Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #322, “Graves”
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: This is MuggleCast, the Harry Potter podcast discussing everything about J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world. Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 322. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Andrew: Hey, that rhymes. “322, I’m Andrew.”
Micah: Good thing you went first.
Andrew: We are joined by one of our Slug Club members from Patreon this week. Welcome, Clara!
Clara: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s great to have you here. You are coming to us from Paris today. That is so cool.
Clara: Yes, I studied abroad here five years ago and I haven’t been back since, so just a little vacation.
Andrew: Vacation, she got the email, “Hey, come on MuggleCast.” You were like, “I’m on vacation in Paris, sure!”
[Andrew and Clara laugh]
Andrew: But we appreciate you coming on while you’re on your vacation. What have you been up to over there for fun?
Clara: Well, we got here about ten days ago, and I actually flew into Berlin. Yeah, my uncle lives in Berlin. And we drove from Berlin to Paris, and we did a Belgian brewery tour on the way, and then came here, and mostly have just been walking around. I think yesterday we walked 25,000 steps, so it’s a lot of walking.
Andrew: Nice, so you can eat all the bread.
Clara: Exactly, been eating a lot of bread. And one weird thing I had right before I came on the trip, I had a incident with a bat in my room and I had to get a rabies vaccination…
Andrew: Oh, geez.
Clara: … so I have been having to get the vaccination here, which has been kind of complicated.
[Andrew and Clara laugh]
Andrew: Oh, that’s too bad.
Clara: But that’s okay.
Eric: I’ve heard about vampires in Paris.
Clara: [laughs] But anyway, it’s almost over, and then I leave tomorrow to go home.
Andrew: Oh, okay.
Micah: Well, we appreciate the fact that while on vacation, you were willing to come on and record this episode with us.
Clara: Well, no problem. It feels like a nice treat for a vacation. I was excited to be on it, so I did not mind. [laughs]
Micah: I think we should be honest with the people that are listening, though: The real reason that Clara is joining us is because she’s actually scouting Fantastic Beasts 2 from Paris.
[Andrew and Clara laugh]
Eric: It’s true.
Clara: Exactly. That’s a good point.
Andrew: Yeah, good point. She works for Warner Bros.; she’s hanging out with J.K. Rowling a little later today. Good for you.
Clara: That’s my plan tonight.
Andrew: Ask her to come on the show for once.
Clara: [laughs] That would be amazing.
Eric: Ask her to reply to our tweets.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Don’t ask her to do anything. I’m done trying.
[Clara laughs]
Andrew: So let’s get your fandom ID; let’s hear about your interest in Harry Potter. So what’s your favorite book?
Clara: I have two: My favorite for the longest time was Goblet of Fire, and I think just because of the Triwizard Tournament, it felt like something was new, or something new was brought to the table. And then I love Half-Blood Prince as well.
Eric: Good.
Clara: So I love all of them, but yeah, if I had to choose.
Andrew: Favorite movie?
Clara: That one was hard. I really like the second Deathly Hallows, Part 2. I think… I saw it when they did the IMAX release in the fall, I watched it again, and I cried three times during that movie, and they were just… and they were little moments, things that I never thought would make me cry, but I really like that one.
Andrew: Favorite…? Or not favorite; what’s your Hogwarts House?
Clara: Ravenclaw.
Eric: Nice.
Clara: Yes.
Andrew: Ilvermorny House?
Clara: Pukwudgie, which I just found out yesterday. I had never taken that.
Eric: Oh!
Clara: I know. Brown hare, which I think is Luna’s Patronus too.
Andrew: Brown hare. The rabbit? It’s a rabbit, right? What’s your favorite Harry Potter ship, whether it’s real or it’s your dream ship?
Clara: [laughs] This was hard to answer. I don’t know if this would be my ultimate favorite, but I couldn’t think of which one it would be. So I do remember when reading through the sixth book for the first time, I thought it was so exciting when Harry and Ginny finally started developing a relationship, so I would probably choose that right now, just because I was a teenage girl and thought, “This is so cool that they’re finally getting together.”
Andrew: Yeah. The book version of that ship, not the movie version, which in my opinion is bad.
Clara: Oh, for sure. Not very good. Terrible. It’s terrible. [laughs]
Andrew: And then finally, since we are at the 20th anniversary here, how did you get started with Harry Potter?
Clara: Yeah, well, I was in first grade when the first book came out in the US, and I went to the Scholastic Book Fair at school, and they had this whole stand of the first book. And I’d never heard of it, of course, but I thought, “Well, this is the first thing I’ve seen. I’ll just pick it up.” And so I bought it and took it home, and I remember reading the first page and reading about Petunia and Vernon Dursley, and they live on Number Four Privet Drive, and I just thought, “This is so boring.” And I gave it to…
[Andrew laughs]
Clara: I just didn’t make it past the first page. And I set it aside, and my mom picked it up and read it and told me that I had to read it, and I finally did, and I loved it. But I didn’t really… I don’t remember feeling super excited about the books until the fourth book came out, and I remember seeing that in all of the stores and bookstores and stuff. But yeah, that was how I started.
Andrew: Cool. Yeah, that’s a funny story. “Privet Drive, who cares about this?”
Clara: Yeah, boring people
Andrew: “Sell this book, Mom.”
Eric: I couldn’t for the life of me figure out if it was supposed to read “Private,” and that was how British people said the word “private.”
[Clara laughs]
Andrew: Well, thank you for joining us, and nice Scholastic Book Fair shout-out as well. I miss those things.
Clara: Oh yeah, I loved those.
News
Andrew: So let’s talk a little bit of news, and then we’re going to get into a discussion about Graves. And also, we have a bit of an announcement to make. Woop, woop, woop. First of all, actually, all the news this week – just two items – are Cursed Child-related. So on the last episode, we mentioned that the original cast was wrapping up their run in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It’s already been a year, and now they’re finished. So we wondered if anything special would be happening for that final performance.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Nothing really special, except Rose planted a little kiss on Scorpius’s cheek at the very end of the play. So for shippers of Scorbus, it was bad news. [laughs] For shippers of Scorose, it was great news! And I spoke to somebody, Christina, who’s evidently a Cursed Child super fan; she has been to a bunch of performances. And she was explaining to me that the actress who plays Rose, Cherrelle Skeete, was kind of playing it up over the past couple months. They had her and the actor who plays Scorpius – Anthony Boyle, I believe his name is – they were kind of getting a little more playful in Act 4, Scene 14, where they have a moment together. So it felt like it was leading to something, and they were kind of teasing each other, and they were teasing audiences with the way they were interacting. Anyway, Cherrelle had kind of teased fans, like, “Will they or won’t they? Will they or won’t they kiss? I don’t know.” So she saved it for the final performance. She gave Scorpius a little kiss on the cheek.
Eric: Aww.
Andrew: So yeah, I thought that… I personally don’t ship Scorose, but I think it was a nice little farewell.
Eric: [laughs] You’re being really diplomatic. What happened is I saw this tweet when it came in from Hypable linking to this post, and then I clicked on it and saw that you wrote it, and I literally buckled up, and I was like, “Oh my God.”
Andrew: Buckle up, get ready for Andrew…
Eric: Here’s where Andrew gets… and you crossed off Albus’s name.
Andrew: So yeah, so that happened. And we have a new Cursed Child cast now.
Eric: Cool.
Andrew: The production released portraits like the ones from the original cast members, where they’re all in costume. They look good, but it was just jarring seeing different people playing these roles after getting so used to the original cast. [laughs] It’d be like if halfway through the Harry Potter movies, they recasted everybody. You just get so used to the looks of each of the characters, after we had already adjusted following the movies; now we have to adjust again.
Eric: Well, only if we’re seeing the play.
Andrew: Yeah, or looking at these pictures.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andrew: I don’t like Harry. I don’t like Ginny.
Eric: Okay, that’s offensive.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: What do you have to go on, man? Have you seen their acting chops?
Andrew: Ron’s gotten a little pudgier. I do like Lucius – or no, no, Draco. [laughs] I do like Draco. Yeah, that’s my thoughts.
Eric: Okay. That was really shallow. I’m sure all of these actors are very, very, very good.
Andrew: I’m sure they’re fine; it’s just taking me a little getting used to, but I need to stop looking at the pictures.
Eric: There is a video; I will click on the video later for the character shoot. I just think it’s probably really exciting as an actor to be able to work with a property that’s as famous and award-winning as Harry Potter.
Andrew: Oh, yeah, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. You’re set for life.
Eric: So I would definitely like to congratulate the new cast, and once again, thanks to the old cast of Cursed Child for putting on so many performances, and being so beloved.
Andrew: Yep. Clara, did you read Cursed Child? Or see it?
Clara: I bought it a couple days after it came out, and I couldn’t finish it.
Andrew: Oh, wow.
Eric: Good for you.
Clara: I just wasn’t a fan. [laughs] Yeah, I was very excited about it, but no, I think I made it to… how many…? Are there just two parts to that? I didn’t make it very far, whatever. I think I got to the train moment, or when they got Sorted into their Houses.
Andrew: You stopped there? Was it the trolley lady? You couldn’t stand the trolley lady?
Clara: Yeah, she was just weird. No, I thought that was pretty cool. But yeah, I mean, it might have been the format too. It was just so different reading it that way as more of a script, but I didn’t love it.
Andrew: So did you read spoilers? Do you know what happens after that?
Clara: Yes. I could not resist that. [laughs]
Andrew: Okay. All right, well, Eric, we have some news to share, don’t we?
Eric: We do, Andrew.
Andrew: Should I…?
Micah: Go ahead, Andrew, because clearly, you put this in the document, so you should go ahead and read it.
Andrew: [laughs] I did.
Eric: Oh, you beat me to it.
Andrew: Well, Eric knows the details better than I do, so that’s why I threw it to him.
Eric: Well, let’s all say it.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: All at once.
Andrew: We’re going to be at MuggleNet Live!
Eric: … Net Live! September 1, 2017, MuggleCast will be attending MuggleNet Live 2017: 19 Years Later! Yay.
Andrew: And what does that mean? Because my parents were like, “You’ve been doing the podcast for 19 years?” I was like, “No, Mom.”
[Eric and Clara laugh]
Eric: No, Mom. So this is the date, this year, September 1, is the date in the Deathly Hallows epilogue where Harry and Ginny and Ron and Hermione take all their kids off to school, also known as the beginning of Cursed Child.
Micah: Yeah, but we’re not celebrating that.
Eric: But it’s the actual… we’re not celebrating that.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: This is the actual date, and so what it is is it’s an exclusive one night only party inside the Wizarding World of Harry Potter Diagon Alley theme park. And you’ll actually be able to ride the Hogwarts Express as well as Gringotts, and there’s all sorts of lovely food options, unlimited butterbeer, all sorts of stuff. And certain actors from the films will be there; currently announced, Luke Youngblood, who plays Lee Jordan; and Christian Coulson was just announced, who plays… he was the first Tom Riddle, as well as Chris Rankin, Ellie Darcey-Alden, some of the more people you’re familiar with, all the kids from the epilogue – or a lot of them – will all be there wandering about, and there’s no extra charge for photos and autographs and all that stuff. So MuggleNet’s got a really cool sort of evening going on. You can find out all of the details on the website, but actually, go to our website, where there’s a post that I wrote which gives some of the details and our offer code as well.
Andrew: Yes, we are saving people a little money, so make sure you use that offer code. And we’re going to be doing a live podcast, too, right?
Eric: Yeah, yeah. We’re going to figure out either a podcast, a meetup, maybe an exclusive dinner hour in the Leaky Cauldron…
Andrew: Exclusive dinner hour!
Eric: Yeah, all included in ticket prices. We’re still going to work out what we’re doing there, but we will be there, and it’ll be a lot of fun.
Andrew: I’m going to bring a couple Blue Apron boxes. I’m going to cook in the Leaky Cauldron. [laughs]
Eric: Good, I’ll bring your green apron. That will be when… I’ll bring your green apron that…
Micah: And I’ll bring the fire extinguisher.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Hey, I’m a good cook sometimes.
Eric: Yeah. So again, that’s this September, and it’s MuggleNet Live, and MuggleCast will be there. So go check that out on MuggleCast.com at the very top; the first post that you’ll see will be the post with our offer code and all sorts of good stuff.
Andrew: Yeah, excited to do that. It’s going to be a fun time.
Eric: Yeah, it’s always good to see you guys.
Andrew: Yeah… you too.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Kidding.
Micah: Great. Really sold that, Andrew.
Andrew: I haven’t seen Micah in a while. I mean, the last time we were in… Eric and I were in Orlando for GeekyCon, for the Cursed Child release last summer.
Eric: Yeah, and Micah was not.
Andrew: We missed you, Micah.
Micah: Yeah, when was the last time…?
Eric: The three of us were together?
Andrew: Well, that was… we were in New York together.
Eric: Fantastic Beasts, Carnegie Hall.
Andrew: Yeah. Harry Potter always just brings us together. [fake cries] It’s so beautiful. We’re going to start talking about Graves in just a moment, but first, we want to remind you that today’s sponsor is Blue Apron.
[Ad break]
Main Discussion: Percival Graves
Andrew: All right, let’s move on to our character discussion today. we are going to talk about Percival Graves! One of the cooler characters, in my opinion, in this movie.
Eric: He’s great. He’s great, and I think Colin Farrell does an excellent job just being a really cool, mysterious type character. Percival Graves, of course, head of the Auror Department for MACUSA in 1926. Through the course of the film, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, it is revealed that he is, in fact, Grindelwald, Gellert Grindelwald in disguise. Uh-oh. And we’re going to begin our discussion with some name origins, actually, from Katie, who has continued to send us really interesting information. I don’t know where she finds this, but it’s all extremely…
Micah: Google?
[Andrew and Clara laugh]
Eric: Probably.
Micah: No, no, I’m sorry. Let’s keep it a mystery. I don’t want to give anything away.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, yeah. But these were great; she helped us out with our Tina episode, and then continued to submit as we discussed Seraphina last week, and this week Graves. So thanks to Katie in advance for this. But the name Percival, which we know J.K. Rowling does not choose lightly, and in fact, in the case of Percival, reuses it quite often. Percival means one who pierces the valley; hard steel. The most innocent of all the Knights of the Round Table, and the one who found the Holy Grail.
Andrew: Well, he is piercing and tough. So this once again reminds me, wow, these name origins really are brought to the characters in the movies.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it looks like the character of Percival Graves himself, according to Pottermore, is a descendant of one of the first dozen volunteers to train as Aurors for MACUSA; his ancestor was Gondulphus Graves. So the question some people have, I guess, going into the film is: Was Graves a person before Grindelwald was masquerading as him? Or was this a character, sort of like an alias that Grindelwald developed to raise high in the ranks at MACUSA? But it seems like Graves indeed was a person before, and Grindelwald must have captured or killed him and then assumed his role because he was so high up in MACUSA, and simply through disguising himself as him, Grindelwald immediately had access to the top levels of governments in America.
Micah: That’s very interesting. I didn’t think about it that way, in that Graves could be somebody that was never truly a person that existed, that it was somebody that Grindelwald created in order to infiltrate MACUSA and could have been acting as him from very early days. But that seems like a lot of work, and I don’t think that Grindelwald had that much time on his hands.
Eric: Oh, yeah. Can you imagine Grindelwald climbing the ladder in America? Yeah, but no, Graves was actually… so Graves is a very renowned… comes from a good family, a family of Aurors, or long line of severe badasses. The interesting thing… I mentioned that Percival is a name that is used time and again by J.K. Rowling. The other characters, just as a refresher here, who share the name Percival include Dumbledore’s own father, so that’s Albus Dumbledore’s father is Percival Dumbledore. It is one of Albus Dumbledore’s middle names; his name is Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Percy Weasley, it turns out its full name is Percival. And there’s a character called Percival Pratt, who was a wizard poet; he has his portrait hung in Hogwarts castle’s grand staircase.
Andrew: Now, how did you find that? Don’t tell me you know every wizard hanging in Hogwarts’s grand staircase.
Micah: Katie found out.
Eric: You’ve got to ask Katie. She did that.
Andrew: Oh, oh. Okay.
Eric: She just worked her magic.
[Clara laughs]
Micah: She possibly knows every portrait hanging.
Eric: She possibly knows every… she’s also a Ravenclaw, just like Clara. So Clara, do you know all the portraits that are hanging in the…?
Clara: [laughs] No, but I was listening to prepare for today, and since I’ve been gone for a while, I haven’t listened to a couple of the last episodes, but I listened to Katie’s today and was intimidated by her knowledge.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I think we’re all intimidated by her knowledge. We have to keep bringing her stuff on because it’s really good, but we’re all a little scared of her.
[Clara laughs]
Eric: But actually, you know what? While we’re showcasing some patrons, there was a comment from Irvin as we were preparing this document, and I have to share it because he’s found a link through all of these characters named Percival. He’s found something that they have in common, which I really like and have to share here. So Irvin says,
“Regarding ‘Percival,’ I find that the thread of innocence being corrupted runs through all of J.K. Rowling’s Percivals, where they were good people who were influenced by something bad. Percival Graves was taken over by Grindelwald. Albus Dumbledore was seduced by Grindelwald into dabbling with Dark magic. Percival Dumbledore was corrupted by hatred and a thirst for vengeance against Muggle boys. Percy Weasley was corrupted by the Ministry and his own ambition. Further diving into this, the two that are actually called Percival never bounce back from their corruption. Graves is presumed dead, and Percival Dumbledore rots in Azkaban. However, the two characters with a more tenuous connection to the name, Percy Weasley and Albus Percival Dumbledore, eventually see the error of their ways and manage to bounce back.”
Micah: And what about Percival Pratt?
Eric: And Percival Pratt is writing poems somewhere off in the sidelines.
Micah: Hey, we need to talk about all of them.
Andrew: Well, you could argue that Graves still might “bounce back.”
Eric: I certainly hope he does.
Andrew: I don’t presume he’s dead, necessarily. And of course, this is a good opportunity at some point in the next few films to bring him back in, although if he met Newt it’d be like meeting him for the first time, I suppose, because Newt never really met him and vice versa, so that could be interesting.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, this is the interesting thing about Graves, is we’re doing a character discussion on him based on the events of Fantastic Beasts, but ultimately, it’s more of a Grindelwald character discussion because Grindelwald is only posing as Graves. However, to be undercover successfully, especially when you’re working every day with President Picquery and all of Graves’s closest known associates, you have to assume that the Graves that we see in the film is pretty close to the actual Graves, at least how he would have behaved and acted and the things he would have said and done up until the point where he sentences Tina and Newt to death, right? So it’s a convincing disguise for Grindelwald to pull this off, and I think it indicates that Grindelwald became familiar with Graves, and perhaps tortured this information out of him, but really got a sense of who he was in order to successfully pose as him in the Ministry. So I think it’s just worth noting that we’ll talk about Graves, and we’re really talking about Grindelwald, but still we can get a sense of who Graves is because Grindelwald had to successfully pose as him. So just a little disclaimer.
Micah: Yeah, and I made the note that we get the unique perspective of watching a character, really, for an entire film who is not who he appears to be, but we also have very little context for who he should be.
Eric: Right.
Micah: And that is interesting to me, that Grindelwald was able to play up being Graves to such a point where nobody questioned it, and he is at the highest level of government, he is interfacing on a daily basis with the president of MACUSA, he’s sitting in the meeting of the International Confederation amongst all of these leaders that are looking for him, and he is just able to pull it off without raising any suspicion, up until there’s that scene with him and Newt and Tina and the Obscurus. And I think that’s really when Newt starts to suspect that something’s off here, but just a masterful job, and it points to the type of character that we can expect to see from Grindelwald moving forward. I know David Heyman refers to him as being a rock star, as being this seductive individual, and so he’s very clearly able to make connections with people. And I think we get the first real example of that when he interacts with Credence and just the way he’s able to manipulate him, it’s to me a bit of foreshadowing, perhaps? Maybe that’s not the right word, because I was going to say with respect to Dumbledore, and I think that has already taken place, so I think it’s more of a insight into one of his major personality traits, and that’s his ability to use his charm to manipulate people.
Eric: And he does the legwork, too. You get the sense, because this situation is familiar to the Mad-Eye Moody situation with Barty Crouch, Jr. able to overcome Mad-Eye Moody and pose as him. I mean, same in Harry’s fourth year; you get these lessons for an entire year that are not from Mad-Eye Moody at all, and that still remains, given light of the later books, to be the most screen time that you have of that character of Mad-Eye Moody, except it wasn’t him at all. So it’s kind of like that, except I prefer to think of what Grindelwald is doing as stronger and more work, more legwork. Barty Crouch, Jr. got lucky in comparison. Grindelwald is, as a terrifying villain, able to use, as Micah was saying, his charm, able to use his skill, and I think that ultimately it was more legwork, and Grindelwald will do that legwork to overcome obstacles. He’s not going to shy away from hard work. He’s trying to infiltrate the top levels of the Ministry to stay one step ahead of their efforts to find him, and that’s what he’s able to do successfully, until at the very end, as you mentioned, with his obsession with this Obscurus and his quest for greatness. His quest for power blinds his ability to do that.
Micah: Absolutely. And speaking of Goblet of Fire, we put out a question, a poll, actually, on Twitter yesterday. There’s still nine hours left to vote…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … so I’m sure we’ll get some more here before the day is through, but 127 people shared their opinion. We asked, “What did you think of the Grindelwald/Graves storyline in Fantastic Beasts?”, to which 54% replied, “Goblet of Fire Part 2.” 46% said, “It was epic.” So almost 50/50 in terms of how people felt about that storyline, but…
Eric: Were those the only two options?
Micah: Those were the only two options, yeah. I wanted to keep it…
Eric: Oh, okay, you’re making people decide whether they loved it or…
Andrew: I just voted “It was epic,” because just from a surprise standpoint, it was genuinely surprising, and so I don’t really compare it to Goblet of Fire because of that reason. And not to mention, just the fact that it was Johnny Depp who was playing him. Now, of course, that surprise was ruined going into the movie…
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: But yeah, no, I thought it was good.
Micah: Epic?
Andrew: Let’s just hope she doesn’t do this again.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: What did you think, Clara?
Clara: I’m going to go with “It was epic,” just because I hadn’t really thought until I read through these show notes about the similarities between those two. And I like that they are similar, but while watching it, I thought, “This is pretty awesome.” Yeah, so I was surprised and didn’t feel like it was too redundant, so I would go “It was epic.” I would go with that, yeah.
Andrew: I just voted “It was epic” too, so we’re about to swing the poll results.
Micah: Uh-oh.
[Clara and Eric laugh]
Clara: I’m going to vote now too.
Micah: Well, just because you win the popular vote doesn’t mean you… [laughs]
Eric: Okay, anyway! So the character of Graves… and actually, I forget where we found this out. It must have been on Pottermore, right? Where it’s mentioned that he was overseas for a time?
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: Ah, yeah. So we have throughout Potter a long history of characters like Quirrell, for instance, going off to, I think it was, in fact, Albania, that very same forest in Albania where Bertha Jorkins goes missing and Peter Pettigrew finds Voldemort and Quirrell gets possessed by Voldemort. It’s all that number one travel destination for unfortunate souls. But we find out that Graves was overseas, and this is presumably where Grindelwald was able to capture and/or defeat him, and begin posing as him. So we have this situation where Grindelwald then comes back and is posing as him. Now, unclear again what became of Graves after that, whether Graves is still with him, whether Graves is imprisoned somewhere, we do not know.
Micah: I think it’s actually mentioned by Graves when they’re in the room with the International Confederation that he was overseas. I think.
Eric: Oh, there you go.
Micah: Maybe I’m wrong; somebody can check me on that, but I’m almost certain that Graves mentions it during the film that he was overseas, or somebody mentions the fact in MACUSA that Graves was traveling. And this raises questions about his interactions with Newt’s brother, because we know that Colin Farrell let it slip in an interview that the two of them were at least corresponding, so yeah, sort of a international pact between MACUSA and the Ministry to try and bring down Grindelwald. So it definitely leads to a lot more questions about what kind of interactions these two had with each other, and then what happened that allowed Graves to be overtaken by Grindelwald?
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: It’s not a situation where it gets overshadowed in this film, which I love, but the threat of Grindelwald and what Grindelwald means to world peace and his reign of terror… there’s a few lines in here; Newt, I think, calls out, “For the greater good,” and there’s his rhetoric and his intentions are well known in the world at this point, and they’re only going to get bigger and grander and worse. I mean, but there are essentially dozens of agencies, I assume, and wizards after Grindelwald, but in the film, it’s relegated to… I mean, it’s given proper weight, but fortunately, this film isn’t all about Grindelwald; it has so many other things going on. And of course, it’s just the reveal at the end that he’s been Grindelwald, but I think future films will certainly focus on how many people are tracking him, because he’ll probably escape again.
Andrew: Yeah, and I mean, the first movie shows that he’s already a big threat. At the very beginning, we see that he’s a major issue for the wizarding world.
Eric: The newspaper.
Andrew: So I guess they could amp that up, and we could, like you’re saying, actually see people hunting him. But then again, in the next movie he could be in jail the whole time. We really have no clue what is happening.
Eric: It would be really interesting to see some sort of different conflict that has nothing to do with Grindelwald for part two.
Andrew: Right. Because on the other hand, it’s like, breaking out so soon? Eh.
Eric: Yeah, and then he’s on the run for another 19… because the series has to span another 19 years until 1945.
Andrew: Maybe he’ll break out at the end of the next movie. That’ll be the cliffhanger, like, “Ooh, how’s Jacob going to bake some bread to lure him?”
[Clara and Eric laugh]
Eric: Maybe Newt will find a diary that was Grindelwald’s young school diary. I think that could be a plot point in the second Fantastic Beasts.
Clara: I’m just interested to see… I know obviously this first movie we only hear of Dumbledore, but in the next films, I’m interested to see what he’s been doing this whole time, if we get to see some of that… with Voldemort he’s doing all of this research on his own, and so the whole Ministry is still – once they acknowledge that he’s alive – they’re searching for him, and Dumbledore, this whole time, has had his own side project of trying to find out about his past and figure out how to defeat him. So I don’t know; I think it’d be interesting to see what Dumbledore has been doing since Grindelwald left the funeral and they broke off that friendship.
Eric: So while we talked about the difference between Graves and Grindelwald, it’s important to note that anytime Graves does magic in Fantastic Beasts, it’s actually Grindelwald doing the magic. So Graves is able to heal Credence’s wounds on his hand from when his mother, I guess, lashed him with the belt, or was essentially abusing him, beating him; Graves is able to heal those wounds just by waving his hand over the wound. It’s a pretty cool scene in Fantastic Beasts, but it indicates skill level that Grindelwald is far above what we have seen before in terms of magical skill, which I think also works to be intimidating a little bit. And I think he even summons Newt’s case before Newt can even react protectively, summons his case and gets it, and he’s just overall very quick to act, very quick, very competent at magic.
Andrew: But wouldn’t you also assume that Grindelwald somehow studied Graves’s moves? Because wouldn’t it have been a tell if suddenly Graves was acting differently in terms of how he was handling his spell work?
Eric: Yes. Yeah, actually, that’s a good point. But when he’s with Credence, Credence doesn’t know who Graves is supposed to be normally, so he’s allowed to be himself, right?
Andrew: No, that’s true. I just mean towards the end of the movie, for example.
Micah: You definitely see a more darker side of the character when he’s interacting with Credence. The thing of the alley scenes, that’s when he talks a little bit more about this quest for power. We see the symbol of the Deathly Hallows to use as a signal to alert him to when Credence is able to find the Obscurus. So just going back for a sec, though, to talk about how Grindelwald is able to act as Graves, I don’t want to in any way try and diminish Graves and his ability, because we really don’t know much about him, but to assume that he wouldn’t be able to do many of the things that Grindelwald is doing, the pieces that you mentioned, Eric, I think takes a little bit away from the fact that Graves is an Auror at the end of the day, and a well accomplished one at that, and is a descendant of a long line of Aurors, so clearly he’s very, very well accomplished.
Eric: I think my point was just that since we’re dealing with adults here, it’s an unwritten book as to what types of magic we’ll see. But it is Grindelwald who’s able to do these things, so just keeping in mind that none of this goes away now that we have Grindelwald, now that we might no longer have Graves in the films. These are… Grindelwald, again, at the end of the film, is able to fend off hundreds of spells coming his way from all of the Aurors. Literally all of the Aurors are simultaneously fighting him, and he’s able to repel every spell until Newt is able to give his Swooping Evil a shot to save the day, and that’s pretty impressive.
Micah: That raises the question to me, though, what exactly is this transformation that took place? Because if you think back to Goblet of Fire, Barty Crouch, Jr./Mad-Eye Moody is not very much different, if at all, from the Mad-Eye Moody that we see in later films. We don’t really know how different Percival Graves is from Graves/Grindelwald. And I understand that with Polyjuice, you take on the features and the actions of the person that you’re portraying, but I don’t know. To me, it’s a bit confusing. Was that really Graves, or was it Grindelwald as Graves?
Eric: It was Grindelwald as Graves, but I think that it was probably very close to Graves. Graves is just very charismatic. He’s very competent. He strikes me as being interested in the people that he’s working for. There’s a scene, actually… I don’t know; it’s sort of easy to miss, but when he comes down to Tina’s office when she’s working in the wand permit office, and Graves says, “I’ll be down shortly,” and then he comes down, there’s that guy who was grilling Tina a moment ago, Abernathy, and when he says, “Good afternoon, Mr. Graves,” there’s a brief moment where Grindelwald as Graves says, “Afternoon,” pauses as if to recall the guy’s name, and then he says, “Abernathy.” There’s a brief moment where he’s like, “Uh… Abernathy.” And I think…
Andrew: “Hey, you. What’s up, you?”
Eric: “Hey, you.” Yeah, but that should give the indicator that Graves is somebody who knows the people that work under him; he takes the time to know their names. So I think that might be a tell as well as to who Graves is as a person, sort of more generous, more caring than you’d normally have to be if you were a person of that profound skill.
Andrew: But I still think Grindelwald studied him a lot to get him down so there wouldn’t be any tells, because yes, we saw him on screen, maybe, but just think of the times off screen where he was interacting with Seraphina Picquery and these other people of MACUSA. He has to be exactly like Graves to prevent them from questioning, “What’s up with Graves?”
Eric: There’s also this feeling that Grindelwald is somehow telepathic, or at least he has some sort of gift for prophecy? I mean, essentially, what Grindelwald is doing in New York has to do with this vision that he had about an Obscurus. He tells this in the scenes with Credence here, about his vision that has led him here, how he sees the creature and he sees this guy Credence. The whole reason he found Credence to begin with is because apparently, he had this vision where Credence and his mother were circling around, or were related to the source of insane, complex power. Grindelwald never really deduces until it’s too late that Credence is the Obscurial, because Credence is an exceptional case and should have died already for his age, but Grindelwald was moved and brought on by this prophecy or this gift for the sight that he himself has, and that’s something that’s very, very terrifying, the idea that this evil villain can also see the future.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s true. He knows what’s coming. It’ll be him against Queenie.
[Clara and Eric laugh]
Eric: I mean, that’d be kind of interesting. I would watch that.
Andrew: So one thing we wanted to ask was can we expect to see him in future films? And what we asked on Twitter was, “Where is Graves?” And we asked people to submit voicemails. We got one. Let’s listen to this one.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hey MuggleCast, it’s The Lady Ash. As far as your question for this week as where Graves is, I think he is somewhere in Europe. I believe in the beginning of the movie there were newspaper articles talking about how Graves had been over there, and I think that we’re supposed to be led to believe that that’s where he ran into Grindelwald, and that’s where Grindelwald either killed him and took over his identity, or hopefully just left him over there. That’s what I think, anyway. I think Graves is in Europe, and that when we go over there to Paris, that somehow Newt and the gang are just going to run into him randomly, and maybe he’ll have no idea on what was going on in America, or maybe his memory was erased and they have to unlock it, I don’t know, but I definitely think he’s alive, and I think we’re going to see him probably in the next movie. Anywho, excited to hear your thoughts. Have a great day, guys, and thanks for doing what you do. Bye.”
Andrew: All right. Thank you, Lady Ash. Well, she seems pretty confident, although I feel like we heard that Colin Farrell is not returning for Fantastic Beasts? That could, of course, change, and let’s hope it does, but I think there was a comment about that at one point from one of the crew members, or maybe Colin Farrell himself. But still, that makes sense to me, and that would be a good way to work him in. We’ve been wondering how these American characters are going to appear in Europe, because we keep hearing about how Fantastic Beasts will be set in Europe.
Eric: Yeah, having Graves just sort of wander the streets, even under a Memory Charm, seems like not tying up of a loose end. I think Grindelwald very clearly… I think the two options have to be Graves is dead, or Graves is imprisoned. Now, that doesn’t rule out Newt, Tina, Queenie being able to find Graves imprisoned somehow, somewhere. Maybe a charm that’s keeping him wears off and Graves wanders out. Maybe even has amnesia, that could work. But I think that Grindelwald ultimately is too terrifying and formidable to just leave a loose end like Graves wandering around.
Micah: That makes sense. And it’s also possible… we know that Grindelwald has built up, or at least… am I making this up? Nurmengard? I mean, I know that’s where he’s inevitably imprisoned, but I also believe that that’s his stronghold.
Andrew: It is.
Micah: So who knows? Maybe he starts collecting people in that prison and Graves is the first, or he may not be the first. Who knows?
Eric: Oh, I don’t remember that. Didn’t he turn Durmstrang into sort of his own place for a while there? Because in Goblet of Fire…
Micah: He went to Durmstrang.
Eric: Well, he went to Durmstrang, but there’s also people would graffiti the Deathly Hallows all over that place when he was taking over. I’m trying to determine if this is from Book 7 or Book 4, but yeah, how Durmstrang gets its reputation for being a school of darker magic, I think, comes from the influence that Grindelwald had over that place in the teens and ’20s and growing up, going into the war. At least, that’s the impression that I got.
Andrew: He was put in Nurmengard, though, and it was his own prison.
Eric: He was, and it’s interesting that he stays there, I mean, for 50 odd years until Voldemort comes and kills him. I’m wondering if it really is a prison he couldn’t have broken out of.
Andrew: You would think he knew the weak points of his own prison. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, if he really has that… yeah, if he has that influence over…
Andrew: He made a spell to get out of his own prison, in case they ever threw him into his own prison.
Micah: But we don’t know what the defeat entailed. It could have been something that maybe removed all of his magical ability.
Eric: Oh, God… and he gave it to Jacob.
[Clara laughs]
Eric: Jacob is going to have all of Grindelwald’s talent. But yeah, so here’s some quotes about Grindelwald, as well as what Grindelwald is trying to accomplish in the wizarding world. Because I keep mentioning this, but J.K. Rowling, David Yates, and David Heyman cracked this story and pretty much all the stories prior to filming for this movie, so they know what’s going on. So this is from David Heyman. He says,
“What Grindelwald wants to do is expose the magical world, and in so doing, create a war with the non-wizarding world. And there is a fear that a fascist, someone who is as intolerant as Grindelwald is, will cause nothing but pain.”
And here’s a quote from Yates.
“He’s a bit of a rock star in the wizarding world. He’s very seductive. He has a brilliant mind. He wants to win people’s hearts and minds. He wants them to feel comfortable with the policies that he’s advocating. He was very close with Dumbledore. The two of them had a very important relationship. And we just touch – in the first movie – on the relationship very slightly and there is much more to come in the following movies.”
And then here’s a final quote from Heyman; this is about Grindelwald’s role in the future films. He says,
“The connective tissue to the Potter universe gets stronger and stronger. What I am enjoying is seeing how as we move forward, I can see the Potter world moving back and seeing how all those lines meet.”
Heyman. So he’s speaking to whatever ends up happening with Grindelwald will sort of form the basis for where the wizarding world is at when Harry Potter picks up. I think that also might secretly foreshadow Voldemort’s involvement, because Voldemort, of course, is going to be alive during this time period. He’s alive, he’s born seven days after Fantastic Beasts 1 ends, and then he’s obviously the main villain in Harry Potter. So I’d like to believe that Voldemort will also be in these movies, but Grindelwald definitely… his rise for power, yeah.
Andrew: Oh, boy. Eh, I don’t want to see Voldemort in these. I think that’s too much.
Eric: Really?
Andrew: We had Voldemort. That’s it; we don’t need it. Grindelwald is our Voldemort in this series.
Eric: Yes, but I mean, if the final Fantastic Beasts film ends in 1945 with Dumbledore’s defeat of Grindelwald, Voldemort wasn’t only alive, he’s also already opened the Chamber of Secrets and he’s already made a Horcrux. I think it was from his father’s murder.
Andrew: All right, so maybe a little easter egg, like a post-credit scene or something; that would be cool.
[Clara and Eric laugh]
Andrew: But in terms of him having a major role, I don’t think there should be two major villains.
Micah: Well, he’s not a villain yet. I mean, it’s the rise of a villain, right?
Andrew: Yeah, I just feel like it’s distracting to have these two major antagonists teasing us. Just focus on the one.
Micah: Yeah, but wouldn’t that also be…? Don’t you think that would help influence a bit the future events, if Grindelwald and Voldemort actually had some sort of connection?
Eric: I think the important part is that Voldemort grows up in a world where people are fearing Grindelwald. The first 12 or 15 years of Voldemort’s young life, there’s this threat, there’s this very real threat of Grindelwald taking over the world, and I have to think that that leaves some kind of influence on Voldemort, who also craves power. But I have a quote here, and this is from Graves himself, because this gives the most insight. This is the thesis statement that Grindelwald is working with. It’s important to note that Grindelwald thinks that Credence is dead, but we know that he is probably not, so there’s a little bit of hope there that Grindelwald won’t go straight to Credence once he gets out. But when he thinks that all of the Aurors have killed Credence, he shouts, “You fools! Do you realize what you’ve done?” President Picquery says, “The Obscurial was killed on my orders, Mr. Graves.” He replies, “Yes, and history will surely note that, Madam President. What was done here tonight was not right.” And Picquery says, “He’s broken one of our most sacred laws.” He says, “A law that has us scuttling like rats in the gutter, a law that demands we conceal our true nature, a law that directs those who are superior to cower in fear lest we risk discovery. Let me ask you, Madam President, and I ask all of you: Who does this law protect? Us or them?” So that’s Grindelwald’s whole theory in a nutshell, I think. He believes wizards are superior, and he would like to see wizards free to practice their magic, free to live life, not hiding.
Andrew: I think Eric just wanted to do a little acting on the show.
[Clara laughs]
Eric: Yeah.
Micah: What do you think?
Eric: No, I mean, it’s an important quote, right?
Andrew: It’s a good point. Can we play this clip from the movie now? That little easter egg we’ve been talking about for a while?
Eric: Which?
Andrew: Hearing Johnny Depp, his voice.
Eric: Oh, do you want to do it on the show and not on bonus MuggleCast?
Andrew: Oh, that’s right. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Never mind. Ignore me.
[Clara and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Coming up on bonus MuggleCast…
Eric: Well, we may have mentioned it before, but Jeanna, who brought this up, who found this, was I think entirely right. [laughs] There’s a scene early on in the film, at 33 minutes, where we may get some Johnny Depp voice in the shadows.
Andrew: We’ll listen and judge. So anyway, anything else we wanted to touch on before wrapping this up?
Eric: Anything else on Graves?
Andrew: Yeah, I hope to see him in future movies, but I’m not confident we will, and it’s too bad because I really love the character. I’ve said this previously; I think Colin Farrell has put on some of the coolest wand work we’ve seen in any Harry Potter/Wizarding World movie.
Eric: He’s kind of suave with the wand.
Andrew: He’s very suave.
Eric: I think it’s, too…
Andrew: And I hope that’s the Graves part of the character, not the Grindelwald part.
Eric: I agree, I agree. We can’t have another suave Johnny Depp character. It just doesn’t work.
Andrew: And only if Johnny Depp was Graves and Colin Farrell was Grindelwald. That would have been better, in my opinion. I don’t want to see Jack Sparrow as Grindelwald.
Eric: Yeah, maybe they’ll recast him.
Andrew: [laughs] I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Eric: But, oh, Graves has cool sleeves. I guess that also helps showing him showcase magic, right? The sleeves of his robes are kind of open at the end, and very cool to watch.
Andrew: Sure. Any other final thoughts on Graves, then?
Clara: I have a question about Grindelwald, that Micah, when you mentioned the prison that he created, this just brought this thought to mind. Do you think that Voldemort considered him to be a threat? Considered Grindelwald to be a threat? Or would you think he would have considered him to be like an ally, someone who had that same vision in mind?
Eric: I’d like to believe, since Voldemort leaves Grindelwald alive that whole time… the only time he goes to find Grindelwald, or actively, I think, seeks him out, is when he’s on the quest for the Deathly Hallows, when he’s on the quest for the Elder Wand and circumstances bring Voldemort on the trail of Grindelwald. Whatever passes between them, or however Voldemort felt about Grindelwald, he was essentially hands off. It was a live-and-let-live sort of situation where Grindelwald is languishing in prison; he’s not an active threat to Voldemort. I think Voldemort actively was just content to let Grindelwald live in prison until such time as he needed information from Grindelwald, where he goes, he gets the information, and then kills him. I think that before then, Voldemort was perfectly content to let him live, and I think that that may indicate that to Voldemort, Grindelwald was either an ally or an idol.
Andrew: Definitely an idol.
Clara: And maybe he was stripped of his power if, I don’t know, Voldemort wouldn’t have any reason to use him.
Eric: That’s really interesting.
Clara: So I don’t know. I just thought about that.
Eric: I like that theory. I love that theory that he’s stripped of his power, that he just does not have any way of getting out because he doesn’t have magic anymore. That would be crazy.
Micah: Yeah, it would make sense, because for what other purpose…? You would think that he would have the ability to escape otherwise, unless… it becomes ironic that he’s imprisoned in his own prison, and that somebody said before, wouldn’t he know the intricacies to be able to escape? Unless it’s so overly powerful that he can’t overcome his own magic. But I like the idea of the fact that he has been stripped, in some capacity, of his magical ability and can no longer fight his way out the way that he would under normal circumstances. But to answer your question, though, too, if he was a priority for Voldemort, why not go after him during his first rise to power? He only comes into play, as was mentioned, as Voldemort is in search of the Elder Wand. But I also think that Voldemort focuses very much on himself and and doesn’t really have a need for Grindelwald. I don’t know if it’s opportunistic, but he’s situational, right? If he needs Grindelwald for something, he’s going to go to Grindelwald and he’s going to get what he needs, and he’s going to move on. I don’t think he’s looking to make friends, but it’s very possible that he learned from his mistakes. He saw a very failed attempt at rising to power and put in place other practices in order to protect himself as he himself rose to power.
Clara and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: And you’re exactly… I’m looking this up for a history lesson, but Nurmengard was, in fact, constructed under the orders of Grindelwald. So you’re absolutely right; Grindelwald originally built the prison. This is according to the Harry Potter Wikia, which is not a reliable source. I just have to keep saying that.
Andrew: [laughs] You say that every time! They source stuff. Leave them alone.
Eric: I can read this entire paragraph and there’s not one annotation, so I don’t know where it came from. But according to this, the prison was built on the orders of Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald at the height of his power in order to hold Grindelwald’s opponents, and his slogan “For the greater good” is carved over the prison’s entrance. So Nurmengard is totally Grindelwald’s prison. Sort of ironic that he ends up there and can’t get out.
Micah: And Graves could be there.
Andrew: Yeah. I feel like there’s a movie like this, where… for the past few minutes I’ve been trying to think of the comparison. There’s a movie or a book or something where somebody… oh, it was in Rogue One.
Eric: What?
Andrew: They purposely built the Death Star to have a flaw, right?
Eric: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s Grindelwald. He probably built it… there’s a flaw somewhere that he could take advantage of to get out of it.
Eric: [laughs] Oh, exactly. And not only that, but there’s so many instances in real history of people building castles or houses that have secret passageways and all sorts of means of getting around, and only the people who are actually physically building the house and the person who’s orchestrating the building actually know how many passageways there are in and out. And if Grindelwald was involved in overseeing the construction of this prison, he absolutely would know all of the ways in which you would escape from said prison, so the fact that he doesn’t either speaks to his not having magic anymore, or him being maybe a reformed character who regrets his actions and he just decides to languish there for 50 odd more years.
Clara: Maybe he’s like Voldemort, very full of himself, and doesn’t think that he needs a way out because never assumes that he will make it into that space himself.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: The flaw in the plan.
[Clara and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Well, that wraps up our discussion on Graves this week. Hooray. I still need a Graves Funko. I’ve been wanting to buy a Graves Funko.
Eric: Oooh.
Andrew: That’s the last one that I want as a tribute to Colin Farrell and that great character, who we might not be seeing again. I don’t know why I just mentioned that. But if you have any feedback about today’s discussion, feel free to email it to MuggleCast@gmail.com. We also have a voicemail line where you can send in your feedback. The number is 1…
Eric: 930…
Andrew: [laughs] I’m pulling it up on the website. 920…
Eric: 1-920-3-MUGGLE.
Andrew: That’s right. Thank you in advance for submitting your feedback. And I think that does it for this week’s episode of MuggleCast; we are going to be recording a couple of bonus MuggleCast installments that will be available exclusively on Patreon, Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You can get those if you pledge $5 or more per month. We’re going to be listening to that clip and analyzing it closely: Is that Johnny Depp in that one scene where Graves is talking? Between Graves and Credence. And also, we’re going to do Make the Music Connection, summer hits edition. This is Memorial Day weekend we’re recording on, and we’ll kick off summer by playing some summer hits, some recent summer hits, and comparing them to the Harry Potter books. We need to do Harry Potter specifically.
Eric: I rely on Make the Music Connections that you do, Andrew, to get me current on music because I don’t know any music. [laughs]
Andrew: Well, I have some bad news, because the four songs I selected, three are from last summer.
Eric: Oh.
Andrew: Because we don’t have our song of the summer yet; the summer’s just getting started.
Eric: That’s true, that’s true.
Andrew: I have three from last summer and then one from the summer before that, Demi Lovato’s “Cool for the Summer,” which is still my favorite summer song ever.
Eric: Okay.
Andrew: Clara, thank you for joining us.
Clara: Thanks for having me.
Andrew: What are you up to in Paris the rest of the day after this?
Clara: Well, I’m trying to decide if I should go to Disneyland Paris.
Andrew: Ah!
Clara: [laughs] I’d only be there for a couple of hours, but it might be worth it.
Andrew: Oh, crap.
Eric: Have you seen Musée d’Orsay?
Clara: I haven’t, but that’s one… I would love to go there too, so kind of in between…
Eric: You have to go to Musée d’Orsay.
Clara: I know. I love impressionist art, so I probably should do that. It’s closer; it’s easier to get to.
Eric: [whispers] Do it.
Andrew: Probably cheaper as well.
Clara: Probably a lot cheaper. [laughs] That’s a good idea.
Andrew: Thank you, everybody, for listening; we will be back next week. What character are we talking about next week? Do we know already?
Eric: We have a few options.
Andrew: Oh, okay.
Eric: We’ll figure it out.
Andrew: We’ll figure it out while we’re barbecuing this weekend.
Micah: Let’s do a Twitter poll where the popular vote doesn’t win. We pick the other two options.
Andrew: Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Clara: And I’m Clara.
Andrew: Thanks, everybody. We’ll see you next time. Goodbye!
Micah: Bye.
Eric: Au revoir!