Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #482, Never-Before-Seen Harry Potter Scenes We Want in a TV Series
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World fandom. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: And on today’s episode, we are going to discuss scenes that happened in the background of the Harry Potter series, scenes which we didn’t actually get to read or watch, and beg for these to be a part of the inevitable Harry Potter TV adaptation. This is going to be a fun way to discuss all those moments that we heard about from Harry’s point of view but never saw firsthand. So we have some big ones, we have some dramatic ones, and then we have some lighter ones too. So it’s going to be a fun discussion today. And then, panel, at the end of today’s show, I’m going to share a revelation I had last night while brushing my teeth with my Quip toothbrush.
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: This is a game changer. I haven’t told you guys about this yet. I realized what it’s going to take to get this Harry Potter TV series to be created. I know what we have to do.
Laura: I don’t like surprises. You know this.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I’m already very nervous.
Andrew: Sorry, this is a tease.
Micah: This could be a brand new segment: “Andrew’s toothbrush time, brought to you by Quip.”
[Everyone laughs]
Listener Feedback
Andrew: Before we get into our discussion, we have some MuggleMail. First of all, just wanted to start with this comment from DreamyHogwarts. She replied to one of our posts on Instagram, and she pointed out this writing by J.K. Rowling on Pottermore about Neville, which actually explains his thinking during the Sorting. We were joking last week about Neville not wanting to go into Hufflepuff. In fact, he actually did. J.K. Rowling wrote, “In Neville’s case, the Hat was determined to place him in Gryffindor. Neville, intimidated by that House’s reputation for bravery, requested a place in Hufflepuff. Their silent wrangling resulted in triumph for the Hat.”
Eric: Ahh.
Andrew: Shocker, Neville lost a fight.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: So wait, the Hat…? I thought you got to choose. If you really cared that much, you got to choose where you were going to go. [laughs] Not Neville.
Eric: Do we really believe that, or do we think Dumbledore was having Harry on about choice because it underscored the plot of the book?
Andrew: Hmm… yeah. [laughs]
Eric: I think the Hat really…
Laura: I mean, the Hat kind of wanted to put Hermione in Ravenclaw, right? And she requested Gryffindor.
Andrew: This is why people don’t like Potter-No-More, because it pulls the rug out from…
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Everybody gets a choice, except for Neville.
Laura: Poor Neville.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, I think too… Neville just… it wasn’t that he didn’t want to be a Gryffindor – his parents were huge Gryffindors, apparently – but it’s just that he was so afraid of being considered brave and held to that standard. So the Hat was like, “I’m going to put you here because I know that’s what you really want but you’re too afraid to ask for.”
Laura: Yeah, I agree. I think he spent his entire childhood and much of his adolescent years being forced to try and fit into this box, or fit into his dad’s shadow. And he was never his dad, so he was like, “You know what? F this, I’m just going to create my own path and be a Hufflepuff.” And then the Sorting Hat was like, “Nah.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: And so he was like, “You know what? Fine, I’m going to teach Herbology. The closest I can get to being a Hufflepuff.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: Love it.
Eric: Neville gets the last laugh.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: The Sorting Hat, meanwhile, is up in the office being like, “Nooo!”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: “I wanted you to be an Auror!”
Eric: I think by the end of it, it was the harder path, but Neville being a Gryffindor, being able to show his Gryffindor off… I mean, the Hat gives Neville the sword. It probably gloats its ass off while doing it. [laughs]
Laura: Oh, yeah. As he’s giving Neville the sword, he’s like, “Oh, you wanted to be in Hufflepuff, huh? Yeah? Okay, well, just remember this.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: “Told you so. Knew you would need this.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: I bet they have conversation during lunch.
Micah: “If you were a Hufflepuff, you would have pulled only a mandrake out of our Hat…”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: “… and how would that have fared against Voldemort or Nagini? Nagini would have just had it for lunch.”
Andrew: Does Voldemort even have ears?
Laura: I really like this reading that we’re developing of a sassy Sorting Hat.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: “I told you!”
Micah: Well, our first email actually relates to this, talking about Neville and his Sorting. It’s from Catherine, and she says,
“Hey, MuggleCast. In your latest episode you guys theorized that in Sorcerer’s Stone, Neville took a while to be Sorted because he was convincing the Sorting Hat to place him in Gryffindor. I actually like to believe the opposite, that the Sorting Hat was trying to convince Neville he had a place in Gryffindor. Neville probably didn’t see the qualities that made his parents Gryffindors in himself because his information was coming from his grandmother who was very critical of him. He was raised in a household that did not nurture his self-confidence, and at first, Hogwarts was not kind to him either. Although I agree Dumbledore’s comments about standing up to your friends and the House points that were given as insufficient, it’s important to note that it was probably the first time Neville has been acknowledged and praised this way by an authority figure. Neville’s journey is finding his self-confidence, not his bravery, so I find it more in-character for this to begin with his Sorting into Gryffindor. Love the show.”
Eric: Wow, Catherine. Nailed it.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s great.
Laura: Our next email comes from Sarah Joy. Sarah says,
“I just finished listening to Episode 481 and wanted to add on to a couple of the connections you made between Harry and Neville. It’s interesting when you look at which Horcruxes they end up destroying in regards to the order they were taken out. Harry destroys the first when he stabs the diary, which ultimately sets into motion the search for the other Horcruxes. Neville destroys the last when he beheads Nagini, officially taking out the final form of protection Voldemort has.”
I love this. Again, Neville tees Harry up for success.
Eric: He closes the book on Horcruxes. And next email comes from Bree. They write,
“Really loved the discussion on the professors. I had a few thoughts about Lupin returning to Hogwarts. I’m not trying to jump on the ‘Dumbledore is setting everyone up for slaughter’ train, but I found it kind of weird that Dumbledore would offer Lupin a potentially cursed position. On first reading, I was so impressed and inspired by Dumbledore offering Lupin a job despite the complicating factors of his werewolf status. Now I wonder if it may have been slightly callous, considering Dumbledore’s growing theory about the position.
This train of thought also led me to wonder if the true tipping point for Lupin to take the position had to do with protecting Harry from Sirius (due to his specific knowledge about Sirius) rather than a driving desire to hold a stable position. I don’t know, but thinking about the impact Lupin had on Harry’s passion for Defense Against the Dark Arts, as one of the first windows into Lily’s personality, and the general fathering that he did especially in Book 3, it’s incredibly sad that Harry seemed to lose interest in maintaining that bond (though no doubt Lupin was going through his own stuff too) in favor of building one with Sirius. I get it, Sirius offered undivided attention, treated Harry like an equal, and gave an option for a way ‘out’ of Privet Drive for Harry. Either way, as much as it sucks, it is a realistic look at how as we grow up we can forget to thank, be aware of, or be actively grateful for the people who are helping us along the way and often don’t realize the impact of those interactions or relationships until we have to go on without them.”
Andrew: This is a great observation. I really like this idea that Lupin came in to potentially protect Harry from Sirius, because it is unsettling that Dumbledore would be setting Lupin up for some catastrophic failure.
Eric: [laughs] I mean, I guess we should be relieved that in the end, the only thing that drove Lupin from Hogwarts that year was the racism of the world at large. He got away without a huge injury.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: I also really like the point that she raises about how Harry, despite what Lupin means to him in his third year, doesn’t really continue on much with the relationship beyond that, not in the way that we would expect. But yet he is very, very drawn to Sirius.
Andrew: Okay, so before we get to our discussion, Quip is back to sponsor this week’s episode of MuggleCast.
[Ad break]
Andrew: And you have revelations while brushing your teeth, like I do. That’s a major benefit.
Main Discussion: Never-Before-Seen Harry Potter Scenes We Want in a TV Series
Andrew: Okay, time now for our main discussion: Background scenes that a Harry Potter TV show needs to bring to life. So we’re going to talk about scenes we know happened in the background of the core series that we would love to see on screen through an inevitable TV series, and I wanted to talk about this because I’m just counting the seconds until they finally adapt Harry Potter for television. It’s been ten years now, almost, since the final Harry Potter movie came out. It’s time for a reboot. [laughs] And we know these streamers want something Harry Potter-related. They all want the big guns, they want the big franchises, and a Harry Potter TV series could run for 20 seasons.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: You could split each book into three seasons at least. There’s just so much, and we’re going to help them out by writing some new scenes for them today.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: So we’re kind of going to go in chronological order here. We’re trying to aim for scenes that didn’t appear in the book or the movie. So I just wanted to start with a kind of random one: I want to see the creation of the Marauder’s Map. This is one of the most beloved items, magical items in the Harry Potter series, I think. It’s just so cool – and a little creepy – to be seeing where everybody is at any time. And it’s also… what made me think about it is people just love buying this thing, whether it’s a physical one at the theme parks or a poster or on a T-shirt. There’s all kinds of different versions of the Marauder’s Map that you can purchase these days, and I think it just speaks to how popular an item it is. It could be a great way to throw the “Give us a Marauders series” people a bone, because this has been one of the biggest requests for a really long time, right? People want a Marauders spinoff of some sort. So we could spend an episode hanging out with the Marauders and seeing them create this map. And of course, it’s so important to the Harry Potter series. This scene could run during the Prisoner of Azkaban season, to set up the Pettigrew reveal, and of course, Harry’s use of it over the following years. What do you guys think?
Laura: I love this. I was actually thinking about where would be good placement for this, and it could almost be a cold open to the Prisoner of Azkaban series. So they could start out and put whatever year it was, 1970 or ’80, whatever…
[Eric laughs]
Laura: … and then show the Marauders going through all the motions to create the map, and they can all be talking to each other like, “No, Padfoot, don’t do that,” and other stuff like that…
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: … so that it establishes those roles and you get that throwback scene, and then it goes straight into the Prisoner of Azkaban story so that later on, when Harry gets the map, you’re like, “Oh, yeah, they showed us how it was created in the beginning.”
Micah: That’s so cool. Yeah, I really like this as well, and I think it also allows us to explore Hogwarts in a way that we haven’t. We know Harry makes use of a lot of the secret passageways, but it’s the Marauders who really discovered them, and to kind of join them on this journey… it would also be really cool to see who is the true architect of the Marauder’s Map from a magic standpoint. Is it Sirius and James who are going out and finding a lot of these places, but then relaying the information back to Lupin who is doing the actual magic itself, and Peter is just kind of chilling on the side because what does he…? Unless he turns into rat form, and that’s how he helps, by going around the school and finding all the secret passages.
Eric: Oh, and he can fit between the walls!
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Oh.
Micah: Yeah. He never ran into a basilisk, though, surprisingly.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: He mustn’t have done a thorough search. Yeah, I agree with that completely. I also… there’s an opportunity to really learn more about the magic that went into creating the Marauder’s Map. We’d learn more about magic in general if we figure out how is it exactly that it tracks human beings around with their own name label? What the heck is the magic for that? Because it’s got to be ridiculously complex. And if the show doesn’t want to get too bogged down in that, that’s all right, but we might… part of my interest – probably my primary interest in the TV series – in flushing out these scenes is learning a little bit more, and even being able to place in my head or rectify some of the character beats, having seen a scene written to describe it, to really illustrate it out.
Andrew: Yeah. Okay, so moving on, I’m going to get really dark now. I would like to see the entire night in which Voldemort killed Harry’s parents. I’m sorry, but it adds gravity to the remainder of the series. It helps explain why we’re all here. [laughs] And actually, I thought this scene could actually open up the entire series to set everything up. And of course, this scene, it’s somewhat illustrated in the book and movie, and again in the final book, but I’d like to see the whole damn night. The cold open would be Trelawney making the prophecy, and then it would jump ahead to October 31, 1981. We would also get to see Pettigrew turn his allegiance; that didn’t happen that night, but we could see that in this episode. We could see Sirius suggesting that Pettigrew be the Potters’ Secret Keeper, and then Lupin being convinced that Sirius betrayed James and Lily. There’s a lot here that we’ve heard about over the years that we never got to see, so I would just like to experience that entire night. Set up the entire Harry Potter television series for what’s to come.
Laura: I agree.
Micah: Let me just add to it, because I think that the first one that I listed here is definitely tied into what you just mentioned about the night that Voldemort killed Harry’s parents. It’s almost… I look at it as a “Across town.”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: The face-off between Bellatrix, Rodolphus, Rabastan or Raba-ston – I don’t know how to say his name – and Barty Crouch, Jr. going head to head with Frank and Alice Longbottom. Was this a situation where Frank and Alice were completely taken by surprise, or were they tipped off in any way? Did they know someone had broken into their house and was about to attack them? How did they protect Neville at the end of the day?
Andrew: Yes.
Micah: So I’m almost thinking like a split screen or rotational shots of you have Voldemort on one side, and you have Bellatrix and these other Death Eaters on the other, and they’re making their approach to their respective homes.
Andrew: Yes.
Laura: Yeah, and that’s really the benefit of TV series as a medium, is you can really very easily move throughout different points of view. Not to take the focus off Harry Potter, but this is one of the things that I really enjoy about His Dark Materials series that they’re doing on HBO, is that they’ve really taken advantage of different character POVs in the first series. Even though the first book is primarily set from Lyra Belacqua’s point of view, they’ve really found a way to include these other characters’ viewpoints, and I think it enriches the story, which is why we’re here having this discussion. I love the idea of having a primary episode or a primary chunk of the first episode of the series dedicated to Harry’s parents and Neville’s parents. I think it would be so cool.
Eric: I agree, and definitely very much of the first couple years at Hogwarts, I really want to get to know the teachers more. Not because an 11-year-old or a 12-year-old isn’t interesting or couldn’t carry a series – I’m thinking of the Stranger Things kids are really young and they do a great job at carrying that show – but I do want to see more… because I think the screen can… you can occupy that time, and you could do really interesting things if you just focus on other POVs.
Andrew: Yeah, and I think maybe I should have said this at the beginning, but to Laura’s point about being able to expand… I mean, television is so many more hours than a movie.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: How many hours total are the eight Harry Potter movies? 20 total, I would say? 20 hours, that’s one season of a television series, so there’s so much more availability. And of course, this is one of those unique stories that actually could successfully fill so much time. It wouldn’t be filled with BS. You could really fill it with a lot of stuff that would get people talking week to week. The only risk I was thinking about with revealing the prophecy at the very beginning of the series is obviously Harry doesn’t learn this himself, and the reader doesn’t learn it either, until Book 5. So there’s that, but on the other hand, if you’re watching the Harry Potter TV series, you probably know much of what’s going to happen anyway, so you might as well take risks like that.
Laura: You could also, when you start that first episode, you could hear snippets of the prophecy, but set to a black screen, so you’re not actually seeing anything, so it doesn’t necessarily give anything away. You don’t necessarily see at that point who overheard the prophecy and ultimately relayed that information to Voldemort. I think there’s a way that you could do it without it being too spoiler-y, because you’re right, you have to walk the line between pleasing the fans who grew up with the series, but also making it exciting and new for new fans, and not necessarily give away some of the plot points.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: I do agree. I think it could be tough early on to introduce some of these characters, too, right? Because if you think about a Bellatrix or even some of the other Lestranges or Barty Crouch, Jr., you don’t get them back until much later on in the series, so it’d be a little weird to maybe have this right at the beginning. Maybe you do a flashback in Goblet of Fire or Order of the Phoenix to tie things in a little bit more. But at the same time, I do think it would be cool for people who are fans of the series to get these characters earlier, because they are a big part of the series; it’s just we don’t even know it.
Andrew: I like Laura’s idea with the glimpses of the prophecy. It could be like, [in an echoey Trelawney voice] “The one… vanquish, vanquish, vanquish… approaches, approaches…”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Just this echoey bits and pieces. [laughs]
Eric: That creeps me out. That voice creeps me out. If I don’t hear another version of Harry’s prophecy in any adaptation, I’ll be fine.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Do you think it was Emma Thompson who did it, or do you…?
Andrew: I think so, yeah.
Micah: Obviously, they messed around with her voice, but…
Andrew: Right. Yeah, I think so. It better have been.
Micah: Yeah, I like that, though. It could be overlaid, too, on all the scenes we’re talking about.
Andrew: Right, right.
Eric: Oh, sure.
Andrew: So we’re going to jump into the books now. What’s your idea, Micah? Your next idea.
Micah: This is one that just kind of popped into my mind when I was thinking about Sorcerer’s Stone, but how all the professors come up with each of the rooms that are designed to protect the Sorcerer’s Stone. We see all the rooms mentioned in the book. We don’t get all of them in the movie, but just all of the work that went into preparing… and maybe it’s getting some time with each of the professors… gives you a little bit of insight into who they are as a teacher, maybe where their strengths lie. Thinking about Professor Sprout coming up with Devil’s Snare and Flitwick with the keys, McGonagall with the chessboard… Quirrell must have a thing for mountain trolls…
[Laura laughs]
Micah: … the potions room is really a challenge, and then finally Dumbledore with the Mirror of Erised. So you just get a really good snapshot into the main professors at Hogwarts very early on. So I think just maybe getting a little bit of background here would be cool for a reader.
Eric: And while they’re doing all of that, putting it all together, the very last thought in their minds is that a group of 11-year-olds are going to be able to come and foil it.
Andrew: [laughs] “Oh, this is a good system we’re putting together.”
Eric: “This is a great system.” Just the more times we can have each of the professors going, “This is great. This is going to be great. This is super secure.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: And did they all go down together and set this up as a team, or did they go individually? Was McGonagall holding Snape’s hand as they got through the Devil’s Snare? How does that all work?
Eric: Aww. That definitely is interesting to me because for security purposes, no one teacher should know what the other teachers really did. Not specifically.
Laura: Right.
Micah: That’s true. That’s a good point.
Laura: Yeah, I can see Dumbledore being like, “You only get to know this piece of the puzzle,” very much like he was with Snape when we overhear some of those flashback conversations where he won’t give Snape the full picture, and he’s like, “Yeah, I’m not going to tell somebody who spends so much time with Voldemort exactly what I’m planning.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: It’s crazy because for as often as he goes on about “People should trust Snape,” he himself doesn’t really reveal the full thing.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: So is this one of those things where it had to be built from the last room out so that the other professors didn’t know?
Eric: Well, not necessarily, because the mirror doesn’t even go there until after Christmas.
Laura: That’s true.
Micah: But that’s Dumbledore. The other ones, though, I would think you don’t want… if you’re suspicious, basically, of everybody at this point, you can’t let Sprout go first, followed by Flitwick, followed by McGonagall. It almost has to work in reverse.
Eric: Maybe he blindfolds them and takes them down through the other challenges.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: Do they know what they’re guarding, by the way?
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Did he ever tell…? Ahead of time?
Andrew: I would think so.
Laura: He was like, “Hey, so my immortal friend is giving me his Sorcerer’s Stone that generates his Elixir of Life. We’ve got to guard it.” Or was he just like, “Hey, there’s this package, and I can’t tell you what’s in it, but…” [laughs]
Andrew: Maybe Dumbledore makes weird requests like this all the time, and they’re just like, “Oh, fine, whatever he wants this time.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: “You want a potion puzzle room? Okay. You want a chessboard? Fine. Whatever he wants.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Dumbledore regularly asks them to stump him. He loves riddles, and he likes being more intelligent than the next man. He’s like, “Okay, your contract is coming up. Time to build a puzzle room.”
Andrew: Maybe this is how he retrains them. He wants them all to come up with new riddles every few years to make sure they’re still up to snuff, and they’re like… Dumbledore just says, “I’m going to try to crack these puzzles. You just set them up; I’m going to crack them. No other reason. Just set them up.” It’s for Dumbledore’s entertainment.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Well, I want to know who is feeding the troll now, because it was there all year, presumably.
Micah: It was drinking the potions, so Snape had to keep going back down and refilling.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: Who’s feeding Fluffy?
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: You know, we’re exposing a lot of flaws here, and I’m once again reminded that Hogwarts is a security nightmare.
[“It’s starting to sound like a security nightmare!” sound effect plays with sirens]
Andrew: Unbelievable.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: But it would be fun to unexpectedly get an answer to some of these questions that we’ve now developed, right?
Andrew: [laughs] Right.
Eric: We could see in a TV series Filch or Hagrid going to feed Fluffy regularly.
Laura: You just see Hagrid walking through the castle with five steaks…
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: … and Harry is like, “What are you…? Why are you taking that to the third floor corridor?” He’s like, “None of your business. Just stop asking questions.”
Andrew: “I eat my dinners on a new floor every night, Harry. Now run along.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Let’s move on to Chamber of Secrets.
Laura: Yeah, so when I was thinking about Chamber of Secrets, this is something that’s always fascinated me. Y’all might remember that I’ve talked about writing a fanfiction about this back in the day, but I want flashbacks to the founders, and particularly Slytherin’s departure from Hogwarts, which we hear about in Chamber of Secrets in connection with the Basilisk and the Chamber itself.
Andrew: Love it.
Laura: I think this would be so cool, because if I recall correctly, they learn about it in Professor Binns’s class. It’s the one time everybody is actually engaged in his class, is when they get him to tell the story of the Chamber of Secrets, and it would be so cool to intersperse that narrative with flashbacks to the founders and the frictions that ultimately drove them apart.
Eric: If they do this – and I know we aren’t necessarily getting into casting right now – but the people that are at the theme park as Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga, and Salazar in the portraits that talk to you do such an amazing job in such a short amount of time at embodying those characters that my memory of them at the theme park is really what sells me on having the founders be part of a TV series. I think it would be great.
Andrew: I also like this idea because a Hogwarts founders story has also been highly requested, just like the Marauders story has been, and this would be a big draw for people.
Laura: I agree. I think it also just adds… it further fleshes out the universe, because we know that a lot of the reason that we see many of the current prejudices in the Potter universe goes all the way back to the founders’ time, even before their time. But to see that sort of struggle embodied in the founders who are like, “We agree that we’re here to provide a quality education and prepare magical people for the world,” but then there’s this turmoil over, “Well, who actually counts, right?”
Andrew: Right.
Laura: And then you can kind of see obviously the very extreme prejudice that comes from Salazar Slytherin, but then you also have Gryffindor, who’s like, “I only want the brave ones,” and Ravenclaw, who’s like, “I only want the smart ones,” and Hufflepuff is like, “I’ll take anyone. It’s fine.”
Andrew: Wasn’t this also introduced during one of the Sorting Hat songs?
Laura: Yes.
Andrew: So maybe this… I know we have this slotted for Chamber of Secrets, but that could be a good place for it too. If you’re hearing the Sorting Hat and it’s interspersed with cutscenes revealing the history of the founders.
Laura: Yeah, I honestly think there are a lot of places where you could sprinkle cutscenes with the founders. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Chamber of Secrets, but I think the ultimate confrontation between Slytherin and the other three founders and his departure would have to be in Chamber of Secrets. One caveat here – and I know we’re going to talk about these later – this could potentially be tied into Fantastic Beasts, depending on how deep they go into Tom Riddle’s young years and his opening the Chamber of Secrets.
Eric and Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: Love it.
Laura: If they go there. I think they probably will at least touch on it.
Micah: I won’t say they have to, but I think it’s very high likelihood that they do. And I like this even as a standalone episode, never mind just series of flashbacks. I think that you could really dig deep into, as you were saying, the founders’ relationships with each other, and how even in present day, with Chamber of Secrets, it’s influencing the events that we’re seeing. I just want to say, is it wrong of me…? I always, when I think of Salazar Slytherin, John Malkovich comes to mind.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, I could see that.
Micah: I would love to see him play Salazar Slytherin.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Is he…? He’s American, though, right? So that might not work. But he’s got the look for sure.
Eric: Okay, they’ve got to abolish that rule.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Just because… for background characters. I’m not saying Harry Potter needs to be an American actor next time.
Andrew: Actually, you know what? I mean, Johnny Depp is an American actor, so they are kind of abolishing it.
Laura: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: Oh, well, there you go.
Laura: Jude Law too, right? No? Is he British?
Andrew: He is.
Eric: But what I don’t want to see any more of is those flashbacks without dialogue. The movies did that… I mean, the entire “Snape’s Worst Memory” scene was reduced in the end to flashes without any real words. There was no substance at all. The Snape/Lily stuff as children, same deal. They’ve got to knock that the heck off. If there’s time in a TV series, I want a real, actual flashback with actual dialogue, please. Actual characterization.
Andrew: That’s fair, yeah.
Eric: Geez.
Andrew: Speaking of Chamber and professors, you have an idea here, Eric.
Eric: Yeah, I want to see the behind-the-scenes Gilderoy Lockhart stuff. It’s bad enough that Harry, Ron, and Hermione have to put up with Gilderoy throughout the year – especially Harry, because the two of them interact quite a bit – but by the end of it, when we see… I think it’s Flitwick or McGonagall says, “Oh, your time is at hand, Gilderoy, finally. You’ve been telling us all year that you’re the one to find the Chamber, and you know exactly where it is. Now you do it.” I want to see the gradual breakdown in just professional respect and courtesy that the teachers have for Lockhart. I just want to see… it’ll almost be cringey if they do it right, but you could spend the whole year on the Gilderoy Lockhart character just being this ridiculous guy who is entitled and just has so many delusions and gradually pick that apart. I think it’ll make the end that much more satisfying if we just got some teacher perspectives throughout the year.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Really, we only get glimpses of it in the book, obviously up until the climax. But the only person that we really, if I recall correctly, that we only get a very straightforward perspective from early on is Hagrid. I was just rereading Chamber the other day, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione go to his cabin, and Lockhart has just left, and Hagrid is like, “Yeah, I told him that I knew exactly what I was doing, and I didn’t read his book, and that was when he decided he needed to leave.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: “The only reason he’s here is because he was literally the only person who applied for the job. Dumbledore had no choice.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: I was like, “Wow, Hagrid. That’s pretty unprofessional, man. These are 12-year-olds.”
Eric: But who are they going to tell, other 12-year-olds?
Laura: I mean, yeah.
Andrew: Kind of coming off of this idea, Eric, I think it’d be cool to hear all the other professors discussing the curse on the DADA role. I want to hear their thoughts on it, and I would love to hear… this subject has always fascinated me, why teachers are willing to do it, why wizards are willing to do it, knowing the high turnover rate. That should be a very, very, very large red flag. So I’d love to hear them all talking about it more.
Eric: That’s a good point. And they don’t even need to have that line between Dumbledore, that scene between Dumbledore and Harry, where he reveals it. You could actually reveal that type of information through the teachers entirely in the future.
Andrew: Yeah. “Who is Dumbledore setting up for failure now? Oh boy, does he know? Should we tell him?”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: I do like the idea of these individual professor episodes where we really get to learn a lot more about who they are and what they’re all about. Andrew, when you were talking about this idea of how they feel about the fact that the Defense Against the Dark Arts position rolls over every year, it got me thinking, too, it would be interesting to see how they are all reacting, particularly in Chamber of Secrets, to the fact that people are being Petrified within the school.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: What is the adult perspective on what is going on here? We know the kids are freaked out, but are the professors freaked out too?
Andrew: [laughs] Right.
Micah: What’s going on in their head?
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a great idea.
Eric: Getting into Prisoner of Azkaban right now, the biggest introduction… the way I see series three or whatever season it is that is the Prisoner of Azkaban adaptation of the Harry Potter TV series opening, I see it opening with Cornelius Fudge visiting Azkaban, and I want to actually get Azkaban, right? I want to actually see it, I want to learn the layout a little bit, and I want to see this interaction between Fudge and Sirius, where Sirius asks for the paper under the ruse that he likes doing the crosswords. This is a scene that is illustrated kind of in a backstory; Fudge talks about it in Three Broomsticks. But the beauty of a TV series is that you can actually get it fleshed out. So Cornelius Fudge going to Azkaban, having to sign in, whatever the process is… if there’s Dementor jailers… you see them floating outside it, but surely there’s people working in the prison with paperwork having to sign you in. These are all the unanswered questions that you could just answer in one fell swoop if we get this scene where Fudge visits.
Andrew: Yeah, I think it would be an interesting look at the security at Azkaban, thinking ahead to the breakouts. How did that happen? So that would kind of be interesting to see. It would also be a nice look into Sirius’s mental state, to help sell us on where he is, especially when we get to later books.
Eric: Well, and how do humans relate to Dementors? Because you do hear in the books constantly that Dumbledore is angry with them. He is talking with them; Fudge is talking with them. If the government is controlling or in control of the Dementors, how do they do it? Do they talk to them and the Dementors emote? Do they…?
Andrew: Sign language. Smoke signals.
Eric: Yeah, it’s such a simple question, but it’s never answered, and you’re just like, “How do they even have any kind of working relationship? How do they communicate?” So there’s just a lot there with Dementors that I think the Azkaban adaptation is a perfect opportunity, especially because, of course, it comes back around. You’re going to be dealing with the eventual Dementor defection from the Ministry, so it’s pretty important to answer some of these, I think, fundamental questions in an adaptation to just give themselves an easier way through the later books.
Micah: What I really like about this is that it takes us to a place that we’ve heard about but we’ve never been to.
Eric: Right.
Micah: And that’s actually quite surprising, given that there’s been seven books and we’ve never stepped foot into Azkaban; we’ve only heard stories about it. And so to go there and go inside would be really interesting. And I was always under the impression that nobody worked at Azkaban, that it was just Dementors that were hovering around the outside, because you’d almost need… remember how Umbridge is set up in Deathly Hallows, where she has her Patronus sitting on the desk and it’s just kind of keeping the Dementors at bay? I would figure that that is what you would need if you’re a regular witch or wizard who’s working in Azkaban, because otherwise you just… your soul would be gone within a matter of minutes.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Right.
Eric: Then again, thinking of the prisoners, I mean, they are in their own separate cells, right? They’re not just all lumped together. And because it’s the middle of nowhere, and there’s so many Dementors, they can’t escape. There does appear to be some kind of process by which Fudge is signing in and oversees the various cells. So there is something to it there.
Andrew: And then you have one more from Azkaban.
Eric: Yeah, speaking of the prophecy and the night that Harry’s parents die and all that stuff, really. The next morning, the confrontation between Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew on the street, where we know now that Pettigrew actually outsmarts Sirius and surprises him with some decisive, quick wand action, stages his own death by cutting off one of his fingers, and just completely blows a hole in the street. What a good action sequence! That’s the one thing we haven’t talked about just yet: TV series and action. This could be a huge set piece. This could be a huge… this could be the way to start a Prisoner of Azkaban adaptation, even. But furthermore, and kind of just shoehorning this in at the end, but why does Sirius Black…? He’s so shocked at what Pettigrew does that he laughs his way to jail. He just completely… he’s hysterical when the Aurors come and take him in, and he doesn’t seem to defend himself. How is it exactly that Sirius comes to be in Azkaban for a crime that he very much did not commit? And I think in POA, too, Dumbledore says he gave evidence that Black was the Secret Keeper and this, that, the other thing. But I don’t understand… as somebody who loves Sirius, I don’t understand why he didn’t defend himself after the shock of what Pettigrew did, and the humor that he sees, the sick humor. Why didn’t he eventually start to try and defend himself?
Laura: Maybe he felt like he didn’t have anything to try and defend himself for anymore. I mean, his best friends have been killed. His godson is being sent to live with his horrible aunt and uncle. As far as the entire wizarding world knows, he was the Secret Keeper, and all he has to refute that is his word, and nobody’s going to believe him.
Andrew: It’s a good point.
Eric: But knowing that nuance, I want to see it in a TV series. I want to be able to fully understand that guy at the moment when he is put into Azkaban, so that when we meet him 13 years later, it’s even better.
Micah: This may be for another conversation, but I wonder… we were talking about Dumbledore. Did he allow Sirius to go to Azkaban so that the rest of this could all play out the way that he wanted it to?
Andrew: Hmm.
Micah: You said that he gave evidence against him, but clearly there would have been ways to exonerate Sirius. Veritaserum comes to mind. There are things that I’m sure could have been done, given how powerful Dumbledore is.
Eric: Oh, absolutely.
Micah: He’s willing to testify on behalf of a known former Death Eater in Snape, but yet he’s so willing to send Sirius to jail?
Laura: Old age.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I love that new excuse. Print that on a shirt.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Just one other thing, though, that came to mind – and why I like this moment too, Eric – is with Peter Pettigrew… and this kind of ties into what I will talk about in Goblet of Fire, with him and Barty Crouch, Jr. being able to hoodwink Moody. Who is Peter Pettigrew at the end of the day? How good is he, right? You just talked about how he’s able to trick Sirius and betray the Potters. How effective was he in that moment with Barty, where he’s able to overtake Moody? I think he probably doesn’t get enough credit at times for how good he might be.
Andrew: But do we want to give him credit? I mean…
Micah: Not really.
Eric: Well, yeah!
Andrew: I don’t want to like him.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: That’s why I hate… the big reveal scene in the third movie doesn’t work for me because he’s too much of a caricature. He’s too much of a ratty human.
Andrew: It is a lot, yeah.
Eric: When in fact he’s a character who has a lot of weird skills and depth. I don’t… yeah, so I want to see… to your point, Micah, yeah, Pettigrew is a real jerk, but he absolutely has some competencies. He does get the better of people.
Micah: Right.
Laura: Agreed.
Micah: “Good” may have not been the right word. More accomplished in certain areas than maybe we give him credit for.
Andrew: His skills. Yeah, I get you.
Eric: He’s underestimated constantly.
Andrew: Now let’s jump ahead to Goblet of Fire.
Micah: Yeah, so Barty Crouch strikes again for me, but I was rereading part of Goblet of Fire the other day, and I was thinking about how Moody is overtaken by both him and Pettigrew, and how they’re able to do this efficiently, effectively, and then completely hoodwink Arthur Weasley. And we hear about this in passing later on in the story, but we don’t actually see it, and I don’t know if… it probably doesn’t work in terms of showing it right at the start of Goblet of Fire; maybe you need a little bit more time because you don’t want to reveal the fact that Moody isn’t in fact Moody until later on. But I think it would be cool to get a flashback and see exactly how Barty Crouch, Peter Pettigrew, go about doing this, and are able to overtake an Auror. He’s one of the best there is, and yet he is able to be overpowered.
Eric: It’s not his proudest moment, but I absolutely do want to see that on the screen.
Andrew: It would help sell it. I think it’s important to see that to really sell it, because, like you’re saying, Moody is a great Auror, so how was he taken over?
Eric: Exactly.
Andrew: And again, this is something… he’s a beloved character, so people are like, “Really? Moody?” So being able to see that would be very cool. Okay, let’s move on to Order of the Phoenix. Laura, you have a couple ideas.
Laura: I do. So these are inspired by our conversation during Chapter by Chapter. I want to know what was Dumbledore up to after he left Hogwarts in Order of the Phoenix? He made that spectacular departure, and then he’s just gone for a while. I want to know where he’s staying. Or is he looking for Horcruxes? Is he chilling in the Forbidden Forest with Grawp, as we predicted?
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Laura: I just want to know what he’s up to, because I figure he’s not just twiddling his thumbs, right?
Andrew and Eric: No.
Andrew: I think it’s a mix of everything. It’s starting to look into the Horcruxes more, it’s chilling with Grawp, it’s hitting up a couple gay bars in London, it’s a vacation in Costa Rica…
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: … hanging out with Credence…
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Credence is still around?
Andrew: Yeah, he’s still around.
Laura: I’m guessing he’s not.
Micah: You mean Aurelius, Andrew. Aurelius.
Andrew: Yes, sorry. Doing some knitting… no, this is an excellent question, and Dumbledore is one of the most beloved characters in the entire series; I think there could be a slew of episodes that are dedicated to Dumbledore, just an hour of Dumbledore in each season.
Micah: For sure.
Laura: I agree. And even with something like this, I don’t necessarily need a full episode, but just a couple of cuts that give me an idea of what he’s doing or where he is, because surely he hasn’t ventured too far away from Hogwarts unless he’s looking for Horcruxes.
Micah: Totally. And I would like to think that he went to go chill with his brother Abe at the Hog’s Head, have a few sips of Firewhisky…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Oh, yeah. Definitely.
Micah: … and just catch up. They haven’t really gotten the time these last couple of years to connect with each other.
Eric: I agree, and it’s just like Dumbledore to hang out nearby, right? So if anything goes wrong, he can pop back in.
Andrew: Yeah. Oh, I would love to see some scenes in the Hog’s Head. Dumbledore is slumped over the bar in his third hour of ranting to Aberforth about how crappy things are right now.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I would love that so much.
Laura: And Aberforth is just there, dusting a glass with a dirty rag…
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: … and being like, “Um, you killed our sister. Don’t talk to me about how crappy your life is.”
Micah: Oooh.
Andrew: [laughs] [imitating Dumbledore] “Let it go, man. Let it go. Come on, give me another butterbeer already.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: “No, you’re cut off, Dumbledore. Albus.”
Laura: They just throw him out of the bar. They’re like…
Andrew: [laughs] Throw out his own brother.
Laura: “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here, Dumbledore.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: Actually, he uses the goat. The goat chases him out of the bar, angry.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Another Order of the Phoenix question, and this is something that we touched on with our Chapter by Chapter as well. I really want… and we know how in the films, they loved their pacing scenes. I actually want a pacing scene that shows how the entire Ministry was conveniently emptied out before Harry and company got there.
Andrew: Yes.
Laura: Because they had to have done something. They had to have had a really ornate set of Imperius Curses across everyone, because even though it’s later in the evening, presumably somebody would still be there.
Eric: Oh, yeah. I mean, government buildings never fully close.
Laura: They’re never empty, yeah. So it would be really cool to see some kind of pacing scene before they get on the Thestrals and make their way to the Ministry, where all of a sudden, I don’t know, everybody’s impacted by an Imperius Curse, and they’re like, “Oh, I have somewhere to be,” and they just waltz out of the Ministry.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Or they fabricate some kind of emergency that requires everyone’s attention, and they all run to attend to it, and they’re kept busy for a couple of hours while a bunch of adults try to fight 15-year-olds.
Andrew: And where was Eric? Where did he go really?
Eric: Pizza party.
Laura: [laughs] I want to know.
Andrew: I want to see that pizza party.
Eric: Yeah, me too. I wonder what cool wizarding flavors they would have on pizza. That’d be pretty cool.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I really like Laura’s suggestion of a pacing scene, and you just see mass Imperius going on, and everybody in the Ministry that are on those upper floors, they just walk into their offices and lock the doors. Maybe they were there the whole time; we just didn’t know it.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Laura: Fair point, yep.
Eric: I love the idea of it seeming empty when in fact it’s not empty. It’s full. That’s pretty cool.
Andrew: Now I’m thinking of these wizarding world pizzas.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: So you can get Hippogriff toppings…
Eric: Oh, God.
Andrew: Niffler toppings…
Laura: Wait.
Eric: Niffleroni? Pepperoni?
Laura: Oh no.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Yes, you know what I’m thinking.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: I feel like Hippogriffs, that’d be a high quality meat. That’d be a juicy red meat.
Eric: You have to bow to your pizza, otherwise it will attack you.
Andrew: Or no, white meat, because it’s a bird.
Eric: Oh my God. Oh, yeah.
Micah: What’s the vegetarian option? Pickett?
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Bowtruckle leaves, as a salad option.
Andrew: That’s the lettuce of the wizarding world.
Eric: Oh my God.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: All right, adding it to our brainstorming doc. Wizarding world pizza toppings.
Eric: Thank you. All right.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Sponsored by Little Caesars, Eric’s favorite pizza place.
Eric: It’s true.
Andrew: Okay, let’s move on to Half-Blood Prince. So Dumbledore’s research of the Horcruxes; this is a big one. Harry gets introduced to Horcruxes and Dumbledore’s research in Half-Blood Prince, but we don’t get to see all of how Dumbledore gathered his information over the years. We get some flashbacks, we get these memories that Dumbledore gathered, but how did he even get these memories? I want to see the details there. I want to see him collecting memories from Voldemort’s life, like Tom Riddle’s childhood, his bullying of fellow orphans, the Gaunts, getting that memory from Bob Ogden… I think all this would be so interesting, and it would tie in, I think, to Laura’s idea with Order the Phoenix. After he ran out of there, I’m sure there was some Horcrux investigations going on. I mean, Dumbledore started suspecting the Horcruxes as early as Chamber of Secrets, so there was years of that.
Eric: Yeah, it’s kind of like how in the TV series – and I haven’t seen it all the way through – but Once Upon a Time, the character of Rumpelstiltskin, played by a very competent actor, is gradually revealed to have been behind a lot of other characters’ backstories, but they show him then in those scenes doing these things. Dumbledore is that type of character where you could have entire episodes where he’s off doing this stuff, and he will hold the camera’s attention and the gravitas, and you would get to see Dumbledore, like you said, procuring these memories and learning this information. We’ve already seen it be adapted where he’s telling Harry this stuff; you still would need those scenes, I guess, because [laughs] you still need a Harry Potter for a Harry Potter TV series. But my interest lies so much more in these Dumbledore-centric episodes and all these other things that you could do with it.
Micah: Totally. I want to see Dumbledore the hustler, more of what he did with Mrs. Cole…
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: … when he’s using his charm and his ability to get people drunk and give him information. [laughs]
Andrew: Oh, yeah!
Micah: There’s more to Dumbledore.
Andrew: He probably showed her some knitting patterns that he came up with.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Micah: Yeah, I’m sure he did.
Andrew: I bet they bonded over that.
Micah: And I like this idea, though… Eric, you were talking about you can’t have a Harry Potter series without Harry, obviously, but this series, though, could really open up the world a little bit more, and I think that’s what we’ve been alluding to with a lot of these suggestions for either episodes or scenes, is that the world can continue to expand in this series. I think if it were just to stick to the things that we’re used to, it’s just not going to have that same appeal.
Laura: Agreed.
Andrew: And also in Half-Blood Prince, I would love to see Snape becoming the Half-Blood Prince. I would love to see a montage in which we see Snape inventing the new spells and potions, including Levicorpus, Sectumsempra, and Muffliato – I guess that’s how you pronounce it – because these are iconic spells, especially the first two. How do you invent spells? This would also just be an interesting look at how these come to fruition.
Eric: I agree completely.
Andrew: And I think it’d also be a really nice tribute to Snape and give us a look at his intellectual side. We see it while he’s teaching, but I would just love these solo scenes where Snape is just working, he’s in his own zone, he’s left alone… he’s just coming up with these new ideas.
Eric: You could do it almost like a parallel narrative where you’d have Harry going to classes and Snape going to classes when Snape was a student, and have them be…
Andrew: Oh, that’d be so cool. I would love that.
Eric: Yeah, show how different they were as students. Really play up the whole “Snape could have been Harry’s dad” thing, because that was potentially an option at some point.
Andrew: Both of them dreaming of Lily, but in very different ways.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: I hope so.
Andrew: One platonic, one romantic.
Micah: Wow. It’s also… with just the title of Half-Blood Prince, it’s almost as if he’s trying to give himself this larger-than-life representation. He’s aspiring to be this superhero of sorts, right? We always enjoy seeing how superheroes kind of grow into their roles, and so I think this would be cool for Snape.
Andrew: Now we have a couple odds and ends. Micah, you have one here.
Micah: Yeah, I thought it would be cool to take a look into the life of some of the Weasley children as they were growing up pre-Hogwarts. We hear a little bit about it from time to time, but just thinking about going back a couple years before Ron, Fred, George, and Ginny are even in Hogwarts. How were they raised? What was life like for them inside that house? Percy may have been off at school already, same with Bill and Charlie, so I would really like to see this, and just kind of growing up within the Weasley home.
Eric: Oh, definitely. I love that a lot.
Andrew: I think the Weasleys are… I’ve mentioned fan favorites a couple of times today. The Weasleys collectively, they are a fan favorite, so spending time with them, extra time with them, would be great for a lot of people.
Eric: And they were able to do magic growing up! They were able to ride brooms, they were able to practice Quidditch…
Andrew: Right. It’s the childhood Harry never had…
Eric: Exactly.
Andrew: … so it’d be an interesting look at what growing up would be like.
Laura: That would be cool. I’m really interested – and I have no idea where this would fit – but I’ve always been interested in more background and insight into the life experiences of Squibs, mainly because the two Squibs that we know the best are Filch and Mrs. Figg, and Filch is the Hogwarts janitor, and Mrs. Figg is like an Order of the Phoenix informant. And we don’t really get much insight into what sorts of educations were they entitled to, what kinds of jobs can they qualify for. It seems like an underserved class of people in the magical world who could kind of be a threat if you think about it. You have this whole class of people who are treated like crap because of their blood status and the fact that they can’t do magic, but they can still know about magic and know how the wizarding world works. Talk about creating a special class of pissed off supervillain.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: They’re like, “You treated me like crap, so I’m going to raise a Muggle army against you and take you down.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: It would just be really interesting to see what their life experiences were like. I just think about, yes, Filch does horrible things through the books that are completely inexcusable, and nothing that happened to him during what I’m sure was a really rough upbringing excuses that, but it would just flesh his character out a bit more if we got to see some of that.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Laura: I’m imagining young Filch; maybe he had magical siblings, or maybe he didn’t find out he was a Squib until later. And just imagining how he must have been treated, and then the fact that the only experience he gets to have at Hogwarts is to be the freaking janitor.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, and I think, too, that there’s a huge area ripe for the plucking as far as… I don’t think you get to adapt Harry Potter in this day and age without touching on prejudice in a bigger way, the type of prejudice for pure-bloodism, against Hermione and Mudbloods. This is again something they could do in Book 2 when we find out that Filch is a Squib, and we’re also worrying about Hermione being called names. There’s no way to do it without touching on the very real prejudice, and also having to do some work to flesh that out and make it a little bit more realistic and more four-dimensional.
Andrew: Okay, cool. So I hope everybody enjoyed that. And we are about to discuss scenes that the Fantastic Beasts film series could possibly include, and then Micah came up with a list of the top seven moments from the books that never made the films.
Eric: Nice.
Micah: That’s right.
Andrew: So much more to get to today. But first, it’s time for a word from our second sponsor this week, an important resource for those who need someone to talk to: BetterHelp.
[Ad break]
Scenes Fantastic Beasts Could Possibly Include
Andrew: Okay, so Fantastic Beasts. We’re in the middle of this film series right now. There are some scenes from Harry Potter that we didn’t get to see that we heard about that could very well appear in the spinoff series. First of all, I think the biggest one – and we know we’re leading towards this – is Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s duel. This is where this series is going to end up. It’s going to be explosive; it will hopefully be awesome. So we have that to look forward to. What else, Micah?
Micah: Yeah, I think that one of the biggest thing that fans are looking forward to is learning what exactly happened to Ariana. Dumbledore mentions her in The Crimes of Grindelwald when he’s talking with Leta, and so I think that it’s only natural, given that we’re going to continue to explore what happens between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, that we will go back to that day in Godric’s Hollow where Ariana was killed.
Eric: Right.
Micah: And we’ll find out who ultimately was responsible. Was it Grindelwald? Was it Dumbledore? We know Aberforth was there as well, so looking forward to that casting.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: You are, and only you. What if we don’t find out? What if it’s left open, and viewers have to interpret the scene for themselves? I bet that’s a possibility. Because they don’t know who was responsible, so why would we find out?
Eric: Right, right.
Andrew: And then we’ll spend eight episodes talking about it on MuggleCast.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Actually, I like that almost better if we don’t know in the end, but we’ll still get a lot fleshed out. By the fact that it’s committed to film, we’ll still at least have an educated perspective as to where we can begin our discussion from.
Laura: True.
Andrew: Right. I agree we’ll see it; they’re just going to leave it vague in terms of who was responsible.
Micah: I would almost be surprised if Ariana didn’t in some way die for Dumbledore, like get in the way of a curse that was fired by Grindelwald that ultimately destroyed her. We’re pretty much all in agreement that she was an Obscurial. Does she protect him in some way that ultimately results in her destruction? It would also explain why Dumbledore is so interested in Credence. And whether or not he is really a Dumbledore, that’s a whole other discussion.
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, but even if Dumbledore didn’t cast the curse that killed her, he is responsible for her death because of bringing Grindelwald into their family and all this other stuff. So I mean, I’d say he as good as killed her, or cast the curse that caused her to die. It’s just really a matter of the specific circumstance. We really want to see it. I am looking forward to that eventual confrontation in what we assume is Fantastic Beasts 5.
Laura: Well, and honestly, if they really wanted to know who did it, all they would have to do is just force each of their wands to reproduce the last spell they created, right?
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Yeah, true.
Eric: Maybe they were both out-Expelliarmusing each other…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: … and they both cast the same spell, and nobody knows which one took Ariana’s arms off.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: And then one other thing; I think we can see this is referenced – we’ve brought this up a few times over the past couple years – Hagrid and Tom Riddle’s development in the early 1940s.
Eric: Ah!
Andrew: Hagrid acquired Aragog from somebody, and we have suggested that it could very well have been Newt. And then, of course, Tom Riddle opening the Chamber of Secrets and framing Hagrid. That could very well be in the series because, again, this stuff happened in the 1940s, and that’s where Fantastic Beasts is taking place. Particularly the fourth and fifth film, we’re thinking.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Hagrid got expelled when Hagrid was in his third year. I think Tom was 15? 16? So fifth or sixth year at the time.
Andrew: He was a little older.
Eric: Yeah. But yes, absolutely. 100%, I want to see this in a TV show. I want to see this in the movies. However we get it, I want to consume it.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Definitely. Yeah, and just one other thing to add to that Hagrid/Tom Riddle development, I would say: I’d be interested to see Slughorn in a couple of these movies, because unlike McGonagall, he’s actually supposed to be at Hogwarts around this time.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: That’s a great point, honestly.
Top 7 Moments from the Books that Weren’t in the Films
Andrew: And then, Micah, do you want to run through this quick? Just the top seven moments from the books that never made the films. These are… these upset people. People were upset that these weren’t in the movies.
Micah: The reason why I brought these up is because a lot of… pretty much all of our discussion, as you touched on at the top, is moments that we heard about in the books, but they weren’t necessarily in the books, nor were they in the movies. These are moments that were in the books, that we absolutely would want to see in a television show, that didn’t make the films. But we thought these were probably top of mind for most people. The first being – and people can jump in here, please – the Deathday Party. This is a really cool event. Happens on Halloween, right? And yeah, it’s just a really great moment for the trio with Nearly Headless Nick, and you get introduction to some characters that obviously don’t make it into the films. So I just really enjoyed the banter, too, back and forth between a lot of the ghosts.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: The banter and the tossing of the head. The Headless Hunt comes and gatecrashes the party. I know it would be CGI heavy, but why the heck not? You’ve got to flesh out this whole ghost thing sooner or later. We know it comes into play with the Gray Lady eventually, so if we get some good ghost material early on in the TV series, it goes a long way.
Laura: Agreed.
Micah: It could also just be really fun too. Lighthearted, right? Even though it’s a Deathday Party.
Andrew: People want more of the ghosts. You remember the first two movies? There was lots of ghost action, or at least in the first movie there was, and then that stuff started disappearing and people were upset.
Eric: Do you think they’ll do Peeves in the TV series?
Laura: Oh, they have to.
Micah: They have to.
Eric: I mean, why? Right?
Micah: Why?
Andrew: Why not?
Eric: What role does he play? Yeah.
Micah: What role does…? Well, we could say that about a lot of characters.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: The ghosts add to the magic of the story, right? It adds whimsical elements to the story. People want that stuff.
Micah: I would say Peeves is probably up there in the top character omissions from the films, and obviously we know the story there. Very sad. But yeah, I would say that they would definitely look to include him in the television series. We don’t have to spend a whole lot of time on the Marauders’ backstory. I did this in chronological order. This is probably the number one thing that people want to see in a TV series…
Andrew: Agreed.
Micah: … is the Marauders’ backstory. It was completely cut. Alfonso Cuarón, David Heyman, shame on you for that in Prisoner of Azkaban. The movie definitely could have been 15 minutes longer to include some information on the Marauders.
Laura: I mean, J.K. Rowling could have stepped in on that and said, “You need to have this.”
Micah: That is true. Another character that comes to mind, her storyline completely cut, was Winky, and she was integral – when she wasn’t drinking – to the plot of Goblet of Fire and I think the contrasting loyalties from house-elves to their masters, right? With Dobby and the Malfoys, Winky and the Crouches. And she really plays a very pivotal role, and she was cut out from the movie.
Eric: That’s a great point. It reminds me how unrealistic the fourth movie plays now that we don’t have any of that “How did this happen?” Because the whole story of how Barty Crouch was able to escape Azkaban and through Winky’s help, kind of, was she was watching over him in the basement and supposed to not let him out, but she did at the Cup, and then all hell broke loose. Winky is the tie to all of that.
Andrew: Yeah, and you can expand that point out to SPEW as well.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: That’s something that was completely cut.
Micah: Yeah, definitely. That’s always on the list. And jumping ahead a little bit to Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore schooling the Dursleys.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: We gave this up so that Dumbledore could crash Harry’s potential…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Who knows what would have become of that night?
Eric: Meet-cute. It was a meet-cute.
Micah: Yeah, it could have been the night Harry popped his cherry. What I’m saying is this is just a really great moment in the series. Why it didn’t come sooner, who knows? But just Dumbledore giving the Dursleys the business. And I would love to be able to sit and watch Dumbledore on the couch across from Vernon and Petunia. Believe Dobby shows… or no, Kreacher shows up at one point too, which, the reactions to that is…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: That filth in her house. Petunia may have just lost her shit.
Eric: And that’s a culmination of 16 or more years of Dumbledore, his relationship especially with Petunia – which it’s probably, I don’t know, 20 or 30 or 40 years of their relationship – coming to a head, and we probably… there’s a lot there that could be mined for reaction and effect, even above what’s in the text. But by not adapting it, they kind of weren’t able to get into those levels.
Micah: And Andrew, you touched on this in one of your moments, but I think just seeing those other memories that were left out from the Horcrux hunt, right? With Bob Ogden, Eric’s favorite guy, and Hepzibah Smith. And these were crucial memories that were just thrown out of the script for Half-Blood Prince pacing. Who knows what the reasoning was?
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Old age. Burrow on fire, they needed to do.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: And then I know we joke about this a lot, but probably the biggest moment that’s left out of Half-Blood Prince is Dumbledore’s funeral. They give one to a giant spider…
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: … but they don’t give one to one of the most important characters in the series. And I get it; it would have been sad. Would have been a tough ending to the movie. But I don’t know, you have so many characters that are coming together in this moment if you read back through Half-Blood Prince. And this would be a great… especially for a TV series. You always have those episodes where so many characters are back and they come together when they haven’t been for such a long time, and you get people from Season 1 and Season 2 and Season 3. This would have been an appropriate tribute to Dumbledore.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: People love him. He needed a proper sendoff.
Eric: Well, and if we’re seeing these scenes where Dumbledore is the lead character in the TV series, all the people that he’s working with are all the actors and characters that we’re going to then see come back to a funeral. It’ll be a huge, to Micah’s point, reunion of sorts.
Micah: Even Umbridge is there.
Eric: Yeah!
Andrew: “Who was the man in the bowler hat?”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “Well, we saw in Episode 3 of Season 2 that Dumbledore went to him for new knitting patterns.” It’s like, “Oh.”
Andrew: Yeah, it was a long lost lover, as I speculated.
Laura: I think to the point of timing, the movie suffered from the fact that if we had had two funerals, we would have had two funerals spaced 45 minutes apart, and that does feel like a lot. But that would be separate episodes in the TV series, so I think it works much better in this format.
Andrew: All right, final one.
Micah: Final one: The death of Peter Pettigrew, going to Deathly Hallows.
Laura: Yes!
Micah: We didn’t get this…
Andrew: Oooh, you’re sick.
Micah: Well, look, Pettigrew is responsible for a lot. Let’s be honest here. Much of what he does influences the entire series, and yeah, he owed a debt to Harry, and we never saw it paid off on screen. That silver hand basically chokes himself to death, and I know it would have been a little bit too much for people to handle, but you should…
Andrew: [laughs] But not on HBO Max.
Micah: No, and think about the end of Deathly Hallows, who you see. It’s probably much worse to see Lupin, Tonks, Fred all lying there after what’s happened in the Battle of Hogwarts. But I do understand the visual effects of somebody literally choking themselves would have been probably too much to put on screen. Instead, he just gets hit from behind by Dobby, and he’s left at Malfoy Manor.
Eric: Wait, so Pettigrew gets to live in the movies, but Lavender Brown we’re still not sure about.
Laura: Right.
Micah: Well, maybe Peter is in that category.
Andrew: Ah, this is a good one too!
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: We also deserve to see in the TV series what happened to Lavender Brown. Did she die? Pottermore said, “presumed dead.” Well, you should know! You’re Potter-No-More! You’re by the author! Give us answers!
Eric: Augh.
Laura: I also think we need this because it’s very significant that all four of the Marauders die, right?
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Laura: And in the movies, it’s like, “Well, the good ones die.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: “We don’t really know what happened to the bad one that betrayed everybody.”
Andrew: That is a great point.
Micah: Right, because who do you really see die from the evil side in Deathly…? In really any of the films or the books.
Eric: Bellatrix, right?
Micah: Bellatrix… yeah, that was just weird the way they adapted that.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yeah, but none of it’s even satisfying. Ugh, this is my gripe with Deathly Hallows – Part 2, was they just went all in on the 3D thing. They were like, “3D is big right now, y’all, so we’re just going to have everybody dissolve and explode into little bits and pieces, so that we can cash in on 3D,” and it looks like garbage.
Andrew: [laughs] “All so we could cash in on 3D!”
Laura: Yes, and it doesn’t have as much meaning as that moment where a body thuds on the floor, and you’re like, “Yeah, Voldemort is dead.” No, he just dissolves into the sky. I hate that.
Eric: Well, slowly. We can appreciate…
Micah: So he can come back in 20 years. No, I agree, and I’ve always had issue too – I didn’t put it in here – with the actual Battle of Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows – Part 2 because there’s those moments, especially right after the confrontation between Neville and Voldemort, right? Grawp shows up with the centaurs. You have the villagers running in from Hogsmeade. You have the house-elves running from the kitchens. This was a full team effort that… all these groups coming together. Instead, the way that it ended up was just… it was weak, in my opinion. But maybe the TV show can do better.
Andrew: Weak. Well, on that note, that concludes today’s discussion.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Thank you, everybody. That was a lot of fun. And if you have any feedback, send it on in – MuggleCast@gmail.com – or the contact form on MuggleCast.com, or send us a voice memo or voicemail. 1-920-368-4453.
Quizzitch
Andrew: Before we get to my revelation, let’s do Quizzitch first.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: Last week’s question: When exactly does Neville say he will join Voldemort? This actually comes from page 731 from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Neville says, “I’ll join you when hell freezes over.”
Micah: What a line.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Well, Neville, due to climate change, that might actually happen, so maybe take that back.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: So congratulations. Correct answers were submitted by Jeff, Grace, Lazuli, Lance Dance, Brianna, Young Susie Blood, Bort Voldemort, Reese Without Her Spoon, Sarah, Johan, Sydney, and Darren Johnson. Next week’s question: As a nod to Micah’s point about the Mad-Eye Moody scene in Goblet of Fire, who does Mad-Eye say ambushed him after the fact?
Andrew’s Revelation
Andrew: All right, so like I said at the top of the show last night, while brushing my teeth with a Quip toothbrush, I had an epiphany.
Eric: Oh, God.
Andrew: I was thinking about the prophecy that Trelawney made, and I was thinking about how that could open up the TV series, and then I was thinking, “How? How could this TV series actually get made? We all want it. How can it possibly happen? How can it come to fruition?” And then it hit me. Several years ago, MuggleCast announced that we were ending the podcast, and then we ended it. I think it was September 2013. And then a week later – a week later – WB announced the Fantastic Beasts film series. And what I realized last night, while brushing my teeth with a Quip toothbrush, was that there was a prophecy made about us and WB too!
[Eric gasps]
Andrew: “Either must die at the hand of the other because neither can live while the other continues to produce new content!”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: And because we sacrificed ourselves, Fantastic Beasts came into existence. So Micah, Eric, and Laura, I must once again ask too much of you.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: We must once again end the show so that the Harry Potter TV series can come into existence. We must be the ones to end our show. It is the only way!
[Micah laughs]
Eric: Interesting theory.
Laura: Can we end it with, like, a wink? Be like, “Okay, MuggleCast is over. Wink, wink.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: “Come on, WB.”
Andrew: I think we need to own it like we did last time. So goodbye, everyone. It was nice knowing you all. This is the end. I’m not going to bother with the social media, with the Patreon, with the contact info…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: It doesn’t matter because the show is ending. Goodbye.
Eric and Micah: Bye.
Laura: Yeah. Good night and good luck, I guess. [laughs]
Micah: Should we do an episode next week, it may or may not be on the casting for this TV series.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
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