#003 | Potter Podcast: Let’s talk Harry Potter favourites

Potter Podcast: Let’s talk Harry Potter favourites

(0:00) Welcome, Muggles to Rants and Reviews; boy do we have a great episode in store for you. We’re discussing one of our favourite book universes, Harry Potter and the Wizarding world. Stick around to learn about all our houses, wands, favourite characters and places; all of the basics, and don’t worry, we do plan on going into more detail in future episodes. But until then, we’re gonna get ourselves to Hogwarts where everyone is magi-cool.

Currently Reading

Each episode of Rants and Reviews we’re going to be sharing what we’re currently reading, so you can discover our favourite genes, add some books to your TBR pile, and hear us rave and rage about characters, plot, setting and more. 

(0:30) Sophie is still reading the same pile from the last episode, but she's put a few down that she'll come back to. 

Sophie put down:

• Early Riser by Jasper Fforde
• Circe Cyclops by Homer

Now she's only reading:

• A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan
• Sheets by Brenna Thummler (graphic novel)
• Travelling in the Dark by Emma Timpany (the August Blogger’s Bookshelf Book Club pick)

Anjali is currently reading:

• To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

Main feature

(04:13) We kick things off with how one would if one actually received their letter, went to Hogwarts, and had the Sorting Hat place upon their head: our Hogwarts houses as sorted into by Pottermore.com. Sophie is very proud of her house, and wastes no time in letting us know what it is, despite the fact that she also thought she was in another house when she first signed up to Pottermore. 

(05:20) Anjali does a quick explanation of the ‘percentages’ that we discuss in this section. Basically, it’s a quiz on GoToQuiz which lists every single possible question that you could get while you’re filling out the official Pottermore quiz. At the end it gives you not just your top house, but what percentage of the other houses you are. For example, you might be 60% Hufflepuff but then 15% Slytherin etc. Sophie has discovered it after listening to Mike Schubert on Potterless podcast. Sophie had two houses that were quite close in percentile, but Anjali has three … listen in to experience Anjali’s identity crisis (more about that in the blog post she wrote back in 2013 that she mentions), and find out which houses rank in order for each of us.

(10:25) On a similar track, we dive into our Ilvermorny houses which are very different compared to Hogwarts.

(12:32) You can’t go to Hogwarts without a wand; thanks to Pottermore we also know which wands have chosen us. Draco, Umbridge, and Hagrid are all mentioned in this section, as well.

(15:00) In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, we’re introduced to the concept of a Patronus. Again, on Pottermore, you can do a short quiz to determine what your Patronus would be, if you had one. We chat about what Pottermore gave us, whether we’re happy with the results, or if we would change it. While Sophie is happy with what she was given, Anjali struggles with the idea so heads to the internet to do spirit animal quizzes to try and get a different answer. Does it work out for her? You’ll have to tune in to find out!

(17:56) Unlike all the other aspects we’ve talked about, you can’t take a quiz that tells you what your animagus would be. We take a few moments to try and figure out what the best animagus animals would be, and what we think we might be.

(20:18) What are our favourite classes? Do we like Herbology? Defense Against the Dark Arts? Or maybe we’d love nothing more than to hang out with the animals in Care of Magical Creatures?

(20:12) Speaking of classes, we chat a while about our favourite teachers and why we love them. As well as a collective love for Professor McGonagall, you’ll discover which teacher Anjali loves to hate (or hates to love), and which one Sophie fears she might be putting her foot in it when she confesses to liking.

(24:05) We all have favourite characters in Hogwarts, but teachers aside, we talk about our favourite students (spoiler alert: none of them involve the Golden Trio), how sad it is that some characters aren’t in it as much in the later books, and which students have great character development throughout the series.

(26:45) “Speaking of losing your shoes around Hogwarts”, says Anjali. “What is your favourite place in Hogwarts?” From there comes a discussion about the magical Room of Requirement and the multi-purpose wonder of the Great Hall. 

(30:20) Moving further afield, we have a look at our favourite places outside of Hogwarts, and which shops in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley we wish were real. 

(32:30) Here we rank all the books in the Harry Potter series from least favourite to favourite. Are our choices the same? How much do they differ? Sophie has written a blog post about this which you can check out.

(34:27) Sophie drops a bomb of a confession on us right here at the end. You’re not even going to believe it. 

(36:15) Anjali just slips in a short chat about our favourite ghosts to end the show.

Outro

This week’s episode of Rants and Reviews was brought to by a sassy McGonagall, chocolate frogs and your usual hosts, Anjali and Sophie. We hope you’ve enjoyed our Harry Potter episode, but if it hasn’t quite been enough, don’t worry; we will definitely be chatting about this magical world in future episodes. In the meantime, we sure to follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe to us on your favourite podcast channel.

Books mentioned in this episode

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde Circe Cyclops by Homer A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan Sheets by Brenna Thummler (graphic novel) Travelling  n the Dark by Emma Timpany To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han Harry Potter series by JK Rowling

Have you listened yet? What are your answers to some of our faves?