Hey, brother! *gasp* Ben, of all the crazy mythical magical
fantastic beasts in Harry Potter, I have to say I am always
surprised that amongst them possibly the most common animal across Harry Potter is...
a cat. I mean seriously Hermione.
You came from the muggle world, and the unique creature you want is a cat?
Come on!
I mean you can do better than Crookshanks right?
Well, that is if you're even really the true owner of Crookshanks.
*intro music*
Hey brother!
In a world with thestrals and hippogriffs and thunderbirds and basilisks-
How is there still so much room for cats?
Sure, yes, cats are commonly associated with witches in general,
but Harry Potter is about to have five movies come out called 'Fantastic Beasts''
based on the textbook, 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them', and yet...
Cats? And right out of the gate too, J.K.Rowling wastes no time. The first magical character
we meet in Harry Potter is Professor McGonagall disguised as a cat
and she's not the only cat on Privet Drive by a long shot. Harry's squib neighbor, Mrs.
Figg, is considered quite the crazy cat lady and has four more. I have to say for a witch
I think she could have done a lot better with the naming. Mr. Paws, Mr. Tibbles
Snowy, Tufty, come on, Mrs Figg. But to be fair to Mrs Figg apparently her cats are not just common house cats
they are crossbred between common house cats and
kneazles which she then apparently sells and makes a killing in.
Kneazles, in case you are wondering, are small cat-like creatures, who are
intelligent, independent, and occasionally aggressive
but who make wonderful pets for wizards.
They have the uncanny ability to detect unsavory or suspicious characters. Which actually sounds a lot like
Mrs.Norris, the cat of caretaker Argus Filch. But weirdly she is actually not a kneazle. She's just a
particularly unpleasant cat who despite not being a kneazle still has a
weird connection with Argus Filch. Actually come to think of it that means that Filch and Mrs.
Figg are both squibs, who both have great relationships with cats, and whose initials are both A. F.
I mean, gotta be something there, right? Anyway, Mrs. Norris aside, the other cat that fits the description of a kneazle is Hermione's cat
Crookshanks, and although, it's never confirmed in the books J.K.
Rowling has confirmed on Pottermore that Crookshanks is in fact half kneazle.
I have to tell you it really is weird that Hermione wants a cat at all though.
I mean, besides cats being super common in the muggle world, where she's from.
She gets Crookshanks at the beginning of Prisoner of Azkaban.
But in Chamber of Secrets, one book earlier, she accidentally transformed herself into like a half cat half
girl-lady-thing. I mean that must have sucked. And she was pretty upset about it
but her attitude was kind of like 'Man, You know what sucked? Being a cat.
Oh, wonder where I can get one.' And that brings us to our real question of the day:
Is Hermione the true owner of Crookshanks?
Wel-well yeah, she is the true owner,
She does buy Crookshanks.
but was she the
original owner?
Crookshanks as a character has never really made a ton of sense to me, like why does he exist? Like, sure,
maybe he's there to tip you, the reader, off that Scabbers is not exactly what he appears to be but, still,
that's more of a hint for you, the reader, not like any of the characters in the book.
It's like she wrote Crookshanks to give more meaning to Scabbers, but then also created a character that had less meaning itself.
I mean,
I guess he is also the source of Ron and Hermione
fighting that whole year and he does steal the passwords for Sirius to get into Gryffindor tower
but I don't know. I still feel like the whole story wouldn't really change that much if Crookshanks
wasn't there. And he really just inserts himself into the plot when Hermione and Ron and Harry enter the Magical Menagerie.
Or does he? If you will recall upon entering the shop,
Crookshanks jumps down from the top shelf and lands on Ron's head. Now looking back, you probably assume
this is because Crookshanks recognizes that Scabbers is askew, but,
what if Scabbers is not the only thing Crookshanks recognizes? What if he also recognizes
Harry? Whaaat?
In the Deathly Hallows, when Harry
revisits Grimmauld Place, he discovers a letter in Sirius' bedroom to Sirius from his mother. In the letter Lily
thanks Sirius for sending Harry a toy broomstick. Man
Sirius loves giving that kid brooms. But she also says Harry has been using the toy broomstick to terrorize the family
cat. Wait what? The Potters had a cat?
What became of it? Why are we just hearing about it now? Did it-
Did it die when the house collapsed? And yeah, I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this, but believe me
there is much more to it than you think. It gets good.
Maybe the cat died but then again the shopkeeper at the Magical Menagerie says
Crookshanks has been there for 'quite some time'. How long that is, is never really specified,
but I think that twelve years would qualify as 'quite some time'. Now,
we could attribute
Crookshanks knowing that Scabbers is Pettigrew to him being a Kneazle and being able to
immediately detect that something is suspicious but, what if the real reason Crookshanks is able to recognize
Pettigrew is because he literally
recognizes him from when he was friends with James and Lily. Where Peter becomes the Potter's
Secret-Keeper is not said, but I always just assumed it was at the Potter's house.
And if that's true
then their cat would have been in a pretty unique position to
witness this happen and would also know who had betrayed them. So yeah
I don't think Crookshanks just recognizes that Scabbers is a wizard in disguise,
I think he recognizes him because he has literally seen him before. And to that end who is the other
wizard Crookshanks takes an immediate liking to and buddies up with?
Sirius Black, the Potter's other best friend. Okay sure so maybe that's true
but then why doesn't Sirius or Peter or even Lupin for that matter
recognize Crookshanks as the Potter's cat when they see him in Prisoner of Azkaban. I mean, I think that's pretty easy to explain,
I mean, who has an intimate relationship with their friend's cat from 13 years ago?
I mean even if I saw a cat and could
remember that it looked like a cat my friend had I would not assume it was the same. I'd be like
'That cat kind of looks like my friend's old cat.' And also, you know, a lot happened since then.
Sirius went to Azkaban and
Peter lived as a rat the whole time and Lupin is a werewolf and you know there is a whole wizarding war and Lily and James died-
And- its- it I don't think they would recognize him. Plus, despite Crookshanks' kneazle credentials,
this skill never really comes in handy again in terms of spotting suspicious characters like, I don't know Moody in the next book, or
Mundungus when he's stealing things in Deathly Hallows. But who knows maybe he just didn't see them.
But this, this, is really the icing on the cake. Do you remember Mrs. Figg?
We talked about her like a couple minutes ago. Breeder of half-kneazles. Well at the end of the Goblet of Fire
Dumbledore tells Sirius
"I need you to set off at once. You are to alert Remus Lupin, Arabella Figg, Mundungus Fletcher- the old crowd."
The 'old crowd' meaning the members of the Order of the Phoenix from the first
Wizarding War, which Lily and James were a part of. Yes,
Lily and James were members of the Order of the Phoenix with Mrs.
Figg in the first Wizarding War, where they fought Voldemort and bought a half-kneazle cat from Mrs. Figg.
*mindblow*
Basically canon, am I right? Seriously in the entire Harry Potter lore there are five known half-kneazle cats. Four of them belong to Mrs.
Figg, and one of them belongs to the Potters who used to work with Mrs.
Figg. You do the math. So there you go.
Hermione owes Harry his old cat back. Ben, my question for you and everybody else is. What do you think?
was Crookshanks
originally owned by Lily and James Potter? Let me know in the towel section, down below. By the way if you were wondering where you can
get this awesome, 'Hey brother!' shirt to wear on your person. Its got me and Ben on it
You just head over to dftba.com
Type in 'hey brother'
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These socks are amazing!
Guys, thanks for watching this video as always, please remember to like it if you haven't already and subscribe so you don't miss any future
Harry Potter videos from us. If you want to see how Dumbledore made his own horcrux
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But, Ben that's all I've got for you today, man. I will see you in another life brother.