Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #324, The Barebones
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: 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 Casper, an obsessively engineered mattress at a shockingly fair price. Get $50 towards any mattress purchase by visiting Casper.com/MuggleCast and using code “MUGGLECAST.” Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to Episode 324 of MuggleCast. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: And I’m Micah.
Andrew: Wow, look at that. Everybody’s so friendly this episode.
Eric: [laughs] I’m like, “Hey.”
Andrew: I know why.
Micah: Why is that?
Andrew: We got some very cool news that I was lit over when it was announced.
Eric and Micah: “Lit”?
Micah: Is that L-I-T?
Eric: You were lit or it was lit?
Andrew: Yeah, no, I was lit. The news was…
Eric: I think those two things are drastically different. [laughs]
Andrew: Well, leave me alone. You guys don’t know what lit even means. I can tell based on that response.
Eric: Eh…
Micah: You called me Grandpa before the show…
Eric: You did what?
Micah: … so I have an excuse.
Andrew: I should have known, yes.
Eric: But what Andrew is hiding from you all is that we’re all currently in line for the casting call for the young actors.
Andrew: [laughs] That’s a little creepy.
Micah: Well, except for me, because I’m Grandpa, so I’m just sitting on my rocking chair on the porch…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … trying to figure out how to get this microphone to work.
Andrew: Micah is literally double the age of the people they’re looking to cast. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I guess I am too if you really want to look into that. [laughs]
Andrew: So we’ll talk about that in a second. But I want to let everybody know, coming up on today’s show, today we’re going to be talking about the Barebone family as we wrap up our Fantastic Beasts character discussion series. We’re also going to go back in MuggleCast history a little bit, and go through a couple more voicemails, including one about a hot new movie that I think has confused a lot of people.
[Eric laughs]
News
Andrew: So let’s talk about the news. This came as a surprise earlier this week. Pottermore just came out and said it: “Hey, we’re casting teenage Dumbledore, Newt, Leta, Grindelwald, and a new character named Sebastian.” For Newt and Leta, they’re looking for 13- to 16-year-olds, and for Dumbledore and Grindelwald, they’re looking for a little bit older, around 16- to 18-year-olds. So this was a big surprise, because they’re kind of admitting… they’re revealing what’s going to be happening in Fantastic Beast 2, I think. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I mean, it means at least in some capacity, there will be flashbacks, because you need a face for young Dumbledore and young Grindelwald; you need a face for young Leta, young Newt. We don’t yet know much about it, but there’s going to be flashbacks.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, so we can kind of… let’s break it down into the pairs. So Newt… well, let’s start with the more obvious one, Dumbledore and Grindelwald.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: We’ve kind of speculated previously that we could be going back in time to see their relationship – their friendship, I should say – when Dumbledore had some romantic feelings towards Grindelwald, and of course that all-important fight in which Ariana Dumbledore died.
Eric: Yes.
Andrew: That’s the big thing. We knew about that in Deathly Hallows when we learned that story. So I mean, this kind of… and the reason we’ve theorized about this is because we also think Ariana is an Obscurus, so that’s how she would tie in and Dumbledore would tie in.
Eric: And we think it’s already happened. I mean, I think it’s pretty clear, especially given their ages, that it is in the past. Ariana is already dead during the events of Fantastic Beasts; it has happened prior to then. And so now, because we believe it’s relevant, especially if she was an Obscurus – and that was such a big part of the first Fantastic Beasts film – it’s very likely that we’re going to get into the backstory and how Newt first became aware of Obscurials in general, or his relationship with Dumbledore. But Dumbledore and Grindelwald, I mean, how they met is going to become pretty crucial, I think, because eventually these films are leading up to Dumbledore defeating Grindelwald, and so it makes sense that somewhere along the line that they would go into the backstory, which Andrew, as you mentioned, was more or less introduced in The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore in Deathly Hallows.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: You have to connect the dots, and I think that’s what they’re starting to do in Fantastic Beasts 2 with flashing back, and it seems like Newt and Leta, and whoever Sebastian is, were all at Hogwarts at the same time that Dumbledore was. We know that Grindelwald didn’t go to Hogwarts, but maybe he was a foreign exchange student.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Who knows how he’s going to come into the fold here? But what I find interesting – and maybe we’ll find out more about casting for this movie in the coming weeks – but Aberforth was also present during this battle that took place between Grindelwald and Dumbledore that cost Ariana her life. So I wonder, when is he going to be cast? And is it possible Sebastian is his first goat friend? I mean…
Andrew: [laughs] You think they’re casting a goat? Or another lover of goats?
Eric: A person as a goat? It’s all about the mocap these days, motion capture.
Micah: I’m just joking. But Sebastian…
Andrew: I don’t think you are.
Micah: No, I’m not. Not really. [laughs] But for Sebastian, I wonder, has anybody done the research behind characters that we’ve come across in the Potter series that have the first name Sebastian that could play around this time?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I’m going to do that Lexicon search right…
Andrew: Yes.
Micah: You did, Andrew?
Andrew: I did Google “Sebastian Harry Potter,” and there was only somebody in modern day Harry Potter; it was some Hogwarts student that was mentioned in passing. I don’t even know if it was in one of the books; it could have been through a video game. But I couldn’t find any old Sebastians. [laughs] So unlike these other four characters that they’re casting teenagers for, I don’t think this one is an iconic old character who’s about to be recast. And that’s fine; I’m looking forward… I’m glad one of these characters is going to be a surprise.
Micah: Well, Sebastian, in addition to potentially being a goat, could be Newt’s friend at Hogwarts, could be Leta’s brother. There’s a ton of possibilities here.
Eric: Sebastian Lestrange.
Micah: And I just wanted to correct one thing I said earlier, because based on the ages here, it’s not that they would have been at Hogwarts the same time as students, but potentially…
Eric: Right. Dumbledore and Grindelwald, you mean.
Micah: Well, Dumbledore and Newt, because I think I kind of made that connection based on the ages, but obviously from what we’ve learned, it seems like Newt was a student; Dumbledore was a teacher. So these seem to be two completely different castings that are going on, so I wonder, would Jude Law be the version of Dumbledore that we see Newt interact with at the age of 13 to 16 years old?
Eric: Yes. Yeah, because essentially… yeah, so there’s going to be two sets of flashbacks, presumably. There’ll be a flashback or more to where Dumbledore and Grindelwald were interacting, and then another one to where Newt and Leta’s backstory is explained. But I mean, at the time of… I mean, Newt basically is only a couple years out of Hogwarts at the beginning of Fantastic Beasts. I know he’s older, and I know Eddie Redmayne is actually secretly 30 playing 20-something, but I think that Newt really is only a couple years out of school, and I think the backstory that we know on Newt supports that. We can definitely get into it more when we talk about Newt as a character on an upcoming episode of MuggleCast, but I’m pretty sure he’s young 20s now. And so Dumbledore, who is I think mathematically 60, I want to say – around this time, around the time of the ’20s, is supposed to be 60 years old – would only have been 55, 50. And Jude Law could play… they could just de-age him a couple years or add extra age makeup for his normal costume to give him a good flashback appearance.
Micah: Yeah, I just didn’t want to make that wrong connection there…
Eric: Yeah, no, it made sense.
Micah: … and have people write in and say, “The ages are completely off; there’s no way that they were at school together at the same time.”
Eric: Yeah, Dumbledore and Grindelwald are 40 years older, at the minimum, to Newt and Leta.
Andrew: I’m also thinking that this could be a way to involve Grindelwald to make him appear in this next film without it being Johnny Depp.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Because we’ve kind of spoken about this previously: If he’s going to prison, how much of him could we possibly see?
Eric: Actually, you know what? That’s…
Andrew: Unless he breaks out already, and it just feels like too soon for him to break out so quickly after getting into prison. Maybe J.K. Rowling will write the story and the pacing in the right way where it feels okay for him to break out, but I think this could be a good middle ground to deal with Grindelwald, and the backlash towards Johnny Depp, [laughs] at least for one movie.
Eric: Which they’re not shy about, though, to be fair. They don’t care. They love their…
Andrew: Oh, I know.
Eric: They think it’s the greatest idea ever that they had to cast such a talent, such a universal talent as Johnny Depp in the role. But I love the idea. I mean, Andrew, it would essentially be like a Chamber of Secrets thing, where you’re not dealing with Voldemort; you’re dealing with young Voldemort the whole book.
Andrew: Right, right. Yeah, and who knows? Maybe this will be the Grindelwald we always wanted.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I mean, it’s a big age difference between teenage Grindelwald and Johnny Depp Grindelwald, but maybe we’ll really like him, and then we’ll feel better about Johnny Depp. [laughs]
Eric: I know we got some really good comments on Patreon, but I did read through them, and I had an opinion that I wanted to share before we get into them, because it’s not echoed in these comments. But we’ve been sort of fooled before, you guys, about flashbacks in Harry Potter – if you remember “Snape’s Worst Memory,” for instance, and also just the young Lily and Snape stuff, Spinner’s End, all the things Harry experiences in Deathly Hallows – where they do these big casting calls, they cast all four Marauders as young kids and young Lily, and presumably even filmed a scene with dialogue about “Snape’s Worst Memory,” and not only did it not make the film, we got a blurry two-second look around the… what kind of tree is it? The tree by the…? Anyway, the tree by the lake. We got one blurry look for a couple seconds, and that was the entire extent of “Snape’s Worst Memory.” So they cast all these people, and it just didn’t end up in the film. So I want to…
Micah: It’s all about the pacing, Eric, in case you were not aware.
Eric: Well, I want to sort of… yeah, pacing, oh.
Andrew: [imitating David Yates] “The pacing, the pacing.”
Micah: The pacing needs to be as good as it is in The Holiday, and if it’s not…
Eric: The movie would have dragged. The movie would have dragged so badly.
Andrew: Speaking of pacing – good reference, Micah, about The Holiday – but speaking of pacing, let’s move on to the other pair here, Newt and Leta. So Dumbledore and Grindelwald… we’re probably going to see Godric’s Hollow. Awesome. Newt and Leta, teenagers, around 13 years old, 13, 14, 15, 16, that means when they were at Hogwarts together, so we’re also going to be going to Hogwarts in this next movie, presumably. And by casting teenage Newt and Leta, we’re going to see the falling-out between these two characters, and… because remember, for anyone who doesn’t know, this wasn’t in the movie or the script book, but in these spin-off books we learned that Newt took the fall for something Leta did. I believe they even said it was… yeah, it was at Hogwarts. It happened at Hogwarts, so we’ll probably see what that was. So we’ll finally know why Newt was uncomfortable talking about Leta to Queenie.
Eric: I guess I am more surprised that they didn’t just use the same actors, Zoë Kravitz and Newt, to play…
Micah: For 13?
Eric: Well, okay, 13 is a little…
Andrew: Eddie Redmayne is 35. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, okay, 13 is young. But I mean, Newt wasn’t expelled when he was 13, so there’s…
Andrew: Maybe they would do that trick that my dad would always do, where to act like a kid, he would take off his shoes, put them on the ground, and then he would put his knees on his shoes, so your legs are just thigh length.
Eric: Oh my God. I think you’ve got it.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: Such a smart man, Mr. Sims.
Andrew: Ask J.K. Rowling if they can do that, Eric, for your sake.
Eric: But you know what I’m saying, right? Because they could just as easily do a voiceover that shows visually the kids, but it could be current Newt, Eddie Redmayne talking.
Micah: Yeah, you could do that.
Eric: It’s just that flashbacks… I mean, David Yates and Heyman have worked together on five films now, and the films are just not flashback heavy. So I want to believe, I want to be really excited, but what if it’s visual only on this? What if it’s not the substance…?
Andrew: Why can’t they sound different? Why can’t they sound prepubescent?
Eric: [laughs] There’s no reason.
Andrew: [in a high voice] “Leta, I love beasts so much.”
Eric: Aw.
Andrew: He’d sound like Andrew in Episode 1 of MuggleCast. [in a high voice] “Welcome to MuggleCast.”
Eric: Yeah, all of us. [laughs]
Micah: We’ve got to make sure we get that in our This Week in MuggleCast History segment at some point.
Eric: Oh, come on.
Micah: It’s a classic. But I think that Sebastian could potentially be a casualty in all of this, if we’re thinking through what potentially Leta did that caused Newt to get expelled. We know that one of the beasts involved is a Jarvey, at least according to those stories that you mentioned, Andrew. I know we spent a little bit of time talking about that in a previous episode. But I just like the idea of learning more about what preceded where we were in the first Fantastic Beasts film, and I don’t think that is going to take up an entire film. I do like the idea of that being our exposure to Grindelwald, and then maybe he breaks out at the end of the film, and instead of… Andrew, as you said, I think it would be a little bit too premature for him to just bust out at the beginning of the movie, and then you’re just saying to yourself, “Well, yeah, they don’t really do that great of a job at MACUSA in terms of holding their prisoners.”
Eric: Yeah, America sucks.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: But going back to Hogwarts, and thinking through, again, what we’re going to be able to see when we’re on the grounds of Hogwarts that is going to be completely new from what we know. Are they going to completely remake it? Are they going to take a different spin on it? And what professors are there? What faculty are there? What things are we going to be able to recognize as fans coming back to a place that we obviously enjoyed going for so many years?
Eric: It was a beech tree, B-E-E-C-H. I just looked it up. That’s going to be there, to answer your question, Micah.
Andrew: Oh, great.
Micah: Well, the Whomping Willow won’t. That much we know.
Eric: Oh, it won’t be, yeah, because that only came when Lupin… in the ’70s.
Micah: And Hagrid? What about…? Is it Ogg’s hut?
Eric: Ogg’s?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Ogg-rid’s hut.
Eric: I like to believe that Ogg just lives in the ground, in a hole in the ground.
Andrew: It’ll be kind of… I can already picture the interviews now with J.K. Rowling and David Heyman and David Yates, and Stuart Craig, the designer of everything. “Oh, we were just so excited to go back to Hogwarts. The possibilities, the possibilities, they were all there for us.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: But it’s also funny, because if you think of Hogwarts in Movie 1, it looks so different compared to how it did in Movie 7, because they made it look…
Eric: Well, it’s just that there’s daylight, I mean, in Movie 1. That’s all.
Andrew: No, no, no. I mean, the castle looked a lot simpler in the first movie than it did by the sixth, seventh, eighth.
Eric: Yeah, that’s fair. They kept adding… the bridge got added in Movie 3. “Boom.”
Andrew: It looks more detailed in general, I thought.
Micah: That’s all I remember about the bridge.
Andrew: Hmm?
Micah: When Professor McGonagall says, “Boom!”
Eric: “Boom!” [laughs] And Lupin and Harry have a heart-to-heart about Lily on that bridge.
Andrew: You know what’d be super cool? If they used some of the old sets, like the Great Hall. Because that hasn’t changed, right?
Eric: Yeah, I mean, there will be a couple months where you can’t get into the Studio Tour because they’re filming on the old set.
Andrew: [laughs] Well, that would certainly confirm a lot, wouldn’t it?
Eric: Right? I mean, that would just be a dead giveaway. Maybe they’re only filming at night after-hours. That would be really funny.
Andrew: That would be.
Micah: And what about…? Speaking of Professor McGonagall, Maggie Smith could come back, no?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I don’t know.
Andrew: I’d have to Google her. Professor McGonagall… what was she up to in the ’20s? When did she…? Oh, she was born in 1935, so she definitely wasn’t…
Micah: Oh, never mind. Never mind.
Andrew: Yeah. Dumbledore is the only really old one. [laughs]
Eric: I think… was it Laura Linney who played young Maggie Smith’s character in Hook? She was young Wendy? I think it was. Anyway, they’d probably cast a younger actress.
Andrew: Yeah, but she wasn’t alive, so…
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Okay, well, y’all aren’t Hook fans like me, major Hook fans like me.
Andrew: Clearly.
Micah: No, I’ve seen the movie. Jason Isaacs, right?
Eric: Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure Laura Linney played young Wendy. No, Dustin Hoffman.
Question of the Week
Andrew: So over on Patreon, one of the benefits for our Dumbledore’s Army members and above, we occasionally do a Question of the Week on there.
Eric: Yay.
Andrew: And this time we asked, “What do you expect to see from the Fantastic Beasts teens?” Amy said,
“I think we deserve to see how Grindelwald met and seduced (both physically and magically) Dumbledore. It would certainly be interesting to see how Dumbledore was so tempted by power after we have only ever seen him as such a wise and humbled figure. It would give even more depth to his already dynamic character.”
Eric: I agree with that.
Andrew: Adam chimes in, though, “Why do we keep assuming Grindelwald tricked Dumbledore or used him? Has there been anything so far to confirm he didn’t have feelings for Dumbledore?” We do know for sure that Dumbledore’s love was unrequited.
Eric: Yeah, I think J.K. Rowling said that from the get-go.
Micah: And I think we’ve talked about, too, on a couple of other episodes, how you get a sense for the manipulative nature of Grindelwald in his interactions with Credence. I think that was done purposefully as a lead-up to these other films where he is going to be acting probably in a very similar manner to Dumbledore. And not to say that there isn’t any sort of emotional attachment between the two of them; I think that was made very clear in Deathly Hallows, that this quest for power to find the Deathly Hallows and to achieve sort of this immortality… Dumbledore definitely buys into what Grindelwald is selling very early on. Now, that could be for a number of reasons, but I think just given the nature of what we know about Grindelwald and his sort of seductive ability, and how he was able to use that on Credence, he comes across very much as a fatherly type of figure to him, and Credence kind of is able… and really just one of the only people that shows him any sort of attention. And I think that that’s not necessarily Dumbledore, although we don’t know what kind of situation he’s in at this point in time, but I think it definitely will all kind of tie together in terms of who Grindelwald is as a character.
Eric: Yeah, and our understanding of the Dumbledore/Grindelwald relationship is crucial, absolutely crucial, and central to our ability to enjoy or to watch the relationship play out leading up to his defeat, leading up to Grindelwald’s defeat. So I think that they will take the time they need to explain it to a general audience, some of the details of how that… what that was all about, and I think we’ll get to see a young Dumbledore lust for power, ill-advisedly kind of buy into what Grindelwald is selling, as you said.
Micah: Absolutely. And look, I could be wrong; there could be more than what we’ve learned so far, and we’ll just watch it play out in the next film, but I think there’s vulnerabilities – as was just pointed out by the person on Patreon – that Dumbledore has that we’re not used to, right? I think a lot of him was exposed in Deathly Hallows, particularly his treatment of Harry, and that’s a whole ‘nother episode that we probably did several years ago.
Eric: Yeah, called “Pig for Slaughter.”
Micah: “Pig for Slaughter,” which is Snape’s own words.
Andrew: That was a good one.
Micah: Yeah, it was. So anyway, there’s more to discuss.
Andrew: Here’s an interesting theory. Andy says,
“I wonder. Is it possible that Newt could have also grown up in Godric’s Hollow? Maybe the Scamanders and Dumbledores were friends? Maybe Newt and Ariana were friends and Newt was there when Ariana died? Their teenage counterparts could all be cast to show that moment in history… or maybe we will see the Newt and Leta incident back at Hogwarts and finally know what happened exactly… so much to look forward to.”
Eric: Yeah, I think it’s a stretch to assume that… because again, there should be an age gap; there should be a substantial age gap between…
Andrew: Yeah, a bigger one.
Eric: It wouldn’t just be like Dumbledore’s younger sister, the youngest sibling, is Newt’s age. I think it’s probably closer to a 20 or 30 year difference between Newt and Ariana.
Andrew: I also feel like… it’d feel a little cheap to me if J.K. Rowling was like, “Oh, yeah, the Scamanders were in Godric’s Hollow too the whole time.” Because I feel like we would have heard about that at some point by now.
Eric: Well, yeah, I mean, the Dumbledores moved around a lot, too, and wasn’t it only the Bagshots that were really said to be close friends to the Dumbledores? I don’t know. It’s just… yeah, there’s a risk that they run of putting all the important characters together in a room when something crucial happened.
Andrew: Elizabeth reminds us that “Newt is too young to be in the Ariana timeline. If Dumbledore was one of his professors and she died when he left Hogwarts, it might work, but I am doubtful.” She says, “I want to see what happened with Leta and Newt. If she let him take the blame for something she did, maybe he carries her picture to remind himself not to trust anyone, except Dumbledore.” Ooh.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: And then Irvin reminds us about what Queenie actually said in the movie. He says, “I want to see exactly how Leta was a ‘taker’ instead of a ‘a giver.’ So intrigued by her relationship with Newt!”
Eric: Yeah, anyway.
Micah: Maybe exactly what you just said, in that she allowed him to take the blame, so essentially…
Andrew: Right.
Micah: … she’s taking something intangible from him.
Andrew: She’s taking advantage of him.
Micah: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Eric: So are none of us seeing this Newt/Leta/Sebastian thing as like a Bella/Edward/Jacob triangle?
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Who’s that?
Eric: Is that just me?
Andrew: Part of me does feel like Sebastian is going to be a third wheel in a love triangle.
Eric: Love interest, yeah.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: It’s so much young adult stuff right now.
Micah: I think he’s going to be a casualty.
Eric: I love that idea.
Andrew: Sebastian is kind of a gay name when you think about it…
Eric: Oh, come on.
Andrew: … so maybe Sebastian had feelings for Dumbledore, but Dumbledore was like, “No, bitch, I’ve got feelings for Grindelwald.”
Eric: Stop it. Stop it.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: When he’s 60 years old, though?
Andrew: Why not?
Eric: I love the idea of him as a casualty. I love that.
Micah: Would it be teacher/student?
Eric: [sighs] J.K. Rowling is not going…
Andrew: No, no, teenage Sebastian is into teenage Dumbledore, but teenage Dumbledore is into Grindelwald.
Micah: But I thought Sebastian is in the timeline of Newt and Leta.
Andrew: No one said that.
Micah: Oh.
Andrew: We don’t know that.
Eric: Oh, he’s the same age, though, right? He’s the… well, Sebastian is the 13-to-16 versus Dumbledore is the 16-to-18?
Andrew: Oh. Well…
Eric: But Sebastian could be younger than Dumbledore and Grindelwald and still appear in Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s story.
Micah: They’re all going to star in Barebone Productions.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Oh, Jesus.
Micah: Anyway, though, one thing I do want to bring up, though, because as we’re talking about Dumbledore, it made me think of this. In terms of Newt having the trust of Dumbledore, I wonder, given everything that we think has happened with Ariana, and knowing Newt’s affinity for beasts, do you think it’s almost like a apology tour of sorts, where Dumbledore is sending Newt to try and track down these Obscurus that Grindelwald may look to take advantage of?
Eric: Yeah, I love that idea of sort of… because if Grindelwald made a play to come at Ariana, to come after her to use her, or if there was ever a discussion where Grindelwald was like, “You know, Albus, your sister… I don’t know, she might be useful to our cause.” If there was ever any inkling of that at all, then Grindelwald would have tipped his hand and Dumbledore would have been able to see the plot of Fantastic Beasts coming, and that would go a long way to explaining why Newt not only had just been with an Obscurial a couple months before the events of the film, but also was in New York.
Micah: Right.
Eric: And it could be under Dumbledore’s orders.
Micah: Exactly. And I know it’s a little bit of a stretch, though, to say that he didn’t go to New York to inevitably try and make his way to Arizona to free Frank the Thunderbird…
Eric: Right.
Micah: … but in my mind, given, as you just said, that he was in Africa months prior to that, also trying to save this young girl, that he would then find himself just months later in New York dealing with a child a bit older, but who is going through the very exact same situation, I find to be more than coincidental. So I think that there is a definite possibility that this ties back to what happened to Ariana, and Dumbledore confiding perhaps in Newt what truly happened, and making sure that maybe he knows a way to try and save these young kids.
Andrew: One more quick comment here; this is from Megan. She says,
“I’m hoping to see if we’re going to find out about the ‘special relationship’ that Newt and Dumbledore had that was mentioned in the new book foreword. What does it mean?”
Micah: I just explained the whole thing.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Andrew: What a troll.
Eric: But we’re going to see that in dialogue. Clearly we’ll see… I don’t know. Should we be steeling ourselves for a little bit of jealousy? If Dumbledore’s relationship with Newt is closer, as more of like a colleague than it ever was with Harry, would we feel bad?
Andrew: Ooh. That would… hmm.
Eric: Wouldn’t that kind of suck? Because he’s just using Harry.
Andrew: That would kind of suck, yeah.
Micah: But we just said he raised him like a pig for slaughter, so it wasn’t that great of a relationship.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: No, no, but I mean he’s not doing that with Newt, is what I’m saying. So how does that make us feel? Because I’d like to believe that he can… that he’s actually… Dumbledore, although there’s that age difference… the other thing about what made Dumbledore and Grindelwald tick was that Dumbledore was lonely because he’s the only smart… he’s the smartest wizard, and he has no peers, and Grindelwald was that first real peer of his, the first real contemporary who was on the same level. So with Dumbledore and Newt, though, getting back to that, I just see it as being a more mutual, respectful relationship than he had with Harry, than Dumbledore had with Harry. I think that… and we speculate as to whether or not it’s like a early Order of the Phoenix type thing, where Dumbledore is calling the shots and making these grand movements to… except with Grindelwald instead of with Voldemort, as he later does. But I have a feeling that Newt and Dumbledore, as both adult wizards, are on a much more even plane than Dumbledore ever was with Harry.
Micah: Yeah, I agree with that. I think there’s much more of a bond between Dumbledore and Harry, and he says as much, and just that he’s watched him grow from a very young child to become the person that he is in Deathly Hallows, and so I don’t know. We’ll find out. And did you think that there perhaps was a bit of jealousy when that interrogation scene is going on, and Graves/Grindelwald is asking the question to Newt, “What makes Albus Dumbledore so fond of you? Or so trustworthy of you?” Perhaps?
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Eric: I don’t know about jealousy, but there was definitely a charge in that line. It was very much…
Andrew: Yeah. Well, and I’m sure Grindelwald is probably just naturally curious, given his past friendship with Dumbledore. He just wants to know what his friend is up to these days, and why he’s so interested in Newt, because Grindelwald probably sees Dumbledore as a threat.
Eric: Yeah, that’s 100% true.
Andrew: We’ve got another year and a half to talk about this, so let’s leave it there.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: Is that all?
Eric: That’s another 80 episodes. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, geez. Going to be Episode 500 by the time we see teenage Dumbledore.
One year of Cursed Child
Andrew: One other news item; it’s more of an anniversary. It’s been one year since Harry Potter and the Cursed Child began preview performances in London. We’re recording on Thursday, June 8. This is the one-year anniversary of that fateful day where I woke up to a tweet from J.K. Rowling calling Hypable “Wormtaily,” and I’ve never been the same since.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Well, she was right.
Andrew: [laughs] Actually, in hindsight, I think more people are probably on our side, because people were like, “Oh…” The naysayers were like, “Oh, how dare they spoil something like this?”
Micah: How dare you, Andrew?
Andrew: Well, you know what, people? You guys at that time had no clue what was coming in that play.
Micah: That’s right.
Andrew: All we spoiled was the Housing assignments. Big whoop.
Micah: You tell ’em.
Andrew: How about Voldemort hooking up with Bellatrix? That’s a spoiler. We didn’t spoil that.
Eric: I’m pretty sure I said this at the time, but if not, I’ll reiterate. I expected to come down on the side of J.K. Rowling naturally in that argument, but I immediately and infinitely from the get-go was on Hypable’s side on that, because you picked out literally the one thing from that play that anyone could reasonably be excited about. You picked the one good thing…
Andrew: [laughs] Right.
Eric: … and told people so that they would be excited and actually go and see the show. If you had said any other plot detail, it would have been the most obnoxious… I would have absolutely been so disinclined to see that play, as I was when I read the script. But no, Hypable… you guys actually… I think you helped ticket sales.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Well, not only did you help ticket sales, but I think that tweet by J.K. Rowling was a tip of the cap toward you and your website, and that it actually encouraged more people to go and read it.
Andrew: Absolutely.
Micah: Think about it.
Eric: It was certainly a side effect, if not the initial intent.
Micah: I think it was the initial intent on her part. What was the web traffic for that page?
Andrew: I think it was also a warning signal to tell people, “Hey, don’t post any spoilers, or I’m going to call your ass out.”
Micah: Well, I’m curious, what was the web traffic from that page?
Andrew: It was good.
Micah: Was that the most visited page of the entire site for the year?
Andrew: Not for the year, but I’m sure for the day it was. I can’t remember exactly. But J.K. Rowling told the entire Harry Potter world, “Hey, if you want to know something that happens in this play that you’re dying to find out more about, visit Hypable.” [laughs] I don’t know if it was completely thought through. But anyway, I just wanted to mention that it’s been a year.
Eric: A year since Wormtaily?
Andrew: Eric, the way you prefaced your very kind thoughts a minute ago made me wonder: If J.K. Rowling and I were both in a sinking boat, and you can only save one, who would you save?
Eric: You. But I… you know what I would do, though? I would ask her a really important Harry Potter question…
Andrew: And then let her die.
Eric: No.
Andrew: You would ask J.K. Rowling a tough question and then let her die.
Eric: This is not… no, you know what? I haven’t chosen the… I recuse myself from having to answer hypotheticals.
Andrew: [laughs] “J.K. Rowling, I’m going to save you, but in exchange, you must tell me if Lavender Brown is dead or alive.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “She’s dead! She’s dead!” “Okay, just kidding. I’m not going to save you. I’m going to save Andrew, because we have to keep MuggleCasting. Bye!”
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Without you, it’s not Muggle… she would understand.
Micah: Only if she agreed to come on the show.
Eric: Oooh.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: Otherwise, it’s you all the way, Andrew.
Eric: JKR, would you replace our host who I’m not going to…? I don’t know, man. That’s tough.
Andrew: Do you know how to record the show, J.K. Rowling?
Eric: How would any of us…? No, I’m not even… no, it would be you, dude.
Andrew: All right. Well, you did say me first, so I think that’s…
Eric: Yeah, it would be you.
Andrew: Okay. Thank you. I would save you too, maybe.
Eric: Thank you.
Andrew: Before we get to our character discussion, this week’s episode is brought to you by a new sponsor, actually: Casper Mattresses.
[Ad break]
Andrew: If you’re interested in a mattress, I think you’re really going to like it, and I really look forward to getting cozy in bed every day now. [laughs]
Eric: Aw.
Andrew: Aw, isn’t that cute? You wanna come cuddle with me?
Micah: Do you sink and bounce? Have you tried that out?
Andrew: I’ve tried the bounce. [laughs] That sounds wrong.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I’ve bounced into the bed…
Micah: Well, we’re about to talk about the Barebone family, so it’s totally fine.
Andrew: Wow. Wow.
Micah: What?
Andrew: I’m actually about to go out to LA and pick up my dog. I can’t wait for him to try out my Casper mattress as well. I have a feeling he’s never going to leave.
Eric: Aw, Brooklyn. Brooklyn is going to be close to Brooklyn.
Micah: He’ll probably sink. Or do you think he’ll bounce?
Andrew: [laughs] I’m going to drop him from five feet above the mattress and see what happens, see if he bounces up.
Eric: He’ll bounce like Neville Longbottom bounced.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Wow.
Main Discussion: The Barebones
Andrew: All right, so let’s talk about the Barebones family.
Eric: Barebones family, a.k.a. the Second Salemers. You guys ready for that? This? That?
Andrew: Well, I remember when we first found out about the Second Salemers through rumors and through set photos and stuff, we were like, “Oh, that’s so cool,” because we all knew about the Salem witch trials, so we knew exactly who these people were.
Eric: It was very good early on that we got a hint, got a whiff of that, because it immediately, I think, sparked our imaginations for what America was going to look like. We were all very excited. I mean, clearly it makes a lot of sense for the wizarding world, present day in the early 1900s, to still be reeling from the events that occurred in Salem, whatever J.K. Rowling chooses to make those. So David Yates, though… according to David Yates in the actual Fantastic Beasts film that resulted, he says, “The Barebones represent this very eerie, strange fringe of the story that is actually THE story.” That’s what he says. So according to Yates – and that was in the Blu-ray special features – the Second Salemers are really what Fantastic Beasts is all about, and that actually sort of makes sense, because you do get Credence, who is the main obstacle. I don’t want to say villain, because of course, it’s Grindelwald, but the Obscurus is definitely a huge part, and the repression that Credence is facing as a result of his family, and sort of this group of people who are trying to repress magic is the center part of the story. So Yates is exactly right.
Micah: I agree. I think that there’s that underlying theme of trying to expose the wizarding community, which is a bit ironic, because indirectly, that’s what Grindelwald is trying to do, but he’s trying to do it at the expense of the No-Maj community, right?
Eric: Hmm. Yeah.
Micah: They do have a shared interest, but for very different reasons. They’re almost at opposite ends of the spectrum, even though they’re trying to achieve the same thing. So Mary Lou and her family, they’re trying to expose the wizarding community and do away with them, right? Whereas Grindelwald is trying to expose the wizarding community, but do away with No-Majes, right? And sort of exert the… show their dominance, show their superiority over what would be considered normal people. So they would get along fine if they had a drink in a bar or something like that. I feel like they would have shared interests.
Andrew: If only it was that easy.
Eric: That’s an interesting take. She says that to Shaw, to Jon Voight’s character. She says, “What we desire is infinitely more valuable than money: It’s your influence. Millions of people read your newspapers, and they need to be aware of this danger.” You’re right, they want to break the Statute of Secrecy as much as Grindelwald does. So I think that’s pretty astute.
Andrew: And it’s also an interesting… these characters are also interesting because we’re looking back in a very different time for the wizarding world, so we got so accustomed to the modern day wizarding world, in which we’re seeing that Muggles do know that wizards exist.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Some of them still hate them – see the Dursley family – but we’re looking at a different time, and for die-hard Harry Potter fans, I think it’s a really interesting angle, because we did grow accustomed to them just always being out in the open.
Eric: Yeah, at least to people who were Muggle-born. And it’s just… family members certainly knew all about it, and could even visit Diagon Alley, so that is very, very, very different. So the Barebone family consists of, of course, Mary Lou at the top; you have Credence, who’s the oldest; and then I believe Chastity, who’s the next oldest. It’s kind of, I guess, arguable whether Credence or Chastity is older. But the young girl who we suspect of being the Obscurus is Modesty Barebone, played by Faith Wood-Blagrove. It’s a hyphenated name.
Micah: I trust you.
Eric: I butchered it. But yeah, I mean, what would appear maybe on the surface to be a cohesive, if not very religiously conservative family unit, is actually a dysfunctioning… I mean, in true J.K. Rowling fashion, is much more than it appears on the surface. I mean, they go to these… there are these public demonstrations that Mary Lou has, and you actually see one at the beginning. I mean, Newt walks straight into one; he gets off the boat and is all of a sudden at a demonstration outside the bank. But I mean, Mary Lou is on a mission, and these children – not just Credence, Chastity, Modesty, but all of the children of New York that we see getting food from her hall, from the church, from their home – are all being used to spread these leaflets, and I think at one point it’s said that they won’t get food until they grab their leaflets. I mean, she’s using this sort of army of children to spread the word, to further her cause.
Micah: Yeah, it’s sad. It’s definitely sad, and I think that it’s really reflective of a passion of J.K. Rowling’s, and she spoke about it as much prior to the screening at Carnegie Hall, when she talked about Lumos, which is really geared towards eliminating institutional orphanages, and that’s…
Eric: Right, places that abuse… that basically convince the family that they don’t need their kids, and then abuse them and give them horrible living conditions. And you’re right, there is definitely a corollary there.
Micah: Yeah, it’s definitely reflected in the character of Mary Lou Barebone and what she has created at this church where they all live. And as you mentioned, she’s offering shelter, she’s offering food for them to go out and do her bidding, and I think that’s a definite tie-back to a lot of what Jo spoke about that evening, and what she has been so passionate about now for many years to try to eradicate, so that definitely is one of the themes that comes through in Fantastic Beasts.
Andrew: And it’s also worth noting that, Micah, you mentioned the Lumos charity and what J.K. Rowling is trying to do. This is a subject she is very passionate about, so I find it interesting that she wanted to write it into one of her fictional stories.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: And I guess the goal… obviously, it’s a good story, how she worked it into Fantastic Beasts, but I guess one of her goals was to bring more awareness to the issue?
Eric: Yeah, and I mean, even the idea of mistreatment causing this monster to erupt in general is, I think, pretty on the nose as far as this is not what we should be striving for in the world today. And at first I was going to be like, “Well, what’s so bad about what Mary Lou is doing? She’s feeding these kids. I mean, she’s giving… I mean, it’s honest labor, right, handing out leaflets. It’s nothing too horrible.”
Andrew: Honest labor. [laughs]
Micah: Well, I mean, they’re kids. It’s child labor, but it’s honest labor.
Eric: Yeah, it’s a living wage. I mean, it’s sort of Dickensian. It’s not not that way. But I mean, then I recall that she does actually actively physically abuse Credence, so… and I mean, he might be like her ward, right? He might be actually… if she was his godmother or aunt or some kind of… she knew his mom, so maybe she’s his guardian. And views and theories on child abuse was much different in 1926. You could spank kids up until the ’90s, so I mean, it’s a little bit different. But she is not a good person, I guess. I’m not trying to say Mary Lou is a good person.
Micah: No, not at all.
Andrew: No, she didn’t exhibit a single good thing, did she? Come to think about it. [laughs] She’s just terrible.
Eric: Well, do you think she cares about these kids? I mean, I think she definitely has her cause, her political agenda, but do you think there’s an altruistic…? I mean, not like a… but I mean, she really thinks that wizards are a threat to Muggles, right? I mean, it’s sort of misguided. It’s sort of like a Laura Mallory situation, but… actually, more on that. Here’s from J.K. Rowling. She said… this I thought was interesting, because it is not necessarily a spoiler, but she begins it by saying, “This is backstory you don’t learn in the movie, but I know it.” So she says, “The Barebones family is an interesting family because they descend from a wizard. Around about the time of Salem, certain vindictive wizards participated in Salem. When the wizarding world came for them, they disappeared into the Muggle world, married Muggles, deliberately bred magic out of their lines as far as they could.” So the Barebones family, their ancestors were actually traitors to wizards in general, and they turned their backs and started marrying Muggles and basically stamping out magic. So it’s natural that if there is an Obscurus, it should come from this line of self-hating wizards.
Micah: But that said, as we talked about last week, there’s no indication that Credence is actually a member of the Barebone family. He was adopted by Mary Lou.
Eric: Yeah, who’s running this, I don’t know, pamphleting ring.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: “Pamphleting ring.”
Micah: She’s just trying to spread the word, and she’s doing it in a way that is certainly questionable, but she has her own agenda. And it’s clear from what J.K. Rowling said here that she developed this line of thinking… probably it’s how she was raised, and perhaps her parents taught her to think this way based on the historical context that you just provided, so if she was raised that way, it may be hard for her to break that line of thinking. And we saw how she treated Credence, and we know that she was a factor in the death of Credence’s mother. We don’t know much about Credence’s father; that could still play a role in future films.
Eric: That’s interesting.
Micah: But she’s horrible to him.
Andrew: Yeah, I’m going to ask a question while I’m thinking about it. Now that she’s dead, is anyone going to continue her Second Salemers movement? She seemed to be the leader. Her family didn’t really like it.
Eric: Well, and was it Chastity who died? She was under the rubble.
Andrew: Right. Credence obviously isn’t about it.
Eric: No, yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe… and what will Modesty do now that she’s on her own? I mean, I guess it’s possible Modesty and Credence will travel, but neither of them are going to take up that cause.
Andrew: But isn’t Modesty a witch? We don’t know for sure.
Eric: No, it’s just a big red herring. I think she’s just a normal kid who grew up on the chance… the crazy hopscotch chance. But anyway, we were talking about…
Andrew: She had that wand, though. Why’d she have that wand? She’s interested, at least.
Eric: Well, she just stole Credence’s wand, didn’t she? Because he…
Andrew: She had the toy wand, didn’t she?
Eric: Was it a toy? I thought it was real.
Andrew: Eh…
Eric: Because I thought it was legit, like Credence’s… oh, yeah, where would he have gotten a wand? Well, I’m really confused.
Andrew: Yeah, no, I think it was a toy.
Eric: Yeah, I’m confused about that.
Andrew: Anyway, go ahead.
Eric: Okay, okay. Wrapping up Mary Lou here real quickly, the sort of thesis statements… which, we were talking about her belief system; might as well get it from the horse’s mouth. I just transcribed real quickly when Newt is walking up to the bank, this is what she’s saying, and this will be our only talk on the matter of what she actually believes. But she says… it’s sort of entrancing the way she’s talking. She’s a good public speaker; we should have her on the show. “This great city sparkles with the jewels of man’s inventions! Movie theaters, automobiles, the wireless, electric lights all dazzle and bewitch us! But where there is light, there is shadow, friend. Something is stalking our city, wreaking destruction and then disappearing without a trace. Listen to me. We have to fight! Join us, the Second Salemers, in our fight! You hear me? We have to fight together for the sake of our… hear my words and heed my warning, and laugh if you dare: Witches live among us! We have to fight together for the sake of our children, for the sake of tomorrow!” But she’s not wrong. There is something destroying the city, and it is magical in nature.
Micah: I hear that on the streets of New York honestly every day.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, what I was going to say was she’s crazy.
Eric: Yeah, people are still taking up the chant, Micah? On the streets of New York?
Micah: Not as many as maybe Mary Lou has. She had quite the crowd, I’ll be honest with you.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: That would have been a good viral publicity, if they had a group of Second Salemers out in New York last November, preaching Mary Lou’s word.
Eric: Oh, man, that would have been cool. They should have gotten the YouTubers to do that.
Andrew: [laughs] Right.
Eric: That’s what I think. So J.K. Rowling says, “Mary Lou is a very important character because she’s onto the wizards. On the surface, quite a kind woman. She’s feeding poor children in the street. But in fact, she’s incredibly abusive.” You know what? Here’s a question for you guys. What do you think about what Ezra Miller says here? Just sort of wrapping up our discussion. Ezra Miller says about the Second Salemers and the Barebones family… he says, “They’re sort of a Eugenics community that is trying to stamp out irregularity in the human race. When I read the script, it felt like a culmination of so many of the ideas that had been maybe subtly present in the works that precede this.” So Ezra is pointing to certain, I guess, similarities and mentalities of characters in, I guess, the Harry Potter books, and sees the Second Salemers as sort of a natural progression of J.K. Rowling as a storyteller, going into sort of the mindset of “Be yourself and go with that.” Do you guys see a through-line there, like he says?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. And I think it kind of goes back to what I was talking about earlier, that it is giving us a different perspective that we haven’t had before. So she’s telling us the same thing – there’s that thread – but in a different way.
Eric: Yeah. Funny quote from the Chastity actress, who’s named Jenn Murray. It is revealed in the “Second Salemers” Blu-ray feature that at one point she was having a little bit of trouble getting into the role, where they’re all obsessed with the pamphlets and stuff, and David Yates gave her a direction that she will never forget. He said, “What if you think that this is the greatest thing ever?” So that was the direction she took. So her character, Chastity, is really into this whole anti-witch thing; she thinks it’s the greatest thing ever. I don’t know. They weren’t that major characters, if you think about it.
Micah: We didn’t see much of her, though, to be honest with you, and I don’t even think she said anything.
Andrew: No.
Eric: Probably not.
Andrew: And I feel like we were kind of promised a little more from her, because weren’t they marketing her as a mysterious character?
Eric: Maybe.
Andrew: But the only person she was mysterious to was Grindelwald, kind of, because he thought it may have been one of the girls who was an Obscurus.
Eric: Yeah, well, I wonder… and it was just kind of weird how she’s just shown dead as collateral damage. Credence didn’t mean to, obviously, but they show that she had died.
Micah: And it is kind of a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. It’s not very… the camera doesn’t hold on her for very long, so the first time that I saw the film, I didn’t even notice that she had been killed.
Andrew: Well, yeah, actually, I don’t think a lot of people realized that until we saw it explicitly laid out in the script book, because I remember writing about that.
Eric: Yeah, that it specifically said that?
Andrew: Yeah. Especially from our angle, when Micah and I were watching it from high up in a theater. [laughs]
Eric: Was there a wire obstructing your view? Because there was a wire obstructing my view.
Andrew and Micah: No.
Andrew: We just gave you the bad ticket on purpose.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I’m kidding.
Micah: But we did hear from a couple people on Twitter as well.
Eric: Oh, love it.
Micah: They sent in their thoughts or questions on Mary Lou and her family. Clockworkboy said, “She’s seen magic before, from Credence and his mom. She probably killed his mom.” I think that’s pretty much been confirmed at this point that she was responsible, at least in part, for his mother’s death. “She beat Credence because she knew the truth about him.” That’d be interesting. Do you think that she knew more than just him having an interest, potentially, in magic? That he was in fact magic himself? Magical?
Eric: It’s very much a Petunia/Harry situation, right? Where because Harry descends from somebody that she loathed, or was jealous of, she treats him extra unfairly, right? So if… I think there’s a quote from Mary Lou in the film, “Your mother was a nasty woman, or horrible woman who got…” It wouldn’t be “nasty woman”; that’s too on the nose with modern times. But “horrible woman who got what she deserved, something, something, something.” Paraphrasing, paraphrasing, misquoting. But if she really did know that Credence’s mom was a witch, whether or not she believes Credence, too, whether she knows it runs in blood – which maybe she probably does – she still is treating him extra unfairly because of who his mom was. So it almost amounts to the same thing, right? That she’s singling him out, and it makes it worse. Actually, it’s kind of funny and poetic how Mary Lou, in abusing Credence and creating this environment that’s hostile to witches and wizards, is sort of causing her own destruction.
Andrew: And I think I raised this last week, didn’t I? This is part of the reason that she doesn’t like him, because she knows that he’s a wizard, or at least that his mom was, so she wants to… it is a Dursley situation. There’s just a lot of disdain for that family.
Eric: It’s like, guilty by association kind of thing.
Andrew: Yeah, right.
Micah: It’s interesting, though, that if she knew that, why would she take him under her care?
Andrew: To maybe cleanse him of the magical abilities? Maybe she attempted to at some point?
Eric: Yeah, maybe he’s a project for her.
Micah: Could be. A lot of the questions I think that Holly C. on Twitter had were just answered. She asked, “Does she have a relationship to the wizarding community that is similar to Petunia?”
Eric: Oh, God. There it is. I didn’t even see that.
Micah: And Eric, you had just touched on that. And then Andrew, the last question she had: “Is she secretly trying to identify witches and wizards to do covert conversion therapy?”
Andrew: Yeah. Would that surprise either of you? No. She’s a terrible woman.
Eric: No, I don’t think… I mean, that might have been what she was trying to do with Credence. I mean, she’s just like, “Hey, you have to suppress this.” And she’s just so hard on him. I’m just remembering that scene where he comes home and says… I mean, he’s obviously been hanging out with Grindelwald on the back of a motorcycle, but he says that he was scouting out locations, and she’s just like, “Take off your belt, bitch; I’m going to hit you.” It’s just kind of very over the top, obscure… we don’t really know the reason for it, but she is absolutely giving him the brunt of a lot of the abuse, or if she feels the need to beat her children, she takes it out especially on him during the film.
Micah: And again, reflective, I think, of a lot of the situations that are happening in these orphanages that J.K. Rowling mentioned when we were at this event in Carnegie Hall.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: And to wrap this up, and why we’ve kind of had a different discussion on these characters, is because with the exception being Credence, we’re probably not going to see these… their storyline is kind of dead. At least the Second Salemers story seems to be dead, because like I said earlier, without Mary Lou, who’s going to carry the torch? There could be another group in America, but we don’t even know if we’re going to go back to America. It could’ve just been a one movie thing.
Eric: Yeah, if we’re not going back to America, there’s no reason to believe that we should need to see what this front looks like under new management. I think it’s possible… we have to consider the possibility we’ll see Modesty again. Credence obviously cares a lot about her; they do have a relationship in this film, so maybe he takes her with him on the boat, or goes away somehow and… I’d like to see the two of them together, bonding maybe, surviving together, that sort of thing. But as far as Second Salemers, I think it makes sense to me that it’s tied just to the plot of this film. J.K. Rowling gets her point across. “If you try and suppress who you are in my world, there’s disastrous consequences, so don’t do that.” Boom, end of film, right? There’s no need to revisit it. And I think over time we understand already that by Harry Potter’s time, it’s a much more open society, and already was for Britain in the ’20s, as Newt says to Tina. So we just assume, without needing to be shown it, that over time groups like the Second Salemers went away, and the policy of secrecy sort of became lax somehow.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: All right.
Eric: I think that does it for the Barebones. All we have left to talk about is Newt.
Andrew: We are bare to the bone of characters to discuss…
Eric: Love it.
Andrew: … except for Newt, so we’ll do that next week. And then soon, maybe right after – who knows? – we’re going to be doing an episode that is our Fantastic Beasts movie commentary.
Eric: I love that.
Andrew: So you can sync that up with your movie and watch along with us.
Eric: That’s a fan favorite. Listeners have been asking for that for years, more commentary tracks, more commentary episodes.
Andrew: That’ll be a good cap on the character discussions, because we could kind of dive back into various elements about the characters as we see them.
Eric: I agree.
Micah: I mean, there’s only so many commentaries that we can do.
Eric: Yeah, eight. Or nine. We already did one.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, we can start doing commentaries about “The Mysterious Ticking Noise…”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: … some Wizard Rock live performances… we can start live commentating our old episodes. [laughs]
Micah: There you go.
This Week in MuggleCast History
Micah: Speaking of old episodes…
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Eric: [laughs] Nice transition, both of you.
Micah: I give all the credit to Andrew, who unknowingly just transitioned.
Eric: Well, he said it, and then you called it out, so both of you, A+.
Micah: Thank you.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: So we thought it would be a cool idea, given the fact that we’ve been around now for, what, almost 12 years?
Andrew: [in an old man voice] It’s been 12 years.
Eric: 12 years in two months.
Micah: That’s right.
Andrew: Such a long time.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: We take a little bit of a look-back on some of our episodes and do a This Week in MuggleCast History. Now, we have almost now 12 years worth of material to look back on, and I don’t think every episode is going to make the cut each week, and we may not even do this every week, but we thought it’d be fun to see what episodes took place as we take a look back here, and going all the way back to June 11 of 2006…
Eric: Wow.
Micah: … so 11 years ago, almost to the day, was Episode 43 of MuggleCast, and it was actually titled “Andrew-less,” so it may actually have been the first episode we’ve ever done on the show without Andrew.
Eric: Oh, gosh.
Andrew: Sounds like a really bad episode to me.
Eric: Yeah, I don’t even know why we’re bringing this up.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: All right. Well, Eric…
Eric: Actually, we talk about the Fidelius Charm. Oh, I remember this. It was a great episode.
Micah: [laughs] Now all of a sudden it’s the best thing in the world.
Eric: I did not write these bullet points, but the first one is, “We finally got rid of Andrew!”
Andrew: That would suggest that was my first time leaving, not being on.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: What else did we do in this week in history? [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, what’s the next one?
Micah: So all the way back in 2007, Episode 94, which was entitled “Beautiful Name, Beautiful Girl.” Can’t remember what that was about. [laughs]
Eric: Who remembers these things anyway?
Micah: But the first bullet is that Jamie was led into a massive trap and made a fool out of himself. Somebody will have to listen and let us know exactly what happened here.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: But we did give our thoughts – our final thoughts, apparently – on the Harry Potter theme park.
Andrew: What does that mean, “final thoughts”?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I don’t know.
Andrew: Were we never going to talk about it again? I’m pretty sure we did.
Micah: Maybe this was just prior… when did it open? It didn’t open till a few years later.
Eric: 2010.
Andrew: Our final thoughts on the announcement, probably.
Micah: That’s probably what it was.
Eric: Yeah, probably. I guess we were done talking about it three years before it was open. [laughs]
Andrew: And I think back at the time we really had no idea just how popular it would be.
Eric: No.
Andrew: I think we kind of underestimated it. When you think about the grand opening, it was quite something.
Eric: It’d be fun to listen.
Micah: We also posed the question about the dragon that appeared on the deluxe edition cover of Deathly Hallows.
[Eric sighs]
Andrew: Yeah, we had…
Micah: The Antipodean Opaleye, which I believe just several episodes later sparked a massive discussion and theory. I think it was Episode 97, possibly?
Eric: Oh.
Micah: It was me, you, and Laura, Eric, that did that episode. And I thought it was one of our best episodes that we’ve ever done, theorizing on what exactly was taking place on that cover. And we got it 100% wrong, but that’s okay.
Eric: Yeah. No, honestly, and that just goes to show we didn’t know… I mean, Book 7 came out Episode 100, so Episode 97 was fair game. And I would agree that, as far as theories that didn’t pan out go, this was probably my favorite that we ever talked about.
Micah: Absolutely.
Andrew: Yeah, that dragon was exciting because we didn’t know what was happening in the book, and we got this extra cover. They weren’t always doing deluxe editions prior to Deathly Hallow…
Eric: Exactly.
Andrew: … so we got this extra cover to speculate over.
Eric: And Fantastic Beasts had this “Antipodean Opaleye is a dragon” thing. We look at the cover, there’s a dragon with an opal for an eye, turns out he’s just a blind dragon kept beneath Gringotts. Oops, we didn’t know.
Micah: Well played, J.K. Rowling.
Eric: I love it, though. I have to re-listen to that. Yeah, well played, JKR. [laughs]
Micah: So then going to Episode 149, which we did back on June 15 of 2008. We talked about a Potter prequel that J.K. Rowling wrote on Sirius and James, I believe it was.
Eric: Wow.
Micah: And this is interesting, because this prequel was actually just stolen several weeks ago by Andrew…
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: … and it has yet to be recovered, right? From what I know.
Andrew: From my house.
Micah: From your house, yeah.
Andrew: Right, yeah. Yeah, it is kind of funny that nine years later it went missing. But yeah, it was about the Marauders, and people loved it because we all wanted the Marauders, like we were saying a few weeks ago. So yeah, hopefully it’s found.
Micah: Yep. And just two more episodes to talk about. Episode 175, which is entitled “Fireside Chats,” and this was June 16 of 2009, and I think that’s a segment that we introduced that I led, right?
Eric: Yeah, didn’t you do “Micah’s Fireside Chats”? I remember that.
Micah: I think so, yeah. And I just… did I just read from the books? Or did I… what did I read?
Eric: No, I thought it was political, actually. I seem to recall that it was just something… I don’t know, it seemed contemporary. It didn’t…
Andrew: I want you to continue reading sexy stories by the fire. That was my favorite.
Micah: From Barebone Productions?
Eric: Yeah, sexy “Never Sever Us.”
Andrew: Yeah, from Andrew’s Cursed Child fanfiction, “Never Sever Us.”
Eric: Yeah. Do it.
Andrew: Do it.
Micah: [laughs] I’m just reading through the rest of the show notes here.
Eric: Yeah, the bullet points.
Micah: “Does anyone care about the run-time with a two-part series finale?”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: “Azkatraz is less than one month away!” Oh my God, this was a long time ago.
Micah: And so we wrap up This Week in MuggleCast History looking back on Episode 200, “Admit Defeat,” which is a famous line delivered by the producer of the Harry Potter films, David Heyman, who appeared on Episode 200.
Eric: To you. He says it to you.
Micah: Yeah, he says it to me, a very interesting edition of the Dueling Club between myself and David Heyman, and it’s a great episode. For those who are new listeners to the show, I definitely recommend going back and listening to this episode. He was very gracious with his time; I think he ended up staying probably close to, what, 45 minutes to an hour? When he really only needed to give about 20 or 30 minutes.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Micah: And somebody who’s obviously very, very passionate about the series, continuing to work on Fantastic Beasts, so I encourage those who are new, go on, give it a listen. Episode 200. All these episodes that we mentioned you can find on MuggleCast.com, and there’s actually a podcast player right on the page, so you can just pop in your earphones and listen to them right on the website.
Andrew: Micah, I’m going to give you a critique of this new segment live on air. I think it was too long.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: We need to read one show note per episode and just move on.
Micah: Well, this is the first time that we’re doing this, so…
Eric: There’s 11 years to get through; thank God he didn’t give us 11 episodes.
Micah: There you go. That’s true.
Eric: You cut it in half.
Andrew: Well, yeah, the listeners are saying, “Thank God,” because everybody was very bored.
Eric: No, I thought it was…
Andrew: I think it’s good if we look at one thing per episode. Like, “Oh, gosh, we were discussing that dragon.”
Micah: Well, then just cut everything out and leave David Heyman.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: It was a highlight.
Andrew: I think Micah just really wanted to bring up David Heyman. He really loves that interview. It was good.
Micah: It was good.
Eric: It’s just Heyman sassed him, and I don’t think that’s something you ever get over.
Micah: I would also just mention that in addition to the episodes that we mentioned, there is a Wall of Fame on MuggleCast.com, so if people are interested in the episodes that we consider to be some of the best that we’ve done, I would definitely say to go onto the site and give them a listen.
Voicemails
Andrew: Let’s move on to a couple of voicemails. This one we wanted to play last week; we didn’t get a chance.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hey, this is Andrew calling from Denver, Colorado. My question is about the new television series that I had seen pop up on my social media about the origin stories of Voldemort. Now, on the most recent show, I had heard you guys talk about the passing of the villain character from Voldemort to Grindelwald, and I was curious to hear you guys’ opinions and thoughts on this new television series. Personally, I almost hyperventilated when I saw the teaser trailer, and I was hoping you guys might open up a discussion and hear you guys’ thoughts on the matter. Thanks, and keep up the good work. Goodbye.”
[Voicemail ends]
Andrew: So Andrew is referring to this new… he called it a TV series; it’s actually a fan-made movie. It’s unofficial. It’s called Voldemort, and there’s a really good trailer out, and it goes into his backstory. The trailer has received 5.5 million views on YouTube, so it’s gone viral, and I think why it’s fooling people, why people are thinking it’s official, is because the special effects are so good. It looks really professional.
Eric: Very similar to the movies.
Andrew: They even have a house-elf!
Eric: Oh, wow. Really?
Andrew: Yeah, and the thing looks like it’s straight out of the Harry Potter movies. And then they cut to the Daily Prophet and it looks like a real Daily Prophet, and just everything looks so good about it, but this is 100% fan-made. It was approved by Warner Bros. They actually were working on it, and then Warner Bros. shut them down, but now that it is not for profit, J.K. Rowling is cool with it, and her people. It’s called Voldemort: Origins of the Heir.
Eric: Origins of the Heir. I’m really actually excited, and surprised, I guess befuddled a little bit, that they let them get away with this, because it would seem to suggest that the Fantastic Beasts series is going to go a different way. Young Voldemort, I mean…
Andrew: Oh, that’s interesting.
Eric: Right? Because we speculated recently that young Voldemort could very well show up. I fully expect him to by the end of the fifth Fantastic Beasts film, because he’ll be an older teenager. But if this film exists and is sort of out there in the ether on the webs, the way that fans can access it easily, it would seem to contradict very clearly what they might be intending to do with the character in the official movies.
Andrew: We don’t have a release date yet for this movie, but definitely check out the trailer on YouTube. We’ll put a link in the show notes. [whispers] Micah, put a link in the show notes.
Micah: Is there more than one?
Andrew: More than one what?
Micah: Trailer.
Andrew: I don’t know.
Micah: Okay.
Eric: It might just be the one.
Micah: I saw one about a week ago…
Andrew: Oh yeah, that’s probably the same one.
Micah: … and I just don’t remember seeing an elf. Maybe I missed it.
Andrew: It’s just really fooling everybody. Even my brother texted me this afternoon; he was like, “How have I not heard about this yet?” And then I didn’t reply because I didn’t feel like being like, “Ryan, it’s fan-made, blah blah blah.” But he figured it out himself.
Eric: Apparently the story will explore how Tom Riddle lost his nose, I’m reading off the…
Andrew: [laughs] Really.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: That’s kind of funny.
Eric: It says, “What made Tom Riddle become Voldemort…” Oh, no, “Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle’s rise to power and the subsequent loss of his nose. This is the story we want to tell: the rise of the Dark Lord before Harry Potter and his first demise.” So yeah, the loss of the nose will be part of that.
Andrew: And we should try to get the filmmakers on this podcast. I’m sure they’d be…
Eric: Yeah, I mean, it sounds and looks awesome.
Andrew: Yeah, and we’d love to hear more. “How much did this cost you? Because these special effects are really good.”
Eric: [laughs] Well, the crowdfunding campaign… let me see if I can still get the results of that.
Andrew: Oh, yeah, they did… let’s play two more voicemails.
Eric: Yep.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hey guys, I’m a longtime listener. I was actually at the show you guys did in London on the night of the release of Deathly Hallows the book, which is pretty awesome. Been a big fan ever since then. And my question is in regards to Grindelwald and his stance with the wizards, and how he believes that wizards should not be in hiding, and I actually agree with him. I’m curious, why is it that he is perceived as a villain when really just he has an attitude that wizards are superior to humans, to No-Majes, and to Muggles, and there’s no reason for them to be in hiding and to suppress and hide their community? And I agree. They are superior to regular human beings, so why do they have to hide themselves? So I’m curious to hear your thoughts on that, and why it is that Grindelwald is a villain when really he’s trying to basically promote the rights of wizards, kind of like the civil rights movement but for wizards. So curious to hear your guys’ thoughts. Thank you guys so much for everything you do.”
[Voicemail ends]
Eric: Well, we got a regular Grindelwald follower over here.
Andrew: Yeah, I don’t know if you should… we’re going to call the Ministry on you.
Eric: We have your number, dude.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: If we didn’t report the girl who literally gave us a death threat, I don’t think we’re going to report this guy. He has nothing to fear.
Andrew: So Grindelwald’s thoughts are good; the problem is the way he’s going about it.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, he wants wizards to stop hiding, but at the expense of… he wants to literally subjugate Muggles. He would round them all up and persecute them or kill them to guarantee that wizards are on top always, and that’s not cool, right? The most compelling villains have these points of view that you can see right into, and you’re like, “Oh, I get it; I see a little bit of where they’re coming from.” But the execution of it is always wrong. It is always off in some way, and that’s what makes them villains.
Andrew: Right. So you can support Grindelwald to a point. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I mean, I think you’re supposed to agree with some of what Graves is saying at the end when he’s fighting with Picquery, because that’s what makes it sort of a compelling argument, but I think ultimately, if Muggles en masse knew about wizards, it would be much like an X-Men situation. Wizards would be hunted and/or feared, and it would be a very negative situation, which does not really… which could cause World War III.
Andrew: Yeah. And I’ll admit, I was kind of on Grindelwald’s side when he was talking at the end. I was like, “Oh, what’s so wrong with that?” But then you’ve got to remember the way he’s going about it.
Eric: And there will definitely be more of that. It’s safe to say more of that will be explored in the future Fantastic Beasts films.
Micah: There’s clearly something about it that appealed to Dumbledore as well…
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Micah: … so there’s a value in what he is trying to promote. However, as you’ve both said, the way that he’s going about trying to achieve it is at the expense of other people, and I think that is the issue. We also don’t really have a clear picture of what it is that he’s doing day in and day out. We just… at this point, we know that he is sort of this criminal on the run…
Eric: Causing havoc?
Micah: Yeah, causing all this havoc, but I’m sure he’s taken some pretty suspect steps to get to where he is at this point. So we shall see.
Andrew: Let us listen to one more voicemail.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hey, it’s Bree here from Indianapolis. I was thinking about how the Ilvermorny Houses can show certain aptitudes for certain career paths. For example, Horned Serpents favor scholars; Wampus, warriors; and Pukwudgie, healers. Do you think that there’s that same sort of correlation with the Hogwarts Houses? Do healers favor a certain House? Are Hufflepuffs more likely to be bankers? Is there any indication of what your career could be based on the House you’re in? Just wanted to hear your thoughts, thanks!”
[Voicemail ends]
Andrew: Hufflepuffs are more likely to be magizoologists, as Newt would tell you.
Eric: Yeah, that’s canon. That checks out.
Andrew: That’s an interesting… maybe not as specific as being a banker, but maybe something a little wider, like finance or the economy. Maybe there are some general trends there in terms of career paths.
Eric: Right, like if you’re a Ravenclaw, you’re more likely to be a numbers person or something like that.
Andrew: Yeah, maybe passionate about numbers.
Eric: Yeah, just in terms of internal pursuit as well, like a pursuit of the mind reflected in a career path. I can certainly see there’s similarities. It’s not so much of an overgeneralization as J.K. Rowling gets into with species, all goblins are bankers or metalsmiths, or anything like that. I think there’s a lot more variety with witches and wizards that’s shown. But I agree, there’s… yeah, just like in real life, certain temperaments lend themselves better to different professions, so if you’re magically sorting people by the kind of person that they are, or what their interests are, you’re definitely going to see a correlation.
Andrew: Good question. All right, that does it for this week’s episode of MuggleCast. Please send in any feedback you might have, MuggleCast@gmail.com; or call in, 1-920-3-MUGGLE. PO box is 4044 North Lincoln Avenue, number 144, Chicago, Illinois, 60618. By the way, for our Slug Club patrons, all the stickers are out in the mail as of yesterday.
Eric: Yay.
Andrew: Micah and Eric, honorary Slug Club members, you have stickers coming to you as well.
Eric: [laughs] Yes.
Micah: Sweet.
Eric: Love it.
Andrew: So put ’em places. I’m going to be… I have one on my laptop. Tattooed my laptop with one of them.
Eric: Oh, cool. That’s where mine’s going too. And we’ve talked about young Voldemort a lot recently on this episode; well, young Voldemort himself, Christian Coulson, is going to be with us in Orlando, Florida on September 1 of this year for Muggle Net Live 2017: 19 Years Later. Find out more information on our MuggleCast website, including how you can get a $10 off code, which is “MUGGLECAST,” just by going and using our referral link, so go check that out; MuggleCast.com. Again, it’s in Orlando, Florida, on September 1. Also, other actors, Luke Youngblood, who played Lee Jordan; Chris Rankin will be there… fan favorite Chris Rankin. Love that guy. And others, so go check it out.
Andrew: You know what, guys? I just had a realization.
Eric: Hmm?
Andrew: Sebastian, if you rearrange the letters in his name, you get “Tom Marvolo Riddle,” so that solves that.
Eric: Yeah, he’s coming earlier than we expected. He’ll be three years old in Fantastic Beasts 2.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: He’s also Aberforth’s goat. First goat.
Eric: Yeah. I like that theory the most, I think.
Andrew: Thank you, everybody, for listening. We’ll be back next week with Episode 325. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: And I’m Micah.
Andrew: Peace!
Eric: Bye.