The Real Weird Sisters (Alice and Martha) recap chapter eleven of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Be aware that the show may contain spoilers for events which take place later in the series.
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1- The points system for the houses is completely arbitrary and subjective. Teachers like Snape taking away points for completely stupid reasons defeats the whole point of a points system.
2- Hermione assuming Snape was the guilty party in bewitching Harry’s broom is a perfect case of making assumptions based on opinions, not facts, (of course we don’t know that yet).
3- It is kind of neat that both genders play togeather in Quidditch. There is no real world sport that is bi-gendered.
While I agree that the scene with Snape and Filch in the staff room is mainly a red herring towards Snape being after the Philosopher’s Stone, I think it might make sense to see those two together. If we assume that Dumbledore only told the people who absolutely needed to know about the Philosopher’s Stone, that would include every one who set one of the tasks/traps/riddles, i.e. Hagrid, Prof. Quirrel and the four Heads of House. Madam Pomfrey does not need to know, since the teachers all know how to handle their creatures and she’d probably be suspicious if she was just being told “btw, Poppy, we’ll be having a three-headed dog, a full-grown troll and pretty violent chess pieces as well this year…” so she probably wasn’t told anything. As we know that she’s very versed in her field, see Ron’s wounds inflicted by Norbert(a) e.g., she would probably not be the first person Snape, who’s probably pretty good at cures as well, would go to. Filch however, being the caretaker, probably knows at least that a couple of rooms have been magically added or reassigned that year for some special purpose. Being as thorough as he is with his job, Dumbledore probably felt obliged to tell him at least that he’s hiding sth special in the school and that there will be certain protections about it. So, Snape, being one of the protectors, might have been renewing a couple of potions or just checking whether the stone was still there. And he would naturally go and ask someone for help with the bandages who is in the know but won’t ask questions. Every other teacher probably would, especially Quirrel/Voldemort, would either be suspicious or judgmental or both. Filch probably wouldn’t dare.
What I’ve just been wondering, though you may be talking about this soon, how was the stone protected before the Mirror of Erised was put in the last chamber? Was it just lying around in that brown parcel? Was the whole “several chambers or protective spells and traps” idea just a decoy and the stone was resting in the mirror in an inconspicuous empty classroom? Did Hagrid keep it in one of his coat pockets?
Philosopher or Sorcerer?
Like you ladies, I only have the fairy tale book too. I don’t own the two companion books, but I guess I must have known someone who did because I read it and I don’t think my library carried them. I wasn’t too wild about them but I think I’d appreciate them more now.
My favourite thing about the Harry Potter fandom is the sheer amount of fanart. I wanted to see a drawing of Hermione’s blue fire and deviantArt has it!
Even if Snape did make the library book rule up, is there some kind of council to challenge points that were unjustly taken away?
I really like the part where you were critical of J.K. Rowling’s poor execution of a plot device. I had to think twice about it as well when I revisited the scene.
It never even hit me that by following Hermione, it forces us to break out of Harry’s POV, which is incredibly seldom. Thanks for talking about it.
My assumption on the fire vs the library book is that none of them really knew if the fire was a rule, but if it was they didn’t want Snape of all people to catch them.
They were outraged about the library book rule because the rule was probably real and put in place so that people didn’t take the Magic books out and show them to muggles. The rule probably stated: “No library books are to be removed from the school.” Meaning, not from the grounds, but Snape exploited this and used it to his advantage to get Harry in trouble.
Also, for previous commenters, The Sorcerors Stone is the American version. The Philosophers Stone is the UK version.
The Sorcerers Stone is the American version. The Philosophers Stone is the *UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa version.
Of all of the English speaking countries, the Sorcerers Stone was only released in the US. Everywhere else got the Philosopher Stone.