I am admittedly a (scrunching up my face, raising my voice an octave) “the book is sooo much better than the movie” kinda guy. And annoyingly so. While I’m entertained by the Harry Potter movies, it’s hard for me to get through scenes in the movies without thinking how differently each was portrayed in the books.

However, there was one scene in The Deathly Hallows Part 2 that I thought was done better in the movie than the books. It’s the scene where Harry encounters the ghost of Helena Ravenclaw, “The Grey Lady.” In their discussion about Ravenclaw’s Diadem, Harry unwittingly strikes a nerve with The Grey Lady, and she wigs out on him.

I know what he’s done! I know who he is! He DEFILED it! With DARK MAGIC!

Unlike the book, the movie version of this scene has The Grey Lady shouting at Harry, and the air seems to ripple and tear when she enunciates “defiled” and “dark magic.” It’s not a shriek or a wail like a banshee. But in the scene, if you’re watching the movie with the volume up, you get the sense that Harry, who’s out of the shot, is wincing like someone just blasted a tractor trailer horn next to his ear.

And this makes me think of Agatha the Banshee.

It makes me want to portray Agatha as someone who can go from serene to volatile in an instant, turning the conversations around Sister Garaele’s or Hamun Kost’s errands into a minefield for the characters.

The slightest misstep suddenly makes Agatha LOUD. Not banshee’s wail drops you to 0 hit points LOUD. More of a temporary hearing loss causes 1d4 hit points psychic damage LOUD. It could be both a fun flourish and a subtle warning for characters to tread lightly, or risk waking up 1-4 hours later with their ears ringing.

It’s also an opportunity to bake in ability checks. What if a conversation with the banshee is similar to disarming a complex trap? But instead of multiple Dexterity checks, it’s multiple Charisma checks throughout the social encounter. If the check fails, she gets LOUD. If the check fails by 5 or more, she lets loose a wail and the characters suddenly experience something most only hear about in hearth tales.

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