The Shrieking Shack is a book reading podcast hosted by Xeecee and Liz. Originally a Harry Potter podcast made specifically for lapsed fans of Harry Potter, the hosts, who are jaded fans of the series, go on a nearly weekly chapter-by-chapter examination of the series to see if it holds up.
After completing their reread of the Harry Potter series, the podcast branches out into other literature, including The Twilight Saga, The Da Vinci Code, Maximum Ride and The Hunger Games.
Tropes featured in this work include:
- Beauty Is Bad: Parodied during their discussion about Chapter 29 of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Xeecee jokes about J. K. Rowling's negative portrayal of exceptionally attractive characters like Fleur Delacour and Tom Riddle by theorizing that seven out of ten is the ideal level of attractiveness the Harry Potter series' characters need to meet to have a good life by marrying and settling down, no more no less, referencing the motif of seven as a magical number in the series.
- Broken Aesop: They point out that the Harry Potter series' message about the importance of accepting death and moving on from the death of loved ones is undermined by the fact that the magical world has multiple ways of interacting with dead people or their memories, such as ghosts, portraits, Priori Incantatem, the Resurrection Stone, and even Pensieve memories, which suggests that the only real difference between being alive and being dead in the magical world is that one loses their physical body after they die.
- Caustic Critic: Generally averted. The hosts make a conscious effort to avoid falling into this and are willing to talk about parts of a book that they actually like. In fact, they have a generally positive outlook of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
- Critical Dissonance: All seven of the Harry Potter books are generally well-regarded by critics and fans alike. However, the hosts only consider Sorcerer's Stone and Prisoner of Azkaban to be good books overall, and consider Goblet of Fire to be good in parts. They generally see the rest of the books in the series as bad, particularly Chamber of Secretsnote and Deathly Hallowsnote . Given that Xecee and Liz are jaded fans who are trying to see if these books, held up by many centrist liberals as both a cornerstone of tolerance that influenced their political views and a solid piece of literature, hold up today, this is to be expected.
- Designated Hero: They take issues with the Harry Potter series narrative's glorification of Dumbledore as a great hero and god-like figure, since they regard Dumbledore a villain for his many morally questionable or even outright evil actions, most notably in how Dumbledore uses Lily's death to manipulate Snape into doing his bidding for the rest of his life as a double agent, as seen in the Pensieve flashback in Death Hallows.
- Ensemble Dark Horse:
- They openly consider Dobby and Trelawney among their favorite Harry Potter characters, as opposed to their more polarizing status in the fandom.
- Xeecee particularly regards Barty Crouch Jr. as the best villain in the Harry Potter series, as he — an impostor who can perfectly mimic people and takes advantage of Harry's subconscious longing for a father figure — is frightening within the context of Harry Potter and as a mundane threat.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Discussed in the episode "No TERFs Allowed" regarding J. K. Rowling's anti-trans manifesto in June 2020. While the hosts emphathize with Rowling for being traumatized by violent misogyny, they find Rowling's decision to weaponize her trauma to crusade against a marginalized group like trans people despicable.Xeecee: Your traumatic experience will never justify bigotry.
- Harmless Villain:
- They sincerely don't consider Voldemort to be a very frightening villain, pointing out that he loses every confrontation that isn't offscreen.
- They consider Dolores Umbridge similarly; as she immediately launches into physically torturing Harry, her villainy has nowhere to escalate to, and so Umbridge comes off as less threatening and more cartoonish, particularly later in Order of the Phoenix where she gets constantly dunked on by the other characters.
- They regard Bellatrix Lestrange as both an unthreatening villain and a boring character whose only characterization is a sadist who loves torture, not helped by her introduction in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix involves her screwing up the Death Eaters' plan to steal the prophecy in the Department of Mysteries.
- They do not find Fenrir Greyback scary due to his over-the-top dialogue about his fondness of eating children, enforcing the hosts' weariness of the Harry Potter series' over-reliance on violence against children to portray evil characters.
- Moral Myopia: Discussed.
- They talk about Hermione's bizarre morals in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix such as the infamous scene where she curses Marietta for snitching in spite of her situation. They specifically don't have a problem with it by itself; their actual problem is that the book itself doesn't seem to be aware she's doing wrong things.
- They are baffled that in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry is able to cast Unforgivable Curses on multiple occasions without any negative consequences, nor does he get acknowledged by the narrative or other characters for crossing the line, despite the previous books establishing the usage of the Unforgivable Curses as an evil act favored by the villains.
- Narm: They consider J. K. Rowling's reliance on writing about horrific things, especially violence, being inflicted on characters for shock value ineffective due to the execution being over the top, to the point that they find such scenes unintentionally comical. Examples cited included the baby murder scene in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, as well as Morfin's abuse of snakes and Marvolo choking Merope in the Pensieve flashback in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
- Running Gag:
- Dunking on Bustle, a website known for its clickbait articles about Harry Potter.
- Ginny Watch: pointing out moments when Ginny Weasley appears.
- The Malfoys' obsession with Point Break (1991), which began as an explanation for why Draco knows about helicopters.
- Calling post-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Ron Weasley red-pilled Ron for being rude and sexist.
- Likening Harry's characterization post-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to John Rambo's.
- The Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix episodes end with Xeecee reading from a fanfic list of potential deaths for Dolores Umbridge, along with the frequently nonsensical comments from a user who's commented on every single one.
- "Tonks become normal": darkly joking about how Nymphadora Tonks loses her more butch aspects over time and becomes more traditionally feminine.
- Sarcastic Clapping: In the episode "Ickabog Pain", the hosts sarcastically clap and declare, "[J. K. Rowling] has done it again!" before discussing the news about the announcement of The Ickabog.
- Shout-Out: When discussing the film version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Xeecee makes fun of the "white tie tuxedo" design for Harry's dress robes by comparing them to both the Danny DeVito version of The Penguin in Batman Returns, and furthering the joke by saying "it's like he walked off Batman: The Animated Series".
- Signing-Off Catchphrase:
- "Please read another book." Variations include "Please watch another movie" for film adaptations, and "Please read/watch another play" for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
- "Catch you on the book side" for bonus episodes.
- "Happy Hunger Games" for The Hunger Games episodes.
- Strangled by the Red String: A frequent problem they have with the later Harry Potter books is poorly-written and under-developed romances.
- Their view of Hermione and Ron's relationship, as they believe that they don't have enough positive interactions and development with each other to actually justify a relationship.
- They don't think that there's much to justify a relationship between Harry and Ginny either.
- They also dislike the pairing of Lupin and Tonks, especially since they view both of the characters as queer-coded.
- Too Much Information: Their reaction when Cornelius Fudge tells the Muggle Prime Minister in the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that the Dementors are breeding, which causes a mist, leading to the hosts questioning how the Dementors mate.
- Unfortunate Implications: Often discussed, particularly in terms of the Harry Potter series' worldbuilding and portrayal of minorities.
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: They sympathize with the Dursleys in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire due to Harry and the narration's mean-spirited fat shaming of the Dursleys by mocking Dudley for struggling to stay on a diet, and that the Weasley twins do not face any consequences for torturing Dudley with a Ton-Tongue Toffee.
- What Could Have Been: Early on, Xeecee and Liz declare that they won't be rewriting the parts they don't like, but as the Harry Potter series goes on they frequently discuss alternative scenarios to what's presented in the books.
- Would Hurt a Child: A discussed trope. The Harry Potter series' reliance on this trope leads to the hosts being indifferent, because it's relied on so much that it makes it look like J. K. Rowling doesn't know how to portray evil in any other way.
