What little we do know about Argus Filch, we learn perhaps the most personal detail about this man in Chapter 8 of Chamber of Secrets, entitled “The Deathday Party.” Harry just couldn’t squash his curiosity and opened Mr Filch’s mail and found his Kwikspell courses, alerting us to the fact that Argus Filch is a squib. This leads to so many questions for me:
How did Mr Filch know about Hogwarts? Did he have siblings that got to go to Hogwarts? I suppose even if he didn’t have siblings his parents, who at least one of them had to be magical for him to be considered a squib, could have told him about it growing up.
What was his and his family’s reaction when he did not get a Hogwarts letter? I imagine it had to be shame. His reasoning for thinking Harry attacked Mrs. Norris is because Harry found out he was a squib. He must think very little of himself if his immediate reaction is to think other’s think that lowly of him because of his lack of magic.
When exactly did Mr Filch start working at Hogwarts? And then, why did he stay? I can see that maybe he just wanted to see this magical school that he heard so much about, but never got to attend. The caretaker job was his way of getting his foot in the door, finally. But, obviously he is very unhappy there. Peeves is a pet peeve (wink ;)) of his, he detests all of the students, and because he can’t use magic to clean it makes it that much worse every time he has to perform his job.
Lastly, why didn’t Mr Filch decide to integrate himself into Muggle society, like Martha, Isolt Sayre’s daughter, or Molly Weasley’s accountant cousin? Was there a reason he had to stay in wizarding society, something barring him from fully integrating with muggles? Why didn’t he halfway live with muggles, like Mrs Figg did. She lived in a muggle neighborhood, but still had wizarding connections and an important role in the Order of the Phoenix.
These are questions that may never get answers. The best we can hope is to theorize for now. Hopefully one day JK will decide to fill in the gaps of our knowledge about the motivations of our favorite grumpy caretaker, Mr Filch.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:48 — 4.4MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Commentary
Notes
In the Harry Potter Lexicon Minute podcast you’ll hear the voices of our editors sharing some of the many little things which delight us about the Wizarding World. In each podcast, just a couple of minutes in length, we’ll talk about anything from cool trivia and interesting canon passages to the latest Wizarding World news. We hope you’ll join us! And we’d love to hear from you as well. Feel free to use the comment section on the blogpost for each podcast to post your thoughts.
Special thanks go to Felicia Cano who gave us permission to use her amazing artwork of Hermione reading a book for the logo, which was created by Kim B.
Check out the PodBean app here
And if you want to create a podcast of your own, check out PodBean's hosting service.
Music: "Winter Chimes" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
