[Eric laughs]

Micah: Or YouTube, for that matter, but I’m sure there will be something around.

Andrew: Oh, YouTube will be around. Come on.

Eric: YouTube’s going down.

Muggle Mail: Release Date of Deathly Hallows

Andrew: The next e-mail comes from Dominique, 15, of Florida. She writes:

“Hey MuggleCasters. I was thinking back over older MuggleCast episodes when I remembered that there was a somewhat heated debate over whether the ‘Deathly Hallows’ release date was too soon or not. Some of you said that you thought that a 2007 release was great, and others thought it was too soon and wanted a 2008 release. I just wanted to know whether or not now, since we’ve read the final book, you think that you would have preferred the book to be out in 2008, or do you feel that Jo wrote the book to your satisfaction and needed no more writing? Thanks. Love the show.”

First, I want to say that if – gosh – if the book hadn’t come out over this summer, I don’t know what we’d be talking about right now.

[Eric laughs]

Laura: Oh I know. It would’ve been awful!

Andrew: How much more could we talk about Half Blood Prince?

Everyone: Yeah.

Eric: That is a fair question. I can’t imagine the sort of summer 2007 if Dealthy Hallows hadn’t happened. I mean we would’ve had Movie 5 and all, but if it weren’t for Book 7 coming out then, I really don’t know. It’s so hard to think of it now that it is a past event, what would it have been like if the book hadn’t been released then. So…

Laura: Yeah. And I will completely step up to the plate and say that I was one of those nay-sayers who originally was like, “Oh no, the book won’t come out in 2007. It has to come out in 2008.” Just because when we’d been to the readings at Carnegie Hall. Or no, not Carnegie Hall. I’m getting my readings mixed up. Radio City, yeah! When we were there, she said that she had just started or she wasn’t very far into it. Either that or some kind of article had just come out saying that she was halfway through, and she debunked it, and I was just like, “Okay, if she is not even halfway through, there’s no way we are looking at a release for next summer.” But I was wrong, and I was really satisfied with the book.

Micah: I was somebody who thought that it was going to be released later on in the year. I thought that were were going to see a November type release or, what was it, October? October 31st, I think, was my big prediction. But…

Andrew: You had a really good theory about that too.

Micah: Yeah, but what ended up happening, I think, was probably for the best, because all the books were released more or less in the summer time, anyway, so it kind of kept with the tradition, and I don’t think the summer would’ve been quite as good as it was if you didn’t have both the movie and the book being released around the same time.

Laura: It really was the perfect summer. We had so much fun.

Andrew: At the same time, thought, I mean, 2008 is going to be a boring summer in terms of Harry Potter. [laughs]

Eric: We’ve got two Harry Potter conferences, and – oh right, the movie only comes out in November.

Muggle Mail: Elder Wand

Laura: Our last e-mail comes from Dylan, 34, of Montana. He says:

“I was just listening to Episode 140, where you were discussing the transfer of the Elder Wand’s allegiance from Dumbledore to Draco to Harry. First, I don’t think you were clear about the value of the Elder Wand’s allegiance, which is that it makes the Wand much more powerful and effective. The best example of this is that it acts for Voldemort like any other wand with no special abilities, but Harry is able to use it to fix his wand, which everybody thought was impossible. Secondly, you seemed to think that Dumbledore planned to have Draco disarm him so that the master of the Elder Wand would not go to Snape who was vulnerable to Voldemort. This seems silly to me for two reasons. For one thing, at this point Voldemort is planning to have Draco die as a punishment for Lucius failing to get the prophecy at the Ministry. There was a much bigger chance that Voldemort would kill Draco than he would kill Snape. But more importantly, Dumbledore admitted at King’s Cross that his real plan was to die undefeated so that the Elder Wand’s allegiance would never transfer from him, making its dangerous power unreachable. Harry says something like, ‘But that part didn’t work out like you wanted,’ and Dumbledore agrees. Although it is not clear at the time, Harry is referring to Draco’s disarming Dumbledore and unknowingly gaining the Elder Wand’s allegiance. I think that Dumbledore, injured and drained from his experience at the lake, had to use all his power to keep Harry safe and couldn’t simultaneously stop Draco from disarming him.”

Matt: Well, it just goes to show that not every single thing that happens happened as planned. Not everything was planned out.

Eric: Even for Dumbledore.

Laura: Yeah.

Eric: Which is – which is really a good sort of – a good thing to bring up.

Micah: This was the point that I made last week, saying that I thought Dumbledore – maybe, clearly didn’t plan it out this way, but once he got to the point where he was on the top of the tower, it was almost as if he knew that it was over. And so it may have sort of been a plan that he had in his mind at that point in time because – I mean, the points that Dylan brings up are good points. It disproves what I was saying last week based on the fact that Dumbledore wanted to die without having the Wand’s allegiance transfer to another person. He wanted to die undefeated, which makes perfect sense because then the Wand could never be used again.

Matt: Okay, Dumbledore’s initial plan was that he wasn’t defeated, but once Draco came and disarmed him, he then knew that – that the Elder Wand was Draco’s, right? Is that what – is that what he was trying to say? Dylan?

Micah: What he’s trying to say is that my point last week that Dumbledore planned out this whole thing, that it would be better for Draco to have the power transferred to him as opposed to letting Snape come and killing him is complete B.S., because Dumbledore wanted to die without the Wand transferring power to anybody else, based on his statement that he made in King’s Cross, but…

Matt: Yeah, but…

Micah: …he may have not planned it that way, but once he got into that situation and he knew that he was going to die, I just – to me, it would be something that Dumbledore would’ve thought through. “Hey, wouldn’t it be far better to have Draco have this power unbeknownst to him as opposed to somebody like Snape who is extremely vulnerable to Voldemort?” And I understand the point that Draco was probably going to be killed by Voldemort anyway because he didn’t think that he could approach Dumbledore and be successful, so it’s just a really weird situation. That’s all I’m going to say.

Matt: Yeah. Do you think he realized, though, that Draco had the Elder Wand as soon as he disarmed him?

Andrew: Probably. I mean…

Laura: Yeah, I mean…

Andrew: …it would seem stupid for Dumbledore not to know.

Micah: Well, yeah, I mean, the allegiance itself would have been transferred, right? I mean…

Matt: Yeah, at that point…

Andrew: Oh, that’s true, yeah.

Matt: …the allegiance to the Elder Wand was now Draco’s.

Micah: Yeah, my point last week is that he wouldn’t possibly want Snape to have that allegiance carried with him because Snape was going to kill him no matter what. That was the plan. And so he wouldn’t want that to be given to Snape because Snape was such an easy target, as we saw, for Voldemort to take that supposed allegiance from him like he does when they’re in the Shrieking Shack. He – I mean, Dumbledore’s a smart guy and it goes back to the whole tower thing we were talking about last week. If he wanted to get out of that situation, he probably could have. There – he’s far more powerful, even in a weakened state…

Andrew: Of course he could!

Matt: Oh, yeah!

Micah: …than any of those guys that are up on that tower with the exception of Snape. So…

Eric: Right, but Dumbledore does admit to Harry in the end at King’s Cross that he hadn’t originally planned for Draco to steal the Wand.

Micah: Right. He didn’t originally plan it, but that’s what ended up happening, and it ended up working out for the best.

Eric: Okay, yeah.

Micah: In the end.

Eric: You’re saying that with hindsight that it would be better for Snape not to have the allegiance, which is what ended up getting him killed anyway. Right? Yeah.

Micah: Exactly. Because then the power would have transferred over to Voldemort, you’d have a huge…

Eric: It’s certainly very fortunate.

Micah: …problem on your hands. And Dylan brings up good points. That was just a theory that I threw out there last week.

Andrew: Okay. Well, I’m glad we cleared it up a little more. Or you did.

Micah: I tried.

Chapter-by-Chapter: Chapter 26, “Gringotts”

Andrew: All right, so let’s get right into Chapter-by-Chapter this week.

Matt: Sweet.

Andrew: As we do every week. This week we’re going to talk about Chapter 26, “Gringott’s.” Lots of interesting stuff going on here.

Eric: Good stuff. Fast-paced chapter.

Andrew: Definitely an interesting chapter for the movie. A lot of work on…

Micah: CGI, right?

Andrew: Yes, exactly. I was just going to say the designers are going to have a hell of a time coming up with some of this stuff.

Eric: This was one of the chapters that, while reading it, it was just one of those things where you want to see in the movie. I mean, don’t you think that Helena Bonham Carter is going to have fun doing all this – playing Hermione and all that? With the trio? I think it’s going to be…

Andrew: Yeah.

Laura: Mhm.

Eric: Okay! Plot summary for chapter twenty-six, “Gringotts” is: The trio and Griphook leave Shell Cottage and go to Diagon Alley where they break into Gringotts with Hermione disguised as Bellatrix Lestrange. Amid much suspicion they make their way down to Bellatrix’s vault and, once inside it, encounter many problems as the goblins have been alerted to their presence. Rushing as fast as they can to find the Horcrux in the vault, they succeed and escape at lightning speed on the back of a dragon, formerly tethered underneath London in Gringotts’ fiery depths.

Hermione Plays Bellatrix

Andrew: So, as Eric just said, the plan is to break into Gringotts with Hermione posing as Bellatrix under the Polyjuice Potion. Hermione’s complaining about having to carry Bellatrix’s wand, and this is just another part of the book where, like I’ve said before, there’s a little reflection on the past seven books, and in this case it was – not exactly in the books, but it was Bellatrix’s wand having killed Neville’s parents and then having also killed Sirius, so…

Matt: It was a good moment for Harry to keep to himself, too, because it would have blown up in his face had he said something about that.

Eric: Yeah. This was something I hadn’t thought about until J.K. Rowling mentioned it – that Bellatrix’s wand is the exact wand that tortured the Longbottoms. You know…

Andrew: It must be hard to hold and, you know, like Harry said, he wanted to snap it.

Eric: Yeah. That was really good. It also talked a little bit about wand allegiance again, because Hermione said, “This wand doesn’t really work for me,” and Harry was tempted to remind her about the blackthorn wand, which she would always tell him, “Well, just practice, Harry, just practice,” and Harry was all, “No! It’s not the same! Ugh!”

Andrew: Yeah.

Eric: And he thought she was finally understanding but he held it back. He kept it to himself and, overall, that was just kind of – next thing they know, Bellatrix Lestrange is walking across the lawn. That freaked me out. I mean, did that freak you guys out at all? That hit me just like the Longbottom wand thing. It was just – we knew that she was going to…

Andrew: I think it would freak me out when you actually see it in the movie.

Laura: Yeah.

Matt: Yeah.

Andrew: Like the book, it’s like sort of coming in expected, but yeah, the movie – that’s going to be creepy as hell.

Eric: Yeah. Even if they mention it – which they do in the book. They’re like, “Oh, Polyjuice. Going to go as Bellatrix Lestrange…” – but just to say that Bellatrix is walking across the lawn is like really kind of creepy. She doesn’t belong there. Shell Cottage is peaceful, Dobby’s grave is weathering nicely. It’s all serene, and Bellatrix comes out.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s very contrasting.

Matt: Well, I’m just excited to see Helena Bonham Carter just look like Hermione, sort of. You know, with the little like surprised expression – moving her eyebrows every two seconds.

Eric: Yeah, exactly. Bellatrix…

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Helena is going to have a heck of a fun time doing that, I think.

Andrew: Emma’s going to have to give Helena some…

Matt: Pointers.

Andrew: …lessons, yeah. “Here’s how I act in every single scene of every single Potter film.”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: “Just do it the same way I do. Just watch…”

Eric: Do you really think it’s that easy, Andrew? That she acts the same way in all the Harry Potter scenes?

Andrew: Yeah! I think it is pretty easy. She acts the same way…

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: …and it’s annoying! But anyway, Harry talks about missing Sea Cottage, the peacefulness of the beautiful sea.

Matt: Yeah, or even just the safetyness, you know, of living in a cottage, you know, with such hospitality for that long.

Eric: I feel kind of bad for Bill at this moment, you know, because he kind of knows what they’re doing, but Bill and Fleur have just totally put these guys up, and they’re not allowed to tell anybody about the quest and that – you know why, but it just kind of – it’s one of those things that you really appreciate. You’re like, “Thanks, Bill,” you know, “I really appreciate this, Bill.”

Andrew: Yeah.

Eric: Sort of things.

Pacing of Movie 7

Laura: Yeah. You know what I wonder just from reading this chapter, is how they’re going to pace the seventh movie, just because, towards the beginning of it, it states that they’ve been at Shell Cottage for several weeks.

Andrew: That’s definitely going to be cut, don’t you think?

Laura: Yeah. Oh, I’m sure, but they have to illustrate that this is a long going journey and they’re spending weeks wandering around the countryside pitching a tent, and then they stay at Bill and Fleur’s for quite a long time, too. They can’t just have them go there for five minutes, you know? It wouldn’t make sense.

Andrew: So maybe it would be another classic David Yates montage.

Laura: Yeah!

Matt: Well, it could probably also just be like a long fade transition. You know, kind of like, instead of just a cut from like the morning, it kind of just goes slowly into a black fade and then fades back into the next scene.

Eric: Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s the thing about these movie technique guys. They’re so good at that. Like, I mean, if you remember, even back in Movie 1, you know, transferring from winter to spring…

Andrew: I was actually just going to say that, yeah.

Eric: …is really well done…

Laura: Yeah, that was actually really well done.

Eric: …and it was sort of – I mean, even that just, you know, I mean, I have full confidence because they’ve sort of had to work with a lot of these time variations in the Harry Potter books because different things happen at different stages throughout the year, you know.

Andrew: Didn’t – in Prisoner of Azkaban, don’t like all of the leaves fall off of the Whomping Willow all of a sudden?

Eric: Yeah, they grow back.

Matt: I think Prisoner of Azkaban did the best of the transitions, definitely.

Laura: Yeah, I – oh my god. I love Alfonso Cuaron.

Eric: There were some good ones, especially with the Whomping Willow. That was really sort of a key – that was really well spotted, I think, in that movie to use the Whomping Willow.

Helena Bonham Carter

Andrew: Now, Matt, you brought up something that I hadn’t remembered actually. A little quote from Helena.

Matt: During last summer Helena Bonham Carter was interviewed about how she got approached for the role, and she said she was kind of hesitant with playing the role of Bellatrix Lestrange, because it was a relatively small role. But I guess later on she said that J.K. Rowling messaged her telling her that she actually has a bigger role in Book 7 and that Movie 5 was just – how did she say it – was, “a bite of a carrot.”

Eric: A bite of a carrot compared to the real…

Matt: Yeah exactly, to the entire thing. So, do you think that this is one of those scenes where – this and I think the Battle at Hogwarts is the two big scenes that is in this for Bellatrix Lestrange.

Laura: Yeah.

Eric: In Malfoy Manor when she’s interrogating Hermione.

Andrew: I think in Order of the Phoenix the character comparison was good because she’s basically Voldemort’s sidekick. She just plays off that little sidekick role. In this, I think – I mean yeah.

Matt: This is the scene where she’s really in the front row.

Andrew: Yeah, this is a really big scene. Yeah, it’s important.

Eric: It’s interesting too, because considering Bellatrix was just in the previous scene interrogating Hermione using the Cruciatus Curse, you know, I think it’s going to be really effective. Because, you know, Bellatrix was just causing Hermione so much pain, for then for Hermione go and come out on the yard and say, “She tasted disgusting, worse then Gurdyroots.”…

Matt: Right.

Eric: …is going to be so fun for the actors to do it.

Matt: It’s just a whole different other side of this character we’re going to see. And so I’m really excited to see Helena Bonham Carter do it because she’s really a great actress.

Disguising Harry

Eric: So, back to the chapter. They’re about to depart for, what, Diagon Alley, and Hermione does this thing where she mixes up Ron’s face and he makes some kind of joke about he doesn’t like the beard too long or something like that, and Harry and Griphook are under the Cloak. Now one of the points I wanted to bring up here was that, even though this is Harry Potter, and they’re going into Gringotts, and they’ve got a plan, and they’ve been planning it for weeks, sometimes plans go wrong. Sometimes things happen, and do you guys think that just as a sort of precaution they should have also transformed Harry just a little bit? Just in case something would need to happen and Harry would need to leave the Invisibility Cloak, he would be looking exactly like himself, which is not a good idea in a public place. I always thought Hermione should’ve performed a spell on him too, just as a precaution, even if he stayed under the cloak.

Matt: I don’t really know, because who would they transform him into and what kind of excuse would they have when he suddenly just comes out of nowhere?

Eric: What I’m suggesting – why not have Ron under the Invisibility Cloak and Harry out as someone else too? I mean if you’re going to actually have a plan to have a sidekick…

Matt: But I think only Griphook would agree to hold onto Harry because he does not want to touch Ron because Ron and him argue all the time.

Laura: Yeah, and they needed some way to conceal him anyway, because it would’ve looked really weird if they were being accompanied by Griphook, you know?

Eric: But even when they’re as far as down as the vault, anyone who looks can now see Harry Potter. But then again by that point…

Laura: Yeah, but he Imperiused the other two.

Matt: Yeah, he’s the one has most of the wand power other then Hermione.

Eric: Yeah, you’re right.

Matt: Ron can’t do any of the stuff that – and also he wouldn’t take orders from Griphook when he told him, “You must act now. You must do this now,” or something.

Andrew: But also, as you were setting that up, Eric, I was thinking, has there ever been a situation where the Invisibility Cloak fails them? Because I’m thinking maybe they just trust the Invisibility Cloak, because if they’ve never run into a problem with it – I mean yeah, they should still…

Laura: Well, the only problem they ever had was, I think – gosh…

Eric: Harry lost it in the Astronomy Tower.

Laura: It was in the third book when someone stepped on it and it came down…

Andrew: Yeah.

Laura: …and revealed his head or something like that. That would be the only issue because – yeah, because it’s a tangible object and it can be removed.

Matt: I also – It was in Goblet of Fire. I don’t think it’s really a problem but it’s when he was Mad-Eye Moody. Oh yeah, that too! When Mad-Eye Moody saw him, or the Mad-Eye Moody impostor saw him through the Cloak.

Eric: There’s that other scene in PoA where he leaves it on the Astronomy Tower because he gets caught or something. Do you guys remember that?

Laura: No that was the first book.

Matt: I think that was Sorcerer’s Stone. That was Sorcerer’s Stone.

Eric: When they’re taking Norbert off in the book, I guess. And then he leaves it there but it magically comes back to him and stuff. So there’s something…

Micah: Snape was aware of it, too. I remember him talking about it at some point in the series as well.

Eric: Yeah.

Andrew: I just don’t think it could be a trust thing with the Cloak. I mean, you know.

Eric: Just to clarify, though, I didn’t mean anything would go wrong with the Cloak. I mean if anything went wrong and – I just think if the Cloak fell off, it was pulled off…

Andrew: Right. So that would be something going wrong with the Cloak, though. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, you’re right, you’re right. I saw that falling apart as I was…

Andrew: Wait, I do agree. You know, why not have an extra – why not screw up Harry’s face, too?

Eric: Just for fun. But, to be fair, at the point…

Micah: Griphook is still there, though.

Eric: Yeah, and at the point when they get down to the vaults, they pass that water, that puddle, that erased all their concealment. So they look like themselves anyway by the time they get down to the vault, which they did successfully.

Matt: And really, even if they did change his face or not, if he was exposed, they would be in the same situation.

Eric: Okay. Well, that’s cool.

Trip to Diagon Alley

Andrew: Let’s keep moving on with this. So within Diagon Alley – we’re still going to stay outside Gringotts for now. Upon entering Diagon Alley, Harry’s – his own face is all over the streets with posters reminiscent of what we saw in Prisoner of Azkaban with Sirius: “Have You Seen This Wizard?” Now, Eric, this is in the books, too, right? Because in your notes you put Gary Oldman, but I mean, it was in the books, too. Weren’t there signs…

Laura: Oh yeah, there were.

Eric: Yeah, all over Hogsmeade and stuff. I don’t know if it said, “Have You Seen This Wizard?” but it said pretty much that.

Matt: Yeah, it’s a wanted poster.

Eric: Yeah, wanted posters, you know, as they come. [laughs] But I had remembered because my movie theatre got a bunch of those – got a whole big stand, you know, “Have You Seen This Wizard?” Wasn’t there also like a countdown to Prisoner of Azkaban – it was one of their main, I think, display pieces. One of the standees that Warner Brothers sent out was a Sirius Black wanted poster, so I thought of that immediately when I was reading this about Undesirable Number One and the Harry poster thing. They’d have fun with that. But…

Andrew: Harry mentions here that his eleventh birthday was the most wonderful one in his life, which was so sweet.

Laura: Yeah, it really was.

Eric: Yeah. He recalled going into Gringotts for the first time and the whole trip to Hagrid. Just thinking about that, like, to have this kind of reflection where your eleventh birthday was the most wonderful – it’s bittersweet, because here he is, he’s seventeen and he’s contemplating death. And so in his first seventeen years of life, the eleventh birthday, when he found out he was a wizard, when he escaped the evil Dursleys, before he knew what evil even was, and it was just – it was really good to hear him say that. That was like, wow, he’s come so far.

Matt: I think it’s also a good parallel to when Hagrid was telling him about Gringotts. When he was saying, “you’d be a fool to try and break in to one of these,” and here he is, seven years later, doing the exact same thing.

Andrew: Foreshadowing. There we go.

Eric: Yep, absolutely. It’s kind of a – it was really cool.

Andrew: Then, while they enter Gringotts, there’s these new things called the Prohibidy – Probidy – Prorabidy…

Eric: P-p-p-probity probe.

Andrew: P-p-p-p Quote Quiz. No.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Probity Probe. So there’s this new security and they just – they check to make sure you have no – what was it again? – you have no charms or spells on you?

Laura: Yeah, concealments or anything.

Andrew: Concealments, that was it.

Matt: Yeah.

Andrew: No surprises.

Laura: It reminds me of TSA, when you’re at the airport.

Andrew: [laughs] It is the TSA, yeah.

Eric: It is like TSA, really, and Harry has some well-armed – sorry, well-aimed – spells here, but it’s exactly like TSA with the little metal detector thing or whatever it is.

Matt: It’s a good thing they didn’t have a MacBook Air with them, huh?

Andrew: Wuh-hooo! Current news.

Eric: Well, it wouldn’t have worked because of all that magic in Diagon Alley.

Andrew: For anyone who doesn’t know, MacBook Airs were recently under scrutiny because they didn’t look like a normal laptop, so the TSA had to look at the new ones and be like, okay, these aren’t bombs.

Laura: That happened to my dad once with an iPod. Like, he was going through and his iPod didn’t have headphones on it…

Andrew: Oh, brother.

Laura: And they were like, “Don’t these normally come with headphones?” And my dad was like, “Are you freaking kidding me?” Like, seriously.

Andrew: So they sneakily get pass the GSA – the Gringotts Security Administration…

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: …and they get down into the vault. Well, they’re going through there, and, Eric, what do they pass through like you mentioned earlier?

Eric: Oh my god, they pass down this weird, sort of, I don’t know if it’s a puddle on the tracks…

Andrew: It’s a waterfall. Was it a waterfall?

Eric: Was it a waterfall?

Matt: It’s a waterfall, yeah.

Eric: Oh, cool. One of those nice little waterfalls, which is probably pouring sulfur or something because they’re down underneath the ground with stalactites and stalagmites. Anyway, washes away all their magical enchantment, all their concealments…sigh…and so they all look like themselves again. And Hermione’s disguise – I mean, Hermione’s disguise as Bellatrix worked so far, but then again, I mean, it was kind of iffy coming down.

Faulty Plans

Micah: Well, let’s talk about that for a minute.

Eric: I forgot to mention that they get stopped…

Micah: I want to talk about…

Eric: …in Diagon Alley by what – this other Death Eater guy.

Micah: Right. They do, and this is kind of something that was not well through through again. And I go back to the Ministry situation that existed way back in the early chapters of this book. But it’s pretty clear that something happened at Malfoy Manor. Bellatrix would certainly have alerted Gringotts, most likely, to the fact that her wand was stolen, and that there’s other sorts of people out there that might be interested in getting into her vault. So to me this seems like a pretty stupid idea. I understand they had to do it because it advanced the story, it advanced the plot, but again, not well thought through.

Eric: No.

Andrew: They do have to get the Horcruxes, and it is made known that – they do say that they’re suspicious. Harry knows that they’re suspicious, right?

Eric: Well, see, Harry seems to make all the right decisions here. Hermione, however, does not. I mean a bit like Micah was saying, especially considered the weeks that they planned this thing, a lot of the things Hermione does and a lot of her confusion – you know, for instance, it takes her so long to sort of get over the fact that she has her wand, you know, sort of thing, and Harry’s trying to whisper stuff in her ears from beneath the Invisibility Cloak. You know, for how much they planned it, it just – I think Hermione really messes it up for them. I think…

Matt: Well, you got to give Hermione a little bit of sympathy. I mean, she is playing the woman who tortured her for like an hour.

Laura: Yeah.

Eric: No, you got to, and it’s not exactly a good thing if you make a good Bellatrix Lestrange, you know what I’m saying. It’s not necessarily the biggest compliment if you play her accurately, but…

Matt: Whether she played it off well or not, though, they’re going to be screwed. It’s pretty much obvious that they’re not going to get very far. I think they all knew that. Harry even said it to himself earlier on in the chapter, that he had to keep telling himself this was a good plan, even though he knew in the back of his head it was going to fall apart. But they really had no choice, and the fact – they even said it. Harry said that they had to move as quickly as possible because Bellatrix is still really…

[Someone yells in the background]

Matt: Oh, sorry. Bellatrix is really paranoid about her vault in question.

Eric: It’s true, yeah.

Laura: I think they knew going into it that the whole thing was going to fall around – you know, behind – fall down behind them, but I think it was just a matter of being quick and achieving the goal as quickly as possible and getting out. Because there was no possible way they were going to get in there, steal the cup, and then get out without anyone knowing.

Andrew: Yeah.

Laura: It just wasn’t going to happen.

Eric: Well, there is an opposite to that too, which is what kind of happened. They did make it down to the vaults, and I am so happy for them, but by the time they did, all the alarms had been set off, and people were really suspicious. So they didn’t have much time. They made it, they made it.

The Waterfall

Andrew: I have one more question about this waterfall. When they go through it, Griphook yells, “The Thief’s Downfall.” Is this what this system is called? Because it’s in all caps, and I just don’t…

Matt: I think that’s the name of it.

Andrew: It is the name of it?

Matt: The Thief’s Downfall, like a waterfall, the Thief’s Downfall.

Laura: Yeah.

Andrew: Okay.

Eric: Well, if it’s down, it shouldn’t have feathers in it.

Matt: Yeah.

Eric: That was a fabric joke, sorry.

Micah: Couldn’t he have been referring to Harry? I mean – or is that…

Andrew: Well, yeah, that’s what I thought…

Micah: Yeah, I mean, I guess I agree.

Andrew: I thought, it’s in all caps, and it’s referred to twice.

Eric: It was kind of like too, with the…

Matt: Maybe it’s like part of the…

[Eric and Matt overlap each other speaking]

Eric: Like that’s kind of the whole thing they have going, is that they named – it’s kind of like Cutter’s Treasure and Deadman’s Curve. It’s one of those things that Griphook likes to name on the way there. I think it was the actual name of the waterfall.

Laura: Yeah, that’s what I think it was too.

Micah: But the question surrounding this, though, is Griphook didn’t say anything about this.

Eric: We get the point that…

Micah: That’s the issue.

Eric: I mean, we get the kind of idea that, although Griphook was like never letting the trio out of his sight and they were always planning for this, it seems to me that he left out this whole thing about the waterfall.

Micah: Well, maybe that’s why he screamed it out like that. He’s like, “Oh, I forgot about Thief’s Downfall, here we go.”

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: I don’t think he forgot, though. I think it’s part of that distrust that he had going. I mean, if you – I mean, later in the chapter, they’re like, okay, Griphook never expected wizards to play fair and actually give him the sword. So when he dives for it when they’re in the vault, it’s just – Harry’s just like, you know, “Oh heck.” So I mean…

Andrew: Yeah.

Eric: …do you really think he forgot?

Laura: Yeah, I agree with Eric. I don’t think he forgot.

Andrew: No.

Laura: At all.

Andrew: It was probably part of his plan to reveal their identities, so once he got the sword back, he would leave, and then the trio was caught, and then Griphook wouldn’t have to deal with them. And he knew. If the trio got caught, then he knew he would get his sword back.

Eric: Yeah. It’s just…

Andrew: Unless they released the dragon but that’s not going to happen.

Eric: It’s just one of those things you want to slap Griphook around for but, you know, I’m sure people would get upset if they heard me say that, so…

Micah: So you don’t think he was just away for so long? I mean I understand he’s worked there for how many ever years, so he clearly knows about this waterfall. But, I mean, couldn’t it have been something that slipped his mind up to that point where he was just…

Eric: I doubt it.

Andrew: No.

Eric: It seems to be one of the only…

Laura: Mmm, I don’t think so.

Matt: I think, probably – I mean they did make a truce, so he probably has to keep his word to that point, but he doesn’t necessarily have to keep all of the details of that truce in. Like, he’ll lead them to the vault but he doesn’t have to necessarily…

Eric: Yeah.

Matt: …get them there safely.

Eric: As safely as they would hope. Which is just like Harry, you know, saying he’ll give Griphook the sword of Gryffindor when he’s planning on giving it to him eventually, you know, that sort of thing. So just one of those things.

Andrew: And then Bill also gave that warning at the end of the…

Eric: Yeah.

Andrew: …last chapter that they don’t trust humans. I think that’s just foreshadowing and that’s just, I mean, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that all of a sudden Griphook just conveniently forgets this.

[Eric laughs]

Matt: I’m sure – I mean, Harry kind of has it in the back of his mind too, but he just doesn’t have any other choice.

Eric: Yeah. He’s kind of like, “Oh great, waterfall.”

Andrew: Yeah…

Laura: I mean…

Eric: All magical concealment.

Laura: I mean he has no other way of getting down there, so…

Andrew: Yeah.

The Dragon

Matt: So we get to the dragon that…

Eric: Well, they’ve passed the dragon.

Matt: I don’t know. Well, no they get – don’t they come to it? Isn’t the dragon guarding one of the vaults?

Eric: Yeah, it’s the most…

Laura: Yeah, they see it.

Eric: ….ancient four or five vaults or something.

Andrew: Yeah, and they have to start ringing the clankers to get past it.

Matt: Yeah.

Andrew: I mean…

Matt: This is – but, okay, I just want to say something about this dragon. Did anybody, when they read the first book, know that you were going to see a dragon in Gringotts?

Andrew: No.

Laura: Well…

Matt: Did anyone see the foreshadowing?

Laura: Do you remember…

Matt: Because I did.

Laura: Mhm.

Matt: I thought we were going to go back to Gringotts and we were going to see this actual dragon being guarded by stuff.

Eric: Because Harry sees…

Laura: Yeah. I remember, actually, when the – I guess it was the deluxe cover art came out and it showed the dragon, everybody – we were all speculating about what kind it was, or whatever, and we did talk about seeing that spurt of fire in the first book when they were down there and I don’t know if Harry said something specifically about expecting to see a dragon, I don’t know. But the foreshadowing was definitely there and I think it’s just another example of how good she was at…

Matt: Yeah.

Laura: …setting this up, because…

Matt: Because this whole part right here, I – actually, I’ll admit something. When you guys were doing Chapter-by-Chapter, when you talked about the Gringotts chapter, that was during the whole Deathly Hallows speculation, and that’s when I thought that – because I always thought that we were going to go into and see a dragon. So I thought that maybe a Horcrux would be in Gringotts so you could see the dragon.

Andrew: Matt, we should have had you on the show like a hundred episodes ago.

Matt: I just – I didn’t want to be on it. You guys didn’t interest me.

[Andrew and Matt laugh]

Andrew: But you listened anyway and became a transcriber.

Eric: This whole dragon thing, they’ve – we talked about – we’ve just talked about the foreshadowing. Now, do you guys think it was cool to figure out what exactly the Gringotts goblins do to keep this dragon down there? They’ve kind of enslaved it. It’s tethered to the ground and they have these clankers that they ring, you know, to sort of instill fear in it because, I guess when they usually ring those things, they start whipping it or using swords against it is what the book said.

Andrew: I had a hard time this whole scene because, like, the vision I always got with Gringotts, especially if you go deeper and deeper into it, is that it’s going to get smaller and smaller and there’s no room for a giant dragon to be…

Eric: It’s a big cavern though, I mean…

Laura: I always imagined it got bigger.

Andrew: Really?

Laura: Yeah.

Eric: Andrew, have you ever seen the movie The Core with Hillary Swank? They go down…

Andrew: No.

Laura: Oh, god.

Matt: Oh, god.

Eric: …and there’s like all these caverns and normally I wouldn’t mention this movie. I’m losing fans. There’s like a little counter I keep of how many fans I’m losing and it’s going – it’s skyrocketing or doing the opposite right now. But in The Core there’s all these, sort of, open caverns underneath the Earth filled with diamonds and stuff. I’m sure that’s probably accurate.

Andrew: Hmm.

Eric: In the catacombs of France. [laughs]

In the Vault

Andrew: But, back to the Gringotts core, they go in – I mean what are we going to talk about? Inside the vault there’s the skull with the crown still on it and someone can explain this whole thing. Eric, what did you want to talk about with this?

Eric: With the vault, they’re in the vault, they finally get in the vault, which is interesting because Griphook’s in there with them, I think he is, and…

Matt: Both goblins are in there.

Eric: Yeah. Wait, both goblins?

Matt: Yeah, they are.

Eric: Oh, the Imperiused one as well. Yeah, it’s kind of weird. It feels kind of crowded to begin with and on top of all of that, everyone knows they’re there. So, basically all of the charms, all of the enchantments, all of these sort of things to prevent exactly this sort of thing, have been enacted. It’s really like a rush, sort of thing, to the finish. Just to get out there. The whole rest of this chapter – once they get into that vault – the rest of this chapter – I mean the whole chapter goes by fast. But the rest of this chapter is like a page to the finish, you know.

Matt: Yeah. So let’s talk about how the enchantment on the treasure is. Do you guys think this was a clever thing? The whole if you touch it it burns you and then it like…

Laura: Oh, definitely.

Matt: …copies itself by twenty.

Eric: Yeah.

Andrew: I liked it a lot. I mean…

Micah: It seems like it’s almost some mythological reference or biblical reference. I can’t remember where but…

Eric: Hmm.

Micah: But doesn’t it seem like something that has been done before?

Laura: Hmm.

Matt: Well, this really – I don’t know about the whole coping itself thing – but this whole scene kind of reminds me of The Hobbit from J.R.R. Tolkien.

Andrew: Why’s that?

Matt: Has any of you read that? Because I’m…

Laura: Well, I read it in like sixth grade, but…

Matt: Well, the dragon – I forgot – the evil dragon though is guarding the treasure and…

Laura: Yeah, yeah.

Matt: And….I don’t know. [laughs] I haven’t read it since the sixth grade either.

Eric: Micah, you were saying about the Greek mythology, do you remember the Hydra, which also makes an appearance in Hercules movie? [laughs] The Hydra’s the dragon that, you know, once you cut off his head it grows two more or three more or something. So was that what you were possibly thinking of?

Micah: No. I’m thinking about something where you touch it and it multiplies, and it’s almost suffocating in the same sense that this stuff was.

Eric: Oh, because this was really sticky stuff. This whole burning, scalding sort of thing.

Andrew: I sort of just think back to like, Willy Wonka…

Eric: Kind of. Kind of, actually.

Andrew: …when they start floating. I don’t know. If they get closer to the fan they’re exploding. That’s the only thing I could think of. I don’t know, maybe someone will e-mail in with an idea for that.

Eric: Yeah. People were really good with that when I had – I forget what I’d done. But people were really helpful. So…

Matt: Okay, so, basically, they find out that if you touch anything in the vault it burns your skin and it multiplies into like twenty.

Eric: Another thing Griphook could’ve prepared them with.

Matt: Well, maybe Griphook didn’t know. He doesn’t know everything about each vault.

Eric: Yes, he does.

Matt: You’re sure he does?

Eric: I’d like to think so. Maybe. Because, I mean, he was spot on with everything else. He remembered that he…

Matt: Well, he’s also the one who got burnt himself. I think if he cares about himself at all he would probably have prepare himself with what would happen.

Eric: Hmm, that’s a fair point.

Matt: So…

Eric: That’s a fair point.

Laura: Yeah.

Eric: Do we know if he got burned accidentally or what?

Matt: No, he was buried.

Laura: I don’t remember.

Matt: Harry remembers seeing both goblins getting buried by the burning jewels.

Andrew: Didn’t in the book – doesn’t it say he could only see long white fingers?

Matt: Yeah, he could only see long skinny fingers or something.

Eric: Creepy.

Matt: So, basically, they find the – Helga Hufflepuff’s cup and so Harry tries to use the sword to grab it because they find out that the sword is the only thing that can touch the treasure without setting off the charm. Hermione uses levicorpus on Harry. Levicorpus is not very easy to manipulate, and Harry keeps running into things. Everything starts to multiply out of control. So they’re starting to get buried by the treasure and finally – this is the part where I get confused. Because this was very hard to follow.

Andrew: This is confusing.

Matt: I’m really excited to see what actually this scene looks like in the film because I had to read it a few times just to kind of get what really happened.

Eric: Yeah. Totally agree with you there.

Matt: Who has the sword? Harry still has the sword in his hand, right?

Eric: Well, Griphook had the sword actually. I mean Griphook was like reaching for it, he dove for it or something. Somehow Harry got it and he was trying to use to grab the cup. Hermione…

Matt: People are diving…

Eric: Hermione like – yeah. People are diving, stuff is burning, and meanwhile the whole thing is rising. You know?

Matt: Mhm.

Eric: With fake treasure and real treasure and everything is burning, scalding. Harry said that, you know, the heat inside the chamber totally intensified because all the stuff was like burning up. And in the middle of it all, Hermione uses Levicorpus on Harry. All of the sudden he’s thrown up by his ankle. He’s hanging by his ankle but, you know, it turns out it to be the thing that does it, I guess. Because now he’s so high in the air he can reach the cup or whatever but it’s just…

Andrew: And that’s where Harry loses his sword.

Eric: Yeah.

Matt: Harry loses his sword but he grabs the cup. He has the cup…

Eric: Grabs the cup…

Matt: …but then he looks for the sword and the sword is missing. All of the sudden they’re being pulled out of the vault and surrounded by a bunch of menacing goblins with daggers and stuff.

Andrew: But then it also says there it was Griphook who had seen it and Griphook who launched. “And in that instant Harry knew that the goblin never expected them to keep their word.”

Eric: Exactly.

Andrew: That’s when Griphook takes it.

Laura: Mhm.

Andrew: So there you go.

Micah: Huh. I thought Griphook flipped the cup up to Harry.

Matt: Yeah, he did, I remember that too. He did.

Micah: So that was kind of his show of solidarity, I guess.

Matt: Yeah, so it’s like, “Here you go, you’re not going to keep it for very long, but that’s what he agreed on.”

Eric: So did Griphook really pull through?

Matt: Well, he – well, he wanted the sword, so he didn’t want the treasure because he doesn’t want to be considered a thief if he gets caught with the cup in his hand.

Eric: Right. According to him, the sword is his entitlement as a goblin.

Matt: Because – yeah. And basically when he has the sword in his hand. Sorry.

Laura: He also figures that, I mean, they’re just about to get caught anyway, so, it doesn’t really matter.

Eric: [unintelligible] I didn’t catch that.

Matt: What I found was pretty shady was Griphook ran into the big mob of goblins, and they accepted him without question. With the sword in hand.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

Laura: Mhm.

Micah: Well, I mean, if somebody came running at me with a sword and I had a dagger I probably would accept them too.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: No, but the other thing is, well, don’t you think they trust Griphook?

Eric: I think it’s an inherence…

Laura: Well, yeah, especially since he just brought back a relic that they…

Matt: And also he’s jumping and screaming and pointing to the trio – thieves – going “Thieves! Thieves!”

Eric: Yeah.

Andrew: Yeah. And he’s just joining the rest of them like he’s supposed to be there, so, yeah, totally. Good play by Griphook.

Escaping the Goblins

Eric: [laughs] Absolutely. So Harry – so wrapping it up – wrapping up the chapter, the trio has to escape, and how do they get away from the goblins? I actually forget this little bit.

Matt: They run on the…

Andrew: They run.

Matt: …dragon. Harry runs on the dragon. No, he uses…

Eric: But how far is the dragon? Does he blind them first? Doesn’t he…

Matt: Oh yeah. The use a few stupefy…

Eric: Spells?

Matt: …curses. Yeah, spells. They use stupefy on a few of the goblins, and then they start to charge on them, the ones who didn’t get affected by the spell. And then they all start to run, and Harry comes up to the dragon and uses relatio, the…

Eric: On his…

Matt: Cuffs. On the cuffs of the dragon.

Eric: Shakles.

Matt: And then he yells for Harry and Hermione to get on, and they climb onto the dragon and…how do they describe the scales on the dragon, guys?

Eric: Hard as steel, I think. It was – they…

Andrew: Yeah, you got the impression that they could break through Gringotts Bank.

Eric: [laughs] Yeah, and Harry’s like, “Oh, what a good tool.” And the other thing is the dragon didn’t even feel them climb on, and also at first – I mean being kept down in this darkness, the dragon is actually like more or less blind, kind of. Like it’s relying on its other senses sort of thing. So it doesn’t actually realize exactly what’s happening; it knows when it hears the sound of the clankers that it’s got to, you know, be sort of subdued, but it doesn’t realize that it’s unshackled for a little bit of time, for that key time when the trio climbs on. And then as soon as it does realize it, you know, just totally finds its way out through the marble floor of the lobby.

Andrew: Now, I mean this is all cool and interesting and stuff, but they’re going to have to change Gringotts from what it looked like…

Eric: How?

Andrew: …in Movie 1. At least the exterior. Because they don’t have the big doors from what I’m remembering correctly from the movie.

Matt: Well, they may. You just saw the stairs up to it, you didn’t see them go through the door.

Eric: Yeah, it’s true.

Laura: Yeah. Well, what they did was they showed one shot of the entire exterior, from what I remember. And they made it very tall and very narrow, I believe.

Andrew: Yeah, I do remember that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it will be interesting. They probably will change some things, so…

Eric: It still will be really fun to see.

Andrew: Yeah, it will be. So that’s that. I mean that’s the chapter. It’s all about – it’s all about Gringotts. It’s really cool, ’cause, you know, you get to see an old part of the Harry Potter story reappear and do something crazy. All right, well that does it for Chapter-by-Chapter this week, but first…

Quote Quiz

[Audio for Quote Quiz plays]

Andrew: Ah, yes. “Imposters!? What imposters!? I thought Gringotts had ways of revealing imposters! Who were they?” And that’s Quote Quiz for this week.

Matt: Does your thing for Quote Quiz – does it really have that, “Ah, yes”? Is that part of the sound?

Andrew: No, that’s me.

Matt: Oh, because you say it almost every single time, so I’m thinking, “Oh my god, does it really have that?”

Andrew: Yeah, because I’m thinking, “Ah, Quote Quiz.”

The Sorting Hat

Andrew: All right, so we’re going to try out another segment that we kicked off a couple weeks ago. Matt, it’s called The Sorting Hat?

Matt: It’s now called The Sorting Hat, yeah.

Andrew: What is this segment?

Matt: Okay, since you and Eric were not on the time we did this, I’m going to tell you.

Eric: What’s The Sorting Hat?

Matt: Well, okay. It’s a segment, and basically it’s – we take probably a celebrity or public figure and we sort them into a House at Hogwarts and discuss why.

Andrew: Let’s do the first two here to warm us up and then Eric and I will say what House we’re in. [laughs] So first one Matt has here: Stephenie Meyers. Meyer, sorry.

Matt: Stephenie Meyer!

Andrew: Stephenie Meyer.

Eric: [laughs] Hallows Andrew, Hallows.

Andrew: Stephenie Meyer. I don’t think we know enough about her.

Matt: No we don’t, but since she was on the news, and she’s been on relatively in the public right now, I just think it’s just something…

Andrew: What House do you think she would be in?

Matt: …we should talk about. I think she’d be in Hufflepuff.

Laura: Yeah, me too.

Andrew: Yeah, I guess so.

Matt: Just based on the interview that she did – that we just talked about, in the beginning when she talks about how her – I mean how great J.K. Rowling is, and she just seems really modest. And I think modesty is very prominent in Hufflepuff.

Andrew: Yeah.

Laura: I agree.

Andrew: All right, so, what House I would be in? I hate to be so generic, but I have to say Gryffindor. I mean, I lead this podcast, I must be a Gryffindor. I’m courageous, and I’m a leader, and I’m just like awesome, just like Harry. Do you guys think I belong there?

Micah: I think your ego would put you in Slytherin.

Matt: I know! Jeez, that’s what I was just about to say. You’re kind of a…

[Eric, Laura and Matt laugh]

Andrew: And before a lot of people e-mail, I have to admit that I pretend that I have a big ego on the show just to be funny. It’s not real, so if you look at it that way, I may not be – people hopefully don’t think I’m as arrogant…

Micah: And I – yeah, I said that jokingly.

Matt: Yeah, I know. It was just a joke, Andrew.

Andrew: Yeah I know, but a lot of people will e-mail and be like, “Andrew’s got a big head.” No I don’t, I just act like that on the show to be funny.

Eric: Yeah, and the whole thing is – I mean you’re right, you do lead the show, you lead the podcast, you’ve done some very consistent work with that, and I think I would go along with your sorting.

Matt: I think so too.

Andrew: So how about you, Eric? Who – what…

Eric: I like to hide behind the robes I’ve had for four years, and I’m just going to say Gryffindor.

Andrew: Well, that’s fair. If you bought the robes already you don’t want to buy new ones.

Eric: Exactly, so I’m going to have to bet – no, I think that would be, like you know, would I be a Revenclaw? Would I be a Hufflepuff? Would I be a Slytherin? You know, consider the alternatives. Maybe I’d be a Hufflepuff. But I’d like to think that I would, you know, really sort of deal with things. If something came my way, and I had to deal with it, I would want to be brave and courageous. So, I don’t know, what do you guys think? You guys have known me for the past 145 episodes. What are we doing here? What House am I in?

Andrew: I agree. I agree with the Gryffindor.

Laura: I think you’d be mad at me if I told you.

Eric: No, no, Laura…

Laura: I honestly – I don’t know, I would have to say Hufflepuff and, okay, don’t hit me.

Eric: No, I’m not upset at all. In fact, I’m happy that you said that. That took bravery, Laura, you’re clearly a Gryffindor for telling me that I would be a Hufflepuff.

Laura: Well, thank you.

Andrew: All right.

Eric: So do you still think I’m going to be a puff? Now, Laura, that I complimented you?

Laura: Yeah.

Eric: Oh, okay [laughs]. No I mean, why? Or, can’t we get into that?

Laura: I don’t know, it’s just – I don’t know. I just can’t place it. It’s just, when I think of you, I think of that, so…

Matt: I kind of have to agree. And you know what, it’s not a bad thing. I mean I don’t really know all the aspects, it’s just, for some reason, I always thought that you looked better with yellow and black.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Yeah, maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s because you’re blonde, Eric.

Eric: You’re right, you’re actually probably right. I don’t know, maybe that’s what I’ll do then. I’ll try on some Hufflepuff robes and see if I can maybe, I don’t know, switch them out or something. I might be coming – I might be becoming, I might be becoming a puff, I don’t know.

Andrew: So, there’s Sorting Hat. If you have any ideas for Sorting Hat, people who to sort now that we all said each other. I mean, of course, a couple other co-hosts haven’t said it yet. But if you have ideas for people who we should sort – don’t send in George Bush, Barrack Obama, Hilary Clinton, we’ve already gotten that, multiple times. Maybe we’ll do it down the road, but not right now.

Matt: Mhm.

Laura: And all you’ll get are obnoxious comments, especially about George Bush.

Andrew: Yeah.

Eric: Yeah, it’s not the sort of thing that can be done.

Laura: We don’t want to upset any Bush fans who might listen to this show.

Eric: Can’t be done tastefully.

Voicemails

Andrew: Anyway, we also got some voicemails this week. So, let’s take the first one now.

Voicemail: Voldemort’s Soul

[Audio]: Hi, this is Lisa, 27, from Charlotte, North Carolina. I was thinking about the whole, “There are worse things than death” statement. And, yes, obviously, there are worse things, and of course, naturally, in the world of Harry Potter, my brain kind of went towards the Dementors and the soul sucking that they do. Voldemort, you know – I don’t believe that he ever really thought about what terrors might await him when the Dementors took his soul, as you know, our souls are kind of what feed our passion, and yeah, Voldemort’s passions were very disturbing, but he still had a soul to fuel them. He disregarded most of it, but the fact remains that there was still a shred of it in there. So then I was thinking a little bit deeper, and I was wondering, do you guys think that somebody as morally decrepit as Voldemort would be an empty shell if the Dementors sucked out their soul, or would they just be far more evil? Tell me what you think. Pickles!

Laura: Well, isn’t the whole point that they suck happiness out of the air? And I don’t think Voldemort really had any happiness, or any good memories.

Matt: He’s not a very happy person.

Andrew: So…

Eric: He’s still a happy person. It’s like mirth and greed and sort of evil. You know, he’s happy where others fail. I think Voldemort was happy. If Voldemort were to encounter a Dementor, you know, the bad things he would see would be Harry defeating him. And the good things sucked out of him would be – his Patronus would have to be made out of people doing evil acts. I think Voldemort can still be happy.

Matt: I think it really depends on what defines happy for the Dementors.

Eric: What defines happy especially for Patronus…

Laura: Yeah.

Eric: …making sake. She’s actually asking, because Voldemort has so little of a soul in his body or whatever, would a Dementor’s kiss kill him, would it do what it needed to do, or would he just be like this walking empty shell with absolutely no soul? Could he still survive, especially if he still has his Horcruxes?

Micah: Yeah, but see, when I think of the fact that you’re talking about positive emotions – you know, happiness and good memories, I think it’s got to be more along the lines of attacking somebody who actually can sense the difference between right and wrong. And as far as Voldemort’s concerned, it goes back to what Laura was saying. I don’t think that he has enough in him in terms of positive emotions to…

Matt: Form a patronus.

Micah: …[unintelligible] a soul being sucked out of him. I think he’s – he would almost fall in line with the Dementors. I mean he’s so decrepit an individual that his soul split into seven pieces – what is there for a Dementor to actually go after?

Eric: That’s a really good point.

Laura: I agree.

Matt: There’s really not much for a Dementor to feed off.

Andrew: Right.

Eric: Yeah.

Andrew: All right. Do you guys hear that sound? What is that? What is that, Micah?

Micah: What?

Matt: The sound of a dog? Is that the sound of a dog on the T.V.!?

Andrew: It’s another voicemail!

Voicemail: Modifying a Memory vs. Oblivate

[Audio]: Hey MuggleCast, this is Erin. I’m 12 years old from Massachusetts, and I’m calling about last week’s Chapter-by-Chapter. You were talking about how Hermione said she had never done a Memory Charm before, but she had modified her parents’ memories. Jo cleared that up. She said that modifying a memory and Obliviate are two separate terms. Just clearing that up. Love the show, keep it up! Bye!

Andrew: That’s actually not from last week’s Chapter-by-Chapter. That’s a really old voicemail. But I don’t think we ever cleared that up.

Laura: That’s good.

Matt: I don’t even remember us talking about that.

Laura: Yeah, it’s been a while.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s been a while.

Laura: Well anyway, thank you for clearing that up.

Eric: It’s good to know.

Problem with Voicemails

Andrew: Yeah, so there were only two voicemails this week, and that’s because of a problem. There’s something going on with our MuggleCast hotline. People can’t call it right now and I have to take it into Skype and hopefully they’ll fix it, but sorry about that. But I thought we could get to a couple voicemails anyway.

New Segment: This Week in MuggleCast

Andrew: Micah, you wanted to try a new segment this week. What is this?

Micah: This is “This Week in MuggleCast.” It’s a look back – we’re almost three years old now, I know that’s kind of hard to believe, but…

Andrew: Ugh.

Micah: … we can go back in time now, we can play a segment from this week in MuggleCast, and we can go all the way back to Episode 35 on April 16, 2006.

Laura: Oh my god.

Eric: You’re going to actually play a clip?

Micah: Yeah, we’re going to play a clip!

Eric: Like I mean now.

Micah: There’s one clip we’re going to play. But we’re going to play it and then we’re all going to say, “Hey, that was great. I remember that,” and go on.

Andrew: Wait, what? Wait, what did you just say?

Eric: So we don’t actually know what clip we’re going to play?

Laura: Well, just pretend.

Eric: Then we can’t comment on it.

Andrew: Wait, wait, hold on. What if we all start going [makes time travel noise]… Maybe we can go back in time.

Matt: Like in Wayne’s World?

Andrew: Let’s try it.

[Everyone makes time travel noise]

[Clip from Episode 35 Plays]

Andrew: Before we go anywhere else, first let’s check in with Micah Tan for the past week’s top Harry Potter news stories.

[NBC Breaking News music plays]

Micah: [present] Was this that show?

Micah: [back to Episode 35] From studio 1A…

Laura: Whoa, whoa, whoa, Micah, what are you doing?

Micah: Huh?

Laura: This is MuggleCast! Not The Today Show.

Micah: Oh, that’s right. Starting this Wednesday the National…

[Present time, everyone laughs]

[Everyone makes time travel noise]

Andrew: We did it!

Laura: Oh my god, I forgot about that.

Micah: Wow.

Eric: Micah, you always do something really cool with your news. I really love some of the early, early, early Micah segments.

[Andrew laughs]

Andrew: I love that. It was so – I hate to say it, but it was kind of corny.

Micah: It was really corny. I don’t know what kind of corny.

Laura: So much of what we do is corny, okay?

Eric: I miss that ingenuity. Not that we don’t have ingenuity now but I miss that particular thing.

Micah: So that was all the way back?

Andrew: That was Episode – yeah, unlike you, Micah, I actually went and got prepared for the segment because I knew you weren’t doing it, so…

Micah: Yep.

Andrew: [laughs] No, no, no, no. But this was Micah’s idea for a segment, so…

Matt: Awww.

Andrew: So yeah, I think it’s kind of fun to do. So that was – like Micah said, that was two years ago. Jeez.

Micah: Which episode was it? Was that actually thirty-five, or was that…

Andrew: Yeah, that was actually it, man. I went back, I downloaded the episode, and I thought that was a funny bit. I thought we could just pick funny bits instead of, you know…

Micah: I mean, some of the things we’re talking about back then is ridiculous. [laughs]

Andrew: I know.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: [mocking an older episode] “Do you guys think the actors are going to be in all seven Harry Potter movies? I mean, I don’t know…”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: “…they could be too old or something.”

[Eric laughs]

Micah: Something about Ben looking like a swan.

Andrew and Eric: Uh…

Micah: I’m reading the show notes.

Matt: Oh! I remember that. When you guys were talking about what you guys look like, and…

Eric: Like, what would be our Animagus?

Andrew: Did Ben say he looked like a swan or something?

Matt: Ben accused Laura of looking like a dog.

Andrew: [laughs] Oh.

Laura: Oh. I remember that.

Eric: Yeah, Laura will remember an insult…

Laura: Oh, man. Those were back in the days when he and I would just like be at each others’ throats [laughs] during the whole time. Do you remember that?

Matt: And you accused Ben of being a sloth.

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Laura: Yeah, yeah! I remember that.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Gosh, all the memories…

Laura: Well, you know. The truth hurts.

Andrew: Funny.

Matt: It’s kind of scary how I remember that.

Andrew’s HUH!? E-mail of the Week

Andrew: Here’s another segment we haven’t done in awhile: It’s Andrew’s HUH?!…

Eric: Re-do that.

Andrew: …E-mail of the Week. Andrew’s HUH?! E-mail of the Week. Comes from Janine, twenty-three – “Wait, no, I am twenty-four, I think.” – Location: Two haystacks from Dayton, Ohio.

“I just wanted to write in to say I really enjoy the show. I do not listen on a regular basis, but whenever I remember people suck and I do not want to talk to my friends, I load my iPod with your episodes and spend days listening to your ideas, thoughts, and randomness. I sometimes get too into it and start trying to butt in on the conversation. Then I remember this is a pre-recorded Podcast. And iPods don’t talk back – dot dot dot – “yet.”

Eric: Yet.

Andrew: “I do not have anything negative to say, except I think someone should get Andrew – someone should get Andrew some friends.” [fakes hurt and sniffles] “He has too much time on his hands. After listening to Episode 134, I noticed he enjoys his sound effects just a”… [sniffles] …”tad too much. Also, please tell Micah he has the sexiest voice. I would pay him to read my dictionary. Thank you all for the work you do and have a Potterlicious day.” Well, Janine, I don’t know what to tell you.

Eric: Why don’t you play some sound effects?

Andrew: Are you guys my friends, though?

Laura: You know…

Andrew: I don’t know what sound effects.

Laura: …I think you kind of shattered his self-esteem there, Janine.

Andrew: I mean, it’s hurtful when somebody accuses me…

Laura: Yeah.

Andrew: …of playing three sound clips in an entire show.

Laura: Well, I mean, at least you have something to talk to your therapist about. So…

Matt: Mhm.

Eric: Yeah, man.

Laura: …that’s always good.

Andrew: I don’t know.

Eric: This is the opposite of Chicken Soup. This is kind of like…this is kind of like…

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: What? I can’t hear you over my sound effects. [plays Quote Quiz sound effect]

Eric: This is kind of like pea soup or something very unpleasant that’s just, you know, sad.

[Andrew plays Quote Quiz sound effect repetitively]

Eric: All right. That said, though, all the…

Laura: Hey, Andrew.

Matt: Stop it. Stop it!

Andrew: Sorry.

Matt: Gosh. You just enjoy your sound effects just a tad too much.

Eric: You can be better than this, Andrew. You can rise up.

Andrew: Okay.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: You can rise up above the comments…

Andrew: Okay.

Eric: …and that discrimination. That said, Micah, do you accept payment to read people’s dictionaries?

Micah: [laughs] Well, sure. I mean, I may have a future career there, you know? So, why not?

Andrew: Micah, could you open a dictionary right now and read an entry?

Matt: [gasps] Micah, you should do Audiobooks!

Micah: Uh. Yeah.

Andrew: We should do a new segment on the show: Micah’s Dictionary Word of the Day.

Micah: I should…

Andrew: Micah’s Word of the Day.

Micah: I should talk to Jim Dale about that. Maybe he’ll help me out.

Andrew: There you go.

Micah: I don’t know if I have it – uh, yeah I do. Do you really want me to get a dictionary?

Eric: Yes. Actually get a dictionary, seriously…

Andrew: Pick one real quick. Real quick.

Micah: How about: Marist: A member of the Roman Catholic Society of Mary founded by Jean-Claude Coleen in France in 1816 and devoted to education.

Eric: Does it say… [laughs]

Andrew: This was Micah’s Word of the Day! Sponsored by: Webster’s! All right, to wrap things up today…

Chicken Soup for the MuggleCast Soul

[Chicken Soup for the MuggleCast Soul Audio plays]

Andrew: Mmmm….

Eric: Okay, Chicken Soup from Katie K., 16, of Wisconsin. She says:

“Dear all you wonderful MuggleCasters. I just want to start off by saying that all of you do a wonderful job and keep up the great work. This past fall, my sister found out she was pregnant. Because of her pregnancy and some complications along the way, she ended up having to drop out of college and move back home. On February 13th, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Quinn, who also has a very healthy pair of lungs. His room was right next to mine and his crib is directly next to my bed through the wall. He wakes up a few times through the night in full scream, which also wakes me up. It seemed like I tried just about everything to fall back asleep, until one night, I decided to give listening to MuggleCast a try, and it worked! Now instead of just laying there for an hour listening to the rebel yell of a baby…”

Matt: Huh.

Eric: “…I get to fall asleep to the sound of all your wonderful voices. Thank you for helping me get the beauty sleep I strive. Love, Katie K.”

Andrew: That’s very sweet.

Laura: Awww.

Eric: We have the best for Quinn.

Andrew: Thank you, Kate – Katie.

MuggleCast Forums

Andrew: Let’s – actually, before we wrap things up, I have one last e-mail to read. It’s from Emily W., 16, of Dayton, Ohio. She writes:

“Hey, I just had a quick question because on Episode 139, you read a MuggleMail from Kylie – I think it was – from Dayton, Ohio. And I was wondering if there was any way for you to get me their e-mail or something, because I don’t know anyone in Dayton, Ohio who listens to MuggleCast. Seriously, Dayton is like…”

[Show music begins]

Andrew:

“…the most boring place ever and I’ve never met another person who listens. I don’t have an accessible Facebook or anything like that, but maybe, if you can get the chance, you could send her an e-mail or something like that. Please let me know if you can. MuggleCast was my first podcast and, so, I also wanted to say thanks for your hard work on this awesome podcast.”

Well, Emily, I think this is a good opportunity to promote the forums at MuggleCastFan.Net/Forums. Because there – I suggest people – if you want to start meeting people in your area, maybe a new thread – maybe a new category can come in the forums where people can MuggleCast meet-ups or something in their local towns, you know? So, visit MuggleCastFan.Net/Forums for a place to do that.

Eric: Start datin’ in Dayton, Ohio!

Andrew: Yeah. Have a date in Dayton!

[Eric and Matt laugh]

Contact Information

Andrew: So, Laura. If people want to send us some gold, where would they mail that? Micah’s been doing this for the past few weeks, so it’s okay if you’re a little rusty.

Laura: Oh, okay. It’s:

P.O. Box 3151
Cumming Georgia
30028

Andrew: We’re going to skip the MuggleCast hotline information this week because the voicemail is down and I don’t want to encourage people to call for no reason. But you can also write in using our handy feedback form on
MuggleCast.com. Just click on “Contact” at the top and you’ll see a handy feedback form there. You can also contact any one of us at our first names at staff dot mugglenet dot com. Don’t forget, MuggleCast.com also has a variety of community outlets including: the MySpace, the Facebook, the YouTube, Frappr, Last.FM, and the aforementioned fanlisting and forums.

You can also Digg the show at Digg.com and vote for us once a month at Podcast Alley. We are reigning supreme this month at Podcast Alley once again! So thank you, everyone, for voting for us.

Show Close

Andrew: Thank you. Once again, I am Andrew Sims.

Eric: I am Scull comma Eric.

Laura: I’m Laura Thompson.

Micah: I’m Micah Tannenbaum.

Matt: And I’m Matthew Tom.

Andrew: Apologies to J.K. Rowling but we are out of time. We’ll see everyone next week for Episode 142. Buh-bye!

Laura: Bye!

Micah: Bye!

[Show music ends]

Bloopers

Andrew: Micah Tannenbaum’s in the MuggleCast news center with the past week’s top Harry Potter news stories. ‘Allo, Micah!

[No one speaks]

Andrew: All right, thanks, Micah.

Micah: You’re welcome.

Andrew: Let me try that again so my voice doesn’t crack.

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: I think you should leave it like that.

Andrew: No. That’s – no, I don’t want to…

Matt: Geez, you’re eighteen now. Come on, Andrew.