Épisodes

  • "He's Just Complicated": The Gray Space of Severus Snape

    "He's Just Complicated": The Gray Space of Severus Snape
    Sep 17 2025
    Severus Snape is one of the most divisive figures in the Wizarding World—part villain, part hero, and wholly complicated. In this episode of Critical Magic Theory, Professor Julian Wamble dives into the contradictions that define Snape: his courage and cruelty, his sacrifice and selfishness, his brilliance as a potioneer and his failures as a teacher. Drawing on over 500 listener responses, Julian explores the big questions at the heart of the Snape debate: Does doing good things make someone a good person? Can you be a great teacher if your methods traumatize your students? And was Snape ever truly loyal to Voldemort—or just loyal to Dumbledore? With honesty, humor, and community insights, this first installment of a three-part series on Snape wrestles with his legacy as one of the most polarizing characters in Harry Potter.
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    1 h et 7 min
  • Prof Responds: Lions, Magic, and Gryffindors’ Gamble for the Greater Good

    Prof Responds: Lions, Magic, and Gryffindors’ Gamble for the Greater Good
    Sep 10 2025
    In this Prof Responds finale on the Hogwarts houses, we wrestle with the lion’s legacy: is Gryffindor bravery actually just recklessness in disguise? From Harry’s headlong heroics to Neville’s considered courage, we explore how Gryffindors embody bravery differently—and why the house so often gets rewarded for dangerous choices. We also dig into Hogwarts itself: the adults who encourage risk, the point system that prizes peril, and Dumbledore’s constant appeals to the “greater good.” Finally, Peter Pettigrew becomes our cautionary tale of sorting too soon and valuing potential over reality. Together, these threads show Gryffindor courage as both luminous and perilous, a gamble for the greater good that doesn’t always pay off.
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    1 h et 2 min
  • Rewarded Recklessness: The Making of a Gryffindor

    Rewarded Recklessness: The Making of a Gryffindor
    Sep 3 2025
    In this episode of Critical Magic Theory, Professor Julian Wamble turns to the final Hogwarts house: Gryffindor. Often celebrated as the house of heroes, Gryffindor’s signature trait of bravery carries both brilliance and danger. Julian digs into how courage so often slides into recklessness, how Hogwarts rewards children for risk-taking, and how the Gryffindor ethos of leaping before looking has shaped Harry and others we’ve grown up with. Alongside reflections on Neville, Hermione, Harry, and even Dumbledore, this episode invites us to question whether bravery without foresight is truly noble — or whether it exacts costs others are forced to pay. As always, we turn the familiar into the critical, asking what it means to admire Gryffindor’s daring spirit while also recognizing its shadows.
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    1 h et 12 min
  • Prof Responds: Snakes, Supremacy, and the Slytherin Stigma

    Prof Responds: Snakes, Supremacy, and the Slytherin Stigma
    Aug 27 2025
    In this Prof Responds episode on Slytherin House, Professor Wamble takes on the accusations that he went too easy on the snakes. Drawing on listener comments, he dives deep into the complicated ways ambition, loyalty, and reputation shape our understanding of Slytherins. From reframing ambition as neutral rather than evil, to recognizing the pack-like protectiveness that makes Slytherins more Hufflepuff-adjacent than we admit, to wrestling with the Malfoys’ murky line between altruism and self-interest, this episode pulls no punches. Along the way, we question whether it’s the individuals or the corrupt systems they move through that make ambition look ruthless, and whether Hogwarts’ own biases (and Harry’s perspective) stack the deck against Slytherins from the start. Ultimately, Slytherin House may be written as the villains of the story, but Prof argues that they’re not the only ones upholding supremacy—and our refusal to extend them nuance says as much about us as it does about them.
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    57 min
  • Shedding Old Skins: Rethinking Slytherin House

    Shedding Old Skins: Rethinking Slytherin House
    Aug 20 2025
    In this episode of Critical Magic Theory, Professor Julian Wamble turns his critical gaze toward his own house—Slytherin. Long framed as the villains of the wizarding world, Slytherins are often reduced to ambition gone wrong, but this conversation flips that script. Drawing on survey results and listener insights, Prof. W. interrogates why ambition is so problematized in the Harry Potter narrative and asks: what could Slytherin be if ambition weren’t treated as corruption, but as vision and possibility?

    From the showmanship of the Chamber of Secrets to the overlooked communal nature of Slytherins, the episode challenges assumptions about cunning, ambition, and resourcefulness—traits shared across all Hogwarts houses but condemned only in one. With examples ranging from Draco Malfoy’s vanishing cabinet scheme to Dumbledore’s manipulations and Fred and George’s entrepreneurial empire, Prof. W exposes how ambition is reframed depending on who embodies it.

    The result is a provocative rethinking of Slytherin as not a house of villains, but a house of transformation, creativity, and possibility—if only Hogwarts had let it be.
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    1 h et 10 min
  • Beyond the "Smart House": The Spectrum of Ravenclaw

    Beyond the "Smart House": The Spectrum of Ravenclaw
    Aug 13 2025
    In this Prof Response episode on Ravenclaw House, Professor Julian Wamble dives deep into the themes and tensions raised in the post-episode chat, centering on a surprising consensus: curiosity—though not canonically attributed to Ravenclaw—emerged as a defining trait in the community’s discussion. Listeners debate whether curiosity without moral grounding can become dangerous, examine its role in shaping intellectual pursuits, and compare characters like Hermione, Luna, Lockhart, and Barty Crouch Jr. as case studies in “Ravenclaw-ness.” The episode also unpacks the limits of the house stereotype, exploring how intellect, wit, creativity, and individualism manifest on a spectrum rather than in a fixed mold. A particularly rich section challenges Luna’s status as a “quintessential Ravenclaw,” probing why her peers reject her despite fans’ reverence.

    Finally, Prof. Wamble bridges to next week’s Slytherin episode with an exploration of the “Slytherclaw” overlap—how both houses share cunning, strategy, and ambition, yet differ in whether they prize process or performance. The result is an expansive reflection on how curiosity fuels, complicates, and sometimes undermines the Ravenclaw identity.
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    53 min
  • Can curiosity k*** the Ravenclaw

    Can curiosity k*** the Ravenclaw
    Aug 6 2025
    Is curiosity always noble? In this episode of Critical Magic Theory, Professor Julian Wamble dives into Ravenclaw House and the complicated legacy of curiosity. With survey responses pouring in—especially from Ravenclaws themselves—we explore how this house is defined less by traditional academic achievement and more by a hunger to know.

    We look at characters like Luna Lovegood, Arthur Weasley, and Helena Ravenclaw to explore how curiosity can be creative, condescending, or even corrosive—shaped by ego, power, or envy.We also ask why Luna has become the quintessential Ravenclaw in the public imagination, and what it means that her unfiltered wonder sits in tension with a house so often associated with polished intellect. Ultimately, we argue that curiosity, like loyalty, must be anchored. Because when it isn’t, it can radicalize, isolate, or be weaponized in dangerous ways.

    So whether you’re a Ravenclaw, curious about Ravenclaws, or just nosy (no shame), join us as we unpack what it really means to be in the house of intellect—and why the question isn’t how much you want to know, but why you want to know it.

    Special thanks to our new Patreon Deep Divers: Chanin, Hannah, Missy
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    1 h et 9 min
  • Hufflepuffs & The Politics of Conditional Morality

    Hufflepuffs & The Politics of Conditional Morality
    Jul 30 2025
    In this Professor’s Response episode of Critical Magic Theory, Professor Julian Wamble returns to Hufflepuff House with one central question in mind: What happens when goodness depends on context? After a passionate post-episode discussion (and a collective reckoning over the Tonks-sized omission), we dive deeper into what Hufflepuff traits like loyalty, fairness, patience, and hard work really mean when filtered through fear, power, and tradition.

    This episode unpacks the underbelly of moral certainty—where loyalty can enable abuse, fairness can uphold the status quo, and kindness can cost you everything. With Tonks and Ernie Macmillan as case studies in contrast, we explore how two Hufflepuffs embody radically different versions of morality: one grounded in self-protection, the other in self-sacrifice. We also interrogate the idea of tradition as a form of resistance—or compliance—and how Hufflepuffs, often framed as the most moral house, can still reinforce unjust systems.

    This is not about villainizing Hufflepuffs. It’s about recognizing that morality is not absolute—and that even the kindest hearts must be willing to question what (and whom) they serve.
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    55 min