LDS Geeks Podcast #48: Hufflepuff House

No matter how many jokes people make about my Hogwarts house, I'll defend Hufflepuff (while sipping hot chocolate out of my Hufflepuff mug and wearing my Hufflepuff sweatshirt). I'm a Puff and this will be my favorite Hogwarts house episode for sure.

--Spencer

Listen to Episode 48 on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

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Check out Michael's recent content: click here

Show notes:

00:12 - Introductions
00:38 - Spencer's Recommendation: "I Will Be What I Believe"
        Listen on YouTube
02:30 - Michael's Recommendation: Exercise!
        Check out our geeky workouts: click here
        LDS Geeks Podcast #46: Disney Songs (5)
            Show Notes: click here
            Spotify: click here
            Apple Podcasts: click here
05:51 - Hufflepuff House overview
        "Get to Know Your Geeks: Hogwarts Houses" by the LDS Geeks Team
        "Puffs: Third or Nothing" by Spencer
09:57 - Favorite Hufflepuffs
        Spencer: Newt Scamander
        Michael: Cedric Diggory
15:26 - Least Favorite Hufflepuffs
        Spencer: Zacharias Smith
        Michael: Pomona Sprout
18:35 - Hufflepuff Best Friend
        Spencer: Nymphadora Tonks
        Michael: Newt Scamander
22:55 - Hufflepuff Theme Song
        "Lift Up Your Cups" (Puffs)
        Spencer: "You've Got a Friend in Me" (Toy Story) and "Almost There" (The Princess and the Frog)
        Michael: "Numbers" (Psychostick) and "I Will Wait" (Mumford & Sons)
28:01 - Analysis of Hufflepuff House
30:06 - Hufflepuffs from Other Fandoms
        Cory and Eric Matthews (Boy Meets World)
        Aang (Avatar)
        Joey Tribbiani (Friends)
        Giselle (Enchanted)
        Snow White and Tiana (Disney Princess)
35:30 - Conclusion

LDS Geeks Podcast #18: Harry Potter on Max

Though not slated to come out until 2026, it's never too early for Potterheads to begin speculating about the series coming to Max. Instead of speculating, Kenton and I talked more about our briefest wish list for the new Harry Potter series.

--Spencer

5 Favorite Harry Potter Head-Canons

So while hoards of you are out there playing Hogwarts Legacy, I’m sitting here, Switch-less, listening to my Harry Potter audiobooks. Now as I near the end of Half-Blood Prince, it’s probably as good a time as any to do a Harry Potter post. Like any popular fandom, there are countless head-canons to daydream about. Here are a few of my favorites.

Harry is the heir of Gryffindor

Back when I started reading Harry Potter (circa 2002) I was enthralled by the plethora of speculation on internet message boards (anyone else member those?), waiting for Order of the Phoenix to come out. Before we ever found out he was the Chosen One, people were theorizing that he was the heir of Gryffindor. Perfectly paired against the heir of Slytherin. While this theory never came to fruition in the series, it was also never disproven. So to me Harry will always be Godric Gryffindor’s heir... unless maybe Neville is the heir of Gryffindor? Wouldn't that be a twist?

Voldemort’s appearance changing 

I heard this on the podcast “Tales from Godric’s Hollow” (an old episode from years ago), but the question was posed as to why Voldemort’s appearance became snake-like. Seriously though. How did handsome young Tom Riddle turn into snake-man? The idea was posed (and it’s now head-canon) that the dark acts that Tom did started having a physical manifestation. In the podcast episode, they compared it to the player in Fable, if you remember that game. You could also compare it to the Wicked Witch on Once Upon a Time.

Newt gave Aragog to Hagrid 

Depending on how the Fantastic Beasts franchise progresses (I’m seriously worried that Secrets of Dumbledore was turned into their unofficial finale), we could honestly see this happen. I wrote about it once before, but I would seriously love for young Hagrid to show up in Fantastic Beasts and meet Newt Scamander. With Newt’s love of all creatures, he’d be the perfect person to give Aragog to Hagrid. Until this head-canon is proven false, it’ll be true in my head.

Molly was shouting in book one to get Harry’s attention 

I saw this one on a meme and I completely believe it. If you haven’t seen it, basically the reason Molly Weasley is shouting about Platform 9 ¾ and muggles (despite having attended herself and dropped off kids for about ten years) was because she saw a lost boy with a trunk and owl. She probably assumed he was a confused muggleborn, so she tried to make herself obnoxiously heard to get his attention. That’s just how Mama Weasley does things.

The entire plot of Puffs

Other than a few ways the functionality of magic works in the play, there is no reason that Puffs couldn’t be considered a head-canon. The writers of the play were very careful not to contradict anything from the books and other canon sources. So now as I read about Zacharias Smith and Justin Finch-Fletchley, all I can picture is Nick Carillo. To read more about Puffs, check out the blog post I did about it.

Other than a head-canon I’ve already written about regarding House-Elves and Santa Claus, these five head-canons should suffice for today. If you have any fun head-canons (Harry Potter or any other franchise), let us know and they can be featured in future blog posts. But for now…

Mischief managed.

Friday Creature Feature - House-Elves

The time between October and December are essentially Harry Potter months in our home. I don’t know if that’s the case with anyone else’s home, but we tend to run through all eight movies between Halloween and Christmas. You know who doesn’t get enough credit in the movies? The house-elves. So let’s check them out. 

House-elves are indentured servants of wizards and witches. And to a large extent, they don’t mind. They work for the love of work. They tend to only be owned by the rich and powerful, but there’s also a legion of them working in the Hogwarts kitchen. The only way to free a house-elf is to present them with clothing, but generally considered shameful to be let go… except for Dobby. So let’s start there...

Dobby

We first met Dobby when he was the slave of the Malfoy family. He knew something dark was afoot, so he tried to save Harry from inevitable danger. After the basilisk was defeated, Harry tricked Lucius Malfoy into freeing Dobby from the abusive servitude. In his freedom, Dobby went looking for new masters but also began demanding pay (a big no no for house-elves). Dumbledore eventually hired him to work at Hogwarts where he reunited with Harry. His loyalty to Harry and his friends never wavered, even when he was face to face with Bellatrix and the Malfoys. He saved Harry and the others, losing his life in the process. Forget house-elves, you’d be hard pressed to find many better people than Dobby. 

Winky

Born into servitude, Winky followed her ancestors by serving the Crouch family. As servant of Barty Crouch and his family, she was privy to the secrets at work in the home, including Barty Jr being snuck out of Azkaban. This led to her taking Junior to the 1994 Quidditch World Cup (her idea) where he summoned the Dark Mark. After the Mark, Crouch Sr fired Winky and she eventually ended up with Dobby working in the Hogwarts kitchens. At the end of the year, she was called in by Dumbledore as they discovered Barty Jr was posing as Mad-Eye Moody. We wouldn’t see Winkly again until years later during the Battle of Hogwarts, fighting alongside Kreacher and the other house-elves.

Kreacher

Born to serve the Black family, it was Kreacher’s greatest desire to be beheaded and hung by his mother’s head when he died. He was fiercely loyal to Regulus Black and was used to hide Slytherin’s locket and again to retrieve it after Regulus defected. Later, after Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban, Kreacher was forced to serve him. After Bellatrix killed Sirius, Kreacher was left to Harry Potter and sent to work at Hogwarts. But he would later be instrumental in tracking down the locket horcrux again to avenge Regulus’s death.

Bippy

In the Harry Potter parody play Puffs (read more about the play here), we get a new beloved house-elf: Bippy. She doesn’t show up until year seven, but acts as though she’s known Wayne and Megan for years. An obvious jab at how Dobby was written out of two films and Kreacher out of one. Regretfully, she died in the Battle of Hogwarts saving our Puff trio, not unlike Dobby dying to save Harry and friends. Everyone ought to love Bippy. And watch Puffs. Like now.

Santa’s Elves

Now for the head-canon. At this time of year we’re singing songs of Santa Claus and his reindeer. But let’s stop and consider his elves for a moment. We’ve seen many renditions of Santa’s elves from the child-like ones in The Santa Clause to the grouchy old ones in Disney’s Noelle. But what if his elves are house-elves? You may have heard the Harry Potter head-canon/theory that Santa Claus is a wizard using floo powder to make it appear he’s going down chimneys. If this is the case, it would make sense that his helpers would be house-elves. However… This makes you wonder why Dobby would choose to work for Dumbledore and not Santa. He’d be searching for a couple years before he ended up at Hogwarts. So the benevolent Santa Claus was less willing to work with Dobby’s requests than Dumbledore? That doesn’t reflect well on Santa… just saying. 

Puffs: Third or Nothing

A few years back I was in New York City with some friends and someone bought tickets for us to see this off-Broadway Harry Potter parody play. I was thinking I’d rather check ticket prices on Wicked or Les Mis. Harry Potter fan material is really hit or miss (I mean, Cursed Child is basically fan fiction). But when I saw Puffs, everything changed. 

Puffs is a parody play that makes fun of the Hufflepuff house, but in the best way. Hufflepuffs will enjoy it because they can relate. Every other house will enjoy it because they make light of Hufflepuffs. In short, any Harry Potter fan would enjoy it. 

That being said, its humor is not exactly kid friendly. If you’re worried about appropriateness for children, I’d say the play was PG-13. Definitely some obvious innuendo and use of language (including one f-bomb) but if you’re comfortable with Friends or The Office, you should be fine. 

The show follows the Hufflepuff cohort of Harry’s year, featuring familiar names like J Finch, Ernie Mac, Susie Bones, and more. Our main trio for this story includes Wayne, Megan, and Oliver. They were not labeled Hufflepuff in the books but they were names of students in Harry’s year from JK’s notes on Pottermore.

While our Puff trio has their own drama and challenges, we get to relive our favorite moments from the Harry Potter series, while making light of some of the aspects of the Harry Potter franchise that don’t make sense or that we unanimously struggle with. 

What would a good story be without a good moral? In the end, the moral of Puffs is to not look down on yourself just because you’re not who you thought you’d be. It’s easy to compare yourself to someone else whose story seems grander. But the world wouldn’t be the same without you in it. 

“Why did I have to be so unimportant?”

“It’s easy to feel like a secondary character in someone else’s grand story. But that does not mean however that there’s not another story out there that’s all about you.”

Sadly, Puffs has left New York. No more live performances there. However, a live recording was created and released. It’s well worth watching. I’ve shown it to probably a dozen friends at this point and it was loved by them all. It can be found on iTunes, Amazon Video, BroadwayHD, Vudu and more. Rent it. Buy it. And show it some love. 

In the meantime, I’m Spencer and I’m a Puff! Hi!

My J Finch cosplay from FanX 2019!

Heroes of Hufflepuff

I've had a conversation with one of my best friends at multiple times about how all the major heroes of Harry Potter seem to be from Gryffindor. In honor of "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindewald" coming out recently, I wanted to highlight a few heroes from the yellow house. Upcoming minor spoilers if you haven't seen the new movie.

Newt Scamander

Obviously our quirky magizoologist had to be on this list. Twice so far we've had adventures from our nutty Hogwarts drop out. We've far from seen the last of Grindewald, but in his first encounter he was able to subdue Graves/Grindewald and take him into custody. We know from "The Philosopher's Stone" that Dumbledore is the one who defeats Grindewald in the end, but I'm getting the sense that Newt will continue to play a vital part in his defeat. Not only that but he wants to do it in the most humane way possible.

Cedric Diggory

He may not have gotten the spotlight very much, but from the book and a half we know about him, we know Cedric was a good young man. He graciously accepted his win against Gryffindor in "The Prisoner of Azkaban" (and even tried to make a do-over happen). And then the next year when he and Harry were competing against each other for the Triwizard Cup. He showed dignity and loyalty to his school throughout the whole thing, even though he could have been mad at Harry like the others. In the end, he helped Harry win the Tournament, even though he didn't survive the trip home himself.

Nymphadora Tonks
We weren't introduced to Tonks until the Wizarding War was underway, but she showed more bravery than many Gryffindors. After she married Remus, she still put her life on the line to protect the Wizarding World, the Muggle World, and her son. Her sacrifice ended up being ultimate, being one of those lost in the Battle of Hogwarts, alongside her husband. I think it's safe to assume that her legacy was carried on by her metamorphmagus Hufflepuff son, Teddy.

Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, etc.

Despite being critical of Harry in "The Chamber of Secrets" and "The Goblet of Fire", the Hufflepuffs of Harry's year were loyal and kind people who always seemed to be there for him. We also had a fair number of them join Dumbledore's Army during "The Order of the Phoenix" and while none of them were enlisted to fight at the Ministry of Magic, they stayed to help with other DA members during the following battles at Hogwarts.

Pomona Sprout
Professor Sprout was the Head of Hufflepuff house and Herbology professor during Harry's education. She seemed to hang out more in the background for many of Hogwarts's major events. However, she stood out to help particularly during the Battle of the Astronomy Tower and the Battle of Hogwarts, standing up to Voldemort and Death Eaters, often just with her magical plants.

Wayne 
Bonus points for the hero of the play "Puffs". The parody play follows seven years at an unnamed British school of magic. The Puffs tend to hang out in the background compared to the other houses, but our hero Wayne is more of a hero than he realizes, even if it's just for making me happy to be a Hufflepuff. Bottom line: next time you're in NYC, get tickets for Puffs.