This week, we discuss: more monomyth; disapproving McGonagall; positive social policing; What the Fuck, Hogwarts?!: After Hours edition; sexy My Little Ponies; virgins LOVE THEM SOME UNICORNS; magical boobs; poorly conceived Jesus metaphors; stop killing animals for their phallus parts; Apollonian vs. Dionysian philosophy and rituals; what Pentecostals and Dionysian ritual madness might have in common; why you never see female centaurs; centaur erotica; Dionysian masculinity and queer themes; the power of Amazonian genitals; Firenze as the sole far-sighted centaur; and damn that clever man Dumbledore. (AND IF THAT DESCRIPTION DIDN’T ALREADY CLUE YOU IN, THIS WEEK WE ARE MORE THAN USUALLY NSFW.)

Welcome back to Advanced Muggle Studies. We are going to try to finish Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, depending on how much we talk!

Chapter 15: The Forbidden Forest

S: I am happy to say, I found great scope for the lack of dirty jokes that you missed last week. We’ve got PLENTY of material this week.

C: I’m so happy to hear that!

S: SO. MUCH. MATERIAL. In this chapter alone. We will try to do it porn joke justice. Is that a thing?

C: It is on this podcast.

S: So it’s appropriate that this is “The Forbidden Forest.”

C: That gets me hot. The Restricted Section, The Forbidden Forest…oooh boy. Somebody spray some water on me.

Professor Creed, in real time

S: Not on the list of things I ever needed to know. Before we go into 15 – the last couple episodes, I’ve been falling down on keeping us abreast of where we are in Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth, so let’s go back. Last time I talked about it, we were “Crossing the Threshold,” where the hero crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the limits of his world. Which is pretty much leaving the platform onto the Hogwarts Express.

The next stage after that is “Belly of the Whale,” which represents the final separation from the hero’s known world and self. By entering this stage the person shows willingness to undergo a metamorphosis. My thought is that this is when Harry is Sorted by the Sorting Hat and officially joins Gryffindor.

C: Agreed.

S: The next is “The Road of Trials”: a series of tests, tasks or ordeals the person must undergo to begin the transformation. The trials often occur in threes and the person often fails one or more test. That’s very well served by Quidditch, classes, Harry vs. Malfoy. Granted, Harry doesn’t fail much in this book. We save that for the later books. All of that exposition of Harry being initiated into the Hogwarts world does serve a purpose aside from world and character building, though.

The next two, in this book, I think are merged together. The next one is “Meeting with the Goddess:” this is the point where  the person experiences a love that has the power and significance of the all-powerful, all-encompassing, unconditional love that a fortunate infant may experience with his or her mother. So Mirror of Erised, right?

C: I think so.

S: Immediately following is “Temptation”: material temptations that may lead the hero to abandon or stray from his or her quest. I think that’s also Mirror of Erised, where he gets so wrapped up that he starts not to care.

The next stage we are going to see in Chapter 15. When we left our intrepid, idiotic heroes, they had left the Cloak on top of the tower after getting rid of Norbert—

C: Idiots!

S: And got themselves busted by Filch, who is only too happy to take them to McGonagall, who has got to be having one hell of a night. She’s already caught one first-year out of bed with a crazy story about a dragon, and now there’s a whole bunch more. What is happening?

C: Yeah, she’s not happy. Can you imagine Snape ever taking 50 points from Slytherin? I can’t.

S: No, I really cannot. I can’t imagine anything a Slytherin that could do that would make Snape do that to his house. But McGonagall’s a badass, and this is one of the great moments that establishes her as an impressive character. Everybody has that teacher – tough, smart, pushes you – but the real test of respect comes in whether or not they mean what they say. McGonagall does, and you like her more for it. “I don’t care if you’re in my house, you don’t have the right to do this, how dare you?!”

C: I like it. It reminded me of times when we’d be in school and have a terrible substitute, and the kids would run wild and terrorize the sub? I did not like that and I did not like teachers who did that. You can always strike a balance between letting your kids have some freedom and treating them with respect that they deserve, and that ratchets up as you get older, but at a certain point you have to be able to say, “Look bitches, I’m sending your ass to the principal’s office.” And McGonagall is clearly one of those teachers.

S: The great thing is that you and I were both fortunate enough to have a Southern McGonagall as one of our teachers. I think it was fair to argue that you and I were among her favorites – she let us get away with a hellllll of a lot. But at the same time one of the things I loved about that woman, even at the time, is that she would smack you down, tell you when you were being stupid, or had a terrible idea.

C:  Yeah, it was the greatest thing to have somebody who has no fear of telling you exactly how it is, and being able to do that, and you still adore them afterwards. That’s a rare talent.

S: Because it’s fair. She had students you could tell she didn’t like, but at the same time when they came through she would commend them and be fair in praising them.

But the worst thing about this is Neville! He snuck out to try to warn them because he heard Malfoy talking about the dragon!

C: Poor Neville!

S: I feel so bad for him!

C: He’s so brave.

S: McGonagall: “Mr. Filch says you were up in the astronomy tower. It is one o’clock in the morning. Explain yourselves.

C: As if there is anything you could say!

S: But of course she thinks they told Dra