THE HALFBLOOD SHOWDOWN

Summary

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Critical Magic Theory: An Analytical Harry Potter Podcast

Episode: THE HALFBLOOD SHOWDOWN

Host: Prof. Julian Womble
Date: July 15, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this culminating episode of the "Halfblood" series, Professor Julian Womble and co-host revisit and analyze the most memorable halfblood characters from the Harry Potter universe, drawing on more than a year of listener surveys and in-depth discussion. The show focuses on "the best and worst of" various halfbloods, reflecting on what makes these characters heroes, friends, teachers, house members, and—sometimes—villains. This episode also probes deeper questions about the nature of halfblood identity, moral choices, and how perceptions are shaped by the narrative’s limited point of view, especially filtered through Harry himself.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction and Recap of the Halfblood Series ([01:36]–[10:17])

• Prof. Womble marks this as the conclusion of the halfbloods arc, which stretched over a year since the first episode on "Tommy Ridds" (Voldemort) in March 2025.
• All major halfblood characters the show analyzed are named: Harry, Dumbledore, Snape, Voldemort, Dean Thomas, Minerva McGonagall, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Hagrid, Trelawney, Fleur, Tonks, Cho Chang, Seamus, and more.
• Notably, nearly every major series villain is a halfblood.

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2. Best Halfblood Person ([10:17]–[19:22])

• Dean Thomas & Minerva McGonagall tie as "Best Halfblood Person," each with a 97% approval rating.
  • On Dean:
    "The more we investigated... we kind of realize, oh actually, he’s all up and through these books but just kind of in the periphery." – Prof. Womble ([12:13])
  • On Representation:
    "So many of the characters of color are just like so good, it’s not even to be believed...to then have that reality manifest for Dean...very telling to me." ([13:05])
  • On McGonagall:
    "We know her solely through her role as deputy headmistress and teacher...what we do get is very little about her...who she is." ([14:26])
• Insight: Lament that both characters' "goodness" may be a product of their underdeveloped interior lives in the narrative as viewed through Harry’s lens, allowing surface judgments with little nuance.

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3. Best and Worst Halfblood Teacher ([21:10]–[29:13])

• Remus Lupin (93%) narrowly outpaces McGonagall (92%) as the best teacher.
  • "The thing they have in common is their trust and faith in students...they recognize what they’re teaching is difficult but never make students feel bad for trying." – Prof. Womble ([22:08])
• Gilderoy Lockhart is the consensus worst teacher:
  • "That man shouldn’t be anywhere near a classroom...he is competence disguised." ([25:20], [27:50])
  • Notable parallel drawn between Lockhart’s self-aggrandizement and certain academic behaviors in higher ed.

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4. House Membership – Best and Worst ([30:55]–[43:50])

• Minerva McGonagall is voted best Gryffindor (95%).
  • "You really nailed it when you beat the titular character who we established was like the Gryffindor of all Gryffindors." ([31:39])
  • Explores how McGonagall embodies a different, perhaps more responsible and strategic, version of bravery compared to more reckless Gryffindors and that this may be partly gendered and linked to her responsibilities ([33:31]-[39:37]).
• Peter Pettigrew is decisively the worst Gryffindor (7%).
  • "There is a bravery and a recklessness to sitting in your friend's face for however long and actively engaging in the like deepest most horrific kind of betrayal possible." ([41:10])
  • Prof. Womble provocatively connects Dumbledore’s "standing up to your friends" quote to Pettigrew—asking if bravery always equals goodness.

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5. Friendship Superlatives ([45:40]–[53:05])

• Best Friend: Dean Thomas (93%)
  • "If nothing else...one thing's for certain—two things for sure—we knew that Dean was a good friend." ([47:13])
  • Especially commended for his support of Seamus, reliability, and warmth.
• Worst Friend: Peter Pettigrew (2%)
  • "If any of you didn’t say Peter Pettigrew...you are part of the chaos goblin contingent and that just becomes your lifeblood..." ([49:52])
  • Discussion of the magnitude of Pettigrew's betrayal; his survival instinct and lack of remorse make him uniquely loathsome.

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6. Biggest Hero & Worst Villain ([53:05]–[67:27])

• Biggest Heroes: Tie between Harry Potter & Minerva McGonagall (86% each)
  • Reflection on the difference between "doing heroic things" and "being a hero."
  • "Sometimes heroism is not just what you do—it is how people understand what you do." ([57:47])
  • Harry’s heroism is seen as both chosen and imposed by fate; McGonagall's is about choice, integrity, and selflessness ([59:07]-[60:20]).
• Worst Villain: Dolores Umbridge (97.5%), surpassing Voldemort (93%), Lockhart (68%), Snape (48%), and Dumbledore (24%)
  • "She is statistically the most hated character." ([62:18])
  • Listeners explain, "There is this kind of more human understanding...Umbridge brings a cruelty to children that feels so familiar and on the nose." ([63:05])
  • Womble notes that Umbridge’s lack of backstory or nuance makes her villainy more "pure" in the minds of readers, comparing how Voldemort’s detailed history elicits more nuanced feelings ([64:10]-[67:07]).

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7. Reflection on Halfblood Identity, Choice, and Social Constructs ([68:44]–[82:00])

• Key insight: The "halfblood" identity itself is nearly meaningless except in terms of social experience and the choices characters make about ideology and allegiance.
  • "What really matters about being a half blood is not that you are one, but rather what your experience inside or outside the magical world is." ([69:38])
• Discussion of whether halfbloods attempt to "bridge the gap" between magical and muggle worlds or uphold pure-blood supremacy.
  • "The thing that makes it interesting is when we asked ourselves...about what does it mean to be a good half blood, we came up with these two options: uphold pure blood supremacy or seek to bridge the gap." ([70:11])
  • Highlights the liminal space of halfbloods, their performativity, and the challenge and necessity of choosing ideology in a way purebloods and muggleborns do not ([76:41]–[81:21]).
• Best Halfbloods According to Survey: Rubeus Hagrid & Nymphadora Tonks (Tie, 60%)
  • Praised for "rejecting the more egregious parts of pure blood supremacy" while acknowledging neither are free from unconscious bias ([73:49]-[74:13])
  • Both make intentional choices to ally themselves with marginalized groups or values in the magical world.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Character Nuance and Point of View:
  "It’s easier to be seen as a good person when we don’t know that much about you...it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, we just don’t know it." – Prof. Womble ([18:20])

• On Teaching and Lockhart’s Narcissism:
  "When your pedagogy includes your own self-aggrandizement, we have to start asking ourselves some hard-hitting questions." ([26:47])

• On Minerva McGonagall’s Quiet Bravery:
  "The bravery of staying. The recklessness of staying when everyone knows that you are unabashedly aligned with Dumbledore and yet you’re there." ([38:34])

• On Villainy and Umbridge:
  "We don’t get a backstory, we don’t get a narrative, we don’t get anything. We only get the pink...the torture...and the villainy." ([64:10])

• On Halfbloods and Social Identity:
  "So much of their identity is prefaced on the decisions that they make. There are some ways that like our identities make the decisions for us...but even within all of that, there are still spaces—places—where we have to decide what we are going to do." ([77:09])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening Reflection on the Series: [01:36]–[10:17]
• Best Halfblood Person: [10:17]–[19:22]
• Best/Worst Teacher: [21:10]–[29:13]
• Best/Worst House Member: [30:55]–[43:50]
• Best/Worst Friend: [45:40]–[53:05]
• Heroics & Villainy: [53:05]–[67:27]
• Reflection on Halfblood Identity: [68:44]–[82:00]

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Episode Takeaways

• The "best" and "worst" designations often correlate with how much or little the narrative shows the interior lives or backstories of characters, and how directly their actions are depicted.
• Minerva McGonagall stands out as an unsung pillar in many domains—bravery, heroism, teaching, and house loyalty—largely due to her strategic restraint and responsibility.
• Dolores Umbridge’s "pure" villainy, magnified by the lack of narrative justification, makes her more hated than the series' arch-villain, Voldemort.
• The essence of halfblood identity is rooted in choice and the social liminality they occupy—not merely blood status.
• The episode closes with open questions about how listener judgments of halfbloods reflect deeper beliefs about morality, identity, and narrative perspective in the Wizarding World.

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Further Engagement

Prof. Womble encourages listeners to continue conversations in the post-episode chat, pre-order his forthcoming book "Behind the Cloak," and suggests future episodes will expand to broader Wizarding World topics, starting with the Ministry of Magic.

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"Be critical and stay magical, my friends." – Prof. Julian Womble ([85:26])

Transcript

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[Professor Julian Womble]

theory where we deconstruct the wizarding world of harry potter because

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

loving something doesn't mean we can't be

[Professor Julian Womble]

critical of it i'm professor julian womble

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and this is the end i've drowned and dreamt this moment that's all we're

[Professor Julian Womble]

going to do because i'm not going to get sued but this is the end of our journey with the half bloods i literally cannot believe it we've been at this for a while okay i don't even know when the first half blood episode was but it's been a minute in fact let me go and look that up real quick and i'll report back i'm back now and we had our first episode on tommy ridd's on march sixth twenty twenty five so we've been at this for over a year and what a ride it

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

has been and so now we have to do our best and worst of we've got to figure out who's the

[Professor Julian Womble]

best half blood who's the best person amongst the half bloods who's the the biggest hero who is the best friend who is the biggest villain who is the best member of their house the best teacher we kind of did that one already but we're reviewing we're going to recap we're not going to spend a lot of time on that we're doing it all today y' all and i have really enjoyed doing this because

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i'm like the half bloods are the

[Professor Julian Womble]

characters that we experience the most in the series right like i mean all of our big characters save like hermione granger i mean obviously we went through the pure bloods as well but like harry dumbledore snape voldiva like all of them are all half bloods and so we've been on a journey we've been on a journey it has been a time and i really love these episodes because as i was preparing and compiling all of the data i was just like also shout out to cassie who has created an arithmency spreadsheet which makes doing that aggregation so much easier so thank you there are things that will shock you i think there are things that you will not like there are things that are not surprising but should be surprising and bear some deeper meaningful conversations yeah and so i'm really excited about this and then we will have our prof response episodes because i guarantee that you all are going to be in that post episode chat with thoughts

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

gripes complaints okay let's go and then

[Professor Julian Womble]

we will move into our summer of just broader wizarding world exploration starting with a conversation about the ministry of magic and so i am very excited for this episode because i just think that the half bloods are where it's at and there's a lot of like really interesting nuances to kind of how we understand half bloodedness and the role that it plays in how each of these individuals occupy the space that they occupy and what's more how and why we experience them certain ways right which is obviously filtered through how and why harry experiences them in certain ways and so i'm ready are you ready well don't get too ready because we have to bop first and you knew that you knew that the bop was coming and so we're going to get to the bop because once you bop the fun don't stop so the bop is coming

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

to you in three in two in one let's

[Professor Julian Womble]

we need to talk about

[John Daly]

harry potter

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sa

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i hope you danced welcome back y' all welcome to everyone to all of you no matter at

[Professor Julian Womble]

my church we always say no matter who you are or where you are on life's journey you are welcome here and that feels apropos let's see announcements

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

okay first of all thank you to

[Professor Julian Womble]

those of you who participated in the post episode chat that informed the prof response episode for our second and final harry potter episode it was good it

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

was a good one and i i

[Professor Julian Womble]

think i no no no i remember now i didn't necessarily plan out the reflection i just was going on vibes and i was surprised and actually hilariously i'm doing that again today so if the reflection is trash it's my fault and you know sometimes that's the case if it's not also i'm amazing so you know choose whichever one you want it's up to you you can also choose to join us on patreon patreon dot com criticalmagictheory and you can join for free and be a part of that conversation you can also join as a paid subscriber where you get all kinds of perks that are listed on the patreon site you can join for free and then join as a paid subscriber you can be a paid subscriber and if your financial situation changes you can you get the world is your oyster but come join us on the patreon it's a good time there are many many many things in fact i use the patreon to help inform what our summer episodes are going to look like because i'd like to hear from you all so patreon dot com criticalmagic

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

theory also you know i wrote a

[Professor Julian Womble]

book and if you didn't know that because this is your first time with us first of all welcome secondly i

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

wrote a book behind the cloak i

[Professor Julian Womble]

would love it if you pre ordered

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

it i'm still working on it uk

[Professor Julian Womble]

australia new zealand friends i don't know what's going on i don't know but we are getting to the bottom of it we are making some things happen friends okay so worry not that will be resolved and hopefully sooner rather than later but if you are not in those places and you do have the opportunity to pre order behind the cloak that would be greatly appreciated thank you in advance yeah i'm proud of this one so i think it's good and there are some among us who have had the opportunity to read it and they liked it so and i didn't even pay them so which is normally what i do when i want to get compliments but don't give them any ideas the website exists criticalmagictheory dot com you can go there and you can

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

also get the pre order link you

[Professor Julian Womble]

can also go there and hit the merch and go get some things from the merch store i'm going on vacation next week and yes i am taking pretty much everything so especially my hat certainly the crop tops both the hoodie crop top which is a smash hit the girls and everyone love it and so that's coming with me i wish i could bring some mugs with me but i'm not risking traveling with them but also the mugs it's all there maybe even my tote bag which might be my beach bag it's all there for you okay criticalmagicleary dot com and you want to follow me on social media feel free to do so prof jw on instagram puff w on tiktok

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i think that's it we're moving in

[Professor Julian Womble]

i already told you we're going to be doing the thing on the ministry of magic okay check check check and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

check okay let's get this show on the road friends it's time for us to begin i'm going to play a

[Professor Julian Womble]

little music so that you can get your minds and your spirits ready for the unpacking of the best and the

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

worst of the half bloods we're going

[Professor Julian Womble]

to start with the best person who is the best half blood person but i want us to be reminded of all of the half bloods that we've spoken about in the past year almost year and a half tommy ridz aka voldiva peter pettigrew remus lupin minerva mcgonagall crinius krill i told you i was never going to say that word again and that name again and here i am and that's why professor quirrell okay gilderoy lockhart dolores umbridge rubeus hagrid sybil trelawney severus snape albus dumbledore fleur de la cour nymphador tonks cho chang dean thomas seamus finnegan and harry potter we also did talk about the patil twins and we talked about aberforth and ariana dumbledore but they didn't have surveys so we can't include them in the data but we did talk about them so this bunch of people is very different from our pure bloods we've got the teachers the headmaster the actual villain of the text and the villain that we dislike the most all of our villains actually are in here for pretty much every single yeah every single villain so with that in mind just to give us a bit of a refresher on where we are and what we're doing there you have that best person

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and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

we're starting off strong so strong with

[Professor Julian Womble]

a tie dean thomas emma neva mcgonagall both came in at ninety seven percent good person good people excuse me and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

it's fascinating that we get these two one because i know that many of us you know dean was a character

[Professor Julian Womble]

that we were kind of dubious about having an episode for because we were like we don't really know that much about him but then the more we investigated them where we kind of realize oh actually he's all up and through these books but just kind of in the periphery and it is interesting that

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

he i think it's one of those

[Professor Julian Womble]

things where it's like obviously dean is a good person but it's one of those moments where it's like well we don't really have any meaningful transgressions on his part which then informs how we appreciate him as a good person even as a kind of secondary maybe even tertiary character it also isn't lost on me that what we talked about in our kind of black history month characters of color episode about how so many of the characters of color are just like so good it's not even to be believed and to then have that kind of reality manifest for dean in this way right to be voted as one of the two people who are like the best half bloods that we talked about and had surveys for it's very telling to me and i think it's such an indication of like how little we have about dean that we are able to kind of see him as a fully fledged person right like we'll remember that so much of the critiques that many people leveraged against him were like that he was a little bit too too chivalrous to the point where some people felt uncomfortable by it but like that was the extent of his negative attributes which i find to be so fascinating especially then when you juxtapose it with minerva mcgonagall right who is one of the few adults in the series that we tend to have a lot of faith in and we look at her and we see someone who is good for the purposes of legitimately being good there's no ulterior motive there's no kind of bending over backwards that we have to do to see her as a good person but also

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

another character whose interior life we are

[Professor Julian Womble]

robbed of right like we know her solely through her role as deputy headmistress and teacher and it isn't until we get to the post canonical lore which many of you won't even acknowledge because you don't you only want to focus on canonical texts which no shade

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

so

[Professor Julian Womble]

if we don't account for that then the reality is is that what we do get is very little about her we get about who she is we see a lot of what she does we see a lot of what dean

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

does we know very little about who they are as people and so it's interesting because these are two characters who

[Professor Julian Womble]

are obviously they play important roles in the books for one reason or another but it is fascinating then to think about the fact that what we don't

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

get is depth or nuance and some

[Professor Julian Womble]

of this of course is because of how harry perceives them and understands them and kind of the sense that he has of who they are in relation to him right and you know we very rarely know well i knew the interior lives of my teachers when i was in elementary school but that's cause i was nosy and was asking all kinds of prying questions but you know harry is not necessarily as interested as i was when he's at hogwarts right

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

but it's also fascinating because right like

[Professor Julian Womble]

some of this is not i mean obviously it's the writing but harry also just does not engage with anyone's interiority that much to begin with right like we talk a lot about the fact that we don't even know hermione's parents names harry didn't even know that dumbledore had a brother or knew so little about who dumbledore was and again some of that was the byproduct of dumbledore kind of concealing it but it was also the byproduct of harry not necessarily asking because so much of the conversations that he has are about him and there's a way in which kind of harry's own self perception informs then what we get from these characters and so that when we think about dean and we think about mcgonagall it's like yes of course they are good people and they do good things and they play these roles particularly well but it is

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

interesting to me as well because when you lose the nuance it's easier to

[Professor Julian Womble]

see only what's presented to you right

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and so some people were critical of

[Professor Julian Womble]

mcgonagall and some people were critical of dean but it's not surprising to me that there are two best because when we think about all the other half bloods that i listed right before it's like so many of these characters have an interiority that we actually get a sense of in some ways right like we get to see their flaws and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

we really don't get to see that

[Professor Julian Womble]

many flaws from dean for sure and the flaws that we might perceive from mcgonagall are really the byproduct of our own belief structures about maybe she cares too much about quidditch or maybe she should have stepped in in certain situations that she didn't but like on the whole that's about her role as a teacher as a guardian her role as

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

a person who she is fundamentally we don't really understand that and again some

[Professor Julian Womble]

of it is just because we don't get any interiority for her or dean and some of it is because of the way that harry understands who they are right and those two things kind of work together and so in that way i think it is interesting to

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

think about how we arrive at who

[Professor Julian Womble]

is a good person and who isn't a good person and it's kind of like the conversation that we've been having about whether or not it's easier to be a hero when you're like a pure blood or you know is it

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

easier to be seen as to be

[Professor Julian Womble]

seen as redeemable when you're a bad person right that like it's easier to be seen as a good person when we don't know that much about you and when all we have are these acts that really kind of give us a sense of some part of who you are but not its totality and the way that that then leads us to a space of believing and seeing the good because we actually have no sense of the bad but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist we just don't know it speaking of bad people i was gonna do a whole section on the people who were seen as the worst people but there's some overlap with a later section and i don't want to to have to do it twice so i'm just going to leave it here for you to guess and try to figure out i think you know of the people that we've talked about i think you know but we're not going to do it twice so let's just let's just keep it going

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[Professor Julian Womble]

the next question that we are going to engage with is one

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

that is a quick callback just a quick moment to remember our history i

[Professor Julian Womble]

realize that we've had a lot of episodes for the half bloods and so while yes we have kind of litigated over this i do want us to

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

recall who we determined was the best teacher and where we landed is not quite an exact tie but close enough

[Professor Julian Womble]

we have remus lupin at the top with ninety three percent of us saying yes he is a good teacher and we have minerva mcgonagall back again at

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

ninety two percent i think it's interesting

[Professor Julian Womble]

to think about these two because they

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

have such very different approaches to teaching

[Professor Julian Womble]

but i think the thing that i have that i that i believe that

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

they have in common is their trust and faith in students they recognize that

[Professor Julian Womble]

what they're teaching is difficult but they

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

never make students feel like

[Professor Julian Womble]

bad for trying mcgonagall is hard on her students yes right you know she tells neville you can't take this class you didn't do as well as you needed to that is true transfiguration is also super

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

scary and i think

[Professor Julian Womble]

she doesn't want

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

to take any chances i also think

[Professor Julian Womble]

that there's a difference between being a very seasoned teacher which she is relative to lupin who shows up for a single year and mcgongle's been doing this for a long time and so i

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

think she's seen more than lupin has

[Professor Julian Womble]

and as a person who is at this point in my career has been in teaching college for a while now whenever i talk to younger professors who are just kind of getting into the act of teaching which is admittedly something that we aren't really taught to do as phds like we're just kind of like you're an expert in this you automatically have the ability to teach it which is false it's absurd it's a fallacy at best but one thing that

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i find right is that there's a meaningful difference in what you bring right

[Professor Julian Womble]

to the classroom when you first walk in and any teachers who are listening you know you remember yourself when you first walked into the classroom and where you are now and i think it's

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

interesting because both of them teach their

[Professor Julian Womble]

students in no uncertain terms right students walk out of those classrooms having learned a lot we see the golden trio using a lot of both the lessons right both what they learned in all the years that they took transfiguration with mcgonagall and in the year that they spent with lupin right the patronus charm if nothing else is really the kind of thing that makes harry harry his ability to conjure it the fact that it's corporeal like all of these things make such a difference for him and how he understands his own magical acumen and so it isn't a surprise to me that these individuals are our best teachers because i think they both bring something very different to bear right i think lupin is much more of a kind of experiential teacher whereas mcgonagall obviously by virtue of doing transfiguration you have to experience it but there's a way that she kind of guides students in a way that i think is a little bit different than remus but not which isn't to say that it's worse or better but just different and more seasoned and that that has meaningful implications then for how students receive those lessons also at the bottom of this list you know below even the one and only dolores umbridge is old gilderoy lockhart

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and this is self evident because that man shouldn't be anywhere near a classroom

[Professor Julian Womble]

not only just because he is a criminal and a thief and you know

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i don't even know what what to

[Professor Julian Womble]

describe him as a thief is good a criminal is another one like a murderer like or attempted murderer like he's

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

a bad person and i think but if we just focus on what he does in the classroom he's an awful teacher and the thing that's so crazy and i've not thought about this before

[Professor Julian Womble]

and i don't know that we talked about this when we talked about the you know good and bad teachers but

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

like the thing about gilbert lockhart is is that yeah he's bad but he

[Professor Julian Womble]

is not unusual especially in the college

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

classroom where like you are assigned you

[Professor Julian Womble]

assign your students your books like you're really invited to do that right and it's a way that you know you

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

sell books and i remember as a student and as a ta i just used to think how annoying it was

[Professor Julian Womble]

that we were buying this person's book and then they weren't really good at

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

teaching it and i think that you

[Professor Julian Womble]

know which isn't to say that people are out here like stealing people's ideas and just doing whatever they no right but it is to say that like

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

when your pedagogy includes like your own

[Professor Julian Womble]

self aggrandizement and narcissism we have to start asking ourselves some hard hitting questions we have to start thinking through whether or not you are actually good at

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

the thing or if you are just

[Professor Julian Womble]

a person who was able to write a book right as i wrote behind the cloak have i mentioned that i wrote a book that's a joke i know that i have i'm sorry if you rolled your eyes but the chair

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

of my department came in to my

[Professor Julian Womble]

office and asked me like oh are you gonna assign it to your students

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and i'm like no that feels weird

[Professor Julian Womble]

now granted like i teach a class on harry potter and we do engage in similar conversations but i'm like the whole book isn't gonna be relevant and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

they have to read the latter four books in the harry potter series i'm

[Professor Julian Womble]

like if anything i probably will give them a chapter or two but i'm not such a megalomaniac that i would i mean you know within reason i have a whole podcast where i just yell into a microphone but we're not talking about that where i would you know engage in the kind of behavior of being like buy my book and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

then be bad at teaching it and that's the thing it's like gilderoy lockhart is the most dangerous kind of teacher because he is competence disguise he's he disguises his competence with expertise and it's like no no no i know and

[Professor Julian Womble]

you all i'm sure many of us who have experienced teachers have experienced someone who is clearly brilliant that's not gilderoy

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

lockhart but who i mean he's good at memory charms he wasn't teaching those though but that there's a world where like people who are good at writing a book or telling a story aren't

[Professor Julian Womble]

good at teaching the things that they're telling the story about and that's on top of the fact that he stole those stories right and just spun them into things that people could listen to

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and i think that's a skill set that he has but hogwarts doesn't have a class on creative writing and so he's an awful teacher because they learned absolutely nothing because you can't teach what you don't know and this is a

[Professor Julian Womble]

thing that i think about a lot and i think maybe we will do an episode during the summer on this because i think the question arises as to like how is it that these

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

teachers even get the jobs right like

[Professor Julian Womble]

outside of defense against the dark arts right you know there were other teachers there and it's like how did you

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

get this is there a post graduate

[Professor Julian Womble]

situation that happens the education system in the magical world is fraught but needless to say teachers like gilderoy lockhart do not help at all whatsoever

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[Professor Julian Womble]

the teacher section was longer than i intended it to be but you know

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

what i'm banking on the fact that

[Professor Julian Womble]

many of you don't remember the teacher

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

conversation and so it was new it

[Professor Julian Womble]

was fresh for the next section we're

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

going to be talking about the best

[Professor Julian Womble]

and the worst of the house members right so we had a variety of house members in this group and who

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

did we think was the best obviously

[Professor Julian Womble]

we had to remove fleur from the

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

running because she isn't a hogwarts student and so who is the best and interestingly enough guess who's back back again minnie's back tell a friend whenever mcgonagall

[Professor Julian Womble]

comes in at with ninety five percent of us saying yes she is a

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

good gryffindor ninety five percent of us

[Professor Julian Womble]

like you know you really nailed it when you beat the titular character who we established was like the gryffindor of all gryffindors although some of us were

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

less inclined and it's interesting right because i don't disagree with this i think you know i think taking care of

[Professor Julian Womble]

children in any capacity is brave which again is probably why i'm not in gryffindor because i think that there is a world where being charged with caring for other people's children is a crazy crazy crazy situation right like i know i teach college but college is different they're grown adult people their choices are their own and we also don't i don't teach at a magical school where death is literally lurking around every single corner at any hour of any day

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and what's more is that she's doing that job keeping dumbledore in order and like it gets to a point where her job is not only to protect the students from themselves but from like dark evil sources that are coming in to the school right like she is there during the entirety of the karrow's reign of terror while snape is headmaster and is still teaching and protecting and engage like and having to engage with these people she takes four stunners to the chest when umbridge is staging her coup and it's just an unbelievable task

[Professor Julian Womble]

that she has to take on as

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

a person who is you know so disciplined and it is interesting right because

[Professor Julian Womble]

one of the things that we've spent a lot of time talking about as it pertains to gryffindors is the idea of recklessness right and the idea of you know thinking first or not thinking first never that in this economy for gryffindors silly acting first thinking later asking for forgiveness rather than for permission right like that all of these things are kind of hallmarks of how we understand

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and i wanted to say gryffindor students and children but it's also how we see many of the adults right remus lupin albus dumbledore right and it is interesting right and i think that this

[Professor Julian Womble]

is where we kind of get the hat stall of it all bars because

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i think that there is a way that she does not operate with that

[Professor Julian Womble]

same level of recklessness and we know that there was a moment where she was concerned considered for ravenclaw and i

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

think that it's interesting and i think

[Professor Julian Womble]

people you know this is one of the big the gripes that people have about our conversations surrounding the houses right because everyone has so many of these attributes and traits in them right and i think it's about proportion right like it's about like which one of these things dominates the way that you understand yourself and the way that you come to understand yourself right and i think her recklessness is in many ways mitigated by the kind of thoughtfulness and intelligence that is what led the hat to not be clear about where to put her which isn't to say that like recklessness and intelligence don't operate in the same space they do but again proportion like which ones are you allowing to kind of be the thing that you let guide you and i think this is also a very interesting difference between gryffindors and slytherins as well right it's that like the proportionality of you know when phineas nigella says like you know slytherins are brave but we're just not stupid right like he's tapping into the notion of proportion right like what is the thing that you allow to guide you and move you in certain directions

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and i think for minerva mcgonagall i think for a number of reasons she

[Professor Julian Womble]

can't allow the recklessness to override other aspects of her identity and i think part of that is the one she's a teacher she's a deputy headmistress she is the one who's in charge of taking care of all of these students

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

she and she has to do it in the face of someone who actually

[Professor Julian Womble]

does engage in fairly reckless uninformed absurd behavior in the form of al bd

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and so she doesn't get to i think like in many ways this is

[Professor Julian Womble]

interesting like i feel like her lack of what we have come to as a community like recognize as a kind of a disregard for rules in the name of the greater good she doesn't have the privilege of being able to do that because she is charged with

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

so much more and in some ways that makes her bravery look different but to me it feels more impactful because she can't just run out there wands ablaze she has to figure out what's the best way to do this which means that she has to then sit in a perpetual state of danger when snape takes over because she can't just like pop off because the people who suffer it's not just her it's the students the people who she cares about right and so there's a strategy to her engagement in reckless behavior right and

[Professor Julian Womble]

we see her like at the end right once harry shows back up she's like let's go cause once you pop

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

the fun don't stop but she has to be intentional and strategic about that engagement because if nothing else it's not just her life at stake it's the life of all the children who are in her charge not just the gryffindor but every single student and what's more faculty member right because undoubtedly she's still serving in the capacity even if not in terms of title but in terms of just the role itself as deputy headmistress and so she is there in the midst of this hellacious experience at hogwarts this place that she was a student at that she loved that she grew and developed at she is still there having to overcome her own fears and trepidations her own desire to potentially be reckless she has to protect the students from their own recklessness she has to be there to serve as much of a buffer as she possibly can when neville and ginny are leading the campaign against snape all of these things and she's there in the midst of

[Professor Julian Womble]

it all and i think that there's

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

something to be said about that particular reality the bravery of staying the recklessness of staying when everybody knows that you

[Professor Julian Womble]

are unabashedly aligned with dumbledore unabashedly a

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

member of the order and yet you're there there's something to be said about that and who can't even imagine what she herself experiences we see in that brief moment in ravenclaw tower what how

[Professor Julian Womble]

she's treated and that's when harry busts

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

out the cruciatus curse right and so it is a fascinating thing to think about in terms of her own bravery because i think it doesn't to me

[Professor Julian Womble]

and i know people probably disagree with me on this one but meet me in the post episode chat

[Moto Casino Promo Voice]

it doesn't

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

look the way that we tend to

[Professor Julian Womble]

understand the idea of gryffindor look gryffindor

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

bravery looking but i think part of that is some of it is probably

[Professor Julian Womble]

gendered but some of it is also

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

just the reality of what it means to be a responsible adult and al bd is not one and remus lupin

[Professor Julian Womble]

has way too much baggage to be one sirius black is not one it's not as much of one i should

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

say well no i can i think

[Professor Julian Womble]

i feel confident saying that hagrid not one right so we don't have a

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

lot of like gryffindors who feel the need to be responsible right even like

[Professor Julian Womble]

you know molly weasley is one but

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

again c gendered and arthur weasley is to a certain extent but not the

[Professor Julian Womble]

same not to the same extent as minerva and so i love this because this is a bit of a plot

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

twist and but i think it feels right to me i think that they're

[Professor Julian Womble]

and what i love about it is that it invites us to see bravery in a very different way even than what we've seen for some of our other faves a la neville right

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

the

[Professor Julian Womble]

person who was seen as the worst

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

member of their house is peter pettigrew

[Professor Julian Womble]

and only seven percent of us thought that he was a good gryffindor and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i get it i understand it and i think in his episode if i

[Professor Julian Womble]

remember correctly i made the point to

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

say that there is something about the notion of bravery and the extent to which we ourselves add on a kind

[Professor Julian Womble]

of moral valence to it so we are the ones who then determine whether or not it is good or it

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

is bad but at the end of the day bravery does not necessarily require good or bad it's just an action or an inaction and i personally think and this is not a defense of what he does but there is a bravery and a recklessness to sitting in your friend's face for however long and actively engaging in the like deepest most horrific kind of betrayal possible and then to turn around frame another friend for murder while you are the murderer lest we forget and then the cowardice comes

[Professor Julian Womble]

in when it's like well you lived your life as a rat but also like

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

the presumption that no one was gonna figure this thing out that like you played your part so well is

[Professor Julian Womble]

crazy to me cause i'm like baby

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

you barely covered your tracks and and the thought that somehow sirius was just gonna lose his mind and not remember like there's a lot of things going

[Professor Julian Womble]

on there but it's really fascinating because

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i think you know oh my gosh

[Professor Julian Womble]

okay you all are not gonna like this but it just came to me

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and i think it kind of applies but when dumbledore says it takes a

[Professor Julian Womble]

great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies but a great deal more to stand up to your friends

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

what is peter pettigrew doing if not standing up to his friends not in the right direction but that is not a requirement that is not a thing that one must do right and so like i'm not saying he's like neville okay everyone chill out i'm not saying he's like neville but i'm saying that if we allow that logic to be the logic well then questions arise as to like why it's not applicable here like in many ways it's not not brave to do what peter pettigrew did it's just brave not brave in the

[Professor Julian Womble]

direction that we would want it to be brave in and does bravery always connote goodness and heroism is that a

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

requirement i don't know what i do

[Professor Julian Womble]

know is i'm gonna get in a lot of trouble you guys are gonna

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

be so mad at me sorry not

[Professor Julian Womble]

sorry foreign

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[Professor Julian Womble]

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[Professor Julian Womble]

who out of the half bloods are the best and worst friend

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

we have to think this through and it's interesting because we only talked about

[Professor Julian Womble]

this for seven of the half bloods that we discussed because i think i always only leave that question for the moments where we actually get to see them in the capacity of friendship or at least have some indication of friendship so the seven that we get to pick from is peter pettigrew remus lupin rubeus hagrid cho chang dean thomas seamus finnegan and harry potter i'm gonna give you a second to guess who you believe is the best friend i should have played some music here but i didn't think to do that anyways that

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

was enough time the answer is dean

[Professor Julian Womble]

thomas with ninety three percent of us believing that he is the best friend

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

now this is interesting because dean is back lots of repetition but tell me what is missing that was just a

[Professor Julian Womble]

lyric i made up it doesn't make any sense in the context of this

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

but i yeah i see this and i think that this was one of

[Professor Julian Womble]

the few like one of the big consensus the consensi you get what i'm saying about dean was that he definitely

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

if nothing else if we knew nothing

[Professor Julian Womble]

else about him if we had nothing else to say that was gonna give us a sense of who he is one thing's for certain two things for sure we knew that dean was a good friend and a lot of us used his ability to stand by seamus even when seamus was being a mess the fact that he and seamus were so close the fact that seamus gave him such a big hug when he turns back up for the battle of hogwarts and it's just like so happy to see him that he was just an exceptional friend to seamus and it's interesting again because we find ourselves in that in that place of

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

you know

[Professor Julian Womble]

i think this more than dean being the person who is tied for being like one of the best half blood

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

people that we that we meet because we actually do get to see him

[Professor Julian Womble]

in the capacity of friendship right like we do get the sense of who he is as a person connected to mainly seamus but also to ron and harry and neville as well right and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i think there is something very like

[Professor Julian Womble]

clear about this part of his identity

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

even if we're missing other things but it still kind of gives me pause in that again i think i love

[Professor Julian Womble]

that we are celebrating dean thomas which is a surprise right because you know we were a little bit hesitant about having him have his own episode to

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

begin with but it is also just

[Professor Julian Womble]

not lost on me that we get

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

so little of who he is and

[Professor Julian Womble]

his interiority and yet we arrive at

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

these answers and the fact that like i don't know the characters who we

[Professor Julian Womble]

are much more critical of are the ones we know more about and i

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

part of me wishes that we could

[Professor Julian Womble]

sacrifice a little bit of this perception of him if it meant that we would know more about him but you know i'm just waxing poetic i think we get so much evidence of his friendship and how seriously he takes being a friend and i'm glad that he's getting this particular recognition good for you

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

dean now for the worst friend

[Professor Julian Womble]

i'm going to read you off the list of people again okay cho chang rubeus hagrid peter pettigrew remus lupin dean thomas seamus finnegan harry potter i'm gonna let you guess who's the worst friend

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i know you said peter pettigrew if any

[Professor Julian Womble]

of you didn't say peter pettigrew and you said literally any of those other names i've got a lot of questions for you and i also think that you are part of the chaos goblin contingent and that you drink from the goblet of chaos all the time and that's just become your lifeblood and your way of life no it's peter pettigrew two percent of us said that peter was a good friend and i want to know who those two percent are

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

chaos goblins reign supreme you are not

[Professor Julian Womble]

what you seem anyways i just had

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

to finish that yeah i think this

[Professor Julian Womble]

is self evident and i don't have one of these like weird topsy turvy like twisting trying to fix it no no no no no no no no

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

no no he's a bad friend y' all he's a bad friend on so

[Professor Julian Womble]

many dimensions and i think there's no cleaning it up there's no trying to justify or rationalize i think it's interesting because it's

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

he is such a he doesn't care about his friends i don't

[Professor Julian Womble]

think he's a friend at all a good friend at we could just is

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

he a friend the answer's no he's

[Professor Julian Womble]

self absorbed he only cares about himself he is really you know the rat dacity as we said for his episode is strong and completely undermines his

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

his

[Professor Julian Womble]

ability to be a friend his ability to be someone with empathy his ability

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

to like you don't just sell out

[Professor Julian Womble]

your friends to voldiva and then go

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

a step further because when i think about it and the more and more

[Professor Julian Womble]

i think about it and i can't remember if i said this during his

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

episode but i'm like why was this thing with sirius even necessary i mean i guess because he knew sirius was

[Professor Julian Womble]

gonna come after him because he knew sirius would have figured out that he was the one who betrayed lily and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

james but like baby i would have just pretended that i was tortured by valdiva everyone would have believed it would that have stopped serious maybe not but like i think he would have been

[Professor Julian Womble]

a little bit or i'd have been

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

like he snatched it out of my brain like there are so many other options killing thirteen muggles and framing my friend is not necessary and i think

[Professor Julian Womble]

that you know we often look at peter and think oh he's just this like cowardly little thing but like no

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

he's conniving because one thing about a

[Professor Julian Womble]

rat it's gonna survive and peter is

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

a survivor and that makes the betrayal even worse because i don't think he actually felt any remorse for what he did it wasn't one of these like

[Professor Julian Womble]

oh i feel bad no no no you don't you wanted power you got power you connected yourself to the powerful people and you do not care who you hurt and that tells the tale and so i'm totally down with peter being the worst friend because that's undeniable

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

who amongst the half bloods is a

[Professor Julian Womble]

hero the biggest hero and who is

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

the worst villain okay buckle up because

[Professor Julian Womble]

the time is coming now we had an entire episode and a prof response episode that was focused solely on what it meant to be a hero i know we probably should have done that earlier hindsight is twenty twenty we could have probably done an episode on each of these questions that we asked and unpacked them together however simultaneously concurrently and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

we can't we can't what's done is

[Professor Julian Womble]

done but we did talk about this

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and we talked and everyone gave us

[Professor Julian Womble]

not everyone but people gave us various definitions that looked at the distinction between doing heroic things and being a hero the notion of integrity versus intentionality and what and the role that they play in that the idea of bravery and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

danger and cause the desire for selflessness

[Professor Julian Womble]

the idea that a hero is someone

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

who is dependable and then we have

[Professor Julian Womble]

like a really really high bar of someone whose direct actions actually turn the

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

tide of war right and none of

[Professor Julian Womble]

these are wrong and i think that that's the point that's really fascinating to think about right like all of this serves as a culmination in terms of our own understanding of what it means

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

to be a hero and i think we also had a conversation i think

[Professor Julian Womble]

i know we had a whole conversation within the episode on half bloods about the relativity of heroism when we look at pure bloods as well right the fact that neville got ninety seven percent of us saying that he was a hero and fred and george got eighty percent and ginny got seventy five percent

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and i asked the question is it

[Professor Julian Womble]

easier to be a pure blood hero than it is to be someone else be or than it is to be someone of another blood status because there is a world in which there is a piece of your identity that plays a really important part in why you decide to engage in this heroic behavior right and that pure bloods for whom many of whom you know it's an ideological fight right it's a it's a

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

desire to combat individuals who promote an

[Professor Julian Womble]

ideology that you don't agree with right

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and does that then make it easier than people who are doing it for reasons that could be construed as selfish right because pure bloodedness allows for you

[Professor Julian Womble]

to be seen as selfless in the in the engagement right and that's kind of the conversation that we were having

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

for them and so i think that

[Professor Julian Womble]

there is a way that when we're looking at some of our half bloods this constitutes a very different understanding of what heroism means and looks like and how the variety of definitions alters the way that we understand what it means to be a hero in the context of

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

half bloods now for this one we only get twelve out of our

[Professor Julian Womble]

seventeen characters and we have a tie with at eighty six percent of us saying that each of these characters was

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

a hero i'm gonna give you a moment to guess

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[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

if you guess minerva mcgonagall and harry james potter that you

[Professor Julian Womble]

would be correct tied again minerva is really winning the half blood the half

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

blood superlatives she's knocking this all out of the park and again it makes sense i think so much of what

[Professor Julian Womble]

she does is it captures so much of what these definitions offer us right

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

the notion of not only just doing heroic things but i also think that there is a way that you know

[Professor Julian Womble]

sometimes heroism is not just what you

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

do it is how people understand what

[Professor Julian Womble]

you do right and i think that mcgonagall is a hero to many people and which doesn't necessarily i mean there are a lot of people who we would not define as heroes who are heroes to other people but i also think when you then combine that with the notion of integrity and intentionality which i think mcgonagall shows in spades i think you know the notion that she gained so little which i also think is true i think that she is constantly putting herself in danger particularly in the latter part of the series i think she is outlandishly selfless in what she does and i think that the question is do her you know direct actions turn the tide of the war you know that's a very high bar and there's something to be said for that but i do think that she is someone who is dependable and can be counted on in no uncertain terms

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and when i look at harry i'm like yeah well of course selfless to

[Professor Julian Womble]

a fault a hero to many i

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

think and i talked about this in

[Professor Julian Womble]

his episodes i think his heroism is

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

kind of is captured in the way that he works to be the hero

[Professor Julian Womble]

that everyone wants him to be i

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

think that his reluctance to be a hero and the fact that he really

[Professor Julian Womble]

didn't get to choose heroism it was kind of thrust upon him

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

makes his

[Professor Julian Womble]

makes the actions that he takes heroic but it also makes him a hero in no uncertain terms and so i

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

think for me these make sense in a lot of ways i think when

[Professor Julian Womble]

we look at the other characters that were right behind them tonks at eighty percent hagrid at seventy four percent lupin at seventy three percent right like we

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

get a sense of things it's interesting too because i think some of this is i think the idea of heroism and what makes mcgonagall's actions so interesting

[Professor Julian Womble]

is that so much of what we're

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

imbuing are things that ostensibly happen off

[Professor Julian Womble]

the page for mcgonagall in a way that's different from harry because he's the title character he is by definition the hero of the series and so in

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

that regard like it makes sense they

[Professor Julian Womble]

he would be of the half bloods the one who arrives or who gets this designation i also do think it's interesting though because when it comes to the idea of choice right like if we're going to juxtapose these two characters right there are a lot of meaningful differences between them but when you think about the choice to be a hero i think mcgonagall makes the decision and harry has it kind of forced on him in no uncertain terms in a way that i think makes the comparison

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

really really fascinating now when we get

[Professor Julian Womble]

to the topic of villains i'm gonna

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

let you all think through this because

[Professor Julian Womble]

you already know who it is you already know who it is i think you should know who it is now five of our characters were asked the

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

villain question voldiva lockhart umbridge snape dumbledore

[Professor Julian Womble]

who do you think the winner is

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i'll wait if you said dolores umbridge you are correct ninety seven point five

[Professor Julian Womble]

percent of us said that she was

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

a villain more than volzadi himself who only got ninety three and then lockhart

[Professor Julian Womble]

was at sixty eight percent snape was at forty eight percent and dumbledore was at twenty four percent

[Bretzky]

i

[Professor Julian Womble]

think this is fascinating but not surprising i said during umbridge's episode that she is statistically the most hated character

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and i find it fascinating that she is seen and

[Professor Julian Womble]

perceived as more villainous than voldemort and i think i remember that many of us made a point to say not

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

only is there something very familiar about

[Professor Julian Womble]

umbridge but there is this kind of

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

more human understanding of who she is in terms of like voldemort feels like

[Professor Julian Womble]

a bit of a cartoon like you know the defying death there's a humanity that umbridge brings to her villainy a

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

cruelty to children that doesn't quite that feels so familiar and on the nose

[Professor Julian Womble]

and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i think i just i'm not surprised i'm not surprised but i am i really like y' all please show

[Professor Julian Womble]

up in the post episode chat for

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

this i mean cause i i'm i

[Professor Julian Womble]

get it i do she's awful she

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

tortured kids um but i also am wondering and i you know i have

[Professor Julian Womble]

maintained this and i'm trying to work

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

on being consistent is again it's the very similar thing to like all we

[Professor Julian Womble]

get from her is villainy we don't get a backstory we don't get a narrative we don't get anything we only get the pink and the not being conventionally attractive and the high pitched voice that feels fake and the you know torture and the which and i don't i'm not minimizing those things but i

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

think it is easier for us to

[Professor Julian Womble]

see the villainy in someone who only

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

presents villainy and while yes voldemort does

[Professor Julian Womble]

the same we know his story we know that he came from a very very broken family who was rife with all kinds of issues and all kinds of terrible things and we know that we have that particular reality and i

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

think there is something to be said about what it means when you get

[Professor Julian Womble]

a backstory and i've said this before and i have a whole chapter in behind the cloak this is the third time i've mentioned it i'm counting i don't wanna go too far but i talk a lot in the book about redemption and who gets it and who doesn't and what that means and the understanding of the privilege of the benefit

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

of the doubt and it is just simply not lost on me and i'm

[Professor Julian Womble]

not deriding anyone for believing that she is the worst villain because i think there are lots of really justifiable reasons as to why but it is not lost on me that this woman is the one who we vilify the most despite the fact that yeah she did terrible terrible things but what she did to the students is in no way comparable to what voldemort does like across the series the number of people that

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

voldemort killed the fact that like he

[Professor Julian Womble]

led to the killing of a lot of the students who she tortured like none of it is right but like if we're comparing apples to oranges then like we gotta ask ourselves some questions

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and i'm it just i don't know

[Professor Julian Womble]

shines a light for me on the power of

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

detail and what happens when

[Professor Julian Womble]

you have it and what happens when you don't and the quickness and the ease with which we're willing to go to a place of vilifying a character who again like deserves every bit of

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

it but we don't really know anything

[Professor Julian Womble]

else about her and so it's all

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

she gets to be and that's all

[Professor Julian Womble]

we then get to give her and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

voldemort harry's arch nemesis the person who killed harry's parents seemingly gets more sympathy don't get me wrong now okay listen

[Professor Julian Womble]

ninety three percent is nothing to scoff at um but delora's umbridge for all intents and purposes got an a plus and voldemort just got like an a in some cases might have been considered an a minus in terms of his villain grade

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

that is

[Professor Julian Womble]

fascinating to me and i want to hear your thoughts on this i know you're not surprised but why do you think this is i know we talked about it but now we have the numbers back to back and it reifies what the broader data about the most hated character in

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

the series is and i'm wondering what

[Professor Julian Womble]

your thoughts are on that

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[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

we've now reached the

[Professor Julian Womble]

point in the episode where i am

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

going to reflect i didn't know what

[Professor Julian Womble]

my reflection was going to be until

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

just now but the more i thought

[Professor Julian Womble]

about this specific group of people and a lot of the conversations that we

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

had throughout their episodes the thing that stood out to me is you know when we first started talking about half

[Professor Julian Womble]

bloods we spent a lot of time talking about you know the fact that half bloods obviously make up the vast

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

majority of the magical world and that what's interesting about half bloods is that really the moniker itself is fairly meaningless because what really matters about being a half blood is not that you are

[Professor Julian Womble]

one but rather what your experience inside or outside the magical world is right

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

that people who are magically raised are

[Professor Julian Womble]

distinct from those people who are muggle raised and that their experiences as a byproduct of that are much more similar rather to purebloods than that of people who are like hairy muggle raised who are much more likely to have experiences similar to that of a dean thomas or a hermione granger right and that

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

the thing that makes it interesting is when we asked ourselves a question about what does it mean to be a good half blood we came up with these two options right that you could either be a person who was upholding

[Professor Julian Womble]

pure blood supremacy or someone who was seeking to bridge the gap between the muggle and then magical world the latter

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

part was harder and is harder for people who were not muggle raised right because they don't know the world that way they only know the world in

[Professor Julian Womble]

the same way that purebloods know the

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

world right and which is to say that they only know the world through the lens of pure blood supremacy magical supremacy the idea that magical people are

[Professor Julian Womble]

better by virtue of doing magic right

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

that they don't have the same same awareness of non magical spaces and places and people and so what really stood out to me about the idea of like a good half blood right is the question of choice right it's the question of what are you deciding because you ultimately have to make a decision even if you and it doesn't necessarily have to be a decision of i'm

[Professor Julian Womble]

going to try to bridge the gap

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

right you can't bridge a gap when you only know one side but you have to make a decision about what you're going to believe there's a choice that you ultimately have to make about what kind of ideology you're going to have are you going to maintain the status quo or are you going to disrupt it and we see a lot

[Professor Julian Womble]

of half bloods that we talk about we see a lot right we see

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

voldiva absolutely upholding it and like in no uncertain terms we see harry upholding it to a certain degree but also disrupting it we see dean kind of living in the space in between which is kind of the bridging of the gap we see other characters at least acknowledging their heritage we see so many variations in terms of the choices that people ultimately make and i think that you know ron doesn't really get to

[Professor Julian Womble]

decide what it means to be a

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

pure blood like he can fight against

[Professor Julian Womble]

the ideological lean of the people who are more supremacist in their views but

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

he's still always going to be a

[Professor Julian Womble]

pureblood and the privileges that he receives are always gonna be the byproduct of

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

that reality but half bloods don't have that default position there's a decision that has to be made so that when we look at the characters who we believed were the best half bloods we have a tie yet again between rubeus hagrid and nymphadora tonks and both of

[Professor Julian Womble]

them at sixty percent of us saying that they were the best half bloods

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and i think that what is so interesting about these two is that they are not individuals who are without bias

[Professor Julian Womble]

right we know that you know one of tonks first lines is about you know these muggles certainly do like they're

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

so tidy right we know that hagrid also is the first person we meet who uses the word muggle and he

[Professor Julian Womble]

uses it as a pejorative right so

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

we're not talking about people whose politic is one of inclusion and i think that that is an important point here but what we also recognize is that they make the choice to reject

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[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

more egregious parts of pure blood supremacy now again both of them have been on the receiving end of the negativity

[Professor Julian Womble]

of pure blood supremacy right tonks because her mother left that life and undoubtedly made it clear what was going on and also because you know the malfoys the blacks their legacy is one that you don't need to you know experience it firsthand and know what it is

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and then we have hagrid right someone who is part giant who is living and passing as a full born magical

[Professor Julian Womble]

person

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and both of these individuals also then make specific choices right like tonks mary is a werewolf and has his baby and hagrid operates within the space of the magical world even after it is exposed that he is part giant and they live in a space where they are actively making choices day to day about the kind of world that they are going to inhabit and what they are fighting for and what i love about these two as our best half bloods is that again neither of them are without bias hagrid is the one who gives dudley the tale they both operate from a space of being very human in how they occupy the space of being in this space neither

[Professor Julian Womble]

accepted but neither completely maligned by the

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

people in power while simultaneously upholding certain aspects of it you can also see the moments in places where they have to make certain kinds of decisions and i think that fundamentally what i believe is true for half bloods is that so much of their existence because blood status is a kind of status where you it's not clear to you or to anyone who's looking at you what you are that there is a decision that you have to make about what you're going to subscribe to and how much you are going to bring certain

[Professor Julian Womble]

aspects of your life in and that's

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

particularly true for those individuals who have touch points with the non magical world but it is also true for those who don't because you could live a life a la slughorn where you're not exactly you know anti pureblood supremacist but

[Professor Julian Womble]

you're also not hanging the roberts upside down at the quidditch world cup and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

what we see from tonks and from hagrid is the intentional decision despite moments of prejudice the intentional decision to jettison some of the like more egregious aspects

[Professor Julian Womble]

of pure blood supremacy tonks goes so

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

far as to be an auror right actively fighting against so much of the

[Professor Julian Womble]

behavior and the characteristics that defined her

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

mother's childhood and so one of the things that really stands out to me about half bloods in general is that so much of their identity is prefaced on the decisions that they make

[John Daly]

and

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

i think when we think about you

[Professor Julian Womble]

know social constructs and identity as a

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

whole whole there are some ways that like our identities make the decisions for

[Professor Julian Womble]

us they are the precursors to so much of what we experience and how

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

we understand the world but even within all of that there are still spaces and places where we have to decide what we are going to do with the privileges that we have with the opportunities that we're presented with with the marginalization that we experience and we have to decide are we going to buy into the system for the purposes of making things easier are we going to fight against it tooth and nail are we going to try to find a space that's in between and how do we reconcile those things with the physical indications of our identities which half bloods don't have and so when we think about voldiva right like part of the reason why voldiva is able to do what he does is because no one can tell and he puts on quite

[Professor Julian Womble]

a show

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

really had him going right it is and it's fascinating because draco

[Professor Julian Womble]

always tells hermione like if you think

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

that they can't tell a muggle born then you're wrong but they can't right it's all about performance and i think more than any other group half bloods have to make the decision about the

[Professor Julian Womble]

kind of performance they're going to put on

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

because some of them know the

[Professor Julian Womble]

implications of that performance and do it

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

anyway a la umbrage right she wanted power she wanted to be someone who who was respected so she performs pure bloodedness like voldiva she lies she does whatever she has to do to create a space where she is different minerva mcgonagall makes a decision to forsake love for the purposes of staying in the magical world because she didn't want to be like her mother who was miserable

[Professor Julian Womble]

i know it's postcanonical but we're going

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

with it albus dumbledore half blood by virtue of having a muggle born mother and he respects non magical people it seems to a degree but he also uses his magic against them in no uncertain terms when he wants to get something out of them choices decisions this liminal space of having to decide what what your politic actually means and how it dictates the decisions that you make and it's a hard space to be in and part of what we had to grapple with with these characters was trying to navigate their choices in a world where the gravitational pull is towards pure blood supremacy where the easier life is pure blood supremacy and so in some ways you know i think it is harder to be a half blood because you have a choice in a way that muggle borns don't and purebloods don't but you have to decide and the choice that you ultimately make determines so much of your existence and that's not a small choice one of the things that i'm constantly reminded about as

[Professor Julian Womble]

i read through the series and think through these things is that there are so many people in the magical world

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

who were silent who said nothing when voldemort took over who rode the wave and hoped that they'd get on the

[Professor Julian Womble]

other side fine in the same way that they did or their parents did

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

in the first war and it is

[Professor Julian Womble]

my wager that a lot of those

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

people are half bloods one because statistically they have to be but also because that's the only group of people who are passing pure bloods are going to let you know they're pure blood right muggle borns are going to be on the run because they can't prove it half bloods though that is where you get to make a decision where neutrality is easy it's a half blood that hermione names when the snatchers come to

[Professor Julian Womble]

get them

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

it's easier to pass it's easier to be silent it's easier to allow for things to happen and not do anything being a half blood is about making a choice and as we think about all of the episodes that we've had on half bloods so much of what we've adjudicated are the choices that these individuals have made and i wonder what our assessment of their choices says about our own

[Professor Julian Womble]

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[Lady Luck]

this

[Professor Julian Womble]

has been another episode of critical magic

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

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 and do all the things that one does where pods are cast y' all we made it through half

[Professor Julian Womble]

bloods i can't believe we did it

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

and we are still somewhat mentally intact thank you all so much for for all of your involvement and your engagement

[Professor Julian Womble]

with this particular season i guess i'm so excited to dive into the variety of questions that you all brought to bear about the magical world i can't wait to dive into the post episode chat for this episode if you have other topics that you want to talk about that thread is still open on

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

patreon and y' all join me in the post episode chat pre order behind the cloak get some merch online follow me on social media you know all

[Professor Julian Womble]

the things i can't wait to hear

[Co-host (Critical Magic Theory)]

from you all until then be critical and stay magical my friends bye

[John Daly]

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