Christmas with the Potters and Grangers! And some other stuff.
Original chapters, written by Eliezer Yudkowsky, can be read here and the audiobook chapters, recorded by Eneasz Brodski, can be found earlier in this podcast feed and on the website.
Next episode we are covering chapters 39 and 40.
Album art courtesy of Lorec. Thank you!
Coy manages an RSS feed that compiles the relevant audiobook chapters with the WW MoR counterparts. Just copy and paste that link into your favorite podcast app in the “add by url” option. Thanks, Coy!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: RSS
“Just because Donald Trump believes something doesn’t make it wrong.”
Of course not. As you say, the fact that it is WRONG makes it wrong. That Donald Trump believes it only tells us that it’s probably stupid as well, and likely to be harmful to anyone who isn’t white, male, a geriatric billionaire, or all of the above.
The problem with Trump is that you can’t rely on him always saying the exact opposite of the truth. If he says the answer is 7, then the actual truth might be 1/7th, or -7, or 700, but it could also be “green”, or “Tuesday”. He’s just unhelpful that way.
Every time you two talk about the wizarding tradition of secrecy, Brian KEEPS jumping from the basic idea, “Don’t share dangerous information around willy-nilly,” to the unworkable extreme of “Install an all-powerful knowledge-council wielding absolute control over who is allowed to know what.” That’s not even a slippery slope, that’s leaping off a cliff. The fact that ABSOLUTE information control is impossible (and would invite abuse if it weren’t) is not an argument against the position that SOME information control is desirable.
Steven thinks that 100 strong, dedicated wizards could destroy muggle society, but that’s not REALLY what he means; what he’s actually thinking is that 100 MUGGLES, who are up-to-date on modern geopolitics and military technology could take over/destroy the muggle world, if they were given strong magical powers.
If you tried the same thing with actual WIZARDS, you’d just get pompous guys in strange robes traipsing around Slovakia, shouting “Ho there, young fella-me-lad! Where is the summer residence of the current Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire? What? Stop gabbling at me in your heathen lingo and speak proper English, like a civilised human being! Oh for- Obliviate! Ellingsworth, have you gotten anything useful from the local mutts? We have to get this wrapped up soon, if we still want to make our appointment to imperio the governors of Her Majesty’s colonies in the Americas by tea-time. I say! Is that one of those new-fangled ‘muskets’ that fellow in the uniform is pulling out? Here, man, let me take that away, before you- Blargh! THUMP!”
When you’re talking about magical inheritance, I think you’re getting a bit muddled.
It’s been established earlier that two copies of the recessive magic gene make one a full witch or wizard (“wiggle” for short), only one copy makes a squib, and none makes a muggle. The fact that Lily Evans was a witch, but her parents were not, means that both of them must have been unknowingly squibs. From this follows that each offspring had a 25% chance of being magical, 25% of being muggle, and 50% of being a squib. (Simplifying away all the possible complications and complexities, obviously.)
Since we already know Petunia wasn’t a witch, she could still be a squib or muggle with equal likelihood. But at the beginning when they discovered magic existed, it was written that Michael Verres-Evans was noticeably less magical than Petunia; he had trouble even SEEING Harry’s magical trunk, when he KNEW it was there. Since there are only two non-wiggle variants, it follows that Petunia was a squib like her parents, and Michael was a muggle.
The “logic” behind Hermione obliviating her parents was that they wouldn’t LEAVE as long as they remembered they had a daughter who is embroiled in a civil war among wizards. She wanted them safely hidden away in Australia, so she took away their knowledge of the thing keeping them in Britain. The fact that this was done almost as a throwaway aside, and that her parents had been treated as complete non-entities throughout the book is somewhat disturbing. We never even learn their names (only their undercover identities in Australia) — which is where the fandom convention of calling them Dan and Emma comes from.