Helplessness: The Lightning Struck Tower (Book 6, Chapter 27)
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Quantum Fiber, your world unleashed. Learn more at quantumfiber.com. Limited availability, service in select locations only. Chapter 27, The Lightning Struck Tower. Once back under the starry sky, Harry heaved Dumbledore onto the top of the nearest boulder and then to his feet. Sodden and shivering, Dumbledore's weight still upon him, Harry concentrated harder than he had ever done upon his destination. Hogsmeade.

I'm Vanessa Zoltan. I'm Daniel Schrader. And this is Harry Potter and the Sacred Text with a special guest. Woohoo. I'm so happy to be here, Vanessa. Hi, Daniel. Do you like how different I look when I'm recording Harry Potter and the Sacred Text versus Let's Ask Taylor Swift? It's night and day. Yeah. I don't see any friendship bracelets on or anything like that. Nope. Just witch hats. Of course.

So Daniel, you are my new co-host on our new podcast, Let's Ask Taylor Swift. And so we thought that we would have you hop over and do a Harry Potter and the Sacred Text episode with us. But can you tell people just a little bit about yourself, other than the fact that you are a wonderful co-host about town? Yeah, sure thing. My name is Daniel. I'm a writer, culture critic, podcast producer, co-host of a Taylor Swift podcast with an awesome co-host.

And I love all sorts of pop culture, music, books, TV, film, etc. If there's media of it, I am interested in consuming it. Where can people find you other than on the Let's Ask Taylor Swift feed? They can find me on Instagram at roughschrade. That's S-C-H-R-A-D-E. So Let's Ask Taylor Swift, for those of you who don't know, is our new podcast in which we are collaborating.

Positing that just like Harry Potter could be treated as sacred, so can Taylor Swift. Her song lyrics, not the woman. We have not started bowing down to Taylor Swift, the person. Yet. Yet. Her song lyrics are really great. And as we wrap up Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, we sort of have this question of who or what is the new Harry Potter character.

And so we are looking closely at the lyrics of Taylor Swift and asking her questions. Daniel, can you give some examples of the types of questions we've asked her songs so far? Yeah. So like the one that I think of the most is our episode of Love Story where we asked, what is the fantasy of forbidden love? And that was a really fun conversation that made me realize a few things about myself I wasn't prepared to realize. Yeah.

So it's like a great way to get into what we think Taylor is saying about these questions, but also how they affect us and what we think about them and where we see ourselves both in the music and in the questions we're bringing to the music. Yeah. And I just have to say, I...

Right.

what is love at first sight? And then you have an answer and I have an answer. And yeah, we're having these really beautiful conversations, sort of you, me and song lyrics. And it's just been a delight. I've been having a great time. Me too. So you can go subscribe, everyone. The first season is her

number one released song off of each album. And so you can go, we have a bunch of episodes up there now, and we hope to see you over in that feed. And then the only other thing I want to say before we jump into your story, Daniel, is that you and I are going to have a bonus conversation for our patrons in which we are going to ask ourselves, what is

is Hermione, Harry, and Ron's favorite Taylor Swift song individually. Like what's Ron's favorite Taylor Swift song? What's Hermione's? We're going to get to the bottom of this question with objective truths. Can't wait. So you have a story today for us on the theme of helplessness.

What story do you have? I sure do. This was maybe like 10 years ago at this point. I was living in Atlanta, still living with my family after college, and I had to go get my fasting blood work done one morning. And so, of course, that means going in, maybe you have some coffee, but no, any sort of food, no calories, nothing. So they can get base levels for everything. So, of course, that means you're going in, not feeling the greatest, maybe a little tired. So I get in there and

They're like, "Great, all right, let's take you to go get your blood drawn." And I have always had a thing about needles. Ever since I was a little kid, I've been terrified of them. They make me really uncomfortable and there's just a psychological thing about something piercing my skin that really like gets to me. And I've gotten over it as an adult. I worked at a doctor's office for a few years in my twenties and that really helped. I was able to like give people shots and stuff and was like, "Oh, this is fine. I'm gonna be fine."

But for a long time, it was a big fear of mine. So I go in to get my blood drawn. The guy who's going to draw my blood takes me to the lab in the center of the entire doctor's office. It's a small office and the lab is like open so everybody can like move in and out of it. And they're used to doing this kind of thing. It's normal.

He sticks me in my hand. He's kind of new at it, it seems, and isn't the best at taking blood. And I'm just like, oh, great. Uh-oh. So he sticks me in my hand to try and draw blood there. Isn't able to do it. He passes me off to someone else who's like, all right, we got this. She sticks me in my arm. I'm like, okay, this is great. My anxiety definitely isn't like on the rise already at all. Not at all. I feel total trust in how this office handles things. And so...

I feel myself starting to get a little woozy as she like sticks it in, but I'm just like trying to just bear through it. It's just a little bit. And then all of a sudden things start to go a little hazy.

And I realized that like, oh, I'm maybe blacking out right now. I'm starting to lose consciousness. My vision goes black. But I don't fully lose consciousness. I sort of wish I had because instead...

I am just seeing black, nothing, but I'm still aware that I'm not seeing anything. So I immediately start screaming to the entire doctor's office. I can't see. I can't see. This is news. You could sit and go. Exactly. So then while I'm like screaming this,

And then 20 seconds later, I get some smelling salts under my nose. My vision starts to clear up and everyone around the doctor's office is comforting me, but also horrified. And I think that was the last time that they drew my blood at that doctor's office. After that, they were like, we're going to send you to a quest diagnostic and someone there can take your blood for you and they'll send us the lab results.

But it was a really intense experience of helplessness. And it was a very fleeting moment of helplessness. But in that moment, it was the biggest crisis. Well, I want to say I'm sorry that happened. I've passed out a couple of times in my life and it's so scary. So I'm really glad that you're OK. The other thing I want to say is that I think that

Your story is wise on a couple of levels. One, the analysis that you gave us about that feeling, but also that when we feel helpless, all we can do to some extent is catastrophize. Our bodies don't adjust quickly to the fact that we are helpless. So we start to be like, how can I help myself? I'll have to learn to read Braille. I'll be okay, right? There are a lot of different ways that we can respond to helplessness, including like

"Hey, hey, can someone please come hold my hand? Like this'll pass, right?" And so the lesson to me is that our bodies rise in such mutiny against helplessness that we start thinking not the way that we normally think. So Daniel, we are each gonna recap the chapter in 30 seconds. Because I am a good host, I will go first.

Can you please count me in? All right, here we go. Three, two, one, go. So Dumbledore is really weak because he just drank that big glass of poison. And Harry is like, let's get you back up to the castle. And Madame Rosamurga is like, there is a death mark. And they go up on brooms and they go to the astronomy tower because that's where the death mark is. And Draco is like, ha ha, evil villain monologue. And Dumbledore is like, ha ha, you're not an evil villain. This monologue is actually awesome.

Other people come up and they're like, Draco, kill him, kill him, other Death Eaters. And then Snape comes in and Dumbledore is like, Severus, please. And Severus says Avada Kedavra and kills Dumbledore. Great. You nailed it. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, I think you kind of hit all the major points. Let's see if I can keep up. Okay, Daniel. On your mark, get set, go. Okay.

Harry and Dumbledore arrive back at Hogsmeade after stuff, and they then have to fly to the tower to fight the Death Eaters because they have broken into Hogwarts, and they're helped by Rosemary, who's actually being controlled by Draco. And so she's actually been helping him too. And when they get there, they're like, oh no, there's a death mark. Someone must have died, even though no one has actually died. Though maybe they have. We don't actually know yet. And so then, like...

Oh, I didn't even get through any of it. I didn't get through any of it. You added a really important point, which is that Madame Rosmarda is under the Imperius curse. Yes. I got through like maybe 20% of plot there and you got through 100%. Almost as if I have been doing this now for nine years. I'm impressed.

So, Daniel, we share the etymology of the theme word every week. And the etymology of helpless, it just goes back really far. It comes from help and less, where you cannot be helped, right? It's like not a particularly interesting etymology. But I think it's because this is just always...

been something that we've understood, right? Like babies, right? You come into this world totally helpless. One of the versions of helplessness that always comes to mind to me is this like Dante first level of hell stuckness where you

cannot move. There is nothing that you could do. Right. And something that really has stuck with me my whole life is that Odysseus is in the first level of hell, not because of anything he did, like cheat on his wife, et cetera, but because he was born before Christ. And just if you're born before Christ, you're stuck forever. And that's it.

And I really see this with Harry in this chapter. In this first level of hell in Dante's Inferno, you literally can't move, right? Like you are like a pillar. And Harry has been frozen under his invisibility cloak like a pillar. And it is just like Odysseus because of sort of who he is and where he was and where he was born. It has nothing to do with Harry and his specificity.

And that level of helplessness is like cellular, right? It is like there is nothing you can do but witness.

And it's really hard to endure that kind of helplessness. Like, there is so much happening in front of Harry that he wishes he could engage with, but Dumbledore stopped him from doing it. And I mean, I really admire Dumbledore for doing that, of course, because, like, he's protecting Harry in that moment and knows how things have to play out. It's really tragic for Dumbledore that he has to do that, but, like, it's such a loving moment for Dumbledore to do that for Harry so that he saves Harry's life, basically.

Because that would have gone a much different way if Harry had not been frozen. Not only Harry's life, but absolves Harry's conscience that he could have done something. Harry literally couldn't do anything. He was helpless. Dumbledore taking all agency away from Harry is a kind of gif. Although...

it does not get experienced as a gift, right? There are moments where someone says, look, this isn't your decision, it's my decision. And you're just like, thank God. Like, I didn't want to be the one who had to decide. And there are other times where it's someone else's decision and it just feels like they are robbing you of agency and trust.

Who the heck are they? And I know that for Harry, it feels like the second. I don't know if you agree. I think what Dumbledore is doing is the first is saying you only have bad options here. So I'm going to take all options away from you. I think it's very in character with Dumbledore. Like,

as a character throughout the series to have done this. Because as we see playing out in the conversation with him and Draco, he's also protecting Draco in a lot of ways. So he's always looking out for everybody else and making the hard decisions, which is the toughest thing to do. Yeah. I think I used to see Dumbledore as really helpless in this chapter, right? He's

so weak from having drunk this horcrux poison. He's literally losing the ability to stand up, you know, like inch by inch. But on reading it this time,

I was like, oh, he is working on a lot of agency here. First, in this really small way, right? One of the Death Eaters is teasing him and is like, your jokes aren't getting you nowhere. And Dumbledore's like, those aren't jokes. Those are manners, right? Like, he's making choices even just about, like, how to be and, like, how to be dignified in his death. Yeah.

It seems like he is the most aware of the game he's playing more than anybody else. Like, none of the Death Eaters realize the game that he's playing. Draco doesn't realize it. Harry doesn't realize it. No one is in on it, except for Snape by the end of it. But, like, we don't even know that yet. And so he is just kind of...

Yeah, having to play this chess master, moving these pieces around and playing the character that they expect him to play so that he doesn't give anything away. Yeah, it's sort of like watching Dumbledore's retirement planning come to be, right? He's helpless in that there is now nothing he can do to change the course of this. Right, there's an inevitability to it. Yeah, he's now outnumbered. He's now weak.

Death Eaters have figured out their way into the castle. He's not escaping this alive. Voldemort wants him dead. And so there is a kind of helplessness. And yet, because of all of the planning he did, he's kind of in the exact situation he wanted to be given how bad of a circumstance he finds himself in, right? Right. He knows Snape is on his way.

I really am just suddenly thinking about it as planning for retirement. It's like we all know we're going to be helpless at 70 to keep earning money. And so we're saving and that there are some ways in which we are helpless at 70 and that we can't necessarily go get certain jobs. But if we're lucky, we are helpless in a way where past us has helped us and given us a little bit of freedom. Totally.

Totally. I think that all of his planning is coming to fruition in this moment where he is playing the character of helplessness. Like, he is pretending to be helpless so that he can keep Draco talking, so that he can, like, keep them basically focused on him as opposed to out there killing more students and things like that. He's set all of these dominoes up to fall the way that they are, and he's now just having to fall with them. And maybe this is me projecting as a former hospital chaplain that,

We don't see this in the text. I can just imagine him in this moment feeling helpless. Like I designed this situation and I'm still not quite ready to die. Right. Like or at least feeling grief, because I think that if you're a slightly controlling person. Right. Sometimes you can become a helpless victim to your own plans and then be like, well, I got myself here. And so here we are.

And so even though this was all orchestrated by him, I just want to leave like open the possibility that he's still feeling a little bit helpless here. I totally think he is because even though he set all this up, he is helpless to prevent the pain that Harry is going to experience watching him die. He's helpless to prevent the pain that Draco is going through. Like there are so many ways that he is helpless in what these other characters need, but he is still doing the only thing that he can for them, even if...

He has to die to do it and they have to endure his death. Like that is a really tragic, helpless feeling of like, I have to make you watch me die. I mean, I'm really getting like a bedside hospital vibe here, right? Where like the person who's dying is taking care of their kids being like, no, I'm fine. I'm not scared. Right. And then the person with the power of attorney walks in, right? Snape. And Dumbledore just trusts Snape.

So much. Snape is there and Dumbledore is like, okay, now everything is going to be fine. Like, I am no longer helpless. I am being helped. Right. But it is interesting, right? Because authority is passed over, but also the feeling of helplessness gets passed over because now Snape is helpless. Right.

Nobody can help him. He's just got to do this. He's helpless in that he has to kill Dumbledore or else everything's going to fall apart for like Draco and Snape and Dumbledore's plans. Like he has to protect Draco and it's so...

heartbreaking that this has to happen, but he is as committed to the cause as Dumbledore was. Like he was helpless to prevent it from playing out any other way. I'm sure that Snape's moment of helplessness overwhelmed him before he even knew he had to get up there to kill Dumbledore. It was when the Death Eaters invaded Hogwarts because we even hear in the conversation between Draco and Dumbledore that Snape's not even in on it. Yeah. That Draco got all these...

Death Eaters to come through the vanishing cabinet and Snape is going to wake up in the morning finding out he's not the golden boy anymore is Draco's dream when really it's like actually Snape is playing a whole different game and realizes like, oh, things are falling apart. And I didn't even know that this was happening. Yeah.

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I was just thinking a little over two years ago, my dad was in a coma. He had brain surgery and didn't wake up. And he is fine now, but I am his power of attorney. And he was helpless in that moment. But actually, he wasn't. I was helping him. And it felt like I was helpless. I was...

was, you know, running around this hospital with his directives in one hand and talking to every specialist and writing down notes. I started getting teased for my red notebook. They were like, oh, I heard about you and your red notebook. And I'm like, yes, I'm writing everything down and then quoting it to people. Right.

his helplessness sort of got legally passed on to me. And I felt stuck, even though I was mentally totally able. I had legal power of attorney, right? Like I had a tremendous amount of power. Yeah. And yet I felt helpless. Yeah.

And he like he and I joke about it now. You know, my brother's wedding. It was almost exactly the one year anniversary of my dad's coma. And I was like, aren't you glad I saved your life and you can be here? And he's like, I can't believe how hard that was. I was like, you know, it was hard for me. You remember nothing. You were asleep. Yeah.

Yeah. I think what's so interesting about this conversation is I'm realizing how deeply entwined helplessness and responsibility are tied to each other. Yeah. Helplessness can overwhelm us when responsibility overwhelms us. Yeah. And there's so much that is put on our plate that we have to say like, okay, I have to deal with this. Yeah. And it sucks. But like responsibility is almost kind of like the twin of helplessness, but also the way out of it. If I commit and start actually like

acting on these things, then I will find my way out of this feeling. But the pressure of all of these responsibilities are generating the helplessness that I have to dig myself out of. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we really see that with Draco.

Draco is the most interesting to me in terms of this conversation around helplessness. Because I really thought of Draco as helpless in this chapter, in this whole book, right? That he does not want to kill Dumbledore, but he is terrified of Voldemort. His mom has agreed. His dad will die. There's so much pressure on him. He has been set up to fail and he knows it.

And yet there is this moment in which Dumbledore offers him help. And it is the only actual offer of help in this chapter, right? Dumbledore says, come on, we can pretend that you died. Voldemort doesn't think you're going to survive. We can protect you. We can protect your mom. Right? Like in this chapter, the only genuine offer of help is

Why do you think it seems as though Draco doesn't even pause to consider it? This is a real plan. This would 100% work. Why doesn't Draco take it? From my perspective, fear is just such a paralyzing emotion. It is something that clouds every other emotion out. It is the thing that dominates. And so he is so scared and frustrated

he doesn't know how else to deal with it. That like, he's not going to listen to, we can put you into witness protection because like, I mean, granted, I'm not saying that he's like out here watching cop shows, but like, that's often a thing that's like, Oh yeah, we'll put you in witness protection. And then they still get killed and stuff. So like that definitely there's a thought of like, Oh, can you really protect me? But also it's just fear is so like dangerous.

Yeah. That he can't see any other way out. And that's where the helplessness comes from. There is help available, but he is so paralyzed by his emotions that he can't even come up for air and notice that that hand is being put out to him. Yeah. We just did last week's episode, chapter 26 on the theme of fear. And yeah, I love this nuance that you're adding. We talked last week about fear being an emotion, right?

that can lie to us, right? Emotions are information, right? They aren't necessarily the thing we want to act on, but they are always information. And fear, I think, is one of the emotions that is often correct or at least correct about something, but it can lie to us. It can tell us the wrong thing is scary. It can lead us in the wrong way. 100%. And I think part of that is debilitating. It can make us feel helpless even when we're not. It can really feed us destructive stories. And I think that

Draco has been afraid and helpless for so long. He does not see this for what it is, which is, I agree with you, a risky one, but it is a sunbeam of hope. Yeah, fear is debilitating. I could totally relate to that. But it is a thing that can either inspire you to move past or it can freeze you in place. And for him, it has frozen him in place and he...

can't get out of it. This whole chapter is basically like a villain monologue from Draco. He has so many like poorly executed attempts that clearly come from a place of like, I'm scared of actually even killing him. So I'm not really going to try it. Like there's fear of killing Dumbledore, even though there's fear of getting killed because of not killing Dumbledore. And so there are like these two fears going on in his head. Like he can't get through either of them. It's like dual fear.

I also think that this is, you know, I think something in like pop psychology that we talk about now is learned helplessness. And I think that he, over the course of this year, has just been such a victim of so many people pulling strings on him that he has learned total helplessness, right? He is like, I have no control here. I have to just listen to Voldemort. I have to just listen to the pressure from my parents. I have to do this alone. No one can help me. This conversation is too relatable. No.

Oh, I mean, helplessness is the state in which hope goes away, right? Yes. You know, this goes back to your opening story, Daniel. It's our jobs that even when things feel helpless to have a little bit of hope just to get us through, not necessarily have faith, not necessarily be sure, but, you know, just a little bit of hope, I think really can open us back up when we feel helpless.

And I think we see that in the way Dumbledore dies, right? Like he is helpless. He has to do this. But because of the way that he's been able to orchestrate this, even though he hasn't gotten everything he's wanted, he's not able to save Draco. I do think that Dumbledore ends with hope that Harry and Snape are going to

figure this out and do it. Yeah, I think that his life ends on a helpless moment, but in a way that is hopeful for everybody else that he is trying to protect. He did everything he could, and now the hope is passed on to others. Yeah. His last two words are asking for help, right? Severus, please. Daniel, we now do our sacred reading practice of Pardes. It is a four-step reading practice.

And I will lead you through it. Pardes, just so you know, it means orchard. And the idea is that we're going to pluck a sentence from the orchard of this chapter and bite into it and chew on it and see what nourishment and deliciousness it can give us. Do you want to pick a sentence for us?

I do have a sentence. Oh, great. I guess it's two sentences, but it's... That's fine. It's a sentence from Dumbledore. Great. No, Draco, said Dumbledore quietly. It is my mercy and not yours that matters now. Ooh, ooh, chilling. Mercy is one of my favorite words. Really? I had no idea. This is just, I think, the most affecting line in the chapter because it really hits like

that Dumbledore is the one in charge here and he is extending like a hand of helping to Draco if he would take it. He is trying to show mercy to this boy who has been trying to kill him and it's a really beautiful sentiment, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

So the first step, I mean, you've started it. The first step of Pardes' shot in which we ask ourselves the intended meaning of the sentence. So Draco is trying to sort of fully, you know, villain monologue Dumbledore. And Dumbledore flips the power and he's like, no, like, actually, you've been trying to do something violent and that goes against your values. And you actually want my mercy. But also, I think...

It's my mercy that matters now. He is saying, this is going to haunt you forever. You actually want my forgiveness right now. Right. It's like very like, oh, you're bullying me because you're scared. You're actually it's the moment where you are being bullied and you're like you, the bully, are actually the weak one now. It's a startling moment. Yeah. He's really trying to show a last act of love. Yeah. Yeah.

And show greater context, right? He's like, this is one moment, but like, you're going to have a whole life. And I've had a whole life. This is just one moment. Yeah. Yeah.

So step two is Remez. And for that, we pick a word and we sort of trace that word throughout the novels and see how that word has met over time. Is there a word that sticks out to you? No, Draco said Dumbledore quietly. It is my mercy, not yours, that matters now. I mean, I think for me, it would be mercy. That is the word.

I always go back here, but one of the first things that comes to mind for me is that Hagrid has no mercy on the Dursleys when he first meets the Dursleys in book one. He is just there to like get Harry out of there and do some retributive justice. And I think we could argue either way, whether it's fair or unfair and whether not every moment is a moment for mercy, but-

Hagrid, a character who has so much mercy for creatures, right? And has a tremendous amount of empathy for creatures. I think there are moments in which he chooses to not show any mercy. Yeah, that is a fun moment of mercilessness and a great way to start the books. Yeah, totally. It really puts them on their toes and sets you up because like he's showing mercy to Harry by saving him from this merciless situation that Harry is in. Yes.

So important. And yeah, sometimes you have to be merciless in a smaller way in order to fix a bigger harm. 100%. Matt Potts, our other co-host, he is an ethics professor. You know, he talks about the trolley problem where you can kill five people or one person, but it's your decision, right? And what he says about the trolley problem is no matter what you do, nobody is throwing a parade for you at the end of the day. Oof.

Right. Like, even if you do the most merciful, the most ethical thing, sometimes the world is just set up so that there's no parade at the end of the day. Yeah. And I feel like that's what Hagrid is involved in. Like, we can find it problematic, but...

Yeah, Harry's been being tortured for 11 years or 10 years and his parents are dead. No one's getting a parade. Yeah, it's I mean, it's almost like Harry's one of the animals that Hagrid saves. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where else do you see this theme of mercy? I think a moment of mercy in the books is when Dobby gets the sock. Dobby! Mm-hmm. House elves get such merciless treatment throughout the books. And that is a moment of...

mercy, unintended, but merciful. Yeah. I was just looking at the definition of mercy, right? It's compassion shown to someone whom it is within one's power to punish. Right. And yeah, Harry can punish Dobby and instead he frees him. Right. Like that's the magic of mercy. It's like I could do this thing and instead I'm going to do this other thing. It's just, it's magic. It's magic. The other one,

is coming to mind for me is at the end of book three, Harry's great act of mercy with Wormtail, right? Wormtail, we've just found out, is the reason that Harry's parents are dead. And yet when Sirius wants to kill Wormtail, Harry is like, no, like,

Let's let the Dementors deal with him, you know, but I don't want you to become a murderer. And he has power in that situation to punish or harm Wormtail and he decides not to. It's a great personal cost, right? Like Wormtail then goes and helps torture Harry. And yes, in book seven, that act of mercy comes back to help Harry, but not in dividends, not as much as it cost him. Right.

And I think that that's the thing about mercy that's really important to remember is that it does cost. The reason that it's hard is because it's not free. And so we have to choose that we want to do the right thing more than we want to sort of benefit from still having a house elf, benefit from the sense of revenge at having Wormtail be dead, just like the strategy of having this

traders still be alive, right? I think mercy sometimes can be really cheap and we should do it by course, but sometimes I think it's really expensive and yet we often find the way to do it. Yeah, I think that's a really great point. So step three, I'll read the sentence one more time. No, Draco, said Dumbledore quietly. It is my mercy and not yours that matters now.

That step is drosh. And this is where Daniel, we talk about if we were giving a sermon and this was our piece of lectionary, what lesson would you preach? What lesson would you want people to take from this piece of text? I think that what I would highlight in this is my mercy. It is about you and what mercy you can give others and not the mercy you are expecting or needing from them.

I think it is about looking for ways in your life that you can be merciful. And as you said, the definition of mercy is compassion shown towards someone who you could punish or harm. And so looking for those places in your life that you might not realize you are punishing or harming people and

approaching those with compassion and mercy instead. I think that would be the message I would want to build around is giving you the agency for showing mercy as opposed to pushing you to look for mercy from others. Yeah. Very ask not what your country can do for you, but what your mercy can do for others. Amen. Because you gave the great mercy sermon, I think mine would be about

And powerlessness, because that's the other thing happening in this paragraph, right, is Draco is saying, I have power over you. And Dumbledore is like, no, actually, I have power over you. And I think I want to talk about the moments in which that's not true and which someone actually just does have more power over you and that there's an imbalance of power and powerlessness.

There's either nothing you can do or there are only certain acts of resistance you can do. But also, when are the moments that you can step into power or someone might see you as being in a position of power? When can you say, no, that's not up to you. It's actually up to me and take that burden off of somebody else.

I'm really going through this right now with my 12-year-old. My 12-year-old has a very hard time making decisions, even really, really small decisions. And, you know, I needle felt. I make her little stuffed animals. And she loves them. And I'm making her a cow. And I was like, do you want this color brown for your cow or this color brown for your cow? And she was like, I can't decide. You decide.

And I was like, am I supposed to teach her to make decisions? Or is this a moment where I can just be like, okay, you don't have to decide this. This can be small and dumb, right? Or am I supposed to teach her about her power, right? Yeah. And so this question of like power and mercy and when to grab your power and when to offer mercy. Yeah, I think I would spend a sermon sort of thinking about that. Now I'm pushing her to make the decisions. I'm like, you have to practice.

I think that that's great. I think that people should be pushed to make more decisions. It's a healthy way to get over that fear of decision making. I hope so. This seems like a low stakes thing to make a decision about, but is a good thing to make a decision about. And I think that like what you're saying, though, about

what you're pulling out of here is like the power, like power and mercy are kind of so tied together because like, you have the power to be merciful or to withhold your mercy. And in some ways withholding your mercy in this context might actually be a helpful like avenue for growth rather than being something hurtful or kind of would make them regress. I think that I admire what you're doing.

her calling me from the gap for the rest of her life being like white or off white. Off white. Always off white. So step four, Daniel, our last step is sewed. Sewed means secret. And the idea is that we've shaken an apple off of this tree in our orchard and we've bitten into it and we've been chewing on it. And

And somewhere, like, it is possible through this conversation that we've shaken something else loose off this tree and that it will fall to the ground. And we don't know what it is and we didn't intend for it. And so the idea is, like, on a mystical level, a secret has maybe emerged. And so we'll see. I'm going to read the sentence one more time and we'll see if a secret has emerged. This is the most mystical thing that we do on this podcast. So let's do it.

No, Draco, said Dumbledore quietly. It is my mercy and not yours that matters now. A episode occurred to me. Yeah. Dumbledore is saying this to himself. He's like, okay, Dumbledore, you've got five minutes left to live. Like, it is my mercy that matters now. Like, I want to die merciful to everyone. Yeah, I could push Draco to kill me right now, but. Yeah, I'm going to offer to help Draco and I'm going to.

have manners even with the people who are here to harm me and I'm gonna ask

Snape nicely. I'm not going to trick or goad Snape. I'm going to say please so that he knows how much I consent. I think that it is possible that he is saying this just as much to himself as he is to Draco. I think that's a great secret to pull out of this because as you read it that last time, the word that stuck out to me was quietly. And so I think the way that you're seeing that really makes a lot of sense and reframes that sentence for me because it's

him talking to himself, even though he is telling Draco this. It's him recognizing, confronting, and moving forward with, this is how I will end my life. Yeah. Did another soad occur to you? Or you feel like together we soaded? I think we soaded together. We so did it. We so did. Couldn't help myself. Daniel, thank you so much for doing that sacred reading practice with me. It was beautiful. Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

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Quantum Fiber, your world unleashed. Learn more at quantumfiber.com. Limited availability, service in select locations only. This week's voicemail is from Jerrica. Hello, Harry Potter Sacred Text Team, long-time listener, avid studier, daily enjoyer and blesser of all of you. Thank you for all you do. I was just listening through your Book 6, Chapter 26. No, Book 5, sorry. Book 5, Chapter 26,

when Harry and Snape are doing an occlumency lesson and Harry protagos Snape and is allowed a glimpse into his memory. And you were doing sacred imagination with it. And I was imagining myself as Snape in this circumstance. And I am a proud Snape hater. I think that the harm that he causes is unjustifiable.

And I do not, regardless of his role in the plot. However, there's someone in my life who I really started to empathize with, someone who...

Even just literally today, I had an interaction that just left me feeling very sour. And the whole time I was thinking about this person, like, why are you so bitter? Why are you choosing to sit in this? And as I was listening through and hearing Snape's memories of an abusive father watching his mother be consistently berated and then

being alone as a teenager. And then the thing that finally snaps him out of it is seeing James and like the hatred that rose up in me, the anger, the enough, enough, enough. Like he has to see Harry every day. And I don't know why Snape chooses to sit and stew and stay bitter, but I do empathize for the pain that he's gone through. And I do want to bless anyone who finds themselves in that situation, projecting a lot of bitterness and hatred

hatred and toward people in your life. And I just hope that you know that people around you are there for you and you can go to them and bridges can be rebuilt and good friends will stick it out with you. Thanks. Jerika, thank you so much for this voicemail. I love whenever we are called to empathize with someone who we instinctively don't want to empathize with.

And you're also talking about something here that I've been thinking a lot about lately, which is the righteousness and helpfulness of anger or rather when anger can be righteous and helpful. And, you know, we were talking about fear being potentially a lying emotion. I think that anger is.

This is something one of my students wrote a paper on and it really sort of blew my mind is that anger is a truth-telling emotion, that it might be wrong in what it is telling you to do, how to act, but that it is telling you something true and to listen carefully to that anger and then move forward with caution or at least with care. But this is, I think, exactly right. And I really appreciate you adding this complexity around Snape.

Yeah, it was a beautiful voicemail. I really enjoyed listening to it. And I also think it's interesting, like, how it ties into today's theme of our episode of helplessness. It was there throughout the entire voicemail, I felt. Yeah. Oh, my God. What's more enraging than feeling helpless? Mm-hmm. No question. It is now time for us to remember members of our community who have been loved and lost. Ruth Mackler.

Martin Majeed, who is 90, a husband, grandfather, and favorite uncle with a smile that could light up any room. Jerry Keist, who is 62, a husband, father, mentor, friend, and extraordinary scouter. Norma Badino, who is 89, loving, hardworking, and a preserver of histories. May your memories be a blessing to us all.

Daniel, we now get to offer our own blessings for characters in the chapter. Who would you like to bless? I would like to bless Snape for doing what needed to be done. It's one of the toughest roles to have to play. And he did it. Yeah. And he does it mercifully. Yes. Yeah. Bless Harry. I just like can't imagine...

Being stuck and watching this unfold. This is literally one of my worst nightmares, right? Like I have recurring nightmares of being stuck and not being able to do anything. Especially for Harry, who's such a doer. Harry is a Gryffindor. He doesn't think before he acts. He just acts. He is watching this man who he loves after this horrible night.

die and like is unable to do anything about it. And so I just want to bless him for having to sit in that feeling. And I know that there are many people listening right now who feel stuck and like there's nothing that they can do to get out of it. And we know that feeling and how hard it is. So a blessing for all of us.

Next week, we're going to be reading Book 6, Chapter 28, Flight of the Prince, with special guest Hannah McGregor through the theme of Apocalypse.

Just a few reminders before we give our thanks. You can get ad-free episodes via Apple Podcasts or via our Patreon. This was a Not Sorry production. We are a feminist production company. We are proud to be sponsored by the Fetzer Institute. I'm the executive producer. We are edited and produced by AJ Aramas. Our music is by Ivan Paizao and Nick Boll, and we are distributed by Acast.

Thank you so much, Jerrica, for your voicemail this week. And thanks to our team, Ariana Nettleman, Julia Argy, Courtney Brown, Caspar Jarkyle, Matt Potts, Anissa Ahmed, Danny Langley, and Stephanie Paulsell. Thank you to everyone who sent in the names of their loved ones. And a special, special thank you to Daniel Schrader for joining us today. Thanks, Daniel. Thank you, Vanessa. I'll see you in Taylor Swift land soon. Can't wait. Chapter 27.

This is so fun, Daniel. I do this every time I forget to open my Kindle app. And so we have this quality time together while my Kindle app opens. Lovely. I'm so glad. Yeah, I just I found this chapter on like a random website that just has like every single chapter on it in some weird like is this legal kind of way. But it was interesting to read. The feds didn't show up. So your guess is as good as mine. Joanne wasn't knocking on my door saying, excuse me.