Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #283, Snitch Egg
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: This is MuggleCast, your Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts podcast covering everything about J.K. Rowling’s magical world. This week’s episode is brought to you by Audible.com. Audible is the leading provider of audiobooks with more than 150,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, nonfiction, and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to AudiblePodcast.com/MuggleCast. Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 283. Micah, Eric, and I are here this week. Hello, gentlemen.
Eric Scull and Micah Tannenbaum: Hello.
Andrew: There’s a lot to discuss this week.
Micah: Is there?
Andrew: Yeah, and some good stuff too. It’s funny; last episode, which was in late September, we finished recording, and then about an hour later, J.K. Rowling announced that Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the stage play, is going to be split into two parts. And we were like, “Nooo, we just finished…!”
Micah: That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Maybe.
Andrew: It’s Deathly Hallows all over again.
Eric: Oh, gosh, I just love… we were texting each other, calling each other. “Uh, should we get back on Skype and have an addendum to the MuggleCast, or…?”
Andrew: [laughs] Well, and then, funnily enough, today, October 22, she makes another Cursed Child announcement, and that works out well because maybe this will help explain why the stage play has been split into two.
Eric: Oooh, I am not up to date on today’s events.
Andrew: Oh.
Eric: Is it the artwork?
Andrew: It is the artwork, yes.
Eric: Okay, okay.
Andrew: So before we get to that, we have a lot of news to discuss this week, including two new J.K. Rowling books have been released in the time that we’ve been away. And we’re also going to do questions we’ve never addressed, and we’re also going to do Make the Music Connection. So a lot to get to.
Cursed Child News
Andrew: We’ll start with Cursed Child first. I guess we’ll start with the news of last month, which is that, yes, due to the “epic nature” of the story, in J.K. Rowling’s words, the play has been split into two parts, meaning you are going to have to get two separate tickets for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on London’s West End when it opens next summer. So what’s your gut reaction to this?
Eric: This doesn’t make any sense.
Andrew: [laughs] Well…
Micah: Can I ask a question, though, as somebody who’s not as familiar with the news surrounding this? Is it that you’re going to get to go to two sessions, or Part 1 is going to be released at some point, and then Part 2 is going to follow months later?
Andrew: No, they’re going to be running simultaneously. And this actually isn’t the first time a show has done this; there was a show called Wolf Hall on Broadway earlier this year, and that was split into two, and you had to buy two different tickets. And the website’s still up; I was poking around it last night, and it kind of explained what you have to do.
Eric: Huh.
Andrew: The reason that this bugs me when it comes to Harry Potter is that, A, if this story is so epic, that’s great, but maybe J.K. Rowling should have made this a book, not a stage play, if this story is so immense.
Eric: Okay, I can see that.
Andrew: And two, I don’t think this is fair to Harry Potter fans. I wouldn’t call Harry Potter fans… I don’t think Harry Potter fans are looking to spend probably around at least – I would imagine – $200, American dollars, to see a complete stage show. I don’t think this is right.
Micah: Disposable income. I think that’s what you wanted to say.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I have a feeling that there will be tapes, maybe leaked tapes, maybe not official tapes of the show. But I don’t know; for something that’s becoming this high profile, almost in spite of itself, it should not be this big. Andrew, where was it said that it’s just so epic? Was that something J.K. Rowling tweeted?
Andrew: Yeah, she said that last month. She said, “Due to the epic nature of the story we’ve been working on, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will be in two parts.”
Eric: Oh my God.
Andrew: And at first there was confusion, because people were like, “Well, wait, what does that mean? Does that mean Part 1, then intermission, then Part 2?”
Eric: Right.
Andrew: And that wouldn’t be worth announcing, because that happens all the time.
Eric: [laughs] Act 1, Act 2. It just… the reason I question the epic… this is the story of Harry before he knew he was a wizard, right?
Andrew: Okay, so that’s the other thing.
Eric: Is this the same play that we’re thinking of here?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: So that kind of leads us into the other part of the story that happened today. The artwork was released for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and if you look at the art, there’s a photo of a boy. He is in a nest that resembles a Golden Snitch; it’s a very cool piece of art. But then you look at the boy and you wonder, “Is this Harry?”
Micah: It’s not Harry.
Andrew: Now, on first glance, I think this is Harry. But people have pointed out, and I actually… [laughs] This didn’t dawn on me…
Eric: I’ve got to hear these theories. I’ve got to hear these.
Andrew: Well, I’ll give you my theories, but the boy in the poster art is not wearing glasses. So if this isn’t Harry, is it Remus? Is it James? Is it Neville? [laughs]
Eric: Gosh.
Andrew: So I was kind of speculating, “Well, this poster art, it symbolizes Harry within the Golden Snitch.” He’s kind of in the fetal position, so I was suggesting on Hypable, “Oh, maybe he’s…” What’s it called when you’re in an egg and…? You’re incubating.
Eric: Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Andrew: So looking at this poster, do you guys think this is Harry?
Eric: I mean, I’m inclined to believe it’s Harry, but you know what? I don’t know what to think anymore about this play. I really don’t.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Every news item we get is just slightly more confusing than the previous news item. For instance, the title, right? When the title was released, I was like, “Why call it Harry Potter and the Cursed Child?” Why not just…? Why even stick to that formula of “Harry Potter and the“? If you’re going to do something unique and new, it’s never been done before, just call it “The Cursed Child.” And have it be about Harry Potter, and everybody knows it’s about Harry Potter, but don’t call it that. But then, I guess, through a series of tweets and what has come to light, there’s a possibility that Harry is not the “Cursed Child” of the title, that there’s this other child.
Andrew: Which would make sense, because as we’ve spoken about previously, calling it “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” would be redundant if the Cursed Child is Harry.
Eric: Exactly, but so if it’s not Harry, if Harry is not the Cursed Child, who is this Cursed Child? The questions that get raised: What is Harry’s relationship to him? How is this child, whoever it may be, connected to the story of the books that we’ve read? And how is he not? I don’t know. There’s just… it’s so confusing. So this idea that there’s this image now, this poster, and it might not be Harry, that’s very interesting. But I don’t…
Andrew: I’m fascinated, because this kind of feels like getting new book art, like we’re looking at a new cover for a new Harry Potter book. [laughs]
Eric: This looks really… I love that it’s, as you said, a nest. I love the Golden Snitch. I love it a lot. Harry, I assume, takes his glasses off before he goes to bed, though; sets them on that little shelf.
Andrew: True.
Eric: So I imagine this being Harry. Maybe his hair is covering what would ordinarily be a visible scar, and maybe he’s in that small nest. But that, to me, looks like he’s crouching in what would be the cupboard under the stairs where he lived for ten years.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: So I would probably be on team it is Harry, but I like the idea… I think I was seeing over on Twitter, people were suspecting Remus, because Remus had the lycanthropy curse, whatever turns him into a werewolf. I like the idea that they would take a story as a stage play and compare, say, young Harry to young Remus. And anything with the Marauders, I’m sure everybody would spend all the money necessary to go see.
Andrew: [laughs] Right.
Eric: Because that’s where this story is at, in my opinion.
Andrew: So tickets are going on sale very soon, and I thought by now we would have some sort of synopsis telling us what is going on in this play. I mean, are they really going to sell tickets without giving us some clues?
Eric: [laughs] Yes.
Micah: Of course they are. It is typical J.K. Rowling, in terms of presenting a mystery, misdirection. It’s almost like “Harry Potter” is a moniker, right? Isn’t it just…? We’ve gotten so accustomed to seeing “Harry Potter and” before anything, so I really don’t know what to expect. I have no real theory at this point, just because there’s not a whole lot of information, but I think that it’s intentional, and based on what she said previously, fans of the Potter series will be in agreement once they actually see the play – or read a review, for those of us who aren’t able to go and see it – that we will understand the reasoning behind the title…
Eric: I hope so.
Micah: … which has always been something that she has been really, really good at doing, right? We think back to all the different puzzles we had to solve in order to reveal the title of the books…
Eric: I always needed help.
Micah: … and then at that point, we still didn’t have a whole lot of information. We didn’t know who the Half-Blood Prince was, or what the Deathly Hallows were. And I think that just speaks to her ability to write a mystery, which at its core, in my mind, is really what Harry Potter is. And she’s shown her ability to go beyond that in writing the Cormoran Strike novels. So I think she is very, very good at weaving words together, misdirecting people, and I can’t imagine that this is any different.
Andrew: Okay…
Eric: Well, as to… oh, go on.
Andrew: Actually, I got some big breaking news right now. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, geez.
Andrew: So there’s some sort of event going on; this is totally legit. The two producers said Harry Potter and the Cursed Child picks up where Deathly Hallows ended. And there is a tagline. Are you guys ready for this? [laughs]
Eric: What, to the Cursed Child?
Andrew: Yeah. “The eighth story: 19 years later.”
Micah: Interesting.
Andrew: [laughs] So this makes it a lot more confusing.
Eric: Is it a future…? I thought this was… we’ve got to go back and find where it said that it was Harry when he would… the Dursleys…
Andrew: Right, that’s what came out a while ago.
Eric: That was the first thing we heard, was it was 4 Privet Drive before Hagrid bursts down the door and… but then JKR was adamant on Twitter, “It’s not a prequel.” And she knows the English language. She knows what a prequel is and isn’t.
Micah: Well, this certainly wouldn’t be a prequel.
Eric: Well, it wouldn’t be if this information is true, but otherwise, I don’t see how it couldn’t be a prequel if it’s about Harry before he went to Hogwarts. But I just… I’m so confused.
Andrew: Oh, man.
Eric: Doesn’t make any sense.
Andrew: Previews are going to begin; they’re going to run from June 7 to July 3. So we’re only about eight or nine months away. The eighth story, 19 years later. [sighs]
Eric: The eighth… what? Is it his kid?
Andrew: That’s what it must be, right?
Eric: In a fatherly role, kind of, to a kid?
Andrew: Is it like an epilogue?
Eric: Could be Teddy Lupin.
Andrew: Could Harry take some sort of Cursed Child he discovers after the events of Deathly Hallows and put him under his wing?
Eric: Can he uncurse him? Maybe… does Expelliarmus uncurse people?
Micah: I don’t think…
Eric: That was a joke.
Andrew: I just need them to explain already. I’ve had enough.
Eric: Yeah, that’s really…
Micah: Well, which of his children would this look the most like? If we’re to take a real close look at the child that’s inside this Snitch egg.
Andrew: [laughs] “Snitch egg”?
Eric: Okay, hashtag #SnitchEgg.
Andrew: Show title. How about… I mean, I would say James Sirius. I think that’s who he looks closest to.
Micah: Can you pass along a curse through genetics?
Eric: Yeah, like… well, I don’t know about lycanthropy. JKR said Teddy Lupin was fine, though, right? He’s just a Metamorphmagus like his mum.
Andrew: Can I just say, this “eighth story,” calling it the eighth story, 19 years later…
Eric: [whispers] I don’t like this at all.
Andrew: This, to me, is a cheap marketing ploy, because it’s kind of like being like, “Hey guys, guess what? This is an eighth Harry Potter book.” Oh well.
Micah: “All was well.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: All was well, except there was this Cursed Child roaming around in two parts on the West End.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I will say, Andrew, going back to your very first, I think, question of this topic, is it fair to Harry Potter fans that it isn’t a book? I like that JKR is exploring the new media aspect. Of course, that’s technically what Pottermore was to begin with, but the idea that she’s writing a film too. I mean, Fantastic Beasts, she wrote; I assume it’s done because they’re filming. And she’s trying new things, branching out into new areas. I think as long as there is some sort of effort made to make the play widely available after it closes, like footage… you know how they do…? They sometimes film plays, even though it’s… I’m not saying a movie adaptation; they actually film the play and release it officially through official channels. That should be something that they do. And actually, apart from just being my opinion, I think it’s very realistic that they would do, knowing how commercial Harry Potter is. I mean, but if they make it reasonably available to as many people as who want it and can pay as much as they would for a book for it – and you know it’ll be at Barnes & Noble, which sells movies anyway – then it’s not necessarily as unfair.
Andrew: You know what else they’ve done? Sometimes these plays will stream live in movie theaters. You ever see these commercials? That would be cool if they did that for this.
Eric: I went there for a Star Trek thing once to a theater and they were streaming it, and the Internet crashed. It was terrible. [laughs] We all got our money back.
Andrew: Oh, gosh.
Eric: But yeah, it’s like Fathom Events.
Andrew: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: Any of those theater streaming things, yeah, yeah. They do those. That would be cool. And that would be a situation where, I mean, apart from Fantastic Beasts, you’d get tons of Harry Potter fans converging on movie theaters.
Andrew: So let’s move on. My head’s still spinning from this “eighth story.” [laughs]
Eric: I know. This is weird, guys. If any listeners have any clue, have made sense of any of the… if you were good at the door on JKR’s site…
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs]
Micah: Or the Christmas tree.
Eric: … and you know it… or the Christmas tree, or the…
Andrew: You know what else kind of makes me feel like this is post-Deathly Hallows? I mean, it is; this reliable guy apparently was at some press event, and he took a picture of that tagline.
Eric: God.
Andrew: The wings on the Snitch are kind of bruised, which would fit in with this being after what happened to the Snitch.
Eric: Yeah. Snitches get a beating. Snitches take a beating.
Andrew: Okay. Well, let’s move on. We could talk about this all day. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I know, I know. Welcome to SnitchCast. SnitchEggCast.
Andrew: What’s blowing my mind so much is that many people have yearned for years about an eighth Harry Potter book. And of course, none of us, I don’t think, really wanted an eighth Harry Potter book, or at least an eighth installment in this particular story. So to see it be used, to see it be described as the eighth in terms of the play, just is like… eugh.
Micah: Well, look, who knows better how to deal with cursed children than Harry as an adult? I mean, he basically lived through it, right?
Andrew: That’s a good point.
Micah: So maybe it has something to do with his job that he works for the Ministry, right? As an Auror?
Andrew: Oh, yeah. And you know what? Didn’t I say on a recent MuggleCast that I was thinking about the fact that J.K. Rowling put all three of the leads in the Ministry, working in the Ministry? It’s almost like she kind of wanted to set herself up for some good stories in the future.
Eric: Ohh.
Andrew: Because if you have them working in the Ministry, it’s bound to be interesting.
Eric: I don’t remember you saying that, but that’s brilliant.
Andrew: We’re going to take a quick break. Coming up, we’re going to talk more about the Cursed Child, including information that we learned – big information – during the show while recording. You won’t want to miss our reactions. But first, it’s time to remind you that today’s episode is brought to you by Audible.com. Audible is the Internet’s leading provider of audiobooks, with more than 180,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including audio versions of many New York Times bestsellers. For listeners of MuggleCast, Audible is offering you a free audiobook to give you a chance to try out their great service. Today, I have a bit of an obvious choice; it’s J.K. Rowling’s new book, Career of Evil. This is the third book in the Cormoran Strike series, written by Robert Galbraith, wink, wink. This is the third installment. I’m about 20% of the way through, and you know what? I really like it! It’s really good. I have loved J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike series so far. If you haven’t tried any of the books, now’s the perfect time with Audible. You could also get The Cuckoo’s Calling, the first book, The Silkworm the second book, or if you’re all caught up, it’s time to get Career of Evil. You can get any one of these for free by visiting AudiblePodcast.com/MuggleCast. If you love J.K. Rowling’s writing – and obviously you do – then you’re going to love these books. And I promise you, it’s not like The Casual Vacancy. [laughs] It’s better. It’s much better. It’s a whodunnit, which is so fascinating to read when a writer as talented as J.K. Rowling is writing the story. AudiblePodcast.com/MuggleCast, and we thank Audible for their support of the show.
Fantastic Beasts News
Andrew: You know what? I’m done. I’m done with magic, guys. This is frustrating me. I am going to go back to 1920s New York and protest “No witchcraft in America.”
Eric: Couldn’t it be the “Charmed Child”?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: That would be a little bit happier.
Micah: Eric, just let it go.
Andrew: “The Chosen Child.”
Micah: Until next episode, and we have more information.
Eric: Okay.
Andrew: So Fantastic Beasts is filming, as we all know, and they did their first outdoor shoots in Liverpool, England.
Eric: Woo!
Andrew: Liverpool is going to serve as exterior 1920s New York. And on Wednesday night, they did some outdoor nighttime shooting [laughs] at this place called St. George’s Hall, which is a beautiful building. And as luck would have it, there is a college residence hall right across the street from St. George’s Hall…
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: College kids save the day again.
Andrew: Exactly, some kid was just sitting in his dorm, and he was like, “Wow, Fantastic Beasts is filming right out my window. I should take video and tweet this.” So he recorded this great video of a scene taking place, and from what we can tell, there’s some sort of political protest of sorts going on. There’s a guy coming out of a vehicle, and there’s people around him chanting. Now, at first it wasn’t totally clear, but a couple reports are saying that the people are chanting… what did I write?
Eric: “We want…”?
Andrew: Yeah, “We want a second Salem,” referring, of course, to the Salem witch trials, presumably. And there are signs, like I said, that people are holding up that say, “No witchcraft in America.” So this is interesting, because something… in Fantastic Beasts, this tells us there’s going to be some sort of plot involving Muggles, presumably, who don’t want wizards in the country.
Eric: This is also very weird.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s weird in part because there is – let me put on my nerdy glasses – the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy…
Eric: Oh, man.
Andrew: … established back in the 1600s, according to canon. So as you guys remember, that was a law, according to J.K. Rowling, that said wizards are going to keep their magic stuff hidden from the Muggle world.
Eric: [laughs] “Magic stuff.”
Andrew: Now, there were a couple breaches of this International Statute of Secrecy, and I was looking at the Harry Potter Wiki, and there was one that happened in the 1930s. My guess is there was another breach, and it’s going to be happening in Fantastic Beasts.
Micah: Yeah. It’s interesting looking at this building, just from a historical standpoint. The first building that came to mind is the James Farley Post Office…
Andrew: Yes.
Micah: … which is right across the street from Pennsylvania Station here in New York City, and a lot of you listeners I’m sure have seen it. It was actually built in the early 1900s, which would coincide well, I think, with the timing of everything. Now, there’s also a New York State Supreme Court building that is in lower Manhattan, which was also built in the early 1900s and would, I think, fit maybe a little bit more here, based on the protesting that’s going on.
Eric: Right.
Micah: So those would be the two buildings that come to top of mind for me as I look at the video that was in that article.
Eric: I love that you’re a New Yorker.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Well, hopefully it’s helpful in some respect, but I would think that the Supreme Court building would match a little bit more with what’s going on and what Andrew was describing earlier, as opposed to the post office. But we can certainly continue to theorize.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: And not to borrow the nerdy glasses, but you’re right. I mean, International Statute of Secrecy; there’s this whole thing… Muggles aren’t supposed to know about wizards, period, let alone enough of them to hold some sort of protest that’s supposed to sway political favors or favor in general. And I just don’t… I don’t know where they’re going with this. We speculated earlier, though, that… I mean, well, first of all, my question about a protest is where the hell is the fantastic beasts side of it? Right? Where are the animals? Where are the creatures? But if there is, say, a dragon loose – and dragon, substitute that for any fantastic beast which is cooler than a dragon – but something that cannot be contained, that is unleashed on New York City, or whatever we speculated… “Newt only meant to stay in New York for a couple hours,” right? So all hell breaks loose, and that maybe breaks the Statute of Secrecy?
Andrew: Yeah, I think that can make a lot of sense, actually.
Eric: Yeah, but it’s quick from that to happen for people to form on the streets and start picketing that witches and wizards shouldn’t exist. It’s like, “Actually, stay in your homes if there’s a dragon loose or something.”
Andrew: [laughs] Right. Well, we’ve spoken before about how Fantastic Beasts needs some high stakes. If you’re not going to have Voldemort, why are people going to care about this story? Who’s the enemy?
Eric: True.
Andrew: And maybe the enemy are the Muggles who… like you said, a beast gets out into the public, then the Muggles realize, “Well, we don’t like these scary-ass creatures roaming around New York; screw this,” so they start protesting wizards and magic in general existing in their country. And I actually think that could be kind of compelling.
Eric: It could be.
Andrew: And could potentially span the course of three movies.
Eric: Well, it’s kind of like the Men in Black situation, right? You have these memory charms you could do to these people to get them to not care anymore, just like the Men in Black can erase… “Forget that you saw this alien” thing. And I’m wondering why, in this world, if that is what they’re shouting and picketing about, why they haven’t just been made to forget what happened.
Andrew: Well, if it’s a beast, and let’s say they fly through the air or something like that – the beast is exposed to a lot of people – maybe it would be impossible to wipe every single memory, especially in a high density place like New York.
Eric: Yeah, you know what? That’s smart. That’s very true.
Andrew: Guys, I think we just figured out the plot of the movie.
Eric: Well, it’s fun. We’ll see. We’ll see.
Andrew: Anyway, it was really cool to see this footage and see these photos. Still haven’t gotten a look at Eddie Redmayne as Newt, but that’s okay.
Eric: Special thanks to this guy who tweeted this video, Zach Bamford? I hope that’s his real name, because BAMF is in his last name. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, and the site Portkey.it took some great photos and figured out that the sign said “No witchcraft in America.” They also took this shot of David Heyman sitting in his booth on his laptop, the back of him.
Eric: Oh my God.
Andrew: It’s a little creepy, guys. [laughs] We can just write that David Heyman was there; don’t share a photo.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
J.K. Rowling and Pottermore News
Andrew: Anyway, moving on. J.K. Rowling revealed her favorite Harry Potter chapter.
Eric: Oooh.
Andrew: I thought it was interesting. It’s kind of one of those things that’s like, “Why hasn’t she said this sooner?”
Eric: Was it “The Forest Again”? Oh, sorry, I know you were just going to reveal it.
Andrew: No, you’re right. Yeah, it is.
Eric: Oh, God. [laughs]
Andrew: Why did you guess that?
Eric: I actually was… well, because that has all of the emotional significance for the seventh Harry Potter book. It’s when he chooses to die, right?
Andrew: Yeah, and probably my favorite scene in the movie in terms of emotion.
Eric: Yeah, it’s pretty good.
Micah: She just didn’t say “All of them”?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: I still remember being in the movie theater during that scene and just open sobbing everywhere. It was like somebody actually died. [laughs]
Eric: We had those professional criers in the theater with us when we saw Deathly Hallows – Part 2.
Andrew: [laughs] Everybody was a little tipsy, I think. Do you guys have a particular favorite chapter? I’ve never really thought about it.
Eric: That’s a good question. Oooh, is this a Favorites segment?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: It just became one.
Andrew: My favorite chapter is… I don’t know. I honestly couldn’t tell you. I’m not going to pretend like I have one. [laughs]
Eric: You can share mine, then, when I say mine, and you’d be like, “Oh yeah, that’s a good one.” “The Boggart in the Wardrobe” from Book 3. Sort of Professor Lupin’s hands-on practical lesson, and I believe, if I’m not mistaken, he attacks Peeves, gets Peeves out of the way on the way to the classroom. So that’s a good one, though, because I’m a big Lupin fan.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: I would also go for Prisoner of Azkaban: “Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.”
Eric: Ohhh, yeah.
Andrew: That’s when the story really started getting serious. I mean, I still remember actually watching that movie and that scene in the Shrieking Shack when they all start fighting and whatnot. That was just such a cool scene.
Eric: Yeah, and then all of the other chapters that were not adapted in that movie…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: … having to deal with Harry’s past, and Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.
Andrew: Hashtag #PrisonerOfAzkabanWasTheWorstMovie.
Eric: Oh, gosh. And I can see when people say it was the best movie. I will never agree, but I understand. But also, Micah is right, but those chapters at the end of Book 3 are so… they’re shorter than usual because they all contain just so much awesome information.
Micah: Yeah, I think – and we’ve discussed this many times, probably, throughout the course of the history of the show’s ten years – for me, Lupin was really a unifying factor, not only to Harry’s past, but he really set him up to become the wizard that he did, right? He is the one who introduces him to Defense Against the Dark Arts in the proper way, and begins to arm him for his future.
Eric: He’s the first competent teacher Harry has. [laughs]
Micah: Well, let’s not hate on Quirrell. He had a little bit of a head problem.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah. Well, and there’s McGonagall, I guess. She was pretty competent.
Andrew: All right, so moving on. A little Pottermore news.
Micah: No.
Andrew: [laughs] We all remember that Pottermore revamped their website…
Eric: Oh.
Andrew: … and the illustrations, they were really the hallmark of Pottermore, many felt, and they kind of got pushed to the side in the revamp. But there’s some cool news; people actually got really excited about this. This is a Apple ebooks, or Apple iBooks exclusive. You can buy these enhanced versions of the Harry Potter books now, only for Apple devices, and they include… they’re the full stories; they’re the full books with all of Pottermore’s illustrations. And if you touch some of them, some of them come to life, like how they did on the Pottermore website.
Eric: Oh my God, really?
Andrew: Yeah, and the chapter headers have nice fonts, and so… I mean, there’s not much to say about it, but I do have to tell you, I was really surprised by the reaction. A lot of people were excited about these. Interestingly, they were released only a few days after the first illustrated edition, which I felt was kind of strange.
Eric: Yeah, I was going to say, it’s kind of… is it to compete? Is it to basically have a digital something that looks half as decent as the gorgeous illustrated edition?
Andrew: Right. Yeah, I don’t know what… I mean, I like this in that it’s a good way to preserve all of Pottermore’s great artwork, so there’s that. And obviously, J.K. Rowling and her team wants to keep appealing to new generations of readers, and for people who insist on reading ebooks these days, maybe on their iPad or on their iPhone… obviously very popular devices, and very popular reading devices…
Micah: Really… can I just jump in there for a second? Have you ever tried to read on your iPhone a book? It is the most impossible thing to do.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Not on the 6 Plus.
Micah: Yeah, well, we can’t all be that…
Andrew: That cool.
Micah: … posh.
Eric: Oh, I don’t have a 6 Plus; I’ve just seen them.
Micah: Okay.
Andrew: I do not read on my 6 Plus. I read on my Kindle.
Micah: Yeah, see, that I can understand. Or if you have an iPad, you read on that. But the iPhone is tough. I mean, I’ve tried it; it’s not easy.
Eric: I read webpages, but not books.
Andrew: You know where I see people? I mean, I’m not a New Yorker, but I’ve seen a lot of people on New York subways reading books on their phone. Don’t you see that, Micah? Don’t you traverse the subway?
Micah: Yeah, no, I do see it. I see it all the time. I just… I’m amazed that people are able to have that level of concentration. Now, certainly they do zoom in and they have to increase the size of the text, but how much can you possibly get on a standard 6, right? Two lines, and then you have to keep scrolling and scrolling? I just… I’m impressed by those people. I’m surprised they don’t… I mean, a lot of people go audiobook, too, because that’s a lot easier.
Eric: Sometimes the subway is too loud. Drowns it out, right?
Micah: Well, no. I mean, trust me, people on the subway love to make sure that you can hear everything that they’re listening to.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: I hear audiobooks, I hear music… everything. Conversations…
Andrew: Micah, you’ve got to bring a boom box down into the subway and blast the Harry Potter audiobooks.
Micah: Okay.
Andrew: Make everybody listen. Or MuggleCast, one of the two.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: So also, another little update. This story is a little old now, so we won’t get too into it. But on the last episode, I believe I spoke about Pottermore listing Lavender Brown as “presumed dead.” Did I talk about that on the last episode?
Eric and Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: Okay, so I checked the site a couple days after I wrote about this and we spoke about it on MuggleCast, and her death disappeared from Pottermore! It doesn’t say anything about the death now. It used to say, “House: Gryffindor. Death: presumed dead, 2 May, 1998.” Now it just says, “House: Gryffindor” in her fact file. So…
Micah: She lives.
Andrew: [laughs] She lives.
Micah: As a werewolf. A she-wolf.
Andrew: Well, I think somebody at Pottermore realized that maybe they shouldn’t presume anything.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: But I’m still wondering why they just didn’t email J.K. Rowling! J.K. Rowling could offer an answer in two seconds!
Eric: In two seconds. That’s why you shouldn’t presume anything, because you’re her factual website.
Micah: Yeah, they have the definitive source on speed dial.
Andrew: Yeah! I mean, isn’t that the point of Pottermore? That they can talk to J.K. Rowling?
Eric: To not raise more questions? I don’t know. We did just talk about how JKR likes raising more questions.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, with Cursed Child, she is.
Eric: Oh, man.
Micah: It’s very similar to what happened to the encyclopedia. Remember, we had found that written somewhere on her website when she relaunched the site? She had talked about how she was going to do an encyclopedia for charity?
Andrew: Right.
Micah: We noted it, we posted it on MuggleNet, and I think, Andrew, you did on Hypable as well. And then it mysteriously disappeared. So who knows if, in fact, we will ever get an encyclopedia? But maybe it was the same person.
Andrew: We have to. There is no way that she would publish on her own website that she is writing an encyclopedia… if I am on death’s door 50 years from now, and we still don’t have the Harry Potter encyclopedia, I’m just going to… I’m going to send every listener $1,000. I don’t know.
Eric: There won’t be a Harry Potter encyclopedia, just like there won’t be an eighth Harry Potter book.
Andrew: [laughs] Right, right.
Eric: Or story. There won’t be a two-part play. And there won’t be Muggle protests on the streets of New York in the 1920s, because that did not happen.
Micah: Who knows? It could all be intentional, though. I mean, think about it. She puts these little nuggets out on her website, people find them and make a big deal about them, and then they’re gone the next day.
Andrew: You’re alleging that J.K. Rowling purposely leaked that she’s writing an encyclopedia?
Eric: That may have been…
Andrew: I’m just curious. What are you saying? What do you mean?
Micah: Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if she just puts things like that around her website in the hopes that somebody will just glance over it and not really pay it much attention. But I don’t know. Maybe it’s not her; maybe it’s somebody who works for her.
Eric: It’s the Internet; somebody’s always paying attention.
Micah: Well, that’s true.
Eric: But I think with the encyclopedia thing, the mention on her old website was just… that was before the Sony deal, right? I mean, she had a huge, lengthy deal with Sony to develop Pottermore, and that…
Micah: No, I mean, I could go back and find the article, but I think Pottermore was already launched at that point when we found this.
Eric: Oh, wow.
Micah: I could be wrong. I’ll go back and find it.
Eric: You know what? Now that you say that, that’s probably… that rings a bell somewhere.
Micah: That’s why it was news.
Eric: Right.
Micah: It was news because Pottermore had already been launched, and there was a sentence or two on her website about the fact that she was going to be writing an encyclopedia. And I forget the exact wording, but we can find the story. It was definitely something we published.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, I think that may have been, too, that somebody from Sony was like, “Hey, you’re taking the focus away from Pottermore here. That’s against our contract. You can’t say that.” Maybe it was something like that.
Andrew: Well, and my theory was – and I guess it still stands – is that Pottermore didn’t like J.K. Rowling promoting an encyclopedia when they were still releasing Pottermore because… and I feel like there was an agreement in place that said, “No encyclopedia until Pottermore is finished.” Because once the encyclopedia is out, nobody gives two darns about Pottermore. And now Pottermore is, for all intents and purposes… it’s finished, all seven books are out, and it’s turned into this kind of official resource for everything Harry Potter, which, by the way, I think is a good idea. I think a big franchise like Harry Potter needs something like that.
Eric: Right.
Micah: Okay, so here’s the statement that was on her website. This was in April of 2012, right?
Eric: [whispers] Detective Micah.
Micah: So Pottermore had been launched by 2012?
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Micah: Okay, so this was what was on her personal website. It says, “For a long time I have been promising an encyclopedia of Harry’s world, and I have started working on this now – some of it forms the new content in Pottermore.”
Eric: Oh.
Micah: So yes, Pottermore is around. “It is likely to be a time-consuming job, but when finished I shall donate all royalties to charity.” Now, in May, she updated her website to say…
Andrew: [laughs] Once we found out that she posted that.
Micah: Right. “I have been enjoying sharing information about Harry’s world on Pottermore for free, and don’t have any firm plans to publish it in book form.” Now, that doesn’t mean that she wouldn’t still be writing an encyclopedia; it just means that she wouldn’t take everything in Pottermore and translate it into book form. And there’s also the free element of it, too, but I think people would pay money for an encyclopedia with the knowledge that the royalties are going to charity. I don’t understand the free portion of it as an argument. I really think Potter fans… you go back to things like Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages, right? People knew that the proceeds were going to charity, and that didn’t stop them from purchasing it.
Andrew: You know what may have delayed the encyclopedia from the time she said that? Fantastic Beasts. Because we found out that Fantastic Beasts was a thing in September 2013, so in between… I’m trying to remember when exactly Warner Bros. talked her into doing Fantastic Beasts, but I’m pretty sure it was after she made that statement about the encyclopedia.
Eric: Well, that makes sense, but also, it just represents something that I haven’t quite thought about exactly. But JKR, right around that time, experienced a creative second wind with the world of Harry Potter. When she made those comments about starting work on an encyclopedia, or began producing content for Pottermore, and then was approached by Warner Bros. to continue the story, to which she said, “No, but there’s actually a lot of material in the ’20s. Let’s go experience…” That was when the neurons started firing. It was no longer “Harry Potter is done, I did this for ten years, I’m taking a break, raising kids,” all that stuff. Now there’s so much creative stuff coming from her. And Cursed Child is, to some extent, that as well, but it’s really a creative second wind for J.K. Rowling. What was seven books and two companion books is now… I guess wherever you’d put Beedle the Bard. But Pottermore, Fantastic Beasts, the trilogy – the at least trilogy – Cursed Child, possible encyclopedia, JKR tweeting daily… all this extra stuff that’s like Harry Potter again.
Micah: Answering questions, yeah. Irrelevant to Potter.
Eric: It’s very cool to experience that.
Micah: But some people don’t like it. You say that it’s cool, but there are a lot of people out there that don’t like her continuing to expand the world outside of what she wrote in those seven books.
Eric: It’s true. Yeah, I mean, I’ve encountered… I’ve seen a lot of resistance on the web like that, people saying she doesn’t have the authority to answer questions that weren’t answered in the books.
Micah: She is the authority, so she has the authority.
Eric: Yeah, well, that would be my argument too, but it’s kind of… it’s the difference between headcanon and canon, and what is canon and what people think in their heads, and they don’t want her to answer those questions. I don’t know. I’ve never understood not wanting JKR to answer a question, because I think her ability to answer it far trumps my ability to imagine what the answer is. But it’s kind of… some people don’t want that.
Micah: Well, it’s understandable, but I will say that there are so many fans of other series where the author isn’t living anymore that would love to have answers to questions, so I think the fact that she is willing to be responsive to fans in all the different ways that she is is something that should be valued. I just… that would sort of be the counterargument. But I will say, I do love all the detective work that we’re trying to do here to sort of solve all these different mysteries.
Andrew: Lot of detective work today.
Eric: Feels like classic MuggleCast. [laughs]
Cursed Child Update
Andrew: Here’s a little more, by the way, guys, about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. So that guy I told you who reported that…
Micah: Is a fraud?
Andrew: [laughs] No, no.
Eric: He was completely wrong.
Andrew: No, it’s Baz Bamigboye – I can’t pronounce his name, sorry – at The Daily Mail. He’s very reputable, despite it being The Daily Mail.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: So he actually did confirm with the show’s producers that this is about Albus Severus.
Micah: Wow.
Eric: What?!
Andrew: A statement from the creative team noted that Albus Severus “must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted,” and that “past and present fuse ominously” when Harry and his younger son “learn the uncomfortable truth: that sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.” Now, here’s some other good news, while we all digest this… [laughs]
Eric: Did she post-canonically change Albus Severus’s name to something more palatable? Please tell me so. Please tell me so. Please tell me so.
Andrew: [laughs] Well, the report says “Al,” so…
Eric: Oh, God. Oh, God.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: “Harry Potter’s kid Al is seduced by the Dark side.”
[Micah laugh]
Andrew: I hope… well, that’s not…
Micah: No, no, go ahead. I mean, I just think that now it makes a little bit more sense if this is in fact true, because…
Andrew: It’s true.
Micah: Okay, well, then it’s true…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: … but then Al is cursed in the sense of just being Harry’s son. He has to live up to this legacy. Who knows what other sort of dark, ominous forces are going to be at play here? But I think he’s not necessarily cursed in the sense that Harry was, but through everything that Harry has experienced, and maybe it’s living up to expectations, he’s just cursed in that sense.
Eric: But Harry’s got two other kids, right? James Remus and the girl.
Andrew: So here’s a little more good news; I will stand corrected. The show will have tickets for as little as £15, so people can see the two-part production for just £30. That’s not bad.
Micah: What, so you can watch it on TV outside or something?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, I mean, those won’t be the best seats, but you’ll be in for £30 for both. So that’s okay. And they said previews will run as little as £10 in the lottery.
Micah: Okay. Well, I’m expecting more breaking news before the end of the show.
Andrew: Well, we’ve got to wrap, because now I’ve got to go write this on Hypable. Show’s over.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: Ohh.
Career of Evil and illustrated Sorcerer’s Stone
Micah: Where I was trying to go with the detective work that we were doing is that there is a new Cormoran Strike novel that has been released this week…
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: Very nice. Nice transition.
Micah: … by Robert Galbraith, a.k.a. J.K. Rowling, called Career of Evil. I actually haven’t purchased it yet; I plan on it. But I know a lot of our friends and other people that we know, they can’t wait to consume it. It’s almost the same as a Harry Potter novel, and they blow through it in less than 24 hours. I don’t feel that way about these books. I would rather get it, enjoy it, read it over the period of a couple days, maybe even longer. And how do you guys feel about this? Have you read the other ones? Are you into this series or not as much?
Eric: Well, I feel similarly. I want to get it, I want to take my time enjoying it, maybe try my hand at guessing; although for Cuckoo’s Calling, I didn’t guess it, and perhaps it was obvious. Everybody else I know was like, “Yeah, I totally guessed that.” But the problem is, because I’ve said that I want to take my time and enjoy it, I’ve never given myself time to read The Silkworm, so I still haven’t read The Silkworm. There’s a copy in my apartment, but I’ve not read it.
Andrew: I read the first two; I took my time with them. They’re both very good. I’m about 20%, according to my Kindle, into the third.
Eric: Oooh, they give you a status bar type thing?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, they even tell you how much time left until you finish the chapter, or the book.
Eric: Oh my God.
Andrew: It’s very handy. Kindles are great these days.
Eric: That’s cool.
Andrew: And yeah, I’m enjoying this one too. And there are certain suspects in this third book right from the outset, so you could kind of make your own conclusions, but it would be very hard to figure it out on your own.
Eric: Oh, I read that in the synopsis, right? They’re going after one of the lesser… the police have one suspect, but they’re going after another, kind of thing.
Andrew: Yeah, something like that.
Eric: That’s cool. That’s cool. Yeah, I will read it. I think it’s great… I mean, it’s J.K. Rowling does a mystery, and it’s not anything like Casual Vacancy. I’ve enjoyed Cuckoo’s Calling, and I will be reading The Silkworm, and I will be purchasing Career of Evil and reading it.
Andrew: And another book that was released a couple weeks ago was the first ever Harry Potter illustrated edition. It’s beautiful. Do you guys have it?
Eric: I don’t yet.
Micah: I’ve ordered it from Amazon.
Andrew: Good.
Eric: I’ve called this my bad fan month, and this is… October 2015 is my bad fan month. I haven’t bought the illustrated edition. I haven’t bought Career of Evil. There’s more. So yeah, I will.
Andrew: I would like to first of all recommend that you do not buy this from Barnes & Noble. I was there as soon as the store opened; they were selling it for $40, no discount of any sort. Weirdly, their own website was discounting it for a price closer to Amazon’s, about $22. And I asked them; I said, “Well, don’t you price match your own website?” And they said, “Nope.” So I did end up buying it because I wanted it that day, but I ended up returning it and I bought the cheaper copy. [laughs]
Eric: You’re not a bad person, Andrew. You’re not.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: I would have done the same thing.
Andrew: Yeah, I mean, I was still paying for it.
Micah: Well, no, I paid 22 bucks, like you said, for it on Amazon, which I think is a reasonable price for an illustrated book.
Andrew: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s big; like we had speculated, the book is wider to accommodate the text with the new illustrations. There are over 100 illustrations. There’s not an illustration on every single page, but some pages will have one giant illustration. Sometimes the illustrations will go across two pages. Sometimes there’ll just be one small illustration. Sometimes there’s no illustration all, but that’s okay. I think they were evenly distributed throughout the book. The book is just beautiful to page through. I haven’t done this yet, but I still want to sit there and read the story page by page over again, and just experience the story with these illustrations.
Eric: I have to say, all the photos that my friends posted on social media about it just impressed me further.
Andrew: Yeah. My personal favorite… there’s a great one of Nearly Headless Nick.
Eric: No!
Andrew: Yep, as a ghost. If you click that link I have in the doc, I took a picture of that one.
Eric: Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Andrew: There’s one of Harry sitting with Dumbledore after Harry looks into the Mirror of Erised, which I thought was really adorable. And there’s one of Harry and Hagrid in the boat on the way to, or I guess maybe away from, the Dursleys’ home. And it’s just so great because Harry is reaching up into the sky, reaching for the birds, and Hagrid is just watching him from behind.
Eric: Is that your coffee table?
Andrew: No, that’s a bed. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, it looks cool. I was like, “That pattern is really cool.” [laughs]
Andrew: It’s from IKEA. [laughs]
Eric: Okay.
Andrew: “I recommend the bed quilt from…”
Eric: I’m going to get the same bed from IKEA.
Andrew: Yeah, you should.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Anything else to say about this, the illustrated editions?
Eric: Is it supposed to be springs? Is it the pattern?
Andrew: [laughs] Squigglies.
Eric: I love Hagrid and Harry in the boat.
Andrew: And don’t forget, one of these books is supposed to come out every year, so I will absolutely be purchasing each one of these. And great job to Jim Kay, the illustrator.
Eric: Yeah, the colors… the medium looks phenomenal. I’m just staring at this one of him on the platform, and my jaw is open, just like Harry’s.
[Andrew laughs]
The Big Questions We Never Asked
Andrew: So it’s time now for questions we’ve never answered. We asked on Twitter, Twitter.com/MuggleCast, “Biggest questions we never asked. What do you got for us?” Molly asked about the Thestrals. She was curious about that.
Eric: Oooh.
Andrew: “Why couldn’t Harry see the Thestrals from the very beginning? He watched Lily die, so why did he finally see them after watching Cedric die in Goblet of Fire?”
Eric: This is going to make us seem really smart, because this question actually has an answer. It’s been addressed by J.K. Rowling on more than one occasion, and there’s actually… it’s not even just Lily’s death, as she mentioned Cedric as well. There’s a moment where it’s specifically pointed out in Goblet of Fire. After Cedric’s death, at the end of the year, Harry is going back to the train, and it is said that there’s horseless carriages. And that’s the moment, too, where he had just seen Hedric… wow.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: He had just seen Cedric die, and it’s like, “Oh, okay, if you need to experience death to see Thestrals, then that should have been the moment where she introduced them.” But I believe JKR said… well, first of all, she said the death needs to sink in. So even after you’ve witnessed a death, there’s sort of a grieving process, and the magic of the Thestrals is tied into how you’re grieving, how you process the death. I think we speculated even on Alohomora as well. If you witness… if two different people witness the same death, they will see Thestrals at different times, because even though they saw the same death, they’re processing it differently. And it has something to do with that, and that was…
Andrew: That makes perfect sense.
Micah: So the actual quote from J.K. Rowling…
Eric: Oh, thank you, Micah.
Micah: And going back to Lily, I would just say Harry is too young.
Eric: Right.
Micah: I mean, I don’t think he can even process what’s going on at that moment. He has no clue, no recollection. So I think that answers the part about Lily, but on Cedric, she said, “At the end of Goblet of Fire, we sent Harry home more depressed than he had ever been leaving Hogwarts. Now, I knew that the Thestrals were coming, and I can prove that because they are in the book that I produced for Comic Relief, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, these unlucky black winged horses. However, if Harry had seen them then and we hadn’t explained them then, I thought that would be rather a cheat on the reader in that Harry suddenly sees these monsters but we don’t go anywhere with them, so to explain to myself, I said that you had to have seen the death and allowed it to sink in a little bit before slowly these creatures became solid in front of you, so that’s how I am going to sneak past that one.”
Eric: That is sneaky. Although I actually like that comment for explaining the Goblet of Fire thing. She’s like, “Yeah, he technically kind of maybe should have seen them then, but then I made it part of the magic of Thestrals.” I’m like, “Okay, that’s reasonable.” But I knew she addressed it.
Andrew: Here is another one, from Lily. “I have a couple different ones I’m dying to know about. Can a magical painting use a Pensieve to store memories, e.g. Dumbledore?” I doubt it, right?
Eric: No, no, no. Heavens, no. Unless it’s a painted Pensieve.
Andrew: [laughs] What?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Good answer. I like that answer.
Eric: If the Pensieve is in the portrait, why couldn’t they, right? There’s no reason why that shouldn’t work.
Andrew: Okay, so that’s kind of a literal answer.
Eric: Well, but I mean, a portrait is… the magic of… portraits can’t enter the human realm, where there are Pensieves and other magical… where the humans are, and looking into the portrait. So I would say probably… my guess is only if there’s a Pensieve in their portrait, and then and only then should it function the same way that it would in the real world.
Andrew: Okay. Well, here’s another one from SouthwarkJ. “The final battle: Why did so few parents turn up to fight alongside their kids? They could have Apparated to Hogsmeade. #selfish.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Is that selfish? I don’t know.
Eric: Oh, bad parenting. Hashtag #BadParenting.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. My thought on this is maybe the parents did show up; it’s just that there was so much happening during the final battle, J.K. Rowling couldn’t possibly write in all these other mentions.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, and how fast can news travel, right?
Andrew: True.
Eric: The kids don’t have the benefit of knowing how to send their… Patronuses are notoriously difficult to cast, too. How would you get word? Even in the span of a prolonged final battle at Hogwarts, there’s just no way… you can’t get past Death Eaters to go send a message or send an owl; it’s not going to work. So how do you notify your parents?
Micah: Right. Yeah, I agree with both of those statements, and I think there is probably a good chance that there were parents there that we just didn’t have the luxury of being able to go into that level of detail. But at the same time, look at the three main characters, right? Harry doesn’t have parents, Ron’s parents are both there, and Hermione’s wouldn’t be able to fight in this kind of situation, not to mention the fact that their memories are erased at this point, and they’re wandering somewhere in Australia, right? So it just… well, I mean, Augusta Longbottom showed up; Draco’s parents are there. So it’s not like it’s without parents. I mean, for the characters that we’ve come to really know, their families are involved in the final battle.
Eric: I forgot about Augusta Longbottom. Damn, Micah, you’re on fire.
Andrew: [laughs] I want to know if Lavender Brown’s parents showed up.
Micah: Oh, geez.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Did they have to watch her maybe die?
Eric: Somebody had to claim the body. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I want an answer to that, Pottermore.
Micah: But to J.K. Rowling’s previous point about introducing the Thestrals very early on without having any sort of subtext to them and making it confusing, you could argue the same thing here as it relates to people’s parents. We’ve gotten brief mentions of some people’s families, but are you going to get the parents of Dean Thomas or Seamus or…? It’s just… I think it would feel out of place, wouldn’t it?
Eric: Yeah, and Harry wouldn’t have time in his headspace to be like, “Oh, so-and-so, this tall, scraggly man, that must have been Seamus’s dad, based on his accent.” You don’t have that. Harry is thinking about way other things right now, so even if they had been there…
Andrew: One final question; this is from Maggie. It’s about Parseltongue. “If Ron can mimic Parseltongue, why can’t wizards learn it like other languages? Must you be born with the ability to speak it?”
Eric: Oooh. This is a good one.
Andrew: So we know it’s inherited, Parseltongue, so there’s that. And you also have to remember, Ron was just making the sounds, and it took him a few tries to do it. He wasn’t able to just… it wasn’t easy to do. And I know this did bother a bunch of people while they were reading it, right? Did it bother you, Eric?
Eric: Yeah, it bothered me, because it’s… but also, why wouldn’t it work? It’s like, “Speak ‘friend’ and enter.” If you know the Elvish word for friend, you can enter even without speaking a single other word of Elvish. It’s kind of like that. But you don’t necessarily have to be born with the ability to speak it, because we see Harry – in Harry’s exceptional circumstance, being a part Horcrux – was able to speak it.
Andrew: Yeah. Okay, well, thank you to everybody who submitted those. I’d love to keep doing this more. We want to engage our listeners, so keep an eye out on Twitter, and we should probably do it on Facebook, too, or maybe…
Eric: Yeah, if we didn’t answer your question on this episode, make it better and send it again.
Andrew: “Make it better”?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Eric, that’s mean.
Eric: No, no, we just picked a handful.
Andrew: Well, sometimes we look at questions and we think, “Well, we may have already addressed that,” or “We may have already done it.”
Make the Music Connection
Andrew: Micah, I can tell you’re in the mood for some Make the Music Connection.
Micah: You know it.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: So would you like to go first, then?
Micah: Sure.
Andrew: Okay. We almost didn’t do it, but then Micah was like, “Do two.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Okay, here, Micah. Here’s your choice.
[“Reminiscing” by Little River Band plays]
Friday night, it was late, I was walking you home
We got down to the gate, and I was dreaming of the night
Would it turn out right?
[Eric laughs]
How to tell you, girl
I want to build my world around you
Tell you that it’s true
Andrew: What is that, Eric?
Eric: “Reminiscing” by Little River Band.
Andrew: Okay.
Eric: [laughs] I dug through my ’70s again, guys.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Nice. Yeah, I always feel like it’s a running joke to say it’s something that Filch and Mrs. Norris would be dancing to.
Eric: Oh, come on, you always go to Filch and Mrs. Norris.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: No, probably a song that would easily be playing when Ron was off snogging some girl around the grounds of Hogwarts and pissing off Hermione.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, there is a quality of “Say goodnight by the garden gate” type aspect to the romance. I like it.
Andrew: And who should be the other person?
Eric: It should be you.
Andrew: Me? All right, here we go.
[“California (There Is No End to Love)” by U2 plays]
The weight that drags your heart down
Well, that’s what took me where I need to be
Which is here, out on Zuma
Watching you cry like a baby
California, at the dawn you thought would never come
But it did, like it always does
Andrew: So that’s a new song off U2’s most recent album.
Eric: Wait, what? It’s not my ’70s?
Andrew: No.
Eric: Oh, okay. Micah, you got the ’70s. [laughs]
Andrew: That’s called “California (There Is No End to Love).” I’m afraid there’s no Harry Potter connections to California, but I would kind of put that with Harry, Ron, and…
Micah: Not the theme park?
Andrew: What?
Micah: The theme park.
Andrew: Yeah, okay. [laughs]
Micah: That’s not helping.
Andrew: So this is a song about…
Eric: Andrew was onto something, and Micah gave him the easy one.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Like, “Oh, it’s the theme park in California.”
Andrew: No, I was thinking canon-wise, I would say the trio while they’re on the road, because Bono sings about Calif… I don’t even know what he’s singing about. He says, “California, at the dawn you thought would never come, but it did like it always does,” and “All I need to know is there is no end to love.”
Eric: Okay, there you go.
Andrew: So I always imagine… I have obviously listened to that song a bunch of times. It kind of reminds me of a traveling song, a road song, so while they’re on the road.
Eric: I think that’s superb. I like that a lot.
Andrew: I’m not happy with it, but if you are…
Eric: [laughs] Well, it was a weird… it was a non-’70s song when I promised a ’70s song. I apologize.
Andrew: [laughs] Eric, all right, let’s do you. We might as well.
Eric: All right, all right.
[“Catch a Wave” by The Beach Boys plays]
Catch a wave and you’re sitting on top of the world
Don’t be afraid to try the greatest sport around
(Catch a wave, catch a wave)
Everybody tries it once
Those who don’t just have to put it down
You paddle out, turn around, and raise
And baby, that’s all there is to the coastline craze
You gotta catch a wave and you’re sitting on top of the world
Andrew: So I guess that’s Beach Boys?
Eric: Yeah, ’60s now. You know what? These songs all have a tie to California, which is that “Reminiscing”… I know this is a bore to our listeners. “Reminiscing” was played in the new Planet of the Apes movie, which is set in San Francisco. And the coast is obviously where the people surf; it’s off of California. And U2’s “California”… I don’t know what I did for this Make the Music Connection. But anyway, “Catch a Wave,” song by The Beach Boys. Brian Wilson, Mike Love, 1963. I’m going to go with extreme wizard sports, right? You know wizards have a comparison sport to surfing, but it may be even cooler. I mean, of course, there’s Quidditch and riding a broom. Maybe that’s actually just it. Maybe that’s the comparison, is broom riding. [singing] “Catch a Snitch and you’re sitting on top of the world.”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, I can see that.
Eric: Yeah, I’m going to go with Quidditch.
Andrew: Yeah, for sure.
Plugs
Andrew: All right. Well, thank you, everybody, for listening. It’s been a lot of fun. Couple podcast plugs here at the end of the show.
Eric: Puh-puh-puh-puh-podcast plugs! Sorry.
Andrew: Puh-puh-puh-podcast plugs. MillennialShow.com; I do a weekly podcast about entertainment, politics – occasional Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc. – every week. MillennialShow.com with… I didn’t complete that sentence. With Laura, Elysa, Matt, and the occasional guest host, like Micah. So check that out. It’s available for free, and we also have a Patreon, if you would like to support us. Patreon.com/Millennial. But first, listen to the show; it’s free and it’s weekly.
Eric: You heard Micah and I talk previously about Game of Owns, the podcast that we do for the Game of Thrones, Song of Ice and Fire book series. But our cohost on that, Zack Luye, has a new podcast. Micah, tell them all about it.
Micah: So it is a podcast called The Strike Files, and I give you one guess as to what it is about. It is a podcast about the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith, cohosted by Zack and…
Eric: Somebody you’ll recognize.
Micah: … Melissa Annelli, who many people know from the Potter fandom, amongst other things. So I would definitely give it a listen if you’re into the Cormoran Strike series; especially now with Career of Evil just having been released this past week, I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of discussion focused right around that book. But Eric also mentioned Game of Owns, our Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire podcast, and we actually just had our 300th episode and live show at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square with a couple of guests of the show. It is definitely something I think that fans of Game of Thrones will enjoy listening to, so if you’re a fan of the TV show or the book series, definitely give us a listen. GameOfOwns.com, and Game of Owns on every possible social media platform that you can imagine.
Eric: And one more: Finally, I’d like to mention a podcast I’ve mentioned a couple times before, the Improvised Star Trek podcast. It’s a comedy podcast. Listen, enjoy, you’ll have fun. Don’t need to know anything about Star Trek. It’s comedy. It’s long form, improvisational comedy. You’ll love it.
Andrew: Thank you, everybody, for listening, and we will see you next month for our November episode. Who knows what more info we’re going to be talking about then? Maybe an encyclopedia.
Eric: What if Jo does it again? What if, in another hour, despite you thanking her, what if she…? [laughs]
Andrew: Well, I’m glad that this Albus Severus stuff came out now, because…
Eric: Oh my gosh, Al.
Andrew: Al.
Eric: “You Can Call Me Al.” For Make the Music Connection next time, everybody’s getting Paul Simon, “You Can Call Me Al.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: All right, we’ll see everybody next time for Episode 284. Goodbye!
Eric: Goodbye.
Micah: Bye.