[music] Dumbledore suddenly stopped speaking, and it was apparent to everybody what had distracted him. The fire in the goblet had just turned red again, sparks were flying out of it. A long flame shot suddenly into the air and born upon it was another piece of parchment. Automatically it seemed Dumbledore reached out a long hand and ceased the parchment. He held it out and stared at the name written upon it. There was a long pause, during which Dumbledore stared at the slip in his hands, and everyone in the room stared at Dumbledore, and then Dumbledore cleared his throat and read out, "Harry Potter." Welcome to the book club podcast. I'm Carly, and I'm an elder millennial, and today my guest is Jenny returning for our second episode. Today we are discussing Harry Potter and the goblet of fire by J.K. Rowling. Welcome Jenny. Hi Carly, it's great to be here. I started reading this series in high school, the Harry Potter series in high school, a few years after the first book came out, after initially refusing to read Harry Potter. When I first picked up the first book, there were names like Dudley, and it seems so juvenile, I refused to read it, but then once my sister, who's four years younger, also refused to read it, I was like, "Oh, well, maybe I should look again." And then I read the first book in less than 24 hours, and then I continued reading each book as they came out. So I would have read the goblet of fire, initially my senior year of high school, and then continued to revisit the story on audiobook and long car rides, and things like that from there. Yeah, so I think, I remember my mom bought the first book for someone else, but that person already had the book, so it was just in her house, and so I picked it up. And yeah, I thought it was pretty juvenile, but I liked reading, you know, younger fantasy anyway, and so I went through all four books because they were out at that time. And that was the same year that the first movie came out. So I had a friend at my summer job who loved Harry Potter, and so we both came to college in Santa Fe, and she invited me with her friends to go see the movie when it came out. And I remember talking to you about it a lot throughout college and the years afterwards. I remember we took a road trip across Texas, and we listened to, I think it was the fifth book on CD, and I remember seeing this movie, the goblet fire movie, with another classmate of ours when it came out after we graduated college. It was just always around, and I remember being so excited when the books would come out, and I would just read it as soon as I could, and it was interesting. I never got online, I'm sure there were plenty of online forums talking about at that time, but there were plenty of people just around who were reading it. And I remember hearing people talking about Harry Potter in the dining hall or something, or you know what I mean? It's just such a big part of the millennial experience in high school and college, and I couldn't leave Harry Potter off of the season if I was talking about millennials, and books that affect millennials, because it was such a big part of us. I remember some news stories saying that Harry Potter taught millennials to love to read, like how many people in our generation would not have become readers, if it wasn't for Harry Potter, you know, I don't know. I would have been a reader regardless, but you know, we'll talk about this book in particular goblet fire, but we are going to spoil the whole series. I want to be able to talk freely about anything that happens in the series, books or movies, or even like, you know, rumors of like not canon stuff about like the wizarding world, like anything is fair game in this conversation. And then just real quick before we start with a summary of this one book, I just want to acknowledge that so many people have felt hurt and betrayed by comments that JK Rowling has made, and we're not going to talk about that in death, but I did want to acknowledge that people have this deep betrayal for this author. And I want to repeat something that another friend of mine said that the actions of the author don't have to impact your experience, your history, the joy that you found in the books, in the works that that author has created. And so that's part of this discussion too, is reconnecting with that joy that we felt when we first read these books and revisiting some of how that has impacted us as we have grown up. This Harry Potter book begins like all the other Harry Potter books with Harry being at the Dursley House for the summer. We spend enough time there to see that Harry has learned how to manipulate his uncle. The Weasley's quickly come to take him to the Quidditch World Cup at a camp ground hidden by the Ministry of Magic. All of the Weasley children plus Harry and Hermione attend the World Cup. They watch Victor Crumb, the Bulgarian seeker catch the snitch, although the Ireland team wins. And that night, they are woken up by sounds of terror. They see a group of wizards wearing masks, tormenting the Muggle family that manage the campground. Mr. Weasley tells the children to hide in the woods while he helps the Ministry deal with the death eaters who are the people in masks. Harry Ron and Hermione see someone summon the dark mark using Harry stolen wand and they quickly return to the Weasley's home. Their first night back at Hogwarts, they meet the new dark arts teacher, Madai Moody, a retired or AKA dark wizard catcher, AKA wizard law enforcement. He has a magic blue eye that spins around independent of his real eye and he also has a wooden leg. Dumbledore announces that the tri wizard tournament will be hosted at Hogwarts that year and they will have guests from two other wizarding schools, Durham Strang with Headmaster Carkeroff and Bobaton with Headmaster Madam Maxine. The champions from each school are chosen by a magical object, the Goblet of Fire. Students write their name on a piece of parchment and put it in the Goblet of Fire which creates a finding magical contract. Students under the age of 17 aren't allowed to participate. The Goblet spits out the names of Flor de la Cour from Bobaton, Victor Crom from Durham and Cedric Diggory from Hogwarts, then the Goblet spits out a piece of parchment with Harry Potter's name. After a lot of discussion and some concern that someone wants to harm Harry by entering into this dangerous contest, it determines that he will be allowed to compete despite being too young. Ron gives Harry the silent treatment because he believes that Harry cheated to enter the contest. Most of the school agrees with Ron. Hagrid shows Harry the four dragons that the champions will face at the first task. Madam Maxine and Carkeroff also see the dragons, so Harry guesses with the only champions who doesn't know about them as Cedric. He catches Cedric between classes to let him know about the dragons, rooting witnesses this and gives Harry some advice on how to defeat the dragons. Harry gets Hermione to help him master summoning spells so that he can get his groom to steal the golden egg from the dragon. After seeing how dangerous the task was, Ron stops giving Harry the silent treatment and they become friends again. Over the Christmas break, there's the Tri-Wizard tournament, Yule Ball, and Harry and Ron find themselves scrambling to find partners. Ron asks Hermione to go with him and says Ginny can go with Harry, but both Hermione and Ginny have been asked to go by other people, so Ron and Harry go with Padma and Parvadi Patil. At the dance, they discover that Hermione is Victor Crum's partner and Ron is extremely rude about it. Cedric repays the favor to Harry by giving him a hint on how to interpret the clue for the second task, which will require the champions to retrieve something that was stolen from them at the bottom of the lake from the Merr people. Harry sneaks out in the middle of the night to take a bath in the prefix bathroom where he can listen to the clue underwater. On his way back to his dorm, he sees Barty crouch on the Morata's map in Snape's office and goes to investigate. He gets stuck on a trick step and attracts the attention of Snape, Filch, and Moody. Again, Moody does not punish Harry for breaking the rules, but covers for him with Snape. He asks to borrow the Morata's map. The champions visit the Quidditch field where they find a hedge maze growing. They are told at the first champion to grab the Tri-Wizard Cup at the center of the maze will win the tournament. Afterward, Harry and Victor talk at the edge of the forest where Barty crouch emerges, clearly not in his right mind. Harry runs to get Dumbledore, but by the time they return, they find Crum stunned and crouch gone. The maze during the final task, Harry finds Crum attacking Cedric. He helps Cedric, and Cedric helps him fight a giant fighter. They agree to take the gauntlet together to tie for champions. As they touch the cup, they realize it's a port key. They find themselves in a graveyard that Harry recognizes from the stream. Wormtail kills Cedric immediately. He performs his spell using his own hands and Harry's blood to bring Voldemort back to full power. Voldemort summons his remaining death eaters and duels of Harry. Harry and Voldemort watch together in a magical binding. Previous spells are extracted from Voldemort's wand. Harry sees the spirit of Cedric emerge from the wand. Cedric asks Harry to take his body back to his parents. Then the spirits of Harry's parents come out of Voldemort's wand. They tell him that when he breaks the connection, they will distract Voldemort and he must run to the cup so that it can take him back to Hogwarts. He manages to reach Cedric's body and uses the summoning spell to bring the cup to him. It takes him back outside the maze where the crowd was watching the final task of the tournament. In the confusion, he finds himself being led away by Moody. It's revealed that Barty Crouch Jr. was using polyjuice potion to impersonate Moody the entire school year. He helped Harry win so that Harry would be delivered to Voldemort. Dumbledore finds them along with Snape and McGonagall. He finds the real Moody trapped in a trunk. Snape brings Verita Serum to get Barty Crouch Jr. to explain how his father helped him escape from Azkaban to keep him prisoner at home for many years. He escapes his father's imprisonment with the help of Voldemort and Wormtail. After that, Dumbledore takes Harry to his office where he tells Dumbledore and Sirius everything that happened in the graveyard. Then Dumbledore takes him to the hospital wing where Mrs. Weasley, Ron, and Hermione are waiting. They are disturbed by the minister Cornelius Fudge who had a dementor suck the soul out of Barty Crouch Jr. Dumbledore tells Fudge that Voldemort is back but Fudge refuses to believe him. After Fudge leaves, Dumbledore asks Mrs. Weasley Snape and Sirius if they will work with him to fight Voldemort and the Death Eaters. At the feast ending the school year Dumbledore gives a eulogy for Cedric Diggory and tells the students that he was murdered by Voldemort. Harry returns to the Dursley house with a promise for Mrs. Weasley that he will be able to join them later in the summer. So Jenny, you have an opening question for us. Yeah, so why don't the wizard know how to dress like muggles? Or the way this question first came to me is what do wizards wear under the rose? We encounter a lot of really strange clothing choices in this novel. Everything from like Rita Skeeter's magenta rose with her crocodile handbag or wizard at the Quidditch World Cup wearing a poncho with a chill or even Ron fancy dress robes for the wall. So if wizards are all around us, how do they not know how to dress like muggles? Yes, I like this question. I mean there's so much to this book is so rich there's so much that I could include in the summary and so all of these little details that just fill out the world. They just make the book so enjoyable. So we started out at the Quidditch World Cup and first of all, compared to the first three books, this fourth book is so much bigger just physically than the first three books. And we get that that glimpse into the wizarding world outside of Hogwarts. And I remember just being super excited to learn about that. Like what's happening outside of Hogwarts? Who are all these people? And I loved learning about the broader world. But yeah, the wizards are so disconnected from the muggles, even though I think it's mentioned that there's one little town. Oh, it's it's um the town outside of the school is one of the few hogs me. Yes, it's one of the few completely wizarding towns, right? Like other types of creatures will go visit there because it's one of the few places where they can go and be seen. And so we know that wizards are living next door to muggles all the time and yet they still don't know how to put on a pair of jeans. And I want to make this connection between, you know, how separated the muggles are from the wizards and also how now with social media and the, you know, the algorithm, the mysterious algorithms that show you things that that you want to know already. There's a siloing of people, you know, because of the way media works now. And you can have people who live next door to each other, who shop at the same store and see each other every day, and yet they have completely different views of what's going on in the world because they get their their information from different sources. And I wonder if there's a parallel there that it is actually possible to be physically in the same place with people and and also alienated from them. I mean, I've always felt that you you see what you value. And right now, I'm thinking even at the very end of the novel, Dumbledore is talking to Harry about the mysterious death and Dumbledore reads the muggle news. And he found out about the death of the Frank Frank Bryce. Yeah, Frank, what role does he serve? I keep wanting to say gamekeeper, that's not it. But Gardner, yes, you think Gardner, Dumbledore is paying attention to those muggle deaths. But when he brings that to the attention of other wizards, they are very dismissive. I think the wizards are rather self-centered. I mean, the extreme is the death eaters, but to a lesser extent, you know, most wizards aren't concerned about them at all. In fact, the only real muggle lover we hear about is Mr. Weasley. Yeah. And he's considered complete against that Drake. Is he no, I mean, I know that like Draco likes to tease Ron about that, but Draco's father is a death eater, you know, like there's and it it seems like there's a generational difference. Like the younger people know how to dress like muggles. It's their parents and older who have a real struggle with it. And I wonder how much the war with Voldemort, you know, the previous war with Voldemort and talking about pure blood, did that wake people up like Dumbledore? And it's been so long since I've read the other books that I don't remember exactly. Like when did Dumbledore start reading the muggle paper? Was it after Voldemort rose to power the first time because he's starting to think about, you know, this whole like pure blood and the separation that Voldemort advocates did Dumbledore react to that by being like, no, wait, actually, we should be more concerned about the rights of other creatures and muggles. Possibly. I also just feel like Dumbledore is just a character that does all things. You know, I feel like she really goes, the author really goes out of the way, out of her way to say that Dumbledore, while he has this short call, is capable and interested in everything. Yeah. But you're making me think of one of the later books that actually starts with a minister of magic in a muggle government office. He goes to see the prime minister to say, hey, we have a problem. But the division is still very clear between the two. I mean, you can't do magic in front of muggles and some of the other movies is the whole branch of the ministry dedicated to making sure muggles don't be or remember magic. Right. I know there's a whole bunch of lore about it. It's not really told in this story about Harry Potter, but like why the wizards had to had to be in hiding. And you'd think that if it was so crucial, so important to that the whole wizarding community has to has agreed that they have to be in hiding from the muggles, that they would learn how to actually be in hiding. Like at the World Cup, the ministry wizards are like running around trying to stop people from doing spells where the muggles could see them. The muggles who run the campsite and just like doing these memory spells on them over and over and over again to like make them forget it's like there's a real hubris there of like, oh yeah, we're not supposed to do magic in front of the muggles. But if we do whatever, we just erase their memory. Yeah. Oh, there's a power imbalance. Like the wizards really do have capabilities that the muggles don't. And I think it's short-sighted, but they're also like, oh well. But yeah, I think it is interesting how you can exist in the same space and have no connection with the other people around you. So I think it shows that pretty clearly. I mean, Hermione, I and all of these withers and what they're wearing, even trying to give them some subtle advice. You know, you maybe wouldn't want to put those together. Yeah, with Rita Skeeter though, she has a fashion sense, but it's like a wizard fashion sense. It seems like whenever Rita is mentioned, it's also mentioned that she's wearing something brightly colored, right? Like there's a point to wearing something. We always know what she's wearing. So like, what do you think is going on with that? I mean, she's certainly portrayed as being like sharp and perceptive. And I imagine her being like very fashion-forward. And it might be influenced by the movie here, but she's always wearing something bright. And now, like at the end of the book, when you realize she's in a mangas and she's a beetle, you know, you think of those shimmery colors on the beetle, that iridescent. So I think Rawling might be might be giving us little hints about that iridescent with her her brightly colored clothing. Oh, interesting. Just like the flash of color that you see when you see a beetle scuttling around. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm thinking about about right now. But also a flashy dress wizard, even in the muggle world, would probably command a degree of respect. She's probably it's a power move for Rita, for sure. Yes, and that power comes from something kind of underhanded, I want to say. She's able to get these stories because she's breaking the law and she's sneaking around. And it's not a power like Dumbledore's power, or like even McGonagall's power, that there's a lot of integrity. No, she's mean and nasty. That was something that also struck me throughout the novel, is that archery heroes are regularly encountering these people that are straight up mean and nasty. And I feel like Rita falls into that category. I feel like she does it out of selfishness. She makes a living out of writing nasty things about people that sell papers. And so she really has no shame as she interviews people and makes things up and goes for that kind of unauthorized story. Just seeing the trend of journalism over the last couple of decades. I mean, I have a journalism degree, so just seeing how these sort of high ideals that I was taught in journalism school about how to tell a story and how to try to verify your information. And a lot of those practices have gone away. Even in the most respected newspapers, you'll see overuse of anonymous sources. And it's just bad journalism. And it's interesting that there's Rita Skeeter as an example of a journalist who's aggrandizing herself rather than telling a story and just making stuff up, just telling lies. And then when she does find something that's true, the story about Hagrid being a half giant, using that to ruin someone's life, why is it anyone's business? She uses this banner of people have a right to know. They need to know that if their kids are at school with a half giant, it's like, do they? Well, Hagrid's a complicated case. But it's just the worst possible way of addressing Hagrid's capability as a teacher is just to call him a half giant and then let the angry letters come in, you know? I mean, I think it comes back to something that we're facing every day now and that, you know, wild stories, cell papers, they sell news, it's all about the marketing and kind of the wealth of that industry. So it's hard not to read an article and then don't ruin half the fact check it and I'm using ground news. And so that I can see, oh, who is covering that story? How factual is it? Because it's to a degree that that machine kind of generates a shared experience for people. In some ways, it's like a stabilizer or I that's not quite the right word, but like even this readily is affected by Rita's article in which weekly about Hermione. A girl who stayed at her own house. Yeah, Cornelius Fudge is affected by what he is reading. Like people in power are affected by what they're reading and the ministry goes on to use the newspaper as a tool for kind of hiding information and manipulating society as the novels go on. So Rita is certainly not put out as a upstanding journalist. You know, she's not doing that, um, bet career any favor that business any good. Yeah. Oh, and just one more thing about Rita is Skeeter, like she creates conspiracy theories and conspiracy theories have been a big part. Like I thought that was interesting that she's able to drum up these these whole conspiracy theories. That kind of plays to Voldemort's hand. You know, he certainly uses, um, you know, he uses fear to his advantage. He knows how to manipulate people using fear. I think as things continue from this point on, this is the book where I feel like the kids gloves are off, everything else, like moving forward in the theory become, you know, life and death or, you know, society is facing a huge problem. The death of Cedric is so shocking. He's just an innocent student, the most innocent bystander of innocent bystanders, right? And he's just killed. Um, and you know, we were, we are in our twenties when we read this book, but I really wonder for the younger millennials, if that affected them in any way, you know, do you have thoughts on like young middle school age kids, teenagers reading about death in this way? I think it certainly affects a reader when a character that you've gotten to know over, you know, a bit of time is just needlessly killed, especially somebody that says stand up as Cedric is. You don't fall in love with him, but he's also an okay guy. So for him to be, uh, murdered with no reason or, um, pomp and circumstance, like there's no gravity to his murder. It's just boom, dead. And we move on. That's really challenging. But also I think reading about death affects us differently at different ages, because your life experiences play into it. So even younger millennials or kids who pick up the novel for the first time and read it today may or may not dwell on that death to the same degree. Yeah. Um, but we're also lift this, you know, living in a world with school shootings and things like that, where innocent people just are taken from you instantly, because someone else has a problem. Yeah. Well, can't say that Cedric's death affected me, but reading through this book, you know, I've never read these books out of order. I always could restart when a new book was coming out. I would start back at the beginning and reread all the previous books in preparation for the, for the new book to come out. So I've read them all many times, except for the last one. And in the last one, there are a lot of deaths. And I know you, you mentioned this too, you had the same experience where you're reading about these characters in this book and you know which ones are going to die in that battle in the seventh book. And that, that did affect me a bit reading this. It definitely influenced my reading of, of this one. I haven't gone back and reread the later books as much as I read the early books, like books one through three. And so revisiting this one after many years of not reading Harry Potter, you know, it's, it's hard to read the playful banter between Fred and George, knowing that you're going to lose one of them. Even reading about Hedwig or Dobby, you know, all of these different characters that we lose. I've got a little sad. Every time I'd read about one of those characters, I couldn't really focus on them as these new, fresh, lively characters anymore. Like their future death kind of overshadowed my current reading. Yeah. I mean, the ones that got me, it was Dennis and Colin Creevey, you know, and I think it's the skill of the storytelling to have such a layered and rich world where Dennis and Colin Creevey are just like in the background, but they're consistently there in the background. And so, you know, there's that scene in the last book where Harry walks through the Great Hall and sees all of the casualties and it's just like hit after hit after hit of like, oh, this person's gone, this person's gone. Because we've had so many years and so many books of these folks just being around, it does feel like a loss. I mean, I've experienced real grief and real loss in my life since these books came out and it's the grief from a story is completely different from me than grief I've experienced in real life. But I don't know how well established it is the idea that people who read fiction have empathy, like it's a way of practicing empathy, immersing yourself in stories and learning about these imaginary people. I haven't seen a direct connection between reading stories where there's loss and grief and my real life experience of it. But I do wonder if there was some kind of preparation or some kind of resilience from reading these books when I was young and then having loss in my life later. Yeah, it's like a just a light inoculation every time. It's like they taking your mind and your emotions and your body through like a little practice, little practice dealing with loss. I think reading fiction helps build your ability to look at situations from different perspectives. As you read a variety of different books and different fiction, especially depending on what point of view the author takes. Even in this one, it's like, well, you can see Harry's perspective about being suddenly this champion in the Triwizard Tournament. You can also see Ron's very clearly, like we have this outside perspective where it makes it really easy to understand the motivations and the actions of our characters. To the point where you're out there with Hermione, come on, Ron, just talk to him or Harry, just talk to Ron. Because I think those perspectives and characters are just developed really well. But I think we're getting definitely into the last book, but all of this is happening in such a small community. There's a world of wizards. All of these battles, especially between Harry and Voldemort, are fought on this very small space. You know, you're intimate with all of the characters involved, even at this level midway through the series. You know Cedric because he was a seeker for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. So we've already, we've been building these relationships and instead of this being a war that's being fought in another country, it's a war that's being fought in a very intimate place. Yeah. Even though it affects all of the wizarding world. Well, I think that goes back to these books being like growing with the reader as the reader grows. Like you start when you're 11 and then as you mature, the books mature, but it's all within this framework of the school. And the framing of the stories are consistent, right? Like you begin at the dursleys in the summer and you have, there's the Christmas vacation always. There's the Quidditch, but in this book, it's the tournament and then the reveal, right? Because there's always a mystery element to the story. So then the mystery has to be solved. And I always enjoyed that too. I always enjoyed trying to figure out the clues and solve the mystery. And this in this book, the mystery is Moody is actually not Moody, you know, it's always and the Dark Arts teacher is only going to be there for one year, you know, and it's like, why is Moody going to leave Moody's great? Oh, you have to figure out what's going to cause the Dark Arts teacher to leave. Like those repeating, what would they be called, tropes, structures to the story? I think that's part of setting up a young person with literacy, right? Like with the ability to really sink into a story and get something out of it is providing these handrails. It's like, okay, I know when I sit down to read Harry Potter, it might start with some event, but I know it's going to be summer. I know we're going to go to Hogwarts. I know that there's going to be something fishy about the defense of the Dark Arts teacher, you know, and even though usually the beginning of the novel kind of develops Ron and Hermione and Harry and their friendships and their character, by the time we get to Christmas break, they're going to be working hard to solve some problem. Right. And we're trying to solve that problem along with them. You know, I think from Harry's perspective, you know, the big question is, who put my name in the goblet and how am I going to survive this? But then the answer ends up being so much bigger than Harry would have ever guessed. I really loved reading the reveal chapter in Goblet of Fire this time. Listening to Barney Crouch Jr. tell how he did everything was just amazing. You're like, oh yeah, oh yeah, you can pick up all of those clues. You can see how it worked even though everything seemed like it was coming from somewhere else. It really fell into place nicely that no, he could have been that he could have done that. It's just barely believable. That's part of what makes it fun. Yeah, well, and he has a misstep. I think it's really interesting. I mean, that moment with Neville just broke my heart this time in, you know, their first class of moody or whatever when they're going over the unforgivable curses and Neville has such a strong reaction. And that's when we learn. I think it's just barely mentioned that Neville's parents were tortured with with the cruciatus curse. I think I wrote in my notes this time. I was like, this is a kid's book. We're talking about a poor 14 year old boy grieving his parents who were tortured. And then moody gives him a book of plants. When the first time you read it, you're like, oh, moody, he is a decent person. I mean, he's like a weird guy because he's like so crazy about catching dark wizards. But he's a good person. And yes, it's okay. He's a teacher, right, even though he's showing them illegal curses. Like, and he puts, but as a student, that's exciting. Oh, sure. Yes, exactly. I don't think Dumbledore knew about that. But I don't think he did either. Yeah. And then at the end, it's revealed. Oh, that's why that's why moody never gets hairy into trouble. You know, like it's, yeah, putting all putting metal together. Now, there's something we've been kind of talking about, like revisiting, right? Like, we know the series, you know, how it ends. We're revisiting the book. What does that do with nostalgia? Like going back to a book that you've read, I mean, I like to reread books. I read them over and over again. I get a lot out of it. Well, especially good books that have many layers, you get a lot out of multiple readings. But going back to something that you loved when you you were a lot younger, I don't know, I feel is there more to say about that? Do you have anything to add about that? Like, what is this experience of the story stays the same? These characters are alive in this book, but we know later on that some of them are not and just like trying to grasp, like, what does that do for us? I think it makes it a little bittersweet, kind of like thinking about your own childhood is a little bittersweet because things have been lost and broken along the way. Experiences you have evolve with perspective as you get older. And with a book like Harry Potter or a series like Harry Potter, where you get so close to the characters, I think it's especially poignant because if it's a book that's more about maybe an adventure or a particular experience, you know, I read the giver with you for an earlier podcast. And the theme of that book is what really affects me as I'm reading it. And so it didn't bring back nostalgia for me. It just made me revisit the theme of the book, which is really powerful. Whereas with Harry Potter, I've developed a relationship with all of these characters. So the things they experience affect me more like spending time with a friend that I haven't seen in a while, as opposed to a bigger idea. Because the theme in Harry Potter is very much light versus darkness, love versus fear. That's a very broad theme that I hardly ever have any deep thoughts about. But the characters, you fall in love with the characters, you want to know how they are and what they're doing. And I think maybe because you befriend them when you're young, you expect them to continue to have new experiences. So when Harry Potter and the cursed child came out, I got a copy and I read it and I was kind of excited to see, oh, these characters ended up together. These characters have kids. You know, this is what their life is like now because it's about the characters instead of an issue. Right. Instead of an idea, an abstract. One thing I wanted to mention was how they always break the rules. Like in the first book, they start breaking the rules. And that always was like, that always stood out for me. I was like, these kids never follow the rules. And yet somehow that's the right thing to do. And I wonder if that has anything to tell us about the millennial mindset. I was recently with a group of mostly Boomer H people. And they said something about millennials being entitled. And I was like, hi there, I'm a millennial. Like are millennials entitled? No, I don't think so. But like, what is, I wonder if that has something to do with like, is there a generational difference in how millennials approach the so-called rules? And is that why we were called entitled and still are called entitled? That's really funny because hearing you say that, I think, well, the Boomers didn't have any rules. And then they made a lot of rules. I think about being an 80s kid and all of the references now are that, you know, being a child in the 70s and 80s and 90s, your parents would just send you outside. Come back before dark. You know, there really wasn't a lot of oversight. So that's a little different than what our characters are doing in this book because they are constantly breaking the rules, but feel like that's a part of childhood. But maybe, maybe all of these books we read when we were younger romanticized it, like romanticized breaking the rules for us. But they generally have a good reason. They are well-meaning while they break the rules. It's always for a greater good. Yes, but I think, I try to think of a specific example in Goblet of Fire, but I do know in some of the other books, they're putting themselves in real danger by breaking the rules. And they're just like, no, maybe because they're Gryffindor. No, I have to be the one who goes out and does the thing instead of telling the grown-up, who maybe is more capable of doing the thing. You know, they're just so, they are independent. They take on the responsibility for themselves, of solving the mystery of the story, even though all the adults are telling them, no, like it's like, come ask for help. And they're like, no, we're just going to do it. It also kind of reinforces the idea that people, adults rarely understand young people and their concerns, right? Because for some of this, if Harry Potter or Hermione would have been like, oh, there's a troll and we've got to go get the troll. They'd be like, no, there's not a troll here. They're just not believed a lot of the time, or they tell themselves that no one would believe them. So whether or not Professor McGonagall or Dumbledore would hear one of their issues and believe them, they've told themselves no one would believe this. So it's up to me to fix it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that quote, it's in a later book, Dumbledore tells Harry, he apologizes to Harry and says, I as an old person, I should remember what it's like to be young. I should, you know, he's like, I should have treated you differently and had more compassion for you. And I've thought about that a lot, especially, you know, turning 40 and suddenly there are all these 20 year olds telling us what to do and how we're parting our hair wrong and wearing the wrong clothes. And it's like, uh, excuse me. And beyond that, even, you know, having more acceptance for people with different lifestyles, right? Like really having to question the biases that I didn't know I had, like, wait, am I biased in this way? Like, so that Dumbledore quote really helps me. I thought of, I've thought about it a lot when I'm confronted with something that's like, the gen Z says X and I'm like, I don't dismiss things as quickly. It's like, oh, I remember being young in my early 20s and having this vision and hope for how the world should work and being frustrated that the older people around me refused to believe that things could change for the better, you know, it's like having more respect for that. We're facing that as we, you know, try to deal with climate change, you know, many of the activists are very young. And so listening to those voices and respecting those voices because the world's changing around us and, you know, Dumbledore is also a rule breaker. Because there's different levels of rules. There's the rules that keep you safe. There's the rules that are really just society's parameters about what's accepted and what's not. And sometimes those need to change. Those need to be broken, like the prejudice with Hagrid and Madam Maxine being part giant the way house elves are treated in some cases. I wouldn't say that all wizards are bad to their house elves, but we don't have really great examples where wolves, you know, the prejudice against Lupin. So in some ways they're breaking, you know, Dumbledore is breaking those rules, the societal rules. So I think it's just important to really examine all of the structures and all of the rules. Because sometimes they break rules and do get hurt. But you just have to think about like, why is this rule here? And I think that's important for us in our everyday lives as well. And it's important to be bold enough to break those rules sometimes. Sure. I mean, well, I really relate to Hermione, because when she finds out that house elves work in the kitchen that first night back at Hogwarts, and she just like stops eating, and then she's eating the next morning and Ron kind of teases her about it. And she's like, well, I figured that there were better things I could do to fight for the rights of house elves. And Ron says, yeah, and you're hungry. I really relate to that. Because, you know, I was working as a political activist in jobs that I had a strong mission and a strong passion for, but they didn't pay well. And at some point, I had to say, look, I need a job with the 401k and a health care plan. Like, I just can't continue working these low paying jobs because of a mission, you know, my 20 year old self would be appalled. It's like, but my perspective changed. So. Yeah, it's hard to, you know, live your life with every situation that you encounter having to try and cycle that perspective through different lenses. You know, there's the immediate and myopic and then spreading it out to how it affects other people, the world, your life over a longer period of time. Because yeah, Hermione definitely has to face that she gets all fired up and then you know, she makes assumptions that in some ways, aren't hers to make. So she has to, you know, backpedal a bit, even though she's not wrong about some of these elves being mistreated, some of them are, but she also can't tell the elves how to feel. So she's having to shift her perspective throughout the novel. And by the end, spew just disappears. No, no, it comes back in the next book. I remember it in the next book. Yeah. Are we ready to talk about genre themes? Yeah, let's give it a shot. So first of all, genuine connections with our first episode on one in a millennial. We talked about how the internet has changed the way people connect to each other. And so I'm looking for where does genuine connections show up in these books. And the thing that stands out to me is it's a fourth book. So Ron and Hermione and Harry have a strong connection there. They are friends and they and and Ron and Harry have a fight. And this happens more than once where what they're someone's fighting with someone, but they come back and they're friends again. And I think that's a really important example because how do you form friendships that are that close where that there's a freedom to fight and be bad at each other, right? Like I feel like that's not something that I can say about friendships made as adults. You know, it seems a lot harder to to to recover from a conflict because it's so easy to just exit each other's lives, you know, it takes more effort to stay with each other. So that's that's one example of connection. Yeah, in Ron and Harry's situation, there's really nowhere else to go. And I think when you're younger, that's often the case. Like you're just put back in front of that person over and over and over again in school or clubs or wherever wherever your friends and that's that's true for Harry and Ron. And it's like their interaction has to be sustained for like a month of them not speaking to each other until, you know, Ron gets jarred by the task with the dragon to go, oh man, that was that was crazy. And you did that which which brought them back together. And so they had timed cool off and then they had an experience that brought them back together. And I think now it's easier to walk away. It's easier to walk away as an adult because you have the autonomy to but also with with social media and technology, it's it's easy to hide away from an interaction with someone just behind a screen. You could still be in the same room for years and never, yeah, never get past those problems that you might have had. Anything else to say about connection in this book? You know, the triwizard tournament is about bringing different parts of the wizarding world together. So I've always kind of liked the connection between Hermione and Chrome. You know, it's these people who are from different schools. There's really no reason for Chrome to be interested in Hermione other than the fact that she is not following him around with goo goo eyes. But it seems like they still have like he wouldn't have been in the library initially unless he maybe shared that commitment to studying and learning. Like I think that's something they have in common beyond the fact that he didn't want an airhead. And here's this interesting fellow student who is just really focused and I think he admires that focus and we get to know Chrome a little bit and he follows her around like a puppy dog and she has no interest but there's still a connection there that I really enjoy. Yeah, I think it makes sense for a young athlete that that I never thought about that before that she is focused and he can see that. And as a young athlete, athletes have to be focused and so that makes a lot of sense that he would be attracted to that. And then the fact that she's not chasing him around for an autograph that I can also see that being very attractive to a young athlete as well that who's gonna like me for me? And so of course the person who's not starstruck by him is gonna stand out too. Or the prize that's hard is to catch. Yes, yes, exactly. He's the seeker. And that's different than Flor de la Cour too who is who knows she's beautiful but we don't really see her connect with anyone until Harry and Ron at the lake. That's where it's like oh she's not just this ice queen. Like we get to she really loves her sister and she is changed by that experience and then develops a connection with Harry and Ron and the weasleys that goes on in the series. So I don't know those were little connection moments. Hagrid and Madam Maxine. Yeah. That have shared life experiences. Okay female characters. It's always bugged me that Flor does the worst in the tournament. Like it's always just sat in the back of my mind of like why is the one girl the one who's in last place? Like that just always kind of nagged at me. I think the girls I don't know it seemed to me that Hermione had a lot of not like other girls syndrome. I hadn't noticed in previous readings where she gets annoyed with the Bobaton girls being cold and it's like they're from a warmer climate like they're cold. I get that Hermione's young and I can forgive her for that but like I don't know if I forget if I forgive the overall book and that's treatment of some of these female characters. I think JK Rowling might really identify with Hermione and there's probably a lot of feminine tendencies that she doesn't respect and I feel that way from my childhood. I always tended more towards the tomboy style. I always took my studying very seriously. I never wore makeup. I never looked particularly nice because I was like oh that's not important and I would roll my eyes at the cheerleaders and so I'm not proud of that feeling because I probably did sideline a lot of really wonderful people but as a kid reading about these I really loved Hermione and I was completely sympathetic with all of her eye rolling at the other girls in the novel. Again that's not something I feel good about though as an adult. Yeah no I definitely sympathize. I mean I was I was the book reading girl like I don't know that I connected with the feminine girls either right. I was just reading the book. I didn't pay much attention to my clothes. Yeah so I think I could sympathize and actually I just remember one of the movies was on TV one day and I was in the room with my dad and Hermione said something and my dad goes oh no wonder you like this movie. You're just like Hermione and I was like I think Hermione was saying something about not wanting to get expelled or something and I was like I don't care that much about getting expelled but my dad was like we're good like her. I was like okay I definitely relate to Hermione being the first one raising her hand in class to answer all the questions reading all the books all of her classmates being like how do you know that and she's like well I read it in the book like that was that was me in school so I connected with that but as far as female characters I don't know I think I think the series is blessed by Luna who comes in in the next book so very happy for Luna to come in but yeah I'm not thrilled with the way the women it's so weird how like Mrs. Weasley and Mrs. Dursley are both housewives and it makes me think of it must just be like Rowling's perspective because probably when she was a child most of the moms were housewives right they didn't have as many like they didn't have as many careers so that feels kind of antiquated um yeah our other characters our other female characters are Professor McGonagall who is excellent but ancient and oh the divination the whole divination teacher and of course it's like lavender and not written with a lot of yeah not written with a lot of respect there either you have Rita Skeeter who is gorgeous but evil but vile I should say maybe not evil so yeah it is really hard to find the female role models in the series or they live in a lot of stereotype yeah even Fleur who you know grows on us the series continues starts off and this kind of she's portrayed as like vain and cold you know she finds the most attractive boy to take to the ball even though she has no connection with him so I yeah that's uh that that's something that's kind of missing it's like you really do only have a couple of female characters to look up to yeah and and Hermione is great because of her dedication her studiousness her boldness you know those things those things come out um but we're also forced to remember in this book that she is a girl open your eyes Ron yes she can she can put on beautiful dress robes and smooth her hair back and be you know beautiful and worth pursuing and that comes as a major shock to her friends well to Ron I it's not clear to me how much Harry is agreeing with Ron in in those parts I just have to say as someone with naturally curly hair I do not approve of her straightening her hair for the ball like find the curly girl method come on um but but yeah like Ron I think that's supposed to be setting up romance between Ron and Hermione maybe I mean I think Rowling has said that she originally intended Hermione to end up with Harry but then it didn't work out that way um so yeah I don't know how much Harry shares that reaction they're just they're so squarely in the friend zone and then there's no other male characters to evaluate Hermione other than Malfoy who's making fun of her bushy hair and her big teeth yeah now does this story reflect the idea that we were raised in a world that no longer exists I mean Harry I think this is related to the next genre theme which is the hero's journey which is like Harry was chosen to be special like he didn't ask for it it's a really interesting framing of he grew up with the Muggle family and so didn't know he was special and then he's chosen as a wizard and then he realizes that he's special so when you have the hero's journey I've shared this on the the book club podcast social media so if you're not following it on Twitter please find us on Twitter you can see the hero's journey image that I shared about being called and then having there's a lot we don't have to talk about it all but like I think the big part that the pattern that I'm seeing in this season is the hero has to go through has to accomplish some goal and achieve something and it changes the hero internally and it changes the greater society and we see that in the full seven book series of Harry Potter but then we also see it in microcosm in this book Harry is chosen to be a champion against his will and he meets the challenge with help and then as a result of him being the champion Voldemort comes back and that is a huge change for all of the world basically even for the muggles who don't know anything about it um that's where it busts out of the microcosm again that's like oh this wasn't it wasn't microcosm like he was chosen as the hero and it could have been something small within Hogwarts or within wizarding academia but then boom you're in the graveyard it's back to big picture changing Harry's life changing the world yeah um and so it was Harry raised in a world that no longer exists I mean Harry represents the hope and the end of a war for the people who are alive when he was when Voldemort I guess he kind of he defeated Voldemort as a baby and like oh and this is the book where we learn what what that curse was that killed Harry's parents and the curse that he survived right we didn't know the name of that I just love that layering of storytelling it it's just masterful so Harry was raised in a world first of all he was raised muggles but then like when he enters the wizarding world Voldemort is gone right like there's nothing to be worried about he learns that that's not true but like I don't know what does that say about the millennial experience that we thought we were born into a world of peace and prosperity this may be a stretch tell me what do you think I think we did have that impression growing up in the 80s and 90s the world was a safe place for us and now we're like it would be nice if all of our dragons were in the form of dragons or lord Voldemort but instead we are currently facing social issues that seem insurmountable where you kind of ask well what could one person do about this huge problem hmm you know what can I do about war and Gaza what can I do about climate change what can I do to protect the rights of other people in my own country um let's just our dragons aren't dragons yeah yes I that's true but is that different with other generations I don't think so so it's a part of growing up it's a part of growing up but it's also a way for us to give a name to the roles we might play hmm like a way to understand what our role might be in the world that even if it's something small like standing up and speaking at a city council meeting or voting or writing a letter to the editor it's a small thing that you might need help along the way that might change you that might have a larger change so even if it's never as grand as Harry versus Voldemort or Frodo destroying the ring those small things we do in life are still hard and scary okay so let's talk about the movie how about you go first real quick oh so because I read the book and then immediately watched the movie all of the differences were just glaring at me it felt like a flip book version of the novel I had just finished yeah um I hate the movie I hated it so much and the reason why is that it gets so close to being perfect like it just like the cast is awesome I love every single cast member they're perfect the setting is is amazing the music I mean it's so great but then the writing or maybe it's the editing if you don't read the book you don't know what's going on in the movie and that makes it a bad movie right they show these pieces from the book but they don't really have any closure on it the most egregious one I think is you have Hermione and Ron having a fight at the Yule Ball and you have this heartbreaking scene of Hermione sitting on the stairs crying and she says Ron you ruined everything and then nothing happens like there's no like payoff for that and that just happens over and over again there's no payoff with Rita Skier they show her briefly like they're just like flashing like a flip book like you said that they just hey you remember this from the book wasn't that great and I felt that way about all the movies I remember you used to watch the movies on DVD and I would just like come into the room and you would be watching a Harry Potter movie and I would just be like oh Harry Potter movies they're so bad do you remember that at all well I like to have movies on while I was cleaning and doing other things and because the books were so fresh in my mind I could just fill in all the missing details I could I could forgive the absences and and I think that's what was surprising when I watched the movie this time I was like oh there's no Quidditch match oh there's no Winky what he was yeah crouch was there at the beginning there were so many just glaring errors and omissions and then you'd have these like there would be a scene where it would show this like beautiful setting and as you said like great characters great acting and a one-liner and they cut to a new scene yeah nothing would happen as they transitioned from scene to scene it was jarring yeah one exemption is the scene I mean I'm sure that they really had to get it right they were really focused on it was was the graveyard right like that was done really well but I always felt this at the time too I think that the movies really suffered because she hadn't finished writing the books when they started making the movies and so you didn't like the movie makers had no way to know what would be the threads to to emphasize early on I really thought that that suffered it would be better done as a miniseries yes the cast is so great like I love how I mean oh my gosh Rickman as Snape oh yeah genius uh we'll never get Alan Rickman again they're gonna have to wait a good 15 years before they recast it and do it as a miniseries yeah so that all of us who have fallen in love with these actors can move on enough to to accept someone else in the role right yeah exactly well I want to ask our listeners to subscribe on sub stack and help support the show um you can have a paid subscription on sub stack and with the small podcast we need support just to do the bare bones minimum of producing an audiophile and sharing it on the internet so if you are able to share five dollars a month or five dollars a year that would help the podcast continue make sure we can do future seasons if you become a paid subscriber before the end of this season on millennial nostalgia um you will have a chance to pick a book for a bonus discussion so Jenny what are your final thoughts on Goblet of Fire? To be honest I struggled getting into this most recent reading but by the time we made it past the Yule Ball and all of the drama that was shaping it towards the second half of the book I really got sucked in and by the time I finished I was like wow this was really lovely it was great to um kind of be pulled back into Harry Potter's world for a little while yeah I I loved it I like it's weird for me to read it out of order so that kind of annoys me and it was hard for me to not immediately pick up the next book as soon as I finished it you know I'm just used to them I'm considering reading book five now yeah it's hard to not just finish the story it's just so well done I was immediately like back in the world and just like the texture of the world and the details and even just like the physical this is the same book I've had since I first bought it when it first came out and just the feeling of the paper the weight of the book it just was just a full sensory experience that I just enjoyed so much um and really really could appreciate even more just the technical storytelling the skill in it so yeah well I should say that I find Harry and Ron Spat at the beginning particularly painful so that might have had something to do with my interaction but the beginning of the novel that's interesting all right we yeah we can't talk about that right now but that's very interesting um listeners what do you think of the Harry Potter series as a whole the Goblet of Fire in particular other books by JK Rowling what do you think of our millennial nostalgia topic let us know by recording a voice memo and emailing opening question at gmail.com you can also comment on the sub stack at book club com and you can find me on twitter @book_club_pod and on threads @crosjak I will also link to those social media profiles in the show notes so also please if you're enjoying the podcast leave a review on apple podcast or Spotify to help new listeners find the show our next book discussion will be about the princess bride by William Goldberg it's a really fun book the next episode will come out in about a month the book club podcast is produced by me Carley Jackson music and audio production by Alex Marcus special thanks to jehee medley and thanks for listening
