Professor Julian Womble (0:00)

Welcome to Critical Magic Theory, where we deconstruct the wizarding world of Harry Potter. Because loving something doesn't mean we can't be critical of it. I'm Professor Julian Womble, and today, y'all, today we are talking about the one, the only, the despised, the hated, Peter Pettigrew Wormtail. Wormy Betrayer in chief, disaster extraordinaire, y'all. We are diving into what makes this mess of a man tick. And I. Oh, the way that you all brought it. And I knew you would because again, Peter is one of those characters that we don't spend a considerable amount of time with as Peter. Right? Like we know him as Scatters. If you know, you know. But we don't spend a lot of time with him as Peter and I. Oh, just chef's kiss to everyone who contributed their thoughts in this episode's survey. Because. Oh my goodness. Have you ever wondered what makes someone betray their best friends? Or why? And how the least impressive marauder ended up causing the most harm and damage? Or how can someone spend years and years and years hiding as a rat only to be killed by the power he betrayed his friends for? Y'all, we are getting into every single bit of it in this episode. And O, I cannot wait. And because I cannot wait, and because many of you have challenged me to move faster into the episode, we are about to bop. Okay? So if you're not ready, get ready because we're bopping in three in, two in, one in. Let's bop. We need to talk about Harry Potter. Foreign. I hope you danced, y'all. Welcome back. Welcome to everyone. No matter how you are meeting us today. Welcome y'all. I'm moving fast through these announcements. I'm telling you, my desire to be right is stronger than my desire to be long winded. So we're moving. Thank you so much to everyone who joined us for the post episode chat about the Prof. Response episode on Voldemort. And for those of you who have been contributing to our Question of the Week. If you don't know what the Question of the Week is, it's a weekly question, duh. That comes out every Sunday at 10:00am Eastern Standard Time. It is free for anyone who's a member on Patreon. Speaking of Patreon, if you would like to join Patreon for free, you can get access to the post episode chats to the Questions of the Week. There are also options for AD Free episodes for Outstanding Owls and Deep divers and early AD Free episodes for Chronic Overthinkers as well as a bevy of other benefits and perks. Check it out. Patreon.com criticalmagictheory if you are gonna join as a paid subscriber, please do so on your desktop as to not be charged extra money by Apple, because we are not about that here. I also wanna take a moment to thank our Chronic overthinkers who have just joined our Rhianna, Amanda, Hannah, Sasha, Rae, Jasmine, Amy, Jess, and Sari. Thank you so much. I cannot thank you enough for your support and I can't say how much it means to me and to this community, but I can try. And all I have for you is thank you. For those of you who don't follow me on social media, please feel free to do so. Prof. JW on Instagram. ProfW. On TikTok. I'm moving so fast. Please feel free to, like, rate, subscribe and do all the things that one does. Tell your friends. Okay, let's get this podcast out there and share our community. I really love reading your reviews on Apple podcasts. It always brings me so much, so much joy. Oh, my goodness, y'all, this is so exciting. Okay, so we had two of our Chronic Overthinkers volunteer. That's important. Volunteer their artistic gifts and bring us our special edition Voldemort shirt. There are two options. One that's more graphic and one that is the names. There's something for everyone. I personally am buying both because they're that good. I am going to be dropping those on our merch site on Friday. Okay. There will be a link that is sent to the Patreon, so please feel free to check that out. Thank you so much to Rachel and to Cassie for taking the time and energy to really give us something as a community that will build us together. Because, y'all, these shirts are so freaking good. Oh, my gosh, y'all. It's amazing. And the talent in this community is just unbelievable. And so I just again, want to thank Rachel and Cassie for it also, y'all. I didn't realize this was a thing, but it's important that you know that if you are listening to this on Spotify, you can comment. Like, I don't know if it's in real time, but there's a space for you to comment. I love reading those. I love getting those notifications. If you are a Spotify listener, please feel free to do that. Speaking of Spotify, if you are listening through Patreon, you have access to what is called an RSS feed that you can put in. Into your Spotify. I believe that can then take the episodes that I post on Patreon, the ad free episodes, or the early episodes, and they will go directly into your Spotify. I don't know if this works for Apple. I haven't looked into it yet. You should look into it, though, because that sounds like a streamlining that I could get behind. So do that. And finally, you see how fast I did that. It's amazing what can happen when I don't get sidetracked. Finally, our next episode is going to be on our last Marauder, the one and only Remus Lupin. The survey will drop on Patreon on Thursday and will be available everywhere else on Friday. Many of us have been waiting for this moment. I cannot wait to hear what you all have to say about our own Mooney. Okay, I. Oh, okay. Anyways, I'm excited. I also expect that this episode's gonna be a bit of a heavy one, but that's okay because that's what we're about here. So, anyways, get excited, get ready, get your thoughts prepared. But let's also get into Peter Pettigrew. Okay, I can slow down now, y'all. It was so tricky to think about what a favorite moment that involved Peter Pettigrew would be because, like, he's despicable. So what does a moment that is a favorite look like? And then I remembered at the beginning of Goblet of Fire, when Frank Bryce is, like, walking up the stairs and he overhears the conversation between Wormtail and. And Voldemort. And Wormtail is basically trying to get out of taking care of Voldemort. And Voldemort's like, dude, you're not going anywhere. Stop playing these reindeer games. You have to take care of me. I would die if you weren't here. Who's going to milk Nagini? Which was a thing I did not know was a thing. And I love this moment because I think when I thought about what it really symbolizes, what became so clear to me is it really does reveal who. Who Peter Pettigrew is ultimately. And I love this moment because I think there are lots of instances and places where we might be able to see some relatively revelatory things about him. But in this moment, he is someone who has returned to the person he betrayed his friends for, and he is already willing and ready to betray that person. Right, because we know that if he left, he was not coming back. And it just reveals this idea. Like, Peter is not a caretaker. He is someone who wants to be a part of the winning team. Like he went to find Voldemort, but I don't know that he really understood the state that Voldemort was going to be in or what it was going to take for him to even get Voldemort back into some sort of corporeal form. Right. I don't think he considered the work that he was going to have to do. And one thing's for certain and two things are for sure. Like, Peter, as like a person is not someone who actually wants to do the work. He simply wants to reap the benefits. He wants all the rewards. None of the work, all the accolades, none of the sacrifices. Right? And that's the kind of extent of his loyalty. If he can figure out how he is going to be able to benefit, he will do it. And I think he thought in finding Voldemort that he was going to find someone who was going to be in a much better state, a much better condition, and that he would be rewarded because he was someone who, like, you know, found him and helped him. And admittedly he did all of these things, right? But Voldemort even says, like, you did all of that out of fear, not out of loyalty. And the juxtaposition of those two things is actually fairly interesting because he is loyal. But Voldemort wants a very specific kind of loyalty and that's not the kind of loyalty that Peter's gonna be able to give him because it's simply not who Peter is. Like, he did all of these things. And whether it's out of fear, it is in some ways inconsequential to the fact that he still did it. I mean, he came and found him. He did bring him back into some level of physical form. He went and got Bertha Jorkin, like, he did all of these things. And so whether or not he did it for the right reasons, I mean, it doesn't really matter because if he hadn't have done it at all, Voldiva never would have returned. Right. And so I think that it's fascinating to think about this moment because at the very beginning, we really do get a sense of who this person is and what he is actually about. And that he has no loyalty to anyone but himself. Which actually, to me, resonates with the way that we understand a lot of the other Death Eaters. And we talked a little bit about this and I think it's so fascinating because we really do kind of poo poo on Peter Pettigrew. Hashtag bars. Hello. But I also do think that there is a way that he operates that is so well done in that he is a survivor. He's not gonna give up. He's not gonna stop. He won't work harder, though, because hard work is not the way that he operates. Is this a musical episode? Is this what we're doing? Anyways, I love this moment because it really shows two things. One, who Peter is, but also the reality that Voldemort knows. He knows exactly what he is getting. He knows, like, you can't leave me because you will abandon me. And that is not about to be a thing that happens. And so volunteer. I know you. I clocked it. And we're going to talk a little bit more about why he is so intimately familiar with Peter Pettigrew later on in the episode. But I just really love this moment because I do think it's kind of a moment that we're very focused on Frank and where Frank is at. But a lot is really revealed about the relationship between Wormtail and Voldiva in a way that I think just shines a really important light when we kind of understand the arc of Peter's character. When you all were asked what word best describes Peter Pettigrew, the top three were cowardly traitor and weak. Oof. My goodness, my goodness, my goodness. Not a lie detected, only truth. Right? We know that Peter is seen as a coward because of the choices that he ultimately makes. Now, I wonder, and I think this is a conversation that we can wait to have, but I'm just gonna throw it out there for us right now, right? If he were in another house, would coward be the word that we would use? Right, because coward is the opposite of brave, and he's in Gryffindor house. And so their questions remain about, like, if he was in literally any of the other ones, would this be a word that we would see him as? Because the expectation is that he's supposed to be brave. But, like, if that wasn't an expectation, would we have the same level of, like, belief about his cowardice? I mean, his actions definitely give us a sense of cowardice. Right. But there are questions about whether or not, like, that would be the word that we would use to describe him, if not directly juxtaposed to three people who are very much the embodiment, in many ways, of what it means to be a Gryffindor traitor is self evident. Right? Like, this is someone who actively betrayed his friends for power, for access, for the feeling of safety. He literally went and told Voldv, hey, like, they're over here down at this cottage around the corner. Like, that's where you can go. And now I've let you in on the secret. And that is something that, you know, I can't even process that kind of betrayal because it is so absurd to me. And I'm also. Yeah, it's so fascinating. And we'll get into this a little later. We'll get into this a little later. But I do want us to kind of think about this is as a primer, right? Like, why do they even trust him? Like, what did he do that even made them believe that this wasn't even a possibility? You know, like, what? Anyways, just let that ruminate and marinate in your energy and your space and your spirit throughout the episode. Because, like, the big question of why. Why for a lot of things. And again, we know the easy answers because, like, JKR just didn't give them any sort of thought process on this. We're gonna jettison that, and we're really gonna focus our energies on the why and, like, really just dive into it for the fun of diving in. And then the third word. Weak. Yes. Although I will say, and this is not a credit to his character, more of a critique of it, but still, I want to give credit where credit is due. It would have been easier for him to simply be unalive than it would to be a rat for 13 years. Like, the ability to stay in that form, never break character, never pop out like that, to me, is not weakness, because it takes a certain amount of strength to. And will and desire for something to say, I'm gonna stay like this, right? Like, and it's maybe just safety, because he doesn't want to know. He doesn't want anyone to know that he's alive. But, like, Scabbers could have run away a year into his time with the Weasleys and just, like, popped up somewhere else. Like, he is a survivor. The idea that you said, I'm gonna stay a rat because I need to stay close to a wizarding family. Like, there's a lot of thought that goes into that particular decision, and it is fascinating that he made it, because I think that's probably the strongest, most intentional thing he ever did. And again, that, to me, is not, like, a credit to him. But I do want to give voice to the fact that, like, I know one thing. I wouldn't do it. I would not do it. I'd be like, you know what? Just take me. Let Me go. You want me to be a what? For how long? 13 years. Like, that's such a long time to not be in your own physical body, the body that you had been in. Like that, you spent almost as much time as a rat as you did as a human, right? Because he was what, in his 20s when he, when everything went down? They were. I mean, Lillian and James died at 21, so that would presume that he was 21. So, yeah, 21. So like more than half of the time that you were alive as a human, you spent as a rat later on. Right? Like, that is crazy. And it does take a certain amount of fortitude to make that decision, no matter what your justification for it is. And so I do want to give voice to that particular reality because, like, would you do it? Like, would you stay a rat? Like, I just said it. I couldn't and wouldn't. For what? For a master who's like, gone crazy work, baby, he's shadow ghost, he's out of here. What are we doing? A rat in this economy? Like, that's crazy, crazy, crazy work. And so I do think that there is. I won't call it a strength. I mean, I already did earlier, but there's something. There's a gumption, a gall, an audacity, a rat dacity. Anyways, not a rat dasity. Oh, God, I'm not editing that out. But we'll never speak of this. We'll never speak of it. You will not bring this up in the post episode chat. You simply will not bring this up. It never happened. Okay? We're just gonna move on to the arithmancy lesson because this part of it is over. Okay? It's over, it's done. And you don't even remember what you're not mentioning anymore because that never happen. It's time for our arithmancy lesson. For this episode's arithmency Lesson, we had 886 responses. As always, the first question is, is Peter Pettigrew a good person? 94% of us said no, 5% of us said, don't know, and 0.6% of us said yes, I don't know that we will ever, ever, ever get 100%. The only person that I think we will get it on is someone who I will not say because I know that some of our contrarian devils out there who are ready to wreck it will be a mess just for the sake of being a mess if I tell you who it is. And I cannot allow that. So I will not. Someone wrote, oh, pitiful Peter. I don't think he was a good person. He always put himself first. When he turned to Voldy, it was also just to protect himself. Not because I think he truly believed in the cause. Someone else wrote, scared and cowardly people exist at all times anywhere. Is Peter Pettigrew a bad person because his instinctual need to survive was strong? I think he's a bad person because he made bad decisions and not necessarily because of his nature or ideals. He would have been a good person if good had prevailed. That's okay. Wait a minute now. And someone else wrote, wormy is the worst. I hate him. Strong emotions. He is not a good person. Murdering bystanders in cold blood is an automatic disqualification for a good person. Y'all. I literally forgot that that's a thing that he did because there are so many other offenses that he perpetrates. I forgot that he killed those Muggles, like, literally blew them up. And, like, did it so that he could freaking frame Sirius. Y'all, listen, I really do like this one line about, you know, his desire to survive and scared and cowardly people. But I really do also agree that the moment that you kill innocent bystanders who have nothing to do with any of what's going on, and you do it for the sake of framing someone, Like, I'd. And honestly, the fact that it's serious in some ways doesn't really matter that much to me. Like, obviously it's a problem, but it's the fact that you did it to those people and that you were willing to frame anyone in this, in such an egregious way tells us a very specific story about who you are as a person. And it's not good. It is not good. You are not a good person. You can't be. Right? Because, like, this is not just about survival. Like, you could have survived and not made that particular choice. It's crazy that I forgot about that. I forgot that this guy isn't actively a murderer. And, like. And what does that mean? Like, how do we square that particular choice with, you know, the perceived weakness, with the perceived, you know, betrayal, with the perceived cowardice? Like, how do we square that particular reality that he made this choice and it wasn't anyone else? Right? Like, it wasn't. He did that and then he framed Sirius. And, you know, I'm going to talk about this a little bit at the end in my reflection, but I really do think that there are these moments where it's like, ah, that's the real You. That's the real Peter. You are not as, like, innocent and, like, oh, I just want to be surrounded by power. As you want people to believe. Right. Like, you are a wolf in sheep's clothing. You are legitimately a rat. And you make these decisions, and some of them feel like happenstance, and you just kind of stumbled into it. But I also am of the firm belief that, like, you do this because I think part of you wanted to. And I don't think that he's a good person. I think that he is someone who I also don't know that I necessarily agree with. Like, he would have been a good person if good had prevailed. Because he is a person who had that in him the whole time. And it wasn't, like, cultivated by his friendships. Right. Like, that was the moment his friendships ended. Like, he had been betraying them. Yes. But, like, that was one of the few moments where I think we actually see him take an aggressive stance in a very specific way. Everything else had been surreptitious. Everything else had been kind of skullduggery, skulking behind the scenes. Like, all of this stuff. And in that moment, he showed himself to be exactly who he's always been and recognized that, like, no one was gonna really be able to know that he was the one who perpetrated it. In fact, he was gonna be the victim. He was the one that everyone was mourning. He was the one who everyone was thinking had been killed. Like, the level of nefariousness that goes into that. And even if it wasn't his idea, which I'm sure some of us will say, like, he didn't come up with that. Although I'm not. I don't know about that. Because he knows these people better than literally anyone else on the Death Eater side. So I have to imagine he played a part in this as well. Like, the fact that you could even calculate and come up with something like that tells us such a story about who you are. And then again that innocent bystanders were the victims of your desire to create a narrative that you are the victim. And then you turn into a rat and scurry away. No. I'm so sorry. Like, it's a no for me. Dog, you are not great. And, like, it's more than just being pitiful. Like, you are a villain. Like, you are nefarious. Like, 13 people plus your best friend. Like, no. Immediately, no. That is the kind of behavior that suggests to us that, again, there was something underneath him this whole time that no one knew. And again, I wonder how it is that it was missed. Like, is he just that good at hiding it? Is it like a professor's quarrel type situation where, like, we don't know who's on the back of his head and he's just giving us this, like, stuttery kind of vibe and then all of a sudden it's like, bing, bang, bong. I've been this guy all along. Hashtag bars. What is going on? This is crazy. That wasn't even intentional, y'all. No, I. Nope. This was an easy one for me. Peter Pettigrew is not a good person. The moment that I realized that this person did what he did, the moment that I read that and remembered that he killed all those people, I said, good person. Where? Not here. That's why there's 94%. I mean, again, I know many of us might have. That might have also slipped our minds because again, it's kind of a plot point, but is one that kind of slides under the radar. But. And he does all these other things to his friends, which we would might use as a justification. But for me, for me, it's the murdering of 13 people. That's the thing that really does put you solidly in the bad person camp as far as I'm concerned. Solidly. Is Peter Pettigrew a Good Gryffindor? About 87% of us said no, 7% of us said yes, and 7% of us said don't know. Oh, I knew this question was going to be messy. And even though there's a lot of consensus. Just. Just listen up. Just listen up. Somebody said Peter isn't a good Gryffindor because he lacks the bravery, courage qualities that are held so high in the house. Even when he does bold things, they stem from fear, not true courage or loyalty. I really want us to focus a lot on this relationship between fear and all of these other attributes as we kind of continue on this conversation. Because I think it's a theme that continues to kind of make its way through so many of your comments. And I think it's really important for us to think about what fear means and what it means in relationship to some other things like courage, like loyalty and how we understand the relationship that it has with those things. Anyways, anyways, just keep that in the back of your mind. Someone else wrote, I said I didn't know whether Petyr was a good Gryffindor. Fighting in the order at all shows at least some level of courage and loyalty to his friends. He definitely was sorted correctly One more person wrote, he's a good Gryffindor because he has his own self interest in mind. He's loyal, just not to the people we want him to be loyal to. Okay, before we get into this idea of loyalty, I really do want us to talk about fear and bravery, because I think that we have to be mindful of the reality that lots of brave people do things out of fear. A lot of brave people do things and are afraid. Like, those two things are not mutually exclusive, right? Like, Harry does not enter into every situation unafraid. Like, he was afraid to die. He still did it. You know what I mean? Like, Dumbledore must have been afraid as to what was going on with the ring, which is why he asked Snape, like, please do this for me, right? Like, fear is not something that operates in such a way that it keeps you from being able to be a brave person. A lot of people do things afraid all the time. There's like a whole kind of movement of, like, you know, do it scared, right? Like, you. You can be a brave person and be afraid. I mean, Neville Longbottom is the perfect example. Long may he reign, right? Like the perfect example of someone who makes a lot of decisions and choices out of fear, but he is still brave for doing it, right? Because it's. To me, it is not the notion of being unafraid, but rather not letting fear dictate the thing that you decide to do that makes you brave, right? Like, there is something to be said about being brave and not having fear and that being a bad thing, right? Like, there are instances where people put themselves in situations, and it's like, you should have been more afraid of that and you weren't. And it shows because I think, like, fear. There are lots of moments in my life where I think, God, anxiety sucks. But it kept me out of this particular situation or it invited me to think more deeply about this other thing. And as a result, I made a decision that was much more informed. And there are other moments where it's like, yeah, I am anxious about this, but I have to do it anyway. Starting this podcast is a prime example of that. Every day I'm like, someday these people are gonna wake up and realize that this podcast is absolute trash. And I still do it. I show up, I do all the things. There's not a moment where I don't do this, and I'm not afraid. And it takes a lot of bravery to put yourself out there in this way. And the same way that many of you get on the Patreon and write your comments or you know, fear and bravery are not mutually exclusive. And I think that, you know, when we think about whether or not Peter is a good Gryffindor, I'm not sure that invoking the fact that a lot of what he does and the origin story of fear is a good enough reason for us to say that he's not. One part of this comes from this belief and the way that we have the kind of characterization of a lot of Gryffindors which, you know, Eric and I talked about on the episode about Sirius. But there's a recklessness that comes along with a lot of the Gryffindors and particularly when we talk about the Marauders, when we think about Sirius, when we think about James, there is this untouchability that they have and this fearlessness that comes along with being as privileged as they are that I think really does kind of imprint on us what it actually means to be a Gryffindor. And I think that bravery is something that is not necessarily antithetical to fear, right? Like when we think about Harry having to get the sword of Gryffindor, right? He has to get in that water and he is undoubtedly afraid. One, because we know Harry's not the best swimmer, right? Like he tells us that in Goblet of Fire he never took swim lessons. He can kind of like make it work but he's not a swimmer. One, the water's cold. Two, he has absolutely no idea what's going to happen, right? Like I also do think that another thing that is true here is that most of our men characters very rarely actually give voice to their fears, right? Because especially our Gryffindor men and boys, they're supposed to be seen in a very particular way. I don't think Peter Pettigrew is a good Gryffindor but it's not because he's afraid, it's because he's outlandishly self interested and that he really is motivated mostly not only just by fear but really out of self preservation. I think below the fear, the foundation on which he stands is self preservation, right? Like he is a person who is going to do whatever it takes to survive. He's a survivor, right? And he's afraid because he's afraid that he is not going to survive. And so then he jumps ship, right? Like he's too self serving to be a Gryffindor by my estimation, right? Like Gryffindors are people who are very, very, very willing and quick to Put others above themselves. Now why they do that, that's different. That's a different conversation for a different day. But they do it right. Like they are very, very, very kind of altruistic in the way that they approach things. Right. Like they are very kind of outwardly focused on others. And then whatever happens to them, happens to them. Like we see this with James, right? We see this with Lily, we see this with Harry, we see it with Hagrid, we see, you know, with Dumbledore, although, well, okay, we'll get to that later. But I do think that that for me is the thing that undermines his ability to be a good Gryffindor. It's really because he simply does not care about anyone else but himself and he will do whatever it takes to make sure that he is safe. And in many ways, right, like that particular mentality, I don't even think it sets him up to be a good Slytherin. Because Slytherins are very community minded, very family oriented. Like they care about people because they care about other people, the people around them. They want you to have a certain belief. Sure. But like on the whole they care about people as well. Like they're not all just self interested and Peter is. And I think that's the thing that makes me think like, oh no, no, no, no, no. Peter is a rat. He is not. Is Peter Pettigrew a good half blood? 56% of us said no, 34% of us said don't know and 10% of us said yes. Someone wrote, since we have discussed via the canon that a good half blood aligns with supremacy. Yes, he became a good half blood. He wanted what was the best for the wizarding world based on who was in charge or perceived to be in charge. Someone else wrote he doesn't seem to care anything about politics or social norms. So he isn't a good half blood. Peter chose what to do based upon the sole criteria of what would make things easier for him. And another person wrote, if we keep the definition that being a good half blood is one who assimilates and buys into the current wizarding society, I still really can't tell if he's a good one. I think Peter buys into it because he's scared to be different and left behind, but I don't know if that's what he believes. Now this is important and really, really fascinating to think about, right? Because we actually have no sense of what Peter's belief is. And I think like Voldemort, like Lucius, like a lot of These people, his belief, his ideology is himself. And I think that if we kind of look at whether or not he's a good half blood in the two different paradigms that we're presented with, one, right? The more idealized paradigm where we're looking to see if he's able to kind of BL the Muggle world with the magical world, we don't get any sense that that's the case, right? We get that he is someone who's in some ways deeply entrenched in the magical world. And that's not clear whether or not that's through assimilation or if it's simply because he is a half blood by way of not having two half blood parents. But anyways, like parents who have kept him in the magical world, right? And so that his half blood status isn't the byproduct of actually having any touch points with the Muggle world, but rather because he's simply not pureblood and he's not a Muggle born, thus he has to be half blood. Right? What is interesting about this though is the reality that we actually don't know canonically if Peter is a half blood. We know that he is surrounded by or at least friends with two very prominent purebloods, James and Sirius. We know that Remus is a half blood. We actually don't know what Peter's blood status is. The reason I put him in this group is because, you know, he does not operate from a place of a pure blood person who has the privileges and the power and the social cachet that we get to see from other people. Right? Even Luna Lovegood, whose blood says we also didn't know, operates with the power and an understanding of self that comes along with a privileged person who doesn't have to care about what society thinks of them. Peter does not have that. Peter seemingly is always, as one of the comments points to, afraid of being different or left behind. And he ties himself to people who have the status that if he was pureblood, he wouldn't need to be fighting for. And this constant desire to kind of be surrounded by powerful people is really fascinating because it makes me think there's no way that you could be a pure blood person. I mean, even Neville has more of a presence than Peter Pettigrew does, right? Like he is someone who has a thing that he is good at. We see Neville develop, but he and Peter are leagues apart from one another, even when we meet him in his first year. Right? And so it is fascinating to think about. And then one of the Big marauder fics that lots of people read is all the young dudes and the way that they approach this particular idea is that the way that the author approaches it is that he is a pure blood but his sister is a squib, right? And so a lot of his family members are squibs and so he has a lot of fear and concern about that. Even that feels a little bit tenuous to me given what we know about like if you are a magical person who you know comes from a magical family, especially who is pure blood, like if you have magic, even if you have other people who are squibs, there's still something that you operate with and Peter just doesn't have it. So that's the motivation for why I put him in this particular category. If you disagree, let's talk about it in the post episode chat. But at the end of the day we don't really know much about Peter's politic other than he only cares about himself. And so we can see that he doesn't hold non magical people in high regard, right? Like he kills 13 of them without impunity because he really isn't care. He's doing it for himself, right? He's got to build a narrative. And it's so fascinating because I think like the fact that he aligns himself with the Death Eaters doesn't even necessarily mean he believes what they believe. We know lots of Death Eaters who are not bought into the ideology of pure blood supremacy. I don't think he's one of these people who, you know, is lost. I'm going to talk a little bit about all of like what I think kind of motivates many of his choices when we get to the reflection. But at the end of the day, right, like I don't think Peter is interested in the politics of the system. He's only interested in how it benefits him. So like if you are in power then you're the one who he's with, right? And if you're not in power, he's out, right? And so I think that that's a really fascinating way to think about this because he really doesn't fit into either one of our paradigms. I think the reason why he doesn't fit into our idealized paradigm is simply because of the nature of blood status in the wizarding world. The reason why he doesn't fit into our more realistically understood paradigm of assimilation and buying into pure blood supremacy is because like he does not care about that. His politic is literally the thing that's going to keep him alive. And I think that that is the thing that motivates him the most and what really pushes him to make the choices that he ultimately makes. And so is he a good half blood? I mean he is a half blood. I don't think he's doing either one of these things. I mean, obviously he's not fighting against pure blood supremacy. So if we could make an argument that he is actively participating in a regime that will continue the prevalence of pure blood supremacy. So in that way perhaps, but he's not doing that out of an ideological belief. He's not doing that even out of a desire to be kind of seen in a certain way by pure blood people. He's just trying to make it like he's just trying to be the one who makes it to the end. But it's not because he espouses any of the absurdity. He was friends with James and Lily, right? And I don't think he held any enmity towards Lily. He just didn't care enough about her to sacrifice his own life and his own survival. And so like, yeah, this is a hard one for me because it's not clear. And maybe this is a way for us to think about, you know, really kind of refining our definition of what a good half blood means as we continue to move forward. Because like, do we need individuals to kind of do something to prove this? If they don't do anything, does their complacency or self preservation or desire for things, does that mean that they are like living up to and living in the kind of more assimilated paradigm that we have? You all tell me this is your world. I'm just living in it. Is Peter Pettigrew a Good Death Eater? 46% of us said yes, 48% of us said no and 6% of us said don't. No. Someone wrote, I would say he is a good Death Eater. Yes, he hesitated at the end but being 99% loyal to Tommy Boy is still pretty loyal. Someone else wrote he chose the Death Eaters not because he believed in the cause but because he was scared. So no, he is not a good Death Eater. And someone else wrote, the magic he accomplishes and the feats he achieves are insane. He is loyal to the strongest and the most powerful and willing to do outlandish, strategic and powerful things to serve his quote unquote protectors. Let's okay, we're gonna work our way back because again, I really do think that we underestimate the wherewithal and the rat dacity that it takes to stay a rat as long as he did for the purposes of figuring out when Vold was on his way back, if he was ever coming back, right? Like the fact that he stayed there and was listening, taking notes and figuring things out is crazy. Like that, that is a level of loyalty, right? Like that's different than being in the band, right? Like being in the band for 13 years and being a rat for 13 years. I mean, y'all, I don't know which one is more ridiculous. I don't know which one is less appealing. I mean there are creature comforts but like heavy on the creature part, right? Like he is a full on rodent for 13 years. Like I don't know. I think when we look at the Death Eaters and we think about the Death Eater boys. Cause Bellatrix is not out there. And the Carrow sister, we never really see her till the end. So when we think about the Death Eater boys and the way that they behave and understand themselves and operate, what is very clear is that like very few of them are actually loyal, right? Like when Voldv calls the girls, the gays, the theys back to the graveyard, guess who he doesn't have to call back. Cause he's already there. Peter. And again, I'm less convinced or less concerned about the fact that he only did it out of fear. Sure, whatever. He was still there, you know who wasn't? Lucius. Lucius was not there for him. Like Wormtail literally went to Albania, was talking to the rats and making his way downtown. Walking fast, faces, passing rat faces. Okay. And he's voldy bound. Like that is something. Now whether or not he went because he thought he was gonna find the Big Bad when he showed up, inconsequential, he did more than literally. Crab And Goyle, Lucius McNair, like all of these other Death Eaters, like those people were not there. Bellatrix would have been there, but she was locked up. You know, like Rudolphish or Barty Crouch Jr. Had to go be liberated. But that only also only happened because of, of of Wormtail. Right. Like y'all, I won't give him much credit, but when it comes to being a Death Eater, I mean the reality of the situation is, is that like Voldemort would not have been able to get his hands on the Potters if not for Peter. Like he did his job and he did it very well. And again, I'm not like none of these people who call themselves Death Eaters are loyal, truly loyal to Voldemort, except for Bellatrix and Barty Crouch Jr. Like, the rest of them are just here for the same reasons that Peter is. To be connected to power and to be able to assert themselves in ways that they can't in other contexts where Voldemort's not present. And even then, they did significantly less than Peter did significantly less. Like, he's a good. He's a good Death Eater. I mean, like, to what, in whatever way we could define what a Death Eater, what a good Death Eater is, right? I think someone DMed me on Instagram and asked me, how are we conceptualizing this idea? And I'm like, well, part of the problem is that Death Eaters don't really have a belief structure. They don't have an ideology. They're just a bunch of dudes trying to chill. And in that way, Peter works harder than all of them because none of them are out here milking Nagini. None of them are waking up in the middle of the night and feeding Voldemort so that he can get his strength back. None of them are out here giving up their hand. Hello? Giving up their hand. Because I'm like, why your whole hand, Peter? That's so dramatic. Like, you cut off a finger before, why not another finger? Like, it was just the blood of the servant. You didn't have to go full tilt. Like you're trying to prove something. You're going above and beyond. You're doing too much, but you're still doing more than these other rapscallions and numbskulls are doing. Listen, as far as I'm concerned, Bellatrix and Barty Crouch Jr. Are the only two that are better Death Eaters than Peter because of the sheer stuff that he did. I mean, he literally gave his hand like Lucius just gave up a house. So, like, when we think about what it means to be a good Death Eater. Now, maybe he's not the kind of Death Eater that Voldemort would have wanted insofar that his loyalty comes with a lot of caveats and a lot of needs for protection. But at the end of the day, he was there for Voldemort in a way that literally none of these other people were. Some of them couldn't be and some of them didn't want to be. But you know who was there? Wormy T. He was there. He was there milking that snake. I can't get over that because I just think it's freaking disgusting and I don't understand how it works. And I don't want to know, but he was doing it. He was doing that. Why he stayed, whether it was out of fear, loyalty, whatever, he stayed. At the end of the day, he stayed. And that has to be recognized. And it's for that reason that I think he's a better death eater than most of these people running around here claiming to be good ones. Is Peter Pettigrew a victim? About 59% of us said no. 16% of us said, don't know, and about 25% of us said yes. Someone wrote, I do think Peter was a victim. The Marauders were his first friends. Peter fell victim to fear and thought that Voldemort would win. Another person wrote, he's not a victim of what, of whom, for what? No, he's just made some insert expletive personal choices. And one more person wrote, I feel as though Peter was and was not a victim when it came to Voldemort. He was a victim. But he also made the choice to join Voldemort and betray his friends. You know, when I think about what we understand as a person who's a victim, I think that Peter falls into a category where I'm like, yeah, but choices. One of my constant refrains that a friend of mine said to me during graduate school that has stayed with me and I say, for everything is, life's about choices. And Peter made a lot of choices. And a lot of the way that Peter perceived himself is the byproduct of his own insecurities and has nothing to do with the way that he was treated by his friends. Right. Like, yeah, it's absolutely true that, you know, Sirius and James were not the kindest to him. But to the extent that that then leads him to make the choices that he makes. No, because they weren't kind to anybody. And, you know, and Peter was a part of a lot of these, like, pranks and schemes and scams and all the other things. Right? And so, like, it's not as if he was left out in the cold and completely kind of excommunicated from the Marauders. He was one of them. And he became very obsessed with the idea of kind of being part of this group. And so being part of the group meant that you were gonna experience some of the kind of, you know, ribbing and bullying that many of us completely excused Fred and George of. I said it, and I will sit on this hill and wait for you to meet me there. Many of us sat there and have watched Fred and George treat Ron similarly to the way that Sirius and James treated Peter. And you know what? There's a lot of things that Ron does not get right, but he doesn't do this. And when Ron makes mistakes, he comes back and he at least tries to apologize. Peter doesn't do that, right? Choices. Peter makes choices. And at the end of the day, if he's a victim of anything, he's a victim of his own belief in structures and people that have absolutely no interest in his well being, his survival. He put his faith in the wrong person and it cost him. I think that the hand that ultimately takes Peter's life is the person who, to whom he is the biggest victim. And that's himself, right? Like he did this to himself. His choices led to his demise. And the idea that like any of the things that predate those choices may have informed the decisions that he ultimately makes to me is not worth the conversation. I don't think he's a victim of anything other than his own ego, his own insecurity, and his own desire for power and survival no matter what. And so at the end of the day, it's like, Peter, baby, you made a choice and your choices caught up with you. Because one thing that is true for Peter is that very rarely has he had to deal with the full on consequences of his actions. And in fact, I'm like, no, you're not a victim. You are a villain. You killed 13 people. You framed your friend. You gave up two of your friends and their kid knowing what Voldemort was going to do for them. You are not a good person. You are not a victim. You are a person who's made particular kinds of choices and did not want to deal with the reality of those choices. And at the end of the day, you can run as fast as you can, you can be a rat for as long as you want to be, but your choices and your decisions always catch up with you. And they caught up to him. Is Peter Pettigrew a good friend? I knew this question was going to be one that was going to get the people riled up. And it did. 95% of us said, no, he's not a good friend. 3% said, don't know and 2% said said yes. Harbingers of chaos. One person wrote, Pettigrew is 100% not a good friend. He was more interested in the transactional aspect of connections he made. Another person wrote, many victimized people aren't given a healthy example of what good friendship is. Peter's failure as a friend is not excused. But Contextualized. And one more person wrote, a good friend would not betray his friends the way Petey did. Whatever Peter once was or could have been, the moment he chose Voldemort over his friends, he ceased being a friend at all, y'all. At the end of the day, I have questions because we never get to see Peter actually be friends with the Marauders. And questions remain as to whether or not he actually was like you were in relationship with them. Yes, you were in a kind of. You were there with them and they were friends. But was he ever truly their friend? Like they may have been his, but was he ever theirs? Right. Like when we think about this transactional dynamic that was brought up in one of the open ended conversations we really have to think about. You know, we think of friendships as these like relationships, but they can obviously be very one sided. And I just wonder, right, like, how is it that the Marauders never saw Peter for who he was? Right. Like they never saw the rat amongst the lions and the werewolf, Right? Like they never truly saw who he was. And I think a lot of it was because they don't know who this person is. Right? Like part of the reason why the Potters chose him as a secret Keeper was because they believed that he would be the last person that Voldemort would ever choose. He was so good at that level of deception. You cannot be a friend to someone and do that. And I don't think that that came from nowhere. And I don't think that it came because, you know, Sirius and James were mean to him. I don't think he ever truly cared for either any of them. I think again, he went into Gryffindor house and became friends with the most powerful people in the space. The loudest, the most bombastic. And that is where he focused his energy. He is a survivor. He is a person who is going to stay where he believes he's going to be the safest. And so that is what he did. I do not know that he ever truly had a friendly relationship with these boys. It was all about, what can you do for me? And the moment that that particular dynamic is upended because Voldemort looks like he's winning, he runs off. And that's not something that you can do so easily with people who are your friends, who you've been with for seven years. There are so many moments where we see Ron behave in ways out of envy and jealousy towards Hermione and Harry. But not once has he just run off and done something so Outlandish. Yeah. Like him leaving them in the Forest of Dean or wherever on the Horcrux hunt. That was bad. But he came back. Peter didn't even come back. Peter left. And then again, as I talked about in my favorite moment at the beginning of the episode, he was ready to leave Voldemort. Like, he is not someone who establishes relationships with people in a way that is meaningful. I mean, and I'm like, does he have an antisocial personality disorder? Because he seemingly has no concern about how his actions affect other people. And he also has this belief that, like, he simply won't be caught. Like, no one's going to figure out what he's been up to anyway. I'm not convinced he was ever really their friend. They were his friend, but he was never their friend, if that makes sense. And that feels like a really important distinction, because I don't care how bad you are. These people, you know, took you in and did all of this stuff. And the fact that with EAs, you were able and willing to sell them out the way that you did and, like, all of them, right? Like, you went after Sirius, you went after James, you went after Lily, you went after. You did all. Like, you did all of that. No, you don't care about these people. They are not your friends. You were their friend, but they were never your friend. And so I'm like, no, you, of course he wasn't a good friend to them. He wasn't their friend. Like, I don't think that they ever. And I would say, and this may be a bit of a hot take, but I would say he never was their friend because he never saw them in a way that was like, we are friendly. It was, what can you do for me? Like, I'm willing to go and, you know, become an animagus and all these other things if it means that I get to stay with you because you are the biggest dogs in the yard. But the moment that that is not beneficial to me anymore, I'm out. Which is to say, I never cared about you to begin with. And so when we think about, you know, what it actually means for someone to be a friend, like, we've. We've. And we've looked at other characters and whether or not they're good friends, but those relationships were not, like, as transactional, right? Like, when we think about conversations about Draco, right? A lot of people were like, well, was he really friends with Crabbe and Goyle? And the answer is no, right? Like, it was a transactional situation. He basically used them as henchmen. And in that way, I just don't think that Peter fundamentally was friends with James, with Remus, with Sirius, because he didn't have a second backwards glance at what he was doing. He didn't think about it at all. He just did it. And at the end of the day, if you can turn around on your quote unquote friends or people who cared about you and make the decisions that Peter made, you weren't their friends. That betrayal doesn't just come out of nowhere. And it me and the fact and the reality that Voldemort was able to clock it and say, this is the weakest link, go to him and nobody else was, means two things. One, Voldemort recognizes something in him. And we've talked a lot about how Voldemort understands relationships with people and how it is all about utility. And also that he knew that he was going to flip. He knew that he could get him. He knew exactly what it is that Peter was attracted to and its power. And Peter was not friends with these boys, with these men. That was not who he was. And so, no, he couldn't be a good friend because he wasn't a friend to begin with. We have now reached the part of the episode where I'm going to reflect on Peter Pettigrew. And I have been really thinking about this because this character, again, is one of those characters that we have such strong feelings about, but we don't spend a lot of time with. And one of the things that I really just kept thinking about so much was, why did Peter do it? Why did he betray his friends? Now, the easy answer is fear, right? Cowardice. He was weak. He wasn't built for war. But to me, that feels so surface level. And I don't think it's the whole story, because fear doesn't always lead to betrayal, like we've been saying this whole time, right? Like, fear is not something that is consistently leading people to make these kinds of choices. Plenty of characters in the series are afraid and still choose to do the right thing. So why didn't Peter? And this is where I landed. Peter didn't just want to survive. He wanted to matter. He didn't want to be in the background anymore. He didn't want to be the fourth Marauder. He wanted to be someone worth protecting, worth keeping, worth noticing. And the gag is right. Like he never really believed his friends saw him that way. He was tolerated, not treasured. He was useful, but not necessarily seen as essential. He was a Friend who got brought along and not the friend you'd fight for. And that does something to you. Now the thing about this is, like, I don't think that this is actually true. I do genuinely believe that Sirius and James and Remus really did care for Peter in their own way. I think that again, a lot of the way that Peter viewed his relationship with these boys was transactional and also filtered through his own insecurities. But when you are looking at someone and you think that they don't appreciate you, the way that you deserve to be treated, it does something to you and it plants this seed. And if you water it with enough fear and self doubt, right, like we can see how betrayal blooms, right? And so many of you brought this up in your open ended responses, calling Peter someone who clung to powerful people, who stayed close to cool friends for safety, who never quite figured out how to be a real friend because no one ever really showed him how. And listen, that really does hit. Although I will push back on the idea that no one showed him how. Because if you look at the relationship between James and Sirius, you see real friendship. I just don't think that Peter was invested in it. But thinking more about kind of this betrayal and Peter's justification for it. What if the betrayal wasn't just about fear or survival? What if it was Peter's twisted attempt to prove himself to himself? To finally show himself, the Marauders and everyone else that he was capable of something bigger, something bold, something dark enough and dangerous enough that they could never call him or make him feel weak again? Like, what if he's saying, you thought I was nothing, but look what I can do. And I imagine that that's his mentality as he's staring directly at Sirius right before he blows up that sidewalk and kills those non magical people. Right? Like you never suspected it would be me. Like, I know what you all thought of me. And you thought that I was dispensable. You thought that I didn't matter. And now look. I got James, I got Lily and I got you. Because the idea of framing Sirius for this, that's personal. That's a choice that he made because he wanted to show him. Like, I've got you. You never ever, ever thought that I was worth it. And I got you. And I want to add a preface to this. Like, I'm not defending him at all. Like, what Peter does is terrible. But I do think it is fascinating to think about the motivation behind his betrayal. And I think a lot of it comes from this desire for Validation, right? Like a desperate attempt to be remembered not just as this kind of, like, I'm following behind Sirius and James, but as someone who actively played a part in the story, right? Like, I was thinking about it and I was like, is this Peter's attempt to try to, like, be a main character? But the problem with Peter, and I said it earlier in the episode multiple times, but, like, Peter wants to embody main character energy without having main character problems, right? Like, he wants the gravity and the attention and the mythos, but he doesn't want the accountability. He wanted so bad to be like a lion, right? Brave and noble. But, y'all, I said it again, like, he's just a rat. And when we think about why he went over to Voldemort's side, some of this has to do with, like, his understanding of who he is and what he wants, right? Like Dumbledore wants lions. He wants the people who are brave to a fault whose loyalty was the lighthouse right in the middle of the crazy waters that was this war. He wasn't looking for survivors. He was looking for people who were willing to martyr themselves for the cause, right? And we know this, and lots of people have a lot of issues with Dumbledore because of this, right? Because it's seeming that he is really very interested only in having people who are willing to kind of just give it all up, right? We talked about that when we talk about Peter as a good Gryffindor and the kind of perception and understanding that we have of what it means to be a Gryffindor. And a lot of it is that recklessness, that not fearing death. And that is not Peter. And then when we look at Voldemort, right, Voldemort didn't ask Peter to be brave. He didn't even ask him to be particularly clever. He asked him to do one thing that he was already good at, hide, spy, survive, slip through the shadows and betray without ever having to put his body on the line. The only thing that he had to sacrifice was his friendship. And again, if what I argue is correct, that wasn't really that big of a price for him to pay. And the other thing is, is that it only mattered if he got caught, if he got found out. And the thing about rats is that they rarely get caught because they're fast, they're agile, and they know how to slip through things to get away from predators. And Peter wasn't caught, admittedly, like, for a long time. He wasn't caught. He escaped justice. He didn't have to deal with accountability. He lived curled up in pockets and beds and dorm rooms and burrows, hiding in plain sight while everyone else was dealing with the aftermath of what he had done. And he didn't pay for any of it for over a decade. He just evaded it. Right? Like, that is so fundamental to who he is as a person. And it just strikes me as so insane that none of the Marauders saw this because I think a lot of the things that's also true about Gryffindors is that they really have a penchant for seeing the best in the people they want to see the best in, right? Like, they don't necessarily always see people as they are. They see them as they want them to be. Maybe who they think they could become, but really they see them as who they want them to be. And I think that a lot of the Marauders saw Peter in a very specific way that was not made manifest in his actual actions, Right? Like, Peter didn't just attach himself to power, he attached himself to victory, right? He wanted to be on the winning side. That's why he was so obsessed with James as a Quidditch player. And so that when it came time for the war and all of these things were happening and people were dying, and we know that it was a really, really dark time. It looked like Voldemort was winning. And so we went to Voldemort. But I also was kept thinking, like, you know, because we think a lot about, like, you know, oh, well, you know, he wants to attach himself to power, but Dumbledore is powerful, so why wouldn't he just have stayed there? Because it's not just about power, y'all. It's about survival. Like, one thing that is true about rats, like, the animal, is that they're gonna survive. Like, we're talking about creatures that literally carried the bubonic plague in the 14th century and, like, decimated all kinds of people and civilizations and cultures. And they are still here, right? Like, go down to any public transit, subway place, they're still here. They are survivors. And so that when you think about not only what Dumbledore wanted, but the way that Dumbledore's power looked to Peter, it doesn't guarantee survival. And especially because Dumbledore was asking people to kind of deal with their fear and their trauma. And Voldemort was just like, do what you do best and you'll be fine. And, like, to me, I think that we talked in the question of the week about, you know, why it is that Voldemort calls Peter Wormtail which is a, you know, a nickname that his friends gave him. And many of us said it was a reminder of his betrayal. And then I wrote, also, like, I think it's also a reminder to Voldemort that this is who he is that Peter is actually a rat. Like, he is not someone, despite his actions. And that may be construed as loyalty, even if tinged with fear that they are still very much, like, motivated by self interest and that he will abandon you if the time hits correctly. Right? But I also think that Voldemort clocked Peter very early on because they are very similar to one another. Both of them are deeply insecure. Both of them are trying to reshape themselves to be more acceptable more intimidating and connected to power. Voldemort changed his name. Peter changed his friends. Voldemort wanted to erase his past. Peter wanted to escape the present. And both of them needed others to buy into their image in order for them to believe it themselves. And so that when we think about, you know, what it is that Voldemort is thinking about when he looks at Peter he's seeing someone that is easily malleable because he has that level of insecurity that we see true for a lot of the Death Eaters, for Snape, for Barty Crouch Jr, right? Like, Peter's no different than any of those people. So that when we think about why he betrayed them, right? He didn't just betray James and Lily and Sirius and Remus. He betrayed the idea of friendship. He gave up on the very people who believed in him the most even though it's not necessarily clear why but also never really saw him clearly. Right? And I think that that is the biggest part of the tragedy is that I think that Peter was Peter the whole time and nobody knew it. He was a rat. Not just when he transformed, but just in general. Right? Not just when he scurried off to Voldemort. He was a rat at Hogwarts. He was a rat with the Marauders. He slipped through the cracks that they didn't even know was there. But it was fine because when he was doing it as a marauder everyone was enjoying it. And so no one really clocked, like, you are really duplicitous. Like, there are ways that you kind of operate that are not necessarily on the up and up but nobody really paid attention to it because they were like, well, you know, you're just Peter. You're Wormtail. So that when we get to this moment in the Shrieking Shack. And Harry, being Harry, spares Wormtail's life. And for the first time, we really see Peter treated not like a servant, not like a spy, not like a joke, but as a legitimate person who made a bad choice and was being invited to live with it. And that's the one thing, the one thing Peter is never ready to do is deal with the consequences of his actions. It's why he's so willing to be a rat for 13 years, right? And in that moment, though, it seems like he's getting everything. He wants to be seen to be spared, to be important, to be the linchpin. And it's also what ultimately kills him, because when the moment comes and he tries to hurt Harry, to kill Harry, it's his own magical hand that turns on him. Because you can't serve power and mercy at the same time. And he had already made his choice, and that choice had consequences. And, like, that moment is just, like, so poetic because of the justice of it, right? Because Peter's greatest desire to be seen to matter is also the thing that leads to his undoing. The very thing that he wanted was the one thing that he actually couldn't survive. And as I was thinking about Peter and all of these things and the betrayal and all this stuff, I obviously couldn't help but think about the current political moment that we find ourselves in and the reality that, like, we know Peters, right? We know people who bet everything on the wrong person. We know people who will literally give up all sorts of decency and humanity for the chance to be even in the proximity of power. People who really think that they're playing the game when actually they're just pawns. And people who aren't ready to deal with the consequences of their actions because they think they're going to be saved by the people that they put their faith in. Like, Peter is the kind of person who follows someone like Voldemort or, honestly, like a trump, right? Because they think that siding with the loudest, cruelest voice will make them untouchable. And for a while, it works. And it really does work for Peter. And it works until the hand that reach for the power turns around and chokes them. And, like, we're literally living in that moment right now in the United States where very many people are now having to grapple with their choices and figuring out, oh, wow, maybe there are consequences to my actions, right? And so, like, that's the final tragedy for Peter, because he didn't die because he was betrayed. He died because he made choices and he thought he could escape and he couldn't. Because everything always comes due. And in this moment, the very thing that he wanted is the very thing that ended him. And y'all listen, that's not just poetic, that's prophetic. This has been another episode of Critical Magic Theory. I'm Professor Julian Womble and if you liked today's episode, first off, thank you. Please feel free to like rate, subscribe and do all the things that one does where pods are cast. Remember that we are going to have a post episode chat on this Episode on Patreon patreon.com criticalmagictheory if you would like to join us for that, you can join for free as a member and join the merry throng and the deep conversation that is sure to come from this particular episode. I can't wait to hear what you all have to say. Please feel free to follow me on social Media, ROFW on TikTok and Prof. JW on Instagram. Please feel free to leave all the ratings and all the things. Don't forget the merch is dropping on Friday for our special Voldemort shirts y'all. I cannot wait to hear your thoughts on Remus Lupin. That survey is going to drop on Patreon on Thursday and then everywhere else on Friday. If you are on the listserv you will be getting that email on Friday y'all. You better bring it and you always do and I can't wait to see see what you all bring to bear for our one and only Mooney. Until then my friends, be critical and stay magical. Bye.