MuggleCast 59 Transcript
Show Intro
Andrew [Show Intro with music in background]: Because JKR got bored on the train, thank you, Erin, Grace, and Sarah, this is MuggleCast Episode 59 for October 14th, 2006.
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Jamie: Because magic is a manifestation of the mind… [Jamie continues one of his V for Vendetta rants] And I’m Jamie Lawrence.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I’m Andrew Sims.
Kevin: I’m Kevin Steck.
Laura: I’m Laura Thompson.
Micah: And I’m Micah Tannenbaum.
Jamie: And I’m tired after that.
Andrew: Who wrote that for you, Jamie? [laughs]
Jamie: That was…
Kevin: Wow, you did it the first time.
Jamie: Stephanie. That was Stephanie. Thank you, Stephanie.
Andrew: We’re back for another week of MuggleCast. No Ben this week, unfortunately. Eric’s…
Jamie: Sorry, did you say “unfortunately”?
[Everyone laughs]
Jamie: I almost had you there, Andrew. I’m joking Ben. I love you, Ben.
Micah: I think Laura Mallory actually got to him.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: Oh! [laughs]
Jamie: Literally, she got to him. Killed him, murdered him…
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. Eric Scull, you know, New Zealand, California, Vegas…
Laura: New York…
Andrew: Wherever else he went.
Laura: …Chicago.
Andrew: New York…it wasn’t enough. He’s in Chicago this week.
Laura: I think you said Miami’s next, right? Andrew?
Kevin: Oh really?
Andrew: At this rate…
Jamie: What? He’s actually going this – now? As in after Chicago?
Laura: Yes, Jamie. Yes, he’s going to Miami.
Kevin: Yes, it’s a cross-country tour.
Jamie: I wouldn’t be surprised. I wouldn’t be surprised.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: [Laughs] I know!
Jamie: Considering he goes half way around the world every single week and then still comes back and works 18 hours a day.
Laura: Hey you know what? I think everybody should write to the MuggleCast e-mail, saying where they think Eric will go next.
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: “Where’s Eric?”
Jamie: Get a free T-shirt if you guess the city, hotel, time, place, everything.
Kevin: Yeah.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Kevin: It’s a twist on “Where’s Waldo?”
Laura: [laughs] Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
Andrew: I have a feeling he’ll be done after the Chicago trip.
Jamie: But, Kevin, you can spot Eric really easily because he’d just be wearing his Hogwarts robes on the photos. [laughs]
Kevin: [laughs] That’s true!
Jamie: He would be easy to spot.
Andrew: Oh, speaking of Hogwarts robes, we got to talk about what we’re all going to be for Halloween, because I know what I’m going to be and all of you can probably guess. But, first…
Jamie: What, Bono?
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: No, not Bono. That’s a good idea! No, not Bono. But first, Micah Tannenbaum, you have the past week’s top Harry Potter news stories.
News
Micah: The Portuguese Harry Potter translator, Isabella Nunes, has reportedly confirmed in an interview with a Portuguese fan site that RAB does indeed stand for Regulus Arcturus Black. Apparently, before Book Six hit shelves, she contacted Jo about the character’s gender, and was told the full name as well as the gender.
Her reason for shedding light on the topic at this point is to “keep awake” the excitement for the seventh book. In the past, Nunes also clarified that Blaise Zabini is a man and Professor Sinistra is a woman.
Last month we told you about a new cover for Quidditch Through the Ages, included in the Harry Potter Schoolbooks Box Set along with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Now, the cover for the latter has emerged online. Both books benefit UK charity Comic Relief and can be purchased on Amazon.com. [mutters]Shameless plug.
In movie news, a recent breakthrough in film technology, developed by Image Metrics, allows a computer to map an actor’s performance onto any character: virtual or human, living or dead. The developers say it is far superior to standard hand-drawn computer graphics which are very costly and time-consuming. Warner Bros. will use this technology in the depiction of Grawp (played by Tony Maudsley) in Order of the Phoenix, which will surely bring Hagrid’s giant half-brother to life.
While in New York City for the premiere of his new film, Driving Lessons, Rupert Grint sat down for a chat with AM New York, where he discussed filming on Order of the Phoenix. He said they shot the Thestral scenes recently and that “it was really a good time because they had to make a mold, a specially made harness that goes under your legs, because in the film it has to be invisible. They put you on this crane and lifted you up in the air. That’s been my favorite scene so far.”
Speaking of the fifth film, the first theatrical teaser trailer for Order of the Phoenix will be released Friday, November 17th in front of the WB film Happy Feet.
And, additional information has emerged this week on Daniel Radcliffe’s appearance as Alan Strang in the London West End play, “Equus.” Apparently, 60 audience members will be seated on the stage itself with the rest in the stalls and circle. The play, written by Peter Shaffer, will run in the round for 16 weeks. Previews will begin on February 16th and the official opening is scheduled for the 27th. Rehearsals will commence January 3rd.
And, tied into a topic we mentioned on last week’s show, finally, the online hangout MySpace.com will organize 20 concerts featuring bands promoted on its site as part of a campaign to raise awareness and money for humanitarian relief in Sudan. We’ll have complete information on this in the show notes.
That’s all the news for this October 14th, 2006, edition of MuggleCast. Back to the show.
Halloween
Andrew: Okay, thank you Micah. Anyway, guys: Halloween. What are you all going to be for Halloween?
Laura: What am I going to be for Halloween, Andrew?
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: I’m going to be a Target employee.
Andrew: Oh!
Kevin: Oh!
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Because that’s what I’m doing on Halloween.
Kevin: That sounds really interesting.
Laura: Yay me!
Andrew: What is that? A nice red polo shirt with a little Target logo on it?
Laura: Yeah, with my lame khaki pants.
Andrew: Khaki pants? [laughs]
Kevin: I was thinking a belligerent college student, what do you think?
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: You expect to walk around like that?
Andrew: I was expecting you to be Bill Gates, actually.
Kevin: [laughs] Yeah!
Jamie: I’m going to be boring. I’m going to stay in and I’m just going to dropkick people’s pumpkins when they ask me for trick or treats.
[Everyone laughs]
Kevin: Oh okay, so he’s going to be a…
Micah: You’re not going to steal their candy?
Jamie: No, I am. You know, you should learn that life is a complete disappointment early in life.
[Everyone laughs]
Jamie: You shouldn’t have to wait you’re like a teenager or older, so when they come around, I’m going to steal their candy, drop-kick their pumpkins, and tell them that if they ever come back here again, I’m going to sort them out.
[Everyone laugh]
Jamie: I’m sorting them out, you know
Andrew: Micah, what are you going to be for Halloween?
Micah: I don’t know. I don’t think I can top Jamie’s stealing candy from children.
Jamie: Just do the same, then.
Micah [laughs]: Just do the same?
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: Yeah. I would. Laura, that’s wrong when you say you can’t be too old for Halloween.
Laura: You’re never too old for Halloween.
Jamie: That’s not true!
Andrew: Well, no…
Jamie: If you’re 110, and you can’t move, you should not be dressing up as a vampire and going around for candy.
Laura: Excuse me, Jamie.
Jamie: Yeah?
Laura: If you’re 110, then Halloween is the perfect holiday for you.
Jamie: Yeah. Oh yeah, you don’t have to dress up.
[Everyone laughs]
Kevin: It’s true, yeah.
Jamie: Although, I’m sure – no, no, no. Come on. I think you can be too old for it.
Laura: Nope, you’re wrong.
Kevin: I don’t think you can.
Jamie: It’s like… Go on!
Laura: Hey! Halloween – I’ll remind you all – Halloween is J.K. Rowling’s favorite holiday. So, you can never be too old for Halloween.
Jamie: But, that doesn’t mean you could – that’s good, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be too old for it.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I never said… I said you can’t be too old for Halloween. It’s an awesome holiday.
Andrew: I mean I’m not going to be going trick-or-treating.
Laura: Well, it doesn’t mean you have to trick-or-treat.
Andrew: I feel a little too old for that, yeah. Well, I’m going to be…
Jamie: What else are you meant to do, then?
Andrew: Everyone in my school, you know, everyone… I was sort of outed this year with the whole Harry Potter thing. So, I’m going to be Harry Potter.
Jamie: Really?
Laura: Really?
Andrew: No cloak.
Kevin: You don’t have a cloak?
Laura: Do you remember last year when people dressed up as us?
Andrew: Yeah.
Kevin: Yeah, that contest.
Jamie: No. [laughs]
Kevin: Oh yeah, that was…
Laura: Wasn’t that weird?
Kevin: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah. That was pretty funny. But, I’m going to be hosting the morning show program that we do, and we have to dress up.
Jamie: Nice.
Andrew: Me and my friend are going to be Harry Potter. I’m going to be vested…
Jamie: Hey!
Andrew: What?
Jamie: Doesn’t being Harry Potter just involve drawing a scar and putting on some glasses? That’s what everyone seems to do.
Andrew: Scarf? No, not scarf. Yeah. Scar, glasses. I’m going to wear the gray vest.
Jamie: Dye your hair black as well?
Andrew: The white under shirt.
Kevin: Yeah, Andrew. Do you have…
Andrew: The black pants.
Kevin: Do you have the Triwizard Cup still?
Andrew: Yeah.
Kevin: You can bring that around. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah.
Kevin: The one you were supposed to give away like three months ago.
Laura: You know what this reminds me of?
Andrew: I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kevin. [laughs]
Kevin: Okay?
Laura: I was actually hired to work on MuggleNet on Halloween.
Andrew: Really?
Kevin: Really?
Laura: So, this Halloween is going to be my two-year anniversary, yes.
Andrew: Oh wow.
Kevin: That was a sad day in MuggleNet history.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: It’s been downhill from there.
Kevin: Yep.
Andrew [laughs]: Anyway…
Laura: That’s what they all say.
Announcements
Andrew: Let’s get people up-to-date here on some things that we’re doing around the podcast. We have the new website up. Hopefully everyone’s enjoyed that. We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback about it. We’re working on the comments.
Laura: Even though the comments don’t work.
Andrew: Yeah, we’re working on that. It’s a MuggleNet server issue. It’s not really our fault. And also every week, we’re going to be making a round-up post, that’ll basically go over what the feedback was of the previous week’s show. And Laura did the first one for Episode 58. And without the comments, we have no way of telling if people like it or not. [laughs]
Laura: If you guys actually liked it.
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: So, if you guys hated it, just write me and tell me you hated it.
Andrew: It’ll just be a good way of keeping the site fresh and going over some people’s feedback.
Transcript Update
Andrew: Micah you got an update about the transcripts?
Jamie: Yeah.
Micah: Yeah. Just the database is finally up-to-date, after a couple of months. I think since about the summertime. We’ve had some problems getting things up to you guys in a timely fashion. But, everything should start to be moving along smoothly. We have a lot of stuff going on right now. We’re still working on L.A. with Leaky, and Episode 58 and now 57, and now 59. So, we might get backed up a little bit.
Jamie: Cool.
Micah: But, I want to take just a moment to thank everyone. This is going to be like one of Jamie’s V for Vendetta lists right here.
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: Hey!
Micah [laughs]: Because there are a lot of people. But, just to thank the transcribers, I’m just going to go through the list real quick: Shelly, Shannon, Sarah, Roni, Megan, Marti, Mandie, Judy, Jessica, Amanda, Ally, Adrienne, Matthew. And then we have three editors: Margaret, Eloise, and Allison. And we just added two this week: Samantha and Brianna.
[Kevin laughs]
Micah: So, thanks you guys!
Jamie: Thank you!
Andrew: Thank you! Look at this team Micah has built!
Laura: Thanks!
Micah: I know!
Jamie: Micah.
Andrew: It’s an excellent job, Micah.
Laura: He remembers.
Jamie: He remembers. Yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: To think that I used to do the episodes all by myself.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: You know, I meant to tell you this the other day. I was thinking about this for some reason before I went to bed one night. I was just thinking about how great it was – the best idea we ever had to hire Micah. Seriously.
Kevin: Thank you.
Andrew: Thanks, Micah.
Laura: Awww, Micah.
Kevin: It’s like a sweat shop.
Jamie: Do you think about Micah every night before you go to sleep?
Andrew: Yeah, I do. [laughs]
[All laugh]
Jamie: I certainly do, so there’s no shame in it.
Andrew: I have a picture of him on my night stand.
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: That’s kind of creepy.
Jamie: I’ve got seven.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
MuggleCast T-Shirts
Andrew: Also, MuggleCast t-shirts – we haven’t done this in awhile – we have some new MuggleCast t-shirt designs and I don’t think we’ve plugged them at all on the show. So, go to MuggleCast.com…
Jamie: We always plug them.
Andrew: …and click on “Store” at the link or “Store” at the top. [laughs] Is it called “store” or “shop”?
Jamie: One of them. It’s one of them.
Andrew: “Store.” It’s called “Store.”
Jamie: Go to either.
Andrew: Pick up one of these great new t-shirt designs. They are really cool. I saw one – I saw the first one at the live Leaky Mug. Someone was wearing it. And it’s very nice. It’s a MuggleCast Crest t-shirt. Then, we also have Lumos shirts up for sale and we’re working on one more design which should be out around Christmas, but for now, purchase your MuggleCast t-shirt today. Help support the show. Thank you very much.
Jamie: I agree.
Episode 57 Update
Andrew: Also, after much skepticism, complaints, barrates, all these, all these, all this – ah, it just hurts so much. Episode 57 is finally released, four weeks late, but, hey. It’s out.
Jamie: It’s still out?
Andrew: It’s a bit of a mess. I had to record the second half of the show again. Well, my voice – because my – I lost the audio file. It’s not a bad show, actually. We didn’t make a news post on MuggleNet. We will with this new episode, but, so check that out. Sorry for the delay.
Laura: Yeah. They made you cry, didn’t they Andrew?
Kevin: Wow.
Andrew: Yeah. All of these people were complaining about how we were just doing it to keep up with PotterCast and all this nonsense.
Jamie: How dare they.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: It was just because if you listen to 57 you will see it’s a very dated show. That’s why the title of the show in fact is called MuggleCast 57: This Show is Outdated. So…
[Jamie laughs]
Kevin: Oh. Good title.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs] So, Jamie you got this RS…
Kevin: That’s the one we recorded before LA right?
Andrew: Right before the trip.
Kevin: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Chocolate Frogs have…
Andrew: Jamie, you got that…
Jamie: Huh?
Andrew: You got the RSVP thing? That’s yours, right?
Jamie: Oh. Oh, yeah. Well, before I do it, I’d just like to say that Chocolate Frogs have furious fights over who gets to be in the box with a Dumbledore card.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: That was pretty good.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: From Phoebe, 16, from Texas. Thank you.
RSVP
Okay, the RSVP thing. Okay. Somebody, I can’t remember who because the e-mail got deleted and I can’t remember who, so I’m sorry, wrote in to point out that I had been mispronouncing RSVP. Not the actual abbreviation, but the actual thing. I was saying it’s repondez, s’il vous plait [pronounces it “ray-pond-ay see voo play”] and there’s an “s” in there, so it’s respondez s’il vous plait [pronounces it “ray-spond-ay see voo play”]. Well done to them for spotting out my deliberate error and for pointing it out. So, yeah. Well done, because I did do that on purpose just to test who was listening and who was up to scratch on their French.
Kevin: Oh, I’m sure.
Jamie: Oh, by the way, instead of doing an actual segment for the Dumbledore-Chuck Norris facts, I thought I’d just put them in whenever there’s an awkward silence or gap or something like that. So, let me know if you like that more.
Andrew: [laughs] Okay.
Listener Rebuttal: The Veil
Andrew: We also have a listener rebuttal this week, and then we’ll get into our main discussion. This comes from Valerie, 16, of New York and she just wanted to clear up a little mistake we made on Episode 58.
“I have a rebuttal regarding the Veil. On Episode 58 you mentioned that Ginny could have heard ‘beyond the veil’ because she saw Riddle die. This theory isn’t possible because a few pages earlier it was stated that she couldn’t see the Thestrals so she couldn’t have seen death.”
A lot of people brought this up to us and its true but the eternal optimist could always say, “Well gee, maybe she’s just pretending.”
Laura: No, Valerie’s right.
Andrew: Yeah, I know. She’s right. [laughs]
Laura: Thank you, Valerie.
Andrew: I’m just trying to cover it. So, with that said…
Jamie: So wait, even the eternal optimist would be screwed in this regard, then, completely? [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.
Jamie: Couldn’t win.
Andrew: But with that said we should revise the conclusion that we made last week, which is in order to hear voices from the Veil, you have to have seen death.
Laura: I don’t think so.
Andrew: But now…yeah. But now the general consensus…
Laura: I disagree.
Andrew: I know.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Wait, you weren’t on the show last week right?
Laura: No, I was.
Andrew: Oh, you were.
Laura: But, you guys kept saying that it was death, and I kept saying that Ginny had never seen anyone die.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: You did say that?
Jamie: She says that now. She says that…
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs]
Laura: Okay!
Andrew: You did not say that.
Laura: Go back and listen to the show.
Andrew: Maybe you did.
Laura: I said Ginny has never seen anyone die, therefore…
Jamie: She’s taking all the credit for Valerie’s hard work, Andrew, here. Oh, shameful.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: When the transcripts released tomorrow, we’ll go back and we’ll take a look and see
Laura: No. I can tell you exactly what I said.
Andrew: She probably did. She probably did.
Laura: I said…
Jamie: Yeah. She probably did, yeah. [laughs]
Laura: …I don’t know if Ginny’s seen anyone die so there’s got to be a different common link between those four people.
Andrew: No one brought up the Thestrals though. That was the mistake that we made, saying that Ginny could see the Thestrals.
Laura: The mistake that you made, not me.
Andrew: Okay. Sorry. [laughs]
Laura: I’m just kidding, Andrew. [laughs]
Andrew: [laughs] So now, thinking about it, it could be a near death experience because Ginny was in a near death experience in the Chamber of Secrets.
Laura: Yeah. That was actually in the Roundup that I posted that one listener thought that because – she thought that maybe it was a traumatic experiences that made them more vulnerable to the Veil’s…
Jamie: Power.
Laura: …attraction.
Micah: So, you’re saying Ron and Hermione have never experienced a traumatic event?
Laura: I’m not saying that. I’m saying listener feedback and see it kind of brings into question what would the level of trauma have to be?
Kevin: Considering…yeah.
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: It’s like, “Yeah, Ron, you almost died when you were 11 years old. That doesn’t count.” You know, so…
Jamie: Yeah. [laughs]
Main Discussion: Time and the Department of Mysteries
Andrew: Alright. So, this week we are going to talk about the Department – well, no. This is continuing our series about the Department of Mysteries. Today we’re going to be talking about [sings] time. Ben’s not hear to sing it with me either. [chokes up]
Jamie: What song is it?
Laura: You’re all alone Andrew.
Andrew: City of Blinding Lights by U2.
Jamie: Oh.
Laura: Oh boy.
Jamie: Why – what does time have to do with that?
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: Or is it – or did you just say time in the theme of City of Blinding Lights [laughs]
Andrew: No, no.
Kevin: He applies every word…
Andrew: That’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about time.
Jamie: Oh.
Andrew: And in the song they sing [sings] “Time…”
Jamie: Oh, I see.
Andrew: [sings] “Time will leave me as I am. Time taking the boy out of this man.” Okay. Anyway, Jamie go for it. [laughs]
Jamie: Well, okay. Time is an extremely interesting topic because it has been the subject of, you know, sort of a great deal of science fiction films, fantasy novels, and it’s something that you can’t really explain. It’s very complicated, very intense topic, and even for the most powerful of wizards and witches when messed with, it can have dire consequences. So, and especially when it comes down to the Department of Mysteries and time, because obviously the Ministry of Magic isn’t completely, what’s the word? What’s the opposite of corrupt? Sorry, what’s the opposite of non-corrupt? Corrupt. Yeah.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Congratulations, Jamie.
Jamie: Thank you. Thank you. Fine, fine. So, the Ministry of Magic isn’t completely non-corrupt, so you know, time, when placed in the hands of a bad person, like Voldemort, could be very, very deadly. So, let’s talk about time. Let’s start off with our first question.
Does The Ministry Control Time?
Jamie: How much control does the Ministry have over time, and time meddling, more specifically? And the first bit of that is, it took a long, long time for Hermione to get the Time Turner in The Prisoner of Azkaban. And it seems, because of this, that the Ministry has strict controls, but maybe, like the other Ministry-related things, they are open to outside control. What do you guys think?
Laura: Well, do you think that they were monitoring anything that Hermione was doing with the Time Turner? Because…
Jamie: You mean like tracking what she was doing?
Laura: Yeah, because it seems like if they really wanted to make sure that it wasn’t being abused…
Jamie: Oh yeah.
Laura: …they would, but at the same time, no one’s ever said anything to the trio about going back and saving Sirius.
Jamie: Well, exactly. You’d think that they’d restrict it so she couldn’t just go back ten years and change stuff that she wanted to, but I’m sure they wouldn’t allow her to go back and rescue Sirius, as you say, so perhaps they don’t. Perhaps the tests are, before she gets it, and then once they’re satisfied she won’t use it for anything bad, they give her free reign over it. Although, that does seem a bit, you know, reckless.
Laura: It’s kind of dangerous, though.
Jamie: It is.
Laura: But, I mean again, it’s something they would do.
Jamie: [coughs] Yeah, no, it is.
Micah: I’m actually rereading Prisoner of Azkaban right now, but I don’t remember. Does the Ministry know that she has the Time Turner?
Laura: Yeah.
Kevin: Yeah.
Jamie: Oh, yeah.
Kevin: Yeah, definitely.
Laura: Yeah, she said that McGonagall had to write tons and tons of letters to get it for her.
Andrew: So maybe they just have to convince them – well, McGonagall just had to convince the Ministry that she could be trusted enough to do this.
Kevin: Now do you think the Ministry is only one with Time Turners?
Jamie: Well, exactly. They’re like – surely you can get one. You can’t, you know….
Kevin: See…
Jamie: And where do they get them from? Do they make them? Or are they natural?
Kevin: You see the thing is, is…
Laura: [laughs] What, do they just pop out of the ground, Jamie?
Kevin: Yeah.
Laura: Like flowers?
Jamie: Yes, yes.
[Laura laughs]
Kevin: They grow on trees.
Jamie: They have Time Turner trees and you just pluck one off and wind it back and you’re fine.
Andrew: When it’s ripe, of course.
Kevin’s Analysis of Time Travel
Kevin: You see…
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: …the thing is about the Time Turner that I never really liked, was that they were able to see themselves in the past. If you know what I mean?
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: Which…
Jamie: No, but that…
Andrew: Why don’t you like it?
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: It, well…
[Jamie laughs]
Laura: Explain, Kevin.
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: The reason why I don’t like it is this: If you in the – when you’re visualizing time, if you go back in time, right? And kill yourself, right?
Laura: Mhm.
Kevin: You would never have had the opportunity to go back in time in the first place. And, therefore, you…
Jamie: No, Kevin, stop trying to show off, okay?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Jamie: Anyone can get this from…
[Micah laughs]
Jamie: …Wikipedia, okay? It has nothing to do with it.
Laura: Well, that’s why… That’s why you don’t go back in time and kill yourself. [laughs] That’s why you don’t do that.
Kevin: No, but what I’m saying is…
Laura: You can’t.
Jamie: No, no, no, no. The point you’re trying to say is, you can’t go back in time and kill yourself because you could – because if you went back in time and killed yourself, you couldn’t go back in time and kill yourself.
Kevin: Exactly.
[Laura laughs]
Kevin: And then you’d…
Jamie: But that has absolutely nothing to do with Harry Potter.
Kevin: No, no, I make a point. This is my point.
Laura: That’s not necessarily true, though. I mean…
Jamie: It is, it is. Of course it is.
Laura: …it depends on what the limitations on time are. No because, in the books, doesn’t it work in a loop? It would just keep going and going and going.
Jamie: No, but if you decided now to go back ten years…
Laura: Like the Energizer Bunny.
Jamie: Huh? [laughs]
Kevin: Okay, how about this?
Jamie: Just like the Energizer Bunny.
Kevin: Instead of saying, kill yourself. If your going back in time results in your death indirectly…
Jamie: Then…
Kevin: …it becomes a paradox.
Jamie: …it precludes your existence, yeah.
Kevin: Yeah, exactly. And what I’m saying is, are even the dark wizards willing to go back in time, knowing the risks involved in doing so?
Jamie: But Kevin, Kevin, you can’t – if you go back in time, yeah? Then – and then you can’t die, because if you died, then you wouldn’t be there to go back in time. So, your mission is automatically a success if you go back in time. Do you see what I mean? Well, no it’s not automatically a success but you come back, you definitely come back.
Kevin: It depends on your view of time. If it’s a linear time…
Jamie: No…
Kevin: …as opposed to a quantum time where there’s…
Jamie: Yeah I definitely… Right, you’ve lost me absolutely completely already.
[Everyone laughs]
Kevin: What I’m saying is, there’s different ways of viewing time. One in a linear fashion or one in, like, the quantum physics fashion, where by going back in time you have just created a new timeline where different things can happen.
Jamie: Oh right. I see.
Kevin: So…
Laura: That what I’m saying, though. I mean, I’m kind of under the impression that time in Harry Potter is circular. Like, for instance…
Kevin: Is like linear? Where…
Laura: Well, okay, let me explain. You know how in the Prisoner of Azkaban movie and I think – I don’t often like to cite the movies because I often feel that they’re incorrect. But you know how at the end when Harry and Hermione come running back and they open the doors and they see themselves disappear?
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: I believe that the versions of themselves that just disappeared would come running back again and see themselves disappear again, like it keeps going and going and going.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: Ohhh…
Laura: So, even if you do kill yourself, it just happens over and over and over again.
Kevin: Which is a paradox again.
Jamie: But surely, Kevin. Surely, Kevin, the time in Harry Potter is one where you don’t create a new timeline because Dumbledore says that they’ve got to be back in the hospital wing at a certain time to replace the ones that have just gone. So, surely, when Dumbledore turned after he sent Harry and Hermione off to do the thing, he just turned around and they were there and it had been a success already. Isn’t that right?
Kevin: But by different timeline I mean the affected events so, therefore, there is a universe in which they did not go back in time or, in which, Sirius died and then there’s a universe…
Laura: That’s interesting.
Kevin: …in which Sirius survived. That’s…
Laura: Let’s discuss this. Do you think that Harry will visit some sort of alternate universe, where things are different?
Kevin: I think that would be a far stretch for the Harry Potter books.
Andrew: A parallel universe? Tell us abut parallel universes, Kevin.
Kevin: Uh, let’s not. [laughs]
Jamie: No, no, no, no, no. He told us about those in Vegas, remember?
Andrew: Yeah, that was a lot of fun hearing about that.
Kevin: I did.
Would Dark Wizards Use Time Travel?
Kevin: But what I’m saying is, my point is…is… Do you think that dark wizards are – would avoid time and time travel because of the implications of making a mistake?
Laura: Well, it depends. I think that Voldemort would avoid it.
Jamie: No. No, Voldemort, yeah.
Laura: But I think he would make people do it for him.
Kevin: Yeah, but even…
Jamie: Yeah, it’s too powerful for him to…
Kevin: But even then you have to realize you can, you can catch yourself and you can catch, like, time itself in a loop where nothing…
Laura: Yeah, that’s true.
Kevin: …will move forward.
Laura: I mean, if one of his followers screwed up…
Kevin: Exactly, so do you think that Voldemort would actually be willing to take the risk of…
Laura: Hmmm.
Jamie: I think he – I think he’d trust it to some people.
Who Does Regulate Time?
Laura: I think that kind of brings us back to, who does regulate time? You know?
Andrew: It’s got to be the Ministry.
Jamie: You can’t regulate it, really.
Laura: That’s the thing. You almost wonder if anyone has any sort of view, you know, of what’s going on. If Voldemort would be able to know what was going on, if he would be able to somehow direct a person who had gone back in time to do something. You know?
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: It’s difficult.
Jamie: It is difficult.
Laura: You can’t exactly send someone a letter telling them what to do if
they’ve gone back in time.
Jamie: Yeah, it’s true.
[Jamie and Kevin laugh]
Laura: [laughs] I think we’re confusing ourselves.
Kevin: Well, it’s a very confusing subject.
Laura: [laughs] Yeah.
Repercussions of Going Back in Time
Kevin: And also, is there a limitation on how far back in time you can go?
Laura: I don’t think so. I never got that impression.
Jamie: I have.
Kevin: So, you’re saying that Hermione could have taken the Time Turner,
flipped the Time Turner a million times…
Jamie: A million times.
Andrew: [laughs] See dinosaurs.
Kevin: …gone back to right before Harry’s parents were killed and saved their lives?
Jamie: Yeah. No. Well, yes, she could have done.
Laura: Well, not necessarily save their lives, but then again she’d have to
live through those sixteen, or thirteen, fourteen years. She couldn’t just, you know?
Jamie: Yeah, exactly, she couldn’t – you can’t go forward in time. But
I’m under the impression she couldn’t do that because if she’d done that Harry’s parents would be alive now. I know that you’re saying that you have
different timelines, but…
Laura: Yeah. It’s hypothetical, though.
Jamie: …I don’t think that’s the case in Harry Potter.
Laura: I think Kevin’s just trying to make a point.
Jamie: Yeah, but…
Kevin: Yeah, my point is, is that the repercussions of changing anything in
the past are so great that, you know, the smallest thing…
Jamie: It’s smart to not do it.
Kevin: If you push one person out of the way of a moving car, right, that person surviving could change everything.
Jamie: Everything could change. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They could go on a… Yeah.
yeah.
Did The Trio’s Time Travel Affect The Future?
Laura: Well, do you think that maybe the trio accidentally changed something that seemed so minute in the third book and it’s going to come up in the seventh book, and it’s going to make everything even more difficult?
Andrew: Like what?
Laura: I’m just… I don’t have any specific examples, I’m just saying, Kevin brings up a good…
Andrew: Instead of turning the light off they left it on?
Laura: Yeah, you know, something just…
Andrew: The light bulb bursts, and someone…
Kevin: Someone didn’t trip, didn’t hit their head…
Andrew: …has to go out and change the light bulb, which triggered Draco. Oh, come on, I was on a roll, Kevin. But there’s no light bulbs at Hogwarts, so that sort of doesn’t work out. So…
Laura: [laughs] What?
[Andrew, Kevin, Laura laugh]
More Monitoring Time
Jamie: Should we move on to the next one? Can’t they monitor when someone
has changed time or have we done that? Perhaps, actually, think about it. Would you think that’s, like they can tell where magic has been…
Kevin: Like a resonance that leaves some sort of…
Jamie: …was being done, but they can’t tell who by. Yeah, yeah. Perhaps it’s that they can monitor that somebody has gone back but and done something, but they can’t tell what. So, when they see Hermione going back in Prisoner of Azkaban, they just think that it’s her going back to do her lessons, rather than…
Andrew: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Jamie: But wait a minute…
Andrew: But wouldn’t they be able to watch or something?
Jamie: Well, I guess so, but…
Laura: That’d be kind of creepy, though.
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: Because that would mean that they would be watching her all the time…
Andrew: Well, that’s just one of the…
Laura: …which is gross.
Andrew: …one of the rules you have to deal with.
Jamie: You can tune in to channel 415: Hermione. Like cable.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Whenever they feel like it, Jamie?
Jamie: Whenever they feel like it.
[Laura laughs]
Hermione’s Time Travel
Jamie: But wouldn’t she be going to – wouldn’t she be going to one class twice? So, say if at 10:00 AM – no, say if at 9. Actually, no. Yeah, say if at 9:00 AM she’s got Muggle Studies, yeah?
Laura: Mhm.
Jamie: And at 9:00 AM she’s got Arithmancy. If she went back in time to go to Arithmancy, wouldn’t she be void…
Laura: Then she’s in Muggle Studies again.
Jamie: No. No, no, no, she wouldn’t be in Muggle Studies, though, because she’d be in Arithmancy. So, as Kevin says, there have got to be two, two different things of time, but…
Laura: Oh my god, this is so confusing. [laughs]
[Kevin laughs]
Jamie: They aren’t parallel, they’ve got to…
Kevin: That’s what I’m saying, yeah.
Jamie: …catch up at some point. See what I mean? Because if she goes back in time to go to one at 9:00 AM she can’t be in two places at once, so she’s got to be missing from one, unless it’s two different periods of time. Does that make sense?
Kevin: Yeah, yeah, but remember what, remember what Harry and Ron were saying. They saw they saw her in class. So what she probably did was, she went to class, went back in time and went to another class, so she technically was in two places at once, until the point at which she had used it.
Jamie: At which they coincide. Yeah.
Kevin: Exactly.
Laura: Yeah, I don’t know. I’m not sure about that because if say she weren’t in one class whenever she went to the other, there’d be no point in saying you can’t be seen. You know?
Jamie: Well, yeah, I guess, but…
Laura: You’re still going to run across yourself. Wasn’t there one point in
the book where Hermione was walking with them and she suddenly disappeared
and was at the bottom…
Jamie: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: …of the stairs?
Kevin: Yeah. [laughs]
Jamie: You think she’d be a bit more subtle instead of just walking along
and disappear, you know?
[Everyone laughs]
Jamie: You’d think she’d go into the toilet like Superman and turn the Time Turner.
[Kevin laughs]
Laura: Yeah, but what if they had just run across one of her past selves? And if she just disappeared?
[Everyone laughs]
Jamie: Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, or…
Kevin: Yeah, it’s true.
[Jamie and Laura laugh]
Jamie: …or if she’s – this can’t go into the show, really, but if
she goes into the toilet and she turns the time back and somebody’s in there taking a [bleep].
[Everyone laughs]
Jamie: She just lands on top of them.
[Everyone laughs]
Back to Monitoring Time
Micah: But I don’t think they can monitor the changing of time just because
they would be able to know exactly what happened that night. They know that
Sirius was freed somehow…
Kevin: It’s true, yeah.
Micah: …and if they knew…
Andrew: Well, that’s what I was thinking…
Micah: Sorry.
Andrew: No, you can finish.
Laura: Well, clearly the Ministry doesn’t know because Fudge had no clue. He was just pointing fingers. So…
Micah: [laughs] Fudge never has a clue.
[Kevin laughs]
Laura: I know, but [sighs] if the Ministry did know, then Fudge would know, you know? They would obviously tell him, hopefully.
Micah: But there was Ministry presence that was there, though, wasn’t there that night?
Laura: Ummm…
Micah: Because the Dementors were going to perform the Kiss.
Laura: Well, Fudge was there.
Micah: Right.
Laura: Fudge came.
Micah: So, you would think that if they knew Hermione used the Time Turner at this time during the day to go back in time…
Laura: Exactly.
Micah: …that they would have connected the two events.
Kevin: Yeah, it’s true.
Laura: So, obviously, they can’t even monitor when she uses it.
Jamie: No, yeah.
Micah: Maybe that’s part of why it’s so…
Andrew: Dangerous.
Jamie: Dangerous.
Micah: …such a problem to entrust it into even a student that is under the watch of professors.
Andrew: I don’t know. I just think if they’re issued by the Ministry, you would think they would take the responsibility of tracking what people are doing with them.
Jamie: You would hope so, yeah.
Andrew: I doubt when they were trying to figure out how Sirius escaped, I don’t think the first thing they checked was Hermione’s Time Turner.
Laura: No, but then again…
Andrew: And she wouldn’t be as looked at.
Laura: …this is the same group of people that put Dementors as guards on a prison, you know? Creatures that are known to serve Lord Voldemort, they’re putting in charge of his followers. It just doesn’t seem like they’d be all that intelligent when it came to how they ran things.
Andrew: Right.
Laura: Especially time.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: Well, I mean, that would explain why they wouldn’t check Hermione’s Time Turner.
Laura: Yeah. Well, I’m not sure you can check, though. I’m just not sure I believe that it’s like you can log into whatever and check to see Hermione changed time at 4:52 PM, you know?
Kevin: Yeah, it’s true.
Andrew: Well, maybe not, but, I don’t know. You can track magic – well, we’ll get into this more later when talk about how…
Laura: Oh my god, my head is spinning. [laughs]
Andrew: I think it’s going good. So just…
Can Anyone Change Time?
Jamie: Okay. Number two: Can anyone with the right tools change time, or do you need magic in you, like you need magic when using a wand, because the wand just channels the magic?
Laura: We had an – Andrew and I had an interesting discussion about this the other day.
Andrew: And then I stopped it because I was like, “Save it for the show!”
[Kevin, Laura, and Andrew laugh]
Laura: Yeah. No, basically we were kind of talking about, could a Muggle or a squib use a Time Turner? Because I’m not necessarily sure they could, but my point was that a wand isn’t really a source of magic. It channels the magic from its owner. A Time Turner is actually magical itself. So, would…
Jamie: Well, we think it is.
Laura: Well, it’s got to be. It’s changing time, it’s not the wizard that’s changing time. Well, I mean the wizard does, but…
Jamie: No, but it could be magic that’s put into it.
Andrew: The wizard could be – right, right. The same way a wand is.
Laura: No, but that’s not true, though. Because remember in Order of the Phoenix whenever they knocked over the Time Turners, and they kept reappearing and falling back over by themselves? So, it wasn’t magic that was put into them.
Jamie: No, that could just be…
Laura: They were fixing themselves and breaking again.
Andrew: There has to be some magic in them, but you might also need the wizard’s magic. Which I thought that’s what you were telling me the other day.
Laura: No, no, no. I was saying you need a wizard’s magic to use a wand.
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: But I’m not necessarily sure you need a wizard’s magic to use a Time Turner.
Micah: When you say, “change time,” do you mean specifically with a Time Turner or is there another way that you’re talking about?
Laura: Well, we know that – we’ve seen another method of time in the Department of Mysteries where that one Death Eater fell into the bell jar and it caused his head to become that of a baby’s. And was kind of different because it wasn’t really changing time, it was…
Micah: Changing bodies.
Kevin: Reverting, yeah.
Laura: Making him younger.
Kevin: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah, it was making him younger and it was also a lot faster. Whereas with the Time Turner you actually have to live back through all of those events over again. With the bell jar he was going back and forth between being a baby and being a Death Eater within seconds.
Jamie: Yeah.
Micah: Well, I think if a Muggle or a squib got a hold of a Time Turner, and they just turned it a little bit, something might happen.
Jamie: This is so tough, this stuff.
Kevin: It really is, yeah.
Laura: I know! Now I know how…
Jamie: I need some infantile humor to take away from the seriousness.
Laura: Do you remember… [laughs] If you’ll remember on the Prisoner of Azkaban DVD where Alfonso Cuaron was trying to explain the whole time cycle and he couldn’t?
Jamie: Oh, really?
Laura: Now I know how he feels.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Because it’s like…
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: He’s only done Spanish movies, so we’ve got to give him something.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. Wasn’t Jo sitting with him or was that a separate interview?
Laura: Yeah. Yeah, Jo was sitting with him.
Andrew: Did she try and explain it at all?
Laura: No. She just looked at him and she was like, “Yeah, yeah, it is very hard.” [laughs]
[Kevin laughs]
Andrew: “Oh, thanks.” [laughs]
Laura: [laughs] She basically gave him that look like, “Um, yeah.”
Andrew: I wonder if the bell jar, like…how does it…the baby. How young was the baby? Was it a week old, a month old?
Laura: I don’t know, it just said “baby.”
Andrew: What determines – yeah. What determines how far back it brings you?
Laura: Well, apparently, I mean, we saw in the bell jar that there was – wasn’t there an egg in there and as it floated to the top it turned into a bird or something, and then as it went back down to the bottom it would turn back into an egg. So, I think it probably takes you back to the earliest form of life, I suppose.
Jamie: No, because the earliest form of life for a baby is…
Laura: I knew this was coming! I knew this was coming!
[Jamie and Andrew laugh]
Jamie: Well, it’s true!
Laura: I didn’t want to bring this up because then it gets into the whole topic of when does life start, and we don’t need to go there.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: Yeah, true, fair point.
Evolution
Andrew: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Jamie: Andrew, there is an easy answer to this. It’s clearly the egg.
Laura: Yeah.
Jamie: Because evolution says that there has to be something before a chicken, before something evolved into a chicken. So, the one stage before a chicken, that thing laid an egg, and then that hatched into a chicken.
[Kevin and Micah laugh]
Andrew: But what laid an egg?
Jamie: That’s why we – huh? A chicken minus one.
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: Well, that’s like saying a mother came along and gave birth to Adam and Eve.
Laura: No, no, no, no, it’s not.
Jamie: No, it’s not, it’s not.
Laura: No, he’s right. He’s right, Andrew. Whatever came before the chicken, whatever the chicken’s ancestor is, laid the egg and the evolution over time brought us to the chicken.
Jamie: Hey, look. Andrew.
Andrew: You guys are such dorks.
Jamie: Andrew.
Andrew: Because anyone else you ask that, they’re just like, “Oh, I don’t know.”
Jamie: Andrew?
Andrew: What?
Jamie: Look at it like this. If you have, “What came first, the snake or the egg?” Okay? The egg came first because a snake with one leg laid an egg and then that hatched into a snake with no legs, which is really a snake. Whereas the snake with one leg isn’t really a snake. Do you see?
Andrew: Uhhh… [laughs]
Laura: What we’re saying is…
Kevin: It’s all based on evolution.
Laura: Yeah, if you think about it, humans are slowly evolving. I mean, it’s so minimal that each generation has, you know, some sort of small change to them, but it’s so, just, minimal that you can’t even notice it. Isn’t there some sort of prediction that eventually, humans are going to no longer have their pinky finger? One day? We’re just…
Jamie: I hope not.
Laura: [laughs]Humans are only going to have four fingers.
Kevin: Oh, that would stink.
Laura: So it’s like, saying, you know, over time, like for instance, the mother who had a centimeter of her pinky finger that gave birth to the child with no pinky finger. You know what I’m saying?
Andrew: Well, that’s like people saying about your appendix. People think that that it used to be a second stomach? Ever hear that one?
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah.
Kevin: That would have been awesome.
Jamie: You’d get to Subway and then go back.
Laura: Now it’s just…
Jamie: Now it’s…
Andrew: Ready to cause appendicitis.
Laura: Burst.
Andrew: Yeah, exactly. [laughs] But anyway. What purpose does…
Laura: [laughs] How did we get…
Andrew: From the chicken to the egg.
Kevin: This came from the chicken to the egg floating to the top and then the bird floats up.
Laura: [laughs] Yeah, okay.
Kevin: Yeah, but…
The Bell Jar
Jamie: Let’s move from the bell jar and move to number four, will…
Andrew: Well, hold on. What purpose does the bell jar serve?
Kevin: I think the bell jar was just an…
Laura: It was just research.
Kevin: Yeah, it was just an experiment.
Andrew: Oh, okay.
Kevin: And the only reason why it went back as far as it did, back to the egg, is just probably the way they set up the experiment.
Laura: Mhm.
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: Well, they probably – what they’re trying to do is probably monitor time change in a very fast setting.
Jamie: Yeah, exactly.
Laura: So they don’t have to sit there and watch, you know, a chicken take four weeks to grow.
Kevin: Yeah.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: Or maybe they did it in case the parents didn’t take a picture of the baby…
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: …as a newborn. So, they charge a small fee and you can…
Jamie: Or they’d forgotten what their first word was, so…
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: So, they were like, “let’s just chuck you back into time and we’ll see what you said.”
Andrew: [laughs] Uh huh. All right, so moving along here.
Will Time Feature in Book Seven?
Jamie: Okay. Number four: Will time feature in Book Seven? Will the trio use it again to right an injustice? How far back in time would the trio go in order to change something? This goes back to what we were talking about. I don’t think they’d ever dare go back to when Harry’s parents were alive.
Laura: Mhm.
Kevin: Yeah, and that’s what I was saying about even dark wizards. I don’t think anyone would even risk the repercussions that it’d result from.
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: It’s too unreliable. Way too unreliable.
Kevin: They… The further you go back, the more that things can change from a single action.
Laura: Mhm.
Kevin: You know? Because it grows off of itself. So…
Laura: Yeah, but that’s why I was kind of bringing up, what if they do something so seemingly…
Kevin: Well, technically they did.
Laura: Yeah, but what if it’s something so seemingly unimportant while they were changing time, that it’s going to come back and bite them in the butt, you know?
Kevin: Well, it really won’t matter because they never had a perspective on what was going to happen in the future anyway. What I’m saying is if you are here now, and you go back five years, a subtle change there can change the here and now largely.
Jamie: Of course, yeah.
Laura: Oh god.
Kevin: Because they only went back a couple hours, when they did end up getting to their current time, the time at which they had gone back, it didn’t – nothing major had changed. And that’s good. But what I’m saying is if you go back further than that, if you go back years or, you know, hundreds of years…
Jamie: Millenniums.
Kevin: …the slightest… Exactly.
Laura: Mhm. Oh, yeah, it’s a huge risk.
Kevin: Then the slightest change – one life can make a huge change, to the point where when you catch up to the current time, things can be completely different.
Laura: Oh, man.
Andrew: Yeah. It always scares me, like what if there was no Thomas Edison? What if there’s no Al Gore?
[Kevin laughs]
Jamie: What happens if there was no Bono? Andrew?
Andrew: What if there’s no… No. I can’t even think about that.
Micah: But Book Seven, yeah, I don’t think time is going to factor in at all. I think we saw it in Book Three and…
Laura: I don’t know though, I don’t agree!
Micah: They’re not going to pull out a Time Turner and be like, “Oh, let’s go back in time five minutes….”
Laura: I don’t think so though.
Micah: “…and make sure that Dawlish dies.”
Kevin: There’s too many questions regarding it.
Laura: I think there has to – something has to happen with it. It might not be… I don’t know. I just think that time is too important in these books not to have a place in Book Seven.
Micah: But I think it’s a cop out at the same time, to think that they’re going to be able to back in time and correct an event that takes place.
Kevin: Yeah, definitely.
Laura: No, I don’t think they’re going to go back and correct a major event, but I think that there’s going to have to be some sort of study of time. It just seems interesting to me. You know, JK Rowling put – I don’t even know why I’m calling her that. Jo put a huge emphasis on time in the Department of Mysteries. She had them in that room two or three times, didn’t she? I just don’t think… I think that Harry is going to go back to the Department of Mysteries. I think he’s going to study the Veil, I think he’s going to study time, and I think he’s going to get behind that door.
Andrew: Why study that stuff, though, unless you absolutely need it?
Laura: Because it’s important.
Micah: So, you think he’s going to go to the Department of Mysteries and say, “Hey, I’m here to study the Veil. You mind letting me in.”
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs]
Micah: And he’s going to go downstairs, take out his book, and start writing with his quill?
Kevin: Yeah. [laughs]
Jamie: Yeah. [laughs]
Laura: I don’t think it’s that kind of study. I think he’s going to come back and actually have to do something with that. I think he’s going to have to find out exactly what these things are. She would not have introduced us to this place if we weren’t going to learn
about it.
Jamie: Could they solve absolutely everything, like, eliminate the conflict, by going back in time and stopping Snape from overhearing the prophecy?
Laura: I don’t think they would.
Kevin: But that’s what I’m saying…
Jamie: Too risky, like I said.
Laura: Yeah, I agree with Kevin here, I don’t think they would.
Kevin: You can’t predict what’s going to happen by doing that, and I think it would really screw things up. It would not result in the – in the same, you know, outcome, and it would… Obviously, it would not result in the same outcome, and things would be really screwed up. But, for all you know, by not letting Snape hear the prophecy, something else happens that results in Harry’s death.
Jaime: Yeah.
Kevin: And then…
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: …oops, now you have Voldemort running around without Harry to stop him.
Jamie: Well, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
Micah: Well, plus you have to live through 16 years of…
Kevin: Exactly.
Laura: Yeah, exactly. [laughs]
Kevin: And by the time you catch up to yourself, you’re not even going to know what’s going on. So…
Micah: And, do you age? That’s another question: do you age in time? Like, will he – would he be 16 years older than he initially was?
Andrew: When he – when he went back?
Jamie: No.
Kevin: So, he would go back in time at 16 and then…
Laura: I don’t see how time could stop you from – I mean, it’s time.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s still moving.
Laura: You can’t stop yourself from aging.
Kevin: So he would arrive at 32?
Micah: So if he went back to that – the night of the prophecy. Yeah, exactly.
Laura: Basically, like, let’s say that Hermione goes back 100 years, she’s going to die before she gets back to where she was.
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs]
Laura: I know that’s not… [laughs] It isn’t a cheerful thought, but…
Kevin: So, does she stop existing at the time she went back? That’s the question.
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: If she…
Laura: Kevin, you’re twisting my brain here. I can’t…
Kevin: In…in…
Laura: I can’t do this.
Kevin: …The Prisoner of Azkaban, if they replace themselves that went back in time, doesn’t that mean that she’ll never catch up to herself that goes back in time, so she’ll just die and stop existing?
Jamie: I don’t know. That’s too complicated, far too complicated. But, the one thing I do know is that the only time Dumbledore was wrong was when he thought he made a mistake.
[Andrew, Kevin, and Laura laugh]
Jamie: Thank you, Austin, 15, from Texas.
Andrew: That wasn’t an awkward moment. Kevin was on a roll there.
Kevin: I was on a roll.
Andrew: Why’d you break it?
Jamie: Oh, no, he was on a roll, sorry. I just… Oh, no, no…
Kevin: Way to go.
Jamie: It isn’t only – it doesn’t only have to an awkward moment, I just thought that it seemed like a nice time for it. I’m sorry, Kevin.
Kevin: Oh, okay.
Jamie: Go on, go on.
Kevin: Oh, I’m good now.
Jamie: This time stuff is so complicated.
Kevin: Yeah, I think we’re making – we’re going to make everyone sick.
Andrew: It doesn’t matter, though. It’s, it’s going pretty well.
Jamie: Okay, should we move – should we skip out four?
Kevin: We’re…you know what we’re going to do?
Jamie: Should we skip that one?
Kevin: We’re going to cause a number of accidents…
Laura: I know.
Kevin: …because people will be…
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: …concentrating on time so much, they won’t be concentrating on driving while listening to us, and they’re just going to start hitting other…
Jamie: But then, we could just go back in time and save them.
[Laura laughs]
Kevin: Oh, that’s true. Yeah.
Laura: [laughs] Yeah.
Jamie: Just go back in time and not record the show, and then they’ll be fine, so it’s okay.
Kevin: You’re right, yep.
Why Can’t You Be Seen Traveling Back in Time?
Jamie: Okay, number five: Why is it so important that you are not seen when traveling back in time? And is it that you can’t be seen at all, or just not by yourself? I actually saw a TV program a few years ago, where you could go back in time, and see yourself, but you couldn’t touch yourself. And if you touched yourself, it caused like a…an…a universal paradox…
Kevin: It’s a paradox.
Jamie: …and the entire universe exploded.
Laura: I think what it is, you can see your past self…
Micah: Yeah.
Jamie: Your past self. Yeah, yeah.
Laura: …and other people can see you, but your past self can’t see your future, you know what I’m saying? Because, like, the trio all saw their…
Micah: Yeah, there’s no way…
Laura: …past selves whenever they went back, and obviously tons of other people saw…
Micah: There’s just no way that they didn’t see her.
Laura: …Hermione’s…
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: …multiple personalities wandering around the school.
Kevin: I thought that they described some of the consequences. Wasn’t it that, like, you can’t predict what you…
Jamie: You go mad, yeah.
Andrew: How? If you know you have the other Time Turner, then…
Kevin: Yeah, you can’t predict what the other person…
Andrew: And you see…
Kevin: Yeah, well, well that’s one thing.
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: But you can’t really predict – for example, if Harry had seen himself, prior to knowing there was a Time Turner, what is Harry going to think?
Jamie: Yeah. His dad, maybe again, just like when he saw himself.
Kevin: Yeah, right. Either that or kill him.
Laura: Right, Jamie, what would you do if [laughs] you saw yourself walk into a room?
Jamie: I would challenge myself to an arm wrestle, and then see who wins.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: That would be awesome.
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: Challenge myself to a fight.
Kevin: Yeah, but see, the problem is that…
Andrew: Would either win?
Kevin: …other people can look like you…
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: …by using…
Micah: Yeah, what if…
Jamie: Yeah, but not identical.
Kevin: Yes, but that’s what I’m saying. I mean, look at, look at Moody. He was Moody, everyone knew him as Moody, but he wasn’t.
Micah: Yeah, but what happens if…
Kevin: So, if Harry saw himself…
Jamie: Oh, you mean so if… Yeah.
Kevin: …the first thing he’s going to assume is that someone disguised as – exactly. Pull out his wand and try to kill him, so now you just killed yourself in the future. [laughs]
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Jamie: I think it would be a bit hasty to just kill him.
Kevin: I don’t know, I mean you can’t predict your reaction to seeing yourself.
Andrew: Well, I mean, in Hermione’s case, if the rule – if she said the rule was, “I’m not allowed to let the other version of myself see me,” but if you know you have a Time Turner…
Laura: Maybe it’s a little different, then. But, I mean, Dumbledore continually said, “You can’t be seen.”
Andrew: I guess that makes sense if people see two of you, because…
Laura: So, obviously…
Andrew: …maybe the Ministry doesn’t want anyone knowing who has Time Turners, because then, like, say Malfoy could… If Malfoy…
Laura: Yeah, but can you imagine…
Andrew: Hold on, if Malfoy knew that Hermione had a Time Turner, Malfoy could get Hermione to maybe take him back in time to, you know, change something to cause some sort of damage.
Kevin: Yeah, but…
Andrew: I’m saying just a little incident…
Laura: Yeah, but can you imagine, like…
Andrew: …in the past day, not like, you know…
Laura: I’m just not even sure that Hermione could even, even if you have a Time-Turner, that you should be seeing your future self, because what would Hermione have done if she’d seen herself rescuing someone that she thought was a criminal? Because obviously, if her past, you know, if her past self had seen her future self saving Sirius Black, she would’ve been like, “What was I thinking?” [laughs] or, “What will I be thinking?”
Micah: No… What if it’s event specific? And think about the people that are involved. When it’s going on during school hours and most likely people know, at least among the teachers, that she’s using it, there wouldn’t be any cause for concern, but think of all the people that are involved in the situation when she goes back in time at the end of Prisoner of Azkaban.
Kevin: Yeah, it’s true.
Micah: Would you really want somebody like Snape seeing you, would you want somebody…
Laura: Yeah, that’s true.
Micah: …like Wormtail seeing you?
Kevin: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: Because what use would you have for going back in time at that situation? And they’re going to immediately assume that you’re going to – you’re changing something for the better or for your own reasons, and I’m sure that’s not going to fly with the Ministry.
Micah: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: So, I think it’s just a – just the repercussions of, you know, possibly changing things or seeing yourself out of context and doing something drastic.
Laura: I think our brains have all been appropriately twisted now.
Jamie: Yeah, yeah.
Kevin: If you aren’t bleeding from the ears yet, you will be.
Andrew:
[says in strange voice] Well, for more on time…
Jamie: For more on time, go to Level
Nine on MuggleNet, which I thought was pretty comprehensive, but after talking about it on the show, I realize it barely skims the surface. But still go there anyway.
Andrew: Maybe you should provide a link on Level Nine to this episode of MuggleCast.
Jamie: I should. It is Mugglenet.com/LevelNine, I think. Let me just check that quickly.
Kevin: Is nine spelled out or…?
Andrew: Yeah, it’s “slash” LevelNine. It’s spelled out.
Laura Mallory: Second Try
Andrew: Guys, last week we tried to give Laura Mallory a call and we asked if maybe…
Jamie: Did we?
Andrew: Yeah, we did. And no answer; we got the voicemail, said, “Your call is very important to us,” Ben left a message, asked for her to call us back and no response, so…
Laura: Imagine that.
Andrew: Let’s try giving her a call one more time and – give her a call one more time and see if maybe she answers this time.
Jamie: Yeah, let’s do it.
Andrew: She’s in [using incorrect pronunciation] Decatur…Decatur…Decatur, Georgia?
Laura: [using correct pronunciation] It’s Decatur. Decatur.
[laughs and mocks Andrew’s incorrect pronunciation] Decatur.
Andrew: Her number is, for anyone at home who wants to give her a call…
Laura: Andrew! Don’t do that.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Now, you guys can’t talk to her because we’re on speakerphone. She’s not going to answer.
Laura: I would laugh if she did.
Andrew: Shhh, shhh.
Kevin: I know, she’s going to pick up. It’s…
Andrew: Shut up! Shut up!
Jamie: Andrew, Andrew…
[Phone ringing]
Jamie: Just be polite, whatever you do.
Answering Machine: Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system.
Andrew: Oh. Oh, jeez.
Answering Machine: Laura Mallory is not available. At the tone…
Andrew: That’s a different number.
Answering Machine: …please leave a message. When you are finished recording or press one for
more options.
Laura: Is that her cell phone?
Andrew: Yeah. Shhh! [leaving message] Hi, Laura. This is Andrew Sims, from MuggleCast. I just wanted to ask you a couple questions about your concerns with the Harry Potter series. You talked to my associate, Ben, last week. Well, he left you a message on your phone at home and he said – well, in your voicemail it says that your call is very important to us, but unfortunately, we didn’t get a call back.
Laura: [laughs throughout call] So stupid.
Andrew: So, we’d like to have a small interview with you on our show. It gets about a million listeners a week, so, you know, it’d be – it’d be a big-time interview. So, give me a call back. The number is 609-668… Thanks. Bye.
Andrew: Well.
Jamie: Not bad, not bad. Very professional. Very professional, Andrew.
Kevin: That was fun.
Andrew: [sighs] It’s very upsetting.
Laura: We have about a million listeners a week?
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: I just… I want to I want to make it a hot sell, you know what I’m saying?
California Reminiscing
Andrew: Now, Jamie, you weren’t on the show last week.
Jamie: Yeah. I know.
Andrew: And we did have a little discussion about our time in California. Do you have anything to add, perhaps?
Jamie: Yeah. Well, I don’t – I don’t want to repeat what everyone else has said, but I’m sure the word “awesome” has come up a lot of times from what other people have said, and you’d all be right if you called it awesome. It was absolutely awesome. It was…
Laura: Mhm.
Jamie: Yeah, it was fantastic. And the – the Leaky Mug, sorry, not the Leaky Mug, I don’t know what I’m talking about. The time at Santa Monica Beach was so, so, so, so good. I felt a peace with nature there, you know?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. Especially when you made contact with the water.
[Kevin laughs]
Jamie: Yeah, yeah. I did, I did. Well, you see, what happened was, you know, people were going in left, right, and center. John had gone, Andrew had gone, you’d gone. And Ben just said to me, “Right, you’re going in.: Now, instead of argue – arguing with him, and he is quite a bit bigger than me, so he could’ve just picked me up and thrown me in and I’d have ruined my cell phone and everything, I just said, “All right, Ben, I’m going in.” So I took my phone out of my pocket, took my – took my wallet out and all my bucks, man, put them down and Ben just picked me up and threw me in the water, and it was freezing. Absolutely freezing.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah, it was awesome. Absolutely awesome.
Andrew: So…
Jamie: And the – Podcast Awards were very cool as well. I felt very proud being there and picking up that award and the microphone and…
Laura: Proud and excited.
Jamie: And, yeah, very proud and excited. And there was a party going on all day with cake and, you know…
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Cake and… Cake and fruit punch.
Jamie: Cake and fruit punch, yeah. And it was awesome. And the Leaky Mug went very well, as well. It was great to meet everyone out there and I actually got – thank you very much to the people who all got me Lucky Charms.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: I ended up with like, five boxes of them. So, it was a feast that evening at the Leaky Mug room.
Kevin: Did you get those on your plane? Did they allow all that stuff?
Jamie: Yeah, I did. Well, well, we ate quite a few, you know, there and then, but I put the other ones in my suitcase and I still got some left over, which is quite cool. And thank you for all the other presents, as well. And just – LA is an amazing place, and I had a really, really good time there, so thank you to everyone. And it was great to see you guys.
Andrew: Awww, thanks.
Micah: Didn’t you meet somebody?
Jamie: Did I meet somebody?
Micah: Didn’t you meet somebody you’ve been waiting to meet for a long time? At Disneyworld? Disneyland?
Jamie: No, I didn’t meet him, did I? I didn’t meet him. He was gone.
Andrew: We only saw him once and he was and he was very busy. So…
Jamie: He was having a day off.
Micah: Once?
Andrew: Are you talking about Mickey, Jamie? Or Micah?
Micah: You didn’t meet him?
Jamie: Yeah, we’re talking about Mickey.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Are we talking about Mickey?
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs]
Micah: Yeah. [laughs]
Jamie: Yeah, no. He…he… Oh, no, I think I waved at him and he waved at me back, but to be fair, though, I was slightly disappointed. I was hoping for a hug, a handshake, and a…
Listener Rebuttal: Ghosts and The Veil
Andrew: Another listener rebuttal we got this week. It comes from Ryan, 21, of State College, PA. He writes, “Micah…”
[Pause]
Micah: Yeah?
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “You seem to be one of the most active on this topic, so I figured I would just send this one to you. Jo said there weren’t executions, just studying death. Is it possible that the observers were studying ghosts that came out of the Veil? Is the Veil the gateway back to Earth if you choose to be a ghost? We’re supposed to figure out more about the Veil and more about how people become ghosts, so I figured it might be a connection. Also, check out the Onion Radio Network podcast; it might be suited to your humor.”
There’s a plug for you. Signed, Ryan.”
Micah: Well, I’ll answer the second part about the gateway back to Earth. I think it would be more of a gateway to whatever afterlife there was. We talked about that on the last show, that if this Ministry is built around the Veil and the Veil is sort of the gateway to the underworld; maybe it’s possible that those peoples’ souls who don’t go to the underworld – that they do come back through the Veil, I don’t know. It still wouldn’t explain why the ghosts just can’t, you know, pop on through the other side and that no ghosts came through the Veil at all while they were there. You know, I’m not…
Laura: Because they can’t.
Micah: You think they’re trapped? [laughs]
Laura: No, I just don’t think that… It’s like saying [sighs]
Micah: So basically, you’re telling Ryan, “No!”
Laura: Okay, here’s… [laughs] Here’s why I think that, though… Because Nearly Headless Nick didn’t know anything about the veil. If it were somewhere that ghosts came from, he would obviously know about it. He said that he didn’t know anything about death or what came after it because he chose this feeble imitation of life instead.
[Pause]
Kevin: Shot down, Ryan.
Laura: And I love the silence.
Kevin: Shot down.
Micah: So, hopefully we answered your question, Ryan. I don’t… I don’t think that anything can come back out through the Veil once it’s already behind there, and I think that’s why they’re studying it.
British Joke of the Day
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. British Joke of the Day.
Jamie: Okay, I don’t, I don’t have one. So, I’ll just say…
Andrew: You never have one.
Jamie: I would. No, I know. Well, I forgot.
Andrew: It used to be a huge segment, now it’s just…
Jamie: Well, I would tell you the joke about the pen, but you probably wouldn’t get the point.
Andrew: Ooh.
Laura: Ooh.
Micah: Ha, ha, ha.
Kevin: That was good.
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: Okay, I need some new ones. I’ll find some for next week, I’m sorry. I just feel like I’ve used them all already. I know that you can’t really use every single joke in the world.
Andrew: Especially with only 59 episodes with one joke a week, and you started on episode three. So…
Jamie: Yeah. I think there are a few more than just 59 jokes in the entire world. So…
Laura: Well it doesn’t matter, Jamie. They can’t be jokes from the entire world; they have to be British jokes. Duh!
Andrew: That’s true. So there’s only, like, 80.
Jamie: Yeah, that is very true. And I do happen to know that there are only 59 jokes in all of Britain, so I’m going to have to go back and start repeating.
Show Close
Andrew: We’d like to remind everyone that if you’d like to send a voicemail question to be aired on this show, make it a general question about the series. To contact us, our P.O. Box is 223 Moundridge, Kansas 67107. All that stuff is sent to Ben, and he forwards it all to us if it’s for us. If you’d like to call us to leave those voicemail questions, if you’re in the United States you can call 1-218-20-MAGIC, which is 1-218-206-2442. In the UK, you call dial 020-8144-0677, and if you’re in Australia you can dial 02-8003-5668. Speaking of Australia, no word yet if we picked up the Kids Choice Award for fave podcast.
Jamie: Hundreds?
Andrew: Yeah, hundreds. We’ll have an update on that next week.
Kevin: Oh, and we should thank everyone for sending in the EA questions. We got a crapload of them.
Andrew: Yes, thanks for sending in the EA questions. Kevin, tell us about all the EA questions.
Kevin: I can tell you the most common question if you want me to.
Andrew: What? What is it?
Kevin: I got it about one hundred times. It’s “is the new game open world, or is it requiring you to go though step by step?”
[Show Close music starts]
Andrew: Oh, okay.
Kevin: Where you can fly around the entire world.
Andrew: I think it’s open world.
Kevin: We shall see when they answer.
Andrew: Just ask me. You can also Skype the name MuggleCast and leave a voice mail question, just keep your question under thirty seconds and eliminate as much background noise as possible.
Jamie: Keep it under three seconds from now on.
Andrew: Yeah. You can also e-mail us. You can just use our first name at staff dot mugglenet dot com, or use the feedback forum on MuggleCast.com. We also have a new community section on the new community website. You can visit our MySpace, Facebook, YouTube group, Frappr group, or even the MuggleCast fanlisting and forums that MuggleCastFans.net.
Jamie: Basically, what he’s trying to say is that there are so many ways to contact us that you’ve got no excuse at all to. Get writing, e-mailing…
Andrew: We’re everywhere.
Jamie: …phoning, sending, mailing.
Andrew: Yes. There was something else I was going to say.
Jamie: I know what you were going to say. You were going to say Dumbledore does not speak Parseltongue, the snakes just speak English out of sheer terror.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Jamie: Actually, Michael, 17, from Sydney said that.
Andrew: Very good Michael, 17, of Sydney. That does wrap up MuggleCast 59. We’ll be back with 60 – we’re turning 60 next week. Once again, I’m Andrew Sims.
Jamie: I’m Jamie Lawrence.
Kevin: I’m Kevin Steck.
Laura: I’m Laura Thompson.
Micah: And I’m Micah Tannenbaum.
Andrew: [says in strange voice] Buh-bye!
Kevin: Goodbye.
This Week in Steck
Andrew: This week, we’re going to have fun with a new segment, and we’ll get back to all of our normal segments next week. We’re calling it “This Week in Steck.” It’s a rip off of “This Week in Tech,” and we know it, but it just works so well, that we have to do it. [laughs] So, we want you guys to send in your technical questions, but Jamie’s got a question for “This Week in Steck” this week that he hopes Kevin can answer for him. Is Jamie not here? [laughs]
Jamie: Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, so I think we just made this so I could get my computer problem solved, you know? I think that’s it, Andrew. [laughs] Okay, Kevin, okay. I have a wireless network…
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: …in my dorm, okay, and I get a perfect signal, okay, on my laptop – perfect, excellent signal, but the Internet keeps dropping. It will die, and then, and then Google won’t load, and then every other website will load in like, eight minutes, and then it will crash, and AIM will crash, and then MSN won’t load. Why is this when I’ve got a perfect signal?
Kevin: Okay, where is the router located?
Jamie: It is downstairs.
Kevin: And where – so it’s passing through floors, I assume? How many?
Jamie: Yeah, but it’s a perfect signal. I get… One.
Kevin: Well, see, the thing is, is that all wireless signals run on a certain frequency…
Jamie: Oh, okay. I know it’s on Channel 11.
Kevin: So, you’re running on a 2.4 gigahertz frequency.
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: So, anyone with a 2.4 gigahertz phone running on the same channel can…
Jamie: Is going to interfere. Should I change the channel, then?
Kevin: Yeah, actually, if you go to the lowest range, like, Channel One or Channel 11…
Jamie: Yeah, one.
Kevin: …or the maximum range, it tends to help.
Jamie: It’s on… I know it’s on Channel 11 now, so shall I change to one and see what happens?
Kevin: Yeah, try changing to one and see how it goes.
Andrew: Yay. [presses the easy button]
Jamie: Thank you, Kevin. That concludes “This Week in Steck” this week. I will tell everyone next week if my wireless network is performing perfectly.
Andrew: Oh, wonderful.
Jamie: I’m sure it will.
Andrew: That needs a second press. [presses the easy button] Too easy for Kevin Steck. What can’t he answer?
Kevin: I know.
Jamie: Oh, Andrew, Andrew, we have a rule in this house where, where, you can’t press the easy button unless something was easy.
Andrew: Oh, really? [laughs]
Jamie: And uh yeah. It’s like a grave, grave, you know, violation of rules if you press it when something hasn’t been easy.
Andrew: [laughs] Is it a hot item in your house?
Jamie: Huh?
Andrew: Is it a hot item in your house?
Jamie: Yeah! Yeah!
Andrew: Good.
Jamie: You like… And any person who presses it has got to explain why they pressed it, or why something was easy.
Andrew: [laughs] Oh, geez. Best five dollars I ever spent for you.
Kevin: Oh, wow.
———————–
Written by: Micah, Adrienne, Allison, Amanda, Briana, Jessica, Judy, Mandie, Margaret, Martina, Matthew, Megan, Samantha, Shannon and Shelly