Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #319, Jacob
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Eric Scull: This is MuggleCast, the Harry Potter podcast discussing everything about J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world. This week’s episode is brought to you by Harry’s, the shaving company that’s fixing shaving. Go to Harrys.com/MuggleCast to get your free trial set, including a razor handle, five-blade cartridge, and shave gel. That’s Harrys.com/MuggleCast.
Micah Tannenbaum: Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 319. I am here alongside just one other host this week.
Eric: Who is it?
Micah: I don’t know, Eric. Who is it?
Eric: Who is it going to be? [laughs] Well, Micah – and Eric, myself – it’s a two-man show.
Micah: It is.
Eric: Andrew…
Micah: Andrew is on holiday. How’s that for tying back to the last few episodes?
Eric: [laughs] Oh, man.
Micah: What holiday is he…? No, he’s on holiday.
Eric: He’s on The Holiday.
Micah: No, that’s not really true either. He is in the process of making a move, geographically speaking, and wasn’t able to join us this week, so we had to step in and just take care of things here.
Eric: Show must go on, after all. But he sends his wishes. Actually, for those of you following on Patreon, or those of you who follow him on Twitter, Andrew posted a little life update today. He found a restaurant in Utah called The Thunderbird.
Micah: Yeah, I saw this, actually, just as I was logging into Patreon before sitting down to record, and what I actually want to know the answer to is… it says it is the home of the homemade pie, right? Am I reading that correctly?
Eric: That is what the sign says, yes. But when it says homemade, it says…
Micah: Oh, well…
Eric: It’s spelled H-O-hyphen-M-A-D-E.
Micah: Well, there’s also a very provocative image below that copy, so…
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, yeah. But the best part of this sign is the Thunderbird, which is perched atop this majestic looking mahogany… a fake wooden thick sign, but it’s a neon bird.
Micah: Yeah, well, what I’m thinking is Frank moved from Phoenix to Utah to open… well, maybe it’s not… I mean, I don’t know how long Thunderbirds generally live, but…
Eric: Probably a thousand years.
Micah: Oh, well, in that case, it could be his restaurant. I mean, we’re only talking about the 1920s here. But maybe it’s a family chain; maybe Frank Jr. and whatever comes after…
Eric: The third? [laughs]
Micah: Yeah, exactly. The third and the fourth…
Eric: Father and son.
Micah: … have opened up this great restaurant in the middle of Utah, and Andrew got the chance… and so we’re going to have to ask him about the pie on the next episode, and I’m going to be severely disappointed in him if he did not…
Eric: If he didn’t try the pie? Yeah, yeah, I agree. Well, so this is Thunderbird Restaurant… actually, he tagged us on Twitter, and a picture of his receipt, but as a result I was able to find out where this is in Utah. It’s in Mount Carmel Junction, and there may be more than one shop, not sure, but this Thunderbird restaurant, which has just the coolest, coolest-looking Thunderbird icon on the receipt as well, in Mount Carmel Junction, Utah.
Micah: All right.
Eric: So yeah, really hope he tried the pie.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: If not… I mean, honestly, this is a place that I would go to instantly, and I think that…
Micah: Now, wait, you said he showed us the receipt. Now, is there any pie listed on the receipt?
Eric: No, he didn’t show us… because I’m sure he’s hiding his credit card, the last four of his credit…
Micah: Oh, all right.
Eric: So he didn’t… it’s not itemized; it’s just the top of the receipt.
Micah: Well, we’ll get to the bottom of it.
Eric: Yeah, it said his server is Nicki, he’s eating alone, and it was 11:52 a.m., so I’m sure he was in there for lunch. But Andrew is moving cross country, but still, he actually… the cool story, which he told on Patreon, is that he was walking into a restaurant for lunch, and he looked across the street and happened to see this place. And this place, it’s not even… it’s so flamboyantly Harry Potter; it’s absolutely 100%… Thunderbird. It’s there on the sign.
Micah: What are the chances? No, I mean, in all seriousness, I know we do a Potter podcast, but what are legitimately the chances that you would happen across a diner called The Thunderbird?
Eric: It’s astronomical. I mean, I want to know if he was just going to go to a Chipotle or a Cracker Barrel. What’s across the street from this that he was going to go into? [laughs]
Micah: The Niffler.
Eric: Actually, wait, I have the address; I can look at… yeah, he was going to go into The Niffler. [laughs] But the Thunderbird won out. Well, I’m sure… more on this developing story, folks.
Micah: Yeah. We have some real news to get to, although to me, that’s just as interesting. A couple of news stories here at the top of the show, and then we’re going to talk about Jacob to continue our character discussions.
Eric: Jacob Kowalski.
Micah: We started last episode with Queenie, and we have some listener feedback on that discussion. We’ll get to that as well.
News
Micah: But two news stories here that, Eric, I think you thought warranted discussion, and I agree. And the first is that the Cursed Child has apparently been filmed. Now, do you want to explain that a little bit?
Eric: Yeah, a showing of Cursed Child at the theater in the West End has been filmed, so they set up cameras. News came in… Andrew reported it on Hypable, and he has the tweet from…
Micah: Live from The Thunderbird.
Eric: [laughs] But it was at a taping. They just had to… you have to tell people when you’re recording, and it was simply that signs were put up at the theater saying, “Today’s performance is being filmed for archive purposes.” It was a person called Jordan Simmons who at-replied Hypable on Twitter, and also the Rowling Library on Twitter had a different shot of the camera itself, and it’s a pretty… I mean, I don’t really know from looking at it, but it looks like a pretty heavy-duty camera, and they’re essentially filming it, the sign says, for archive purposes. So this is a natural sort of thing to expect around this time of year, because all of the original cast of the Cursed Child, after what I’m sure is close to, well, several hundred performances, is about to run out their contracts, and so what you’ll have when you go see the Cursed Child is different performers than the original cast. But they seem to be recording it for posterity, and so there will be, for whatever that means, a filmed version of yesterday’s play, of yesterday’s performance of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which I assume was a combined performance of Parts 1 and 2.
Micah: Right. So what this means, everybody, is that the owl is officially retiring. He will not make…
Eric: [laughs] It’s a little late for that.
Micah: Oh. Well, anyway…
Eric: That was just one show. You know it was just one show.
Micah: It was just… it was the one show that Andrew made it to, right?
Eric: Yeah, well, because he was in the first ever preview. Augh, that guy and his luck. But yeah, what it means is if they ever had wanted to release a videotape, at least we know that physically one exists, that one was taken, that this footage has been captured.
Micah: Right.
Eric: People saw it, it’s been captured with an audience, so you would even get the laughter and the tears, I mean, rather than doing sort of an undercover performance where nobody’s in the audience, and it’s just… I mean, this is all officially done, it’s all above board here that they are filming it, but the point, I guess, is that no official plans have been announced.
Micah: Of course not, not right now, but there’s a very good chance that down the line, when this show is no longer in the West End or on Broadway, that they could release a sort of… I don’t want to call it a movie, but a DVD or a Blu-ray of either of those productions. I’m not as well-versed in that area, but I would assume that they do that sort of thing with Broadway plays. So yeah, I think it’s also an opportunity down the road, of course, for people who may have wanted to see Cursed Child but can’t make it to London, or can’t make it to New York for any number of reasons, and so it gives those fans the opportunity to. Because we’ve spoken so much on this podcast in particular about how Cursed Child is an experience. You take the story, and there’s a lot to be said about that, a lot of criticism, but to actually go and to experience Cursed Child is completely different…
Eric: The production.
Micah: Yeah, it’s a completely different type of situation. It’s like going to the theme park; I think I’ve made that comparison on the show before. You’re going for the experience of it; you’re not necessarily going for the plot. And so I think that it’s a very good chance that this gets released somewhere down the line, and wouldn’t be surprised if it’s made available online, maybe for free. That would be nice.
Eric: That would be nice.
Micah: I don’t know. I say that, but then I think if I paid to get a ticket to go see this in London or New York, I probably wouldn’t want to just be able to jump onto Pottermore and watch it for free.
Eric: Yeah, hypothesizing with you… I mean, it’d probably be like a $5 viewing ticket, but it would go to Lumos.
Micah: Yeah, that, I think, is cool, because then it opens it up to the international fan who…
Eric: Will never make it to London.
Micah: … otherwise would never get the opportunity, exactly.
Eric: Yeah. Well, and I mean, I will say, though, there are also very… there are a lot of internal reasons to have a film, a video of this as well. The costume department, future actors, future producers, actually, who may want to do a unique or different take. The other thing is that as Cursed Child goes on in its longevity as a stage play and a production, the British production is one way of doing things, but frankly, it’s a play; it’s an organic sort of thing. The New York play might want to do or compose a scene differently. Maybe they’ll give the owl a second chance in New York, or they’ll use pigeons. [laughs] So it can be anything. I mean, I think there’s a lot of internal reasons why they would have… and the sign does say, “For archive purposes.” I mean, I think that can be as misleading as we want it to be. Our imaginations are sparked. It will be exciting to see this film with the original cast, and because it’s a moment in time, and it’s probably got to be the one of the best-selling… certainly nine Olivier Awards-winning play.
Micah: Yeah, I agree. And so we’ll continue to keep an eye on that video and see exactly where it ends up over the course of the next several months, year, however long it takes, but we’ll be able to look back on Episode 319 and say we told you so.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: So one other bit of news…
Eric: That’s the only reason we do this podcast anyway, right? Is to years later come back and say, “Told you so.”
Micah: Right. Yeah, we have 12 years of episodes to point back to and to be proven wrong about, so why not prove ourselves right every once in a while? Feel good about it. But we are actually… today we’re recording on May 4, which is Star Wars Day for most of us nerds out there.
Eric: May the Fourth be with you, Micah.
Micah: Yes, and you. Those were not the Nifflers I was looking for.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: But another key date in the Harry Potter series happened just a few days prior to this. May 2, going all the way back to 1998, if you’re staying with the Potter timeline, was the Battle of Hogwarts, and J.K. Rowling has made it customary now for the last three years to apologize for killing a particular character in the Potter series, specifically related to the Battle of Hogwarts. And I, for one – and I’ve said this when we’ve talked about it on older episodes – I don’t like this.
Eric: Okay, go on.
Micah: And feel free to jump in, but I personally feel that you wrote the series, you did it with the intention of knowing that certain characters would not make it through till the end, and that in many cases their passings furthered the plot and led to certain important events, especially with the character that she apologized for this year, which was Severus Snape. And so I won’t go to the extent I feel like other people will in terms of criticizing it. I see that for some people there is a need to know that she feels sorry for killing Fred, and then she feels sorry for killing Lupin, and now she feels sorry for killing Snape. No!
Eric: Stand by it.
Micah: Stand by it, exactly. There’s no reason to apologize. Give us another important fact or piece of information that we didn’t learn while reading Deathly Hallows related to the Battle of Hogwarts on May 2. Don’t apologize for character deaths, because we knew they were coming, and clearly she felt a very strong need to include them in the series.
Eric: Yeah. Well, it is a very intentional thing to write a character death, and I don’t assume that any one of them were easy for her to write. She’s told this story before about breaking down in her kitchen and her husband holding her because of a death.
Micah: Wasn’t that in The Holiday too?
Eric: [laughs] That’s also a scene directly from The Holiday. J.K. Rowling actually plagiarized a large part of that movie; everyone needs to see it. Yeah, but she’s spoken before at length of being completely moved by having to kill a character, and we understand these characters were in her head for 20 years, longer than they were in any of our heads. But it’s a very intentional act to kill a character, and I will say, what this has given rise to is almost a monster of its own, and it’s kind of like an Obscurial at times. I’ll go into what I mean about that. So at first I… my personal opinion is I thought this was cute at first. She apologized for Fred, and Fred’s death has really affected a lot of people, and it’s one of those deaths… it happens offscreen in the film; it doesn’t even get the proper film adaptation. And a lot of people are really upset about it, and Fred’s death… Fred is kind of one of those characters where you’re just like, “That’s a real shame he died. I really wish he had lived.” And same with Lupin too. I want Lupin to have survived the battle. So hearing an apology from Jo…
Micah: Oh, of course.
Eric: Does it help? Sort of. It’s like, “Hey, you killed this character that I loved. He could still be alive, but he’s not, because of you. And then you apologized…” And it’s not like real life where an apology wouldn’t mean anything, because she’s the one who killed him. Like, “Oh, I guess I kind of feel better.” But the interesting thing that’s happened, and how it’s evolved, is Snape is a really controversial character, which I’m not saying anything new that we don’t know on this podcast here, but Snape… so many people – and I would say most people this time around – are saying, “Wait a minute, really? You’re apologizing for Snape?” Proma over at Mashable wrote, “J.K. Rowling apologizes for killing a garbage human,” and the article is about how much of a garbage human Snape is, because he’s awful. He’s awful to Harry, he’s awful to the students, he’s a bad teacher, he’s a bad influence, he’s possessive of his love for Lily… he’s an awful character, and that J.K. Rowling apologizes for killing Snape made everyone question, two days ago, who else should she have apologized…?
Micah: Voldemort? Bellatrix?
Eric: Yeah, there’s a hierarchy of who you want her to apologize for, right? And Andrew, of course, our beloved co-host, took it upon himself to tweet, “J.K. Rowling has yet to apologize for killing a woman” on his Twitter. [laughs] And I was just like, “Oh my God.” The fire, man. The fire here. Stoking…
Micah: Yeah, I’m not going to touch that one. [laughs] Let Andrew handle that all by himself. But I agree with you. Lupin was probably my favorite character in the entire series, and I accepted what J.K. Rowling gave as an explanation, in that she wanted to have a piece of the story come full circle, so in both Lupin and Tonks being killed in the Battle of Hogwarts, you had Teddy, their son, become an orphan, much like Harry becomes an orphan at the very beginning of the series; we learn about what happened to his parents. So while I may not like it, that’s what she wrote, and so to go back and to apologize for it… and then this year… I think we forget how much Alan Rickman was able to endear Snape to so many fans.
Eric: Very much so.
Micah: And so he brought a quality to the character that even though you may not have liked Snape, you kind of did at the end of the day, because there was a certain humor about him, too, right? The way that he was written in some of these movies, it was kind of slapstick sort of comedy. I’m thinking about when he’s rolling up his sleeve and he’s smacking Ron and Harry on the back of the head.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: It’s not typical to read anything like that in the books, but yet there it was in the movies. And so I just go back to the original point that I’m not a big fan of making these sort of apologies, because I’m not sure what it achieves. It stirs the pot, and it gets certainly some media attention thrown to it, but I would much rather get some piece of information that we didn’t know on May 2 every year, as opposed to a “I’m sorry.” And yeah, I would just say save those tweets for more valuable information.
Eric: Well, I think that’s fair. But this, ultimately, is a way that J.K. Rowling has chosen to interact with the fans. I assume people were reminding her to do it the day of, but yeah, I don’t know. She went straight for Snape. Visit the Cursed Child in West End, and coming soon to New York, if you want to see more Snape. [laughs]
Micah: All right.
Eric: I’d like to take a moment now to thank our sponsor for this episode, Harry’s.
[Ad break]
Listener Feedback
Micah: Well, as mentioned at the top of the show, we did get some listener rebuttals – some tweets, some emails – off of last week’s episode, including some response to the discussion that we had about Queenie. And we heard from Anik, who said, “I think Queenie revealing her powers to Newt wasn’t trust; it was a power play. Everyone always underestimates Queenie.”
Eric: I completely agree with this. Getting Newt to stay in their house is a power play, and it shows him that he’s not the smartest person in the room, and that he has to be accountable to these people for his actions, and I think it’s a foreign concept to Newt.
Micah: Well, even if he was the smartest person in the room, she can read his mind, so it doesn’t matter.
Eric: Yeah, he’s not in charge. He can’t just do whatever he wants.
Micah: Exactly.
Eric: There’s social rules, niceties to be observed. They gave him cocoa, for crying out loud.
Micah: I know.
Eric: But I agree. I agree 100% with Anik.
Micah: Yes. Also heard from Becky, who said, “I can’t see Queenie wanting to be an Auror. That would involve delving into the dark, and she seems to want to live in the light.”
Eric: Yeah, so we speculated last episode why Queenie’s coworkers do not seem to know. It’s not widely known that she can read minds; everyone’s very surprised she’s able to trick everyone at the Ministry, which helps them during the plot of the movie. But as a result, she has sort of a low job on the totem pole, as opposed to her sister, whereas if she used her power, she applied to herself, she could be an Auror, or even as you said, Micah, in Graves’s position or higher within the Ministry. And I think that Becky brings up an interesting point, that perhaps it’s Queenie’s general sunny disposition that means she chooses actively not to become an Auror, or because she would be forced to do things like interrogate people, and they’d be bad people. She’d be reading the thoughts of convicted felons and all sorts of other horrible things.
Micah: Yeah, that is a great point. I think that she would be in a very difficult position, and you don’t know what that opens her up to, either, whether it’s from MACUSA or others, in terms of does she have to become officially registered as a Legilimens and have to be written down somewhere, so that anywhere she goes, it’s noted that she has the ability to read minds? And again, that can be used for both good and bad, and I think that we’re meant to think a little bit about that, moving ahead to future films, in terms of how could her abilities work, not just for Newt and their quartet, but potentially Grindelwald and others that she may come in contact with that we haven’t met yet.
Eric: Yeah, for sure. And finally, we have an email, actually, that we got from Bianca on the subject of Queenie, who wrote in,
“Hey guys, love the show! I was just listening to the most recent episode where you talked about Queenie’s character. I had a few thoughts of my own. First, to possibly answer the question of why her Legilimency is different from Snape’s, I wonder if it has been considered that her form of this power is an innate part of her make-up because it is hereditary. Much as you can change the way you appear with magic, there are also Metamorphmagi who possess this skill innately from birth. I think the discrepancy between innate skill and learned skill we see is remarkably similar and would go a long way to explaining a lot of questions we have.
Tied to that thought, I wanted to offer an alternative response to why Queenie does not reveal her powers to the wider wizarding world. I think her motivation is to not be defined by her ability. It most likely defined her childhood in such a negative light, she did not want that spilling over into her adult life and relationships. To take it a step farther, if the skill was hereditary, she may have received advice from one of her parents or a relative, or there could even be a cautionary tale told to the members of the family who inherit the skill which may have influenced her choice.
If you don’t agree with the hereditary point, then also consider that Queenie is exceptionally bright and empathetic. She knows that were she to reveal her power, she would be placed high in the Ministry, but would almost certainly be forced to probe the minds of terrible people and to use her power in ways that she did not agree with. Thanks for reading this!”
Micah: Yeah, consistent with what you just said. So thank you, Bianca, all the way from British Columbia.
Eric: British Columbia.
Micah: Appreciate our British Columbia fans… listeners, I should say. [laughs]
Eric: Canadian listeners, yeah. Well, and also, the Metamorphmagus… she’s great to point that out, that that is a thing that’s absolutely in Harry Potter. We knew about it already, because Tonks – you know, that person that J.K. Rowling is not sorry for killing – was born a Metamorphmagus, and…
Micah: Not yet, anyway.
Eric: Not yet, anyway. It was not as important as Snape, that garbage human. And she tells Harry – I think it’s over the table at Grimmauld Place – that you could learn to transfigure your face and sort of be a learned Metamorphmagus, but she was born one, and there is a difference there. There is sort of, again, a hierarchy.
Micah: Right. And I think we touched a little bit on this in the last episode when we were talking about Snape, and his ability to be a Legilimens, I think, is somewhat… I don’t know if it’s self-taught, but it seems, at least, to be taught.
Eric: Yep.
Micah: Because of the way that he’s interacting with Harry, he’s trying to get him to block him getting inside of his mind, and so his ability to penetrate Harry’s mind seems to be something that he’s learned over time. I could be wrong; I mean, Snape could have been born a Legilimens, but it’s never stated that way. And Harry has moments throughout the series where he senses that Snape is reading his mind, but is that because Snape was born a Legilimens, or Snape has acquired the ability of Legilimency? You don’t know.
Eric: Right. It appears very much to be a spell that Snape is casting. Now, Snape is casting nonverbal spells at times as well, which is further muddying the waters of what does this look like? But it’s very much, in the classroom setting, seeming to be a spell that Snape has to consciously cast to get inside Harry’s head, and Harry is forced to live whatever Snape is pulling, which is different than how it works for Queenie.
Micah: Yeah, whereas Queenie is born with this ability, and she can’t turn it off.
Eric: Right.
Micah: That’s made apparently clear in Fantastic Beasts, and whereas you don’t really see Snape walking around and being able to read James’s mind or Sirius’s mind or any of their minds.
Eric: Right, right. Well, and think about all the times Harry lies to him, and the trio lies to him, and literally Snape would be the angriest and most righteous person, and he’d always be right, if he could read people’s minds. So I think it’s pretty straightforward that he is not of Queenie’s level of Legilimens.
Micah: It’s also interesting, the second part of what she said, that Queenie doesn’t want to be defined by her abilities, and it reminds me of the very famous Dumbledore line, right? “It is our choices, Harry, far more than our abilities.” Ben does a much better job of that than I do. My Dumbledore is not as good as my Southern Hagrid.
Eric: It’s not.
Micah: So I apologize.
Eric: Patreon.com/MuggleCast. [laughs]
Micah: But further down she talks about how this could be something that she was brought up to sort of do a good job of managing and knowing when to reveal the ability of Legilimency to other people, right? We talked a little bit about how when Newt and Jacob show up, with Jacob, it’s because I think there’s immediate trust there. With Newt, it is very possible that it is a power play. But given the times that they are growing up in, and the circumstances under which the political climate is, it’s very possible that anybody who exhibits these abilities that are outside the norm are told to kind of keep it quiet, and I can believe that. I can see that that could definitely be a possibility.
Eric: Yeah, and I love the idea that it’s an inherited thing, and that just as being a Seer is presumably a genetic thing – Sybill Trelawney is related to a distant Seer who was also very influential and important – magical blood… it is, after all, your blood that makes you magic, and it makes sense that if you have a magical ability, that that would be passed down the gene line as well, if you have a disposition for being a certain way magically.
Micah: All right, well, thanks to everyone who sent in their thoughts on last week’s discussion.
Main Discussion: Jacob Kowalski
Micah: But now it’s time to talk about Jacob Kowalski, who I think is fair to say, at least in my mind, is the lifeblood of Fantastic Beasts, and played extremely well by Dan Fogler.
Eric: Yes.
Micah: And before we jump into this discussion, though, Eric, I wanted to ask you this – and it doesn’t have to be three things, but maybe just some words – what comes to mind immediately, without thinking too hard, when you say the name “Jacob”?
Eric: Meaning Jacob from Fantastic Beasts?
Micah: Yeah, unless there’s another Jacob you know that you want to talk about.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Eric: There’s also Jacob from Lost, and like… different dudes, different dudes.
Micah: No, no, no. Not just the name, but yeah, Jacob from Fantastic Beasts.
Eric: [laughs] Genuine, genuine.
Micah: Okay, all right.
Eric: Yeah, genuine, funny, and unassuming. Those are the three traits that I get for Jacob. How about you?
Micah: So I mean, I obviously thought through this since I put you on the spot a little bit.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I thought constant liability.
Eric: Constant liability.
Micah: And that’s probably a little bit more on the darker side of things.
Eric: That’s awful. [laughs]
Micah: Well, no, but I will say, I agree with all the points that you made: genuine, unassuming, funny. I think more so as it relates to the overall plot, though, I think constant liability, because…
Eric: So you’re looking at this from the wizards’ perspective, of “This is a guy who shouldn’t even be here.”
Micah: Yeah, exactly. And this ties in a little bit – one of my coworkers raised this, and I think it allows us to have a little bit of a larger conversation – is the direction of these future films, right? So much focus was made on the beasts in Movie 1, but do we really know the direction that we’re taking here over the course of five films? There’s still four more movies to make…
Eric: Right.
Micah: … and you’ve left Jacob in a bakery in New York City with supposedly very limited recollection of what’s just happened to him.
Eric: Sure.
Micah: And to me, what is it that he offers that could be of any value to the overall plot moving forward?
Eric: Well, look, in this film… first of all, we have to have a character discussion about his merits to this film.
Micah: Am I going too far? [laughs]
Eric: No, no, I love this question. I love this. We have to absolutely talk about all of the amazing things that he does for the quartet, in the quartet, for the plot of this film. Absolutely, there are hundreds of things that he does.
Micah: I’m going to get hate mail now. [laughs]
Eric: No, no, no. But I think it’s absolutely… the biggest question on our minds coming out of Fantastic Beasts is to what extent will he be involved with the quartet in the future? Because they honestly could have left him with a clean break; they could have had a clean break and allowed his memory to be completely wiped. We’ll talk about exactly why it wasn’t completely, but it clearly was not. He remembers the beasts; he has turned them into his concoctions. Even the fact that he has a bakery is Newt’s doing, because Newt bumps into him after they already say goodbye, bumps into him and gives him the Occamy shell, the silver Occamy shells for collateral for the bank. And this is Jacob’s challenge throughout this whole film, was to really become his own man and open his own business, because he’s working a dead-end job, he got back from the war two years ago, he has not really found his place… he hasn’t settled. If you look at the deleted scenes, he’s trying to have a relationship, and because he has no money, his girlfriend leaves him. He cannot provide, he cannot be the man that he wants to be, and Newt has him be this way. But consequently, then, does owning the bakery mean that he has roots now in America? And now that he owns a business and has fulfilled his potential, is his character arc done? And is his character arc…? Even though Queenie and he will continue to have, I believe, a positive relationship in some aspect to the other, can you really see something going really way wrong in Paris, and having Queenie and Tina get called in by Newt to go help, and then they think to bring Jacob along? I’m not sure that’s realistic.
Micah: Right, and so it begs the larger question of how he will fit into the plot moving forward? But to take a step back, I do like what you were saying, because to me, Jacob is really all of us, right? And Heyman does a great job pointing this out, which you mentioned here on the Blu-ray special features. He says, “Can you imagine walking into the wizarding world as someone who’s never witnessed or experienced magic before? That sense of wonder, that sense of how extraordinary it is, is seen – is felt – through Jacob.” And yeah, for any of us… I mean, this is the first time in any of the Potter films that we have a main character who is a No-Maj, who is a Muggle. And look, Vernon Dursley and Petunia and Dudley, they don’t count in my mind. It’s not the same.
Eric: No, no. I mean, well, they’re all awful characters. Well, it’s just like Hufflepuffs; this film shows the first Hufflepuff you can get behind. If you believe what happened to Cedric Diggory in Cursed Child, you can no longer get behind that character, so it’s like, hey, this film was groundbreaking in a lot of ways. I was watching this the other day to make up some of these notes and stuff, because I knew we’d be doing all these character discussions, and it’s like, I love that this film exists, because there’s actually so much that it accomplishes for Muggles, for Hufflepuffs, for adults in the wizarding world.
Micah: Just checking the box for you one after the other.
Eric: It’s really… yeah, Muggles and… Muggle Hufflepuff? It’s me!
Micah: But what I also like, though, is that with everything that is going on throughout the movie, you have Jacob, who is sort of the antithesis of the Second Salemers, right? And so it’s showing a completely different side of normal human beings, and that they can interact with the magical world, and they can get along with this community, and the magical world can be exposed to people, and there doesn’t have to be conflict, and there doesn’t have to be strife, and all these other things. You know what I mean?
Eric: That’s actually an incredible point, calling him the antithesis of the Second Salemers. He’s not a person that fears magic. He’s not a person that fears change or difference.
Micah: I mean, he almost gets boned by an Erumpent.
Eric: [laughs] “Boned” is a good way to put it, because of that horn. I assume it’s made of bone. But yeah, the idea of Jacob really falling in love with magic, as I think all of us readers of the books for years, really, relating to…
Micah: Yeah, that’s why I said he is us, essentially.
Eric: He is us. He is absolutely us. But the idea that there wasn’t us before, that Harry was… I mean, Harry was a degree or two of separation away from us, in that not only was he a wizard and could do magic, and we couldn’t, but despite the fact that we were seeing the series through his eyes, he also had a hero’s journey to get off to, and was required to do these crazy feats that none of us would ever be asked to do as well. Jacob is just your regular guy, full stop. I think what’s just so interesting, though, is because of the portrayal, of Dan Fogler’s portrayal of Jacob, but the way that Jacob is written in this film as well, to be so – getting back to it – genuine. And this says J.K. Rowling all over it, but I also think that this was probably something that very much evolved during the process. But I want to get into when we first meet Jacob in the film, and it’s the very beginning of the movie when he’s arriving at the bank. Now, Tina is there because she’s spying on Mary Lou Barebone, who’s there, and it just so happens that the Second Salemers have chosen the front of the bank to be telling their long and complicated cautionary tale about “Wizards are real.” And Newt is there as well, and so you have this situation where Newt shows up, passes through the crowd, passes Tina. Moments later, Jacob is coming up with a very similar suitcase, bumps into Newt, and it’s this sort of commotion, then goes into the bank. Jacob is the only one who really belongs there. Newt is just sort of walking by, but Jacob is on a mission, and he wants to… he needs to… he’s going to take out a loan. He’s got a suitcase of his absolute top homemade donuts. I don’t even know how he made it without a proper kitchen, how he made all these wonderful samples, but he’s really wearing his heart on his sleeve here and he’s putting himself out there. He’s probably never been more vulnerable than he is when he has to go to the bank and ask for this loan, and it’s just so telling that within the first two minutes of the movie, when he’s in the bank and Newt walks in and sits down next to him, and he says, “What are you in for?” He strikes up a conversation with a complete stranger, which, by the way, excellent character trait. That’s how you do humanizing people. That’s how you socialize. That’s a great human to be. When Newt carelessly just says, “Oh, same as you; I’m here for the same reason as you are,” Jacob says, “You’re here to get a loan to open up a bakery?” And he’s crestfallen! But then he’s like, “Huh. Well, may the best man win,” and reaches over to shake Newt’s hand. There’s your Jacob. There’s your Jacob. Of course it’s a humorous thing, because it’s like, “Oh, you’re here to get a loan? Oh, man, now I’m screwed,” but when he, after a few moments of quiet resolve, says, “May the best man win” to a perfect stranger, that’s the only character defense you ever need for Jacob, I think.
Micah: Yeah. I think that he’s somebody who we can all relate to on a number of different levels, but I think he’s set up in a way that… he goes to the bank for this loan; he doesn’t get it. The deleted scene with his fiancée where she leaves him, he’s even more heartbroken, and then he goes back into his apartment, staring at the photo of his grandmother…
Eric: “Sorry, Grandma.”
Micah: … who he’s trying to…
Eric: Honor.
Micah: Make proud, yeah. And then what happens? He gets attacked by the Murtlap, and his entire life… I mean, his entire life changes when he bumps into Newt, right? It’s not just in the scene where he gets attacked by the beast, but it’s really in those transferring of suitcases. You can draw some sort of inference out of that, right? It’s like Newt gets the boring suitcase with some pastries inside of it…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … and Jacob ends up with this suitcase that is going to forever change his life. And you’re setting him up initially as this very broken down individual who has fallen on hard times, as you said. He’s back from the war, he’s fought for his country, he’s doing a job day in and day out, working long hours, he doesn’t like it, he wants to pursue his dream, and just keeps getting knocked down and knocked down and knocked down. Then all of a sudden…
Eric: By the man.
Micah: Yeah, by the man who is showering later on in the film as the Thunderbird flies over the sky.
Eric: [laughs] That’s right; that is that guy.
Micah: Anyway, the point being, though, that…
Eric: I was talking about the capital M “Man.”
Micah: Oh, I know. But no, it’s sort of a reversal of fortunes, and now he’s in a place where he’s not all that comfortable, but you see over time he really starts to enjoy. And he’s meeting people that, despite being in a completely different world, he connects with. Maybe he doesn’t connect with Tina as much, but he connects with Queenie, obviously connects with Newt, and Newt connects with him, right? At the end of the film, we hear him say that…
Eric: “You’re my friend.”
Micah: “You’re my friend,” and from what we understand, Newt doesn’t have too many of those. He may have a suitcase full of beasts, but he doesn’t have too many friends.
Eric: Exactly.
Micah: So it goes back to Jacob being the lifeblood of Fantastic Beasts, and so I don’t know how you do that, how you establish a character like this and not make them integral moving forward.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. So here are some quotes that I gathered from the special features on Jacob. The name of the featurette – it’s about five minutes – is called “The No-Maj Baker.” Fogler, talking about Jacob’s relationship with Newt, says, “I basically teach him how to be a person with people,” and that’s right. There’s actually a lot of delicious solo time between just Jacob and Newt in this film, and it does have a humanizing effect. Like you just said, Newt calls Jacob his friend – that’s a big deal – and goes out of his way to… and donates the Occamy eggshells, which… I mean, I know they cost nothing to Newt, and nor would he keep them for monetary gain anyway, but this is a gift that you give to a friend. This is, “I’m going to help you out in your life in a very tangible way, because you’ve helped me out in mine.” And also, Dan Fogler, who is amazing, and you just have to watch every single interview he’s ever given, because he’s the most – again, just like his character – genuine, generous guy, hilarious, imaginative. His quote from the Blu-ray special features is referring to the story as a fairy tale, because the baker – or a baker – has appeared in fairy tales before. You just think of him as, “Oh, the baker,” and he’s also in Beauty and the Beast; “There goes the baker with his tray like…” All right, the quote from Dan is, “You can take this baker and put him into any fairy tale, you know. At his core, he’s that very simple, palooka, lovable guy.” And so Dan actually elevates his portrayal of Jacob into more of a classic archetype of the good guy, who’s not the hero, but the good guy, and I think it fits.
Micah: Yeah. And then you have that quote just below it from J.K. Rowling, which says, “Jacob is the innocent in this world. He accidentally tangles with this wizard, and then, bless his heart, he’s along for this crazy ride. But he shouldn’t be on it at all, and Newt shouldn’t have befriended him.”
Eric: And this is where I get nervous.
Micah: Because of that last…
Eric: … because of this… yeah.
Micah: Because now he’s going to die, because Newt… which I think, taking a step back from that, though, the question of why take Jacob on this ride of a lifetime, only to have it taken away at the end of the movie? And we can talk about whether or not he really remembers what happened. Does he partially remember what happens when Queenie walks in and he sees her and he touches the Murtlap bite? Does it all come flooding back to him in one moment there? But at least for that moment where he’s out there in the rain, we’re led to believe that this has all been a joyride, and now it’s ended. And so I wonder… and part of what I don’t really like either is the quick payoff, right? So you had that moment where supposedly all the memories that he has just experienced over the course of the last several days have been erased.
Eric: And it’s heart-wrenching, too, by the way. But again, his character, though… not to interrupt, but his character accepts it. And that’s the biggest moment ever, is when he’s like, “I was never supposed to know about this anyway,” and he’s like, “It’s okay, I’ll be fine,” and really means it. I mean, he’s met three of the coolest people who’ve inducted him into their shtick, and they say things like, “You’re one of us.” And he just accepts that Seraphina Picquery, this dictator… I mean, she’s not, but she just arbitrarily is like, “There can be no exceptions. You need to Obliviate this man.” And they’ve spent the whole film saying, “Oh yeah, we’re going to need to wipe your memories later,” and he just accepts… he goes with it. He’s like, “Okay, I wasn’t supposed to know. Yeah, it hurts like hell, but I’m going to do it. I’m going to fall on that sword.” And he does; he’s willing to lose it. That’s what makes him deserving of all of our love and affection, and of having his memory back, is the fact that he would give it up for some arbitrary unfair law, which is reductive, and even Newt points out, is age old, outdated, and not relevant today.
Micah: And what I was going to say is not more than five minutes later you’re in the end scene with them inside the bakery, so are you getting the payoff that quickly that he has some recollection? I mean, clearly he remembers something, because he’s creating all of these pastries that look like Nifflers and Erumpents and many of the other beasts.
Eric: Well, that’s the joke. I think…
Micah: Yeah, that’s the joke, but… and I think it may have been you that mentioned this on a couple of podcasts back when we were first talking about the film, is that it’s said that this sort of venom that comes from the Swooping Evil is supposed to erase bad memories. Now, if I’m Jacob, a lot of what I’ve experienced isn’t all bad.
Eric: No.
Micah: So is it just certain pieces that have been erased from his mind? I think that’s a fair question.
Eric: Well, here’s… I love that we’re going to talk about this, because I noticed on the latest rewatch, there’s really five explanations for why Jacob still has memory. There’s five. J.K. Rowling, in true Jo fashion, has, through this movie, in the final product of this movie, given us so many reasons why Jacob should still have his memory, if you really think about it. So number one, the rain, and what you’re saying about the Swooping Evil only taking away – I mean, it’s said in the film – bad memories, so there’s that. He might instantly, just through being in the rain, not be wiped of all of his memory. Then there’s the notion that Queenie actually comes out and she gives him a kiss. This is two reasons in one. Number one is when she’s kissing him, there’s an umbrella over them, so he doesn’t get exposed to the rain for the full duration of whatever… you make the argument he’s being sheltered by the umbrella that’s over them both. The third reason that I have is that Queenie, being a Legilimens, being somehow telepathic, when they kiss, is she actively doing…? This is something… I mean, it’s this fanciful thought, but is she doing something to restore his memory? Or is she doing something to prevent the loss of his memory? Is she buffering him? Can she do that? There are so many aspects of Queenie’s form of Legilimency that we just don’t know about, and I’d love to believe, even though it’s not on the page in the script, that she’s actively performing some kind of magic. It also gives her a hand in saving him, because she clearly doesn’t want to say goodbye to him completely either, and it kind of sucks that she has to. So I’d like to believe that that’s a factor. And then another reason is he’s still got the bite, so they haven’t removed it completely, so there’s still another way for him to reach up and feel something that he just can’t explain, and that niggling sort of idea or behavior causes him to eventually… his body just to forcibly…
Micah: We never get the full explanation either as to what the impact of having a bite like this from a Murtlap is, right? We know that he can basically fart fire.
Eric: [laughs] That’s if he’s poisoned, I think, or something? But yeah, he has some kind of reaction, and Newt… in the script it says it has to do with his blood too; it’s some kind of chemical reaction that causes that bite to be… I don’t want to say more than just a bite, because that’s dangerous, but it affects him in a weird, unexpected way.
Micah: And let’s talk about his blood for a second. Do you think that there’s any chance that there’s magical ability here? Because I would actually feel a bit cheated if that were to be the case.
Eric: So you’re referring to this tweet we got from Maggy, who said, “I wonder if Jacob has magic blood in his ancestry? He didn’t react to magic the way a No-Maj scared of magic would. Maybe he’s a Squib?” I think that this film… I think in the Gigglewater scene, when he first arrives at the speakeasy, it shows that he cannot see house-elves. I think the film is pretty clear that he cannot see the house-elf. And separately, for ten other reasons, I don’t think it’s likely that he’s a Squib; I think he is, as advertised, just a Muggle, probably not with any magical blood, but there’s still something in his blood, and it is a plot point to where I can see why this question would be asked. There is something about… Newt mentions the blood chemistry of wizards and No-Majes being different, and for some reason this bite does hurt him, and there is something in that about Jacob, but I’d like to believe that he is actually just a Muggle, and what you were saying about it cheapening the sell if he’s a wizard or a Squib, I would agree with that.
Micah: Right, and I think that there is the chance, though, that there are certain things that he may be able to be taught, right? We’ve never seen a character who starts out as being purely nonmagical potentially acquire abilities that are magical, so I think there’s an opportunity here. And maybe I’m completely off base, and maybe he’s going to stay as Jacob the baker, but I can’t believe that, because he’s got to have a bigger role to play. And one thing that I thought about was maybe he is the one that’s going to bridge the gap between these two worlds, because he’s seen Newt, Tina, Queenie, others, but he’s coming from the nonmagical world. Maybe there’s something about him that will allow for… there’s so much tension going on. I don’t know. I could see him as being almost like an arbiter of sorts.
Eric: An envoy, yeah. Well, I think that we can only use the existing film as a source, right? As an example for what we think could happen. And there is a senator in this movie – I think he’s killed – but Jacob is in the same city as him. I think that knowing these films won’t center on America, and that they are going abroad, brings a lot of interesting further questions, because it’s really just in America that they have this backwards, still not entirely assimilated into… a sort of “Don’t speak” sort of culture about it, and it’s all backwards. But outside of America, you almost don’t need a Muggle to bridge that gap. In America, you absolutely do, and I can see Jacob being useful if people are staying there, or if there’s work to be done, like maybe introducing Muggles to the concept of magic. Like, “Here, have some of my pastries. These pastries are magic. Now you’re okay with magic, boom.” Something like that, versus taking him out of his element. He’s got to be something different. He’s got to play to one of his other strengths.
Micah: He’s going to kill Grindelwald, or he’s going to provide Dumbledore with a really moldy croissant that he’s going to…
Eric: [laughs] I did note, he has one… Newt has a jerk move – we talked about this during Queenie’s discussion last week – where he goes to leave when they first get there. Jacob’s jerk move is he hits Newt with his suitcase. [laughs] Newt just assures him that he’s going to… that the Obliviation or whatever is not going to hurt when he… because Newt actually does try to do the right thing at first, and Jacob, who has just experienced something he cannot comprehend or explain in a bank robbery, where an alarm is constantly going off, just kind of reacts out of self-defense – you couldn’t even call it a jerk move; it is self-defense – but thwaps Newt with his suitcase. A little bit of slapstick there for slapstick lovers. And I think that should be something that that character retains in the future. Oh, but he’s also the person to punch out Gnarlak, and there’s a great character…
Micah: [laughs] I mean, who doesn’t want to punch Ron Perlman?
Eric: Well, who doesn’t want to punch that guy? Ron Perlman, yeah.
Micah: He wasn’t in The Holiday.
Eric: But when he does it, he says, “Reminds me of my foreman,” and there’s just such a beautiful character moment in that, where we all kind of have difficult relationships with our bosses at different times. It’s that further relatability of it all.
Micah: Yeah, but I think what he does is he sort of humanizes the wizarding world, right? And I was talking about bridging the gap between the two worlds; it doesn’t necessarily, now that I think about it, have to be the one responsible for resolving all of the strife that’s going on between magical and nonmagical, but I think for us as viewers, right? Where we’re able to relate well with Jacob because we feel like he does as he goes through and experiences everything really for the first time. But we’re able to even relate to… you mentioned the foreman, right? And I just think overall, as he’s experiencing things in the early part of the film, there’s a lot of points of comparison for us. So I think that he is a great character, can’t wait to see more of him in upcoming films, and I don’t know if you have any more thoughts on him before we get to some of the questions and responses from our patrons, as well as some listeners on Twitter.
Eric: Yeah, we got a lot of really good feedback we’re going to read. But just, again, further talking about his usefulness and his role in the quartet, or what he’s able to do, he is the one who locates the Erumpent. After all, Newt asks him, “What is the most like plains that you’ve got?” And he says, “Oh, Central Park. I’ll show you.” Jacob has that knowledge that Newt lacks, specifically about New York. It’s possible Tina and Queenie would have said the same thing; Central Park is a fairly big deal. Micah, you’re aware. I mean, people talk about it. It’s there, right? In Manhattan?
Micah: Yes, I’ve been there a few times.
Eric: [laughs] So I mean, it’s…
Micah: I haven’t seen any Erumpents.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. But Jacob does deliver that crucial piece of information for Newt. But once you take Jacob out of his element, out of the Muggle New York… getting into some of the questions that people are going to be asking, what does that look like?
Micah: Right, I think that’s the biggest question, though, is has he served his purpose? Has he played his role? I mean, we’ve heard even from… and I’m blanking whether it was Heyman or Yates, saying as we move forward, the focus becomes less and less on this core four, but then the question would be, why introduce this core four? Why put so much emphasis on them? We know that the story is going to be shifting, we know we’re going to be getting more Dumbledore, more Grindelwald, more of that story, but clearly Newt, his family, his brother are very closely connected to what we have come to know as the defeat of Grindelwald, and that’s ultimately where we’re getting to in 1945, but we have to get there, and it’s hard right now because we don’t have the books to fall back on. We can’t go and say, “Okay, we know what’s going to happen now in the next movie, because we read Chamber of Secrets.” No, that’s not how it works.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: There are going to be pieces that we know, and conclusions we’ll be able to draw, things we’ll get right, things we’ll get wrong, characters that we’re familiar with, those that we’ll be meeting for the first time, and will play an integral role, but I think that’s so much the point. And what we can have fun with here is that we don’t know, and nothing is out of the realm of possibility, and the chances that we get it right is probably less than 5%. [laughs] But one other thing I wanted to mention before we get to the listener responses – and I touched on it a little bit at the very top when we were talking about what first comes to mind – I said constant liability. Do you think that he is vulnerable? Do you think he can be used against Newt? How much does Grindelwald really remember Jacob? Not that he can’t learn about him in some way, but certainly Seraphina Picquery knows about Jacob. I’m not saying she’s a bad…
Eric: Going to give him up?
Micah: Yeah, I don’t really see that, but…
Eric: I see what you’re asking. Is he vulnerable? Yes. I mean, even in this film, his skull is susceptible to breakage under immense force, right? It’s a liability. I could see exactly why you’re asking this, and typically, if you’re… it’s like bringing a pen to a gunfight? Bringing a sword to a gun…? Whatever that saying is.
Micah: Either way. [laughs] Pen, sword, not going to do as…
Eric: Pens are not going to… I don’t know; the pen is mightier than…
Micah: Unless you’re James Bond.
Eric: Yeah, it’s James Bond’s pen. You click it three times. “I’m invincible!” He basically is without magic. No, he is without magic, and therefore in a wizard’s duel would absolutely be flattened. And yes, it’s a liability in that way too. He essentially cannot defend himself through magical means. Does that mean he cannot participate in the upcoming war or help out in any reasonable way? Well, actually, hell no. I don’t think it means that at all. I mean, the rise of Grindelwald, at least in the original Harry Potter books, I always saw as a World War II Hitler allegory, right? It’s 1945 when he’s defeated; it’s right around the time of… and it’s congruent with World War II. In this film, World War I is mentioned. Newt was riding dragons, and Jacob was over there as well. Actually, in a deleted scene, Jacob’s brother, also a war hero or veteran, who is not mentioned in this film, therefore he’s not as necessarily canon.
Micah: And Theseus.
Eric: Newt’s brother is over there. You get a lot of these guys with war experience, and this is just what you do at the time. You’re an able body and you’re drafted and you fight for your country, and I think Jacob was probably trained. Now, I’m not 100% clear on what the expeditionary forces are. Jacob does the hand motion of digging, like he dug out probably some ruined towns that had been destroyed in bombings, and this, that, the other thing. I’m not sure if that’s a combat situation, necessarily. It seems like it might have been after. But ultimately, he’s seen war; Jacob has seen some horrible things. It makes his character stronger for still choosing to be so optimistic and hopeful when he’s seen such horror. But I mean, if he was excavating ruined buildings, he has absolutely seen bodies, and as bad as it possibly gets, and I think that he is in those ways prepared for what’s to come. And he’s not like a child; we can’t think of him as like Harry without powers, or any of those sort of characters. I think that he will be put to use. I think that Jo is skilled enough, and I think the investment has been gained from the audience. It’s not easy to make us love – maybe it is for Jo – a character, but I think she’ll find a use for him that’s really quite fitting in the future. And some people – already, our listeners writing in – are suggesting that maybe Jacob’s whole thing will be he helps Newt with the beasts, which was a fun part of this movie as well, when he’s feeding the beasts for Newt. Maybe Jacob stays safe by staying in Newt’s case the whole film and is just comic relief for when they need to go and hide out and huddle up and figure out how to move the rest of the plot forward.
Micah: So he becomes an assistant of sorts.
Eric: An assistant, or a colleague, or just a guy who, for very good reasons, can’t leave the case.
Micah: Yep. Well, no, and again, as I was saying before, I think any theory is a good theory, right? At this point, we can’t dismiss anything, because it could all be possible.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Micah: One thing I do know, though, and I didn’t want to end this discussion without mentioning it, is… and pretty sure we talked about it on another episode, but there is a mention of another Kowalski in an article by Ginny Weasley, many years… actually, in present time.
Eric: Ohh.
Micah: His name is Quentin Kowalski, and he’s a Chaser for the 2014 American National Quidditch team, and that, to me, is no coincidence.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I think that it’s very clear that this is a either grandson or great-grandson of Jacob’s.
Eric: And if he’s magical, if he’s playing Quidditch, he’s absolutely probably Teenie, or… Jesus. Queenie is probably the wife, is probably his great-great-grandmother.
Micah: Right, yeah, absolutely. So I think we can at least have faith in the fact that Jacob will be around for another movie or two.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Micah: Because so many people have written in, and people I’ve spoken to. They think he’s going to be killed off at some point.
Eric: And that’s the question, though. Is there some sinister…? We’re going to read these questions, but is there some sinister motivation to keeping Jacob around past this point? There’s a very real feeling that perhaps… maybe Jacob’s arc is complete. He got his bakery; leave him alone. Don’t take him into this world for danger, because we care too much about him. If you do, the theory is that the only useful thing J.K. Rowling can do with him is kill him, and I’m troubled by that.
Listener Feedback
Eric: But yeah, let me actually… so getting into some of our Patreon questions here, there’s Hayden Bowers, who writes in,
“This also has to do with last week’s discussion of Queenie, but I keep hearing the theory that Jacob is going to die, because everyone loves him, he’s a Muggle, and might do something heroic and die in the process. The theory I have, though, is that Queenie will be the one to die saving Jacob. I feel like it’s also more unexpected; why would the witch, who can defend herself, die instead of the Muggle? I think it would be much more impactful for Queenie to die saving ‘The Muggle,’ something that most wizards would find idiotic, because who would save the Muggle? But I think Queenie and Jacob will be in love, maybe even marry, and then she will die to save him and give him the motivation to then fight even harder for a war that’s not of his world.”
Micah: Right, I think that ties in nicely to what we were just talking about.
Eric: Yeah. And Laura Mauro on Twitter: “So Muggle friends: I adore Jacob. I was wondering, is there any hope that he won’t die a sad death….? I love him so much.” And Ethan Craig: “To me it feels like they are all trying to keep Jacob out of the war, and we know Jo loves to show the casualties of war. I think it’s clear that Jacob and Queenie have a bond that will show up in the movies, but will it be his death that motivates Queenie, or his own personal growth that aids in Grindelwald’s destruction?” I just want to say something to all of our listeners everywhere right now, which is… I mean, well, obviously, thank you for writing in this stuff. But try and have a little hope. Try and have a little hope, because I do.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: Because I do, that Jacob…
Micah: There is no hope.
Eric: … and Queenie will both make it out of these… I’d like to believe it’s at least a possibility. Remote; we can argue what the odds are. Never tell me the odds, on May the Fourth, Micah, but… or Revenge of the Fifth; don’t tell me them tomorrow either. But we can argue, but I really truly believe – and I honestly mean this – that there’s a possibility neither Jacob nor Queenie will die, and certainly not that it’s predestined, or that they have to. These questions just make me laugh hard on the inside, but I’d like to believe in a world where there’s hope. And you know how many people died in Harry Potter as well. J.K. Rowling will never finish apologizing for all of the people that she killed fictitiously.
Micah: Or maybe she will, because she won’t end up tweeting next year after all the backlash that she got.
Eric: All the backlash, yeah, maybe she will. I mean, she killed so many people in Harry Potter, I’d like to believe she can actually do something different too, other than killing people in war. Maybe Fantastic Beasts is a series where all four main characters live and there aren’t any peripheral casualty collateral damage, and all the characters we love will stay alive. Let’s just humor me here, and try and see a light of positivity where Jacob doesn’t have to die and another character be inspired by his death to act out and choose good over evil…
Micah: All right, all right, all right. Yeah, I get what you’re saying. Let’s go to this question, because I think it actually aligns with what you were talking about before. It’s from Thunderpuffer…
Eric: Okay.
Micah: … which, it’s not about whether or not Jacob is going to make it in future films.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: It’s a little bit on the lighter side of things, and they ask,
“If the next film takes us to Paris AND the UK, do you think the quartet will set foot in Hogwarts? Is Jacob one of the few Muggles to experience it? As far as his strengths, I could see Newt training him to care for the beasts and reside in the suitcase part time…”
Which, Eric, you mentioned.
“… or be a trusted advisor and liaison for the Muggle world when they travel abroad. Also, I agree that his military background will prove valuable! Let’s theorize… MuggleCast always.”
Eric: Oh, thanks, Thunderpuffer.
Micah: I do hope that if all four of them don’t end up at Hogwarts… though I think it would be cool for the Ilvermorny portion of the quartet to step foot inside of Hogwarts, as well as, obviously Jacob, who… I mean, unless there’s some special circumstances, he can’t even see the place.
Eric: No, this is what I want out of the movie immediately, is for them to go to Hogwarts, and for Jacob to actually just see that sign that says, “Dangerous ruin, do not…” It’s mentioned once in the books, or twice in the books, from Hogwarts: A History, where if a Muggle shows up – actually can find Hogwarts, which is hard to do anyway – if a Muggle is there, it’s sort of like a dilapidated ruin, and I’m sure it looks nothing like the majestic castle that it is. It’s probably an uninteresting ruin with a sign saying, “Keep out.” I want their experience to be, “This is amazing. We’re at Hogwarts, finally. Kind of a cool school. Newt, you were right; this is the better school. To heck with Ilvermorny.” And Jacob to just be… for the camera actually to show Jacob… like, “There’s nothing here.” [laughs] You know?
Micah: Yeah. And what I think, though, is going to be very important is the relationships that get created in these different parts of the world as we head towards the battle, right? As we head towards World War II, if that’s really what…
Eric: Which is 10 or 12 or 14 years away.
Micah: Yeah, but we see that Newt is laying groundwork in the US, and next we know we’re going to Paris, so will we end up at some of these other places, maybe some that have come up on Pottermore? Just given that Newt is a traveler and he obviously goes to places based on the beasts that he is trying to help or trying to study. So I think it’s going to be immensely important, much like in Goblet of Fire, they talk about how coming together as a community with Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, and we see some of that pay off later on in the series.
Eric: Some.
Micah: I think it’s a very similar thing, as we saw the gathering of all those world leaders in New York. It’s going to be immensely important for them to have these connections to different parts of the world, especially as Grindelwald starts to rise to power. I mean, he’s not there yet, and he didn’t even seem to me that intimidating of a person.
Eric: Grindelwald? [laughs]
Micah: No!
Eric: Okay.
Micah: But maybe it was Johnny Depp that… I don’t know.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. [laughs]
Micah: Captain Jack Sparrow.
Eric: The film is light on the rhetoric, but he’s actually very terrifying to most of Europe right now.
Micah: Well, according to the opening credits. But yeah, I mean, I’m just saying, even as Graves… I mean, sure, he was…
Eric: A bad dude?
Micah: … handling all those Aurors very, very easily in that scene. But he had moments where he could have killed Newt, he could have killed Tina, and he chose not to.
Eric: Well, he did schedule them to be executed.
Micah: Oh, that’s true, yeah.
Eric: But I mean, this isn’t the Graves discussion, after all. There will be one of those.
Micah: Okay. But anyway, just to, I guess, end on a bit of a lighter note here, Irvin asked a question over on Patreon. He said, “Jacob’s the best! I’m curious how he took silver eggshells to a bank as collateral.”
Eric: Yeah, if you really think about it, it kind of falls apart, doesn’t it? Because on the one hand, these are silver, and silver is valuable, but they’re eggs, and isn’t that weird?
Micah: Yeah, “Try out these Occamy eggs. Yeah, you’ve ever heard of Occamy? I don’t even know what an Occamy is. I shouldn’t even know that word.”
Eric: “Well, it’s choranaptyxic.”
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Micah: Exactly.
Eric: “It shrinks to fit availability.” He would have passed them off as a handmade, a designer… for some reason…
Micah: Well, they’re silver, I guess.
Eric: Yeah, it’s like… or you could melt them down, ultimately.
Micah: That would weigh a lot. But anyway, a lot of great tweets, a lot of great emails, a lot of great thoughts from listeners, from patrons, on Jacob. Would definitely encourage those of you who are listening to send us your thoughts following the discussion that we had today. We will continue to do these character discussions; I’m not sure exactly who’s up next. Maybe we’ll make it a surprise, unless, Eric, you want to throw somebody out there. But I think we really enjoy doing these discussions, and there’s certain characters, clearly, that we just don’t know a whole lot about, so it’s a lot of theorizing, it’s a lot of taking what we’ve seen from the film, other things that have popped up in different places, whether it’s on Pottermore or tweets from J.K. Rowling, so we’re going to continue…
Eric: Yeah, the Picquery stuff. There’s a lot of Picquery stuff on Pottermore.
Micah: Yeah, so a lot of good discussions to come, and hopefully we continue to get additional casting news on Fantastic Beasts 2, which hopefully the name will change, because I just can’t see that being the name moving forward.
Eric: [laughs] “Fantastic Beasts and Also Where to Find Them.” Yeah, well, wrapping up the Jacob talk, we did have a tweet from Felicia G., who said, “I just found this blurb about Jacob in an Entertainment Weekly from November 2015. Does anyone remember this as his original plot?” So I think this was the issue where they first announced who the quartet was, but there’s a picture that she sent in. It says, “Dan Fogler is Jacob Kowalski,” and here’s the description: “An optimistic No-Maj factory worker/aspiring filmmaker who gets introduced to the wizarding world when he meets Newt.” This “aspiring filmmaker” aspect of his character is…
Micah: Definitely not in there. [laughs]
Eric: Definitely not in there. In fact, forcibly removed. I would argue it’s no longer… I wouldn’t like if the series went into… it’s too meta.
Micah: Things change.
Eric: Yeah, it’s too meta. Things change.
Micah: It’s cool, but those are the types of things, though, too, that could be important. I’m not saying the filmmaker piece specifically, but as you come across these types of things… just think to the letter that was found from Theseus to Newt. Those are the types of things that provide a little bit more context to where we’re going in the future. So I think that it’s cool that that article exists, but inevitably, I don’t know that it’s going to play that much of a role moving forward. Who knows?
Eric: No, yeah, it was just a cool thing that people are writing in. We asked for thoughts on Jacob. And then, again, just to wrap it up, not to go over long, but there’s two other quotes from the bonus features. Alison describes Jacob as having… she says, “There’s a sense of true good old-fashioned gentlemanliness” in him, which I agree about. And David Heyman, who has the final word, says on Queenie and Jacob’s relationship, “They both embrace the good in life,” and that is why we need those characters. The fact that the first two character discussions were these bubbly, happy, optimistic, hopeful, intelligent, competent people who we want to see more of only serves to bolster and shoot us off in a great trajectory.
Micah: The horrible people are up next.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: That’s what Eric is trying to say.
Dueling Club
Micah: And sort of in celebration of Jacob, before we wrap up the episode today, we’re going to do a segment that we’ve done quite a few times on the show, a Dueling Club.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: But it is going to be No-Maj edition, so it’s going to be fisticuffs, throw down, no wands allowed.
Eric: [laughs] Yeah.
Micah: So Eric, I will leave this up to you. We will each choose one, and then wrap things up here.
Eric: Okay, so we’ve got to pick a Muggle character, and then on the count of three, say who they are?
Micah: Yeah.
Eric: All right, all right, I got it.
Micah: Now, is it all of Potter, or is it just Fantastic Beasts?
Eric: It could be all of Potter, if you can think of other Muggles. I guess Frank…
Micah: All right.
Eric: Oh, yeah, I’m not going to give too many examples, because that would ruin it. All right, you ready?
Micah: Yeah.
Eric: Okay. 1, 2, 3, go.
Micah: Shaw Senior.
Eric: Mr. Bingley. Who did you say?
Micah: I said Shaw Senior.
Eric: Shaw Senior. Oh, man. Oh, that’s really good. Henry Shaw, I guess, is it? Henry Shaw. Shaw Senior. Yeah, Langdon is the younger brother, Henry Shaw, Jr. is the senator, and Henry Shaw, Sr. is the one played by Jon Voight, owns a paper. Okay, so Mr. Bingley…
Micah: And who did you pick?
Eric: Mr. Bingley is the guy at the bank who denies Jacob’s loan. I’ve got to say, dude, you picked the one character I’m like, “Huh…”
Micah: You’re not supposed to support my pick.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Eric: Okay, you know what? No, Mr. Bingley… y’all know that Henry Shaw, Sr. is not really as rich as he claims to be. He owns a paper, the paper is probably mostly in debt, and who is he going to turn to when he needs a loan? He’s going to turn to Mr. Bingley, baby, and Mr. Bingley is going to deny Henry Shaw’s loan because the banks need protecting.
Micah: All right.
Eric: And yeah, he’s going to whoop your character’s butt. [laughs] Did I talk dirty enough for you?
Micah: [laughs] Shaw is played by Jon Voight, and Jon Voight fought an anaconda, okay? Which is the equivalent of a basilisk.
Eric: [laughs] What is this, six degrees of Jon Voight here?
Micah: Yeah, and if he can take on the equivalent of a basilisk, he can take on Mr. Figgly or Bigly or whatever his name is.
Eric: Bingley. [laughs]
Micah: That too. The dude can barely even get out of his seat. He barely fit in the shower.
Eric: [laughs] Oh my God, what?
Micah: Do you think he stands a chance in a street fight against Jon Voight…
Eric: Yeah, Jon Voight’s a little older…
Micah: … the guy who stared down the face of an anaconda?
Eric: What did he do in this movie that supports your…? [laughs] Kind of gives the evil eye. If you had said, “Oh, yeah, he gives a good evil eye,” I’d be like, “Oh yeah, yeah, he sort of does.” I don’t know.
Micah: The problem is here, we don’t have anybody who can determine the winner.
Eric: We don’t have a third arbiter, damn.
Micah: So listeners, tweet at MuggleCast. Let us know who you think won, Shaw Senior or Mr. Figgly.
Eric: Bingley. [laughs]
Micah: Exactly my point. All right, well, I think that’s a good note to wrap things up on today. As mentioned, there’s a number of ways that you can get in touch with the show. One of them is tweeting at us at MuggleCast. We’re also at Facebook.com/MuggleCast. You send us an email, as many people have started doing; MuggleCast@gmail.com. You can also leave us a voicemail, and that number is 920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 920-368-4453. Once Andrew stops downing pies at The Thunderbird, we’ll make sure we get some voicemails included…
Eric: [laughs] Ho-made pies.
Micah: … yeah, exactly… on some upcoming episodes. There is also a P.O. box, right, Eric?
Eric: Yes, it is. The address for the MuggleCast P.O. box is as follows: 4044 North Lincoln – as in President Lincoln – Avenue, Number #144, Chicago, IL, 60618, USA.
Micah: And don’t forget, you can also support the show on Patreon. Visit Patreon.com/MuggleFa… bleh.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Yeah, you can tell it’s the end of the show now. There’s a ton of benefits that you will receive as a patron of the show, including bonus MuggleCast, some chapter readings, featuring Southern Hagrid amongst other characters.
Eric: And also, our Slug Club members, hey, here’s a sticker update: We’re going to be getting stickers soon, and you can find out all about that additional Slug Club reward level benefit over on our Patreon at the time that this episode airs to the public. We have the designs, and they’re fantastic, and you’re going to like them, and yeah, we’ll have more updates about that as a display of our gratitude, as well as more of our Slug Club members themselves as guest hosts on the later episodes of this month.
Micah: That’s right.
Eric: So it’s going to be a jam-packed, really full, really exciting month of May, or Battle of Hogwarts month. We will not be discouraged by J.K. Rowling’s lack of sympathy for killing Tonks or any other character. Why she went for Snape, we may never know. But it’ll be a beautiful rest…
Micah: Or Hedwig. She never apologized for that.
Eric: Or Hedwig. Yeah, Hedwig. You know what? I want the death of Hedwig to be apologized for. That was a little excessive.
Micah: So thanks to our patrons for your support of the show; we really appreciate it. It is why we are doing weekly episodes now. And thanks to all of our listeners out there; we really appreciate your support of the show as well, sending in all your thoughts on the different things that we discuss each and every week.
Eric: Absolutely. Yeah, I think…
Micah: So that’s it. We made it, without Andrew.
Eric: Hey, okay. Well, that was a thing that we did. And Andrew will be back for Episode 320. Have a great week, guys. We’ll see you next week.
Micah: For episode 320. Bye.
Eric: 320. Bye.