MuggleCast 165 Transcript
Show Intro
[Intro music begins]
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[Show music begins playing]
Andrew: All right, welcome to our Beedle the Bard discussion. We just all finished reading the book – a little late compared to how quickly we did our Book 7 discussion. Do you remember that, Jamie?
Jamie: Oh, I remember that.
Andrew: When we were in London, once we finished – yeah, we all gathered…
Jamie: We got more listeners when we weren’t there than when we were.
Andrew: Right. [laughs] Yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: That was a success, wasn’t it?
Andrew: Yeah, that was a lot of fun. So now we’re here, we’re all finished reading Beedle the Bard. Jamie, Matt and I are here in London and Micah and Laura are here via Skype. Hi, guys. And girls.
Laura: Hey.
Micah: Hey.
Andrew: So let’s go around – well, first we’re going to talk about the news of the week. And there’s been so much Beedle the Bard news going around. Micah, do you want to take us through that?
News: Original Copy of Beedle the Bard Unveiled
Micah: Sure. The first piece of news that really kicked off the week was, there was an unveiling of an original copy of Beedle the Bard at the New York Public Library. And I think there was another one at the National Library of Scotland but we’ll leave that alone because I didn’t go there.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I went to the one in New York City, and it was a cool event. They had Arthur Levine there from Scholastic as well as the president of the New York City Public Library. And they did a short press event and then unveiled the copy of Beedle the Bard that belonged to Arthur Levine. And…
Andrew: Ooh.
Micah: …we got to go and take pictures and ask them questions, and it was a neat little event. But…
Jamie: He sounds like a fangirl.
Micah: What’s that?
Andrew: Are you a fangirl?
Jamie: You a fangirl, Micah?
Micah: Of the original copy of Beedle the Bard?
Jamie: Arthur Levine.
Micah: [laughs] No.
[Matt laughs]
Tangent: Micah Obtains Faulty Harry Potter
Poster
Poster
Andrew: Micah, I know you have this in the announcements, but do you want to tell your background poster story real quick? You might as well tell…
Micah: Okay.
Andrew: …it here, since you were there.
Micah: Sure. I was taking a picture…
Andrew: Wait, hold on. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. And I’ll explain the – my part.
Micah: Well, I can explain your part, too, it’s…
Andrew: All right, all right, go ahead.
Micah: …part of the story. [laughs] I took a bunch of pictures of the glass case that this book was in. And behind the book – if you look at some of the pictures that are on MuggleNet – you can see that there’s this poster in the background of the case. And it details what Beedle the Bard is and it also lists all the other books in the Harry Potter series. But if you notice – and as Andrew pointed out when I showed him the picture – that the books are not in sequence. So I think it’s Order of the Phoenix actually is the second book in order. And so what happened was…
Andrew: Wait, hold on. The order went: Sorcerer’s Stone, Order of the Phoenix, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Half-Blood Prince then Deathly Hallows. Which was weird. And I pointed that out to you. I was like, “Why is it out of order on that poster?” So, go ahead.
Micah: Right. So I said, well, Scholastic should know about this if they don’t already. So I e-mailed one of the people over there and she responded to me and she said, “Yeah, you know, we knew about this, but we weren’t able to fix it and get a reprinted version by the time we did the unveiling, but we’ll fix it for when it actually goes on display at the New York Public Library.”
[Andrew laughs]
Matt: Wait, wait, so what are they doing with the one that’s messed up?
Micah: Well, she said, “Since you were the first one to point it out, give me your address and I’ll send you the poster.”
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Jamie: No way!
Micah: Yup.
Jamie: eBay it.
Laura: That’s cool.
Jamie: Wait, what’s your…
Micah: I think she just wanted my address.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: Hey! Hey, now. So that’s pretty funny. You should have J.K. Rowling sign it and she’ll be like, “How the hell did you get that?”
Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: Well, that’s pretty cool…
Micah: Stole it!
Andrew: …because it was sitting there right in front of the book and sitting there in the library right now. So that’s cool.
Micah: Yeah, it’s a cool story.
Jamie: Where are you going to put it?
Micah: Where am I going to put it?
Jamie: Yeah, the poster. Where you going to keep it? Are you going to put it in your bedroom, on your ceiling, so like…
Micah: [laughs] Yes, yes. Stare up at it every night.
Jamie: Yeah, just before you go to sleep.
[Micah laughs]
Jamie: Along with all your pictures of Arthur Levine.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Andrew: And then what else is going on, Micah?
Micah: I don’t know. What else is going on?
Andrew: Well, Chrissy’s report from…
Micah: How’s London?
News: J.K. Rowling’s Tea Party
Andrew: London’s great. Chrissy’s report from the J.K. Rowling tea party. Do you want to talk about that?
Micah: Yeah, she’s a staff member of ours. She got a chance to go over to the tea party and kind of – speaking of fangirls – act like one and stand outside.
Andrew: Take pictures.
Micah: Take pictures. She seemed to really enjoy herself and was able to report for us that there were a couple of actors and actresses that were at this party as well.
Andrew: Yeah, Evanna Lynch. Who else? A couple other people. A couple other Harry Potter actors.
Micah: Yep, Matthew Lewis.
Andrew: Yeah. And one MuggleNet visitor actually just sent in a report from inside the tea party, because they won an essay contest. She said it was really fun and all of the kids were really excited to see Jo and all that. So…
Micah: No, I saw a picture of some of those kids. They did not look like they were in elementary school. I think they were lying.
Andrew: Well, kids look older here, Jamie, don’t they? They age differently.
Jamie: I think they do.
Matt: Yeah.
[Andrew laughs]
Matt: It’s the water.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: No, no, it’s the tea.
Matt: Oh.
Micah: Oh, that’s what it is.
Andrew: The tea.
Jamie: It’s the British tea.
Matt: It’s the English form of eating breakfast.
Andrew: And what else has been going on, Micah?
Micah: Well, you guys were – still are in London. How’d the show go earlier this week?
News: Live Show Was a Success
Andrew: That’s right. Our show was a lot of fun. It was at the Waterstones Piccadilly Circus. We had, what, well over 300 people there, right?
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: Oh yeah, like maybe six or seven hundred.
Jamie: Six thousand, maybe.
Andrew: A million people. [laughs] It was a lot of fun, and thank you to everyone who came out and said hello. We hung out with a lot of the people afterwards, and that was a lot of fun. And everyone got the book…
Jamie: Maybe we should just apologize to Josh Boulton’s parents about that.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Andrew: There’s a rumor going around that I insulted a kid by the name of Josh Boulton who we interact with on Facebook a lot, but I actually did not – I wasn’t talk about him, for the millionth time. I was talking about someone else who was there.
Matt: Sorry, Josh.
Jamie: Sorry, Josh…
Andrew: Okay.
Jamie: …on behalf of Andrew.
Andrew: Whatever. And then one last thing, Micah?
News: RDR Withdraws Appeal
Micah: Yeah. Back on Thursday, RDR Books coincidentally withdrew their appeal for the publication of a companion book by Steve Vander Ark. And it’s just interesting that they did it on December the 4th, the same day that Beedle the Bard came out.
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: That’s a good coincidence.
Micah: Yeah.
Jamie: I’m sure it won’t give them good press because everyone will be thinking about Beedle the Bard and not about Steve Vander Ark’s book.
Andrew: Yeah, but I guess they figure the fan sites will post it, and while everyone is on the fan sites…
Jamie: That’s true.
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s lame.
Micah: But he’s still making a book. It’s still going to be published. It’s just going to have the title of an unauthorized version of…
Andrew: Harry Potter and Beyond or something like that.
Micah: Something like that.
Jamie: Why doesn’t he just give it up?
Andrew: [laughs] Why doesn’t he just give it up?
Micah: Yeah.
Jamie: Move onto Twilight.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Matt: Get on the bandwagon, please.
Andrew: Okay. Was that it, Micah, for news?
Micah: That’s all I’ve got, yeah.
Andrew: Yeah, that RDR thing kind of annoys me, and I didn’t post it the day it came out because obviously that’s what they wanted.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: I waited until the next day, but still.
Announcement: MuggleCast Wins at 2008 Podcast Awards
Andrew: Announcements! MuggleCast won at the 2008 Podcast Awards in the Entertainment category. Didn’t we talk about that already?
Micah: You may have talked about it on your live show.
Andrew: Oh, no we didn’t.
Matt: No we didn’t. We haven’t talked about it.
Andrew: Okay, well, thank you, everyone, who voted for us in the 2008 Podcast Awards. That ceremony is actually a couple of hours from now. I don’t think the show will be out before that, but Micah will be representing us. Thank you, Micah.
Jamie: No way, really?
Andrew: Well, it’s live online. It’s not in person.
Jamie: So unlike last year?
Andrew: Right. Right, right.
Jamie: Why aren’t they doing it live?
Andrew: I don’t know. Money?
Jamie: They can’t afford it?
Andrew: I guess so!
[Matt laughs]
Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s the economy.
Micah: The economy sucks.
Jamie and Matt: Yeah.
Announcement: MuggleCast at Azkatraz
Andrew: We have to use streaming. But that’ll be fun. And then also don’t forget that MuggleCast will be at Azkatraz 2009, July 18 – 21, I think. Something like that. We’re going to be doing a podcast after the midnight release of Half-Blood Prince. So at like 3:00 AM we’re going to be…
Matt: It’s going to be good.
Andrew: We’re going to be doing a podcast discussing the movie. Everyone’s going to be really excited because it just came out.
Matt: Are going to try and go, Jamie?
Jamie: Yeah, definitely. Well, yeah, hopefully.
Andrew: Hopefully the economy will be better.
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Announcement: Podcast Alley
Andrew: And finally, don’t forget to vote for us on
Matt: So we won for the 2008 Podcast Awards. So we can say it was MuggleCast 2000-mate?
Andrew: Sure.
Jamie: [unintelligible] as well.
Andrew and Matt: Yeah, mate.
Matt: And then next year will be 2000-mine.
Andrew: Yeah.
[Everyone laughs]
Main Discussion: Beedle the Bard
Andrew: So let’s move on to our main discussion this week. We’re going to be talking all about Beedle the Bard, as I said earlier. We all finished reading it, and let’s start off with our general thoughts about the book. Laura, how about you first? What – you just finished reading this, I think. What did you think of it?
Laura: You know, I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I kind of expected to just get it and think, “Oh, that’s nice. Fairytales.” But I really enjoyed Dumbledore’s commentaries because he has a very – and Micah and I talked about this – warped sense of humor.
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: Especially when he talked about Aberforth…
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: …and his favorite story that his mom used to tell him.
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: And there were just like a lot of really cool little things. Like when you open the book and it says, “Translated from the ancient Runes by Hermione Granger.”
Jamie: Yeah…
Andrew: That was really cool.
Laura: Just nice little tidbits like that. I really enjoyed it.
Jamie: Wasn’t he kind of arrogant though, Dumbledore? Like when…
Laura: He was!
[Micah laughs]
Jamie: That bit about the greatest wizards and then in the footnote it explained something about who are the important wizards, and it just says something like, “Like me.”
Andrew: “Like me,” yeah.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: It was in there twice.
Jamie: Really?
Andrew: There was a, “Such as myself” thing.
Laura: Yeah, I was like – okay.
Andrew: [laughs] That was so funny. Well, Dumbledore kind of is a little cocky that way, don’t you think?
Jamie: He is.
Andrew: Don’t you think, sometimes? He’s trying to be clever.
Jamie: I guess, like – she did it on purpose, because he’s a flawed character and now all his flaws are coming out more so, you know…
Matt: Well, everyone talks about how he’s the greatest wizard of all time. And I think he’s just nodding to that fact.
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: “Well, since everyone says so, I mean, that’s me.”
Jamie: Yeah, that’s true.
Andrew: Yeah, Micah, did you get excited at that goat thing?
Micah: [laughs] No, no, no. [laughs]
Jamie: He’s too into Arthur Levine now.
[Micah Laughs]
Jamie: No he’s not.
Matt: He loves Levines.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Goats. No, I just – I agree with Laura. I mean, we talked about it earlier – just his perverted sense of humor – I wouldn’t even call it warped – I would call it perverted, with some of the little stories that he references throughout the course of the book, which I’m sure we’ll talk about – but I liked it. You know, I spent more time on the commentary than I did on the actually stories. You know, I agree with what Laura said. I thought it was going to kind of be one of those books that you just get and you’re like, “Oh, it’s nice to have.”
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: And just spend a couple minutes looking through it. But the commentary definitely made it, for sure.
Andrew: Yeah. I really, really enjoyed it, too. I just thought the stories were so nice. And I read this on our way to Oxford the day after – or the day it came out. And it was just so relaxing, you know, sitting there traveling through the suburbs of London and reading this book. And it was – yeah – it was really fun. Dumbledore’s
notes really made it, but I also really, really, really enjoyed the tales too.
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: More than I thought I would.
Jamie: I was expecting it to just be a collection of normal fairytales mixed with a bit of magic. I wrote a review – this journalist e-mailed me and asked me to write a review – I got it to him a bit late, but anyway, I said that I was expecting it to be like Snow White hunched over a cauldron with a wand and stuff, but it wasn’t. It was really original and really, really fun. And I thought they taught moral tales and stuff – moral lessons which fairytales should do, really. Because that’s the definition of fairytale, you know. So I think quite a bit of thought went into this book; it wasn’t just written last minute to get it out for charity and stuff. I actually really enjoyed it. I think it stands alone away from Harry Potter, although obviously all the references to the books – and the “Translated by Hermione Granger” and Dumbledore’s storyline adds to it for the hardcore fans. I thought it was awesome.
Matt: I really love the book, actually, a lot. I think – the only opinion I probably have which is kind of a selfish opinion is that I kind of wanted more stories from it because they were so good.
Andrew: I just wanted more!
Matt: I just wanted more! There were only five. At some point I looked at how far I was in the book and I kind of got upset because I read more than half in fifteen – half an hour.
Jamie: Read it twice then, Matt, then you’ll have ten tales.
[Andrew laughs]
Matt: Yeah, or read it backwards and you get it in, what, Finnish?
Jamie: That’s amazing!
Matt: I really love the drawings J.K. Rowling drew in the pictures, too. It was just really nice to see some of the pictures and things that went on it. Unlike Harry Potter where the drawings were at the beginning of the chapter for the U.S. version. But during the readings you got to see a little bit of what J.K. Rowling thought, because it’s her drawings, so it’s like what she envisioned the story was and things. So I thought it was really nice.
Jamie: She can draw pretty well.
Andrew: Yeah. I was impressed.
Jamie: It’s not bad at all.
Andrew: All right. Let’s move on to the main discussion. Micah, would you like to guide us through this please? Since you developed it ever so wisely.
Beedle the Bard Himself
Micah: Sure. Yeah. Well, the book opens up and you kind of get a little bit of a background on who Beedle the Bard was, even though it’s pretty brief. That he lived in the 15th century and much of his life remains shrouded in mystery. So I think that just kind of set the tone for the book. You don’t know a whole lot about this person, which is kind of J.K. Rowling style, I feel like. He was born in Yorkshire and had an exceptionally luxuriant beard. That kind of reminded me of Dumbledore a little bit.
Andrew: Yeah. Definitely.
Micah: So does the comment after that.
Matt: Yeah, sorry. That was me.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: I kind of thought it was interesting how J.K. Rowling compares the “Fountain of Fair Fortune” – she says:
“The tales are as familiar to many of the students at Hogwarts as ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ are to Muggle nonnmagical children.”
And I was thinking, well, do those tales get developed in the movie too? Since Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty turned into profitable Disney films?
Matt: Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty in the Muggle world has been retold a million times. We know that the Beedle the Bard books have been redone at least once or twice.
Jamie: This is going to get picked up by Pixar or Disney.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.
Dumbledore’s Commentary and Footnotes
Micah: What did you guys think of, and I know we talked about this a little bit already, but Dumbledore’s commentary as a whole? And not only that, but how Rowling felt the need to comment on Dumbledore and what he wrote throughout the course of the book?
Andrew: I loved his commentary. Some of you guys were saying that it really made the book, and it was really fun to read, and I think it was a great way to get sort of a goodbye to Dumbledore, in a way, and I want to talk about this later on when we’re talking about his final notes, because I thought there was a lot of meaningful things in those final notes. Yeah, they just added so much, and you get a lot of respect for Dumbledore, and it made the book really fun and enjoyable all around.
Matt: I really liked the footnotes too, when he did the notes. The little things where he went down to see the definitions of what this or that meant.
Andrew: Yeah. They were funny.
Matt: I had no idea that Dumbledore’s notes would be so profound in this book. There’s a lot of it.
Jamie: And they can stand alone. It’s like literally criticism. He’s a good writer. Well, she’s a good writer, I should say. It actually reads like most of her books and stuff. But then I think she just feels the need to explain, because that’s Dumbledore’s character. He assumes people know that there are stands and experience level, and he doesn’t think his readers to be complete beginners and so he’ll assume a level of knowledge. So she explains stuff, I guess, and also tries to write something witty, I guess. If your a Muggle, she might have to explain some things.
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: I was just kind of thinking, wasn’t there one point in the introduction where Jo stated that Dumbledore always sort of has a habit of writing a little less than what he knows? And I was just wondering if you guys picked up on anything that you felt like he wasn’t giving you all the facts?
Andrew: Oh. Well, yeah, didn’t Jo say that specifically about the tales of – “The Three Brothers.”
Laura: “The Three Brothers?”
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah, and I’m remembering there was something in there where I read it that I was like, oh, this is what she was talking about, but now I can’t remember what it was.
Andrew: Really? I mean, Dumbledore, I’m going to [unintelligible] right now – I mean, he’s really – he talks about the three important items: the Invisibility Cloak, the Elder Wand, and the Stone.
Matt: When he talks about the Elder Wand it seems like – yeah, you’re right, Laura, he does kind of hold back some of the information. Like you think he’s going to go somewhere with it and he just doesn’t really deliver on it.
Laura: Mhm.
Jamie: Like, thinking about this book being a success or not, I just thought of something: since it is so important to Book 7, if she had messed up this book, the whole of Book 7 could’ve not made as much sense, would not have been as powerful. If this book read badly, then you’d think, well, basing an entire book on the Deathly Hallows and stuff, Dumbledore’s excuse is a bit…
Andrew: Is lame, yeah.
Jamie: …lame, yeah. So she actually had quite a – she undermined her entire Harry Potter series by turning this book into something that people don’t really like.
Tale-by-Tale: “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot”
Andrew: That’s true, yeah. That’s really true. So let’s go through the story now. We’ll go book-by-book – or tale-by-tale.
Matt: Or story-by-story. Whatever.
Andrew: [laughs] And the first story was “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot.” And this one really brought out Jo’s cleverness, I thought, because there’s a pot that hops, for crying out loud! And what’s a brief summary of the story? I mean, basically, this hopping pot is going around making ruckus until a wizard actually starts helping the townspeople, right?
Jamie: Yeah, like his father used to do.
Matt: It’s the son of this wizard who helps the Muggle village with all of their problems…
Andrew: Until he died.
Matt: …until – yeah, until he died. And then the son, who was given the pot – or the cauldron – was – I guess didn’t appreciate his father as much and didn’t like the cause that he did. And he was just a very bitter person and just refused to do anything. So every time one of the Muggle villagers came up and asked for him to solve their problem for them, he denied it. And every time he denied it, it would just come back to him in the pot.
Andrew: Right.
Jamie: Kind of like the curses of the…
Matt: Yeah.
Jamie: Like a plague of locusts and stuff.
Matt: Mhm.
Jamie: And warts in a cauldron.
Matt: Yeah, and it would follow him, too, everywhere he went.
Micah: Yeah. That had to be a disgusting pot to follow you around. With all that disgusting stuff coming out of it.
Andrew: Yeah. It looks kind of gross.
Jamie: When he’s sleeping, as well. Like…
[Micah laughs]
Matt: It’s like bad milk and cheese and slugs coming out of it.
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: Eh.
Andrew: And sour milk.
Matt: Same thing.
Andrew: Oh, yeah. [laughs] Yeah. So, it was a pretty good story. I think it was a good one to start it off. But let’s talk about Dumbledore’s notes, because they were pretty interesting, right, Micah?
Micah: Yeah. With the wizard going around and eventually helping out all the Muggles in the village, Dumbledore made a note that this particular Beedle tale was somewhat out of step with its time, because of the chance of persecution. You know, if you revealed yourself to be a wizard or a witch, you’d often end up being killed…
Matt: Yeah.
Micah: …or – and I thought that was kind of interesting to hear him comment on this story, just because we learned in Deathly Hallows kind of his mentality early on in his life was to sort of have this dominant – you know, him and Grindewald were sort of – I don’t know what the right word is, but they had this practice where they were thinking about dominating the Muggle world, and that wizards were the best and that sort of thing.
Andrew: Yeah. Well I mean, aren’t fairy tales supposed to – are they supposed to be in step with their time, so to speak? I mean, you know, the whole not being persecuted for being a wizard, you know – I can’t really think of an example where a fairytale was supposed to abide by all the laws that were going on in that current time.
Matt: Well was Grimm’s – were the Grimm Brothers’ during their time when they wrote the fairytales?
Andrew: I don’t know. I’ve never read any of them. Have you, Jamie?
Jamie: I haven’t read the original book, no.
Matt: I think it was even – no, I don’t think it was their time, either, when they wrote it. So it was close to – what? Like the Middle Ages when they wrote them?
Jamie: I think so, yeah, the originals. But they’ve been translated so many times, I bet they bear no resemblance to what we read today and stuff. You know how it is.
Matt: Yeah. But everything is a little more lighter than the original version. So it was probably watered down…
Jamie: Right.
Matt: …and Disneyfied.
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: Disneyfied.
[Matt and Micah laugh]
Andrew: We’ve also got the Nearly Headless Nick connection.
Micah: Yeah. We learn a little bit of a back story.
Andrew: Mhm.
Jamie: It’s quite political, this stuff, really, as well. Like, you know, it’s just – she just wants to give a history of the world, like in a wizarding sense. You know what I mean? Like, she wants to teach people a lesson and show how well you should accept everyone and stuff. It’s just really marvelous, this book. Really, really marvelous.
Matt: Mhm.
Jamie: I think she’s going to run for like Prime Minister of something.
[Andrew, Micah, and Laura laugh]
Micah: I don’t think she has a chance…
Jamie: No I don’t think she does…
Micah: …do you?
Matt: No, she’s too young.
Micah: Nobody would vote her.
Laura: She’ll write her autobiography.
Andrew: That’s sort of like Oprah running for president.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: I mean like, she has the popularity vote, but some people would be skeptical, sort of. What else, Micah?
Micah: Well, we also learn that there’s a revised version of this story that’s extremely anti-Muggle and promoted by the likes of a Malfoy and there’s no surprise there. I don’t think that an anti-Muggle version of the story wouldn’t be promoted by someone in that family.
Andrew and Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: Is this the one-this is not the one with the Lu-that’s the next story. Never mind. The Lucius Malfoy connection that Dumbledore makes I thought was really interesting too.
Micah: Yeah, that was pretty funny.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: Yeah.
Andrew: We’ll talk about that later, but…
Micah: And I think Jamie mentioned – or was it you, Andrew, earlier? About how Dumbledore starts referring to himself as a brilliant wizard.
Andrew: Yeah. “Such as myself.” He says that…
Micah: A little arrogant…
Matt: Ho ho.
Andrew: Yeah. He’s says that here, and then he says it in another story.
Jamie: He really is so arrogant.
[Andrew laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, it is.
Laura: Although, I guess it…
Micah: I thought it was funny.
Laura: It’s pointed out that at least in the context of the book, these were his private notes…
Jamie: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: Oh, that’s true.
Laura: …he’d been taking, so he probably didn’t know. [laughs]
Andrew: Doesn’t it seem a bit cockier, though, when he’s writing about himself to himself?
Laura: [laughs] To himself, yeah.
Jamie: Like he has to remind himself that he’s amazing.
Matt: “Such as myself.” You attracting young man.
Jamie: I think – like, I think with him – I don’t think he’s arrogant, he just – he just tries to do emotion out of stuff, because power and emotion has messed him up in the past. So he just…
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: I think he just keeps the fact, like, he thinks he’s a pretty good wizard and everyone else does. It’s just like in Book 7, rather than trying to be modest about it, yeah.
Micah: Yeah. There’s a couple times during the series too, though, where he’llrefer to himself as being – you know – overly brilliant.
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah. Wasn’t Sorcerer’s Stone when he said, like, “That was one of my more brilliant ideas…”
Jamie: Yeah, yeah.
Matt: “…and that’s saying something.”
Jamie: And then was it Deathly Hallows when they’re when he picks Harry up, no, sorry, Half-Blood Prince, and they’re walking along, and he says to him, “Harry, I don’t think you’ll be attacked tonight.” And Harry’s like, “Why?” And he’s like, “You’re with me.”
Andrew: Oh, right.
Jamie: You know.
Andrew: It’s sort of like a bittersweet moment.
Jamie: Yeah.
Micah: We got introduced to a character that comes up a couple of times throughout this book: Beatrix Bloxam. And she’s kind of the anti version of fairy tales, it seems like. And she tries to recreate them so that they’re these pure stories that don’t have any sort of real-world application to them. And…
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: …what it reminded me of, and I actually had this in the notes that I took but somebody sent in an e-mail, was I thought Rowling was going directly at Laura Mallory when she created this character.
[Andrew laughs]
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: Because of the way that she’s described and the…
JKR Takes Shot at Laura Mallory
Andrew: Weird, yeah, let’s read the e-mail, it’s from Steven. It says:
“I finished reading Beedle the Bard yesterday and I thought it was great. J.K. Rowling did an excellent job as always. I was wondering if any of you thought, like I did, when reading Dumbledore’s notes on “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot,” that JKR was poking fun at Laura Mallory. I am speaking specifically about page seventeen in the UK version which reads, well, you know, we know what it says. When I read this I almost thought it was like an inside joke. While it would still be funny to the casual reader, to those of us who found all things Potter would have something extra to laugh at. The icing on the cake is that our favorite Idiot of the Year would never know that JKR was making fun of her because she will probably never read the book.”
Jamie: Hmm.
Andrew: Laura, given that you live in the same state as Laura Mallory, what do you think?
[Micah and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Do you think there’s a connection?
Laura: Um, well, I mean – yeah, I don’t it’s a specific connection because also when I read this I thought of Umbridge.
Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: Oh, yeah!
Laura: And how she was constantly trying to sort of change what everybody was thinking and protect – so-called protect the minds young wizards. I think it’s just meant more to sort of poke fun at people who are pro-censorship and…
Matt: Yeah!
Laura: …want to alter certain things. So…
Micah: Like Laura Mallory.
Laura: Yes, like Laura Mallory, but I don’t think it’s specific. I mean – she could’ve been thinking of her.
Andrew: Do you think Laura Mallory would approve or disapprove of this book?
Laura: Oh, I think she would approve of the rewritten version…
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: …of “The Hopping Pot.”
[Micah laughs]
Matt: Mhm.
Andrew: Maybe if she saw that…
Laura: I mean, it’s very…
Andrew: What?
Laura: I mean, it’s very – you know – like, if you listen to this: “And Wee Willykins huggled the hoppitty pot.” Like, ew. I think she’d love it.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: It’s insulting to children as well – like, it treats them bad. It’s really patronizing, the revised story.
Matt: Yeah.
MuggleCast 165 Transcript (continued)
The Fountain of Fair Fortune
Andrew: And then next is “The Fountain of Fair Fortune,” where there’s the three witches and the knight. I think it was, the knight, right?
Matt: Yeah, there was the three witches and the knight.
Laura: Mhm.
Andrew: And they have a journey to this fountain whoever bathes in it will have fortune for the rest of their life.
Matt: Yeah, good fortune for their entire life.
Andrew: Mhm. And this seems to be one of the general favorites of the book, correct, guys?
Matt: Yeah. It was my favorite.
Micah: Yeah, Jamie, do you know whose favorite it was, actually?
Jamie: Who, Arthur Levine’s?
Andrew: Yeah.
[Everyone laughs]
Jamie: Does that mean it’s your favorite too, Micah?
Micah: No, actually, it’s not my favorite, but…
Jamie: Ah.
Andrew: He read this one online – on Scholastic’s website, didn’t he? There’s a video of him reading this?
Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: I’m pretty sure there was.
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: And so, this was a good one.
Matt: Yeah, I really liked it…
Micah: Yeah.
Matt: It seemed more like a like more of a – more of a broader – almost like a bigger budget if it was a film kind of a story.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: It was more detailed.
Matt: It’s part of a journey.
Jamie: And it’s extremely moraled as well – like it was…
Matt: Yeah.
Jamie: …she’s obviously trying to show – you know – that the journey’s more important, as Dumbledore says in – no sorry, as Jo says in the beginning, that the journey’s more important than the…
Matt: Mhm. Just so much involved in the story, too.
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: Well, in the story this garden opens on summer solstice when the day is the longest and on this day the garden picks one person with a lot of problems in their life and they are allowed to bathe in the Fountain and all their troubles would go away. This story in particular, three witches who caught pity on each other band together and became, like, a little team. If one of them was chosen they would all three go in and help each other. So on that day one of the witches was picked and they all grabbed on to each other and the last witch that was grabbed on was actually entangled in a knight’s armor and he was dragged into it too. But my question that I found kind of interesting was that the creepers, quote-unquote, which are kind of these little vines that grow up buildings and things caught the first witch and did that mean that the garden only wanted than one witch or was the garden aware of the truce between all the witches?
Andrew: I don’t know.
Matt: Because we know at the end of the story that the Fountain really had no
fortune at all.
Jamie: To be fair, like, fair fortune is really just chance, so it could just have come out, and they just managed to catch on to it.
Matt: Right. But what I mean was the Fountain had no special ability actually at all.
Jamie: Yeah, yeah, it was just, like, a water cooler.
Matt: No enchantment.
Matt: Drinking fountain.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: It was kind of disappointing, though. Why didn’t it actually have Fair Fortune? Because – I mean, these are fairy tales. It could easily have something like that. So why not?
Laura: Well…
Matt: Well, I think it’s the moral of the story…
Laura: Yeah.
Matt: …that you have the power to solve your own problems.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: Okay.
Matt: This question I kind of thought was interesting when I was reading it, but didn’t you think that this story had a good connection to Goblet of Fire in the Maze? Like, because of all the things you had to pass though?
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: Mhm.
Matt: In order to get to – you know, the trophy, the thing that you’re looking for.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Matt: So I kind of thought that this was the story that would probably be a good object to do in the Triwizard Tournament.
Jamie: And that’s a very interesting point, yeah. Especially since the Tale of the Three Brothers was so heavy in Book 7. Because Jo just likes to add stuff in that some people won’t, there’s so many layers. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was that.
Matt: And also there’s four champions in the Goblet of Fire, and the last one wasn’t even supposed to be part of the journey.
Laura: Oh, yeah!
Jamie: Oh, Matt!
[Andrew laughs]
Matt: Yeah.
Jamie: Oh, God!
Andrew: You’re brilliant.
Jamie: Should we take a moment of silence?
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Well, not to mention it’s sort of the same but, like, opposite. Like in this story it’s three witches and a wizard but then in Goblet of Fire it’s three wizards and a witch that are in the Maze.
Andrew and Matt: Oh, yeah!
Matt: But the knight’s not even – he’s a Muggle. The knight’s a Muggle.
Laura: Oh, he is a knight.
Matt: Yeah.
Laura: That’s interesting.
Andrew: Matt sort of brought up a good point. In this story, I don’t think if anyone heard it, the knight is the odd one out and he wins, and in Goblet of Fire Harry is the odd one out and he won.
Laura: And he wins, yeah.
Jamie: It’s also about cooperation as well, like magical and non-magical cooperation – you know, and that people can work together.
Matt: And he was the humblest of the four, too.
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: He’s the one that gave up and let the witches win.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: All right, moving along.
Matt: We don’t even have to say the third one, because we kind of already talked about it.
Micah: Okay.
Andrew: Micah?
Micah: Well, I was looking at the sketch of the Fountain which is on page 34 in the U.S. edition of it. What I thought was interesting was that it has the Deathly Hallows symbol on the lowest bowl if you look at it. I don’t know what page it is in the U.K.
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: Oh, yeah.
Micah: And it also looks like the main base that’s holding it together is a snake with some sort of wings on it.
Matt: I think it might be a dragon.
Laura: It looks like a dragon.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: I noticed the
Micah: I don’t know.
Jamie: What are the other two symbols?
Matt: It’s an eye.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: One of them is a rune, but I don’t know what it means.
Jamie: I think it’s a Freemason conspiracy.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: And then there’s that number four on the third level.
Jamie: Dan Brown’s…
Matt: I know. I’m like, “Is this the Da Vinci Code?”
Matt: Wow, yeah. I guess this is a bunch of symbols that she just uses.
Jamie: What, this is just a bigger…
Matt: Yeah, this is just the key to some bigger thing that nobody knows about.
Andrew: Maybe if we decode this it’s like “Harry Potter Book 8 2010.”
Laura: Exactly.
Matt and Jamie: Yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Laura: If we decode it, she’ll write Book 8.
Andrew: [laughs] Right.
Jamie: If those two teamed up, Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling!
Andrew: Someone should start a rumor.
Matt and Andrew: Yeah.
Andrew: It would be kind of cool if there was a hidden puzzle on there. It’s like a little game in the book.
Jamie and
Matt:
Yeah.
Andrew: To figure out. It doesn’t even have to relate to the story. All right, what’s next?
Micah: Well, Dumbledore spent a lot of time in his notes on this story talking about the pantomime, and I guess that’s a British term because – Andrew, you said that this actually doesn’t show up in the UK edition…
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: …the footnote doesn’t show up in the UK edition, about what a pantomime is.
Andrew: Yeah. What does the footnote say? For those of us who have the UK books right now and can’t even see it?
Micah: Let me see.
Laura: I’m trying to find it.
Micah: Yeah, I have it.
Andrew: It starts off with, like, “UK Muggles may not be aware of…”
Laura: Oh! Yeah, it says: “Non-British Muggles may be unfamiliar with the British tradition of plays presented at Christmastime usually based on fairy tales and including music, comical characters, and audience participation (though not, generally, of the vigorous type described here).”
Andrew: That’s interesting.
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s probably like the one difference between the books.
Jamie: The two books, yeah.
Laura: But it’s just another example that, once again, Scholastic thinks Americans are stupid and can’t understand certain things. Like, apparently Americans don’t know what philosophers are. So…
Matt and Andrew: Yeah.
Andrew: That’s true.
Laura: So annoying.
[Micah laughs]
Jamie: Sorcerer’s Stone is weakening as well because, Sorcerer’s Stone, it’s just ridiculous.
Laura: It’s such a stupid title!
Andrew: To be honest, I didn’t know what a pantomime is.
Micah: Yeah, but I think you can figure it out, though.
Matt: I mean, yeah. If you really cared enough, you would go and find it.
Laura: It’s called a dictionary!
Matt: Yeah. Or a thesaurus.
Laura: We do have those here.
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: Or an Internet.
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: Yeah, an Internet.
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: Well, I mean…
Matt: A World Wide Web.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: Plus, if you go through this book there’s plenty of other things you’ll see that you don’t know what they are.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: I mean, like, there’s no explanation of a charlatan which was the guy in “Cackling Stump.” But – you know, there’s no explanation of that.
Laura: Well…
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: I didn’t know what it was! I’ll be honest, I hadn’t heard the word before!
Matt: What is it?
Andrew: It’s a person.
Jamie: No, it’s like a faker, isn’t it? A joker who just flaunts about.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt: Oh. Well why didn’t they just put that in the book – like, a sidenote saying, “For those of you who don’t know what a charlatan is…”
Andrew: “See W.B.’s The Dark Knight.”
Matt: Yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: When’s the night always darkest?
Matt: The night’s always darkest before the dawn. And, the dawn is coming.
[Everyone laughs]
Jamie: That’s coming out on DVD.
[Everyone laughs]
Matt: Buy it on Blu-Ray and DVD.
Hogwarts Professors and Malfoy Mentioned
Andrew: And then we also heard about a couple new characters. First, Professor Herbert Beery of Herbology and Professor Silvanus Kettleburn of Care of Magical Creatures, that was kind of cool.
Matt: Yeah!
Jamie: I thought this was the only kind of, like, digression in this book. I thought it was kind of pointless to be honest.
Andrew: Yeah, it was. It felt like filler to me.
Jamie: Yeah, it did. It felt like filler.
Laura: I liked it.
Micah: I thought it was the first look into Hogwarts we got, really…
Jamie: That’s true, yeah, yeah.
Micah: …that we didn’t know much about.
Andrew: Yeah, but – I mean…
Laura: Don’t you guys…
Andrew: Go ahead.
Laura: I was going to say, don’t you remember from Prisoner of Azkaban when Hagrid was given the post of Care of Magical Creatures professor, and Dumbledore was sort of giving his speech, and he said that Professor Kettleburn had left to enjoy the time with his remaining limbs?
Jamie: Oh, yeah! That’s true, yeah.
Laura: So I thought this was kind of cool because it gave us background about that…
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Mhm. That is very true, yeah, that’s good.
Andrew: And, like I mentioned earlier, this is a story where Dumbledore explains why Malfoy originally started his – you know, the feud between the two.
Jamie and Matt: Yeah.
Micah: Yep.
Matt: I loved how he said that Mr. Malfoy kept writing back to him, and he just ignored him.
Andrew: Yeah, that was funny.
Laura: Yeah.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Matt: “I said what I’m saying and…”
Jamie: And his hygiene as well.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. That was really funny.
Jamie: His hygiene.
Micah: Yep.
Andrew: “Their relevance to this commentary is remote.”
[Micah and Andrew laugh]
Micah: It’s just all humor – I mean, if you look at it. Really, the whole pantomime thing, it’s pretty comical scene, and everything with Lucius, too. You know, he talks about how Lucius was trying to get him removed and he said, well, “I marked the beginning of me trying to get him removed as Voldemort’s Favorite Death Eater.”
Matt and Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: I just like to think he wrote this-tell me if I’m wrong – after he decided to die, because I think the paragraph that starts, “This exchange marked the beginning of Mr. Malfoy’s long campaign” and ends with, “And of mine to have him removed from his position as Lord Voldemort’s Favorite Death Eater” is not something that Dumbledore would write if, when he wasn’t sure of stuff and things that were going on, because that’s quite an accusation, even though most people know.
Matt: Well, he always knew that Malfoy was a big supporter of Malfoy.
Jamie: Yeah, Voldemort.
Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jamie: Yeah, yeah.
Matt: That guy.
Jamie: That nasty man.
Andrew: But again, we also do have to remember that these are his personal notes.
Jamie: That’s such a weird concept, though. They’re written completely to be published, obviously.
Andrew: Right. So it sort of doesn’t make sense, in a way.
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: Mhm.
Andrew: But I think that was just for…
Matt: Just enjoy it! I mean, it’s a book.
Andrew: Just go with it, don’t analyze it.
Jamie: It’s true.
Matt: Stop!
Micah: [laughs] All right, then we can stop recording right now.
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: Okay.
Jamie: After 170 episode, Andrew says, “Don’t analyze it!”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: And – anything else in this story we should talk about?
Jamie: I think it’s pretty done.
Andrew: I think that was it, yeah. All right!
Matt: So, good read.
The Warlock’s Hairy Heart
Andrew: “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart.” This was a really clever one, I thought.
Matt: Yeah.
Micah: This is…
Andrew: Hmm?
Micah: No, I was going to say, this is where the tales really start to turn dark.
Everyone: Yeah.
Andrew: This was very brutal for something in a Harry Potter novel!
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: Very tragic. It’s the most tragic of, I think, all the stories.
Jamie: It really is tragic, yeah, it is.
Andrew: And basically, a quick summary, the warlock has a hairy heart, he takes it out of himself, then he meets this chick who – I think she’s the one who’s like – “Put the heart back in, so you can feel true love.” Right? Something like that?
Laura: Right.
Matt: That was the best summary I’ve ever heard.
[Micah and Laura laugh]
Andrew: I’ve forgotten.
Laura: [impersonating Andrew] “And he met some chick, and she was like, ‘Dude, put your heart back in, man.'”
[Everyone laughs]
Matt: And if you think about it, the way we’ve just been describing it, it sounds like the summary of every single romantic comedy.
Jamie: Yeah, it’s true, yeah.
Matt: A guy doesn’t want to fall in love, so he takes his heart out, and it’s up to a woman to bring the heart back into him.
Jamie: And then they kiss.
Matt: And then they kiss and he cuts open her heart and his and then they die.
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: Well, he eats it.
Matt: He eats the heart, yeah.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: That’s always the end to it.
Matt: Yeah.
Jamie: Like Hannibal Lector.
Micah: I don’t even know how to go on.
Jamie: I thought this one was the best, honestly. She just said everything in, like, a few pages. The words she used as well, like she deliberately said, “warlock” and how she described him – you know, like he was up to the top of his place, that there was no way he could get anything more. I thought it was going to end in tragedy right from the beginning.
Matt: Mhm.
Micah: Right.
Matt: Well, he was totally heartless, in…
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: …in literal and figurative sense…
Jamie: Yeah, that’s true.
Matt: …during the entire story. I didn’t really realize he used Dark Magic to take out his heart.
Laura: Yeah, and I sort of like the connection Dumbledore made between that and the Horcruxes.
Jamie: Yeah, that was really cool.
Andrew: Oh, yeah!
Matt: Yeah, that was nice. Well, do you think the connection has any connection to how the part actually disconnected itself from the body and became its own…
Jamie: Definitely, yeah.
Laura: Yeah. It sort of, yeah, and it took over.
Jamie: Also when the two figures of Ron and – sorry, of Harry and Hermione came out of the Horcrux and spoke to Ron. Like, you know, it took over and sort of fed on your worst nightmares and stuff.
Matt: Well, what would happen, though, if you took a Horcrux and you took the spirit back into your self?
Jamie: Could you do that?
Matt: I don’t know. Can you do that?
Andrew: I don’t think so.
Matt: Was that ever discussed?
Jamie: I don’t think that was discussed.
Andrew: So you can put a piece of soul back inside you?
Matt: Obviously you can split it, does that mean it’s permanently split, you
can’t take it back from you?
Andrew: I kind of remember reading that somewhere or discussing that.
Laura: Yeah.
Matt: Because wouldn’t something like this happen then? Or is it just not possible?
Jamie: Yeah, yeah, he says it’s impossible, it can only happen in fiction.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, not to mention the moral of this story was that if you take your heart out, I mean, this wasn’t the real moral, but you learn from the story that if you take your heart out and put it back, it’ll be too late. I mean, the heart is already…
Jamie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andrew: …has a mind of its own.
Jamie: It’s a warning. The other ones are kind of – like, lessons, but this is more of a warning.
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: But it’s also from, like, Dark Magic, too…
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: …that’s controlling the heart.
Micah: Right.
Jamie: It was a bit Pirates of the Caribbean.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: I know, I thought of that as well. I didn’t want to be the one to say it…
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: There’s a lot of footnote action going on in this story, too…
Matt: Oh, snap.
Andrew: …in Dumbledore’s notes.
Micah: Yeah. Well, the main thing he said, though, was that it speaks to the dark depths in all of us and that’s kind of why it survived…
Jamie: Yeah.
Micah: …and was pretty much unchanged over the years. I mean, what do you guys think? Do you think stories like that, you know, that have these gory, evil, nasty, disgusting scenes in them generally survive? I mean, do we like them, we just don’t like to admit that we like them?
Jamie: It’s true, yeah.
Matt: Well, this is definitely one of those stories where they would definitely turn it into a cute, happy ending Disney film.
Jamie: Yeah.
[Micah laughs]
Matt: Because this reminds me of – like, The Little Mermaid. The little mermaid – like, sacrificed herself for the person that she loved and now it turned into – like, her father magically gave her legs, and she married the prince and they lived happily ever after.
Jamie: Right, hell yeah. He’s got unlimited ability to just grant people legs.
Matt: This is like one of those Middle Age, classic fairy tales that constantly get redone.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s kind of like Toy Story where the toys go out on their own…
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: …like, Buzz goes out on his own and realizes he’s not a toy.
Matt: Kind of, but not. So, the footnotes?
Andrew: Go ahead.
Matt: I was going to talk about the pictures, but are we still on the footnotes?
Andrew: No.
Jamie: Gruesome!
Matt: I love this photo. I think it’s one of my favorite pictures in the entire book. It’s just so graphic.
Laura: The one where they’re both laying there dead?
Matt: They’re both laying there dead with their chests split open and…
Jamie: Oh, you love reading that, isn’t it? Touching to you.
Matt: Well, look, there’s a little hairy heart but the big heart, it looks like a rotisserie chicken!
[Everyone laughs]
Jamie: It does, it really does, yeah.
Andrew: It kind of looks like Snape or Sirius, doesn’t it?
Matt and Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: Like a young Snape or Sirius?
Laura: Yeah, it kind of does.
Jamie: It looks like an elf.
[Andrew laughs]
Matt: Regulus.
Andrew: And the girl, she kind of…
Jamie: She doesn’t look like anything!
[Laura laughs]
Matt: She doesn’t look very well, does she?
Jamie: She looks like the girl from The Ring?
Micah: Yeah. She doesn’t look like she was described in the book. You know, you’re expecting…
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: Well, you know, someone had just cut her heart out. I don’t know how you look after someone does that to you.
Micah: Well, her face wouldn’t change.
Matt: She’s got a long neck, too.
Jamie: Yeah, she does.
Micah: Vampire.
Andrew: Jo’s still working on her sketches of women.
[Jamie laughs]
Matt: She drew the guy really nicely, though. I mean, you can see all the wrinkles and disfigurements on his face.
Andrew and Jamie: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah, I can see.
Matt: He’s got jeans on.
Laura: The visuals in this story are, like, really disturbing.
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, they are.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: Like, the whole part where it’s like, he was like, licking the heart.
Andrew, Jamie, and Matt: Yeah!
Matt: Yeah, that was gross.
Laura: [laughs] Isn’t that disgusting?
Micah: Yeah.
Hector Dagworth-Granger
Andrew: We have this interesting e-mail about “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart.” It says:
“Hi, Mugglecast! This is from Rachel H. I love the story but Dumbledore’s commentary left me a bit confused. On page 57 of the U.S. edition, Dumbledore leaves a footnote regarding the search for a true love potion. He says, “Hector Dagworth-Granger, founder of the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers, explains, ‘Powerful infatuations can be produced by the skillful potioneer, but never yet has anyone managed to create the truly unbreakable, eternal, unconditional attachment that alone can be called love.’ Rachel says: Okay, maybe I didn’t have to write all that, but my point it, Hermione’s a Muggleborn. Is Jo hinting she gets her magical talent from a wizard in her distant family? I doubt the Granger is just a coincidence.”
Jamie: This was solved in Book 6. Didn’t he ask if, like, if she was related to Dagworth-Granger?
Laura: Oh, yeah, he did.
Andrew: Oh!
Matt: That’s true, he did.
Andrew: Good memory, geez.
Jamie: And then Harry’s just like, “No, sir.” And she’s like, “Oh, did you really tell him I was the best witch in the year? Oh, Harry.”
Andrew: Good memory, Jamie.
Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: Jeez, man.
Matt: How many times have you read the books?
Laura: And if for any reason the relation, like, was valid, earlier in Beedle the Bard when Dumbledore was talking about Squibs and Muggleborns in one of his little commentaries, he said something about how most of the time, Muggleborn witches and wizards do come about because of a magical relative further back in their family tree.
Matt: Mhm.
Micah and Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: It’s possible.
Micah: I mean, it’s a common last name.
Laura: Mhm.
Andrew: Yeah, but I still think it’s an interesting connection. Because especially the quote that Dumbledore uses.
Micah: Yeah, but that’s really impressive, Jamie, I don’t know how the hell you remembered that.
[Andrew laughs]
Jamie: Thanks.
Matt: Well done.
Andrew: Micah, you want to do that last point there?
Dumbledore’s Humor and Lessons
Micah: Yeah, it’s just more of the humor of Dumbledore. And he goes back to talking about Beatrix Bloxam and how in her notes somewhere she wrote that she had overheard the story but that at the same time she had also overheard something about her Uncle Nobby, the local hag, and a sack of Bouncing Bulbs.
[Micah and Matt laugh]
Micah: So, you know, that’s Dumbledore’s way to lighten the mood on such a serious story. It seems like this is a story that you would try and overhear your parents telling to, maybe, your older siblings, because you’d always want to know about it. It seems like a story that maybe your older siblings would try to tell you to scare you or something like that.
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: But…
Jamie: This is a – go on, sorry.
Micah: No, go ahead.
Jamie: No, I was just going to refer to Adalbert Waffling’s Fundamental Laws of Magic, which I thought was an awesome thing because – like, it brings magic down onto a non-magical level and says that it’s not like it can do anything which is – like, kind of a moral for the entire Harry Potter series. That, you know, like in Book 7
when the Prime Minister is talking to the Minister of Magic and, “You can do magic!” And the Minister’s like, “Yeah, but the other side can do it as well.” I just thought that was a really awesome touch. Just like, “Tamper with the deepest mysteries, the sources of life, the essence of self, only if prepared for consequences of, the most extreme and dangerous kind,” which is obviously Horcrux and Voldemort and everything like that.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Micah: Yeah.
Matt: There were a lot of books that were for two in the story, for Dumbledore’s notes.
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: Like Albert Wafling’s Fundamental Laws of Magic – what was the other
book that you mentioned?
Andrew: Fantastic Beasts.
Matt: Yeah, Fantastic Beasts, I guess.
Andrew: Is Jo doing like a little plug for her own book?
Micah: [laughs] Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Matt: You see, well this one I like the most. The self help book, The Hairy Heart: A Guide to Wizards Who Won’t Commit.
Jamie: Yeah.
[Andrew and Jamie laugh]
Matt: I would buy that.
[Laura laughs]
Jamie: And the hairy snout human heart? [laughs]
Matt: Yeah. Well yeah, it’s… [laughs] ‘Hairy snout human heart,’ that was funny.
Micah: Yeah.
Jamie: Very good.
Micah: But – and the other funny piece that was in here was when he was talking about his Aunt Anoria calling off her engagement because her suitor had a hairy heart. And I think that was again, an attempt to explain to us exactly what a hairy heart was.
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: Kind of similar to the pantomime thing, I don’t know if it’s a more common expression in other places than others, but then Dumbledore adds in that he doesn’t believe that that was the reason the engagement was broke off. It was because she was – oh I’m sorry – because he was fondling some horclumps.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: And you know, this made me think that this book, though really while it’s supposed to be about a bunch of fairy tales, it really appeals to more of an adult audience, just with some of the things that are discussed.
Matt: Yeah. It’s very difficult to see why anyone would want to fondle a…
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Matt: Beause their just like these little mushroom like creatures.
Andrew: It’s true.
Matt: Like hamsters, yeah.
Micah: But don’t you think, though, I mean there’s a lot of insinuation going on…
Jamie: Yeah.
Micah: With you know, her uncle and the local hag and a sack of bouncing bulbs, and then fondling some horclumps.
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: There are other things throughout the course of this book that are just kind of perverted in a way.
Jamie: It’s true, yeah.
Andrew: Jo’s letting out now!
Micah: She is! [laughs]
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Harry Potter‘s over. I mean, she doesn’t have to – you know?
Matt: She could do whatever she wants.
Andrew: She could write all these gruesome scenes and call people – what were those insults in the beginning?
Laura: Scum suckers?
Andrew: Scum suckers!
Jamie: There we go. Yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Matt: That was nice.
Andrew: Yeah. [pause] Dung licker! That’s my favorite.
[Matt groans]
Andrew: Dung licker.
Matt: Dung licker.
[Laura laughs]
MuggleCast 165 Transcript (continued)
Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump
Andrew: [laughs] That’s kind of- pretty rude. All right so second to last story, “Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump.”
Jamie: On the theme of, you know.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Kind of audience titles, “Cackling Stump.”
Andrew: Yeah. The most real of Beedle‘s tales, Micah wanted to note. How about a summary of this one? Go ahead, Matt. You do it since I’m – I can’t. Do a good summary.
Matt: This is my least favorite one.
Andrew: Oh, okay.
Jamie: This is my least favorite one as well, Matt.
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah, mine too. [laughs]
Andrew: I personally didn’t like it because I got my hopes up the most, I think, for this story.
Matt: Well this one also- is the only story that mentions the whole witch hunters thing, too – about it. Like…
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: The king had witch hunters with hounds going after all the witches. But he also wanted to do magic, too. So the king called out asking for any witch or wizard to be his advisor.
Jamie: It kind of – sorry.
Matt: Go ahead.
Jamie: It kind of echoes today that people say that people are scared of what they want and they like oppress stuff and then like sort of people who do…
Matt: What they want to do.
Jamie: Yeah, yeah.
Matt: They’re jealous, sort of, of the sort of abilities that other people can do and so in order for them to feel better about themselves, they make it into an evil.
Jamie: Into an evil, when they’re scared of it or wished they could do it.
Matt: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah, exactly. I always thought it’s kind of like that. And- go.
Matt: So basically this guy saw this as a potential to making money and so he calls himself a sorcerer to the king and tells him he’ll teach him how to do magic, an instructor of magic. And the king, who isn’t very smart – well, he’s kind of an idiot. Let’s face it, this king isn’t very smart. So the king hires him as his sorcerer and during which the king is doing all these stupid things that the sorcerer is – what is the guy called? A charlatan? And the charlatan is teaching him to do all this stupid little nonsense spells and things, and this woman, the washwoman who is called Babbitty Rabbitty, which is kind of a weird name. It doesn’t really fit in with the story, but the old woman is just watching and laughing at him, and I guess the Charlatan follows Babbity Rabbity, and finds out that she actually is a witch, and so he tries to blackmail her, which, foolishly into being with him during his little show that he’s going to put on with the king for showing magic. The King is starting to get a little embarrassed about the whole thing, and he tells the Charlatan “I’m going to do a show for everybody, and if I get laughed at I’m going to cut your head off.” Basically. Do you guys want to go on with this story because I only read this once?
Andrew: Well, that’s kind of a long summary.
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: But basically the moral of the story is that – or what ends up happening is that the king really can’t produce magic and Babbity Rabbity runs off after the Charlatan calls her out, and then what happens?
Jamie: Well, it’s like, evil doesn’t pay as well.
Andrew: Right.
Jamie: You can’t do that to someone and expect it to be a fair game.
Andrew: Yeah
Jamie: You shouldn’t really covet something that you can’t get. Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Logically, or fairly, because – you know, something bad is going to happen to you.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Go on.
Andrew: I thought the whole idea of Babbity Rabbity doing the magic behind the bushes was kind of clever.
Jamie: Yeah, it was, yeah.
Andrew: I thought that was interesting because I didn’t know how she was going to do it. And it came as a pleasant surprise I thought.
Micah: Yeah, I thought it was interesting!
Laura: I thought the ending was funny.
Micah: Yeah. Well, the interesting part was – being that when she couldn’t do anything when he tried to raise the dead boarhound back to life.
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: Or the search hound. And that obviously has stronger ties to a lot of what goes on in the Harry Potter series in terms of…
Jamie: Yeah.
Micah: …you learn that you can never bring anybody back from the dead, even magic can’t do that.
Matt: Right.
Micah: And, yeah, the ending was funny though, Laura.
Matt: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: And…
Jamie: It was weird…
Andrew: Go ahead.
Jamie: I was going to say it was a weird tale. I thought…
Andrew: Yeah, it was.
Jamie: …the morals weren’t quite as clear as…
[Micah laughs]
Jamie: …in the other ones. I can’t remember – I read a review online, and it compared one of the stories to The Emperor’s New Groove. I don’t know which one because I haven’t seen The Emperor’s New Groove, but it might have been this one?
Andrew: I love that movie. What’s the comparison? I love that movie.
Jamie: Just that they were based on the same theme, and…
Andrew: Oh.
Jamie: …and storytelling, but I don’t know if it was this one. I’ll have to re-check it.
Andrew: Yeah, I don’t know. Sort of, because there’s a – I don’t know. I’m not sure. [laughs] Great movie though.
Jamie: If anyone has any thoughts on that.
[Andrew and Micah laugh.]
Andrew: And then, anything else you want to talk about here? I guess we didn’t even go through the notes…
Micah: Well.
Andrew: Go ahead Micah.
Micah: In terms of it being the most real of the tales, I mean, it’s just the most practical in terms of what we know of the magical world.
Andrew: Yeah. That’s true.
Micah: Dumbledore brings that up. He says, “Of all the stories so far, this is one that could have actually taken place given everything that goes on in the story.”
Andrew: Yeah, maybe this is just a rejected plotline from J.K. Rowling…
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: …she put in here.
Micah: Could be.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: I’m glad she didn’t use it.
Andrew: And I remember Elysa said she was particularly looking forward to this story because Jo had said that she came up with these titles before writing the stories, so you know, she had to make the story go with the title.
Micah: Huh.
Andrew: So that must have been quite the challenge.
Jamie: Definitely.
Laura: Oh yeah, she’s said something about that too. She said, “You try writing a story to go with the title ‘Babbity Rabbity and her Crackling Stump.'” Or something like that.
Andrew: Right, right, it must be hard. My original thing with it was just that there was Babbity Rabbity and also the Cackling Stump – not, you know, she would be the cackling stump.
Matt: But she wasn’t the cackling stump.
Laura: But she wasn’t the cackling stump.
Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: She was underneath it.
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah.
Micah: Right.
Andrew: Yeah, but the stump was cackling, was it?
Jamie: No, no.
Laura: No.
Jamie: I thought it was going to be some type of appendage of hers.
Andrew: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I thought the stump would come to life, literally, you know, because if a pot can walk with a foot…
[Laura and Micah laugh.]
Andrew: …then why can’t a stump cackle?
Micah: Yeah.
Matt: It was definitely one of the more anti-muggle stories too…
Jamie: Yeah, definitely.
Matt: …saying that wizards are more smart than muggles are.
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: Yep.
Andrew: Then there’s also the first mention of an animagus, which was interesting.
Matt: It also talks about how, how this didn’t really go with animagi too, about how they cannot speak.
Jamie: How they are different from transfigured animals. Which is really interesting because I don’t know, I just really like insights to how magic works on a theoretical level.
Andrew: Yeah, and seeing this really ancient piece of it.
Jamie: Yeah.
Micah: Yep. And then Dumbledore also mentions that the witch – was it the witch that could have threatened to use the Cruciatus Curse on the king?
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: Because it wasn’t yet illegal in the beginning. We kind of get some insight into the Ministry of Magic, in that they didn’t make the – those three curses unforgivable until a certain year, I think it was, right?
Matt: I think it was 1600-1700.
Laura: In 1717, I think.
Micah: Yeah.
Matt: Sixteen – yeah, I don’t know.
McGonagall Mentioned
Micah: [laughs] And we just get more of Dumbledore’s humor. I mean, he – the little – well, it’s actually by J.K Rowling – the the bit that’s on Professor McGonagall.
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: And…
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: I thought it was really refreshing to hear, you know, Headmistress of Hogwarts, Professor McGonagall.
Micah: Right.
Andrew: And also makes you kind of yearn to hear stories of Hogwarts and Professor McGonagall leading it.
Matt: I loved how she wrote – how she wrote that she asked him to make it quite clear that she’d become an Animagus…
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: …purely because of her research on Transfiguration.
Micah: [laughs] Yeah. But she never turned into a tabby cat for any surreptitious purpose.
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: And…
Micah: Cold.
Matt: I wonder if Dumbledore ever joked about that with McGonagall.
Jamie: Well, I bet he teased her. I bet he teased her.
Matt: Yeah, I bet he did.
The Rabbit Advisor
Micah: [laughs] I didn’t get the whole rabbit-advisor thing to Henry the VI – was that an inside-joke? Or…
Jamie: I think it’s…
Micah: …is it like a British joke, or?
Jamie: Well, I guess he’s supposed to be – I don’t really know much about British history…
Laura: He’s – he was fairly – I mean, I don’t know a lot about him – but he was well known to be a complete psychopath.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: And I think he actually had some mental issues…
Matt: Well, wasn’t that because…
Laura: So I think – yeah.
Matt: …of the imbreeding? Didn’t they say…
Laura: Yes.
Matt: …it was because his family inbred?
Andrew: That would make sense.
Laura: So, I don’t know – he might have had syphilis or something, but…
Andrew: [laughs] Why am I laughing? I’m sorry, yeah.
Laura: No! That genuinley causes…
Jamie: I’m betting that didn’t actually happen, mind.
Laura: …mental problems.
Jamie: It’s usually a misconception, that’s all.
Matt: Like a rash.
Jamie: Yeah. It doesn’t actually affect…
Laura: I always heard that it did, though. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong.
Jamie: How do you know so much about this? Neh?
Andrew: She’s smart.
Laura: I don’t…
Jamie: Do you mean… [laughs]
Laura: But – I don’t know. I just felt it was a joke worth adding.
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah, maybe it was.
Laura: You know?
Jamie: Should we move onto the next one?
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: Yes, please.
The Tales of the Three Brothers
Andrew: The last tale, “The Tale of The Three Brothers.” This was the shortest! I think.
Jamie: Yeah.
Andrew: It was only – what? Three pages or something?
Laura: Yeah.
Jamie: It didn’t really come as a surprise though, after Book 7.
Andrew: Right.
[Micah laughs]
Matt: Jamie and I were talking about this earlier today, but when we read it we felt like we read this entirely in Book 7. Like, almost…
Laura: Yeah, I felt like I knew it all.
Andrew: What?
Matt: Yeah?
Andrew: Was the whole thing in Book 7?
Jamie: I swear it was.
Matt: Or it was told almost exactly like it was written.
Laura: Exactly like it was, yeah.
Jamie: “And so death took the second brother for his own. But though Death searched for the third brother for many years, he was never able to find him.” Yeah! That was it!
Matt: The very last paragraph is definitely written word-for-word from it.
Jamie: Yeah it is, yeah.
Matt: From Book 7.
Laura: Okay, hang on… I have Deathly Hallows on my computer. We’re going to find out about this.
Jamie: Well, I hope you talk about yourself, Laura!
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Well… [laughs]
Andrew: Well, while she’s looking up that we’ll look at the notes here, that Dumbledore…
Matt: I don’t think we really need to summarize this, because everyone’s read it.
Jamie: Everyone knows it.
Matt and Andrew: Yeah.
Andrew: It was Dumbledore’s favorite bed-time story.
Micah: Yep.
Andrew: You know I really…
Matt: Unfortunately it wasn’t Aberforth’s favorite book.
Jamie: No.
Andrew: I really did enjoy re-reading this story again. Because, after discussing it so much here on the show, I found it really, just – I don’t know – really nice to read again.
Jamie: It really was, yeah.
Andrew: All was very clear at that point. Because…
Matt: It does have the best moral, if you use it.
Andrew: …when you read “The Tale of The Three Brothers,” you didn’t know everything. And reading it again – because I never re-read Book 7. I should have, shamefully.
Jamie: That is pretty poor.
Matt: This is also the most mature…
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: …moral out of them all, I mean, this seems like it’s…
Micah: Wait.
Matt: …being directed towards adults.
Jamie: I was just about to say that Matt, yeah.
Micah: You never re-read Deathly Hallows?
Andrew: No. Oh, except for chapter-by-chapter…
Micah: Right.
Andrew: You’re so funny, ah – but you know what I mean, right?
Laura: Yeah, the whole thing is in here. By the way.
Andrew: Jo ripped us off. Damnit, Jo! You fooled everyone.
Laura: [laughs] It’s actually a – this is actually Hermione’s telling of the
tale.
Matt: Yeah, it’s her interpretation.
Andrew: Huh. Oh right. Right, right. Yeah, because she translated it.
Jamie: Yeah. Well, funnily she translated it as exactly Jo wrote it! So, you know, it’s terrible.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Jamie: She quoted it word-for-word. I can’t help but wonder how…
Micah: But…
Jamie: I agree, Matt. I thought it was really adult-like morals. It was like – it talked to people as adults and says what’s going to come and how you can’t live your adult life while your child could life.
Matt: It’s also more of a – like a moral that a lot of adult men tend to try to cheat. Because…
Jamie: Yeah.
Matt: …men have those mid-life crisises where they don’t want to grow old or…
Jamie: And they buy a maid.
[Andrew chuckles]
Matt: Yeah. Or Feraris and stuff. Yeah. Or a new wife.
[Jamie laughs]
Matt: Though not necessarily buy a new wife, thing is he’ll find one.
Jamie: Buy one with the advent of the internet.
Matt: Oh, geez.
Jamie: These things change.
Micah: E-mail order brides.
[Laura laughs]
Matt: Er, Micah, get off of computer.
Jamie: I’d like to order a bride.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: What else, Micah?
Laura: This story’s getting a little – sorry.
Micah: No, go.
Laura: Oh. I was just going to add that – has anybody read Canterbury Tales?
Jamie: No.
Matt: Ooh! No, I haven’t.
Laura: Oh, okay. You guys suck. [laughs]
Andrew: Is this Life of Canterbury Tales?
Laura: It’s kind of both – because Canterbury Tales have several different tales, but it kind of reminded me of the “Pardoner’s Tale” from that because in that story there’s – and they’re sort of drunkenly walking along this path and they’re trying to find Death because Death has killed one of their friends and they want to
kill Death. So they run into this old man that tell them that he’s left Death in a grove under a tree. So the three brothers go there and they find all this gold and essentially they all become really greedy and end up killing each other so that they can have the gold but like in that way it kind of reminded me of this.
Jamie: Stuff like that, it doesn’t happen to me when I get drunk.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: But it just seemed like this was sort of loosely based on that.
Andrew: Yeah that’s pretty cool.
Jamie: Yeah that is cool.
Matt: I found it kind of funny though in the picture that Jo drew about the Three Brothers and Death is that when they made that bridge Death got angry with them because they cheated death but this river is not very big and it’s, I mean – you could just jump across it it’s not really that hard, and there’s a tree right there and so they could’ve just cut it down.
Andrew: Well, maybe for book reasons, whatever…
Matt: I don’t know I just thought it was funny.
Laura: Maybe, hey, maybe people couldn’t swim back then.
Andrew: Maybe people could’ve what?
Laura: Maybe people couldn’t swim back then.
Jamie: Who did invent swimming? Did people just keep drowning until one person picked it up?
Matt: People kept drowning until there were so many bodies they just walked over.
[Jamie laughs]
Andrew: Steve Wimmer invented swimming.
Jamie: Oh I see.
Andrew: S. Wimmer, get it?
Jamie: Oh, are you being serious there?
[Micah laughs]
Analyzing Dumbledore’s Comments
Andrew: What else Micah?
Micah: Well you mentioned it was Dumbledore’s favorite bedtime story. I thought that was kind of interesting knowing that, everything that we learn about him in Deathly Hallows that you know he would like a story like this and he eventually goes after the Hallows himself.
Matt: Yeah, it shows that he had an early weakness for this kind of thing, the Elder Wand, that would probably be the reason why he loved that story so much there was this really powerful wand.
Andrew: Also the mentioning of the Philosopher’s Stone is mentioned right here inspiring the Beedle tale that’s pretty interesting.
Jamie: Yeah it really is. Well I was going to say in the notes we got his final line when he says, “Even I, Albus Dumbledore, would find it easiest to refuse the Invisibility Cloak which only goes to show you that clever as I am, I am just as big a fool as everyone else.” That for me kind of forgave him for everything he’s ever done cause like he’s very humble, like he’s not modest but he’s humble like in like he admits that he’s clever but he also admits he’s a fool and like that’s what clever people don’t really do so I think, – I think he’s an awesome character
like we met someone at the podcast whom I talked to briefly who said she didn’t ever forgive Dumbledore for what he did.
Micah: Was that Jess?
Andrew: No.
Jamie: But yeah I don’t know.
Andrew: Yeah there was something about these notes as a whole that I thought were really meaningful to Dumbledore’s life, especially that last sentence.
Matt: It’s definitely the most notes he’s given for a story in the entire book and he definitely has a lot to say about it.
Andrew: Also how he’s talking about an Elder Wand and how it’s, what was it here – so called history of the Elder Wand.
Matt: Does it ever say why – why Beedle knows all this stuff to be true?
Andrew: No.
Matt: How did he know this story? And we know for a fact that these items do exist in the series.
Laura: Well, I don’t think – I think they kind of determine in the book that the story itself wasn’t necessarily true, that it was sort of made up to explain where these things came from.
Andrew: Yeah, that makes sense.
Micah: It almost seems like a plan though, like Dumbledore is planning in this particular commentary like when he’s going through the history of the Elder Wand. It’s almost like he’s recounting it to himself so that he can act, you know, in the next couple of months.
Jamie: It’s a reminder as well that this story in the seventh book is kind of you know telling Harry to keep like keep his head like on his shoulders, you know and stop like rushing forward into things. I think it served a dual purpose talkingabout the Hallows but also like not only is the Invisibility Cloak the best option but like you know you need to think about stuff before rushing into it.
Andrew: It was really interesting to me because it was a sort of foreshadowing his mistakes and the weaknesses he had when he was trying to help Harry through all this and you know he admitted his mistakes throughout the books and I thought this was, this book was particularly meaningful in that. Because as he said that last sentence again he said he was just as big a fool as anyone else.
Matt: Also Dumbledore talks about these old superstition phrases. Like when his wand’s oak and hers is holly, then to marry would be folly.
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah. But my favorite one…
Micah: It’s like…
Matt: …I’m sorry. What?
Micah: …they’re almost like nursery rhymes.
Matt: Yeah.
Micah: Kind of.
Matt: Just like old tale – I mean old woman rhymes, really – old wives’ tales. Yeah, and “Wand of elder, never prosper” he says. I think that’s like a really good saying because if you think about the Elder Wand, people that never really live very long. “Wand of elder, never prosper.”
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: Thought that was pretty good.
Andrew: Anything else important to bring up about this? We’ll move along. We’re getting kind of late into the show here.
Micah: Grumble the Grubby Goat.
Laura: Dumbledore’s familiar with Alexander Pope.
Jamie: Yeah. That was cool.
Andrew: Yeah. It’s cool.
Jamie: Another Dan Brown reference for those who have read The Da Vinci Code.
[Laura, Matt, and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Micah, we discussed Grumble the Goat. You’re going to write the tale now?
Micah: Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: That would be a cool contest, actually, to write that tale.
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah.
[Micah laughs]
Listener Feedback: Jim Dale Voicing Beedle?
Andrew: A couple listener feedback about the book and then we’ll wrap it up for today. Camille, 14, of San Diego, she wrote:
“As always, love the show. Keep up the great work. I was wondering, do you guys think Beedle the Bard will become an audiobook narrated by Jim Dale? We’ve said he’s good enough to narrate a dictionary and make it sound interesting. Will he get the chance to narrate Beedle? If so, it’ll be cool to hear the Dumbledore comments in Dumbledore’s voice.”
That would be really cool, but I just don’t think – I don’t think it’s big enough.
Jamie: There’s not a lot of stuff.
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: Oh yeah.
Matt: It’s like you can download it or something. I mean, you could for anything. Yeah, I think it would just be too short. I mean, if you go out to listen to it in the car or something, it would be a very short drive.
Listener Feedback: Where Does Beedle Rank in the Series?
Andrew: Yeah. Also, some questions from Twitter. I asked people on the MuggleCast Twitter to reply with their questions, and this was fun. We got some good responses, and I like Twitter because people will keep their questions short so they don’t send us these books of e-mails. This comes from Dreyesbo, D-R-E-Y-E-S-B-O:
“If you made a ranking of the Harry Potter series, where would Beedle the Bard stand?”
Matt: Is it even part of the Harry Potter series?
Jamie: It’s barely comparable.
Andrew: Well, but, OK. How ’bout between Fantastic Beasts, Quidditch, and Beedle?
Laura: Oh, those would – yeah.
Jamie: Beedle, Fantastic Beasts, then Quidditch Through the Ages.
Matt: Yeah. This is definitely something you can read and you find more things that connect with the series.
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: Yeah. I agree.
Listener Feedback: Favorite Moral?
Andrew: Megan Simpson asks:
“What was your favorite tale or moral?”
We sort of talked about our tales. Laura, what was your favorite?
Laura: I would have to say “The Tale of the Three Brothers,” just because it has such a relation to Book 7.
Andrew: Yeah.
Laura: I really enjoyed it.
Andrew: Yeah. Was there any favorite moral that sticked out with anyone?
Matt: I still like “The Fountain of Fair Fortune.” I like the moral.
Andrew: Yeah. Me too.
Jamie: Wizard’s – “Warlock’s Heart.” Those were the best.
Andrew: Yeah. That too. Yeah. Micah?
Micah: I’ll go with “Babbity Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump.” I don’t really know the moral there to be honest, but I like the moral from the first two stories. You know, sort of the wizard-Muggle relations and them actually getting along with each other as opposed to – you know, using their magical power to threaten other people.
Matt: Yeah.
Micah: But, I did like that story even though most people did not.
Listener Feedback: Collector’s Edition
Andrew: Moving along, Angel12319 on Twitter asks:
“Just wanted to know how many of you bought the Collector’s Edition because I plan to buy it and was wondering who else bought it.”
Jamie: Is that the hundred dollar one?
Andrew: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah, that’s the expensive one.
Andrew: I didn’t buy. I don’t think anyone here did.
Jamie: That’s insane.
Micah: No, not me.
Jamie: How much of that goes to charity?
Matt: All of it.
Andrew: A good amount of it.
Matt: A lot of it.
Andrew: I mean, like three dollars of this book is…
Laura: Well, if I had – I was going say – like, if I had a hundred dollars, I would buy it.
Andrew: Yeah. Are you asking for that for Christmas, Laura? Is that it or just the regular version?
Laura: No. No, no, no, just the regular version.
Andrew: You should ask for the big one for Christmas.
Micah: Yeah.
Laura: Hey, I want other things too, you know?
Micah: You know what you do, Laura?
Laura: It’s true, you know.
Micah: Laura, see if they’re going to do an unveiling of the Collector’s Edition somewhere, and go and notice if behind it, there’s something wrong with the poster or the stand that it’s on, and then write to them and say, “Hey, I noticed this was wrong,” and see if they’ll send you a free Collector’s Edition.
Laura: There we go.
Listener Feedback: Grumble the Grubby Goat
Andrew: AliceMania on Twitter asks:
“Why didn’t Jo write “Grumble the Grubby Goat”? After it was mentioned, I wanted to read it, but was disappointed it was left out.”
Maybe it’s for Beedle the Bard 2.
[Laura laughs]
Matt: Oh yeah.
Andrew: It would be kind of cool to see Beedle the Bard 2.
Matt: Yeah, well that mentioned, I was – that’s what made me upset because there’s all these other Beedle the Bard stories that were never written.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah, that’s true. I have one last point to make that I remember thinking about it when I read it. In “The Tale of the Three Brothers” when she writes, “Yet she was sad and cold, separated from him as though by a veil.”
Matt: [gasps] Ooh. Yeah.
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah. That was really cool.
Jamie: I thought that was brilliant.
Andrew: Yeah.
Jamie: Obviously on purpose as well.
Listener Feedback: Three Brothers Too Short?
Andrew: Yeah. Kathleen91 asks:
“Hey guys, I was just wondering if you thought “The Tale of the Three Brothers” was gonna be longer. I was excited to read it, but it was three pages.”
Eh, what can you do? She had to keep it short for Book 7, so…
Matt: Well, I mean, it’s a good story, I mean.
Laura: It was literally taken word by word from Hermione’s telling of it in the book.
Andrew: Yeah, so. And they had to keep it short in the book, and I think there wasn’t any part that felt rushed or anything. It was just a nice little tale.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah.
Matt: It wasn’t – Yeah, the story was already told in the book. I mean, it was the entire story they said, so.
Micah: Plus, she got the most commentary from it, too.
Andrew: Right. Exactly. Yeah. Come on, Katherine. Geez.
Matt: Geez.
Listener Feedback: How Long Did it Take to Read Beedle?
Andrew: No, I’m just kidding. And lastly, KJPotter94 writes:
“How long did it take you all to read the book?”
Took me about an hour and a half.
Jamie: About an hour and a bit, yeah.
Micah: Yeah.
Matt: It took me actually longer because I kept rereading it over and over again.
Andrew: Oh, Laura? Micah?
Laura: I would say around an hour.
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: Yeah. A little over an hour.
Andrew: I guess I’m slow.
Micah: Taking notes. I don’t know.
Laura: Well, Andrew…
Micah: Yeah, you’re slow.
Laura: …do you remember when we were reading Deathly Hallows?
Andrew: And we were like…
Laura: And we were consistently 50 pages apart no matter what we did?
Andrew: Yeah. I was trying to come up with a scheme to like distract Laura to slow her down so I could get by her, but never worked out. Shoulda set your hair on fire or something.
Matt: Yeah.
Laura: Oh thanks.
Andrew: You’re welcome.
Laura: I love you, too.
Jamie: That would probably distract everyone, to be honest.
Andrew: I just wanted to distract Laura.
Matt: Just punch her out unconscious.
Jamie: Yeah.
Laura: Wow.
Andrew: You bitch! [makes punching noise]
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: It’s OK. J.K. Rowling said it.
Matt: Oh, that’s right.
Laura: Oh. That’s true. We can say it now, too.
Matt: It’s my book, you bitch!
Andrew: We can say dunglicker, too because J.K. Rowling said it.
Laura: And we weren’t allowed to say that before?
Andrew: I never knew that word existed.
Matt: Okay. So, quick can we take about another episode?
Andrew: No, no.
Matt: Do we have time for this? No? No?
Laura: No.
Jamie: Maybe some excerpts.
Show Close
Andrew: All right. Well, this wraps up our Beedle the Bard talk. It’s been a long show. I think much longer than we anticipated.
Jamie: We didn’t even intro, Andrew.
Andrew: No, we didn’t. We’ll outro because I know you wanna do that. Hopefully, everyone enjoyed the book, and we’ll discuss it on another future episode. Just want to say that I think our next episode will be our Year End Review show, which will be fun. I started working on MuggleNet’s Year In Review last night and I noticed there
was a lot of big stories this year: the movie split, the movie delay.
Matt: No movie.
Andrew: Beedle the Bard. Yeah. No movie. So – and, of course, the JKR/RDR trial. There’s a lot of fun stuff to talk about on that episode. So, that’ll be out by the end of the month if not in like two weeks or so. All right, so, I’m Andrew Sims.
Jamie: I’m Jamie Lawrence.
Matt: I’m Matthew…
Laura: I’m Laura Thompson.
Matt: Why did you point to me?
Andrew: I pointed to Jamie.
Matt: And then you pointed to me.
Andrew: No, I didn’t!
Matt: OK.
Andrew: I pulled my hand away.
Matt: You were like…
[Andrew laughs]
Matt: That was the longest pulling your hand away.
Laura: It doesn’t matter.
Micah: Who cares? It doesn’t matter.
Matt: OK. Let’s just go. Again.
Andrew: We’ll just leave this for a blooper. I’m Andrew Sims.
Jamie: I’m Jamie Lawrence.
Laura: I’m Laura Thompson.
Micah: I’m Micah Tannenbaum.
Matt: And I’m Matthew Britton.
Andrew: Thanks everyone for listening. We’ll see you next time for Episode 166.
Jamie: [in deep voice] Buh-bye.
Andrew: Bye.
Laura: Bye.
Micah: Bye.
Matt: Bye.
[Outro music plays]