Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #295, #Wormtaily (SPOILER review)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: This is MuggleCast, your Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts podcast covering everything about J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world. Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 295. This is our Cursed Child spoiler-filled episode.
Micah Tannenbaum: Yep.
[Eric makes owl noises]
Micah: We kidnapped the owl and made him tell us all his secrets.
Eric Scull: Aww.
Andrew: Remember: Cursed Child spoiler ridden.
Eric: [makes owl noises] It’s the alert. It’s the spoiler alert.
Andrew: There will be spoilers all over this.
Eric: I know that’s annoying, but think about how annoyed you would be if you weren’t expecting spoilers for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Andrew: [laughs] That’s worse.
Micah: I just feel bad for your neighbors.
Eric: You know what? You heard about the oven alarm. You know about that. I wouldn’t be upset with them.
Micah: I do know about that.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: So listen again, please: Cursed Child spoilers. We are going to be talking major spoilers, major major, all of the spoilers. So just stop now, okay? If you…
Micah: We ain’t keeping the secrets.
Andrew: We ain’t keeping the secrets here. This is going to seal our fate in terms of J.K. Rowling ever being on this show or not. [laughs] After this spoiler warning, we will never have J.K. Rowling on this show.
Eric: Oh, gosh. Oh, and the entire episode will be this way, by the way.
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: The entire episode’s a spoiler, so there’s not any safe timestamp that you can move to if you want. If you somehow missed – because these episodes were released in quick succession – if you want non-spoiler talk about Cursed Child, we did just do an episode. It’s the previous one, 294.
Andrew: Exactly.
Cursed Child spoiler-filled review
Andrew: So with that said, let’s get into it. [laughs] God.
Micah: You lost a chipmunk.
Eric: Oh, Andrew.
Andrew: I’m afraid. I almost… I think J.K. Rowling is going to swoop in and attack us. No, so Eric, did you want to start? How are we starting this?
Eric: Yeah, how are we starting this?
Andrew: Okay, how about we start again with overall impressions? But this time with spoilers.
Eric: Okay, okay, that makes sense.
Andrew: So in the spoiler-free episode, I said that the play… everything is fantastic, except for the story. By that, I mean the story gets so bizarre that I just cannot see past the problems, the leading problem being the fact that Voldemort and Bellatrix had a child. [laughs] It is just…
Eric: Well, presumably during the events of Harry Potter, right?
Andrew: Yes, yeah, it seems to line up that way. The daughter’s name is Delphi. In the story, she’s initially introduced as the niece of Amos Diggory, who wants to use the Time-Turner, recently discovered by the Ministry of Magic, to bring back his son, Cedric. Turns out…
Micah: Well, that in and of itself. Can we start with…?
Andrew: Yeah, sure.
Eric: Yeah, let’s… yeah, yeah.
Micah: That’s a lot to digest right off the bat.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: So Voldemort and Bellatrix had a child, which is the focus of many fanfiction that have been written over the course of the length of the Potter series being in existence, right?
Andrew: [laughs] Yes.
Eric: Sure.
Micah: That’s fair to say? I mean, if we had Elysa and Laura on the show, they would all but confirm that they probably have nightmares of some of the fanfiction that they’ve read, right? I mean…
Andrew: Yes, yes.
Micah: Okay.
Eric: There’s a reason that’s popular, though. There is a reason that that is popular for fanfic…
Micah: Well, of course.
Eric: … because we know… I think it’s in the canon of the books that Bellatrix was very much a devoted follower of the man himself.
Micah: Oh, no, absolutely. And I’m not dismissing that in any way, but I think it’s one of those things where maybe hindsight is 20/20, but looking back on what we know to be the story… and certainly we didn’t spend a lot of time in the presence of Bellatrix. When did this happen? And were there any clues outside of just knowing how deeply passionate Bellatrix was for Voldemort that this could have taken place? I mean, it seems… just that piece in and of itself that the two of them got freaky in some part of Malfoy Manor, let’s say. I don’t know where. But it’s just…
Andrew: [laughs] Because you have to think about it. It means… sorry to get graphic, but Voldemort has a dick? That doesn’t add up. Voldemort actually wants to have sex? That doesn’t make sense.
Eric: [laughs] Well, okay, here’s…
Andrew: I can see Bellatrix… she’s a human, so okay, she’s attracted to the Dark Lord, and like, okay, I get that part.
Micah: Well, not only that, right? But for all this to align… and I’m sure J.K. Rowling very meticulously figured this out, but…
Andrew: [laughs] We’ll see.
Micah: Well, where I’m going with this is Bellatrix would have had to have the child before Molly Weasley blew her into a million pieces in Deathly Hallows, right? Or killed her; I mean, the movie version is a little bit of a stretch, right? But I mean, think about that; she would have had to have had the child prior to that happening, prior to Voldemort being defeated. So at what point in the story does she have this child, and what does she do with her? Who does she give it to?
Eric: Well, actually, so I have many problems that are even before this point. This is not even revealed, right, until the end of Act 2, Andrew?
Andrew: Right.
Eric: The whole who Delphi really is. When I was first reading the recap of Part 1, I thought it was very odd, from a story standpoint, for Amos Diggory to be asking Harry… so this is… because he comes to the house, right? And is like, “You have to use the Time-Turner to go back and save my son.” And I was thinking this is an interesting point to jump the story off of, because A, I think that Amos Diggory would have successfully completed the grieving of his son years and years and years and years and years ago. In fact, maybe even before the books… you never really complete grieving, but it’s so odd that 22 full years after Cedric’s death, Amos is still worked up enough about this to come to Harry and say, “You have to break all wizarding law to come and do this now.” I think it’s revealed later that he’s under the Imperius Curse, right? From Delphi?
Andrew: Mhmm.
Eric: Okay, that makes a little bit more sense. But initially I was like, “Oh, that’s fishy.” But knowing that so much of the plot of this play revolves around events of not Harry’s seventh year and the final battle, but Harry’s fourth year and the Triwizard tasks… that is shocking to me.
Andrew: Yeah, especially when you also consider that J.K. Rowling has admitted that Goblet of Fire was her least favorite book. So it’s like, is this her way of going back and making it more interesting or something? Because it just seems like such a random choice. And the Triwizard Tournament, I thought it was fine, but I didn’t love it, so I was disappointed when it became increasingly obvious that this story was going to be focused on the Triwizard Tournament and Time-Turners. There is so much Time-Turning in this story, and that’s another thing I’m really worried about with reading this script book. I don’t know how easy or difficult this is going to be to keep track of while you’re reading it, because in the play, you see the Time-Turning happening. You see these… they do these cool lighting effects that kind of makes it look like they’re moving through time with these waves happening, and that’s cool, but I don’t know how that is going to read. The other thing… this play basically starts off right off the bat with them floating this idea that Voldemort is back, and they do that by alleging that there are these rumors… they say that there are these rumors that Scorpius is actually the son of Voldemort, not Draco.
Eric: This doesn’t make any sense to me.
Andrew: Well, yes, I agree, but in hindsight – I was talking this over with some people – I think they put these rumors into the play to get people ready for the big reveal. Because if you learned at the very end all of a sudden, “Surprise, Delphi is the daughter of Voldemort and Bellatrix,” it would have been like, “What the…?” And it still is that, but at least when it’s introduced at the beginning that this story is going to revolve around a child of Voldemort, it gets you ready for it.
Eric: Okay, but this still doesn’t quite add up to me, because wasn’t the theory, right, that Scorpius Malfoy…? And please fill in all the gaps, because this is just Tumblr recaps and other people recaps that I have fueling me right now in my anger. But the understanding that I have is that there’s this rumor that Draco is not Scorpius’s father. I know you kind of just said that, but the idea that… so Draco and Harry interact in this play, and there’s this nasty rumor that essentially Draco’s wife, who we never meet, used a Time-Turner herself and went back and seduce Voldemort? Is that how that goes?
Andrew: I don’t know if that part involved…. I don’t know if there was talk of her using a Time-Turner.
Eric: Because she would have been a Hogwarts-aged girl at the time when the child would have… when Scorpius would have had to be conceived.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, I will say Draco was pissed that these rumors were going around, and he went to Harry and Hermione and asked them to put a stop to the rumors, because he didn’t…
Eric: Because they’re in positions of power.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. So another thing is that at the… basically, as far as I can remember, at the very beginning of the play, these rumors were being mentioned of Scorpius being the son of Voldemort. At the very beginning of the play, you just listen to this stuff, and you’re like, “Well, obviously this is not going to be what actually happens by the end of the story, so there’s going to be a twist here, because they’re not going to spoil the big surprise at the very beginning in a very uneventful manner.” It’s just out there. It’s just like, “Okay, welcome to the Cursed Child. So Voldemort may have a child.” And the other thing is Harry has… his scar is hurting in the beginning of the play, so that adds gravity to the situation. Like, “Oh, okay, maybe these rumors aren’t true, but there is something to them.” So after seeing Part 1, we still didn’t know the answer who actually was the child of Voldemort, and that’s why I couldn’t offer a review at the end of Part 1, because so much rode on how they actually handled this. And they didn’t tie it up in a bow the way I was hoping they would, because this is just something that nobody saw coming. And it’s like, “Why?” By the end of the story, the point is that Harry is teaching Delphi that she has to deal with being an orphan just like he did, and there are lots of flashbacks to Harry’s past. Old Harry watches his parents die; that was definitely one of the more emotional scenes in the play. There was open sobbing in the theater; people were very moved by it. There were very emotional moments in this story, and those were good when they were there. It’s just between all this time with the Time-Turners and the Triwizard Tournament all leading up to this dumb twist… it’s just like, “Ugh, man, I was expecting something so much different.” I will give them credit: Nobody will see any of this stuff coming. [laughs] It is truly a surprise.
Eric: But there’s a reason for that, okay? And I think this is something that… this is what really chuffs my… chews my grit or… I want to say something; it’s funny here…
Andrew: Grinds my gears.
Eric: Grinds my gears. J.K. Rowling, after the complete masterwork, in my opinion, that was Prisoner of Azkaban with its time travel, quickly realized how time travel could not be a solution to every problem, and immediately, in interviews – so far as I can recall – afterwards said that the Time-Turners were destroyed. Or it was after Book 5 when they’re in the room, and she realized the inconvenience for plot, how it was basically a big, giant hole in the plot to have something like a Time-Turner exist, because then why wouldn’t you go back and change nearly everything to the perfect outcome? And so she stated that all of the Time-Turners in the world were destroyed. Now, this is something that she obviously remembers, because that was carried over to the play, but it’s almost worse to say, “Wait a minute. Okay, they were all destroyed, but there’s actually still one, and it’s just surfaced, we didn’t know about it, and we’re going to use it.” Not only use it, but use it ad nauseum; you’re talking dozens of times in this play. And we find out, I guess, by the end that one’s a prototype, and there’s two Time-Turners, and I’m thinking, “Okay, wait, hold the phone. So there’s Time-Turning.” There’s also, Andrew, would you say a great deal of – or some of – Polyjuice Potion in this play?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. So yes, there is. And the Polyjuice Potion scenes I actually really liked, because the way they transform into the characters they’re transforming into is really impressive.
Eric: They stand behind them?
Andrew: Yeah, but they’re under… it’s two people under one cloak, and I guess there’s some magic happening underneath the stage where one of them comes up while the other one goes down, and the head… it’s just… I don’t know how to describe it. You watch it and you’re like, “Wow.”
Micah: Does the owl come in and change the…?
Andrew: No. [laughs] I don’t know how to describe it, but it was just really, really impressive.
Micah: Yeah…
Eric: Okay, but so how…? Sorry, go on, Micah.
Micah: Well, part of what I find a little bit troubling about this, at least from a storytelling standpoint – and obviously defer to Andrew, who’s seen it in person – is that it seems like they are focusing too much on what has taken place in the past and using the Time-Turner in order to make characters who are long since irrelevant or have passed on relevant again. And going through and seeing some of the summaries from Part 1 and Part 2 talking about Snape, talking about Umbridge, these are characters who probably wouldn’t have any relevance in the present day, but yet somehow… even Voldemort, right? And Bellatrix. It just… to me, why do you need to go back and reintroduce characters who fit the seven-part series that were already written? Why not develop new characters with the ones that we already knew that were going to be in this series and tell a story moving forward?
Eric: Well, and that hits on so many things that I feel to my core, essentially, because I think some of the expectations that I had for this play were just that it would be a story about Harry trying to be a father, and Harry fathering in the future. You’re talking about this story that mainly focuses on what the children are doing in the past during Harry’s fourth year; it doesn’t at all explain or move the story forward of Harry as a parent in terms of actual character development there. What it does is give another reason for some of these characters to relive the past. But I think that – I mean, I’m going to come out and say it – I think it goes directly against the message of the Harry Potter story of the first seven books, which is accepting death and accepting those who’ve loved us pass us. And I have no doubt it’s a heartwarming scene towards the climax of the play, when you get to see Lily and James be murdered in front of Harry, and he gets to watch it and sob hysterically, and I think I read something that said there’s not a dry eye in the audience. I believe that. But ultimately, these are things that Harry had to have long ago come to terms with. I think he had to come to terms with it when he was 11, if not sooner, and so bringing them up again is not only just torturous to Harry, but ultimately, doesn’t really accomplish anything except make him sadder. And it’s not at all moving the story forward, bringing back Voldemort, bringing back Umbridge, bringing back… it’s almost as if you can’t possibly tell a story without these characters that’s Harry Potter, but I know that’s not the case. I know Jo is completely capable of telling a Harry Potter story without Voldemort in it, period, but she didn’t, and that’s really upsetting.
Andrew: I can hear it in your voice!
Eric: Sorry.
Andrew: No, it’s fine. Here’s the thing: This is – and Richard at Hypable put it this way – this is a West End production. This is a self-contained story. You go in, things change, and by the time you leave, nothing has really happened. Not much about the world of Harry Potter changes once you’re done reading or seeing the story.
Eric: It’s self-contained.
Andrew: Yes, Hermione is now Minister of Magic, which is totally awesome. Yes, it turns out Petunia Dursley died a few years ago; that’s too bad. Yes, evidently Voldemort and Bellatrix had a baby. [laughs] But like Micah was saying, there aren’t… this does not advance the story. This is an afternoon at the theater for entertainment. Like I said, the story is fun, the magic is cool, the special effects are impressive, but this is not the eighth story. They should not be calling this the eighth story. I don’t know what it is yet, but the eighth story implies that it’s a continuation, and it’s just really not that. You look at Barnes & Noble; every damn Barnes & Noble right now in America has a sign saying, “Harry Potter is back.” It implies that there’s a new series upon us, and when you see this, when you read this, you won’t feel that way.
Eric: I can just imagine seeing the show and being like, “Oh, here’s this other old character that we didn’t think we’d see in an alternate universe,” of which the show has several. In an alternate universe where Snape is a lot… alternate universes in Harry Potter? Give me a break!
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Why would you even employ that story device? You’re J.K. Rowling; you have 100,000 other possible ways to go with the story.
Micah: Of course.
Eric: Or even if she only authorized this story and let someone else write it. Why would you go there?
Micah: That, to me, is the biggest concern, is that it is self-contained and you don’t progress the story any further than what you really knew, maybe with a few plot twists, after having read the epilogue in Deathly Hallows. And I’m just kind of still going through and reading this – I read it initially – but going through it again, is it the understanding that the kids go back in time to the first task, they stop Cedric from defeating the dragon, but that isn’t enough, so they go back a second time to stop him from winning the second task?
Andrew: Right, because after they try to change the first task, they actually screw things up. And then after the second task, they screw things up even more. And these alternate realities bring characters back to life. For example, Professor Umbridge, she becomes the Headmistress of Hogwarts.
Micah: Right.
Andrew: There’s also Severus Snape comes back to life.
Micah: So the list here is pretty extensive, at least from what I’m seeing. And this is after having gone back to alter the outcome of the second task. So Ron is married to Padma, and they have a son. Hermione teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts, and is single.
Andrew: And miserable. She’s not happy.
Eric: Augh.
Micah: Rose is never born, Albus Severus is never born, Harry was killed in Dumbledore’s Army, and as you mentioned, Umbridge is the Headmistress of Hogwarts, and Lord Voldemort is in charge of the wizarding world.
Andrew: And they have Voldemort Day at the school. [laughs]
Micah: Wow.
Eric: And don’t they have a secret handshake where they all pronounce “For Voldemort and Valor”?
Andrew: Yeah, something like that.
Eric: I mean, it’s like, “Well, hey, hang on a sec,” because they all of a sudden are okay with saying his name? Because then again, he’s the Dark Lord. Isn’t he supposed to instill fear in his subjects?
Andrew: And the Voldemort Day logo is what’s on the new shirts that you can buy going into Part 2.
Eric: Okay, that’s cool. That’s good to know.
Andrew: It’s cool, but it’s like, “The F?”
Micah: Well, putting that aside for a second, this is where the first part ends, right? When you learn that Voldemort is in control.
Andrew: I believe the last thing you see is Umbridge coming out and mentioning Voldemort Day, and then around the theater, you see the Voldemort Day logo, yeah.
Eric: Oh, so you don’t actually see Voldemort at the end of Part 1?
Andrew: No, no, that’s reserved till the end of Part 2.
Eric: That’s pretty cool.
Micah: Yeah, I mean, that is certainly… it’s reminiscent, I guess, in a way, of how Deathly Hallows – Part 1 concludes, right, when Voldemort gets the Elder Wand?
Andrew: Yeah, essentially. But it’s just so, so, so, so, so much fan service, and that’s why it’s being compared to fanfiction, because you see all these things… it’s just… I can’t… reading this is going to be crazy. I just can’t even… I know I keep saying this, but I can’t fathom how this is going to read. “Oh, surprise, Umbridge is back. Oh, Severus Snape is back. Oh, Hermione is with Padma.” It’s like, “What?”
Eric: Well, and this is… I mean… well, again, it’s not characters at all getting over or moving forward from the past; it’s reliving them. It’s like, “Oh, of course, we’ve gone back to the fourth year, so the girl that Ron went to the Yule Ball with is clearly the one he marries, because the timeline diverged right here at this moment.” And I mean, at what point does Cedric Diggory become an angry young man who joins the Death Eaters and eventually kills Neville Longbottom? When is that revealed?
Andrew: Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of people annoyed about that.
Eric: How can they not be? Not only does it sully the name of the very first direct Voldemort victim that we experienced in the Harry Potter books, but it sullies the name of a Hufflepuff – which pisses me right off – and just assumes… I think it’s a slight on Cedric’s character to begin with, full stop, but there’s not much reward there. I mean, you can say Neville is dead without it having to be Cedric, but it’s like, what did they do? What is the point? Is there ever a feeling in the play, Andrew, when you’re watching it, that the timeline has been reversed completely, or the timeline has been altered in a way that they’ll never be able to fix it? Is there ever any real…?
Andrew: See, that’s what also bothered me about this. So by the end of Part 1… I mentioned Umbridge comes out, and I believe… she’s the one who mentions that Harry Potter has died, and it’s supposed to be a cliffhanger. This does not feel like a cliffhanger to me, because obviously Harry Potter was going to come back; obviously Umbridge wasn’t going to stay head of Hogwarts. All these things. Obviously Ron wasn’t going to stay with Padma. It’s like I could not suspend my disbelief enough, because I knew that all these things were going to be fixed. So I left the theater feeling like, “Meh. It looks great, everything’s cool, but story-wise, I can’t get into this, and I know it’s all going to be fixed.” And then my question going into Part 2 was “Just how much is going to be fixed? If they make some of these permanent, then that makes it better, because all this…” There were stakes.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: There was genuine… you had reason to anticipate Part 2. But I had this feeling deep down that they were going to reverse almost everything, because all these things were so outrageous. There wasn’t anything that you thought would actually stick.
Eric: There’s another point I want to make here, too, which is… so the Time-Turners… going back to Amos Diggory asking Harry to use a Time-Turner. Harry and Hermione have the Time-Turner at the Ministry, and Scorpius and Albus have to Polyjuice themselves to break into the Ministry to get it?
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: Okay. So again, you get Polyjuice Potion used while breaking into the Ministry to steal something which probably hangs over your neck. This is a complete recycling of plot from earlier books, isn’t it? Am I wrong?
Andrew: No, yeah, yeah. But this goes back to the fan service. I guess they thought that people just want to see more of this, but without stakes.
Eric: But it’s the same! It’s not new. It’s not exciting.
Andrew: I know.
Eric: It’s just the same. And this is something that I’ve been saying for years relating to the Harry Potter books – I know the opinion is shared – that it’s possible Polyjuice Potion in general was overused one or two many times over the course of the seven books. It’s a great thing in Book 2, but it just keeps coming back. And same with unregistered Animagus. There’s a couple things that are just errors in plot, just in the fact that there are conveniences taken. It’s like, “Because we’re already familiar with this one thing, so we’re going to use it and use it and use it.” So if you feel that it’s overused to begin with in Book 7, either Polyjuice Potion or, for some reason, Time-Turners, think about how people will feel after this play comes out. And you’re like… I mean, if it were me – and I could not possibly hope to ever compare myself to a brilliant mind as J.K. Rowling – but I would have stayed way the well away from Polyjuice Potion. I would have stayed way the well away from Time-Turners, especially… she learned that lesson in Book 3; you just don’t go back to these things. You just don’t. It’s bad storytelling, it’s not interesting, it’s not telling anything new…
Andrew: Right.
Eric: … and you fall into this trap of telling this story that is just recycled plot. And I don’t know how she could fall into this trap. I don’t know how anyone could fall into this trap.
Andrew: It’s because she didn’t come up with this idea, I guess. In her defense, this was not her… we don’t know how much of this was her idea. I’m sure… obviously, she signed off on all this. Obviously, she signed off on the Voldemort/Bellatrix thing. But let’s take a moment to talk about a couple positive things. [laughs]
Eric: Okay, that’s fair. That’s fair.
Andrew: We’ve been very negative so far, so let’s now be positive. First of all, concerning Time-Turning and Polyjuice Potion and whatnot, one of my favorite scenes – and most of my favorite scenes are in Part 1 of this play, by the way – my favorite scene was when under Polyjuice Potion, Albus, Scorpius, and Delphi, I believe it is, go into Hermione’s office at the Ministry of Magic to get the Time-Turner. Hermione’s office at the Ministry of Magic is very Hermione, and there’s this scene where they have to find the Time-Turner hidden in a bookcase, but there’s these riddles going on with the bookcase that they have to solve, and they get sucked into the bookcase.
Eric: Whoa.
Andrew: And again, this is a moment where you’re watching and you’re really blown away by how they’re being sucked out and kicked back out of the bookcase. It’s really good. And then the other thing… and I would say this was the most J.K. Rowling moment of the story. Again, this happens in Part 1. It’s when Harry and… or sorry, Albus. [laughs] I keep wanting to call the kids their parents’ names.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: It’s when Albus and Scorpius are on the Hogwarts Express, and I can’t remember what the reason was that they wanted to get off the train, but they want to get off the train, and to do that, they have to hop on top of the train and then jump off. Well, it turns out that the trolley lady secretly for all these years… you know, the “Anything off the trolley, dears?” lady?
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: Turns out that she secretly is the one who’s in charge of making sure that all the kids actually stay on the train.
Eric: Okay…
Andrew: So she comes on top of the train with her cart and turns into this evil demon witch, [laughs] who’s desperate to get them back onto the train. And the scene is very action-packed, and the wind’s blowing everywhere and stuff. It was really well done, and it was just… the reason I loved it so much was it just was one of these things that you know that J.K. Rowling probably had this idea in her head all this time, that the trolley lady is actually really hardcore serious about keeping all the kids on the train. I think at one point she mentions that Fred and George tried to jump off at one point, and she had to handle them the same way as she did Albus and Scorpius. So I really loved that. I thought that was very J.K. Rowling; I imagine she’s had that in her head for a while, and she finally decided to put it out here.
Micah: It’s fan service.
Andrew: No, no.
Micah: You don’t think so?
Andrew: No.
Micah: No, and I’m not saying that in a bad way.
Andrew: Oh.
Eric: I think that actually comments in a unique… well, I think that comments on a… it adds something unique to this story.
Andrew: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: Instead of… that’s probably like, “Okay, you can see how that might be canon compliant,” whereas all the rest of this crap…
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Because you never would have suspected that the trolley lady…
Micah: Right.
Eric: … had a secret job.
Micah: What I’m saying… by fan service, and I mean that in a good way…
Andrew: Okay.
Micah: … that to your point, she clearly, at some juncture when she was writing these books, had it in the back of her mind that the trolley lady was, in fact, some creature that had the ability to keep all the kids on the train through her own means, and that is something that I think I would have appreciated sitting in the theater watching this, so I do like that.
Eric: Yeah, an interesting tidbit. Not at all center stage, but certainly very interesting.
Andrew: Yeah. It was center stage, though. I mean, it was five solid minutes, at least.
Eric: Oh, yeah, if it gets its own scene. Oh, wow.
Andrew: Yeah, it was very prominent.
Eric: So is it true…? I’m just actually… at this point, I’ve just got it broken down into a spoiler document. Is it true that when Albus takes Polyjuice Potion and transforms into Ron, he then has to make out with the real Hermione multiple times?
Andrew: Yes. Okay, this was also a really good scene, [laughs] because you’re watching this knowing that it’s actually Scorpius who’s pretending to be Ron, and it’s completely hilarious, and Hermione is really taken aback by it. So I really loved that.
Eric: Okay, all right. So why do you think they chose Amos Diggory? And why is Albus so moved by this notion that he has to save Cedric Diggory? He never met Cedric Diggory.
Andrew: Good question. So Albus… let’s back up a little bit. Albus obviously goes to Hogwarts, Sorted into Slytherin, is not happy that he’s not Sorted into Gryffindor. He sucks at magic at school; he’s just not good at it. He’s not…
Eric: He sucks at magic, and can’t ride a broom, right?
Andrew: Yes, yes. He’s not finding his place at Hogwarts, so he ends up one day overhearing… he wants to do something good, so he ends up overhearing one day… I’m forgetting how Harry and Amos get together and how Albus overhears it, but Albus hears Harry and Amos talking about the Time-Turner, and Amos is talking about how badly he wants to bring his son back to tell him how much he loves them, or something along those lines. And so Albus realizes that this can be his thing. This is how he can prove himself, by bringing back Cedric.
Eric: Ohh, okay.
Andrew: So that’s his motivation.
Eric: To go back… how do they do this, then? What’s the actual mechanism of Time-Turning? Because I did the math as soon as the first plot summary of Part 1 came out. I did the math, and if they go back 22 years to Harry’s fourth year, they would need to literally turn the Time-Turner 199,600 times, if it’s one turn for every hour, like in Dumbledore’s quote in Book 3. So do they sit there on stage and turn the Time-Turner 199,600 times?
Andrew: [laughs] No, of course they don’t.
Eric: Because that would be a longer than two hour play. How do they so precisely get back to where they want to go? What has changed?
Andrew: I don’t know if they get into that, really. I don’t know…
Eric: Okay.
Andrew: Yeah, I know one rule with the initial Time-Turner is that there’s a time limit on it. You can only be time traveling for so long. I can’t remember if it was two minutes or five minutes.
Eric: Five minutes, right?
Andrew: Okay. But then there’s another Time-Turner introduced later in the play, and that one… so it ends up there wasn’t just one Time-Turner still hanging around; there are two.
Eric: This is too much. This is where it gets into fanfiction territory! People might find that offense; you say, “Oh, it’s fanfic,” or they might find the Twilight comparison offensive. I honestly don’t think Twilight overused something as ridiculously as this. It’s just, “Oh, wait, there’s this. Oh, wait, there’s this.” It’s these cheap surprises…
Andrew: Just conveniently available.
Eric: Convenient… this is the opposite of a Harry Potter story to me. A Harry Potter story… think about Book 6 and how well plotted each of the insights into Voldemort’s past – his childhood, growing up – are, how meticulously the story is laid out to the tragic moment where Dumbledore could not be saved but must be sacrificed in order to cause what happens next to come, and Snape manages to survive only because the unique sets of circumstances that were put upon him by the Unbreakable Vow at the beginning of the book, and everything else that has to do with… it’s so brilliant, and this is just a constant series of “No, wait, but!” misdirection, but not even the good kind of misdirection. But it just seems like, “Why should I care about any of these things that are happening?” It’s Harry’s fourth year, which just… that alone just… I wouldn’t have been able to pay attention. I’m just like, “What? Goblet of…? What am I missing? Am I missing something here?” And it’s Cedric Diggory. That’s weird, because again, he’s the first victim. So it’s like, leave that alone. His death clearly meant all it was ever going to mean in that book and the books following.
Micah: Are you saying, though, that you’re almost looking for the points where you can go back to Goblet of Fire and put your finger on a page or in a chapter and say, “Oh, okay, I can see now where they would have come back, or how they could have potentially altered…?” See, for me, when you do these Time-Turning type of sequences – and I’m sure it was extremely difficult to have to write it in Prisoner of Azkaban – you have to leave the door open for the actual Time-Turning event, and the problem with this is it’s not independent of the series, because you’ve included the series, right? You didn’t progress it forward; you’ve made the series, specifically year four, such an integral part of this play, and yet you can’t go back to the text of Goblet of Fire and comb through it and say, “Okay, this is the moment when Albus came back,” or “This is how Scorpius altered this plot point. I can see how this would have taken place.” You can’t visualize it within the context of the normal series, yet that’s what I think it sounds like this play is asking you to do.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: Well, I just question why year four is the backdrop. In the writing process, who…?
Andrew: Well, like I said, Albus needs to be motivated to do something, and for whatever reason, they decided that it was going to be bringing Cedric back to life. And something else that also motivates him is this line about being a spare. In Goblet of Fire, he’s described as the spare – Cedric – and Albus feels like the spare, yeah.
Eric: Ah, I can see that. Let’s talk about that. Oh, yeah, go on, Micah.
Andrew: Well, I was just going to say, there’s a touching scene at the end when Albus comes face to face with Cedric, that Albus tells Cedric how much his parents love him, which I thought was really sweet, because that was something that Amos wanted. He wanted to tell his son how much…
Eric: It’s kind of an odd thing to say to a guy who’s about to die.
Andrew: [laughs] But he doesn’t know he’s going to die yet.
Eric: It makes perfect sense, but then Cedric is… he doesn’t know he’s going to die, but it’s like, “Uhh, how’s he going to take that?”
Andrew: He knows, though.
Eric: Okay, going back to just what you said a second ago about Albus Severus feeling like a spare and not feeling like… I guess it’s from the plot preview that we got, like, “is under his father’s shadow,” right? I think it’s a pretty far stretch to say you’re under your father’s shadow, which we can all understand, and then saying flat-out that Harry and Albus detest each other, which I think is what the play basically said. I mean, isn’t there a line at some point early on where Albus says, “I wish I wasn’t your son,” and Harry says something like, “Some days I wish you weren’t either”?
Andrew: Yeah, that happens. They have a very, very…
Eric: This strained relationship…
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: … feels completely retconned, to be perfectly honest, because the scene in the epilogue – in the Deathly Hallows epilogue – is quite touching, where he says, “Hey, don’t worry, son, if you’re in Slytherin.” This whole notion that these two characters wouldn’t get along as father and son… sure, they’re father and son; they’re allowed to have some conflict, but to this degree where Harry is just sucking so hard as a dad that he cannot reach his son at all on any level…
Andrew: But that happens when you grow up.
Eric: Okay.
Andrew: I mean, yeah, I think you can hit some stressful moments with your parents. I know I have a long time ago, maybe even around Albus’s age. So I bought that. I bought all that.
Eric: So here’s a post on…
Micah: Yeah, but you didn’t go and get a Time-Turner and try and alter the future.
Andrew: Well, kids do the darnedest things, don’t they?
Eric: I think people have such ideas that have been provoked by the announcement of this play. They have such ideas that have come to the surface of what kind of parent they think Harry is going to be. I’m sad to say that I think they probably won’t see… I mean, I’m sure Harry does some real hardcore parenting in this, but it’s mostly just like, “Preserve the timeline, stop his scar from hurting, and save his son’s life.” I get it. But for me, I think people have so many different ideas of Harry, and I think we like to aggrandize our hero, that he would have a fighting shot. There’s a post on Tumblr I read, and this is from one of the Tumblrs, but it’s a quote, or it’s a summary. “Harry says he sometimes wishes Albus wasn’t his son.” The response to just that snippet is, “You mean to tell me the boy who lived under the stairs, and was abused his whole life, would even think to say something like that to his son? Get this crap the fuck out of my face.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: You understand from an out-of-context, it just seems like the craziest thing you’d ever read.
Andrew: It does, and I guess that’s one issue with these major spoilers. I think people are still going to have these big negative reactions, but I think reading all this stuff in the context of a Tumblr user and whatnot, I think you get a bit of a different impression. What you were just reading there, for example, it was pretty harsh.
Eric: Well, someone did… that was harsh. I regret actually dropping the F-bomb, actually.
Andrew: No, not that part, just in general. [laughs]
Eric: Oh. Well, somebody did the math on the whole Bellatrix pregnancy thing, and this is a reply: “I can’t effing believe Voldemort canonically nutted in someone.”
Andrew: [laughs] “Nutted.”
Micah: Wow.
Eric: Hang on. “This S-H-I-T is wild.” And this is the part where they did the math. “Imagine being Harry in fifth year and getting a vision from Voldemort’s perspective of doing someone.”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Eric: And because that’s actually essentially… I think that makes sense, because if Bellatrix were to give birth and still be in the final battle in any good shape and stuff, and the kid’s off with Rodolphus Lestrange or whatever, fine, but it would be that year when Harry is inadvertently seeing into Voldemort’s mind, which is year five. That’s the year for it. That’s the year they had to have done it. At least he has a body, but again, what…?
Micah: Do they give any more information in terms of her background?
Andrew: Nope, nope. Micah, I know you’re desperate to know when they had sex, but we do not know.
Micah: [laughs] Yes, that’s…
Andrew: I’ve lost sleep over it, not just because I’m jet-lagged.
Micah: Yeah, I can imagine. One of the things…
Eric: I just think it’s a… go on.
Micah: … that I thought was interesting about the story, at least in Part 2, was Snape. And yet again, Snape coming to the aid of a Malfoy, Snape coming to the aid of Harry’s son, in this case, and ultimately, Harry. He’s sort of the centerpiece to effectively solving this situation that has been created, and I’m interested to know how that all played out, Andrew. And again, this goes to, Eric, your point of reusing old material. But what was it like to see Snape again?
Andrew: It was… actually, Snape was the one portrayal that bothered me, because with Alan Rickman, there was this very memorable voice, this very memorable version of Snape, and you don’t hear that voice in the play that you did with Alan Rickman, and that actually bothered me. Whereas McGonagall, I could totally get behind, Dumbledore, I could totally get behind, but Snape, it just… something felt off about it. And his scenes were fine. To be honest with you, I don’t even remember them that much. I can visualize them in my head, but I can’t remember what was actually happening in them. I guess I should have had a drink or two less, but that’s beside the point.
Eric: Isn’t it…? [laughs] Were you pre-gaming the Cursed Child?
Andrew: Oh, well, they serve alcohol there as well.
Eric: Oh, yeah, it is theater. I have to say, too…
Micah: The owl delivers it.
Eric: Yeah. God, that would be awesome.
Andrew: Micah is obsessed with that owl. I think it’s the new goat on this show.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Micah: We found a new goat.
Eric: Hashtag #CursedOwl.
Andrew: Can we jump back to Bellatrix/Voldemort real quick? So it turns out… Selina discovered this; I don’t know how she found it, but it turns out someone correctly predicted the major Voldemort/Bellatrix thing in the Cursed Child nine months ago. So there’s this Reddit thread from nine months ago, and here’s this person’s theory. It’s sappy6977. So this person was theorizing about who the Cursed Child is, and they surmise that it is a child from Voldemort and Bellatrix. So she says,
“You ever notice how Bellatrix Lestrange is not there when Snape kills Dumbledore on the tower (in the book, anyways)? Why wouldn’t Voldemort’s most dangerous lieutenant, and Draco’s aunt be there? At the beginning of Half-Blood Prince, Bellatrix says something strange… ‘If I had sons, I would be glad to give them up to the service of the Dark Lord!'”
Eric: Oh, shit.
Andrew: “Notice how she said ‘sons,’ not ‘a son.’ In Deathly Hallows, it says three times that Bellatrix talked to Voldemort as a lover, and her death is the only time Voldemort is upset at someone’s death.
My theory is Bellatrix was pregnant at the beginning of Half-Blood Prince, when they saw Snape, with Voldemort’s child. She is thinking of the future and says sons instead of son because she already has one on the way. She is missing from the battle because she is off giving birth to Voldemort’s child. She changes how she speaks to him after Order of the Phoenix, and Rowling even tells us how. And it’s why Voldemort insists on Bellatrix getting rid of Nymphadora and keeping her family tree pruned. Therefore, I think the Cursed Child is Bellatrix’s child with Voldemort, and that the plot will be if a child is born bad because of their parents or if the child has a chance to be good despite.”
Eric: I think this is really sound theorying. That’s really cool. That legitimizes, essentially, the big spoiler.
Andrew: But here’s my question: So if this is true, are we to believe that J.K. Rowling came up with this all these years ago, and then let such a big fact sit dormant for nearly a decade, and then by chance…? She decides to introduce it when, by chance, people come to her about a play? That’s the part I’m not buying.
Eric: Well, maybe it was against her better judgment, because you’re supposed to leave those sorts of things… it’s like it never made it… what am I trying to say?
Andrew: So what, this would have been in the encyclopedia, if not the play?
Eric: Yeah, just to say, “Hey, there’s a void here which could have been filled by a potential child. Look at how this is…” Because I actually… you know what? I like, thanks to this Reddit user, that this sort of thing is canon possible, canon compliant. If Bellatrix happened to be pregnant, it would not only fit, but actually give insight to two or three lines, which is all you can hope for. I like that, actually, despite the fact that I hate how this whole story plays out in the show. And Bellatrix was always his most devoted follower, and that makes sense.
Micah: Yeah, I like the way that this was all put together, and I think that it could be one of those pieces of information that, if prompted, she would have responded and she would have answered. I think it’s along the lines of revealing the truth about Dumbledore and his sexuality. I think she responded to that in the way that she did because she was prompted with the question, and I don’t know that anybody ever directly asked her – and I’m sure we can look it up, or listeners can look it up – as to whether or not Voldemort and Bellatrix ever had a child. And I think maybe if she was asked the question, she would have answered it. I don’t know that it was overly integral to the plot of the story, and so I think that’s maybe why it wasn’t included. But I do think it’s something that she could have possibly had, that she just chose not to reveal. Whether it was going to be the basis for an entire West End play is another discussion altogether. I think maybe this piece just kind of fit in with what these writers ultimately wanted to do, and it became sort of the focal point around which they shaped the story.
Eric: I think… I mean, this is part of our fault for having such high expectations about this play. But I wanted the Cursed Child to be a different kind of cursed, you know? Or a different kind of… it’s almost too easy, now we say, with all the hindsight being 20/20 that it is, for a Cursed Child to be the child of someone notorious.
Andrew: So I have a theory that the Cursed Child is not just one person; it’s multiple people. So it’s Albus Severus, in that he has to live up to his father’s shadow. It’s Delphi, in that she was obviously born into a bad family. Mainly just those two. And actually, this theory makes sense when you also consider that Delphi at the end of the play – this is something else that’s kind of stupid – has wings. She can fly. And in the Cursed Child logo, we see Albus Severus sitting in that golden egg, Golden Snitch, with wings. So it’s both of those characters in one logo, it seems.
Eric: Can you…? The most pressing thing… I’ve been wanting to ask you this all night, and I totally… or for a week, but I totally forgot. There’s a moment in the owlery, which they somehow… for some reason, Albus Severus and Scorpius and Delphi are in the owlery. They want to destroy the Time-Turner there. I don’t know. Why do they go to the owlery? I don’t get it. Are they waiting for a letter? But that’s not my question.
Andrew: [laughs] Okay, good, because I don’t know the answer.
Eric: I don’t actually… yeah, yeah. There’s a moment when, apparently – from the summary I read – Delphi turns around and they notice there’s a tattoo on her back.
Andrew: Yeah.
Eric: Is she bareback? How does…?
Andrew: [laughs] Well, yes, partially.
Eric: Is she wearing a tube top? How does this…? Because this… and do students at Hogwarts not have robes at all time? What is going on here? I just… how do they see a tattoo that’s on her back?
Andrew: Well, first of all, she’s not a student at Hogwarts.
Eric: So what is she doing there?
Andrew: She went there to team up with Albus and Scorpius.
Eric: But this bothers me. Don’t you think that following the Battle of Hogwarts, they would have implemented security measures that mean if you’re not a student and not a teacher, you basically can’t show up there?
Andrew: Yeah, you would think so. I think there’s a line in the play about it being surprisingly easy to get into, or something like that. Don’t quote me on that.
Eric: That’s a complete failure. Yeah, yeah, but it’s just… J.K. Rowling said after Book 7, her heroes have made the world a better place. Hermione went into law enforcement; Harry works at the Ministry stopping Dark wizards. They all knew and were very well versed in… to the point of having lost loved ones at the foot of vulnerabilities at Hogwarts, and to have 22… or sorry, 19 years later, have developed nothing significant to protect Hogwarts from an outsider, someone who shares blood with Voldemort. They could have done a hundred enchantments to prevent that from happening; they didn’t, and that is something I think that continues to call for suspension of disbelief further than I’m willing to give.
Andrew: Yeah, no, you’re right.
Eric: So wait, so she partially has shown some skin?
Andrew: Yeah, what she’s wearing… it’s some dress of some sort. And then she turns around and she wanted… either Albus or Severus noticed… or not Severus; Scorpius notices the tattoo and is like, “Oh, what’s that?” And then that’s when the audience is supposed to understand that she’s actually not who she says she is, that she’s actually on the Dark side. And then things start to turn; she won’t give back the Time-Turner, and that’s when the boys realize she’s bad.
Eric: So I want to talk about the final battle of this play. Is it in the church?
Andrew: It’s in the church at Godric’s Hollow. Again, Harry…
Eric: Harry and Delphi… yeah, October 30, 1981. All right, Harry Potter – the Harry Potter now – is involved in fighting the enemy of this play, which is, I want to say a child, but really she’s, what, a young adult woman in a church? And there’s some spellwork, and some pews get destroyed, right? What is that like? Set up that scene. How does that go down, that confrontation?
Andrew: So the scene is pretty good. There’s a lot of dueling and whatnot. So yeah, they want to get Delphi into the church and into this particular light so everyone else can come in and attack her.
Eric: She wants to make Voldemort not give part of his soul to Harry by accident, right?
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Or just attack him at all?
Andrew: She wants to… I remember that part, but then what it ends up being is Delphi just wants to see her father. She just wants to see Voldemort. She doesn’t…
Eric: She literally could have chosen any other day in the world to go back to than the night of his death, hours from his…
Andrew: [laughs] This is what I’m saying; there’s just so much. I obviously have to reread it before I get a really strong handle on this. But the scene is good. Yeah, there’s a lot of dueling happening, there’s a lot of spells, and again, it’s the visuals that really make the scene work. Harry takes Polyjuice Potion to turn into Voldemort, to drag her into the light so the rest of them can attack her.
Eric: See, that’s torturing your characters more than is necessary, I think. Harry has to take on the physical appearance of the man who killed his parents? Sorry, that’s too much. I think that’s out of bounds, honestly.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, it did seem… and again, like you were saying before, all the Polyjuice Potion stuff; it’s just getting used again at the end of this play.
Eric: How is that always the answer? How is that…? And not being done in an interesting way, or a way that is ultimately new. I have something else to talk about here; I want to talk about diversity and Black Hermione, and all the things that were causing controversy leading into it, because there’s this issue of… and it’s sort of come out later that Rose’s role, Rose Granger-Weasley, who we love and adore, did not have a large role. She doesn’t necessarily travel around, even, with Albus and Scorpius, right?
Andrew: Right, exactly.
Eric: So her role is more or less diminished in comparison to her male counterparts. And Hermione’s role… I mean, Hermione is just like these parents; they have to go back and save things from happening. I guess… do males take center stage in this story? Are there any women whose story is being told? How is the diversity?
Andrew: Well, Rose is definitely underused, which is a shame. I thought – and Selina wrote about this on Hypable – that by the end of the play, you would see Albus, Scorpius, and Rose as the new trio, which would have been nice, but Rose ends up just being used as a love interest to Scorpius, which kind of sucks. You see her a couple times in the play…
Eric: That totally subverts… yeah, that’s like the Bechdel Test territory stuff. Failing…
Andrew: Right, right, to be more than a love interest.
Eric: Yeah, you would never think that anything in this decade produced by J.K. Rowling would have that failure.
Andrew: Right, but Hermione is very present in the play, which is good. Minerva McGonagall is also very present in the play, which is very good.
Eric: Oooh.
Andrew: I’m trying to think of other women. The trolley lady. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, we love…
Micah: Umbridge.
Andrew: Umbridge, right. Yeah, Umbridge doesn’t…
Eric: What does McGonagall do?
Andrew: She raises a fuss about the rumors about the son of Voldemort. What else? She helps Harry, Ron, and Hermione a bunch, because she is the Headmistress of Hogwarts. Yeah, she does a bunch of things.
Eric: Okay. In all realities? [laughs]
Andrew: No, not in all realities.
Eric: Oh, wait, Umbridge. Yeah, right.
Andrew: But actually, one other thing I wanted to talk about… so yeah, in terms of diversity, I don’t… yeah, Albus and Scorpius are definitely the lead children in the play, but Harry, Ron, Hermione, McGonagall are also very present as well. So I thought it balanced out all right. Oh, and of course, Delphi; she’s a woman. One thing I wanted to mention, which I thought was a big missed opportunity: Albus and Scorpius. Now, in honor of Pride Month, I want to remind everyone again that I am of the homosexual orientation, so when I was watching this play, the more I watched Albus and Scorpius’s scenes, the more I thought that by the end of this, J.K. Rowling was going to put Albus and Scorpius together romantically. And there’s one scene in particular when there’s a rocky part in their friendship; there’s a scene where they’re kind of dancing, in a way, on staircases – not together, apart – but they’re looking at each other. They’re always one staircase away, so to speak. And you watch this scene, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, she’s actually going to do it. She’s going to introduce a gay couple in the world of Harry Potter.” And…
Eric: On screen, or actually in the text.
Andrew: In canon, yeah, whatever. And it was so disappointing by the end when she didn’t do that, because you see these two, their friendship blossom… initially, they’re unsure of each other because they’re the sons of Harry and Draco. Then they’re put in the same House, which is super awesome, because then they become friends almost instantly. They just become friends; they don’t worry about the history that their dads had between each other.
Eric: Because let’s face it, Albus hates his dad, so it’s like, “Hey!” [laughs]
Andrew: Right, right. And they’re just such good friends, and they have these moments where they really establish their friendship. And I’m not going to sit here and blame J.K. Rowling, but this would have been a perfect opportunity to introduce a gay couple. She’s obviously been very supportive of equality, of LGBT rights. Just thinking about Orlando recently, she’s been very outspoken in supporting the gay community at this difficult time. And yet, the only time she’s introduced a gay character has been Dumbledore.
Eric: In an interview question.
Andrew: Right, in an interview question; she just kind of put tape over it. This would have been a beautiful opportunity to do it… and trust me, you see this play, you see these two, I think you will think this as well, because I was talking to Hypable people after Part 1, because the staircase thing that I just mentioned is in Part 1. And I was talking this over with people, and they agreed with me that there was definitely an opportunity here to put them together, and that would have been a great twist! That would have excited the fandom! That would have had people talking. That’s a change… that’s advancing the story! And it just doesn’t happen.
Eric: We’re talking about Jo not going far enough to diversify… to bring the story forward, to bring more inclusivity of concepts that were lacking in the ’90s or early 2000s in popular literature to life, to light.
Andrew: Yeah, it bummed me out. And especially after what happened in Orlando, I just can’t help but think about it more with how outspoken J.K. Rowling’s been. Just today at the Palace Theatre, they put a rainbow flag on the front of the Palace Theatre.
Eric: And you’re like, “Oh, hello, play that doesn’t have a single gay character.”
Andrew: Exactly. [laughs] Well, Dumbledore is in it, but…
Eric: Yeah. His portrait, isn’t it?
Andrew: It is his portrait.
Eric: Is it only ever his portrait?
Andrew: It’s always his portrait. But it was actually really good. Actually, in Part 2, there was a really, really, really great scene between Harry and Dumbledore; that was another thing I really liked about the play.
Eric: Did you like Moaning Myrtle?
Andrew: Yeah! Oh, yeah, I forgot about her. Yeah, she’s in it. She has a pretty funny scene. It’s typical Moaning Myrtle. It was good.
Eric: Yeah, shows up when you least expect it? There was one thing that I didn’t understand until very, very recently, when Hypable published its article – I think it was today or whatever – about Petunia. Aunt Petunia… it’s revealed that she died. I guess they don’t state how?
Andrew: Yeah, they don’t say how, but we learn that she did die before what happens in Cursed Child, and she leaves the blanket for Harry that Hagrid delivered him in to Privet Drive all those years ago, and that blanket ends up coming into play later to send a message through time. Couple other comments here; people are listening to our livestream on Patreon. Nikki says, “How on earth did they get a piece of Voldemort to make the Polyjuice Potion?” I’m actually forgetting. I’m not sure if it’s said. It must be.
Eric: I read that Hermione just transfigures him. Is that it? Is it Polyjuice for sure? Or does she just kind of take his nose away with magic?
Andrew: Hmm. Well, that doesn’t make sense either, does it?
Eric: I’m not sure.
Andrew: Because why couldn’t you just do that with every…? I can’t remember what it was.
Eric: Well, you’ve got to mimic the appearance. Or does the actor who plays Voldemort play Harry once he’s been transformed?
Andrew: I…
Eric: Do you know what I’m saying?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. My brain is fried. I’m melted here. [laughs]
Eric: Okay, yeah. We did just do… to be fair, we did two podcast episodes tonight, and this is the end of the second one.
Andrew: Elizabeth says, “Why can’t two dudes be friends without being gay?” Of course, of course, they can be friends without being gay; it’s just there was a really good opportunity here for J.K. Rowling to represent a major number of her fans, give them some representation, and totally blew it, frankly.
Eric: Yeah, I don’t think that’s unfair to say.
Andrew: So that’s it for now. Obviously, we’re going to have so much more to say; we’re going to bring on other people who saw the Cursed Child. We can’t wait for everybody to read the script books, and maybe a few of you see the play, so we can discuss more with you all in greater detail. Micah, how you feeling about all this right now?
Micah: I just… I mean, I’m still interested to see it; I don’t know that I actually will. I’m interested in reading the script; I don’t know if I actually will, just given the information that I have now. And I guess, in a way, that’s how a lot of people are going to react. They may be disappointed with what they read, but I would almost look to you… take your recommendation. If you’re not able to go and see this live and in person – which, let’s face it, a majority of people aren’t going to be able to do – what is your thought on it? Is it that we should just take the book and read it and live with that, or just let it all go and don’t even bother?
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Andrew: I think it should be read. This is still a very important piece of Harry Potter history happening here, and for that reason, I think everybody should read it, although I have been seeing comments from people saying that they may not after reading these spoilers. Because I think you should draw conclusions for yourself; I don’t think we should be the final say on this.
Micah: That’s the most important thing to me, anyway. And I think I said this in the other episode, is that we can sit here, we can discuss the plot and the characters and the story as much as we want, but for those people who are able to make it to see this play, think of it as an experience. Think of it as sort of all-encompassing, all the different pieces, Andrew, that you’ve touched on that make it what it is. And certainly the story is a huge part of that, but I think that when you’re going to… in a way… and I guess I am making the comparison. Think about going to the theme park, right? You’re going on one of these rides. You’re not 100% there for the story, right? You’re there for the experience, and you’re there for the ride, and that’s kind of how you should view this. I don’t… we’ve always said, for the number of episodes that we spent talking about the Cursed Child, that it is not the eighth book; that is just how all the powers that be out there like to market this thing. This is not a continuation of the Harry Potter series; it’s its own entity, and it’s different. It’s definitely different. It’s not what we’ve come to know and appreciate, and it’s just… the story is not what we expected, but I think that having gone and seen it, you probably have a little bit of a different type of appreciation for it than just sitting on the other side of a computer and reading Tumblr or Reddit or social media…
Eric: As we are, yeah.
Micah: … whatever it is. It just seems like a story to you, and again, that’s not what it is. It’s not just the story.
Andrew: I really like that theme park comparison, because if you think about the story in Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride, the story makes no sense.
Eric: It’s all these things conglomerating… smashed together. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, exactly! It’s just a quick trip through the world of Harry Potter to please fans, and that really is actually what’s happening in the Cursed Child too. It’s a crowd pleaser. It brings back a bunch of characters you may be missing. There are some surprises, and then it all gets reset back to normal like nothing ever happened, just like the ride.
Eric: So was it pleasing to see Ron and Hermione get their souls sucked out by Dementors?
Andrew: That was really cool, too, because they floated up into the sky. But yeah, again, the visuals, the visuals, the visuals. It’s all about the visuals.
Eric: Yeah, okay. I have two final questions, and then I swear, I promise I’m done.
Andrew: Okay.
Eric: But Ginny. Did you forget to mention Ginny when you were talking about all the major characters?
Andrew: Ginny… well, yeah, yeah, okay. So Ginny is definitely there, and she has a bunch of scenes, but again, she’s underutilized.
Eric: Okay. And then my other question: Pigeons?
Andrew: Excuse me? [laughs]
Eric: Pigeons? Harry is afraid of pigeons?
Andrew: Is that mentioned?
Eric: Oh, you missed it. Apparently there’s a line at the end when Harry is talking to Albus, and he’s like, “Actually, I’m afraid of a lot of things. I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of pigeons.”
Andrew: Well, there you go. A new factoid about Harry.
Eric: Okay, okay.
Andrew: I do vaguely remember that. I thought it was just supposed to be a joke to lighten it up.
Eric: Yeah. I guess we can’t take these things too literally. [laughs]
Andrew: Well, I’m sure it’s true, but it was just also funny. Like, “Pigeons? Haha. How random, Harry.”
Eric: So Harry and Albus end the play on decent enough terms, which is how we remember seeing them at King’s Cross in the epilogue, right?
Andrew: I would answer that, but you promised two questions, and now we’re at three. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, yeah, great. Okay. Hey, that’s fine, guys. Well, look, there’s still some mysteries to be revealed. And like Micah was saying, we’re not by any means the definitive thing. And Micah and I haven’t seen the play, and it’s really something.
Andrew: Yeah. To wrap up briefly, why did you guys choose to read the spoilers? I don’t think we answered that yet. Why didn’t you wait until the book?
Eric: Oh, that’s a good question. Micah?
Micah: To do this podcast.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: No, I think in this day and age, it’s just the desire to know, and the fact that you can have it that readily accessible to you. If you’re talking about, let’s say, even 15 years ago, 20 years ago, and something like this… we know that it’s going to be released and it’s going to be a play; there’s just not the mediums out there that allow you to find out how something like this plays itself out, right? So when I said I did it in part for the podcast, I’m not lying. I’m telling the truth. I mean, I think in order to knowledgeably have this discussion with the both of you, I think you need to have the context for what took place. I mean, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have just done the spoiler episode at all; it wouldn’t have made sense. But I just think that there’s also the chance that you get spoiled, right? I mean, we were talking about this earlier: For all that can be done to make sure that you don’t find out what happens, the chance that you find out what happens is still pretty high, so you might as well spoil yourself before somebody else does, if at the end of the day, you don’t care. If I were going to see this, let’s say in a month or two months from now, I probably wouldn’t have gone ahead and read it.
Eric: Yeah, I’m kind of with you, certainly on that last point. I knew that I was not going to see it, so it allowed me to be more interested in seeking out spoilers. Also, I just genuinely wanted to know. There’s a certain extent to which I would have read spoilers, had the spoilers I’ve been reading continued to be positive. And for its part, the Hypable articles, those two spoilers interested me in finding out more. Because what I wanted in my heart, deeply, was to just hear that this play was excellent, that it was an experience, that… because I was still on the line about seeing it one day. And who knows? I may still. But it was a situation where I only wanted to read spoilers to the point where I knew that it was a story that I could get behind. And as that dream crumbled and disintegrated in front of me, I could not help but continue to be sucked in by the vacuum, essentially, of this… essentially my expectations being a little off completely or shattered, or dreams and hopes being reworked. And I ended up just getting so involved with, “How could this exist in this way? How could this play be approved by JKR? How could this really be what happens? How could this…?” And essentially, it consumed me to the point where I needed to know everything about it, because I still wanted to make peace with it, I still wanted to understand why these choices were made, and that’s a quest that I think I’ll be continuing throughout the script release next month, but also in interviews that follow when Jo is… when hashtag #KeepTheSecrets is finally over, and when we can finally all just have an open discussion about this, I’m sure that any of the points I’ve made, you’ve made, we’ve made tonight, will be clarified not just by us, but by people who are smarter than us, who are able to actually do written literary criticism at length. Books will be published about that play, and Jo will have a proper form in which to respond, and I honestly think that is just my pursuit, is finding out if this can’t be the play that we all thought it was, or the play that I personally wanted, why the hell is it the play that we got? And I just want to know. I’m obsessed now with knowing, and that drove me. Sorry, that was a long answer.
Andrew: On that note, we all are counting down still to the release of the script book on July 31. We’ll be at GeekyCon for it. GeekyCon.com. They’re going to have a midnight release party; we will be there. We will be reading it as soon as we get our hands on it. I can’t wait. I’m seriously excited to see how it all plays out in script form.
Micah: As long as there’s a pigeon. Or an owl.
Andrew: An owl. Micah and the owl.
Eric: I love this. I ship this. Do we call it Mowl?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Thank you to those who are supporting us on Patreon. A reminder that now is the time to sign up, because we are going to… we need everyone to be signed up before July 31 in order to receive a T-shirt a few months later. You’ll also have access to bonus MuggleCast segments, you’ll receive signed album art, you’ll receive book readings by the three of us, and a heck of a lot more. I’m going to write something about the Cursed Child play experience.
Eric: Yeah, and I’m going to post photos of buttons before we do it socially, so you’re going to see some buttons that we have going to Indy PopCon and GeekyCon.
Andrew: Excellent.
Eric: There will definitely be ones left over.
Andrew: Cool. Thanks, everyone, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: And I’m Micah.
Andrew: See everybody next time for Episode 296. Goodbye.