MuggleCast 67 Transcript
Show Intro
Andrew: This podcast is brought to you by Buena Vista Home Entertainment’s release of Step Up. Incredible dancing and awesome music fuel this exhilarating and inspiring movie, on DVD December 19th.
MuggleCast is also sponsored by GoDaddy.com. If you want to make an impact online, GoDaddy.com has what you need. Plus, as a listener of MuggleCast, enter code “Muggle” when you check out and save an additional 10% on any order. Some restrictions apply, see site for details. Get your piece of the Internet today at GoDaddy.com!
[Intro music plays]
Andrew: Because there are 214 days to kill until Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, thank you, Zoe, 17, of England, this is MuggleCast Episode 67 for December 10th, 2006.
[Music continues to play]
Andrew: I am very concerned about Eric this week.
Jamie: Me, too.
Kevin and Laura: Why is that?
Andrew: He was scheduled to be on the show this week, and we cannot find him.
Kevin: Yet.
Jamie: He’s gone AWOL.
Andrew: I even drove to his house – it’s about an-hour-and-a half from here. I drove there and he wasn’t there.
Jamie: Wait, Andrew, wait. So, he was supposed to turn up an hour and 50 minutes ago, you drove there and it takes an hour and a half, and you’re back already? That is very impressive.
Andrew: Well, you see, I have a Time-Turner.
Jamie: Oh, damn. Yes, you do.
Andrew: Yeah, remember…
Kevin: Really?
Andrew: …for Halloween I was Harry Potter?
Kevin: Can you tell us how it works?
Andrew: I don’t know…
Kevin: No?
Andrew: …the parallel universe.
Jamie: Kevin, Kevin, it’s quite a complicated premise. You turn it and you go back in time.
[Andrew laughs]
Kevin: Oh, really?
Andrew: It’s crazy.
Kevin: Is that what it does?
Jamie: Yeah.
Kevin: Whoa!
Jamie: Bit of a surprise, eh?
Andrew: I’m Andrew Sims.
Jamie: I’m Jamie Lawrence.
Kevin: I’m Kevin Steck.
Laura: And I’m Laura Thompson.
[Music continues to play]
News
Micah: David Yates, director of the fifth Harry Potter film, spoke in a new interview about what direction he’s putting the movie in. Yates’s prestige has increased in the UK after producing hits such as Sex Traffic and The Girl in the Cafe, but it has been questioned why someone who makes “gritty, hyper-real, socially conscious films” is directing Potter. Producer David Heyman answers that question, saying: “Well, this movie is bit of a revolution.”
Order of the Phoenix presents Harry with his toughest experiences yet, and that’s what Yates is focusing on. He said, “I’ve stretched Dan quite a bit. He’s a very intuitive person, very bright, quite sensitive. I’m just helping him wake up those things. You can see his determination and ambition, and he can switch things on a sixpence, so I can’t wait for people to see what he’s achieving.”
Forbes has released a list of the top-earning authors of 2006, and JK Rowling came in second place. She trailed Dan Brown’s $88 million in earnings, pocketing $75 million from the Harry Potter books, movies, and merchandise.
Some photos and details of the upcoming Order of the Phoenix action figures were released earlier this week on Action-Figure.com. You can see a number of photos over on MuggleNet.com, including one depicting Harry along with his Patronus.
Wednesday night, Daniel Radcliffe presented for the AFI Awards at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre in Australia, as well as appeared on the Channel 9 Today Show discussing his role in December Boys. The interview, which includes clips from his new movie, can be viewed on MuggleNet.com.
The Common Knowledge Scholarship Foundation is holding a movie quiz which includes questions on the Potter films (along with Shrek, Aladdin, Toy Story, and a few others).
The contest is based on a series of short multiple choice quizzes. You receive 500 points for each correct answer and lose 1 point for each second taken to complete each question. The person with the most points at the end is the scholarship winner.
A $250 scholarship will be awarded to the person who gets the highest combined score on the two quizzes you must take.
Wow, did everyone follow that?
Finally, J.K. Rowling has donated the handbag that she carried during the premiere of Sorcerer’s Stone to raise money for The Women’s Fund for Scotland. The bidding closed on December 8th with the handbag raising over $600.
That’s all the news for this December 10th, 2006 edition of MuggleCast. Back to the show.
Update on Andrew’s Wizard Rock Band
Andrew: Okay, thank you, Micah. I have an update on my Wizard Rock band.
Jamie: Do you have a name for it yet?
Andrew: No, I don’t.
Jamie: Well, have you heard the – there’s a very, very simple formula for making a Harry Potter Wizard Rock band name. You take the name of a character, okay, so, for example, Sirius Black, okay?
Andrew: Okay. [laughs]
Jamie: Then the first word is just the first name of the character, then it’s, “and the,” and then you take the last name and add an “S” onto the end. And there you go, that’s your made-up Wizard Rock name.
Andrew: Well, what if I was like, Neville and the Longbottoms? Or does that exist already?
Kevin: Does it?
Jamie: Yeah, exactly. What about Albus and the Wulfric…
Andrew: Dumbledores?
Jamie: Albus and the Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledores. Be that, Andrew.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: That would be awesome.
Andrew: I don’t know, that’s a little too long.
Jamie: It is quite long.
Andrew: It’s a little too long. I’m going for something short, but I’ve actually been getting a couple e-mails from some audio engineers and some – actually, some other Wizard Rock bands that have offered their assistance.
Jamie: Awesome.
Andrew: And I’m very appreciative of that. However, you know, it’s my own thing. I just want to do it on my own. I do have an update. Last week, I talked about the venues, trying to get into Madison Square Garden, places like that.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: I have actually signed on to several venues in the United States. Actually, there’s one in Mexico, so I guess I could say the world.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: And they’re all pretty big venues. Madison Square Garden is one of them. I don’t want to reveal any other dates or places because I don’t want any other bands booking their concerts around mine, because I want it to be sort of like, epic, you know, like there’s a big build-up to it. I don’t want like U2 doing a show right before it.
Jamie: Yeah, you don’t want that.
Laura: You don’t want U2 to open for you, right, Andrew?
Andrew: I just – yeah.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: No, no, just having a concert before me.
Jamie: You need a bigger band.
Andrew: I mean, they could open, I guess that would be okay.
Jamie: No, Andrew, Andrew. They aren’t really popular enough to open for you, you know? You want a big band to open for you.
Andrew: That is true.
Jamie: You know? To be honest.
Andrew: That is true. Yeah, and then I’m also – I signed a contract with a record label…
Laura: What record label?
Andrew: …and we will be…
Kevin: Yeah, what label?
Andrew: Well, I can’t say that, either.
Kevin: Oh.
Andrew: This is…
Jamie: You can’t say much, can you? [laughs]
Andrew: I don’t want other Wizard Rock bands to get the same idea. No, I can’t. I don’t want any other Wizard Rock bands to get the same ideas as me, it’s just sort of – it’s a big deal to me. I guess I could say there’s about 34 venues booked all across the United States and Mexico, and I guess I could say ticket prices.
Jamie: Four million? Ten million?
Andrew: No, that’s a little high. $250. And the show is going to be about five minutes long because I only have one single.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: But, I think it’s going to be worth it if you show up. There will be a pre-show.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: [laughs] Eric Scull will be a part of that.
Jamie: No, no don’t do that, because…
Kevin: And that will be…
Jamie: …it will last nine hours.
Kevin: Yeah, that’s what I was going to say.
Jamie: That will be a nine-hour show.
Andrew: Well, then it will be worth the money. So, it will be like twenty dollars an hour or something.
Jamie: There you go, that’s not that bad. Sort of.
Announcements
Andrew: To that effect. So, that’s that. Don’t forget to vote for us on Podcast Alley. We are number two right now, behind Keith and the Girl. We’re doing good. We sent out a – what are they called on MySpace? – bulletins to everyone, and that helps us get up in the ranks a little bit. We ask everyone to vote for us once a month at Podcast Alley. We’re number two behind Keith and the Girl again. I don’t understand how they have a better – a bigger fandom – more dedicated fandom than we do. It doesn’t make sense because the people listening to this show.
Jamie: Our fans are the best and the most dedicated.
Andrew: Yeah, so it really doesn’t make sense to me. And don’t forget your MuggleCast t-shirts are going on sale. Our MuggleCast t-shirts are going out of sale very soon. The end of the month and, seriously, you need to stock up on these. It’s, you know, I used the squirrel example last week. I’m out of new ideas for that, but I encourage everyone to purchase a MuggleCast t-shirt.
Jamie: Well, apart from that you don’t eat your MuggleCast t-shirts.
Andrew: No, but what I said last week was that squirrels, they store up on nuts for the winter. You know how they do that?
Jamie: Yeah, but we – yeah.
Andrew: This is like you’re storing up on t-shirts for the rest of your life.
Jamie: Yeah, but, unfortunately, we won’t die if you don’t have a MuggleCast t-shirt.
Laura: Well, yeah, like how are people supposed to hibernate without their shirts?
Jamie: Yeah, that is a damn good point, Laura. That is a – that is fantastic.
Andrew: Instead of a coat, buy ten of these. They’ll keep you pretty warm, I think.
Kevin: Yeah, it’s going to be like A Christmas Story.
Jamie: And you’ll look awesome, as well.
Andrew: Yeah, you will look pretty good. [laughs] Maybe a little big, but you will look good in that.
Kevin: And if you could put your arms down, that would be an accomplishment.
Andrew: Yeah. And, of course, they do help support the show.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: Also, Jamie.
Jamie: Yeah?
Andrew: The book. You guys wrote a book.
Jamie: Oh, yeah we did.
Laura: Oh, they did, didn’t they?
[Andrew laughs]
MuggleNet’s Book
Jamie: Yeah, we wrote a book: MuggleNet.com’s What Will Happen in Book 7 – this is from memory – Who Dies, Who Lives, Who Falls in Love, and How the Story Finally Ends? Is that right?
Andrew: It’s Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love, and How Will the Adventure Finally End?
Jamie: Yeah. There you go. Almost.
Andrew: I’m looking at the banner ad.
Jamie: And it is available on Amazon.com, and from our affiliate Alivan’s, so please order it, because it is quite a good read, I guess.
Andrew: You’ve been getting good reviews, and people…
Jamie: Yeah, well, we’ve been getting quite a – quite good reviews.
Andrew: Don’t talk about yourself down like that.
Jamie: Yeah, please. It’s an awesome Christmas present. It’s only $11.00, and I think it’s got two-hundred and eighty pages or something? On speculation, on stuff like: Is Snape good, is Harry a Horcrux? Stuff like that, so yeah, buy it, and have a very, very Merry Christmas.
Andrew: And what else? Episode 70, don’t forget to submit your MuggleCast remixes. There’s a lot of announcements this week, I’m sorry about that. [laughs] Episode 70, do not forget to submit your MuggleCast remixes. We’ve been getting a few. Last week you might remember my Frappr rap, as Eric called it. Someone actually put a beat to it, and it actually turned out really good. [laughs] So, that will be part of the show, along with my Wizard Rock single.
Happy Birthday, Jamie!
Andrew: And a Happy Birthday goes out to Jamie Lawrence here on the show who turned 20 the other day. Congrats, Jamie!
Jamie: Thank you.
Laura: So, Jamie, what are you closer to now?
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: Well, there are a few things, Laura. I’m closer to 30 than ten, half way to 40, a third of the way to 60, a quarter of the way 80, a fifth of the way to 100. Name your cliche, I’m there now. You know? Seriously.
[Everyone laughs]
Jamie: And it’s not fun, I can tell you that.
Andrew: Yeah, I know. You’ve really been dreading it. [laughs]
Jamie: Oh, I have, I have. I don’t want to grow up. I want to be Peter Pan.
Kevin: [laughs] I knew you were going to say that.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: See…I…yeah…
Jamie: It’s true, though. He must’ve had an awesome life!
Andrew: Did you have a good – well, he’s not real – but did you have a good birthday?
Jamie: Oh, he’s not?
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: I did have a very good birthday, thank you.
Laura: What did you do?
Jamie: Apart from – well, I went out for lunch with some good friends, and had a good time there, and then my college had their winter ball in the evening, which is a huge event in college, and it was themed winter wonderland, so there were roast chestnuts and mulled wine, and stuff like that. It was really good. And actually, there was a bouncy castle, but it was kind of…
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, tell the story about this.
Jamie: Well, it was the kind of bouncy castle where you race against…
Andrew: It’s like a maze, sort of?
Jamie: Yeah, you race against one other person. So, you go through the hole entrance, jump over the wall, over the second wall, crawl through the thing, and then roll over to dramatic applause at the end, you know, and hopefully you’ve won and beat the other person.
[Andrew and Kevin laugh]
Jamie: And I was having an awesome time on this, so I must have been on it ten, 15 times. And then I came home, felt fine, and went to bed, and woke up in the morning and had the worst pain ever in my left big toe, and I thought I’d broken it; I could hardly walk on it, it was insane. So, I called one of my friends and asked him to drive me to the hospital A&E department – Sorry, emergency room. Even though it really wasn’t an emergency.
Andrew: In the hospital or in Durham?
Jamie: Yeah, in Durham. Yeah.
Andrew: Okay.
Jamie: Yeah, and…
Andrew: [laughs] I was going to say.
Jamie: Yeah, I went there and saw a doctor, got an x-ray, and I haven’t broken it; I’ve just sprained the ligaments in my sort of lower leg ankle and toe. So, that’s nice. On my birthday, as well. That’s a good birthday present.
Laura: That’s like the second time you’ve injured yourself.
Jamie: Yeah, seriously. I know, I know.
Laura: First the trash can.
Andrew: [laughs] The first time was the trash can.
Jamie: Everyone listening: Enjoy bouncy castles responsibly. They are not a toy.
[Everyone laughs]
Jamie: Or wait, they are a toy.
Andrew: That might have to be the title of this show.
Jamie: What? Enjoy bouncy castles responsibly? [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs]
Jamie: No, seriously, do, do, and they may seem fun at the time, but when you wake up clutching a limb…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Jamie: …blinded by the pain…
[Kevin laughs]
Jamie: …incapable of speech because of the intense agony, you know, they may not be so fun then. So, yeah. That’s your lesson of the week. [laughs]
Andrew: Thank you for that.
Jamie: Yeah, I had a good birthday, thank you. Apart from that. And it’s your birthday soon, Laura, as well, isn’t it?
Laura: Yup.
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: 19th.
Andrew: 18.
Laura: I’m going to be old.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Jamie: Oh, Laura, are you actually joking? Are you actually joking?
Laura: I’m saying goodbye to my childhood.
Kevin: Don’t say that.
Jamie: I wish I was 18 again.
Laura: That’s so sad.
Kevin: Yeah, and hello to freedom.
[Andrew laughs]
Listener Rebuttal – Werewolves
Andrew: All right. Now that we got all the business out of the way,
we have a couple of e-mails. The first one now is from Musician22 of Sweden. She writes:
“You had a question about werewolves in the last episode. It was claimed that Jo has said werewolves can only be killed by silver bullets. This isn’t what she said. Because of discussions and rumors going around that Remus is going to be killed by the silver hand, she commented, on her page, that she assumes this is based on the old idea that a silver bullet is the only thing which can kill a werewolf. So, she doesn’t actually say that she has taken this on and uses this rule in the books.”
Jamie: Where did you guys get your information from? That is atrocious that
you said that.
Laura: I didn’t say it. The voicemail caller said it.
Andrew: Laura?
Kevin: I didn’t say it.
Andrew: It was the voicemail caller. Although, we didn’t correct the voicemail caller.
[Jamie and Kevin laugh]
Laura: Hey, that just goes to show, I put my complete and utter faith in the voicemail callers.
Andrew: In the voicemail callers. [laughs]
Jamie: Well, Laura, you’re naive then. Naive is what you are.
[Kevin laughs]
Laura: Just because I trust the fans…
Jamie: If a voicemail told you to jump off a cliff, would you go ahead and
do it?
Laura: Well, if a voicemail told you to go jump off a bouncy castle and break your toe, would you do it?
Jamie: Yeah, yeah I would.
[Andrew, Kevin, and Laura laugh]
Jamie: Which is exactly why I did it. They told me to have a good time on my birthday, so that’s what I did, yeah.
Kevin: And look where it got him. See?
[Andrew laughs]
Listener Rebuttal – Where Dementors Come From
Andrew: Lily, 14, of Texas writes:
“I have several things to say about the Dementors. For the first thing, I was under the impression that when Dementors breed, that it creates fog. Kind of continuing with this theory, I had an idea that maybe Dementors are created whenever something so terrible happens to a magical creature, and then they choose to become a Dementor rather than keep on living. Another unlikely theory is that whenever anything unhappy happens, the bad memory kind of drifts up into the clouds and then a Dementor is born. These are kind of crazy out there kinds of theories, but they are worth a shot.”
I kind of like that idea.
Laura: Ummm…
Jamie: Yeah, that’s…
Andrew: A bad memory drifts up into…
Kevin: Yeah, didn’t they say that they reproduce?
Laura: Yeah, they take – they suck the happiness out of the air, I don’t
know. It just doesn’t seem plausible to me.
Jamie: Do you know what that reminded me of, that idea, the first idea? Have any of you seen or read IT?
Laura: Yes.
Jamie: By Stephen King.
Kevin: Yeah, yep.
Jamie: Did you know when IT only appears when there’s a great tragedy like the bombing of a pub, or a child death, or something like that.
Laura: Mhm.
Jamie: It seems kind of like that, when something happens to a magical creature that a Dementor is made or something like that. I don’t know. It’s interesting, though, very interesting.
Laura: Well, I always just kind of took it to mean that anytime something bad was happening Dementors just kind of flocked there to feed.
Jamie: They feast on it, yeah.
Laura: To feed off of the emotion. But not that…
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: …not that they’re bred from it, really. I always thought that their breeding was strictly something that they did, not that was caused by…
Jamie: Eugh! Imagine seeing Dementors doing it.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, that would be very uh…
Jamie: Eugh, Andrew, eugh!
Andrew: Nice? [laughs]
Jamie: Eugh! Eugh!
Andrew: Ewww, like O-M-G!
Jamie: OMG, like oh my god, man.
Listener Rebuttal – Draco’s Role in Movie Five
Andrew: Okay, so thank you, Lily, for that. Anna Fahlen, 15, of Sweden; she writes:
“Hi! I just realized that we haven’t seen one single picture of Draco yet in all of the pictures and videos that are here now…” In reference to Order of the Phoenix the film and images. Do you think that means that he’ll play a smaller part in Order of the Phoenix? From, Anna.”
And I’m trying to think now if we saw any pictures on set. I mean, obviously, he’s going to have a big role at the end.
Jamie: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew So, I mean, what else do you want to see out of – Oh, when he’s
catching them coming out of the Room of Requirement. Hopefully that’s in the movie.
Laura: Yeah, I hope so, too.
Jamie: That should be in. That’s so…
Kevin: Maybe it’s just the fact that he doesn’t show up that often, we
haven’t seen him, just specific parts throughout the book, you know?
Andrew: Yeah. I actually do remember they do have a couple pictures of
Draco in Umbridge’s office when they catch Harry…
Jamie: That scene…
Andrew: …when he’s talking to Sirius in the fire.
Jamie: That scene could be either amazing or…
Laura: Or…
Jamie: …or it could be terrible.
Laura: Yeah.
Jamie: You know? The Dumbledore fighting scene. I don’t know, I would –
that’s probably the scene I am most looking forward to. I would love to see Dumbledore do that.
Andrew: Yeah, I love that scene in the books.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s very, very powerful. So, yeah, I think we will be seeing Draco, just maybe not as much in the book. It’s interesting now that they haven’t really released any pictures of him. But they’ll come in due time.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: They do have them.
Listener Rebuttal – Speaking Intelligently
Andrew: Kelly, 26, of West Virginia writes:
“Hello, everyone! I’m a new listener to the show but a long-time Harry Potter fan. As an English teacher, it is so nice to hear young people (and people near my age) speak intelligently and intuitively about something I find absolutely magical.”
Well, thank you, Kelly.
Kevin: Well, some young people.
Andrew: Yeah.
Kevin: Jamie and I aren’t young anymore.
Andrew: Jamie, can we consider you old now?
Jamie: Yeah, you can.
Andrew: Now we can’t call you a teenager? You’re not one of the older folks?
Jamie: No I…
Andrew: You are one of the older folks, I mean.
Jamie: Do you know what happened the other day? Okay, I have to tell you this
story because I was so annoyed, okay?
Andrew: Okay.
Jamie: I have a locker in college where I can store stuff, okay?
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Now. I had three items on me. I had my keys, I had my MP3 player, and I had my coat, okay? Now I went to this locker, okay? And I opened the locker and I put my coat and my MP3 player in there, okay? Then I closed the locker, walked away. Then I realized I’d left my keys in the locker, so I came back, opened it.
[Kevin laughs]
Jamie: I have no idea why I opened it – I took my stuff out, then sort of put it back in and messed about for a second. Then I locked it, took my keys, and walked away and realized that I was still carrying my coat, so I went back, opened the locker…
[Andrew and Kevin laugh]
Jamie: …put my coat in, closed it, I don’t know what was happening, walked away, and I was carrying my MP3 player. So, then…
[Everyone laughs]
Jamie: So, I went back, was really thinking about it this time, put everything back
and walked away, very, very annoyed that I was getting old.
Andrew: Well, gee, it only took you four or five times. [laughs]
Jamie: It’s embarrassing. Seriously, 20 years old, and I can’t even remember stuff.
Andrew: A lot on your mind or something?
Jamie: Huh? I just had stuff on my mind I guess, you know?
Andrew: I do hate – I hate when that happens, too, when you close your locker. See, what is it, a combination locker?
Jamie: Oh no, it’s just a key locker.
Andrew: Oh, there’s no – oh, so – oh, you need a key.
Jamie: No it’s a retina scan, Andrew. It’s a retina scan.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: The ones in my high school, they’re combo locks, and after you shut
it, like accidentally, and then you realize you left something in there.
Jamie: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andrew: It’s like, “Awww, nuts.” Anyway, let’s finish this rebuttal. [laughs]
Jamie: Andrew, Andrew, these lockers, I keep such important stuff in there,
it’s a key, a retina scan, a fingerprint scan, and then I…
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: …and then it takes a blood sample and it has to identify my DNA.
Tangent: No One Wants Andrew’s Blood
Andrew: Send it do Processing. Well, anyway, speaking of blood samples, I’m
sorry the show’s getting off topic.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: There was a blood drive at my school today and um…
Kevin: Did you go?
Andrew: No, I couldn’t go, because…
Laura: Did Bono donate his blood, Andrew?
Andrew: Yes, I took it and I’m on a natural high 24/7.
[Kevin laughs]
Andrew: But anyway, there was a blood drive at school today and I wasn’t able to do it because I went to England and they’re afraid – now, Jamie, what do you think of this?
Jamie: Really, is that true?
Andrew: They don’t let you do a blood drive if you’ve been in England for a certain amount of time…
Jamie: Why?
Andrew: …on a trip, so I couldn’t.
Jamie: Why? What reason did you give? You were here for about ten hours.
Andrew: [laughs] Because you guys have Mad Cow.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Kevin: Yeah.
Jamie: Is that it?
Kevin: It is.
Andrew: Seriously, it’s because they don’t want Mad Cow.
Jamie: We personally have mad cow? Oh, cows have Mad Cow, you mean?
Andrew: Well, British people – well apparently – good point. Yeah, yeah. Apparently the meat or something – because I had eaten a burger and like I checked with them. I said, “I was only there for three days.” They said, “Well, what’d you eat?” You know, stuff like that. Yeah. [laughs]
Jamie: And you were like, “Oh, yeah. I kept a food diary when I was over. I know exactly what I ate.”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. Well, I remember the burger because I didn’t like it. At all.
[Andrew and Kevin laugh]
Kevin: That’s because it had Mad Cow.
Jamie: Yeah, probably.
[Andrew, Kevin, and Jamie laugh]
Andrew: But, anyway. Anyway, let’s…
Jamie: I think that’s absolutely – possibly one, if not the, most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
Andrew: It’s funny and I knew you would probably get a little angry at that. But anyway…
Jamie: No, no. I don’t mind if they want that but, you know, everyone’s short of blood and they say like…
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: “Oh are you under, you know, however many ever pounds? Are you over 6’9? Oh, oh, you can’t give blood then.”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. Right.
Jamie: “If you’ve got blonde hair, oh you can’t give blood then. Black hair, you can’t either.”
Andrew: Right.
Jamie: It’s ridiculous.
Listener Rebuttal – Percy and The Veil
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I know, so anyway.
“The reason I am writing to you is because on your last show there was a discussion on whether or not Percy would give Harry a clue as to how to contact Sirius through the veil and how the meaning of Percy’s name in Old French is “pierce the veil.” Just to play the devil’s advocate, I thought it would be interesting to point out that Percival is also a middle name of Dumbledore’s. I don’t think that means that Dumbledore could “pierce the veil” by still being alive or coming back to life, but I thought it was worth mentioning and pondering.”
Did we ever talk on the show about why Dumbledore’s hand was black? We must’ve.
Jamie: No, that’s…
Kevin: Yeah, I’m sure in the past.
Laura: We’ve talked about that.
Kevin: It was – yeah.
Andrew: Because some people think that it’s because he might have tried to reach into the Veil.
Kevin: No. I think that we established that it was a curse.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah, it was. Yeah.
Andrew: Now before getting into our main discussion this week we had planned something else for the show. However, we could not get it done due to technical difficulties. However, Micah, Laura, and Kevin recorded a main discussion earlier today and here it is now.
Main Discussion: Traitors and Innocents
Laura: All right, thanks Andrew. So, then there were three.
Micah: Well, not really three. It’s more like…
Kevin: One of lesser importance.
Micah: …two, plus we added one in at the last minute.
Laura: Oh, that’s right.
Kevin: Of lesser importance.
Micah: Oh, thanks Kevin.
[Kevin laughs]
Laura: It’s kind of like that other show.
Kevin: I was waiting for you to react, but I wasn’t getting anywhere.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Laura: Well, last minute we kind of came up with this idea to talk about traitors and innocence in the books and particularly how they’re going to relate to Book Seven. Now, I think probably one of the most pertinent questions would be, if there is a traitor to Harry’s cause in Book Seven, as there has been in every other book, who’s it going to be? Is it going to be someone that we’ve known since the beginning of the series, or is it going to be a relatively new character?
Kevin: Well, I mean, right now, I think I thought you were going to say it. We’re not really sure if Snape is a traitor yet.
Laura: Right.
Kevin: So, it could be a trend, but we’re not really sure.
Laura: I guess you could kind of look at it as being someone that Harry believed to be a traitor at the time. I guess Snape could turn out to be the one who is innocent in Book Seven, if you know what I’m saying? But Micah, you kind of had an idea of how we could look at this and kind of decipher how it would come out.
Micah: Yeah. I thought it would be a good idea to sort of go book by book and look at the people who were traitors and see if Harry actually knew them beforehand or if they just came into play in that particular book. And I thought that would give us a better idea of whether maybe in Book Seven it would be somebody that we knew or if it would be a relatively new character.
Laura: Okay.
Micah: So, I guess let’s start with Sorcerer’s Stone.
Laura: Yeah. He didn’t really know Quirrell. I mean, he met him in the Leaky Cauldron.
Kevin: Yeah, although it was the first – it was the first book.
Laura: It was the first book, obviously.
Micah: Exactly.
Kevin: Of course it’s going to be a newer character because everyone’s just getting introduced, but it just seemed – I don’t know, he…
Laura: Again if you think about it, Ginny wasn’t exactly someone he knew particularly well. I mean, her betrayal was unintentional. But…
Micah: She was briefly mentioned in Sorcerer’s Stone.
Laura: Yeah, she was briefly mentioned and Harry didn’t really pay her all that much mind in the book. Obviously he thought Peter Pettigrew was dead, so he didn’t know him either. He didn’t know the imposter Moody, Crouch Jr., however you want to look at it, or Marietta Edgecombe. The only person he really knew was Snape.
Micah: Well, I don’t know about that. I mean, in Prisoner of Azkaban, Scabbers is really the one who betrayed him when you think about – Scabbers was definitely mentioned in the first two books.
Laura: Yeah, but I mean they’re the same. [laughs]
Micah: And I think Marietta Edgecombe probably got a couple of mentions before Order of the Phoenix. I think, really, the only one would have to be Goblet of Fire…
Kevin: Yeah. I think so too.
Micah: …so far, where it’s a brand-new character that’s brought in. I mean, there may have been mention of Mad Eye Moody, but obviously it wasn’t Mad Eye Moody.
Laura: Right, right.
Micah: And I don’t think Barty Crouch Jr. gets mentioned in any of the first three books.
Laura: No, I don’t think so either.
Micah: So, I think that’s really the first book where we get a traitor that’s…
Kevin: But, do you think it’s her intention to do that, or do you think it’s just…? It seems to me like…
Laura: I’m not sure she’s trying to create a pattern.
Kevin: Exactly. It seems like it’s just overanalyzing the fact that people are being betrayed, but at the same time, you know, it’s not necessarily because they’re a new character or an old character. It’s just…
Laura: Yeah. I think there was just kind of a point to establishing that in every book there’s been one character who Harry either thought was innocent or he didn’t even really regard as being someone who would do something evil, and one character who he believed had done something wrong but really hadn’t. I don’t really think it has anything to do with, you know, how well he knew them or anything. That kind of…
Kevin: Yeah, and I mean it sort of goes with the theme of, you know, the dark theme of the Harry Potter books, or at least where they’re going.
Laura: Right.
Kevin: Because you really don’t know who’s going to betray you.
Laura: Yeah.
Kevin: And you know there’s going to be betrayal in this story. So…
Be Careful With The Prophecy
Laura: Oh obviously, and I mean Dumbledore was pretty insistent that Harry only tell Ron and Hermione about the Prophecy and stuff, so do you think that he suspects someone close to Harry is feeding information to Voldemort; like one of his friends, a teacher, someone in the Order?
Kevin: Well it’s possible that or you have to remember that the more people you talk to, the more people are…
Laura: The more people that can be manipulated.
Kevin: Exactly. Or exposed to it. I mean, if you talk to two people, as opposed to five, there’s less likelihood of someone overhearing you or some mistake happening where, you know, “Oops. It got out.” And especially with that information, it’s so pivotal to his cause that if that got out, it would be devastating.
Micah: Yeah, I agree.
Laura: So why can’t Harry tell Ginny, though? Why can Harry only tell Ron and Hermione and not Ginny?
Micah: No, I think because Dumbledore has seen the level of trust that Harry has had in them throughout the first six books. Or five and three-quarters, I guess, if you want to mark off where he kicked the bucket. But…
[Kevin and Laura laugh]
Micah: …I really think that that’s what it has to do with, the fact that they put so much trust in him and he put so much trust in them. And I think it has a lot also to do with what Kevin said, the more people that become aware of what’s going on and know the facts, the greater opportunity is for that information to leak out to the wrong people. And as far as Ginny is concerned, you know, she’s already been possessed by Voldemort once, perhaps Dumbledore doesn’t want to take any risks.
Horcrux Ginny and Her Vulnerability
Laura: Right. Actually, we’ve gotten a few rebuttals and a few suggestions from people who have pointed out that in the – in Chamber of Secrets, Tom Riddle said that it got to the point where he was able to start pouring bits of his soul back into Ginny. And a lot of people think that this could constitute her being a Horcrux. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I think there’s always the possibility that she’s still vulnerable if he ever tried to posses her again.
Kevin: I mean, I think she may be a little vulnerable just because of that experience, but the theory that he poured bits of his soul back into Ginny – I always interpreted that as he was gaining control over her, like replacing her with him, kind of.
Laura: Yeah, but I always kind of took it as he was giving her parts of his soul to keep her alive because he was draining her.
Kevin: It just seems… It just seems… Yeah. It just seems so far fetched to have her come into the story again in that sense. You know what I mean? I always – now that we know that Harry likes her and she likes Harry, I sort of thought that it was going to be more of a supportive role, and not a vital role in the sense of, you know, “I’m going to screw up what you’re trying to do.” You know what I mean?
Laura: Well, I don’t think that, I don’t think that – I don’t know. I don’t think she would try to screw him up intentionally.
Kevin: Yeah, well, not intentionally. It just seems like it’s redundant to have her once again be the unintentional bad guy.
Laura: Yeah. Yeah, but then look at Snape. I mean, Harry thought all along in the first book that he was a bad guy, and then he thinks again in the sixth book.
Kevin: Well, he’s… But with Snape it’s different because he’s always viewed Snape as a bad person, you know?
Laura: Yeah, that’s true.
Kevin: Whereas Ginny is one of the good guys, definitively one of the good guys. You know?
Laura: Yeah, but I mean, to kind of get, I mean…
Kevin: I should say good girls. I don’t know.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: I have one thing to say, though, about Ginny before we move on, related to that whole Chamber of Secrets passage that you mentioned before. I always thought that that had to do specifically with the diary Horcrux, and that when he was pouring bits of his soul into her, that that was all tied into that particular Horcrux.
Kevin: Yeah, me too.
Micah: So, that when it was destroyed…
Kevin: Yeah, that’s another – it destroyed any pieces that might have been. Yeah.
Laura: Maybe it destroyed that, too.
Micah: Exactly.
Laura: That’s interesting.
Micah: So I don’t think she’s going to sort of reemerge as a Horcrux.
Laura: But then again…
Micah: And the thing is, Dumbledore, for as great as his mistakes are, or so he claims them, I think that he was pretty specific in his listing of Horcruxes and that he did a fair bit of research before he went to Harry and said, “These are what I think the remaining Horcruxes are, and I think this is where you need to base your focus.” I don’t think we’re going to have, sort of, this unbelievable Horcrux come out at the end, such as Ginny.
Laura: Well, I get where you’re coming from when you say if that Horcrux was destroyed, anything that was left in Ginny might be too, but if you remember, Voldemort was using Quirrell as a host, and when he died, Voldemort fled his body. And Ginny’s still alive so, if there were any remnants of Voldemort’s soul in her, they could very well be parasites. Almost.
Micah: It’s definitely possible, but I don’t – I guess she was used as a traitor once, so to speak, and I don’t see her getting reused as a traitor again. Again, I see Book Seven as a very big quest, so to speak, and I don’t see, in the end, Harry fighting the final battle and having someone that he’s known for so long become this traitor in his midst. I just don’t see it happening that way. Plus, what happened in, I think it was one of Jo’s interviews, she said that really, as far as new characters were concerned – and this kind of goes back to asking the question, would it be a new character that we meet in Book Seven that becomes a traitor to Harry. I thought she said we were pretty limited on the new characters that we were going to be introduced to.
Laura: Yeah, I don’t know. I just feel like that, especially when you say that, if there is someone that betrays Harry in Book Seven, there’s got to be, it’s got to be someone he knows. And I’ve seen a lot of people who honestly think it would be kind of a cool twist if Ginny turned out to be a traitor intentionally. I think that would be very sad, [laughs] but a lot of people think it’d be cool.
Micah: Yeah. It’s kind of hard to think that would actually be the case, but I don’t know if there’s enough room for that sort of back story. Do you know what I mean?
Laura: Yeah, that’s true.
Micah: Because the fact that she would have been a traitor for all this time, you would need a ton of back story to go back and retrace the steps that she’s taken throughout the series to sort of put Harry in a compromising position.
Laura: Yeah. I don’t know. I think that, I mean, I always kind of wondered if there’s something we’re going to learn about Ginny because there’s obviously something pretty special about her. I mean, she’s the Weasley – the only girl born to the Weasley family in, what, seven generations. She’s the seventh daughter. So I think there’s something definitely…
Micah: Seventh child. Or…
Laura: Or seventh child and only daughter. Right. I don’t know. I just thought that there could be something a little bit different about her. I think that at any rate, even if she wasn’t a traitor, she would be someone that Voldemort would like to have on his side.
Micah: She’s a pureblood.
Laura: Yeah, she’s a pureblood, and she’s powerful. But, kind of moving along, I’ve seen a lot of people…
Micah: Yeah, we’re done with Ginny.
Laura: [laughs] Yeah, get over it.
Micah: Yeah, that’s the end. Sorry.
McGonagall: The Spy
Laura: [laughs] Oh, and just so that everyone can know, Kevin is in the bathroom. See, he just keeps getting busier and busier. He’s so much better than we are. But, a lot of people seem to think that McGonagall could be a traitor, and they think this because of how flustered she got at the end of Half-Blood Prince, like when…
Micah: Noooo.
Laura: What? [imitating Micah] “Noooo: Why do you say that?
[Micah laughs]
Laura: [laughs] I know I can’t…
Micah: [still laughing] How are you going to say that the head of Gryffindor house is a traitor? Come on!
Laura: She’s not the heir!
Micah: No…
Laura: Did you say she was the heir of Gryffindor? [laughs]
Micah: Did I? I meant head…
Laura: [laughs] Oh okay, because I was, like…
Micah: … head of Gryffindor house.
Laura: Well, why not?
Micah: I thought that’s what I said. Maybe I didn’t.
Laura: Why not? Why couldn’t the head of Gryffindor house be evil? Peter Pettigrew…
Micah: That’s a bad reason.
Laura: …was a Gryffindor.
Micah: That’s a bad reason.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: I don’t see her as – as a traitor. She just doesn’t strike me as the type. I think the reason that she was so flustered that Harry wouldn’t share information with her is probably because that she wanted to do as much as she possibly could to help him out and to try and figure out what her next step was going to be, now that she’s the head of this school, and she can’t because he’s not giving up any information. But Dumbledore was very specific.
Laura: Yeah, I think so – I think so, too. But, why would he – I don’t know. I think that what you and Kevin said was right, about the more people you tell, the higher chance you have of it getting out, someone being manipulated. But, at the same time, I think that Dumbledore doesn’t like to keep information from people who need it.
Micah: Right.
Order, Teacher or Student Traitor?
Laura: And I don’t think he would do that for no good reason. I think that there has got to be someone that he’s kind of suspicious of, and it could be a teacher, it could be a member of the Order. Who do you think is most likely?
Micah: [sighs] That’s such a hard question. I don’t know, really, what the qualifications are for somebody to be in the Order. Obviously, it has to do with Dumbledore assessing that person and saying to himself that he has enough trust in this person, and maybe it’s something that that individual or group of individuals has done in the past to sort of warrant his trust. I mean we don’t 100% still know why he trusted Snape. That’s still a big mystery. But as far as trusting McGonagall…
Laura: Really? I thought we knew why he trusted Snape.
Micah: Why’s that?
Laura: Because Snape showed remorse.
Micah: When?
Laura: Over Lily and James’ death.
Micah: How so?
Laura: He came to – didn’t he come to Dumbledore? It seems like, I don’t remember specifically what happened. I can’t remember. All I can remember is Harry getting really, really ticked off when he found out that it was Snape that had been the spy in the – in the Hog’s Head that night. And it almost seems like Dumbledore had kind of gathered his trust in him, because out of his remorse for what he had done, he turned spy for the Order.
Micah: Yeah, I’m not entirely sure that I believe that that’s the ultimate reason why he trusts him.
Laura: The ultimate reason? You think he might have done something else?
Micah: Yeah, I think there’s something else that we don’t know that ties the two of them together as to why he put so much trust in Snape.
Laura: Right.
Micah: I think there has to be a much bigger reason, but kind of going back to the whole is there somebody out there that Dumbledore didn’t trust? It’s possible, but I’m not quite sure who is feeding him – ah, I don’t know. [laughs]
Laura: Well, let’s look at it this way. The Order was infiltrated the first time by Pettigrew. Do you think it’s being infiltrated again? I think it’s – I think it’s a great possibility. I’m not sure who it would be. I’m not – everyone seems so great. We’ve gotten to know these characters. Most of the people in the Order that are very important, we’ve seen in the books at least since Book Three, so it’s really hard to kind of put your finger on who would be the traitor. It just seems more likely to me that it’s someone like a teacher or an Order member than a student. It’s more likely to be one of them than, say, Ginny?
Micah: Well, it’s very hard for a student to obtain any type of information to pass along, and it’s not going to be Hermione, it’s not going to be Ron. So…
Laura: No.
Micah: Those are the two people that are closest to Harry that have any sort of information. So, I think, like you said, if somebody is passing along information, it is a teacher, or it is a member of the Order, but we haven’t yet seen any instance where Voldemort has used information that we wouldn’t expect him to know. And obviously, he was absent completely during Half-Blood Prince, so we don’t know if it’s possible he was acting on information during that book. I just…
Kevin: Well…
Micah: Sorry, go ahead. I didn’t even know you were back. [laughs]
Kevin: I was… I was just… Yeah. I was just going to say that students are just as likely as teachers to be spies, to betray, in the sense that who is going to have access to Harry other than students that are around him?
Laura: Yeah, but that kind of goes back to the whole debate of whether Harry will be at Hogwarts in Book Seven?
Kevin: True, but it also – do you think if Harry’s not at Hogwarts, will Ron and Hermione be at Hogwarts?
Laura: No. I think that Ron and Hermione are going to go with Harry wherever he goes. They said they would.
Kevin: Because it just seems like if – it seems to me that anyone is likely to be someone who could be potentially, you know, turn to Voldemort’s side, whether it be a teacher or a student.
Laura: Well, Draco proved that it was fairly easy for a student to infiltrate the school, so I mean I’m sure that a student could be a traitor. I’m just not sure who it would be. Because if you think about the people that Harry really has instilled the most trust in throughout the whole series, then, of course, that’s Ron and Hermione, and the next people down the totem pole would be Ginny, Neville, and Luna. And I just don’t see any of them as being evil.
Protection from Voldemort
Micah: Well, what if you look at it the reverse way, though? I mean, what if Dumbledore said to only tell those two people because, obviously, the more people that know it, the greater chance it has of leaking out, but what about the greater number of people who know it, the more risk is exposed to those people? So, I mean, that means the greater number of people that Voldemort could potentially…
Kevin: Capture…
Micah: …and torture…
Kevin: Yeah.
Micah: …until they released information.
Laura: Right, right. I think it’s kind of a general threat. I mean, I don’t think it’s just because there is a traitor, or it’s just because there’s a threat to the people that know. But I think it’s just kind of Dumbledore saying, “This is dangerous for you to tell. It’s dangerous for you, it’s dangerous for the people who know it, and it’s dangerous because of who could find out.” Right? Wrong?
Kevin: Yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Kevin: Well, it makes sense that he was thinking about the safety of the people who Harry was telling this information to. But you have to remember that – I mean, Voldemort knows that Harry has… It seems… It just seems as though it’s sort of – going to large lengths to get Ron or Hermione would be useless, when he could just go directly for Harry. You know what I mean?
Laura: Yeah.
Kevin: Because why would he bother infiltrating the school in that sense, if he knows that Harry has the information? It doesn’t really matter what the information is. If he can get his hands on Harry, it doesn’t…you know?
Laura: You know, though, I think it’s kind of gotten to a point where Voldemort – I mean, it’s not just about killing Harry. [laughs] I think that he enjoys torturing people.
Kevin: Yeah. Well, of course, but it just seems like it would be a bad judgment call, Voldemort-wise, to go try to…
Laura: Well, he hasn’t exactly presented the best judgment.
Kevin: True. [laughs]
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Well, the other thing that I was going to bring up, was you mentioned how Dumbledore told Harry not to tell anybody other than those two. And it’s a lot of different things; it was the Prophecy, it was also all the Horcruxes. Again, the more information that gets out, especially related to the Horcruxes – if he goes and tells the Ministry, the Ministry is going to start looking all over the place for these Horcruxes. Voldemort can easily find out about it if they, say, print it in the Daily Prophet, and then he’s running to go save all these things and make sure that there’s no possible way of them being destroyed.
Kevin: Right, but all I was saying was that I don’t think it’s – Dumbledore asked Harry not to tell anyone but Hermione and Ron because of their safety. I think he asked him just for that reason, for the fact that you don’t – the more people who know, the more likely it is that someone is going to let something slip, or someone else is going to overhear them, or…you know? It just seems as though if he was truly concerned for their safety, he would be more worried about Harry’s safety, because he’s the one who knows the information in the first place.
What If the Information Got Out?
Laura: Let’s kind of consider what would happen if it did get out.
Micah: Well I just told you, I think. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, I know. I know. I’m saying it would be kind of a race against time, wouldn’t it?
Kevin: Yeah, it would be – I mean, Voldemort would go defensive, without doubt.
Laura: Do you think that that could play a role in Book Seven? I mean, do you think that somehow Harry could slip up?
Kevin: I’ve always thought that in Book Seven, what was going to happen, is that it was going to come down to a final conflict between Voldemort and Harry, without Voldemort knowing that Harry destroyed the Horcruxes.
Laura: Right.
Kevin: And, I mean, it is possible that Voldemort will find out that they were destroyed. But I’ve always seen it to be like – that would be the perfect ending; to see how Voldemort reacted to find out that he was facing Harry, not only on even ground, but his backup plan was foiled by Harry.
Laura: Was foiled, yeah.
Kevin: Beforehand.
Micah: What if you…
Laura: There are – sorry Micah, go ahead. [laughs]
Micah: What do you think would happen if the Daily Prophet came out with the headline, “Tom Riddle Exposed,” and they told the whole story of how Lord Voldemort was actually nothing but a mere half-blood?
[Kevin and Laura laugh]
Laura: Ummm, I think he would be kind of ticked off. [still laughs] To say the least.
Kevin: No, I…but is that really…that’s…is that really, uh…[trails off]
Micah: [laughs] No. No, it wasn’t supposed to be a serious suggestion.
Kevin: Oh, okay.
Laura: Yeah.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: I was kind of wondering what that had to do with anything.
Kevin: Yeah, I was…
Laura: I was like, “Okay.”
Kevin: …a little thrown off by your humor there, Micah.
R.A.B. Still Alive? An Ally?
Laura: Do you think – there are a lot of people who think that there is a possibility that R.A.B. could still be alive; that he’s not actually dead. And if he is, obviously he knows about the Horcruxes. Could that be a potential…
Kevin: See…
Laura: …danger to Harry?
Kevin: No, I don’t think that would be a danger. I mean, R.A.B. obviously had a – what do you call it? Conflict of interest with Voldemort.
Laura: Yeah, but how do we know that that conflict of interest is the same conflict Harry has with him?
Kevin: Well, whether or not it is, it’s quite apparent that R.A.B. isn’t all that happy with Voldemort, and, you know – it’s not as though R.A.B. would be trying to hinder Harry, because they have the same goal. I mean, the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Or the question is: is the enemy of your enemy your friend?
Laura: I guess I just kind of see that there is the possibility that they could be in it for different reasons.
Kevin: Well, like I said, I mean, they could, maybe they have different reasons behind it, but it doesn’t change the fact that they both are not…
Laura: Want to…
Kevin: You know?
Laura: Yeah, I guess.
Micah: I’m not quite sure I understand the question about R.A.B. Do you mean if he is alive in Book Seven do you think he is going to sort of…
Laura: Yes.
Micah: …help Harry out. Or…?
Laura: Yeah. Would Harry team up with him or would he be kind of a hindrance?
Kevin: I’ve always thought that R.A.B. was going to come into play. She obviously mentioned him for a reason, and got everyone curious about it. I’ve always thought that he was going to come into play, in the sense of Harry trying to find the Horcruxes. Because he obviously had access to them, and at least had a decent idea of where a bunch of them were. So, it just seemed to me as though he’s probably not going to end up being alive, but end up being – you know, coming back in the…
Laura: So, Harry is going to have to go back and learn about R.A.B.?
Kevin: Exactly, and see…
Laura: And kind of, yeah…
Kevin: Learn about his whereabouts, because obviously he had access to the Horcruxes. So, if he had access, then what a better way to find them than back-trace the steps of R.A.B.?
Book Seven Innocent: Wormtail’s Life Debt
Laura: I think that pretty much kills the whole traitor thing, but moving on to who will be innocent in Book Seven, we know that Wormtail owes a life debt to Harry.
Kevin: Oh, I don’t think that’ll be…
Micah: It doesn’t make him innocent, though.
Kevin: Yeah.
Laura: No, but I’m not talking about literally innocent. When I say innocent, I mean…
Kevin: Will not harm Harry? [laughs]
Laura: Well, yeah. I mean, for instance, Harry believed in Order of the Phoenix that Umbridge was – he believed for a short period of time that she was working with Voldemort, because his scar hurt when he was near her.
Innocents in the Books
Micah: Right. Well, hey, Laura, I have an idea.
Laura: But she turned out to be … what?
Micah: Why don’t we go through the people [laughs] who Harry thought was…
[Kevin laughs]
Micah: … treacherous, but turned out, in fact, to be innocent in the books, so far.
Laura: Okay, Micah! Why don’t you go through those for us?
[Kevin and Laura laugh]
Micah: No, I think you’d do a far better job. You did a great job with all the traitors.
Kevin: [laughs] Oh, my god.
[Everybody laughs]
Laura: [laughs] Micah Tannenbaum hates me. Okay…
Micah: No, no. Well, yes, but…
Laura: Well, we know that, obviously… [Laura laughs] We know that in Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry definitely thought that Snape was a bad guy. I mean, there was really no doubt about it. He thought that Snape was trying to kill him. In Chamber of Secrets, he thought that Hagrid, he actually believed that Hagrid had set loose the monster that killed Moaning Myrtle. And, anyone else want to jump in here?
Micah: Sure.
[Kevin laughs]
Micah: In – obviously Prisoner of Azkaban…
Kevin: As he suggests me jumping in.
Micah: [laughs] No, Prisoner of Azkaban, he definitely thought that Sirius was the one who responsible for killing his parents, and at the end he finds out that that is, in fact, not true. And then, in Goblet of Fire, Igor Karkaroff, Harry thought that he had put his name into the Goblet of Fire. Kevin, would you like to do the last two books? Well, actually Laura already touched on Order of the Phoenix.
Laura: You’re so cordial, Micah.
Kevin: Yeah, Order of the Phoenix…
Micah: All you have to do is Half Blood Prince.
Kevin: Yes, okay. So, Order of the Phoenix: obviously there was Umbridge, because she was miserable to Harry. And then, of course, Half Blood Prince there was Draco. So…
Debate on Draco
Micah: Well, I don’t know. Was he proven innocent?
Laura: It’s not talking about them being innocent – completely innocent. It’s talking about things like preconceived notions that Harry had about them, that turned out to be false. He always believed Draco would probably – I always got the impression he thought Draco would grow up to be a killer and a Death Eater like his dad, but here he is; he can’t kill Dumbledore, no matter how much he hates him. He can’t do it. And think about all the Muggles that his father has tortured.
Micah: That’s true.
Laura: So, it’s not really talking about someone being innocent, it’s talking about…
Micah: But, do you think the bottom line question here…
Laura: …Harry’s thoughts about someone wrong.
Micah: …would Draco have enough hate within himself to kill Dumbledore? Even if he tried.
Laura: No.
Micah: Say he’s there…
Laura: I don’t think so.
Micah: … and he makes a conscience decision to do it? Because I think Jo proved to us, based upon that whole scene, that no matter what, Draco wasn’t going to be able to do it. But say he was of a conscience mind to be able to do it, do you think he could have filled himself with enough hate? I just don’t seem him being able to do that.
Laura: You mean, to cast the curse?
Micah: Yeah, exactly.
Laura: No, I don’t think so, either. I think that one of the only people – and this is kind of coming from the viewpoint that Draco’s going to turn out to be more of a better character than a lot of people expected him to be – I think one of the only people he could ever build up enough hatred to kill would be his father.
Kevin: Oh, yeah, but that’s…
Laura: Because…
Kevin: Oh, to kill his father.
Laura: I mean, Lucius has been awful to him. Yeah. I mean, when you think about it, who’s been the worst to him in all these books? His dad.
Micah: That’s interesting.
Laura: Do you think – is it a possibility that Draco could, say, kill Lucius?
Kevin: I don’t think he could. Well, I think it’s pretty clear that…
Laura: Yeah, I think so, too, but…
Kevin: … Draco would have difficulty killing anyone. Whether or not he – especially his own father. It’s – I don’t know. I think – I don’t know. I think it’s a long stretch, because…
Laura: Stop being wishy-washy, Kevin.
Kevin: [laughs] Well…
Laura: Be definitive.
Kevin: No. I don’t think so. I don’t think he could kill even his father. Especially his father, just because it would be killing his own family.
Back to Wormtail
Laura: I guess. Do you think that – I mean, kind of going back to Wormtail, here – and this is, again, stating that just because Wormtail completes his life debt to Harry, doesn’t make him an innocent person, but it makes him the performer of a good deed. And whether or not that is sincere…
Micah: He’s not a performer of a good deed, because of exactly what you just said. Wormtail would never be sincere in what he was doing, so I don’t necessarily know if that would allow for him to truly be performing a decent act.
Laura: So, you think that to complete a life debt, it has to be – you have to mean it?
Micah: I don’t necessarily know that. I just think he would do it because, in some way, he was obligated to do it. And he only does what, I think, he needs to do, and puts him in a better position. Obviously this is going to put him in a very conflicted position, because he’s going to have to do something against somebody he sees as having more power.
Kevin: Or, not necessarily have to do something.
Micah: He may accidentally do it.
Kevin: He could chose not. Or he could choose not to do something.
Micah: But would that…
Kevin: Which…
Micah: …mean his life, though, in this case? Because he owes Harry something.
Kevin: Yeah. He owes Harry, but I don’t think that just because he owes someone he’s going to change his nature, and his nature has always been to survive. So, he’s probably going to help Harry, but I don’t see him…
Laura: But not because he wants to.
Kevin: …sticking his neck out on a line to do it.
Laura: Right.
Kevin: You know? He may choose to, maybe, skew some information given to Voldemort, or something that will result in benefits to Harry, but I don’t see – I don’t know. He seems like – it’d be changing his nature to do that.
Micah: I don’t know.
Laura: Yeah.
Micah: I’m pretty sure – didn’t – wasn’t it Lupin or Sirius that said that it was a life debt? Because Harry chose to save his life.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, he has to do it. Doesn’t he? I mean, he doesn’t have to want to, but [laughs] I think he has to.
Kevin: Now – so you think that maybe a life debt can only be repaid by another…
Laura: Well, I mean, say if Wormtail…
Kevin: …like the saving of his life?
Laura: Well, I don’t know. It’s really…
Kevin: Because that is a common theme within…
Laura: Yeah.
Kevin: I know a lot of mythology, and stuff like that, where if you save someone’s life it’s expected that they will…
Laura: I’ve always kind of…
Kevin: …save your life in return.
Laura: Yeah. I’ve always kind of wondered, though, if maybe in Harry Potter, if a life debt, once it’s there, it just sort of happens. No one really intends for it to happen, but because it’s there…
Kevin: Oh, maybe.
Laura: …and because it must be completed, it…
Kevin: It’s sort of like…
Laura: It’s like they don’t have any control over it. Like something they do will, inevitably, repay their debt. You know what I’m saying?
Kevin: It’s possible. Yeah, I mean…
Laura: I’ve always kind of wondered if it was that way.
Kevin: I always thought of it like he would have to consciously make an effort to do so, because what is… Are you really saving – are you really paying back a debt if you don’t consciously do it?
Laura: Yeah, but what happens if you don’t pay back a life debt? I mean, it kind of goes along the same lines as an Unbreakable Vow. How long do you have to do it before something happens to you as a consequence?
Micah: I don’t know. Let’s call Jo.
Kevin: I don’t know – yeah. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, let’s just call her up right now and ask her, “By the way, what’s the title of Book Seven?”
Micah to Jo: Update Please
Micah: Yeah, speaking of her – Jo, come on, update your site, please.
[Everybody laughs]
Micah: It’s been since October 31st. This is getting a little out of hand.
Kevin: You’re going to become the next fan site.
[Micah laughs]
Kevin: Micah doesn’t have a web page. [laughs]
Laura: I think someone should make Micah a web page.
Micah: No! I don’t think that should be included in the show either.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Someone should make… [trails off, laughing] Someone should make Micah a fan site. Okay, anyway.
Dark Side Assistance: Narcissa
Laura: Who – if you had to pick a couple of select characters from the “Dark Side,” who do you think would be the most likely to help Harry? Aside from Draco and Snape.
Kevin: I don’t think there’s currently a character that I would see turning good.
Laura: What do you think about Narcissa, though? What if she had to do something to save Draco?
Kevin: Oh, if it was to save Draco, sure. But, beyond that she’s an evil person, all the same. I mean, she loves her son, but that doesn’t mean that she’s not the person – the type of person who can easily kill someone.
Micah: Well…
Kevin: You know? It’s one thing when it’s family at risk, but when she’s going out and killing people, I don’t think she really feels much remorse.
Laura: Have we ever seen her kill anyone, though?
Kevin: No, but it’s sort of – I think it sort of runs in the profession, no? [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, I guess.
Kevin: She is…
Laura: I’ve just always kind of…
Kevin: Although, I guess she’s not technically a Death Eater, is she?
Laura: I don’t think she is.
Kevin: So, I don’t know. She…
Laura: Do you to pledge? [laughs] To be a Death Eater, I mean. I think that – I think she thinks Voldemort has the right idea, until it comes to the point where it’s…
Kevin: Endangering.
Laura: …kind of to the detriment of her son’s life.
Kevin: Exactly, yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Well, what do you think of her, sort of, being made an example of? Because if you look to what happened at the end of Half Blood Prince, Draco really didn’t complete his mission as Voldemort set out. Snape was the one who completed it for him, so is that going to bear a consequence?
Kevin: Yeah, but I think she – I don’t really think so. I think that Voldemort will let Draco know that he’s not satisfied, but in his own way. We can’t say what he’s going to do, but…
Laura: I think Draco would kind of be made into a joke, you know?
Kevin: Yeah, I think so, too. But, I don’t think Voldemort cares either way, because it got done.
Laura: Yeah. Dumbledore’s dead.
Kevin: So, whether it was Draco or not, I don’t think he truly cares. Why would he care? Draco is just another pawn in his…
Micah: Right.
Kevin: …chess game.
Micah: Well, I agree with you, because I think if you look at it, what happened – he sent him on an impossible mission, something that he…
Kevin: Right.
Micah: …would never have been able to accomplish against somebody like Dumbledore.
Laura: Well, the point – yeah. The point in that was that he was going to kill him if he didn’t complete it, and that was his way of punishing Lucius.
Kevin: Right.
Micah: I foresee something happening there. I think somebody in that family will be made an example of, and it will cause the others to really…
Kevin: Rebel.
Micah: …reconsider their alliance.
Kevin: Yeah, that is a pretty…
Laura: That’s interesting.
Kevin: Yeah, interesting theory.
Laura: All right, I think we pretty much discussed the death out of this, but I mean, does anyone have any last thoughts?
Micah: What about Snape?
Laura: Well…
Kevin: Oh, we’ve killed that discussion.
Laura: We’ve killed Snape. [laughs]
Kevin: Yeah.
Laura: Forget having him die in Book Seven, we did it. Geez. That’s where you’re supposed to laugh.
Kevin: [laughs unenthusiastically] Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Laura: You remember this whole rule about, even if it’s the lamest joke ever, you’re supposed to laugh anyway?
Micah: Yeah, I don’t follow that rule.
Kevin: I ignore that rule.
Micah: Yeah.
Kevin: Yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Laura: Hey, you guys…
Kevin: Does not apply to us.
Laura: Alright, well, I think that pretty much wraps things up, so we’re going to [laughs]…
Kevin: Head out?
Laura: We’re going to transition [still laughs]…
Kevin: Yes, transition to…
Laura: Transition back into…
Kevin: So… So yeah, what’s happening is Jamie is coughing up that nut that he choked on.
[Micah laughs]
Kevin: Andrew’s laptop suddenly decided to reboot and is now stable.
Micah: And what about me?
Kevin: And, Micah, your computer’s going to have a problem. I foresee your computer…
[Micah laughs]
Laura: No, that’s old, that’s old.
Micah: Yeah, you’ve got to come up with something more…
Kevin: Yeah, that’s true. A pick up truck is going to go through the front of your house.
[Micah and Laura laugh]
Dumbledore/Norris Facts
Andrew: [laughs] Okay, thank you, Micah, Laura and Kevin. Jamie, can you please grace us with some Dumbledore and Chuck Norris quotes?
Jamie: Yeah. I only have a few.
Andrew: That’s fine
Jamie: Okay, “Dumbledore puts the laughter in slaughter.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: What? Makes sense.
Laura: No, have you ever seen that shirt? It says, “You can’t have manslaughter without laughter?” [laughs]
Kevin: Oh yeah that’s a t-shirt Hell shirt.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: “They made a Dumbledore flavored Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Bean so that people could taste power.”
[Andrew and Kevin laugh]
Andrew: I got it.
Jamie: Hey, I mean this week they aren’t really Harry Potter driven, they’re just, you know, awesome. You know, expressing his awesomeness. “Dumbledore is not politically correct, he is just correct. Always.”
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: It’s true.
Andrew: He’s Dumbledore correct.
Jamie: Yeah. “Dumbledore’s I.Q. can be expressed simply as a sideways eight.”
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: For you mathematicians out there.
Andrew: What? What does that mean?
Kevin: Infinity.
Jamie: Infinity.
Andrew: Oh, does it?
Kevin: Oh…
Jamie: Which reminds me…
Kevin: You didn’t know what that meant?
Andrew: No, sorry I’m not in…
Kevin: Oh boy.
Andrew: I’m not in – what class are you taking right now?
Laura: You don’t need to be in that class.
Kevin: Oh, I’m done with differentials.
Andrew: Yeah, differential equations, sorry.
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: Okay, I’m done. I don’t really have anymore.
Andrew: That’s it?
Jamie: Yeah I’ll get some more for next week
Andrew: Alright.
Jamie: Kevin, I have a joke for you. Tell me if you get it. Okay, there are two cats on a roof, which one falls off first? The one with the lowest mew.
Kevin: [laughs] I get it.
Jamie: I thought that was funny.
Andrew: Okay, I guess math…
Jamie: No.
Kevin: It’s actually physics.
Jamie: It’s a…
Andrew: Oh.
Jamie: What is it? Coefficient Diffraction?
Kevin: Physics – yes.
Jamie: [laughs] Nice one.
Andrew: Wow. Wow, nice.
Kevin: Andrew doesn’t get it. He doesn’t…
Andrew: No.
Kevin: You will get it though, Andrew. You will get it.
Jamie: I didn’t get it either…don‘t worry.
Andrew: I want to try and think up my own Dumbledore/Norris joke.
Jamie: I have to e-mail that guy who did the ones last week because they were awesome. Because he…
Andrew: That’s going to make him to write some more.
Jamie: Exactly. I’m going to ask him to write some more up. They were pretty good.
Andrew: :Dumbledore doesn’t use cell phones, he uses…”
Jamie: No, no. “Cell phones use Dumbledore.” [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs]
[Laura and Kevin laugh]
Andrew: Well you can that, “Dumbledore doesn’t use the Easy Button, the Easy Button uses Dumbledore.” [Pushes Easy Button; “That was easy”] It’s getting slower by the press, I swear.
Jamie: That’s awesome.
Andrew: Oh, I got one. [laughs] “Dumbledore doesn’t fire Trump, Trump fires Dumbledore.” [Presses “You’re Fired!” button]
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: That’s not even a Dumbledore joke, that’s a Trump joke.
Jamie: That’s a Trump joke, yeah.
Andrew: Yeah. I just used it because I have a Trump sound effect.
Jamie: That was easy
Andrew: That was easy.
Listener Rebuttals – Robin’s Challenge
Andrew: We have two other e-mails now and then we’ll wrap up the show. Donna, 51, of Sacramento, California writes,
“I am proud to say I am a listener and a big Harry Potter fan. I turned 51 on Thanksgiving and I am sure I am not even close to the oldest fan. I have a retired friend who took the first Harry Potter book on vacation. She ended up buying more HP books and spent most of her vacation reading! Go, Jo!”
This is in response to Robin’s challenge.
Jamie: I also have one from Robin’s challenge. After you’ve…
Andrew: Do you?
Jamie: Yeah, after you’ve done the next one.
Andrew: All right, we have one more from Anna, 35, of South Florida who writes:
“Hi! Since Thanksgiving I’ve been a little behind listening to the podcast, so I’m just listening to number 65. On it you have a lady asking ‘mature’ listeners and Harry Potter fans to show themselves, so here it is. I don’t know about mature, but I am 35 and a huge Harry Potter fan. I don’t have kids yet, so it’s all me. No excuses why I am a fan, I just love the books and movies. My husband, 39, is also a fan, but I’m definitely the more committed and obsessed of the two. Keep up the good work! Love listening to you guys and long live Harry Potter fans!”
Jamie: Awww, that’s nice.
Andrew: [finished email] “From, Anna.” Thank you Anna and Donna.
Jamie: And I’ve got one from Lee, who is 32 from West Yorkfordshire, England. He writes:
“Hi Jamie. After listening to Robin, coming out of the closet on Episode 65 I’ve decided to do the same. I am ‘only’ 32 but I have only been a MuggleCast lurker since episode 15. I have to say I agree 100% with Robin about you guys. Your professionalism, your production quality and your passion for what you do is amazing and completely beyond almost anything else in the podcast land. Oh, yes. It is a real place. Thank-you very much. On a side note I used to make TV programs for ITV and the BBC.”
Andrew: Wow.
Jamie: [continues reading] “Those are two television programs out here in case people didn’t know, and I really reckon that you guys would the put the current crop of big producers to shame.” And he attaches an awesome photo of himself wearing his MuggleCast t-shirt in front of Alnwick Castle.”
Is that how you pronounce it? I can’t remember – Alnwick Castle which is where they filmed a great deal of Harry Potter scenes. Especially…
Andrew: Right, right.
Jamie: …the bigger Hogwarts scenes. Also, I have to thank Lee for this week’s joke which will be coming up soon.
Andrew: I really appreciate e-mails like that.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: Where people compliment us on professionalism and stuff like that.
Laura: Mhm.
Andrew: It’s like, you know.
Kevin: You have no idea.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: I mean I’m sure the edited show comes off very professional than it sounds when it’s recorded. [laughs]
Jamie: I hope it sadly does.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. It certainly does.
Jamie’s British Joke of the Day
Andrew: Yeah. All right. Okay Jamie, you want to go ahead with that joke now?
Jamie: Okay, okay. This is a bit political – well it’s not political but, yeah. By telling this joke we aren’t claiming to be any political affiliation. It’s just, take it for what you will, basically.
Before the 2001 inauguration of George Bush, he was invited to a “get acquainted” tour of the White House. After drinking several glasses of iced tea he asked Bill Clinton if he could his personal bathroom. When he entered Clinton’s private toilet he was astonished to see that President Clinton had a solid gold urinal. That afternoon George told his wife Laura about the urinal. “Just think,” he said. “When I’m President I can get a gold urinal too, but I wouldn’t do anything that self indulgent.” Later when Laura had lunch with Hilary after the tour of the White House, she told Hilary how impressed George had been at the discovery of the fact that in the President’s private bathroom; the President had a gold urinal. That evening when Bill and Hilary were getting ready for bed, Hilary smiled and said to Bill, “I found out who peed in your saxophone.” [laughs]
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Oh, geez. Good stuff. Good stuff.
Jamie: Thank you, Lee.
McDonald’s Contest Winner
Andrew: And lastly this week, I have an update on our Listener Challenge – the McDonald’s Listener Challenge – I have the winner of the MuggleCast at McDonald’s month promotion on the show.
[Jamie makes trumpet sound]
The winner is…drum roll please…
[Jamie makes trumpet sound]
Andrew: Dani, 18, of South Hadley, Massachusetts won the challenge, so congrats to her. She took a few pictures at different McDonald’s locations, I guess in her area, and one of them really got me. It’s the entire McDonald’s staff behind the counter holding the MuggleCast sign.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: And it just amuses me so much because all of McDonald’s stopped for that picture. [laughs] So, thanks to her for that.
Jamie: The economy came to a halt for that photo.
Andrew: Yeah, McDonald’s lost like…
Jamie: Four billion.
Andrew: $50 on it. [laughs]
Show Close
Andrew: So, that does wrap up MuggleCast 67. As a side note, our holiday edition and our New Year’s edition episodes are coming up. We have some good stuff planned for them, of course. Of course, Episode 70 is going to be the variety show. We’re also – I think, guys – we’re going to be doing a year end review like we did last year. I think that might be a good idea.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely.
Kevin: Yeah, that sounds good.
Andrew: All right. So, we’ll do that. Christmas show, I’m sure we’ll be doing something special like we did last year. So, definitely look forward to those. If you would like to contact us you could always visit MuggleCast.com where there’s a handy feedback forum that contacts any of us. You can also send stuff to the P.O. Box. It’s Christmas time. [in a nerdy voice] Send your cookies!
Laura: So that Ben cannot send anything.
Jamie: I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Andrew, it is PO Box 223, Moundridge, California W95…
Kevin: Kansas?
Jamie: Actually, I don’t know the rest of it. I don’t know the rest of it. Moundridge, Kansas. California.
Andrew: [laughs] I actually thought you might actually have it. You got it pretty much.
PO Box 223
Moundridge, KS 67107
Jamie: Oh, did I say California?
Laura: [laughs] Yeah.
Kevin: Yes, you did. [laughs]
Jamie: Sorry.
Andrew: Thought you did that as a joke.
Jamie: No, no.
Kevin: I thought so too.
Jamie: I mean, yes, I did.
[Show music plays in background]
Andrew: If you’re in the United States – you know, we’re going to have a contest one day where the winner will receive Jamie’s map of the United States.
Laura: Yeah, that’s a good idea.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: I’m debating whether it’s going to be that, or we’re going to print that on a t-shirt, ’cause we can get away with that. No one can stop us from selling that. [laughs]
[Kevin laughs]
Andrew: [laughs] So, if you’re in the United States you can always call 1-218-20-MAGIC, that’s 6-2-4-4-2. If you’re in the United Kingdom you can dial 020-8144-0677. If you’re in Australia you can dial 02-8003-5668. Any of those numbers you can leave us a voicemail on. You can also Skype the username MuggleCast to leave a voicemail, just try to keep your message about 30 seconds and try to eliminate as much background noise as possible. And also, one last plug, don’t forget all of our community outlets: MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Frappr, Last.FM, Fanlisting Forums. The song I did last week.
Jamie: Very nice.
Andrew: [laughs] And that’s going to be my next single, actually. And please be our MySpace friend. We almost have 4,000 friends on MySpace, and probably by the time this episode is out we’ll have four thousand friends.
Jamie: Four million.
Andrew: Yeah, our goal is a million.
Jamie: I’m so sore.
Andrew: We have about six and half million listeners, so that’s one in every six.
Jamie: One in every six. That’s okay. We can do that.
Andrew: It’s not bad. It’s okay.
Jamie: It’s average.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. Once again I’m Andrew Sims.
Jamie: I’m Jamie Lawrence.
Kevin: I’m Kevin Steck.
Laura: I’m Laura Thompson. I figured you two were going to fight over it.
Andrew: Nope, that’s it. [laughs]
Kevin: No, I was waiting for him because I wasn’t even going to bother.
Andrew: We’ll see everyone next week for Episode 68. Bye bye!
Jamie: Bye!
Laura: Bye!
Kevin: Bye!
[Show music ends]
Andrew: This podcast is brought to you by Buena Vista Home Entertainment’s release of Step Up. When Tyler Gage, a rough and street-wise hunk with raw talent finds himself doing community service at a school for the performing arts, he also finds Nora, a beautiful and privileged, classically trained dancer who’s searching for a new partner. Spying on Tyler’s smooth moves, Nora decides to take a chance on him. But as they begin training, tensions build, tempers flair, and the differences in their backgrounds explode. On DVD December 19th. Rated PG-13.
Bloopers
Laura: Is everyone going?
Kevin: Yes.
Micah: Yep.
Laura: Mic check.
Kevin: I have to go, guys.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: What?! No. [laughs] No, no, no.
[Kevin laughs]
Micah: Oh, you’re so funny.
Laura: No, no, no. You already had your academic emergency.
Micah: You had your Frodo time.
[Laura laughs]
Kevin: Them deleting my classes was not nice.
Laura: No, it wasn’t.
Micah: What did you call it? An academic emergency?
Laura: Emergency.
Kevin: No, I said emergency, and because I was somewhat rushed and panicking. What?
[Phone rings]
Laura: Phone. Sorry.
Kevin: Was that your phone or my phone?
Laura: That was mine.
Kevin: Oh, okay. I have two new voice messages, is that you?
Laura: Yeah. Being like “Kevin, are you dead?” Sorry.
Kevin: You wish.
Laura: Anyway…
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: It would have been kind of hard to do this tonight if you were, so not really. All right, are we ready?
Micah: Yeah.
Kevin: Yeah, we’re recording aren’t we? [laughs]
Laura: You know what I mean!
Kevin: Let’s see how many times can we say “are we ready?” One, two?
Laura: Well, okay – because I’ve had to sit here and prod you off of watching Frodo even though you own it and then we can’t get started. [laughs] All right.
Kevin: This is really tough, to just start out in the middle of nowhere.
Laura: It is! It’s so hard. Andrew, this is so hard. Don’t do this to me again. This sucks. Anyway.
Micah: You know he’s going to stick that at the end of the show.
Kevin: He should steal wireless, seriously!
Laura: I really don’t care. I don’t care. Well, his family is having a Christmas party or something.
Kevin: Yeah, Christmas party on December 9th. That makes a lot of sense.
Laura: Hey, you said it, not me.
Micah: So, Laura.
Kevin: Yes.
Laura: So, what? [laughs] I was waiting – never mind.
Micah: For what?
Kevin: Maybe we should give some explanation to why we just broke into three.
Laura: Yeah. Now, what did you say happened to Jamie?
Kevin: Jamie choked on a nut and went to the hospital.
[Micah laughs]
Kevin: And Andrew’s laptop crashed.
Laura: Because Kevin killed it.
Kevin: So, because his laptop is an Apple laptop – they’re just completely unreliable. You can’t count on them for anything.
Laura: By “crashed” Kevin means that he went up there and dropped it off a cliff. That’s what he means.
Kevin: So, basically it’s left to us to come up with our main discussion of this week.
Laura: Well, apparently Ben doesn’t know how to hit “record” either. [laughs]
Kevin: Yes, but Ben is in Chicago.
Laura: Yeah, Ben is in Chicago, Jamie is sleeping. I don’t know what everyone else is doing.
Kevin: And Andrew is at a Christmas party that doesn’t exist.
Laura: Yep. [Laura laughs]
———————–
Written by: Micah, Adrienne, Allison, Amanda, Eloise, Jessica, Judy, Mandie, Margaret, Martina, Matt, Megan, Samantha, Shannon and Shelly