy and white-centered narratives—that teach us to notice and empathize with only certain characters.
• Prof. Womble calls on fans to hold these patterns up for critique—not to diminish affection for the books, but to reimagine how we read and what we demand of our stories.

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Transcript

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[Professor Julian Womble]

Welcome to Critical Magic Theory where we deconstruct the risening 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're talking about the Patil twins. I'm sure many of you thought that this was going to be about Dean Thomas. And originally it was. But we've hit a bit of a snag because there simply are not enough people who have filled out the Dean Thomas survey. And that's okay. No shame. However, if you haven't filled it out, consider yourself warned that it's time for you to do it. I posted it on Patreon on Sunday. It's time again. If you don't find yourself moved to write a Sunday some long open ended response. That's okay, just fill out the six questions that we always talk about. I just want to make sure that we Give Dean his due. Give Dean his due. Give Dean his due. Give Dean his due. You see, I didn't get Tongue tied because I'm locked in. Today I just. I came in from a run, so my brain is moving fast, and I don't know how long it'll last, but we're gonna ride the wave while we can. Okay? I don't know why you all put up with me. It's unbelievable. But anyways, the Patil twins, that's what we're talking about. And I'm excited. I've been enjoying this journey that we've been on with these side characters who we haven't spent a lot of time with, and yet they give us so much to think about. And maybe not within the story, but certainly within the context of what it is that we can learn about this text about ourselves. And so my exploration into the Patil twins really yielded some really interesting things for us to think about, and I'm really, really excited about it. I also am kind of, hello. I'm kind of okay with not going straight to Dean because we've been talking about women for the past few months, and since February, we've been talking about women of color and people of color in the books. And so now it feels as if the flow is flowing as we move into the Patil twins. And so I don't feel that bad. So, again, no shame if you haven't filled out the Dean survey, that's totally okay. You get more time. But now we get to kind of round out our conversation in a way that feels apropos. So I'm excited about this, and I'm hopeful that there are some things that you've not thought about that we can continue to discuss in the post episode chat about the Patil twins, because, I don't know, there's something really fascinating about them as twins who aren't in the same house. When we did the Fred and George episode, you know, we talked a little bit about doing them separately and why I decided to put them together. And I think it's interesting to think about this in the context of the platoon because they are different than Fred and George insofar that they aren't always together. And so we get a different vibe of our understanding of what it means to be a twin, which also allows for us to think about many things. And I don't want to spoil anything, but you know what can't be spoiled friends. You know, the bop. Because once you bop, the fun don't stop. So don't stop getting ready for the bop, because it's coming to you in three, in two, in one. Let's bop. We do something about hair.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

Satan danced. I hope you danced. I do hope that you danced. Anyways, welcome back. Welcome back to those of you who are joining us for the first time. Those of you who are catching up. Those of you who have been with us from the very beginning. That's a fancy way of saying beginning. I'm grateful that you are here and I'm excited for us to dive into this episode. I also have a couple of announcements that we need to get through. Firstly, patreon.com criticalmagictheory it's the one stop shop for all the things. And so if you are interested in joining us in our post episode chats, please feel free to do that. Especially because I love reading your comments. I love seeing the conversations that you all are having. I also love using your comments in the Prof. Response episode. And so the more people who join us, the better. Speaking of, speaking of, I would also like to welcome Lorraine, Hannah F. KBNZ and Nikki, who are joining our ranks as chronic overthinkers. Welcome to you all. We're so excited to have you with us. And if you want to join as a chronic overthinker or a deep diver or an outstanding owl, there are perks and all kinds of things for you there on that Patreon. And again, you can join for free. Okay. And you can be a part of the conversation and also get the surveys. You will also find the Dean Thomas survey there. Hint, hint. Also merch. There is a plethora of merchants. I wore my. My Critical Magic Theory hat baseball hat out in the world. And people were like, what is that from? And I was like, oh, it's, it's from my podcast. Which I guess internally felt like a flex, but probably was pretty obnoxious. But that's not my business. I don't have anything to say about that. There are many things. We have joggers now. Friends. Okay? And they're great. I'm telling you, the mugs are great. One of the T shirts is one of my best friend's favorite things. I was gonna say the holidays are coming up, but they're not. It's April, Julian. I think I'm just. It's wishful thinking cause I want my semester to be over. But that's neither here nor there. There is merch again. The next episode is gonna be on Dean. I'm gonna send out the survey again to the Patreon one last time. I'm gonna post about more of your comments and things on Instagram. So for those of you who do feel like you have things to say, please write them in and make them spicy because that's how we get the people in from Instagram. And that would be ideal and excellent. Okay. Is there anything else? No, I think that that's it. Oh, also, if you do join as a chronic overthinker or a deep diver, you can join our discord. There are many goings on there. The community is always in contact. They've got a reading group, They've got all kinds of things transpiring. No, I have not re entered the fray in terms of the dueling. I still haven't figured it out and I don't know that I ever will. And that's okay. We have to play to our strengths and that's just not one of mine. And that's fine, friends. That's fine. So there's a lot there for you if you feel so inclined. If you don't feel so inclined, that's also totally fine. Life is hectic and there's a lot going on. Sometimes overstimulation isn't the best. But if you want to share about this podcast, tell all the people that you know about it. One of my dear friends was telling me when I saw her not too long ago that she has everyone in her office listening to the podcast now. You never really know and so share and share alike. Let's make this community grow. It's spring. Okay? Let's bloom as a community. I don't know where I was going with that. Anyways, let's get to the Patil Twins. Okay, everyone calm down. But also, like rate share, do all the things that one does where pods are cast. Okay? Do that. But also get ready for the Patil Twins.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

So let's start from the beginning because I think it's actually really important because I think for many of us, myself included, when we think of the Patil twins as characters, we think of them as people who just kind of show up when they're needed and then they are disappeared back to whatever nether region of tertiary characters when we don't need them. And I get the idea of that, but I think it would be interesting to really kind of unpack the moments when we find them both as a unit but also as individuals. Right? Which I think is actually interesting. And it's an interesting facet of them because we spend so much time with Parvati and much less time with Padma, and we meet them in year one and we spend actually time with them. I won't say a not inconsequential time, but we spend a fair amount of time with them in a way that I think often is forgotten. And I think part of the reason why that's the case is because they are there. But I don't really think we ever really hear their voices. Right? They get sorted. Obviously we know that both Parvati and Padma are in Harry's year, but Parvati is in Harry's house. She's in the same classes, she's in the same tower, breathing the same Hogwarts air from the very beginning. And yet if I ask most of you right now to tell me something, anything about her from Philosopher, Sorcerer's Stone, or even Chamber of Secrets, most of us would be like, wait, was she in that book? And again, no shade. I get it, I understand, right? Like that's such a reasonable thing. And I think that there are moments for us to actually unpack. And so the first thing that I want to talk about is something that gets glossed over. And it's a moment that we don't see in the movies, but it's one where Parvati defends Neville when Draco tries to come for him when they're learning to fly and she tells him to shut up. And old Pansy shows up and is like, ooh, defending your boyfriend. Which, like, girl, get a grip. Anyways, it's not a big scene. It doesn't get a lot of page space and the books are not stopping to make sure that we notice. But I want us to sit with that because I think it tells us a lot about who she is. She's a girl who sees someone being targeted and decides without calculating, without waiting for anyone to basically be like, shove it, Malfoy. She just acts. Now, I would say that that's a Gryffindor. Someone whose moral compass is working just fine, thank you very much. And then there's a moment that I think is actually more revealing than it gets credit for. And it's the moment after Ron makes the comment about Hermione and how much she's a know it all and hurts Hermione's feelings after she makes the feather float in charms. And Hermione runs off, right? And she pushes past him. And Harry's like, I think she heard you. And Ron's like, I don't really care all that much. And he's like, she has to recognize that she doesn't have any friends, right? Just nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty work. And when they realize that Hermione is not at the table, they are told that Parvati is the one who tells Lavender that Hermione was upset and that she wanted to be left alone in the bathroom, which is how Ron and Harry ultimately find out where she is before the whole troll moment, which don't even get me started. And I get, like, on the surface, that feels like a very small logistical detail, but I want us to think about what it actually tells us, again, about who Parvati is. Because again, she's not only paying attention, but she's checking in. It is one thing to recognize that someone who is in Gryffindor house is in the bathroom crying. It's another thing to make sure that they're okay to be someone who is going the extra distance. Because again, like, I could just hear her crying and be like, oh, okay, girl, see you. But to say, like, do you need anything? Like, are you good? Because you have to ask those questions in order to be told. Like, I just want to be left alone, right? Because it suggests that someone was trying to console you in some way. And I think that also gives us an indication of things. And I reference this moment a lot because. And this is not a Hermione episode, so everyone chill out. But one of the biggest critiques I get when I leverage any critique against Hermione is that she was bullied by the girls in her grade. And one day I was kind of fed up and I went on a massive hunt to try to. And I think that there are moments later on in the series where we do see them kind of laughing at Hermione for one reason or another. Right? But this moment stands out to me because, again, this is, what, October? So they've been at school for basically two months. And in those two months, we've seen Parvati, a character, again, who we don't spend a lot of time with, who we, at this point, know nothing about other than she has a twin standing up for Neville and checking in on Hermione. She reads the room. She knows that Hermione doesn't want comfort, she wants space. And she tells everyone else around her, like, just let her be. And we spend so much time talking about the emotional intelligence of Hermione. But this moment also highlights that poverty also has it as well. And she's someone who understands. And then at the Quidditch match, when they win and Harry almost swallows the Snitch, she hugs Hermione. And again, like, these are small moments, right? Like, they're not massive plot moments, but they are very revealing to us. And I think what stands out to me about these moments really is the reality that Parvati, who we spend more time with, because Gryffindor is someone who notices people around her whose warmth is seemingly genuine. And her bravery is quiet but very present. She's not loud about it. There doesn't seem to be kind of putting on airs or this desire to kind of make friends by virtue of just, you know, doing good things. But rather, she seems to be doing it out of a genuine place. I don't know, y'.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

I might be growing a touch obsessed with Ms. Parvati Patil. But that aside, I also want to make a note to the fact that she is one of the students who is trying to convince Professor Benz in book two that he needs to explain what's going on with the Chamber of Secrets and also why his logic about why it doesn't exist. Right. She says something to the effect of, you'd probably have to use dark magic to open it. Right. Our girl is smart. She's curious, she's not scared to talk about it. And she's also like, no, Professor Bins, I think you're being a little bit too close minded, which don't even get me started on Professor Binns. And I just love that, that, that we get these moments. And so I really, I love it because I think that there is so much in these brief moments where we can kind of extrapolate out because we don't get a lot about her. Right. And I think we're gonna spend some time later on in the episode really unpacking the why of that. And when we do get to experience the Patil twins, both as individuals but also as kind of a genetic twin unit. But I, I think the moment with Ben's I love because I personally love when my students push me. I, I doubt Ben's does though, because he's a ghost and he can't really be pushed. Um, I also love that moment because I think that's when he calls her Ms. Pennyfeather because he can't remember anyone's name because again, Sea ghost. I just. These little moments when I was going through and thinking about where we kind of find her and see her in the text just really endeared her to me because I think that these moments happen so fast and seemingly can be so meaningless. But like, I don't know about you all, but moments where people kind of go out of their way to do things for me, like just to check in, see how I'm doing, or, you know, defend me in spaces and places where either I'm there or not is really meaningful because it, it highlights the reality that they don't have to do that, but they do it anyway. And so when we think about. So, so that's poverty. And then when we think about our sister, it's hard, right, because we don't get to spend a lot of time with her because she's in Ravenclaw. So clearly we know she's there and we don't really get to experience a lot of time with her. And I feel like some of us might be thinking these are early books and a lot of characters aren't developed yet. Just take a breath, give it time. And I totally understand that. But here's the thing. Seamus Finnegan is in these books. Dean Thomas is in these books. And, and we already know more about all of them than we know about Padma. Now, I expect that this is because Harry. And again, we're going to talk a little bit about more about Harry later. And how his perspective on the situation kind of really does guide us and informs not only who we know about but who we care about. But I do think that if we kind of go along with the way that we understand our normal thinking about characters, I think it's easy for us to say like, is Parvati a good person? Yes, she demonstrates it left and right. And there's no reason for us to think that Padma isn't. We just don't know.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

Let's continue our journey through the text. So now it's Prisoner of Azkaban time. We're in year three and I want to tell you that I think this is where Parvati gets the most consistent characterization she's going to get outside of Goblet of Fire. Now listen y'. All, I say that knowing that what she gets in Goblet of Fire is still so thin. But I do think that what we get in Prisoner of Azkaban tells us not just something about Parvati, but about the kind of stories the series is comfortable telling about girls like her and year three. You know, when I first started reading Prisoner of Azkaban, the first time I read it, I did not like it. But I think it grew on me as I got older. And, and y' all know that this is when we get to the division, the who, the divination of it all. And we know. And this is where we get to see, you know, lavender and Parvati really shine because the girls can see into the future. They can divine the things they can read the tea leaves they be knowing, as it were, she and Lavendaire Brown are Trelawny's most enthusiastic students. They lean in, they fully believe and buy in, and are genuinely excited about what this class is offering. Trelawney singles out poverty, especially telling her that she has the makings of a great seer in her final exam, that there is real potential. Now, listen, I don't want to dismiss that, and I don't want to think that, you know, poverty is foolish for engaging with divination. Because we know that Trelawney, as we talked about when we talked about her, you know, has a penchant for, you know, rewarding people who she believes buy into her own gifts and abilities and kind of give her the attention that she's looking for and the validation that she needs. But I do think that there is something real about a young girl who is curious about the mystical and the intuitive. And I don't think it's a character flaw. And I think that it's one of these moments, again, where there is an immediate juxtaposition to the way we understand divination from the perspective of Hermione, because I think of all the ways the series could have developed poverty, of all the things that she could have been known for, the thing that gets the most sustained attention is her enthusiasm for this particular class that most people are led to believe is absurd and ridiculous. Trelawney is a figure of gentle mockery from much of the series, and Hermione, who the book holds up as our standard intellectual, grounded foundation, quits the class, literally spends a moment like berating. I won't say berating, maybe that's too strong of a word. But really, like going for lavender about her rabbit when lavender is so in mourning and is so upset and is simply looking for answers to try to understand the injustice of Binky's downfall. And Hermione's like, girl, get with it and stop being ridiculous. And Parvati is there to support her friend and just kind of be there. And again, we get this moment of support and being present for people who care, who she cares about, rather. And here's the thing. I would be remiss and I would not be doing my due diligence if I did not highlight the reality that so much of East Asian and South Asian cultures and just Eastern cultures in general, are all kind of mystical and spiritual and feeling based, right? Like, there's so much lore surrounding these cultures and those particular affinities and moving away from the analytical, from the grounded, from the logical, right? And I Don't think that this is a new story. I'm not gonna give J.K. rowling so much credit as to say that she did that on purpose to try to leverage some critique in that regard. As I've said many times before, I think that we are navigating an author who's writing what she knows and believes, and stereotypes are gonna find their way in. Right. And so it is not lost on me that part of this narrative is, you know, being a great seer when so much of, you know, what we in Western culture come to understand as mysticism has its roots and origins in Eastern and, you know, South Asian culture and belief and practices. Right. I think it's worth noting because it. To say that it's an accident feels too generous. To say that it was done on purpose feels also too generous. It just seems like an implicit situation that's been brought to bear. But also, while we're in Prisoner of Azkaban, we often talk about the boggart of it all, right? When it's Pavarti's turn, I don't know. It's not Parvardi. I got in. I get in a lot of trouble for that. Parvati. When it's Parvati's turn to face the bogger, her greatest fear is revealed. A mummy. A bandage shuffling, decaying mummy. And it's interesting because it's one of the few moments in the series where we get something that genuinely belongs to just Parvati. Not her relation to Harry, not her relation to Lavender, not even her relationship to her sister. This is not a moment where she is serving as a bridge between people. This is not a moment where she is only lifting up, you know, other people around her in her orbit. Like, this is her. This is her fear, her interiority. And it comes and it goes, and the lesson moves on, and we move on, and it never returns. And I think in the movie, right, it's not a mummy. It's a Jack in the box. Terrifying. No. She turns it into a Jack in the box. Scary. I was like, girl, that's. You just unlocked a fear for me. But I think that there's something significant about thinking about this because it tells us that there is something happening, that she is a person, right? That she has fears that are hers. She has an inner life. And we just don't know anything about surfaces for a moment. And then the story moves on to the next student. And I know. I know that many of us will say, well, like, it doesn't matter. Like, why? Why would we spend so much Time knowing that. And to that I say once again, as I said in the past, we know. So, like, why did we need to know that Seamus mom was a witch and his dad was a Muggle, and it was a nasty shot when he found out. Hmm. Why did we need to know about, you know, Dean Thomas's love for football slash soccer? Like, there are so many instances where we know things about characters that we simply just, like, don't need to know, per se, about their lives, about who they are, where they've come from. And again, this is a moment where if we try to find out something about Padma, it's really hard because we just don't see her. We know she's there, but we just don't get to spend any time with her. And I just wonder, right? Like, I wonder if that same compassion that exists in Parvati for other people exists in Padma and if she and Luna are friends, if she's defending Luna, you know, I could imagine that that would be something. But it. But also they could be very different people, and maybe not. And I just wish there was a way that we could know, Right? Like, there are so many different ways in which I'm like, even just these moments of poverty just make me think. And I wonder what Padme's doing this whole time. I wonder what she's up to in the Ravenclaw common room. And I think that for me is just one of the things that I'm grateful, like, for a fanfic, because I think that there's a world where, like, we get to explore more of who people are outside of what the text offers us. And that is great. And again, I understand why this is happening this way. I know, I know. I know why we don't know that much about our sister. And I think it speaks to a much broader issue at Hogwarts that we will talk about later on in the episode. But I, too, feel somewhat robbed. And I think that there is something to be said about, you know, obviously I don't think that all siblings should be together, but I do think that, like, it would be cool to at least have some sense of what's going on in the other houses while the Gryffindors are, you know, doing whatever the Gryffindors do. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

It's time for the Yule Ball. The Yule Ball, y'. All, this. We just need to take a moment before we get into this, because I think this is the moment where most people, most of us are like, okay, the Patil twins locked in. And if you were to ask someone on the street and someone who's like, read the books, not just seen the movies, because, you know, we like to focus on the text, we acknowledge the movies for what they are and what they offer us. Also, you know, you all love to correct me when I invoke a movieism that is not a bookism. But if you ask them to tell you one thing about the Patil Twins, I'm sure that most people would say something about the Yule Ball, the fact that they both went with Ron and Harry. And I'm sure that most of it would actually be about Harry being a mess and Ron's role being a mess as well, right? And just the madness of that moment. And I think that there's something really important in this situation, right? Because this is the moment, this is the scene of the series where they get the most visibility. And I really had to sit with this moment and I brought it up in past episodes as well, because I think that there is a world in which I'm looking at Harry with the utmost side eye. And I think that there are reasons why that's completely valid because the Yule Ball is one of the clearest examples in the entire series of what we could call aesthetic visibility, which I mean to say is like being seen, being present, being beautiful, being noticed, and having none of that translate into narrative depth. The Patil twins are visible at the Yule Ball in a way that they almost never are at any other point in the series. And by the end of the night, we know almost nothing more about them than we did before. So if we walk it back and unpack this from the very beginning, right. Harry needs a date. That's the story that we begin with. Right. Their most prominent moment in the books is based on the fact that Harry needs a date. And he's been putting it off and he's been panicking and he's upset because he can't go with Cho. And he got asked by someone else and he was like, absolutely not. Hermione has already secured her day but isn't telling anyone. Neville has also, like, secured himself a situation and they have been goaded to get on with it. Ron has just experienced madness, absurdity and foolishness because he found himself trying to ask the one and only Cho Chang. Not Cho Chang. Oh, my God, I'm getting them. I'm getting everyone mixed up. Fleur de la Cor. Hello? Harry asked Cho Chang. I know everyone. I get it. And so he basically just, like, goes over and is like, hey, are you going with anyone? And the thing is, is that Harry doesn't seek out Parvati because he knows her. He doesn't ask her because he's interested in spending time with her specifically. He doesn't ask because he values her company or because there's something about her that makes her alluring or draws her or draws him to her. He asks because he needs someone and she's available and Hermione suggested it. That is the transaction. That is the entirety of the basis on which Parvati Patil and Harry Potter go to the Yule Ball together. She says yes, and she's excited because she really wants to go. And he's a champion, which is really great. And here's the thing, right? Like, not only is he a champion, he. He is. Got the scar. He's famous. He is like he. And for all intents and purposes up until this point, there's no reason for her to believe that he's not nice and kind and generous. He's best friends with Hermione Granger, so he's not a complete nut or tool. Like, there are reasons for her to believe that this is gonna be an enjoyable night. Parvati arrives in dress robes described as shocking pink. Her sister, who also has very little say in the matter, right? Because Ron needs a date. Again, like utility. And so this whole thing happens. And then Dean Thomas, good old Dean, who. Okay, this is a moment. We're taking a pause. Don't forget to fill out that survey, he looks at them and says something along the lines of the Patil twins being the best looking girls in the year. Now, someone brought up to me in the discord that we might be seeing a little spark between Parvati and Dean, and I don't hate it. Dean Vittie. Parvatine. Anyways, I don't know the ship name, but I think it's worth exploring. Listen, best looking girls of the year. I have a lot of questions then about why no one asked them. Like, why were they among the last to get asked to the ball? Did everyone not have eyes? Like, this is wild. And then let's get to the dance. Because you know what? Harry James Potter deserved to be hexed within an inch of his life for the foolishness he brought to bear and his disrespect of my girl Parvati. It's bad enough that you had to give her sulky ass Ron, and now, now you're doing this. You're not wanting to dance. She has to take the lead. I love that, though. She's a strong person. She said, okay, we're going to dance. And she took his hand and she put it on her waist and started dancing. And then as soon as he was done. Because Harry only in this moment cares about himself. And it's like, for all of this, you and Ron should have gone together. My guy. But again, we get these moments. And then there's a moment where professor Moody comes up and she's like, he's creepy. And that I shouldn't be allowed. Listen, sometimes you're not wrong. You're just early. And she was early because she clocked it, that I should not be allowed. That I is a problem. That man is a problem. And I think in this moment, what really resonates with me is the fact that we watch two girls who are called by someone else the prettiest girls in the year who have somehow for some reason, been neglected by the other boys at the school, broadly construed. And then they get to go. One gets to go with Harry Potter, the other gets to go with his best friend. And they are treated so terribly. And then somehow Harry is like, ooh, they're treat me very coolly now that this is over. Yeah, dude, because you're a jerk. But this isn't a hairy episode. This isn't a hairy episode. I personally love that they treated him cooly, that poverty was not having him. I love that because honestly, good consequences for your actions, dude. Like, you are a jerk. And then you start pining For Cho, all the while, Ron is pining for Hermione. Like, it's so disrespectful. And again, it is not lost on me that this is two white boys doing this to two women of color who you only asked because you all didn't want to look foolish, because you all didn't want to look like losers. And so then you come, and then you have the audacity to treat them terribly because you actually don't care about them. You're not interested in taking care of the night with them and making sure that they have a good time. No, you only did this because you didn't want to look bad to the people in your orbit. Jerks. And so I, again, I would have cursed them. I would have cursed them because I just think that there's a way that we are just invited to not even really, like, feel that bad for them, but, like, it just is one of these things that resonates with me very much when I think about the positionality of women of color in society, broadly construed, right, where we expect them to show up when we need them to, to do the labor and the work of making us either feel better about ourselves, look better, just do the work, and then yield no reward and then somehow be confused when they're upset about it and ignore them being upset, as if it's completely an unjustified thing. It's like, if you didn't want to go with me, then don't ask me, but you did ask me because you needed me, because I served a utility in this moment. And that is so telling to me about how we're meant to understand these women. And it's the same thing with Choir, the same conversation that we had when we talked about Fred asking Angelina to the ball, right? Like, there's a purpose that is being served here, and it's to make me not look like a loser because I don't have a date. And, Cho, you're pretty, but you cry too much. You need too much, right? The utility of your beauty now is lost on us because now you're wanting me to go to a place that I don't want to go. And so we see a very similar narrative here with the Patil twins, with both of them, right, that they served a purpose of making sure that Ron and Harry didn't look like losers when they could have just gone stag and let it be what it is. But this is Harry Potter, and everything's heteronormative, and every boy has to be with a girl at all times or else God knows what's going to happen. And so what we then get is because of that we get two girls. Pretty girls. Harry openly acknowledges how pretty they are and he doesn't care. None of that matters to him. And so he almost ruins their night. And we're grateful for the dude from Durmstrang and the boy from Beauxbaton who, who come over and at least try to salvage the night with them, at least a little bit. Because these two numbskulls couldn't even bring themselves to just be good partners for the night. And I think that that is such a telling moment. And I get it. I know, I know that they are teenagers, but it doesn't. There's no age limit on empathy. And I for one am just not of the mind that we need to start apologizing for boys who act like jerks because we don't expect them to be able to have the emotional capacity when we have spent many an episode reading many a comment about girls who have the emotional capacity and are punished for it. We don't have. It's a double standard that I'm personally not about to uphold. I think that Ron and Harry should be held accountable for how terrible they were to the Patila twins who both really put their best foot forward and were so excited to go, you couldn't even fake it. You couldn't give them. It just, it just feels like no effort was put in. And again, I'm. I'm cursing everybody, every single person, because what do you mean? I'm the hottest girl in the grade and you're treating me like I'm trash. Think again, Harry baby. Think again.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

It's order of the Phoenix time. I didn't know where I was going with that until I got there. Anyways, we're here, year five, okay? And I think this is a heavy book, and this is a moment where we actually do get to see Padma and Parvati together. And there's a lot of things going on here, and they get to do more in this book than we have seen them do in any other book. And yet again, we still don't really know them. And I think that there's something about that, right? The idea that, like, you can be in a space, you can have moments, you can, you know, create all of these instances where we get to see you, but we don't know you. And listen, every single moment that we get to see here in their time in the DA is not. Or even in this book is not always great, right? We know that they kind of have a moment with Firenze, which I don't necessarily love, particularly asking him, like, you know, about his, like, where he was born and all of these things. Um, but I also do think that this offers us the ability to see that, you know, despite not necessarily always being with Padma, Parvati is also kind of twinning with lavender a lot, right. That, like, we get very few moments where she's by herself, especially as the books progress. After book three, once they have the divination of it all, they kind of join together, which I think is really fascinating. Not because. Because I think it, like, it's like you're. It almost feels as if her identity is to be attached to someone else. And because her sister is in Ravenclaw, she's kind of invited then to attach herself to another character, a character who becomes one of consequence later on. And so it's always her and lavender, which I think is just a fascinating, fascinating thing, because, again, it really does drive home the point of the houses and, like, how they operate. And then when we move to. What's the next book, Half Blood Prince. I think that there is a way that, again, it's kind of this kind of disappearance moment where they're there but also not really navigating anything. There is a moment that I do love when Ron and Lavender are doing the Wan Juan and Lav Lav moment and Parvati comes over and starts talking to Harry and it's basically just like, hey, this is awkward. And our friends are obnoxious because they're like all over each other and it's just like, ugh. And I do love that moment of commiseration that she brings. But she's still standing by her friend. And I think that, like, that also is very telling for us. But then she kind of disappears again. Right? Like, we see her only when she's with Lavender again. And so it kind of reemphasizes this idea of Harry noticing her when only when, like, there's. He kind of has to. Either when she serves a purpose or when she's kind of thrown in his face, which I think is an interesting thing for us to think about. And then they fight in the. In the Battle of Hogwarts in the last book. And another moment where we get to see. I'm trying to figure out the ship name Parvatine Parva Deen Parva Dean. It sounds a little bit like Everdeen Dean Vitae Dvati. Okay. But we see a moment in the Battle of Hogwarts where. Where Dolahov tries to retaliate against Dean and Parvati curses him. Okay. I feel romance is brewing. And we know that they don't, or at least they're not listed amongst the casualties, so we assume that they are alive. Um, and we also know that in the Cursed Child, which we are just going to include because we get so little that we see Ron and Padma get married. So again, somehow, some way, even in an AU moment, Ron gets to be an absolute jerk to someone and they somehow end up with a ring from him. This isn't a Ron Weasley episode. We already did that.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

There was a lot more to discuss that I didn't get a chance to talk about that. Hopefully we get to talk about in the Prof. Response episode. I mean, I kind of flew through the back end, but we don't really spend that much time with them. But I really wanted to get to the part where I reflect because even though this is definitely an episode that was not planned out this way, I think there are so many through lines that we can kind of create from our conversations about our character. Are these characters right? We've talked about Tonks, who is brave and grieving and somehow still mostly remembered for who she loved and who she left. We talked about Fleur, who gets flattened into vanity and beauty and foreignness, and when the text actually does give us someone far more complicated and nuanced than that. And we talked about Cho, whose grief gets pathologized, whose tears get treated as an inconvenience, and whose interiority Harry cannot access because he was never taught to look for it. And now we've spent this episode with mostly Parvati, but also some of Padma Patel, two girls who are present from nearly the very first page at least once the first book, who fight, who survive, and who, despite all of these moments that kind of happen, where they are present and talking and giving us something to work with we barely know. And here's what I keep coming back to. So much of how we understand women and girls in this text is not through who they are, it's through what they can do and more importantly, for whom. If we think about every woman we've discussed, their presence is in the narrative. The moments when the text actually stops and pays attention to them is almost always organized around function. Tonks being a protector, a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and then she's Lupin's grief and Lupin's love and Lupin's reason. Fleur is a Triwizard champion, then she is Bill's choice, and then she is a hostility magnet for Molly and Ginny to sharpen themselves against Cho. It's Harry's desire and then he's Harry's disappoint, then she's Harry's disappointment, and then she is Cedric's ghost walking around in a girl's body and the patils are dates. Parvati is Lavender's companion. They are background fighters. They are at every moment defined by their adjacency to. To someone else's story. Their utility ebbs and flows, and when their utility runs out, they disappear. They serve as a means by which, even when they're not necessarily connected to other men, they serve as a means by which for us to look at Hermione and say, she's not like them. She recognizes the utility of magic that isn't divination. She's not giggling, which Harry hates and constantly talks about. Y', all. That is how patriarchy operates. It's not always loud. It doesn't always shout from the rooftops. Patriarchy, just like that. Sometimes it's just the quiet, cumulative weight of whose interiority the story treats as worth developing. I know why we know that Justin Flinch Fletchley went to Eton. I know why. Narratively, I know it's important, and I get that. What do we get from the Patel twins other than their parents weren't going to let them come back after Katie Bell got cursed and they were kind of like, ooh, and Parvati had to tell their parents, like, we can still go back. We should still go back. We know they have parents. That's it. Again, think of all the little things that we know, the tidbits that just come up. And what is clear is that Harry is around at least Parvati enough to have heard this. And yet we get nothing. And I want to say something that I've been sitting with throughout the entire episode. This text is written by a woman. And I think that complicates things in ways that are worth calling out rather than kind of ignoring. Because I think that there is sometimes a temptation when we're talking about patriarchal structures in literature or even in society broadly construed, to locate the problem in men and listen up. There are a lot of reasons why that inclination is correct and a lot of reasons why, on average, you're moving in the right direction if that's the space that you operate from. But JKR is not a man. And the patriarchal patterns are still present because that's the thing about patriarchy. It does not require men. It only requires internalized assumptions about whose story is worth telling, about whose inner life is worth page space. We talked about this for Dean, right, when we found out that JKR decided that Neville's story was more important, and so she jettisoned Dean's story, because at a certain point, it becomes about which characters the reader is meant to find legible as full human beings and characters and which characters the reader is meant to accept as background. And what we as a community have been really finding is that even in these background characters, there is meaningful amounts of humanity. Even in this episode, these moments of Parvati being a protector, standing in front of Dalahov and cursing him for Dean, defending Neville against Malfoy, checking on Hermione, comforting lavender, these are beautiful moments that we have to fight like hell to connect, to try to get a sense of who she is, because the most time that we get to spend with her, she's sulking because Harry is a jerk. It doesn't take men to make patriarchy work. It's not an exclusive thing to men. All of the things that we find legible, the way that we look at characters and understand them, all of the assumptions are available to us. They're in the water. And when you are writing a world that is new but foundationally prefaced on the world that you know, it's easy to produce those patterns. It's easy to create those structures, to imbue the text, even for secondary and tertiary characters, imbue their narratives, or lack thereof, with those things. And I'm not excusing it, I'm just seeking to explain it. And I'm going to add one more layer to this because I think that we can't talk about these characters that we've talked about thus far without talking about who they are. Specifically, three of the five characters that we've talked about since coming back from our Severus, Snape, Dumbledore extravaganza are women of color. Cho Chang is East Asian. Parvati and Padma are South Asian. And when I look at the shape of their visibility across the books, when I look at the way that they kind of flicker in and out of focus, the way that their utility activates and then expires. I can't separate that pattern from their race. Cho's grief feels excessive. The Patil twins are described as exotic butterflies. Their emotional lives are either too much or entirely absent. Their presence is aestheticized, beautiful, culturally marked, visually distinct in ways that make them legible as diversity without making them legible as humans, as people. The text can see them. It just cannot seem to stay with them. And what I keep returning to is this. This is a lesson for us. Maybe it was deliberate. Probably not. But cumulatively, across seven books and hundreds of small narrative choices, it is teaching us as readers something about who we're supposed to care about and how much who counts as worth knowing. About whose disappearances should register as loss and who should just register as natural movement of a story. And this is where I think, you know, many of us would say, well, Harry is an unreliable narrator. And that's why. And I don't necessarily think that that's where I'm going with this, because I don't think that Harry is an unreliable narrator in the technical sense. An unreliable narrator is someone who, whose account we cannot trust because they are deceiving us or deceiving themselves in ways that the text signals to us. I was watching the show Vladimir, which is based on a book, and that narrator is unreliable because we actually don't know what is true and what is not. That's not what's happening here. Harry is not lying to us. He is not hiding anything. He is telling us exactly what he sees. The problem is what he's been taught to see and notice and observe and internalize his socialization both in and outside of the magical world. The things that he notices are what we as readers notice. It's not unreliability. It's an inherent bias. It's a privileging of certain people and an ignoring of others. And because this world reproduces recognizable hierarchies about whose presence matters and whose presence is ambient, whose stories deserve to be followed and whose story is just texture in the background, there are so many things that we miss. That's not unreliability. That's just the world that we live in that's missing. Black and brown CIS and trans women and us not knowing anything about them, but the news telling us about every young white woman who's disappeared and, and don't get me wrong, we should hear about those stories, but we should hear about all of them. That is the recognition that some people's pain is worth more time on the news, more news stories than others. That's not an unreliable narrator. That is societal biases and prejudice made manifest. And we trust it, we go with it, we notice it, but we believe Harry. And obviously he's a child. And that makes it all the more telling as far as I'm concerned, because it means that he doesn't know how to self correct. Right? He doesn't know how to navigate these things. And so what he's doing is the knee jerk reaction, the unfiltered, unfettered, unsocially desirable reaction. And that means something because the fact that we, as many, that many of us as readers go along on the journey and think nothing of the rest of it tells us that we have the same biases, implicit, explicit, that it's not unreliable because he can't tell us everything. It is unreliable because it's conditioned on his own socialized understandings of who is worth noticing and who isn't and when. Right, because obviously he notices Cho Chang and Parvati and Padma. He notices Fleur, he notices Tonks. But when does he notice them? And why does he notice them? And once he notices them, what does he do? Is he caring about them or is it about what they are offering him in any given moment? That doesn't make him unreliable. It makes him a male person in a patriarchal society who has a very particular view of the role of women, particularly women of color. And when we think about the gender and the race pattern, it's important because they're related, but not identical. And I think that the Patil twins are the clearest places in the series where we can see both operating at the same time and producing something very specific. On the gender side, the Patil twins are women and girls whose presence organizes around utility. They're dates, companions, background, fighters. And that's a pattern we see with other women in the series, regardless of their race. The series has a tendency to define women through their function in relation to other characters rather than through their own interiority. And then on the race side, the. The Patil twins are South Asian girls whose visibility is aestheticized in a very particular way. They are very distinct visually, in a way that narrative that the narrative notes and then keeps going, that is a pattern that we see with other characters of color in the series as well, regardless of their gender. And the series has a tendency to grant non white characters presence without depth, visibility, without any sort of subjecthood or personality. And when those two patterns intersect, when you are a woman and a person of color in the text, what you get is what the Patil twins got. Conditional visibility, organized around utility, aestheticized in ways that mark you as other and never developed enough for the reader to feel your absence as a loss or to empathize with you when the main character is being a jerk. I keep saying jerk because my mind wants to go to another term, but I won't use it. Harry really only pays attention to the Patil twins when he has to, when he needs something from them. And to be clear, Harry is not a bad person. He's a product of his environment. He notices what his world has taught him to notice. And he cares about the things that his world has taught him to care about. And his world, the wizarding world, hogwarts the particular social gravity of being the Chosen One has never given him a reason to look carefully or care about the interiority and the lives of Parvati and Padma Patel. And so he doesn't. And so neither do we. And so the girl who defended Neville noticed Hermione crying, asked hard questions in Ben's class, signed their names up on a dangerous piece of parchment, and practiced spells in a room that moved and stayed when their parents wanted them to leave, who fought Death Eaters in the corridors of Hogwarts and survived a war. Two girls who did all of that stand in the Great hall at the end of the series, and all we know is their names. This has been another episode of Critical Magic Theory. I'm Professor Julian Womble and if you liked today's episode. First of all, thank you, thank you. Please feel free to like rate, subscribe and do all the things that one does where pods are cast, y'.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

I was actually really surprised by this episode and again, I didn't even get to get to all the things because I realized at a certain point in my recording we gotta get this show on the road. I really, really cannot wait to see what you all have to say in the Patreon post episode chat. Patreon.com criticalmagictheory where you can join us both on the post episode chat but also to fill out the Dean Survey, y'. All. I cannot wait to hear what you have to say. If you want to follow me on social media, please feel free to do so at Prof. JW on Instagram, Prof. W on TikTok. Y' all meet me in the post episode chat. We have a lot to talk about and I I'm sure I got some things wrong and I know how you like to correct me, so meet me there. Until then, be critical and stay magical, my friends. Bye.

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