MuggleCast EP19 Transcript
Intro
Andrew [Show Intro with music in background]: This is MuggleCast – Episode 19 for December 11, 2005. Hello ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another fine edition of MuggleCast. This is the show where we bring you the latest in Harry Potter news, theories, discussions, wrapping paper, Grammy nominations, MP3 players. It’s all right here bundled into a little hour of your time. I’m Andrew Sims.
Ben: I’m Ben Schoen.
Kevin: I’m Kevin Steck.
Eric: I’m Eric Scull.
Laura: And I’m Laura Thompson.
Andrew: We have a lot for you this week, but before we get started, first let’s go to Micah to fill us in on the past week’s top news stories.
News
Micah: Thanks, Andrew.
What’s with this News room being decorated in all Hufflepuff stuff? Anyway…
The new JK Rowling and Stephen Fry interview, which aired at 9 AM Sunday morning on BBC Radio 4, is now available. There is also a transcript posted for those of you who are interested. In it the Harry Potter author discussed the end of the final novel, saying “Yes, I do know what’s going to happen in the end.” Well, I’m glad somebody does. “And occasionally I get cold shivers when someone guesses at something that’s very close, and then I panic and I think ‘Oh, is it very obvious?’ and then someone says something that’s so off the wall that I think, ‘No, it’s clearly not that obvious!'”
Bloomsbury has announced the release date for the UK paperback version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: June 23rd, 2006. We’ll keep you posted on any news regarding the US version.
Staying with releases, Blockbuster has become the second to report a release date of April 4th, 2006 for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on DVD. We’ll keep you posted as April gets closer.
For new interviews, pictures, and video clips, be sure to check out MuggleNet’s Main Page.
Warner Bros. Pictures has launched their Official Awards Site. On it you will find information about the categories for each film WB is supporting in their campaigns. There are synopses, downloadable jpegs, and clips for our award hopefuls. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has been nominated in several categories including Best Picture and Best Visual Effects.
And as promised, our Goblet of Fire interviews that we filmed with The Leaky Cauldron are now available in iPod video format. It has been added to our MuggleCast feed and only available in iTunes.
And speaking of MuggleCast, our weekly Harry Potter podcast has been nominated for “Best Podcast” at The Weblog Awards. If you want me to stay employed and you’re confident that we’re cooler than Adam Curry, then go and vote for us!
Finally, Jim Dale, narrator of the US audio books, has been nominated for a Grammy award in the category of “Best Spoken Word Album for Children” for his work on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Dale previously won a Grammy in 2000 for the Goblet of Fire. The awards will take place in Los Angeles on February 8th and will be broadcast later that day.
Jim got himself in a little bind last week, in a recent interview. He commented on JKR, saying “She’s lived with Harry Potter so long she really wants to kill him off.” Based on this, hordes of media sources, mainly tabloids, printed articles claiming JK does indeed want to kill off the boy wizard. This of course is untrue. Dale was merely expressing his opinion. [whispers] But, Jim…buddy…probably not the best choice of words.
That’s all the news for this December 11, 2005 edition of MuggleCast. Back to you guys!
Andrew: All right, thank you Micah. Now, before we get started here…well, we’ve already started, what am I saying? [laughs as he talks]
[Kevin laughs]
Ben’s Weekly Top 10
Andrew: Ben’s got a Top 10 List for us, right Ben?
Ben: Of course. This is everyone’s favorite part of the show.
Laura: Uh-huh.
Ben: By everyone’s favorite caster.
Kevin: [fake cough] Right.
[All laugh]
Ben: Okay. Ladies and gentlemen… the “The Top 10 Reasons For Why You Wonder If There Is Such A Thing As Over-speculation.”
No. 10: Your favorite on MuggleNet besides MuggleCast is “The Little Things.”
No. 9: You wonder…you wonder…whoopsie…you wonder from Book 3 about the prospect of being frightened to death because you kept seeing death omens and think about what would happen if you convinced yourself they weren’t real.
No. 8: You hit your head on something whenever someone says, “Just speculation.”
No. 7: You take everything on Dumbledoreisnotdead.com and further analyze it…if that’s even possible.
[All laugh]
Andrew: No.
Ben: No. 6: You have written, made analysis of, and generally overspeculated on seemingly minor topics such as “How Dementors Are Created.”
No. 5: That would be…You notice the smallest details in the book, yet completely failed to notice the Ron and Hermione ‘shipping until very late.
[Laura laughs]
Ben: No. 4: You try to uncover all the characteristics, all the character’s Patronuses and do conclude that Mr. Weasley’s is indeed a rubber duck and have a complete list why.
No. 4: [Transcriber note: He says “No. 4,” but really means “No. 3.”] You try to find out the psychological issues Ben has that makes him able to perform a proper British accent. Oh, what’s up with that one?
[All laugh]
Ben: I can do a British accent fine. [in fake British accent] Right, Jamie?
Eric: Keep going.
Ben: Okay. No. 2: You developed a theory on why Andrew insists on saying, [imitating Andrew] “Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right.”
Andrew: [Laughs] I have my own theory about that.
Ben: [Laughs] And the No. 1 reason if there is such thing as overspeculation…You wonder if Micah had a troubled childhood because his last name means “fir tree” in German and is used in a Christmas Song.
[Andrew laughs]
Ben: [Singing] O’Tannenbaum, O’Tannenbaum…
Andrew: Da da da da. [laughs]
Laura: Ummm…okay.
Ben: Okay.
Kevin: Okay. Yeah, so…
[Andrew laughs]
Ben: Yeah, so if you’re disappointed with this week’s Top 10 List, have no fear. Send your own Top 10 List to ben at staff dot mugglenet dot com or you can select my name from the “Contact Form.” Also, thanks to Sara for sending in this week’s list. So, keep them coming. We want some good ones next week. Something interesting. Get down. Come up with your own Top 10 List.
Andrew: Thank you, Ben.
Eric: Does this mean I overanalyze things? I mean I have a theory on why Andrew said “Yeah” so many times. I think it was because he was excited.
Andrew: Ehhh…
Ben: No, that’s a false theory.
Eric: Maybe. Possibly. I don’t know. I think I better consult the books.
Andrew: My theory, my theory is because I had always felt like, with the gaps where people were just cheering, I felt like…I thought it was weird that nobody was… I thought, you know…
Laura: You had to rev them up, basically.
Andrew: …that we should have filled it.
Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: Well, they were already revved up.
Ben: [Imitating Andrew] Yeah!!! Yeah!!!
[All laugh]
Andrew: But anyway, moving on from that.
Kevin: I don’t think you needed Andrew to rev them up. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, that’s true.
Andrew: [Laughs] Yeah.
Ben: Okay.
Andrew: All you got to do is walk in the building and it’s like, “Wooo!!!”
Announcements
Andrew: No, but anyway, moving on to a couple of announcements. It’s a new month, which means it’s another vote for you guys to put in over at Podcast Alley. I didn’t really want to ask this week…
Eric: Because we ask every week?
Andrew: We’re not…we almost…let me…I’m checking right now. We’re No. 5 and that is without begging you guys to do it. So, I don’t want to beat “Dawn and Drew Show” because I’m a heavy-duty listener of their show and they’re all excited that they are No. 1.
[Kevin and Ben laugh]
Andrew: But I don’t want to take it away.
Kevin: Well…just vote for us.
Ben: Just beat them. Beat them out.
Kevin: Yeah.
Ben: We don’t care about them.
Andrew: No, I really don’t. I like them too much.
Kevin: Maybe…
Eric: Let them have…
Ben: Humble? Andrew…humble?
[Laura laughs]
Ben: That’s an oxymoron.
[All laugh]
Ben: Come on. Those two words do not belong together in the same sentence. You can’t be serious!
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Okay.
[Laura and Andrew laugh]
Andrew: Here’s the deal…
Eric: Neither do Ben and Emma, but that doesn’t stop you, Ben.
Ben and Kevin: Ohhhh!
Eric: Everybody knows she loves me.
Andrew: Once we get up to No. 2, that’s when you guys can stop voting for us. Everyone pretty much knows that we use Skype and especially lately, we’ve been getting a huge amount of friend requests. Not that we don’t like you guys, we…
Laura: Please stop.
Andrew: If you notice…
[Laura and Kevin laugh]
Andrew: Yeah…
Eric: We can’t do the show…
Andrew: [Laughs] I tried to put it the nice way, but…
Eric: So far, this show…
Ben: Oh, you guys. Stop calling them. You can call me all you want.
Laura: Okay…
Eric: Oh, oh, okay.
Ben: Just don’t make it between the times of midnight and 6:00 AM because I am sleeping.
[Andrew laughs]
Ben: And if my speakers go off…
Andrew: [Laughs] No you’re not.
Ben: Yeah, well, sometimes I am. Occasionally.
Eric: And people of the world, don’t call him on Skype, Sundays between like 3:00 and 8:00 PM because that’s when he edits the show.
Andrew: When he does, yeah.
Ben: If you call me…okay…you think a dementor is bad? You think Lord Voldemort is bad? [In deep voice] You haven’t felt the wrath of Ben Schoen.
[All laugh]
Eric: “The Wrath of Ben,” sounds like a strange Star Trek spin-off with Benjamin as Spock.
Andrew: Yeah…
Ben: I have an announcement here. So, this may be a minor steal from PotterCast, but I think it is a good idea too. I want you guys to write songs about MuggleCast. Make it a parody to any Christmas song, to any song there is out there.
Eric: Except…
Ben: No, absolutely any song as long as it is appropriate.
Eric: And not, “O’Tannenbaum, O’Tannenbaum.”
Ben: Yeah, because we already have that one covered, but what we’re saying here is you need to sing the song, record yourself singing it…you and your friends, whatever, and send it in to us, and then we’ll listen to it and play it on the show. And make it as funny as possible because then you have…you’re more likely to actually get it on the show. And for the Christmas Episode, Andrew and I will be singing the Harry Potter remix you guys come up with for U2’s “City of Blinding Lights.”
[Kevin laughs]
Andrew: [Starts singing] In the city…
Ben: So, you better…some of you at least write a version of this.
Andrew: …of blinding lights.
Ben: Andrew will sing the regular version just so, you know, how…just to give a model for it. Yeah.
Andrew: Don’t look before you laugh…
Ben: [Singing] Look ugly in a photograph. Flash bulbs…
Andrew: [Singing] Flash bulbs, purple irises the camera can’t see…
Kevin: I think you should skip this. Skip this section, people.
Laura: Yeah, and you can send all of your doctor bills to ben at staff dot mugglenet dot com when your ears start bleeding.
[Eric and Kevin laugh]
Ben: Oh. Ouch!
Kevin: Yeah. Okay, okay.
Eric: Yeah, and additionally, you know the “Twelve Something of MuggleCast” would be cool.
Ben: That’d be cool.
Laura: Oh, that’d be cool.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a good idea.
Eric: It’s like the “Twelve Pains of Hearing Ben Schoen’s Voice” or something.
Ben: Oh! Oooo!
Eric: No, no.
Ben: Everybody, everybody send hate mail. Spam doesn’t count as hate mail. But someone seriously, seriously though, write a song about me and Emma. That would be my…the ultimate Christmas present.
[All laugh]
Eric: Wow. [singing] Deck the Halls with Ben and Emma…
Andrew: That will be just as successful as making you a fansite.
Ben: Exactly.
Eric: Deck the Halls with Ben and Emma, la la la la la…or…Clear the Halls…
Ben: Yeah.
Kevin: Yeah, okay.
Andrew: Okay, moving on.
Kevin: Yeah.
Ben: Okay…
Andrew: I promised people these announcements are going to be shorter. [laughs] This is like taking up the entire show.
Eric: They can fast-forward, Andrew.
Andrew: Any last thoughts, Ben?
Ben: Send me your song parodies.
[Kevin and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Okay, thank you.
Kevin: Wow. Inspirational.
Andrew: Let’s see, what else? Oooo. Well, we announced this on our Fan Forums. Well, I mentioned it on our Fan Forums – MuggleCastFan.net, which is an excellent resource for the MuggleCast fan. But, we are working on a brand-new MuggleCast website that is going to expand on everything that we have right now at MuggleCast.com.
Ben: It’s going to revolutionize the world.
Kevin: It is.
Andrew: It is. Guys, it’s going to have its own poll, okay?
[Kevin laughs]
Andrew: What now? [laughs] But, we’re going to expand a lot. We’re going to have a lot of FAQ articles. We’re going to have a “How To Section” on “Making Your Own Podcast” because we get that e-mailed all the time. So, it’ll be great. So, look for that in, eh, one to two weeks. Then also some big news for all of the British listeners and all the British fans – Jamie is going to be coming back.
Laura: Yaaay!
Kevin: I don’t think it is only for the British fans.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: [Singing] The Brit is back in town…
Eric: No, I was going to say, the American fangirls would probably appreciate him a lot of more.
Laura: Jamie has a lot of fan following.
Andrew: Yes, ummm…
Laura: So, uh…
Kevin: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: We get complaints every week when we hear that he’s not on. You know, we’re…We understand, people.
Ben: We want him back on, too.
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, on the Fan Listing like his…the people who say they like him the best are only like 20 behind me. I’m like, “What the hell, I’ve been on so many more shows.”
Andrew: But…
Eric: [Laughs] But…
Andrew: Eric always tries to be the best.
Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: But anyway…
Ben: Moving on.
Andrew: Jamie, he’s been busy with college. He’ll be on his Winter Break in just a few days, and so he’ll be on. He’ll be on a few shows, including next week’s. Hopefully, hopefully, because there’s no guarantees.
Kevin: Yeah. Yeah, don’t…
Ben: No promises.
Andrew: It’s like a 90% chance we’re booking him.
Kevin: Don’t get their hopes up.
Ben: Who was that? Didn’t someone say one time that Jamie and I were both going to return one week and we didn’t? Who was that?
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Oh yeah. That was me. That was me.
Ben: I don’t remember. Who was that?
Andrew: That was me.
Ben: Yeah.
Andrew: I don’t know. You guys said you would be on. [laughs]
Ben: I was on actually, and then you guys re-recorded the show.
[Kevin laughs]
Ben: Without telling me.
[Andrew laughs]
Andrew: And then…
Kevin: But, it was excellent without you, so…
Ben: Oh, ouch! Yeah, so send your hate mail to iloveben at staff dot mugglenet dot com.
Andrew: Yeah. No offense. Enough! [sighs]
Goblet of Fire Contest Announcement
Eric: Any more announcements, Andrew?
Andrew: Yes, one final announcement. We are starting a new contest this week. A Goblet of Fire soundtrack contest, where 15 lucky people who listen to the show will be winning one Goblet of Fire soundtrack. All the great songs you heard in the movie are now in this one fine CD.
Ben: Confettify!
Andrew: Now, this contest…
Ben: Wooo!
Andrew: Yeah. This CD…this contest is a pretty fun one. We’re going to start it this week and it’s going to run through next week. It’s going to, it ends on the release of Episode 20. Now, here’s what you have to do. In one moment, I’m going to play five songs. Three-second clips of five songs. You have to e-mail us with each song’s title in the correct order of the order that they were played. Okay?
Eric: We’ll give you a hint. They’ll all be U2 songs.
[Laura and Kevin laugh]
Andrew: No, they’re not U2 songs. They’re all from the soundtrack. You have to name all five.
[Ben starts singing U2]
Andrew: And then e-mail your contest entries to mcsongs at staff dot mugglenet dot com. Now, here are the five songs.
[Plays song No. 1]
Andrew: No. 2.
[Plays song No. 2]
Andrew: No. 3.
[Plays song No. 3]
Andrew: No. 4.
[Plays song No. 4]
Andrew: And No. 5.
[Plays song No. 5]
Andrew: Okay, so there you have it once again. E-mail them to “mcsongs”…what did we say, “mcsongs”?
Eric: “Mcsongs.”
Andrew: Yeah. E-mail them to mcsongs at staff dot mugglenet dot com. And then the winners will be announced on our Christmas Special, which will be Episode 21. And the winners will be chosen randomly out of the people who e-mailed in with the correct answers. So, good luck, everyone!
Main Topic – Severus Snape
Andrew: So, with that, now it’s time to move on with our main discussion of the week. Continuing our continuing series… [laughs] Wow, great wording there. Whoever writes these scripts are really bad.
Ben: Micah. Micah, are you getting this down, Micah?
Eric: Don’t make fun of Micah.
Ben: Micah is actually transcribing this as we go.
Andrew: We are going to continue… [Laughs] Yeah. We are going to continue our regular discussion on a specific character in depth, and this week as promised, is Severus Snape. Oooooo.
Ben: Can I read the information about him? Can I read about him?
Andrew: Sure, Ben. Tell us all about Mr. Snape.
Ben: Okay, Mr. Snape was born on January 9th, 1959. His mother is Eileen Prince, hence the name ’Half-Blood Prince’ and he is indeed half-blood. His father was Tobias Snape. We found out a lot of this information in Half-Blood Prince. We don’t know if he has any children. Let’s see, what else do we have here? He’s Harry’s least favorite professor. He’s a real…
Kevin: Really?
[All laugh]
Ben: Sounds a lot like me, ha!
Eric: I disagree with that, Ben.
Ben: Let’s see, he has a hooked nose. He was a former Death Eater or is he a Death Eater now? That’s the question everyone is dying to know. Is Severus Snape good or bad? That’s probably what our discussion is going to be centered around today, but that’s pretty much all there is to know about Severus Snape. He’s… There is information, once again this is from HP-Lexicon.org, and you can go there and look at information about the etymology behind his name and stuff.
Kevin: Of course Eric wants to start the conversation, so…
Ben: All right.
Eric: No Kevin, I…
Ben: Eric, is Snape good or bad? I’m really dying to know, what do you think, Eric?
Eric: Well…
Ben: Just tell me.
Eric: Benjamin, I just thought it would be nice to inform the public that we did do quite a lot of talking about Snape in the first, I’d say, eight or nine episodes of MuggleCast. It was predominately, we just came off Book 6 and I remember we had to ask the fans to stop sending us Snape questions and stuff like that. So, we actually did talk a lot about Dumbledore and whether Snape is good or evil in the first, I’d say seven or eight episodes of MuggleCast. So, if you wanted to review this…
Ben: But now’s a good time to, I think to summarize all of the information.
Eric: Sure, I mean we can do that. I’m comfortable with going back to that subject right now. I think we had a nice break there.
Kevin: Okay, so now that that’s been established, is he good or bad?
Eric: I think he’s good.
Ben: Well, I don’t know. It’s just…
Kevin: I feel the same way.
Laura: I’m on the fence.
Ben: I think, I think, I think, no, no, I have an idea. Everyone is talking about whether Snape is good or bad. Maybe have you ever thought that Snape is working for himself?
Laura: I’ve thought about that before.
Kevin: Yeah.
Ben: Snape’s concerned about Snape.
Andrew: How would he benefit though?
Ben: Okay, because he’s part of the good empire and the evil empire, so he basically gets the best of both worlds, you see what I’m saying?
Kevin: Yeah, but at the same time, JK Rowling has made the distinction between Order of the Phoenix and Death Eaters. Do you really think she’d go mid-way?
Ben: Well, that’s true, but is there a gray area with…
Kevin: I don’t really think so.
Ben: …the good side and the dark side? Is there sort of an area where it’s muddled?
Eric: Ben, I think it’s a gray area for every individual person, but everybody still chooses a side, what side they’re closer to I think.
Ben: And I’m sure, I’m sure, after we say, it’s a year after Book 7 is out, if we look back into the previous books, I’m sure there is some foreshadowing that we’re missing right now about the truth, about the real identity of Snape.
Kevin: Oh, I’m sure. JK Rowling puts stuff in there all the time that she puts right in front of us just for the point of laughing when we find out it was right in front of us the whole time.
Eric: And here’s a question guys. Did you know Chamber of Secrets was originally going to be called Half-Blood Prince, and it was going to be about Snape?
Laura: Yeah.
Ben: That’s true.
Eric: And then she realized she couldn’t fit that in, but then that really shocks me because how could we know all this about Snape upfront, and then she decides to say “No, I’m not going to them until the seventh book now.”
Ben: So, do you guys think she was planning on killing Dumbledore too?
Kevin: No. I think she was going to play it as a subplot.
Ben: So another subplot? Yeah.
Kevin: Yeah, where it was like a rolling plot and then come Book 6 or Book 7 she was going to kill Dumbledore using that subplot.
Eric: One thing about his allegiance in the first book is simply, well his allegiance in the series. If he really turns out to be a bad guy, the whole point of suspecting him in Book 1 would be complete crap. I’d never read Book 1 again because here’s…
Ben: Right, and but Eric, the first book, it’s sort of juvenile in a way that Snape is the Red-Herring and it feels like you’re watching Scooby Doo. There’s, what’s his name, there’s Fred who’s always saying “I know it’s Red-Herring, and I know it’s him” and Harry keeps saying “I know it’s Snape, I just know it is” and then it turns out not to be Snape, and then they keep suspecting Snape, suspecting Snape, and then finally it is, but at the same time isn’t really? You know?
Eric: Ben, you watch Scooby Doo?
Ben: I did. I used to.
Kevin: Yeah, but I think that’s one of the points people have been making, that she has been playing it up as though he’s always the scapegoat. He’s always the person who does something bad and then it turns out that he doesn’t, and then the one time he does do something bad, you’re sitting there wondering was it truly him killing Dumbledore for the mere fact of killing him, or was it some agreement he made with Dumbledore in the past?
Laura: Mhm.
Ben: Well, Snape really had no choice but to kill Dumbledore…
Laura: Right.
Ben: …because he made the Unbreakable Vow, which in my mind it’s pretty sure that’s what it was about because Draco’s task was to kill Dumbledore, and when he couldn’t, Snape had the choice “Well, I do this or die” and…
Eric: And I think, Ben, that’s a really important point to make. I’m sure we might have said it, but the fact that he had to do it could have been a good reason for him to be able to…people who think Snape is bad say “How could he?” I mean you really have to mean the death curse, so how could he possibly do that if he was good? But I think that it’s just a matter of having to do it.
Kevin: Doing it out of necessity, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, much like Harry and his Patronus, in Prisoner of Azkaban, he knew he could do it because he had to do it to save him in the past, who was also in the future.
Snape and the Sphinx’s Riddle
Laura: Well you guys, speaking of foreshadowing, Micah showed me a really cool editorial by Kirstie E. R. basically comparing Snape to the riddle that the sphinx gave Harry in Goblet of Fire.
Eric: Huh.
Laura: Yeah, it’s fairly interesting actually. Basically, if you read the first line, it talks about “the person who lives in secrets and tells but not lies.” She thinks that the sphinx was referring to Snape being this person, obviously not literally but as foreshadowing on Jo’s part. And that the “middle of middle and end of end” refers to mending relationships and that “middle” in that sentence literally means relationships that Snape has to mend in the middle of the series, which would be with Voldemort and the Death Eaters, and that “end” literally refers to the end of the series which could possibly be Harry assuming he is a good guy.
Kevin: Yeah.
Ben: In my mind that seems kind of a bit far out there.
Eric: I don’t know, what I do want to say…
Laura: Go ahead.
Eric: Yeah. I’ll tell you one thing. That sphinx riddle didn’t seem to me, now whatever it was, and it was a lot of things, I don’t think it seemed like a spider to me. I actually think that whole riddle sounds more like a dementor then a spider.
Kevin: Yep.
Eric: Like, you wouldn’t want to kiss it and it’s so I knew at some point… I mean a spider?
Laura: Exactly. Exactly. That’s a point
Eric: I was ready for Harry to get tromped on. When I read it said spider I was like, “Okay, good, I’m going to read like a…” but she didn’t do anything. She was like “correct.” Like how was she supposed to…
Laura: Yeah. And that’s actually a point that Kirstie made was at the end it talks about, “now tell me what is a creature you would not willing to be kiss,” “to kiss,” excuse me. If this is referring to Snape, what if he were to have his soul sucked out by a dementor, a dementor’s kiss?
Eric: But I mean, yeah, I mean I don’t even know if that’s Snape, but I think that’s really clever. I’m going to read that editorial.
Ben: That’s a good analogy I think.
Eric: I don’t think it’s the spider. I was like, it has to be something besides that because that’s just…
Laura: Well, she also made comparisons between Snape and spiders because we’ve seen several comparisons between Snape and bats which led people to believe he was a vampire.
Eric: Yeah. What I want to know is what’s up with that? Like, if…
Laura: Yeah, I sort of had…
Eric: Is he…
Laura: Sorry! We keep cutting into each other, but…
Eric: No problem.
Laura: [Laughs] She talks about Snape being referenced as a spider. For instance, he lives at Spinner’s End.
Eric: Oooo.
Laura: And in Order of the Phoenix during the Pensieve scene where Harry is…
[Kevin laughs]
Laura: Ooooh. I lost my train of thought. Anyway, where Harry is…[laughs]
Eric: Yet you continued your sentence. How does that work?
Laura: Yes, shut up. Okay, Harry is basically viewing his parents in “Snape’s Worst Memory” scene, and Snape is described as being twitchy like a spider. So, I sort of had a spin-off theory of…
Eric: Spin-off, ha ha ha.
Laura: Yeah. Ha ha ha ha.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Of Kirstie’s theory. Right after Harry passes the Sphinx, he runs into an Acromantula. And I believe that the Triwizard Cup represents Harry’s goal in the maze, which was to defeat the maze, and I think if Snape or the Acromantula is representing Snape that it’s possible the Triwizard Cup could represent Voldemort being Harry’s goal to defeat him. Now, we know the Acromantula injured Harry, which made getting to the cup more difficult, which I can see as a comparison of Snape killing Dumbledore, which makes Harry’s quest to defeat Voldemort more difficult. However, we see that Harry does make it to the Cup and he does survive. So, it could be early foreshadowing to show us that Harry will defeat Voldemort and survive it. What do you guys think about that?
Ben: Well, I like the connections you drew there.
Eric: I like that.
Ben: But, I don’t know if it’s really analogous to…I think I’ll probably end up eating my words with this. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised, but I just don’t know.
[Laura laughs]
Ben: It seems that it’s a connection but I don’t know if it’s being stretched a bit.
Kevin: It’s true. [laughs]
Laura: Oh well it could be.
Eric: Well, actually…
Laura: But we as Harry Potter fans stretch so many things.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Yeah, but Ben, do you remember in Prisoner of Azkaban, remember when Ron is, when they’re all writing, doing their homework or something about trials and suffering and being happy. All that stuff comes true in the book.
Ben: Oh yeah, when Ron starts talking about all the fires and stuff like that and all the bad things that are going to happen. Then Harry gets burned, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, and all that stuff comes true in the book. It seems like, yeah, it seems like because each of those followed a task. Oh then, that was in Goblet of Fire then, each of the tasks.
Ben: Yeah didn’t, yeah didn’t Ron say something that, “I’m going to save a friend from drowning” or “I’m going to drown next week,” and then Harry saved him or whatever. That was pretty interesting.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah. So, actually that wouldn’t be the first time something long-drawn out was put in. My question is, I think there might be something more about Snape in the end of the book to begin with, about how Voldemort is going on about his faithful servant at Hogwarts, the one who has left forever and all that stuff that I think the whole end of the book has a lot more Snape in it. I think it’s definitely possible than most people thought.
Ben: Galadriel had a really good theory about this. She wrote the Ultimate Unofficial Guide to the Mysteries of Harry Potter and all those books. In Galadriel’s books, she talks about how, how, who is the Chosen One, who is the faithful servant…not the Chosen One, but who was the faithful servant at Hogwarts and who was the coward that ran and – what’s the third one? I’m sorry, I’m a poor excuse for a Harry Potter fan.
Is Snape Good, Bad Or Does He Have A Twin?
Andrew: Just everyone’s dying to know: Is Snape good or is he bad? Or how about this, ooo, new theory popped into my mind? What if Snape has a twin?
[All laugh]
Andrew: One’s good, and one’s bad.
Laura: The evil twin.
Eric: And then…
Andrew: Yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: No, I think everyone should take responsibility for his or her own twin’s actions.
Andrew: God, I’m so good.
Eric: Or maybe a little Snape that he can detach and wreak havoc.
Kevin: A little Snape [laughs]
Eric: A little mini-me Snape.
Andrew: It’s all figured out. I have it. Snape has a twin. That’s it.
Eric: I think…
Andrew: Just look at the fan-art pictures. Don’t they all look different from one another? I think he has like 40 brothers.
[All laugh]
Eric: Andrew!
Laura: And twins look different from each other?
Eric: It’s different artists’ interpretations.
Andrew: Ohhh.
Kevin: Ohhh, that explains it.
Eric: Yeah, they are different artists so the artists aren’t like twins so they…going back to where Laura…
Andrew: Okay, well…
Eric: Eh, Andrew?
Snape And The Dark Arts
Andrew: Let’s do some comparing here. What’s the first thing that comes to mind? He’s into the Dark Arts.
Eric: Okay great. Well, hang on here… Yeah.
Andrew: Making him loyal to Voldemort, you would think.
Eric: Well, making him…
Kevin: Yeah.
Eric: Good guys…no, good guys have to know the Dark Arts too. As Slughorn had said, the best wizards still kind of are interested in the Dark Arts.
Laura: Yeah.
Kevin: Of course, because how do you know your enemy if you don’t know they’re doing?
Laura: Exactly.
Eric: Exactly, exactly. So, just because he’s into the Dark Arts I think that gives him more of a reason to be more knowledgeable and be more mysterious and stuff.
Kevin: I think his original motivations for going into the Dark Arts were those of being on Voldemort’s side. You know? Like his motivations now aren’t what they used to be. His intentions aren’t that way.
Eric: I see what you mean. Yeah, Laura mentioned Spinner’s End and Snape being compared to a spider like that. I think that’s cool. Also, Spinner’s End, I think, has something to do with him creating a web of deceit. You know, a tangled web of, we don’t know what side he’s on and things like that. That could be the spider reference. You know?
Laura: Mhm.
Eric: Just that he’s this tangled web of people who think he’s good, who think he’s bad.
Laura: Definitely.
Ben: Okay, well the one reason – hear me out here – the one reason I think Snape is a good guy is because he absolutely has to be because he’s been around Harry for all these years. Why couldn’t he have zapped Harry once? What happened in Half-Blood Prince was at the end after Dumbledore gets killed by Snape, Harry’s unfrozen and he starts chasing after Snape, and he tries to do the Cruciatus Curse on him and is unsuccessful. And Snape’s yelling at him “You idiot, just go!” and all this stuff. At that moment, why couldn’t Snape have gone Petrificus Totalus and then went and grabbed Harry and taken him off to the Dark Lord…
Kevin: And drag him along.
Ben: And then zap zoom bammo.
Laura: That’s one of the reasons that I’m on the fence.
Eric: Guys, I have a great theory, I have a great, great theory. Okay, you guys. Ben, I think Snape kind of at least described himself well enough for Bellatrix on why he didn’t kill Harry yet, but at the end of Book 6, he said, “No, he’s the Dark Lord’s” when he’s chasing him across the grounds and he should have taken Harry away. Do you think, similarly to the Peter Pettigrew life debt that Pettigrew owes Harry, do you think Harry owes Snape now for saving his life like that? Because if you really…
Ben: No, because I think with a life debt, it has to be something, you blatantly save a life. I think Snape would have to zap one of the Death Eaters after they said half of the death curse or something.
Kevin: Yeah, exactly.
Ben: Because he didn’t actually save his life; he just told him to turn and go.
Kevin: He just chose not to kill him. [laughs]
Eric: No, but still, that’s all it was with Wormtail. They were kind of pointing their wands at him and Harry said “No.”
Laura: Yeah, but Wormtail was also the reason Harry’s parents died.
Kevin: And Harry wasn’t the one who was going to be doing the killing.
Ben: And also, they said they were going to kill him together and then Harry said, “Don’t kill him.” And in Half-Blood Prince, Snape really didn’t say – Snape said, “Turn and go ease the Dark Lord.” It wasn’t like he was saving his life, he was just delaying the moment that he was going to be killed by Voldemort.
Eric: All right. Fine. I get it Ben. Fine, crush my theory. Whatever. I’m going to go and cry now. Okay, I get the point. You don’t like me, you don’t like me. It’s fine.
Kevin: 3 on 1. [laughs]
Ben: You know what, Barty Crouch Jr. is a good guy.
Eric: He is.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: No, actually, I’m going to talk about that for one second. If you look in the books, he’s actually really a good guy and it was a surprise because I had forgotten all the good stuff pointing to him in the books when I said that. But he doesn’t really seem evil in the trial before he gets put in Azkaban, and when he comes out, I think is when he’s really evil, but also the fact that he’s soul-sucked by a dementor just says we may never know stuff about him that could have come forward if he were still alive.
Kevin: Yeah.
Eric: As to his past and stuff. So, I think there is a good margin for him being good, but back to Snape. But thank you for bringing that up, Ben.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Made me feel better about you crushing my theory. So, okay. What else? What’s up?
Ben: Do you think Snape’s a good guy, Eric? Do you think Snape’s a good guy?
Eric: Ooh, ooh wait, I forget, guys…
Kevin: I wouldn’t say he’s a good guy, though.
Eric: Yeah.
Kevin: Just because he’s good in the sense he’s on the right side doesn’t mean he’s a good guy.
Eric: He’s still…
Laura: Just like Sirius said, there’s no defining line between Death Eaters and good people, it’s the same way…
Kevin: Exactly.
Laura: …on the other side.
Kevin: I mean if, if Bellatrix was on the Order of the Phoenix – doesn’t mean she’s a good person, she’s just supports them.
Ben: Definitely.
Eric: Oh, I have a great contribution. I’m sorry, Andrew, go ahead.
Andrew: I was just reading through some quotes that JK Rowling has said about Snape, and in the majority of them, she’s always reiterating how horrible Snape is. One quote calling him “Deeply horrible.” Does…can he be on this good side while still being this “deeply horrible” quote un-quote?
Ben: I have a reason for that. First of all it’s JK Rowling. And second of all, I think that absolutely… He can be…
Eric: You know what? That’s a good point, Ben.
Andrew: My point was that she kept reiterating it. She kept saying…
Eric: Well, he is a bad guy.
Andrew: Her point is that Snape…
Ben: Just because he’s a bad person doesn’t mean…
Eric: Yeah.
Ben: Just because he has a nasty personality doesn’t mean he has to be on the side of Voldemort.
Andrew: Nobody said it was personality.
Eric: He was picked on by Harry’s father. He’s not going to let that slide. He has a grudge and the best of people can hold grudges…
Andrew: Yeah.
Occam’s Razor
Eric: And can be pretty mean, I guess. I’m not saying he’s a good guy, he’s not, but that’s…I see that as a flaw. I still think there might be good, and are you guys familiar with Occam’s Razor?
Ben: No.
Kevin: Yeah.
Eric: Okay, Kevin is, he’s the college boy.
Kevin: Yeah.
Eric: Occam’s Razor is a postulation, if you will. It’s a postul-ette thingy that states that one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything. In short, it means, the shortest answer is the best answer.
Ben: You shouldn’t give that advice.
Andrew: See, Eric would learn from that.
[All laugh]
Eric: Okay, okay, guys, besides that, the point is, people are using this to say that Snape is bad. And they say that, “Okay, so, all right, now Snape is bad or he’s good but he tricked Dumbledore, but he tricked this, but you know, he’s tricking Voldemort and he’s going on both sides,” and they make it out to seem that Snape being a good guy is such a long, drawn-out thing, that it’s just Occam’s Razor says we should make it out like he’s bad and in reality, I just think there is just enough explanation required for him to truly be bad. Which includes the fact that he has been proven good all throughout Book 1, and all throughout the whole series in all these different events.
Kevin: Yeah, but at the same time, we know JK Rowling and she tends to hide things in her books. So, typically – with her at least – things don’t go according to Occam’s Razor.
Eric: Oh, well yeah. That’s just more proof that he’s good though.
Ben: Well, for example look at this show. Look at all the things we talk about, look at all the analyzing we do. Occam’s Razor, whatever postulization it is, is ridiculous because we come up with long-drawn answers because the thing that’s not true about that is…Well, I think it means that the simplest answer is usually the correct answer, but at the same time we have to provide proof for what we’re saying. We can’t just make flawed assumptions based off nothing.
Andrew: So let’s go around the table before we get to the voicemails. In one word, Eric [laughs]…
Ben: One word, Eric. One word.
Final Answer: Good Or Bad?
Andrew: Explain, [laughs] not explain, say if you think he is good or bad. Ben? Or both.
Ben: Did you say Ben?
Andrew: Yeah.
Ben: Oooh, good.
Andrew: Laura?
Laura: Don’t know.
Andrew: Kevin?
Kevin: Good.
Andrew: Eric?
Eric: Loyal. I’m not going to say loyal to Dumbledore or loyal to Voldemort, I’m just going to say loyal and let people figure it out.
Andrew: I’ll take that as a both.
Ben: And yourself?
Andrew: I’d like to think good. I’ll say good because it’ll end up as not.
Ben: You’re just going with Kevin and I.
Andrew: No, no.
Ben: You’re just going with what the group thinks.
Andrew: No, I’m thinking about Book 7.
Kevin: He’s a trend-follower, not a trendsetter.
Andrew: No, obviously cool people say “good.” So…
Laura: Aw, me and Eric aren’t cool.
Eric: Guys… Hey guys, at the end of the book of Book 1, “The Man With Two Faces” when Harry is confronted by Quirrell and he says, “You?” and Quirrell smiled and says, “Me? I wondered whether I’d be meeting you here.” Harry says, “But I thought Snape…” and he goes “Severus. Oh yes, Severus seems the type, doesn’t he?” And then he goes on “So useful to have him swooping down like an overgrown bat. So, next to him who would expect p-p-oor stuttering Professor Quirrell?” But I think it really, that emphasizes too the fact that Snape really does seem like a bad guy, but really he’s just clouding the pool of potentials. I think that Quirrell really used that to emphasize how next to Snape, he could blend in with the good guys very easily. So, even though I think he’s distinguishing Snape as a good guy, what do you guys think?
Ben: There’s a lot of deception going on in these books.
Andrew: Yeah.
Ben: [Yells] Constant Vigilance! Constant Vigilance!
Eric: Thank you, Ben.
Andrew: And like my solution is every week, we’ll just have Jo on the show and we won’t even have to have these podcasts anymore. [laughs]
Eric: Not that she’d answer any of our questions, as said before.
Andrew: Good thing Jo doesn’t update her site anymore because otherwise, we’d run out of stuff to talk about. [laughs]
Kevin: I know.
Laura: Yeah.
[Eric and Laura laughs]
Andrew: Well, well let’s get to the voicemails now.
Voicemails – Why Didn’t Harry Kill Snape?
[Audio]: Hi, I’m Catherina for Yano, Austria, and I really love your podcast. I have a question concerning Harry and Snape. In the sixth book when Harry was chasing Snape on the grounds of Hogwarts, why did he try the Cruciatus Curse and not the Avada Kedavra? For me, it would be clear that Harry would just kill him after all that he had done. Or is that Harry is not powerful enough to cast such a spell? Just tell me what you think. Thank you.
Ben: The central theme of this book is the power Harry has that Voldemort knows not is love, and I don’t think, I think Harry has too much love in him be able to kill someone, as of right now. Eventually, he’s going to have to find a way to do it to Voldemort in Book 7 if he wants to defeat Voldemort. But the problem is right now, he doesn’t have, as Bellatrix told him in Book 5, “You have to really mean it, you have to really mean it to torture the person,” and right now he hasn’t developed enough hatred, he hasn’t practiced the spell really enough to actually torture the two people he’s tried it on. He tried it on Bellatrix in Book 5 and then Snape in Book 6. I think he would be capable of performing the death curse, but I don’t know if he really wanted to try it because he’s never really killed before and he’s a loving person.
Kevin: You think he would use the death curse?
Ben: Well, he’s going to have to.
Kevin: Will he?
Ben: Well, he’s going to have to find some way to kill Voldemort unless he uses one of the Top 100 Ways. I can see Jo borrowing one of them, borrowing from our contest winners.
[Kevin and Eric laugh]
Kevin: I just asked because it seemed as though Voldemort wasn’t hesitating to cast it at Dumbledore but Dumbledore was, you know what I mean?
Eric: Yeah.
Kevin: It seems as though there’s more to the death curse than we know, and there are better ways to do it as someone who’s…
Ben: Yeah, maybe it’s similar to drinking unicorn blood because when you drink unicorn blood, you have that half-life, a cursed life, but then all the Aurors would be doomed too, so I don’t know. Dumbledore may have been hesitant to do it, but I think the reason he was hesitant was because the fact he knew that Harry had to be the one to do it and if he tried anything, that it wouldn’t work anyway. That Harry had to be the one to confront Voldemort in the end because of what the prophecy said.
Eric: Yeah, I think Harry is a lover not a fighter. By that I also mean that…
Ben: Ginny knows what you’re talking about.
[All laugh]
Eric: Yeah. He’s not a killer; he really, really isn’t. I think there are several other books series, including Narnia, which I just saw tonight, but I don’t want to talk about that because you guys are going to do that next week, but even in Narnia the hero is given a sword and he really doesn’t use it until he absolutely has to. He doesn’t just go wield it around and kill people for target practice, and I think Harry is definitely one of those people who doesn’t kill and it’s brought up.
Ben: Right, but Harry has to make sure – to use the sword analogy – to keep his sword sharp, so to speak. So, he needs to practice the death curse, practice it on pixies or something so that he knows how to do it when it comes time for the final battle.
Laura: Well, like you were saying, Bellatrix was telling him you really have to have enough hate in yourself to be able to cast an Unforgivable Curse, and I think Harry knows that. Also, I think part of the reason he didn’t use the Killing Curse is because in Book 5 when Sirius dies, Harry is described as wanting to track down Bellatrix and make her to feel the pain…
Kevin: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah.
Laura: …that she has given Harry and I think Harry wanted Snape to feel the pain. I don’t think he wanted him to get a quick way out. He wanted him to suffer.
Ben: That too.
Eric: Like in court and trial. A lot of time. especially in Batman and X-Men, all the superheroes and stuff, they turn them over to the cops instead of killing them because that’s justice and they have this big emphasis on justice being done to them and death is the easy way out.
Laura: Mhm.
Eric: And I think one of the things bad guys definitely capitalize on is the term, the sentence, the phrase: “You should have killed me when you had the chance.” Because that’s just plain wrong. They shouldn’t have killed them. I believe Dumbledore says, Voldemort says that to Dumbledore, and the thing is that they’re drawing on… It’s love and they aren’t killing them, and then the bad guys make it seem like it’s the weak thing to do…
Ben: When you think about it, Eric…
Eric: …and it’s not.
Ben: And this is sort of contradicting what I said a few minutes ago, but this just came to my mind is that when it comes down to it, we’re going to have to see some way to kill Voldemort other then using the Killing Curse because we saw in Book 4 what happens with Prior Incantatem.
Kevin: Right.
Ben: And it’d be a regurgitation of the previous spells that the wand committed. So, Harry’s going to have to find some other way.
Kevin: Well, that’s only when you cast the spell at the same time.
Ben: Right, but both of them have to be ready. I doubt… If you can block the spell, If you know you can block the spell by just throwing up Expelliarmus…
Kevin: Yeah.
Ben: …then that’s what Harry is going to do. To prevent himself from being killed.
Kevin: That’s true.
Eric: Yeah, I thought that was what pretty much what happens, it was emphasizing the connection between them and the fact that they had the same wand. So, and I think we answered this in a voicemail, like one of the earlier shows, about how Voldemort might want a new wand or something since theirs can’t work together. I think there will have to be another way for Harry to kill him.
Ben: I don’t know. We’ll find out.
Eric: I don’t know. What scares me, what scares me, even though this is SnapeCast, is how close Harry and Voldemort are even now.
Kevin: Do you think so?
Eric: But that’s for another show. I think they are incredibly alike. In every book they are alike.
Kevin: Oh, okay, I thought you meant in strength. See, the whole problem I’ve been seeing is that – and it’s emphasized even by the point that Harry can’t really cast these high-level dark magic spells – is that he always seems to be a little too weak than the competition. And he always seems to just squeak by with his life, kind of thing.
Eric: Oh, and we’ve said this on the earlier shows too. He’s pretty much screwed.
Kevin: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: We should really…
Kevin: It seems like he has to do a lot of learning before he even attempts to face Voldemort because the last thing we want as fans is to see him kill Voldemort out of luck. [laughs] You know?
Ben: I was actually reading a very interesting fan fiction story the other day in which Harry – he’s doing these studies about things and he gets some war guide, and he realizes it’s time for him to confront Voldemort, that he has to confront the enemy, because in the previous books, the confrontation has always been basically been set-up by Voldemort. Voldemort had the Portkey. Voldemort led Harry down into the little dungeon place with the Mirror of Erised. Voldemort led Harry to the Chamber of Secrets. Then we saw in Book 4… We saw in Book 5, Voldemort gave Harry the vision of Sirius being tortured and led him to the Department of Mysteries where there was a confrontation there.
Kevin: Yeah.
Ben: And…and Harry has to finally…he has to set it up this time around if he wants to have a shot at beating Voldemort. He has…it has to be on his terms.
Kevin: He also has to hit the books. [laughs]
Ben: Rather than…yeah. Rather than Voldemort actually, you know, setting it up again and then having the upper hand because he’s going to know the terrain, he’s going to know what’s going on and Harry will have to reverse the tides this time and…
Eric: You know what guys? Unfortunately this wasn’t even really a high-emphasis Snape voicemail so we should talk about Snape. [laughs]
Kevin: Okay. Well let’s move on to the next one.
Voicemails – Snape’s Patronus: Spider or Bat?
[Audio]: Hey guys, this is Mark from New York, great job with the show. You know, I honestly can’t think of a time when we have seen Professor Snape give a Patronus. So what do you think his Patronus would be? Also we’ve never seen that he’s an Animagus either. I mean – like everybody seems to be one, how come he isn’t? Or is he, and if he is, what animal do you think he’d transform into? Thanks guys.
Eric: I think that if Snape had a Patronus, I think…well he does have a Patronus. I think if he did cast, it’d probably be a bat or a spider…same thing with Animagus. Um, focusing just on the tail end of this voicemail quick… I think that I like how they said that basically there is a lot of Animagi and everybody seems to be one. I really feel that it goes along, in hand with the Polyjuice Potion you know, everybody is using Polyjuice Potion and…and in Book 6 we saw you know, Crabbe and Goyle turning into girls with Polyjuice Potion, you know it just…and that’s how Barty Crouch’s mom bailed him out and you know it’s…things like these I guess have to be used more than once because it seems like…I don’t know. All I know is that yeah, I like that they really said pretty much everybody’s an Animagus and everybody’s using Polyjuice Potion, everybody’s doing it.
Ben: Why couldn’t…?
Eric: It’s…
Ben: Why couldn’t Vold…?
Eric: It’s a weak point but it’s also a…
Ben: Why couldn’t Voldemort take the Polyjuice Potion and turn into Ron and then when Harry’s asleep, kill him? Or why couldn’t Voldemort, why couldn’t Harry use a Time-Turner and go back in time and kill Voldemort while he’s on the crapper?
Eric: Yeah, certain plot…
[Ben laughs]
Eric: …points have been…certain plot points have been used again and again and again but I don’t know if I mind them. Snape’s Patronus I think, bat…bat or…or a spider.
Kevin: I would say bat as well.
Eric: Especially because…
Laura: Yeah, I agree.
Eric: What was happening with that whole vampire thing? She just stopped emphasizing that.
Kevin: Well probably because she saw it was off-base. I mean, it doesn’t fit. He…the way he’s described, yes he could be taken as a vampire, but I don’t think she wanted the fans going in that direction with their theories about him. I mean, do you really think that he’s a vampire?
Andrew: That would be just lame.
Kevin: I think it would be, yeah.
Eric: I think…
Andrew: Do we know of any vampires?
Laura: Yeah.
Eric: She hasn’t really…
Kevin: She’s never really emphasized them.
Eric: No, what we know of…Yeah, what we know about vampires…
Laura: It seems like she’s like mentioned them in passing before but no real details.
Ben: For example, Quirrell met some in the Black Forest.
Andrew: Oh yeah.
Ben: That’s…those…
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: What book was that?
Kevin: Yeah.
Eric: Which was kind of like Snape and…
Laura: So it almost, it almost sounds like the way she describes them there that they are kind of like centaurs in the fact that they would want to live…
Ben: A beast. [Laughs]
Laura: …in a specified, natural area.
Andrew: Yeah, like the forest.
Kevin: Yeah.
Laura: If that makes any sense.
Andrew: For example.
Eric: Yeah.
Ben: It’s not the vampire like the Dracula type vampire, “I vant to suck your blood.”
Andrew: You mean the one on the cereal box?
[Laura laughs]
Ben: It’s not that type of…yeah.
Eric: [Laughs] Count Chocula.
Ben: Count Chocula.
Eric: Andrew eats…
Andrew: I love that guy.
Eric: Andrew has Count Chocula…
[Kevin laughs]
Eric: …for breakfast. [laughs] I think, yeah, also the blood lollipops and things that were like catered to vampires, I think from what we know about…now Snape isn’t much of a human.
Kevin: [Laughs] Isn’t much of a human!
Eric: I don’t think he’s…
Kevin: That’s a good way of saying it.
Eric: He’s not much of a guy, but I think he’s more human than vampires.
[Ben laughs]
Eric: Yeah, he’s not a very humane man in the slightest, but I think he’s still a guy and still…still not a vampire. Guys, I have to go. Unfortunately.
Andrew: So well I think…I think we wrapped up that voicemail anyway, right?
Ben: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, so…so I’m going to… Can we announce that I’m going to go instead of cutting it out?
Ben: I think we’ll just cut you out.
Eric: And just not existing.
Andrew: Yeah.
Kevin: We should just cut you out, yeah.
Andrew: Eric, at 12:43 in the morning, has to go somewhere so… We’ll see you later, Eric.
Kevin: Goodbye.
Ben: Spielers unite.
Eric: Goodbye.
Laura: Adios.
Spy on Spartz
Andrew: Now moving along, it’s not another MuggleCast without Spy on Spartz. We’ve been doing this for every show since, what Episode 3?
Ben: Something like that. However this one…
Andrew: It’s been a while.
Ben: …this one’s really goofy. I talked to Emerson, I talked to Emerson like yesterday night, last night and he told me that he went and had a massive snowball fight with everyone in the Notre Dame dorms.
Andrew: No way.
Ben: There was like a big snowball fight, a tackling snowball fight and they were running around and just knocking the, the snot out of each other and…and he said well, and his quad lost. Did you hear that? Emerson lost at something, guys!
[Andrew and Kevin laugh]
Laura: Oh my God!
Ben: Can you believe it? And so…
Laura: The Apocalypse has come.
Ben: I know.
[Andrew laughs]
Ben: It’s incredible, well someone…someone once told me that hell would freeze over the day Emerson lost at something and it looks like that day has come.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Ben: Okay. But, but back to how we’re spying on him. This week he is once again…he is at a snowball fight/football game on the North Quad. I don’t understand how it can be a snowball fight/football game at the same time. I don’t quite get how that works but…
Andrew: I guess they’re throwing snowballs at each other while playing football.
Ben: Yeah and then they…
Andrew: Duh. Okay?
Ben: They tackle each other, randomly tackle each other and…
Kevin: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah, enough said.
Ben: So, let’s all be happy and…hopefully, hope they…I hope Emerson wins, wins this time.
Andrew: Go North Quad. [Laughs]
Ben: But also, the full and final thing about Notre Dame/Emerson. Notre Dame made it to BCS Bowl this year in college football. They rank No. 5 in the nation. They’re playing Ohio State in the Tostito’s Fiesta Bowl. So all of you, who plan on watching the game, go out and cheer on Ohio State.
[All laugh]
Ben: Okay.
The Las Vegas Minute
Andrew: Thank you. Thank you, Ben. And now for our…one of our newest segments on the show. It actually is our newest segment on the show.
[Kevin laughs]
Andrew: The Las Vegas Minute where we spend exactly one minute talking about our trip to Las Vegas.
Ben: Ready…go.
Andrew: Okay, so…wow, Las Vegas. It’s still so far away.
[Laura laughs]
Kevin: Did you see how many people are signing up?
Andrew: Yeah. A ton of people, thanks to us.
Kevin: Yeah.
Andrew: Lumos owes us big time.
Kevin: Yeah they do.
Laura: We’re going to go gambling.
Andrew: But you know what’s going to be interesting? How it’s going to be all these Harry Potter dorks in one single hotel.
Laura: Yeah.
Ben: Definitely.
Andrew: In most part.
Ben: No video cameras allowed.
Laura: Is anyone afraid…
Ben: No video cameras.
Laura: …of anyone knowing what room they’re in?
Andrew: What? Says who?
Ben: I say no video cameras.
[All laugh]
Laura: I wonder why.
Andrew: I don’t know why not. Yeah.
Ben: Yeah, but…
[Laura laughs]
Ben: Yeah, that’s going to be really fun, I can’t wait for it.
Andrew: So…
Ben: Very sweet.
Andrew: So Ben, me and you were talking this week. [Laughs]. It seems kind of stupid when you think about it, but you’re going to fly out to my house and then we’re going to hit the Jersey shore.
[Kevin laughs]
Ben: And then we’re going to be going…
Andrew: Then we fly out to Vegas.
Ben: Fly out to Vegas
Andrew: How crazy is that?
Ben: This concludes minute number two of the Las Vegas Minute…bye-bye. Okay, so that’s the Las Vegas Minute.
Andrew: Ah, darn it.
Ben: That was the…
Andrew: I wanted to add something in.
Ben: It’s getting quicker and quicker every week, guys.
Andrew: But I can’t break the rules.
Ben: We don’t…that’s not our fault.
[Laura laughs]
Ben: The minute…
Andrew: I know.
Ben: It’s a New York minute. It’s a Las Vegas minute, I don’t know. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah.
Ben: Oh geez.
Andrew: So on that note.
Ben: No, we’re not leaving yet, we can’t leave yet.
Andrew: Yeah, at least hang around for a little bit.
Bemma
Ben: Here’s, here’s, here’s my new segment.
[Andrew laughs]
Kevin: What, he’s…
Ben: It’s called Bemma. Bemma Segment.
[Kevin and Andrew laugh]
Ben: Emma…if you hear this, Emma – if you’re Emma’s…
[Laura laughs]
Ben: …if you’re Emma’s publicist, if you’re hearing this…please get her in touch with me.
[Kevin laughs]
Ben: Contact me. Ben at staff dot MuggleNet dot com.
Andrew: Why? Why?
Ben: [Sounds shocked] Why?
Andrew: Why?
Laura: And if you’re Emma’s publicist…
Ben: [Still shocked] Why?
Laura: Sink that ship as soon as you can. For Emma’s sake.
[Andrew laughs]
Ben: Awww, come on! It’s all right.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: We know…
Kevin: And a restraining order, I’m thinking restraining order.
[Laura laughs]
Ben: Please don’t get a restraining order on me. Please.
[Andrew laughs]
Ben: Okay, so that concludes…
Kevin: He doesn’t stalk you too much!
Andrew: Ben would…
Ben: That concludes Session Number One of Bemma, Bemma, Bemma, Bemma… [Fades out]
Andrew: It’s going to be cancelled.
[Laura laughs]
Ben: Oh, don’t cancel Bemma!
Laura: Yeah.
[Andrew laughs]
Ben: Maybe next week, we’ll see what, we’ll see how everything goes down.
Andrew: Ahhh…
Laura: It sounds like a really bad…
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: …soap opera. [laughs]
The Dueling Club: Harry vs. Draco
Andrew: Now this week we’re going to premiere a new segment that we’re going to test out. I think it will be cool. It’ll…it’s a fun little game that…
Ben: I came up with it, Ben came up with it.
Andrew: You can also learn a lot from.
Ben: Ben came up with it. [laughs]
Andrew: Thanks, Ben. We’ll be calling this The Dueling Club.
Ben: Woo!
Andrew: Woo. The Dueling Club. The Dueling Club is where we gather to put two characters face-to-face and see who would win. This week we’re going to start off pretty basic. Harry Potter versus Draco Malfoy.
Laura: Harry.
Ben: And also send, go ahead and send in your two characters that you’d like to see duke it out.
Andrew: To…
Ben: To…select Ben from the contact form and enter the subject line: ‘Dueling Club.’ Okay, sounds good. Okay Laura, why do you…Laura, why do you say Harry?
Laura: There is a direct example in Order of the Phoenix at the end, whenever Harry is basically taunting Draco about his father being in prison, and Draco goes to grab his wand long before Harry does, yet Harry still manages to get his wand out of his robes and pointing at Draco first. He’s faster than Draco, he’s smarter than Draco, and he’s had far more defense experience. Therefore, Harry would win a duel against Draco.
Kevin: Yeah, I think so too.
Ben: I don’t know. The thing is, is that Draco’s a pretty, a pretty salty guy, if you know what I’m saying. I think that…that if he, if it came down to it, he could put up quite a fight. But then again, what you’re saying, Harry…Harry survived quite a few incidents in his…in his lifetime.
Laura: I think Draco’s better with planning. I don’t think Draco’s good with spontaneous activities.
Kevin: Right.
Laura: He’s more of a plotter.
Ben: Right for, yeah for example if Harry was thrown into the situation with Draco, Harry probably could think on his feet better than Draco does so he’d probably win then. But if it came down to it where say, you know in Book 1 where they said, “Let’s meet in the Trophy Room.” Say that happened again now, and…Draco could use sort of a guerrilla warfare tactic where he ambushes Harry and basically sends Harry for a loop and…
Laura: Yeah, but Harry would think about that in advance.
Andrew: Yeah but think about Book 6. He practically had him. I mean…
Ben: He outsmarted Harry… He outsmarted everyone.
Andrew: Yeah, he outsmarted him.
Laura: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: I think he can…he can think that way. He’s good at…[laughs] at outsmarting. It’s obviously proven in Book 6 but I mean…
Laura: He’s cunning. He’s cunning but I…
Ben: For example, for example…
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: Really don’t think he’s quick on his feet.
Ben: No I think…
Kevin: I don’t think he is either.
Ben: No, but hold on a second. Look to Book 6 where they’re on the train and Draco realizes Harry’s in the cart and he freezes him and then he…That scene like made me cringe because he stomps on his nose and the blood runs down his face.
Laura: Yeah but again…
Andrew: Yes.
Laura: He had time to think on that.
Kevin: It’s true.
Laura: Because he saw Harry’s shoe whenever Harry was climbing up into the rack. So he had all that time that Harry was up there to think about what he was going to do to plan out how he was going to get back at him.
Ben: Right, but that all, that all happened in a…in a matter of seconds and Draco was able to…
Laura: No, no, no, no, no, Harry was laying up there for a long time while he listened in on their conversation.
Kevin: Yeah, he was.
Ben: That’s true, I guess. I don’t know. Andrew, do you have any thoughts?
Kevin: Shot down.
Andrew: Well I mean, if you want to be technical about it. [laughs] What are we defining as a duel? A planned out, already set…hey…
Ben: Well how about we go about it like…
Andrew: Hey, duel at 3 PM…flagpole.
Ben: A western, a western-style you know, meet me outside at dawn.
[Andrew laughs]
Kevin: Okay, how about this-
[Ben laughs]
Kevin: Harry would win because only Voldemort can kill Harry. [Laughs]
[Laura laughs]
Ben: Oooh, good point, Kevin.
Kevin: I know.
Ben: Kevin wins on a technicality there.
Kevin: Yeah.
Ben: I don’t know. That…
Andrew: That one’s up in the air for me.
Ben: That one’s, that one’s…I agree. Okay.
The Dueling Club: Harry and Hermione
Andrew: Do you want to do another one real quick?
Ben: Yeah let’s do another one, let’s do another one.
Laura: That was fun.
Ben: Hermione…Hermione and…
Kevin: Emma Watson.
Ben: No.
Kevin: No, sorry.
[Laura laughs]
Ben: No, Hermione and Draco. Hermione and Draco.
Andrew: I think it’s the same thing there.
Kevin: I don’t think so.
Laura: I don’t know.
Kevin: I think to be honest I think Draco would, would win. Because Hermione doesn’t seem, well…she’s book smart but she doesn’t seem one to…
Andrew: She’s not shrewd smart.
Laura: Well the thing that holds me up there is…
Ben: No, no but that’s…that’s completely untrue, look to the Department of Mysteries scene where Hermione was able to use a lot of wit and…
Kevin: Yeah, think if she, if she were to win, it would be out of the knowledge, just out of knowledge of…
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: Yes.
Andrew: But I mean – has she ever proven herself under Defense Against the Dark Arts? In a real situation?
Ben: I don’t know but I think…
Kevin: I don’t think she can handle one-on-one.
Laura: The Department of Mysteries is a pretty real situation.
Kevin: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah, that’s definitely true.
Andrew: Yeah.
Ben: Because…
Laura: Well…
Ben: She was able to fight pretty well for [laughs] being a teenage girl, you know.
Kevin: Yeah.
Ben: Nothing against teenage girls.
Laura: Yeah.
Ben: I love you all.
Laura: Yeah, there’d better not be.
[Kevin laughs]
Laura: The reason that I’m leaning more towards Hermione on this one is a couple of years ago in an interview, someone asked J.K. Rowling if Harry and Hermione were to duel, who would win? And she said up until halfway through Book 3, it would have been Hermione. I think if at any point during Hermione’s life she’s strong enough to defeat Harry, then she’s probably strong enough to defeat Draco too.
Ben: I don’t know about that because up until Book 3, who do you think would have won between Harry and Draco? See Harry, Harry sort of came into, came to the Hogwarts scene…
Laura: I’ve obviously never seen Draco to be greatly talented. He’s not talentless. I just don’t see him as being an equal to Harry at all.
Ben: That’s definitely true. But I don’t know, I think Draco, I think maybe we underestimate him a bit. Because for example, like we were saying, look to how he was able to handle…
Laura: I don’t know – I think he could kick Ron’s butt.
Ben: That’s true, he’d probably beat Ron. Ron’s sort of a…a sort of…he’s sort of a pushover, I think, I don’t know.
Laura: I don’t think Ron’s a pushover.
Ben: But look at the Department of Mysteries scene in Book 5 where [laughs] Ron basically…he turned into a blubbering idiot with that whole brain thing and I never would…
Laura: Yeah but that was because he’d been hit with a curse earlier.
Ben: Yeah, that’s true. Well people, send in your suggestions for this segment. Maybe we could evolve it into its own type of little game.
Andrew: Yeah, I think what we should do is time it, like set it to like two minutes where we go back and forth about it.
Ben: Yeah, for example it could be…
Laura: Cross-fire.
Ben: Yeah, like Cross-fire.
Andrew: We can have some kind of space music in the background.
Ben: Yeah, or like on ESPN there’s that show Pardon The Interruption where they spend like 30 seconds – I guess I’m the only one that’s ever watched ESPN, you Harry Potter dorks. But they spend 30 seconds…
[Andrew laughs]
Ben: …arguing about like a sport, a person…like Kobe Bryant or something. So…
Kevin: Yeah.
Ben: We can do that exact same thing. Oh and also guys, also…
Andrew: Yeah.
Ben: …one last thing to say, is we want a fresh new remix at the beginning of the show. Take some clips out of previous episodes, funny little sayings, maybe if you have Andrew’s “yeahs” and sync them together and make us, make us a new show intro. Right now we have the, what I like to say, the “cracked out Hedwig’s Theme.” Some of you, a lot of you like it. It’s sort of become our trademark. But…come up with something new and hopefully we can have it for Episode 20 and we can put it at the beginning and it can be…we’ll make sure…
Andrew: Well Episode 20 is going to be Christmas, so…we’re going to do something Christmassy, I think.
Ben: Well, then the next time we have a normal episode, we’ll, we’ll play it, so…
Andrew: Okay.
Ben: Come up…give us a new theme. Give us a new theme. That’s all I had to say.
Show Close
Andrew [Show Close with music in background]: Then Episode 1…oh I just had this great new idea. Not Episode 1! [Laughs] Episode 21. We should make our goal to be the first new Podcast of 2006.
Ben: Let’s do it.
Andrew: 12:01 AM.
Laura: We should.
Andrew: Bam! It’s up.
Kevin: Yeah.
Andrew: Let’s do it. Because New Year’s Day is a…er…
Ben: A Sunday?
Andrew: A Sunday. Yeah, New Year’s Day is a Sunday. So it will be good timing.
Ben: Let’s do it.
Kevin: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: It’ll be out an hour earlier.
Laura: Mm-hmm.
Ben: Oh and…
Andrew: Okay.
Ben: Yeah, so that’s pretty much it. When you guys are writing those song parodies again, write one about BenSchoen.com, and Emma and all that stuff, put one together. BenSchoen.com.
[Kevin laughs]
Andrew: So on that note…I would be Andrew…er, oh…Andrew Sims.
Kevin: What?
Ben: And I am everyone’s favorite Kansan, BenSchoen.com.
Andrew: You know what?
Ben: That’s what I’m going to start calling myself, I’m calling myself BenSchoen.com from now on.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Ben: Not even going to…let’s just say that’s my new name.
[Andrew laughs]
Kevin: And I’m Kevin…Steck. Like the hesitation?
Andrew: Without dot coms?
Laura: And with no special way of outro-ing myself, I’m Laura Thompson.
Andrew: Awww.
Kevin: Awww, you have to make…
Andrew: Laura, you’re special because you’re the only girl on MuggleCast.
Laura: Awww.
Kevin: Except Ben.
Andrew: I don’t know do you…do you want an extra girl on the show, Laura? Do you need a…do you need a…
Laura: Do I seem like I’m having a hard time handling it with you?
Ben: Get Emma Watson on here.
Andrew: No.
[Kevin and Laura laugh]
Ben: No, no, no, I’ll do you one better. I’ll do you guys even one better. Get Andrew’s sister on the show. Come on!
[All laugh]
Andrew: She doesn’t…she doesn’t even finish…
Laura: I feel so sorry for your sister.
Andrew: She hasn’t even finished reading Book 6 yet so she’s not even…
Ben: She’s coming on here.
Andrew: Although…yeah, although…yeah my dad, my dad said it, he was like “You should put Becky on the show. I think she’d be really good. Blah blah blah blah blah.” I’m like “No.”
Ben: Dude, me and your sister are going to have our first date on MuggleCast.
Andrew: Okay.
Kevin: Okay. [laughs]
Laura: Oh my God.
Andrew: I’m glad that I got this PowerBook.
Laura: I feel so sorry for Andrew’s sister.
Andrew: That wraps up Episode 19, Episode…wait a second. Have I been counting these wrong?
Ben: This is Episode 19.
Andrew: Episode 22 is the New Year’s.
Kevin: This is 19.
Andrew: No, but Episode 22 is New Year’s, I said Episode 21.
Ben: Okay, sounds good.
Andrew: But at any rate. Episode…we will see you next week for Episode 20 with a special Brit. Hopefully!
Comments
[Soothing music begins playing]
[Audio]: Well Jamie, since the MuggleNerds can be stupid and forgot to post your birthday, we decided that as fans, it was our duty to wish you one. [Lots of girls saying] Happy Birthday, Jamie!
[Audio]: Hey MuggleCast! It’s Meredith again. And I’m her twin sister Courtney and we listen to y’all religiously from Kentucky. Just want to say we love the show and keep up the great work. And I have another message. It’s not to any MuggleCast guys, you know who you are. You rubbed it in my face that you got on MuggleCast after sending in just one voicemail. Well, I’d like to say this is my third time and if you combine this with Courtney’s first time we’ve been on a total of 4. [Andrew impersonation] “Yeah! Yeah!” No, I’m just kidding. So we’ll see y’all later. [together] See ya! Bye!
[Audio]: Hello MuggleCast. Kelsey from Iowa here. I just wanted to send in a thank you because MuggleCast helped me out during a 13-hour car ride to Colorado with my family. I listened to MuggleCast for the majority of the ride. MuggleCast was my savior. Thank you!
[Soothing music stops]
Bloopers
Andrew: [laughs] Podcast contest? MC contest?
Ben: How about we just make something?
Eric: Let me rack my brain on this.
Andrew: I’m trying to think. I want to…
Eric: I thought of Spy on Spartz and that hit it off, so…
Ben: No, you did not.
Andrew: No, you didn’t.
Ben: You’re just saying that. Don’t bull me.
Eric: Oh no, you guys cannot…
Andrew: No, you didn’t.
Ben: You coined the phrase.
Andrew: So anyway, we don’t need to worry about that right now.
——————————————————–
Andrew: How do you do that so often?
Ben: [Laughs] Eric, it’s really funny. I have Eric’s name set as [bleeped out] on my Skype.
[Andrew laughs]
Ben: So it says “[bleeped out]. ”
[All laugh]
Ben: Sorry Eric, sorry Eric. You know I love you. It was just a joke and I left it there. Okay, ummm…
Andrew: [Laughs] Oh, that’s going to be the Blooper.
Ben: Yeah. [laughs]
———————–
Written by: Micah, Jess, and Ally