It’s Monday, and that means it’s time for a new episode of Podtrificus Totalus, a Harry Potter podcast done chapter by chapter, book by book.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione take their final exams, but Harry is bothered by his scar burning and warning him of approaching danger. They learn that Dumbledore has been summoned away from Hogwarts and realize it is up to them to protect the Philosopher’s Stone from Snape and Voldemort.
We make a number of references to outside sources and popular culture, which are listed below:
-
The 1637 Werewolf Code of Conduct, explained on Pottermore
-
Ælfric of Eynsham, an English abbot and writer
-
The Giant Squid on the Harry Potter Lexicon
-
Ultimate Unofficial Guide to the Mysteries of Harry Potter by Galadriel Waters (Ed. Astre Mithrandir; Published by Wizarding World Press in 2003)
-
Cerberus, guardian of the underworld in Greek mythology
-
Horace’s Odes, which describe Cerberus yielding to music
-
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (1949) and the Hero’s Journey
-
The Twelfth Tablet of The Epic of Gilgamesh
-
The Odyssey by Homer
-
Heracles’s Twelfth Labor
-
Theseus’s descent into the underworld
-
The Harrowing of Hell in Christian theology
-
Your Journey to Hell and Back by Linda Lappin
-
The Pottermore illustration of the Potions trial
-
The Full Body-Bind Curse on the Harry Potter Wiki
Our Spell of the Week for this episode is Petrificus Totalus, which Hermione uses to paralyze Neville when he stands up to them.
