Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #672, The MuggleCasters Reunite in Washington D.C.!
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 we’re all together! Woo!
Eric: With our powers combined!
Andrew: No Riverside delay here.
Eric: Put your hands up! Let’s all hold hands! This is great!
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: When did you last wash your hands? So yeah, for the first time since we’re thinking 2010…
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: … the four of us are all together in one place, and it’s crazy. We got together on Monday; it’s currently Wednesday. We are in the DC area for a podcast industry conference, and we’ve gone to a couple of these, but we haven’t all gone to one together. Micah, Eric, and I went to one in what?
Eric: 2018? 2019?
Andrew: Oh, in Orlando, right? Yeah. So yeah, and we have Laura here for this one too. We had a MuggleCast patron meetup last night.
Eric: It was so lovely.
Laura: It was so good.
Andrew: Yeah, we didn’t even really try to push it too much.
Micah: Well, some of us did.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: What do you mean? Oh, you pushed it at the bar, that’s for sure. Micah may have had one drink too many. One butterbeer too many. But yeah, we didn’t promote it too heavily because we were busy at the conference, so we didn’t want to have too big a group. So we did announce on Patreon “We’ll be in the area; fill out this form if you’re interested,” and anybody who did was contacted. But yeah, everybody was so sweet, right? And we got a group picture.
Laura: What I loved about it is I felt like I got to spend a lot of one-on-one time with people, really getting to know them, and getting to catch up with some of them who I already did know. And got to have a lot of really good conversations with people about other fandoms that they’re into as well, which is really good inspiration for our other show What the Hype?!, so it was just really good all around to get to see people come out who, in a lot of cases, have been supporting the show for a long time.
Eric: Oh, so many. That was when everyone introduced themselves, and one of the parameters was, “How long have you been listening?” Absolutely not a competition, but I will swear there were people that were… it was for most of the history of the show.
Micah: Yeah, it was just great to see people coming from so many different places, near and far, to DC. People from North Carolina; somebody flew down from Boston, New York…
Eric: Connecticut, yeah. Virginia.
Andrew: Yeah, somebody… Ryan was also going to a concert last night, too.
Laura: That’s right, yeah.
Andrew: But that’s great, because it’s like, “Okay, you’re coming out for two things. It’s not just us.” We’re all like, “You’re coming out for us, y’all? That’s so amazing!”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: But I think the takeaway for all of us – and we’ve talked about it throughout today – is just we should figure out a way to do this more, but also that more.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: Well, and this area, the DC area, is very central for a lot of people, so that helps. We had 20 people. Like I said, we only posted about it once, but I think we easily could have a much larger… we could easily get 100 people together in this area.
Eric: Oh, absolutely.
Laura: Yeah, that would be fun.
Andrew: So yeah, we’ll think about that.
Eric: But it’s always a wonderful and rewarding experience to get together. I remember doing a meetup at the last Podcast Movement with people.
Andrew: We did.
Eric: Yeah, and it’s just really wonderful to meet people.
Micah: Yeah, and we did one in Portland a couple months ago.
Eric: That’s right, yep.
Micah: We did one in Chicago last year.
Eric: Yeah, but it still feels like too few, especially for how good it feels just to get to talk to people.
Andrew: I said to these three, “We’ve still got it. We’ve still got it!”
Eric: We got it!
Andrew: People are coming out for us, woohoo! But no, really, it meant a lot. And we bought everybody a drink if they wanted a drink, and yeah, it was a good night. So thanks to everybody who came out. We have a picture; we posted it on our Instagram stories, but I’m sure we’ll get it on the grid, too, so it exists in perpetuity. But we thought for this episode we could take some questions from listeners. We went on Patreon, and we said, “We’re all together for the first time in 14-15 years, so what questions do you want us to ask each other face to face?”
Eric: Oh, no.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: And so we’ll focus on those. But I mean, any other…
[sound of a can opening]
Andrew: That was the crack of Laura’s boyfriend’s Truly Unruly. The sponsor of this week’s episode of MuggleCast.
Eric: Speaking of sponsors…
Andrew: “Truly Unruly: When the MuggleCast meetup wasn’t enough for you.”
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: “Come to MuggleCast: After Dark.”
Andrew: But I guess before we get into the questions, we should probably say that, like I mentioned, we’ve been here learning about the podcast industry, and it’s been great, but it’s thanks to listener support that we were able to get here. And I always say this in my Bonjoro videos to listeners: I don’t know about y’all, but we use your support to buy new podcasting equipment. We’re wearing microphones right now that have been purchased through Patreon support. When we need a new mic at home, when we want to go to a podcast conference, we use your support for stuff like that, so it’s all really helpful in helping us run the show.
Eric: Yeah, exactly like that; we put it back into the podcast. And we are learning things here at this conference, too, that are going to go directly back into the show and make the experience – especially if you’re a patron – to make your experience that much better, even, because a lot of this is about that exact topic.
Andrew: We’ve got, like, 20 Google Docs at this point. [laughs]
Eric: That was just day one.
Andrew: Maybe 30 or 40 at this point.
Laura: Yeah, I was going to say, we were really effective at dividing and conquering on this because we were like, “We have four people; we can just divide up these panels,” and we each went and plugged in our notes into shared Google Docs, and it’s really impressive.
Eric: Every so often… it’s extremely impressive. And it’s really just wonderful walking by and seeing somebody in the distance, one of you guys.
Laura: Yeah, I know. That actually happened this morning; Andrew and I were in a session together, and then we looked over and we saw you and we were like, “Eric!”
Eric: That’s right! You were like, “Look to your left!”
Andrew: I texted Eric, “Look left,” and I was just staring. But one thing I should also call out is a couple of our listeners are here too, attending the conference. Kira, who I’ve met before, and for you three, it was your first time meeting her.
Eric: Yeah, she’s great.
Laura: Love her.
Andrew: She has her own podcast, “DNA Today.” She is so successful with that show; we’re so happy for her. And then I was leaving a NPR panel yesterday, and I’m walking out and somebody says, “Excuse me,” and she comes up, and she’s like, “Are you…?” And then she looks at my badge and sees “Andrew, MuggleCast,” and she was like, “Oh my gosh, this is crazy. I work at NPR podcast because of you. I heard about podcasts through MuggleCast back in the day!” And we saw her again today; her name is June, and she was just so excited to have met all of us. She said she hasn’t met Laura yet, but if/when she runs into you, she said she’s going to cry tears of joy because she loves you so much.
Laura: Aww.
Eric: The funniest thing she said, June did, was that she told her mom that she had met you, Andrew…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Then she called her mom last night about it!
Eric: And her mom knew, and her mom was like, “Oh, that’s that podcast that you used to listen to when you were 13 and weren’t doing your homework and instead were listening to podcasts?”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: The fact that her mom still carries a grudge toward – vaguely – MuggleCast? Oh, it’s so fun.
Laura: And it could have been so much worse. It was a literary analysis podcast that she was skipping her homework for.
Eric: Look, and now her daughter works for NPR. How cool is that?
Laura: Right.
Andrew: I think it all works out just fine. And I said to June, “And we weren’t doing homework; we were podcasting instead of doing our homework.”
Eric: That’s true.
Laura: Oh, trust me, I used to get in trouble for that all the time.
Andrew: [laughs] But yeah, so it was great meeting her.
Listener questions
Andrew: But anyway, let’s get into these questions from patrons. So we wanted to start with some questions about the hosts and the show itself. Eric, do you want to kick off the questions?
Eric: Yeah, this one’s from Hannele. She says, “Is it any different being in the same room together than when recording across the Internet? If so, what is different?”
Andrew: Well, first of all, there’s no delay. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, that’s nice.
Andrew: That’s really helpful.
Laura: That’s really nice. I also feel like, I don’t know, it’s easier to pick up on mannerisms and body language too. There have been multiple times… because we just recorded something else right before this, and there have been multiple times where we’ve all kind of just started doubling over in laughter, and there wasn’t particularly anything that was said. It was just maybe the way that somebody… maybe somebody’s facial expression, or maybe a quick quip that would have been missed when we were recording on Riverside, for example.
Andrew: Oh, yeah, that’s a good call.
Laura: Think about the number of times somebody says something pithy, and you’re like, “What?” [laughs] We’re all like old people, like, “Say that again?” Here we don’t have that, so it’s definitely a lot more crisp, I think.
Micah: Not having to scream. And I can, to your point, look at Andrew and make him start laughing.
Andrew: [laughs] You just stared at me!
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: No, but yeah.
Eric: We high-fived during… we can just do any of it.
Andrew: It’s so much… it’s just easier to do these episodes, too, when we’re all sitting together in person. It doesn’t feel like work as much. And I mean, we rarely actually do this together, so I think that helps too. But if we really wanted to, we could spend an entire day just knocking out ten episodes if we wanted. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is… and speaking of the screen not being there, too, it’s wild because when we moved to Riverside and started doing – or even on Zoom – doing video podcasting, we could see each other’s reaction. We could pivot when we knew somebody else had something to say, and all that other stuff is very organic. But now it’s like that in OmniMax; it’s literally like I have a 360 degree view of all of you guys. I know that Micah is barefoot right now, and…
Andrew: [laughs] Hopefully not.
Eric: … oh, wait, just kidding. He has his shoes on, and I do not. But yeah, it’s just a completely unbelievable experience. Is this what this is like for people who like each other and hang out in person?
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Honestly.
Laura: Well, I mean, I think about the number of podcasters who do generally record their episodes together in person and have studios, and I don’t know, I kind of like the idea of when we get together… obviously, this is a very short trip, pretty quick turnaround, but I don’t know; it could be fun in the future when we get together to say, “Hey, we’re going to knock out several episodes over the course of the time that we’re together,” because we don’t get to do this enough.
Eric: The thing is, too, just the comfort level. I am so comfortable with you guys; we’ve known each other 19 years. And part of it is, too, that I’m in the Micah Chair.
Andrew: I was just going to say that. [laughs]
Eric: I did move into the Micah Chair.
Andrew: Eric is in a high back chair.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: So that’s what the experience is like.
Eric: It’s wild, and we got a couple more about being in person together. So who wants to take John’s question?
Laura: I can take John’s question. John asks, “Are any of you taller or shorter than the other hosts than you expected or remembered? Who is the tallest and who is the shortest?”
Andrew: That’s so funny.
Eric: Can we do a quick stand here real quick? Because I think…
Laura: I think I’m the shortest.
Andrew: I think so.
Eric: Maybe. Should we get up? I think Micah is taller than me, right? So you and I are the same height, Andrew, Micah is the tallest, and Laura is under? Yeah.
Andrew: But I expected all these heights, you know?
Laura: Yeah, there’s nothing surprising about it.
Andrew: No. Yeah, although one of our listeners who showed up at the hangout last night, Laura – another Laura – she’s pretty short, and I just say that because when we met, she was like, “Oh my gosh, you guys are taller than I thought!”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: We’re not… I’m like, 5’10”.
Eric: That’s hilarious.
Micah: Next question comes from Xabrina, who says, “Would love to know how does it feel to record in real life with each other after a long time. I’m also curious to know how often you guys have creative differences, or any differences regarding podcast stuff, and how you manage it whilst being friends.”
Laura: That’s a good question.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, in terms of recording IRL, it felt weird at first, but I think it starts feeling organic.
Laura: I will say, for the first two minutes we were sitting here – because Andrew is beside me – you were making a lot of direct eye contact, and I was like, “It’s weird that there’s not a screen.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Where you can just run away from me whenever I’m being annoying.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: No, but I mean, it feels good.
Eric: Another thing I’ll add to that is I remember everyone’s general vibe and idiosyncrasies from however many years ago it’s been that we’ve been in the same room, and there’s something so comforting about coming back to that too. Just like, even if we’re not talking, even if we’re not looking at each other, just that we are a comforting presence in each other’s… just being in the same room together is very comforting.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: And to that end, this question about creative differences and stuff, we have grown together for so many years, and the ego is gone. The individual ego, I think, is largely gone from this group, and we know that if we’re making a suggestion that the others don’t like that it’s not a personal dislike, that it doesn’t reflect on us personally, and we have just this amazing rapport. And so that’s been a great just experience because of how we’ve matured, and how we’ve grown together.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: And I mean, creative differences, I feel like it’s pretty normal in a group like this, especially for something like this show that’s kind of been all of our baby for almost 20 years at this point. There have absolutely been times where we’ve had differences in opinion about how we should approach things or how we should structure an episode, or even how we want to think about the strategy for the show in the future. There have been differing opinions over time; that’s to be expected. It would be weird if we were all lockstep in our thinking all the time.
Eric: But see, and that makes the show better is having those different perspectives and opinions. We always hear each other out.
Laura: Yeah, for sure. And we have evolved a lot, because we all know that back in 2005, there were a lot of AOL instant messenger fights.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Laura: I definitely participated in some of those.
Eric: Followed by salty away messages.
Laura: Yeah, yeah.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: Usually, like, Green Day song lyrics.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: “I’m going to make them think that I’m leaving my house, but really, I’m just sitting in my room being… mad.” I was about to say another word.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: That’s the other thing, too, I think. I remember being just so insecure as a late teenager.
Laura: We all were.
Eric: But so the hard feelings and everything come from that state of feeling triggered, and it’s not… you don’t know what you don’t know. But it’s been a great pleasure to have grown up and still get to do this.
Laura: Yeah, 100%.
Micah: With, I mean, creative differences, we all seem to – especially now at this stage, because we’re adults – land in a place where even if we’re coming at it from differing perspectives, we’re able to get to some kind of agreement. Thinking about our upcoming Chapter by Chapter – Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince – we just did those books not that long ago, and so we’re trying to figure out, creatively, how can we make it interesting for you all the listeners, in case you listened to those episodes when we first did them?
Andrew: That’s something we still need to talk about while we’re here, so maybe tomorrow morning. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, listeners, check back with us in a month. If we’re doing Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince, it means we worked it out.
Andrew: We are going to be doing it.
Eric: Well, I’m not sure…
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Get out.
Eric: I’m just messing.
Andrew: We actually asked listeners on Patreon for feedback about that, and most of them said, “Stay the course. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Eric: Absolutely, absolutely.
Andrew: But we can explain that more later. Like I said, we still need to talk about a little bit because we want to shake it up in some way, so more to come on that front.
[Ad break]
Andrew: Christina said, “I have two questions: What piece of Harry Potter memorabilia/merch would you never sell/get rid of?” So let’s start with that question.
Eric: This is a funny one because I am jettisoning Harry Potter merchandise.
Andrew: Aw, yeah.
Eric: You guys know I brought two art prints with me that I just never had space for on my walls. One was this cool Niffler print I got at a convention, and the other was the wooden Hogwarts crest plaque from… Pottery Barn, maybe, it might have been? Not the cool version of Pottery Barn when it came out, but the ones before that. Maybe even Hot Topic. But the piece of merch I would never get rid of is my first boxset, which is how I read the books. It’s the paperback boxset of the first four books, and yeah, as long as I live… sorry, I may even request to be buried with it.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Laura: Aw, that’s really sweet.
Eric: I mean, because it’s small.
Andrew: [laughs] Because it’s small.
Eric: It would fit in my coffin next to the alto saxophone and the…
Laura: I definitely would get a lot of Harry Potter merch over the years, especially when I was in middle and high school, but it’s all notebooks and the kind of stuff that disintegrates over time, so I don’t have any of it anymore. Really, one of my most treasured possessions related to Harry Potter, very similar to you, Eric, is I still have my original hardbacks of the first three books, and they are falling apart. I don’t know if y’all remember when we were doing Chapter by Chapter for Sorcerer’s Stone, I sent you all pictures of mine, and it is literally in pieces. But I kind of felt like I have to pay homage to this thing that’s been such a big part of my life, and now that we’re restarting Chapter by Chapter, I need to read from the original book I read from when I was 11 years old, even though the pages are all falling out of it. [laughs] But I really do have a special place in my heart for those, and I think that I’ll keep them until they fully disintegrate.
Eric: Well, if the book is really messed up, it’s going to be a fun reread for you of not knowing what happens in any one chapter. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, for sure. My later editions are okay because, of course, those were coming out when I was older, so I was more delicate with them. The first three I got when I was 11, so I was not kind to them. I abused them heavily. [laughs] Read them so many times. I think the first three books I have read over more times than I’ve read any of the other books, so they’re definitely tattered, but it’s all out of love for sure.
Micah: Yeah, I’m trying to think… because there are definitely things in my mind that I would have been reluctant to get rid of, that maybe now I’m a little bit more willing to, that may or may not be signed by somebody who wrote the series.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: Can I jump in right there and say…
Micah: Yeah, go ahead.
Andrew: Cancel me, but that is my most prized possession. I have a signed UK Half-Blood Prince, and I value that a lot.
Eric: But did she sign it for you when you handed it…?
Andrew: No, so Emerson had it signed when he went over to interview her for the Half-Blood Prince release, so that’s why it’s special, too; she signed it in her house.
Eric: That’s a very special…
Andrew: I also had to beg Emerson for a signed copy. [laughs]
Eric: Also, the fact that that happened when MuggleNet was… that speaks to your time on MuggleNet; that speaks to…
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: How you came by it is as important as the… yeah, I get that.
Andrew: So that would be my answer. But what was your other…?
Micah: Well, I was also thinking about the letter that she wrote to us.
Andrew: Oh, I forgot about that. I always forget about that.
Laura: Yeah, I was thinking about that, and I was like, “I won’t bring it up, but somebody else is probably going to bring it up.” Because it was honestly… I know it was a point of contention for a minute, because everyone was like, “Why aren’t we passing the letter around?” And I was selfishly like, “No!”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Here’s an admission!
Laura: I managed the PO Box. I dealt with it.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Wow.
Laura: And I was the one who handled all of the mailing and writing the letter, and we sent her a very nice little charm bracelet, by the way.
Andrew: That you paid for.
Laura: Yeah, 100%. And so I was like, “No, this is mine.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: That is so funny.
Laura: But obviously, I’m 35 now, but I think at the time there was part of me that was like, “I don’t have any signed memorabilia like that,” so I was being like, “You know what? I’m going to hang on to this, and if they ever want to come by and see it, they can.”
Andrew: “Come visit me if you want to take a look.” It’s like we’re visiting a museum.
Laura: But I mean, to be honest with you, I do feel conflicted about it now.
Andrew: Can I have the letter for a little bit?
Laura: Yeah, you can have it.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I thought Micah had it. Micah, what letter do you have?
Micah: You sent copies, probably, or you scanned it and sent it to everybody.
Andrew: Ohh.
Eric: Because it was really meaningful to me the other… probably a month ago Micah said, “Hey, I just want to let you know I’m no longer displaying that letter.”
Micah: Oh, yeah. I’d had it framed.
Eric: “The person who wrote that to us is not the same as the person she is now,” and that meant a lot to me, Micah, specifically, just to receive that, because it is an acknowledgement that things have happened. But I am looking to unload my two signed copies of Casual Vacancy, actually.
Andrew: I would take one.
Eric: Okay.
Andrew: So do I suck for wanting the letter now?
Eric and Micah: No.
Andrew: Okay, I would just like to see… I don’t think I’ve actually seen the real copy IRL.
Eric: I’m not in the letter. Yeah, I was away in New Zealand at the time, so I’m not one of the names on it.
Laura: I don’t think any of y’all have seen it in person. But yeah, honestly, at this point, it’s sitting in a drawer, honestly. Again, very similar to Micah, I was like, “I don’t know how I feel about just having this out.”
Andrew: Yeah. Well, and for the record, I wouldn’t want it forever. I would just want it for, I don’t know, a couple weeks would be cool. Show Pat. Show some friends.
Eric: It’s a personal connection. All of our answers are that piece that were personal. It’s not… it’s our memorabilia as much as it is Harry Potter memorabilia. It’s an achievement.
Laura: Yeah, for sure. But yeah, I mean, we can do a custody agreement if you want. [laughs]
Micah: So two things come to mind. The first is I have a MinaLima print of the Daily Prophet “Mass breakout from Azkaban” that I have framed.
Andrew: That’s cool.
Micah: The other would be one of our Podcast Awards.
Eric: That’s another one, yeah.
Micah: From 2006.
Andrew: Yeah. Just to circle back on the “I don’t want to display J.K. Rowling stuff anymore,” I had a printed canvas of that tweet that she did about “Wormtaily, avoid Hypable.”
Eric: Oh, “Wormtaily,” yeah, yeah.
Andrew: And I had it hanging in my office at my current home for the longest time, and then just sitting at my desk, I’d see it there, and I was like, “You know what? That just annoys me every time I look at it now.”
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: Just because of her specifically. I think the whole ordeal was hilarious, but I was like, “I don’t want that hourly reminder of her,” so I took it down.
Eric: She has permanently spoiled her and Twitter for me.
Andrew: So let’s get to part two of Christina’s question. She said, “In another timeline, what US city do you think the four of you would enjoy all living in at the same time?” That’s a fun question.
Laura: Can you imagine how different life would be if we all lived in the same city? First of all, we would probably record together way more than we do.
Andrew: That would be amazing.
Eric: We would have a bunker and it would be…
Andrew: A total studio.
Laura: Yeah, that would be amazing.
Eric: There would be a Micah chair…
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Everyone would have a Micah chair.
Eric: We would all have a Micah chair.
Andrew: I would podcast from a Micah bed.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: What is that like?
Andrew: I don’t know. It’s heart-shaped.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Goat-shaped.
Eric: What city do we think we would enjoy? So look, there’s winter people; there’s beach people. Actually, I don’t think there’s any winter people. I don’t think they exist. But what city do we think? Because I’ve spent some time in Nevada; I think that the Vegas area…
Andrew: Oh. I was going to meet you guys in the middle. I was going to say Austin, Texas.
Laura: I love Austin.
Eric: I can’t vouch for it myself.
Andrew: It’s warm. It’s a trendy city.
Micah: I’ve been a couple times.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Micah: New Orleans.
Andrew: New Orleans would be fun.
Laura: Oh, God. Love New Orleans.
Micah: It’s one of my favorite cities to go to.
Laura: That would be fun. The only thing that is a knock against Austin and New Orleans is the humidity. But to be honest, where I live now is super humid, so it wouldn’t stop me. But there is part of… I really, personally, really like any kind of fall weather, or anywhere where it’s 70 degrees year round, and breezy and sunny.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Micah: Like today.
Laura: Yeah, today is gorgeous.
Andrew: Oh, it was perfect today in DC. No humidity, mid 70s, a light wind. It was lovely.
Micah: Is nobody going to offer up London?
Andrew: Oh. [laughs] I think we want to stay in America, don’t we? I don’t think we can get all four of us…
Micah: Do we have to?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: That’s hilarious.
Andrew: Well, could we get all four of us to go to England? Or Europe?
Eric: Ask us again in a month. Christina says US city, so that was the question. We were just…
Andrew: Well, we’re in agreement about somewhere in the southern half of the US, it sounds like.
Eric: But maybe just. Again, Nevada, I think is…
Andrew: I mean, my dream… I love California to death, so I’d move back to California in a heartbeat if money were no object.
Eric: Got a question from Carly, who says, “I’m super curious, how do y’all take your coffee?” I don’t.
Andrew: That’s a fun question.
Laura: Oh.
Eric: I don’t.
Andrew: But Eric drinks Monster.
Eric: Monster is my coffee.
Andrew: Which I find a little… it’s unhealthy.
Eric: Well, it’s Monster Ultra. There’s zero… there’s maybe ten calories.
Andrew: [laughs] It’s Monster Ultra, okay.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I drink my coffee black; I recently switched to this over the last year. And there was a time I would be that person putting sugar and cream in it, then I stopped putting Splenda in it. It was difficult for a few weeks, and I never looked back. And then within the last year, stopped putting oat milk in. Difficult for a few weeks, and never looked back. I love getting the notes of the coffee now, so yeah.
Micah: I’m with Andrew.
Andrew: Black coffee?
Eric: Black coffee!
Andrew: We’re so sophisticated.
Micah: Every now and then I’ll throw some creamer in it, but mostly black.
Andrew: Okay.
Laura: Yeah. I like a splash of coconut milk in mine, but that’s it. I don’t…
Andrew: Did you just fall out of a coconut tree?
Laura: Maybe. We’ll find out when we watch the DNC later.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Eric? Oh, and Eric doesn’t. Okay. All right, that’s easy enough.
Eric: I did have Earl Grey tea today, though. You know those tureens of the hot water?
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: Oh, yeah, I got some of those.
Eric: I made myself some Earl Grey. It was really delicious.
Laura: There you go.
Andrew: I like a chamomile or a decaf minty type of tea, peppermint.
Eric: Mint tea is delicious.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: Absolutely.
Laura: Eleanor wants to know, “I’d love to know more about the podcasting process. How do you all prep? Do you have any routines or superstitions you have to follow?”
Andrew: Oooh.
Laura: I love the way that question is worded.
Eric: It’s a great question for my unsatisfactory answer. Yeah, my superstition is I have to turn off the air conditioning.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Don’t feel like you have to do that, though.
Eric: My routine is… oh, I do, because I don’t want it to pick up on the audio recording. But yeah, I’m trying to think on that.
Andrew: Well, in terms of our planning process, so currently these three plan the Chapter by Chapter discussions, but we take turns with that. So it’ll be Laura’s week, Eric’s week, Micah’s week. And then once one of us gets the doc together for the chapter, whatever episode we’re doing, then the rest of us start adding our own notes, and we use Google Docs to collaborate so we can all edit it in real time. And yeah, so we turn the episodes around in 3-4 days, in terms of creation of Google Doc to actually recording, typically.
Eric: It’s a really well-honed…
Andrew: So that’s the bare bones. And then we have another Google Doc with our schedule; this is who’s doing this week, this is the chapter we’re doing, this is when the episode’s being recorded and when it’s coming out, if we’re going to have a guest on that episode. So yeah, those are the bare bones.
Laura: Yeah, for sure. And then just in terms of… I just love the question about superstitions. I don’t know if I have any superstitions, but I definitely have a bit of a pre-show ritual.
Andrew: Tell us about that.
Laura: I don’t know if y’all do. So first of all, I’ve talked about this before, but I am a beverage gremlin, so at all times, I usually have three beverages near me and at my desk when we’re doing the show. So it’s usually coffee, Diet Coke, and water, is usually the combination.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: So I have to make sure I have that, I have to make sure that I’ve eaten a little snacky right before we start, and I make sure that I get my lighting right. So I have hue lights set up in our office so that I can have my background be awash in color for the stream, and I usually try to theme the lights. I don’t know if y’all have ever noticed, but I do change up the color themes that I use week to week, and I usually try to associate it with something that we’re going to be talking about. But I always do a quick cam check before I hop on to make sure the lighting is right, because as you all know, sometimes on camera things might look better in person and might not pick up as well on the camera. So I usually have to do a cam check, and I usually do a mic check before I hop on too. So that’s my show prep.
Andrew: I have a little pre-show snack. I have a Celsius energy drink; that’s been a newer obsession of mine. Got to try to pee before the pod, because we do 90 minutes to two hours, especially if we have a bonus MuggleCast. So yeah, no superstitions, but just making… because we also record at 5:00 p.m. Pacific, I eat dinner early, so that’s basically my dinner time. Sometimes I’ll eat dinner before MuggleCast, depending on how hungry I am.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: So yeah, nothing crazy, just making sure I have water, some energy in me. Maybe a little snack, which I love pretzel crisps and powdered peanut butter. What’s that called again? PB Fit. Love that stuff.
Eric: Ohh.
Laura: That stuff is so good.
Micah: No real superstitions either. I would say one thing I do have to do most of the time is ever since we started doing video, and I have the bookcase as the backdrop, I do have to move a piece of furniture to be the desk, to have the microphone and the computer set up on. So there’s not normally that setup in my room; I have to set it up each week. So I’m trying to find a better solution, but I have to go through that. And then similar to you, Laura, making sure everything is framed properly and set up.
Eric: I actually… yeah, I have three light sources on me that I have to set up. It’s a special ring light, and then another desk lamp, and then the overhead light sometimes depending on the glare. Depending if there’s sunlight coming in, twist the blinds.
Micah: Yeah, it’s the AC thing for me, too, because it’s a window unit, so it’d make a sh…
Eric: Yeah, too much.
Micah: I was going to say something. A lot of noise. And I have to tell the birds to shut up too.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Although, you like them sometimes.
Andrew: Sometimes it’s peaceful.
Laura: They’re very peaceful.
Andrew: I’m mixed. I’m mixed on it. Sometimes I’m like, “Do people want to hear the birds?” Listeners, let us know. Do you want to hear Micah’s birds in the background?
Laura: Yeah, give us your feedback.
Andrew: Micah’s neighbors.
Micah: They’re not my birds.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Your bird neighbors.
Eric: You know they would stop coming by if you stopped feeding them, Micah.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Ryan P. said, “Thanks for doing this. Looking back over your 19 years of doing MuggleCast, what’s one decision you wish you made differently, and why?”
Laura: Oooh.
Andrew: Honestly, I would just say I wish we started… sorry, this is going to be a business-y answer, but monetizing the show. The show was really, really big when we started; I was actually telling June this earlier today.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: It was huge, and everybody knew MuggleCast. We were not making a dime off of it, but we also did not know how to make money off of it, so it just would have been nice to be monetizing it from the start, just to build that base.
Eric: Well, to be clear, I think people were making money off of our show, but it wasn’t us.
Andrew: [laughs] Yes.
Laura: Fair enough.
Eric: For the first many years, increased web traffic, increased everything traffic.
Andrew: Yeah, we got a little played, but…
Laura: We were young.
Andrew: Yeah, so maybe that’s what we would change.
Eric: Understanding time is value. This is along similar lines: I have very few regrets about any of this that we did on MuggleCast and the whole trajectory of everything, but if we had gotten on YouTube right when it started…
Andrew: Oh, that’s a good one.
Eric: … we really could have had an opportunity to be some of the biggest OG most YouTube accounts now. If we had figured it out, if we had our finger on the pulse of it, because I know that we would have brought the same production quality to that as we do to our show, and so I do wonder what could have been if there was also a YouTube component 15 years ago.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a good one.
Laura: Well, we are trying to catch up on that now, so if you do follow us on YouTube, you should check us out there; we’re MuggleCast. And if you haven’t seen us on YouTube, you should look it up. We’re putting up full video episodes now.
Andrew: Yeah. But yeah, like Eric said, not really any regrets. We’re really proud. If you go back and listen to Episode 1, it doesn’t sound good. The first year or two don’t sound good, but that’s where podcasting was at the time, and especially for kids.
Eric: It’s amazing we pulled it off.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, it is.
Eric: You look at the tech we were using, the Internet connection…
Andrew: And we all had school at the same time.
Laura: Do you remember my first episode? I sounded like I was podcasting from the bottom of a trash can.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: The audio quality was so bad, and that was after you ran filters on it to make it a little bit better.
Andrew: Was I even running filters on it? I don’t know. [laughs]
Laura: I mean, I remember you said you did something, and you were like, “Yeah, it’ll be fine,” and then I heard the episode, and I was like, “Oh my God, I sound like I am literally inside of the Tin Man talking to everybody.” [laughs]
Andrew: Maybe I said that just to make you feel better.
Laura: You probably did.
Andrew: [in a high-pitched voice] “Don’t worry, Laura! It’s going to be okay!”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Yeah, “It’s going to be great!”
Andrew: My parents are like, “Do your homework! Don’t work on that whatever you’re doing.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Oh my goodness.
[Ad break]
Micah: Next up, Melissa wants to know, “If you went karaoke-ing, who would go first and what song would be sung?”
Eric: I think I would go first for no other reason than I have songs prepared. I know which ones I like. I love karaoke. I would immediately go and do… I like to start things off with the Georgia Satellites’ “Keep Your Hands to Yourself.” It’s a bop. I usually wear a cowboy hat out when I go and do it, and it gets me in the mood. So I would just… you guys would be poring over the song list and thinking it over twice, and I’m telling you, that’s my go-to, so I’d just go be doing it.
Laura: Yeah. It’s funny you say that because when I saw this question, I also thought… I didn’t know what song you would pick, but I was like, “Oh, Eric, 100%.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Oh, yeah. Well, I’d like to get the audience roused up too, if it’s the start of the night. Andrew and I were walking to dinner, and we saw that there’s a place that has karaoke across the street.
Laura: Oh, okay.
Eric: But it’s only on Thursday evenings, and we all fly out or will not…
Laura: Oh, we’re not going to be here.
Eric: We’ll be otherwise indisposed.
Micah: Dang. [laughs]
Eric: What were you going to say, Micah?
Micah: You did cosplay karaoke in Portland.
Eric: That’s right! That’s right, yeah, there was a whole… it was a session for three days where fans would come in in various cosplay and sing a song that was related to whatever they were doing.
Andrew: Madeline said, “Are you planning another meetup anytime in the future?” I’m sure we will do another meetup.
Eric: You guys didn’t say what your karaoke songs were going to be.
Andrew: Oh, they just said the first. Who will go first and what songs, that’s why.
Eric: But what songs would you guys sing?
Micah: Bruuuuce…
Laura: I’m not really big into karaoke.
Andrew: No.
Eric: Wow. Okay, I guess I’m going to do them all. I’m going to do them all. It’s cool.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s fine.
Micah: This is such an easy one, but “Piano Man,” because I feel like everybody can sing along.
Laura: Yeah, that’s true.
Eric: I would love for you to sing that.
Andrew: Madeline said, “Are you planning another meetup anytime in the future?” I guaranteed yes. We don’t have details, but we will. And certainly this one and the others have went really, really well, so we’re definitely interested. Just a matter of the timing and getting us together and all that.
Eric: Yeah, and Madeline is somebody who said earlier that she had tried to actually make this one and couldn’t at the last minute.
Andrew: Oh, okay.
Eric: So we’re sorry, Madeline, but yes, we’ll be back.
Andrew: One thing the four of us are talking about doing, too, is maybe trying to get together once a year, not necessarily around a conference, but just to work on stuff together, work on our pods together IRL. So if/when we do that in the future, I’m sure that would come with a meetup in whatever city we’re in.
Laura: Yeah, for sure.
Eric: You guys are really good at letting us know that we are loved by showing up to these things.
Laura: Seriously.
Andrew: For a second I couldn’t tell if you were talking about the listeners or us sitting here.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Well, also, you let me know I’m loved. No, we have a state of flow that I think is really, really interesting to tap more into. Mayelin says, “If you guys could erase your memory and experience something from the HP era for the first time, what would it be?”
Andrew: When Rowling took Steve Vander Ark to court, that was a really weird story. Steve Vander Ark founded the Harry Potter Lexicon, and he tried to publish a book version, and Rowling showed up in court against Steve Vander Ark for that. I mean, he had an amazing site, still does, and the book was an excellent piece of work. He eventually released it as they jumped through the legal hurdles they needed, but just… Rowling was in court crying over this book, literally crying over this book being published, and then she had also said they have an encyclopedia ready to go, and the Harry Potter Lexicon impacts her encyclopedia. That book never got released, the Harry Potter encyclopedia. It just… the whole thing was slimy, taking a fansite to court over that type of book.
Laura: Yeah. What’s funny, though, is we took her side at the time.
Andrew: You know what? That is a good point.
Laura: We definitely did, and Eric, you were the only one who didn’t.
Eric: But at the same time, looking back and thinking, “Well, yeah, right,” what you’re saying; there was no encyclopedia then in the end, or we still don’t have it. The things that had to be proven… and there were quotes of J.K. Rowling herself saying that she used the Lexicon to help remember things while writing the books. And I did end up buying that book when it came out, after the legal hurdles, like you said. But yeah, that was a dark time to see that, because it divided the fans, because it was literally the creator versus the fans, and it was maybe the first moment of moments since where that was the dynamic, and that felt strange and it felt difficult for us.
Andrew: I’ve done a total 180 on that. I forgot – thanks for checking me – that I was Team Rowling at the time.
Eric: But I mean, she could do no wrong. She’d given us this world, etc., etc. I wouldn’t say we were super naive; I just think that… but so you’re saying you would just choose to forget that it happened?
Andrew: Yeah, well, and I wouldn’t be on Team Rowling in hindsight.
Micah: So if it happened again.
Andrew: Right, yeah.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, also, we have to remember what we knew at the time, and at least from what I recall, the way that the case was portrayed was you had someone who had an online lexicon that was just a work of love, and had even received a fansite award from J.K. Rowling herself, but I didn’t think she had a problem with that. I think what she had a problem with was him publishing that and making money off of it, because there was no original interpretation of the work, and I think that was really the crux of the argument.
Micah: Well, it wasn’t all that dissimilar – although she didn’t take legal action against Emerson for What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7 – because she has literally opened her doors of her home to have him come in, and then turn around and write a book about what potentially could happen in the seventh book, to her, at least from what we heard, felt like a betrayal of some on some level.
Eric: It’s an interesting dynamic, for sure.
Laura: But I do think there’s a difference in that the What Will Happen book was not just an encyclopedia; it was theories and predictions.
Micah: Correct.
Eric: Yeah, it was transformative, which is one of the things you have to prove.
Micah: And this is me playing devil’s advocate, but what’s the difference between that and what we do? Or what we were doing at the time; we were theorizing. Now, we weren’t making money off of those theories. The book was.
Eric: And that’s what matters. What I think is… the RDR books and J.K. Rowling trial was exactly… it happened… that’s exactly how copyright works, is you need to have legal precedent, and there just wasn’t legal precedent for something like that that had grown up online and was going to be published before. So they needed to do the crying on the stand, they needed to do the claims that may seem dubious in retrospect, because however that netted out then affected it – not just Harry Potter books, but every book being made since.
Laura: Exactly.
Eric: So the eventual version of the Lexicon that I have printed out is better for it, I think, in the end. It’s actually much more…
Micah: I mean, I love we’re having this debate again, because you could point to websites. Steve was making money off his website, and how much did fansites make?
Andrew: Well, it’s just a different medium. It comes down to the medium, though, too. If Rowling was doing a podcast and then we were just repurposing her podcast, she might try to sue us maybe? I’m not a legal expert by any stretch of the imagination.
Micah: Or was the issue that the website was free, anybody can go to it…?
Andrew: Exactly, yeah. The book… yeah, and what…? [sighs] I see your point about the… I just… this is maybe irrelevant, but I don’t seem to even remember the Harry Potter Lexicon having ads on the website.
Eric: No, it was a very dry, very clean…
Andrew: I remember it being a very clean website, yeah.
Eric: Everyone else was having the ads.
Andrew: And I think she was also thinking it was… she was trying to set that legal precedent so other people wouldn’t release books or encyclopedias.
Eric: Yeah, there was a very defense… yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with that. I would erase my memory of reading, but which book? The third one.
Andrew: Oh.
Laura: To experience that again?
Eric: That’s what I would do, to experience it again.
Andrew: Ohh, I see.
Eric: That’s the thing, if you could erase your experience from the HP era and do something again for the first time, it would be reading that book, wouldn’t it? And it would be the third one or the fourth one.
Andrew: I have to admit, I misread the question.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: I just thought it was erasing a memory from the fandom, and that’s it. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, God. Well, who wrote the series, maybe, would be great these days?
Laura: I’ve got to say Deathly Hallows release in London at Waterstones.
Andrew: Oh, that was amazing, yeah.
Laura: That was incredible. And I mean… I don’t know.
Eric: That whole thing.
Andrew: Any midnight release party was really special.
Laura: Yeah, it really was.
Micah: I would say maybe walking in through the brick walls into Diagon Alley.
Eric: Diagon Alley theme park?
Micah: In Orlando.
Laura: Yeah, that’s cool.
Eric: That hits so hard every time it happens. So here’s an interesting one: We’ve been in each other’s homes, sort of, probably not all in person, but Craig says, “For each of you: If you had to swap homes with one other MuggleCast host for a month…” So we’re moving in!
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: “Who would you choose, and why?” Listen, I’ve already let the cat out of the bag. I like Nevada.
Andrew: I got a party house, baby. Where am I going, though?
Micah: Do you get Pat?
Andrew: Yeah, you get Pat for a month.
Eric: You know Chicago. You’re familiar with Chicago. I got a nice place.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, I was going to say I haven’t been to any three of your current places, so I want to go to all three to experience.
Laura: Oh, I see.
Andrew: But I’ll pick Chicago because I want to…
Eric: Let’s rotate.
Andrew: [laughs] Everybody right now, just shift one seat and that’s the house you’re going to.
Eric: Yeah, absolutely.
Andrew: No, I would pick yours because I want to go back to Chicago.
Eric: And you’d go back to all the places you knew.
Andrew: I want to change your set around too. I would change your set around.
Eric: Oh, that would be really…
Andrew: I would add something to the set and see if you would notice.
Laura: I thought you were about to give Eric some feedback on their set.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Is something coming out now that we didn’t know you were unhappy about with the setup?
Andrew: No, no, I just think it’d be fun to mess.
Eric: Yeah, I agree.
Laura: Okay, Gabriella says, “Hi, we know Laura speaks Spanish.” Si. “Have you ever read books in other languages? Do the other hosts know any other languages?” Yeah, so I’ve actually read some of the Harry Potter books in Spanish, and that’s… I don’t know. I mainly was doing it at the time to just get practice, especially because it was two things that I loved, and so it felt like I can really kill two birds with one stone here. I did read To Kill a Mockingbird in Spanish, and that was really cool. But outside of that, I don’t have anything recent. But do any of y’all speak other languages for Gabriella?
Andrew: No.
Laura: Wow. Shame. [laughs] I’m kidding.
Andrew: I took Spanish classes in high school. I did really badly, I regret. I didn’t throw myself into it like I should have.
Laura: Porque?
Andrew: Huh?
Laura: Porque?
Andrew: What?
Eric: Isn’t that “Why?”
Andrew: I’m just kidding.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Because… I don’t know, I was a bad student. That’s it.
Micah: I took seven years of French…
Laura: That’s right.
Micah: … so I do have a couple of the Harry Potter books in French. I have not tried to do that.
Eric: So you haven’t read about the… yeah.
Micah: I don’t think I’d be able to speak anywhere close to fluently, but I was in Paris earlier this year and I could understand certain things, pick up certain things.
Laura: That makes sense.
Eric: That’s cool. It’s a completely different experience. I regret not being fluent in a different language, just to have that experience, something that would be so familiar but in a new light, in a new way, the way the sentences are constructed is the way the world is built. So that’d be really cool.
Andrew: Okay, getting into the end of our questions here, Elizabeth said, “If you could switch lives with one of the Harry Potter characters, who would it be and why?” Not to pigeonhole myself too much, but Dumbledore! That would be so cool.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Have that office, take care of the day to day needs of the school, everybody’s coming to you… McGonagall, Snape, the DADA teacher of the year…
Eric: You would be a great Headmaster of Hogwarts, but I love the idea – because the question is “Which of the HP characters would you switch lives with?” – that we would get Dumbledore as a cohost.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: That would actually be pretty cool.
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “Welcome to MuggleCast.” I should try to do a whole episode as Dumbledore.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: That would be really difficult.
Eric: Oh my God, you guys, it finally happened. Elizabeth predicted this. Andrew and Dumbledore have switched lives.
Andrew: How about y’all?
Laura: It’s tough because some of these characters are out here having hard lives.
Eric: They’ve been through hell.
Laura: I don’t know if I want to switch with them. [laughs]
Eric: Well, my go-to would be Sirius; I’m like, “No, no, he suffered and then died.”
Laura: No, that doesn’t end well.
Andrew: Let’s say if it’s just for a day, though, maybe?
Laura: Okay.
Andrew: Elizabeth didn’t say that, but maybe just switch…
Eric: We get to pick a day?
Andrew: Take a walk in their shoes for a day. Experience…
Eric: Tonks. She’s freaking cool.
Laura: She is really cool. I think I would want to switch with… not necessarily Ron, but someone like Ron, who grew up in the wizarding world. I think it would be really cool to…
Eric: Like Ginny? [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, okay, Ginny. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like we get enough good on-page time with her in these books; it’s one of my big criticisms. But yeah, it would be cool to do that and to be able to recall memories from childhood of growing up in the wizarding world.
Eric: Oh, that would be… and at the Burrow? That would be so amazing.
Laura: Think about how magical being a kid is anyway. That would be cool. I would love that. What about you, Micah?
Micah: You said for one day?
Andrew: Yeah, let’s say for one day.
Micah: Arthur.
Eric: Yeah. He just has a really corporate government job. You’d go to work.
Micah: But he doesn’t, at the same time.
Andrew: It’s a fun one.
Micah: Yeah, he’s quirky. Good family man.
Andrew: Kelsey said, “Which one of you would make the best Headmaster of Hogwarts and why? Who would be the most fun professor?”
Eric: Well, we just established that Andrew would be a really awesome Dumbledore stand-in.
Andrew: No, I… would I really be? I’m voting Laura.
Laura: For Headmaster?
Andrew: Headmistress of Hogwarts, yeah.
Laura: I don’t know. I think I’d be a better professor, to be honest with you.
Andrew: Okay.
Laura: Think about it. You manage a podcasting business; you really do take the lead in a lot of regards, and you have to manage a lot of different people and personalities.
Andrew: It’s true, I do.
Laura: So I’m not trying to toot your horn too much here, but… [laughs]
Andrew: No, no, okay. Fine, I’ll take the gig.
Eric: It wouldn’t be hard to do Dumbledore’s job better than Dumbledore, too, in many key areas.
Andrew: Ouch.
Laura: Ooh!
Eric: What? What?
Laura: I love it. I would love to be McGonagall to your Dumbledore. That would be so cute.
Andrew: [in a high-pitched voice] Oh my God!
Eric: I would love to be a professor of something.
Laura: Honestly, the two of you would be great. I feel like we would all fit in as Hogwarts staff because of how quirky we are. [laughs]
Eric: Yes. 100%.
Andrew: Micah would be the teacher that you want to go to because he’s just screwing off in class all the time.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: He’s the “We’re watching a video in class this week” teacher.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: We have the four Heads of House right here.
Andrew: Oh, yeah, there we go.
Eric: Oh, I love that.
Laura: We’d have to duke it out over Ravenclaw, though.
Andrew: Yeah, which one of you is going to take Ravenclaw?
Eric: Well, that’s kind of cheap, though, in a good way, because both Flitwick and McGonagall were heavy Ravenclaw, heavy Gryffindor. They were both kind of a Hatstall, basically, so they’re interchangeable.
Laura: True.
Micah: I’ll take Gryffindor. It’s fine.
Andrew: Okay, there you go.
Laura: Thank you for your sacrifice.
Micah: Convert them all to Ravenclaw. [laughs]
Laura: There you go. No more Gryffindors. Let’s see… Eleanor wants to know, “If you had to pick a Harry Potter book to rewrite, which one would you rewrite, and why? You’re not allowed to nominate Cursed Child; only the core series.” So who’s going to say Goblet of Fire because it was rushed? [laughs]
Andrew: I was going to say, it’s too easy to say Goblet of Fire, but some areas needed to be rewritten and literally were. [laughs] When the Priori Incantatem…
Laura: So I have what is kind of an unpopular opinion here; I recognize this. I wouldn’t rewrite the entire book, but I really do think portions of Order of the Phoenix could have been tightened up. I have long felt that Order of the Phoenix was about 50 pages longer than it needed to be.
Eric: Only 50.
Laura: Yeah, and I mean, I’m being conservative, maybe, with that estimate, but it just felt like there… particularly with some of the areas of Harry’s angst, felt like the same point could have been driven across without seeing quite so much of it.
Eric: It is pretty extreme.
Laura: Yeah. I get it; he was going through a lot, but…
Micah: Deathly Hallows – similar to you, Laura – with the camping portion, so I’m thinking certain parts could have been tightened up. Honestly, I don’t even remember a whole lot about the book. [laughs]
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: I’m looking forward to rereading it. I feel the same way.
Micah: And that should say something in and of itself.
Andrew: When was the last time you read it? Maybe is that the problem?
Micah: Possibly.
Eric: No, Deathly Hallows was the one that I have for this. I would rewrite all of it. I had a few issues from day one on it. I didn’t think Voldemort was as compelling a villain as he had been set up to be, because Book 6 goes so hard on that, and in the end, he makes a lot of mistakes, but that’s what he also has to do, because Harry is such a bad student that it’s not like he’s actually going to prepare for Voldemort. This is such… it seems so arrogant to say I could write that book better.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: It hurts me how arrogant that sounds, but if I could rewrite it, I would write it. I would do it.
Andrew: I’m going to kind of take this a different direction and say I would rewrite either Book 1 or 2 just to make it longer. They’re so simple when you read them back now, and we were burning through three chapters at a time in Chapter by Chapter. What if these books got more dense, in a good way?
Eric: I love that idea, where it’s like, there’s so much room to play in.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Micah: Catherine wants to know, “Are there any alternate plot lines you wish would have happened in the series? Like theories you had that didn’t pan out? I know Laura briefly mentioned the veil in a 2023 episode.”
Laura: Y’all, I’m still so salty that the Department of Mysteries never came back. I’ve talked about that ad nauseam; I don’t need to go into it anymore. It genuinely upsets me, [laughs] so I’ll let y’all fill this in.
Eric: I would have liked if James Potter was disguised as Remus Lupin, and that Remus had died. That would have been a hell of a twist. It would have happened a book before Mad-Eye Moody was revealed to be a different character the whole year, and so it would have been… there was energy of a DADA professor being somebody entirely different for the entire year and then being revealed otherwise. We’ve mentioned it; we’ve covered it on a crackpot theory episode, etc., etc., but the idea that James would have maybe still been alive somehow is still a very titillating one to me.
Andrew: I don’t really have an answer for this one. I know there’s moments on MuggleCast where we’re talking and exploring different plot points, and like, “Oh, it would have been nice if it went this way,” but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.
Eric: Any other shipping you would have done instead?
Andrew: Shipping?
Eric: Yeah, shipping. People who didn’t get together that you think should have.
Andrew: Honestly, sorry for the bland answer, but I never came to Harry Potter for the romance. [laughs]
Eric: I respect the hell out of you for that! I think that’s valid too.
Andrew: I never cared about the shipping, really.
Eric: Look, a lot of them are children.
Andrew: Well, there’s that, too, yeah.
Laura: But I mean, I will say I think it depends on when you were reading it, but I was 14 when Order of the Phoenix came out, and I was fully convinced that we were being set up for Harry/Luna as a ship. And at the time, I was really excited about that, because I was like, “Luna is a social outcast; I kind of feel like a social outcast…” She made me feel very…
Eric: Could you get the hero?
Laura: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: Yeah, absolutely, 100%.
Laura: Well, and then also the recognition that the hero in this book is not, I think, the strapping, devastatingly handsome representation of a hero that we would typically get in other series. Harry is flawed and imperfect too, so that’s what I liked about it. So it made me feel seen. It made me feel disappointed when we didn’t get that. So if I were to pick an alternate ship, it would definitely be Harry/Luna.
Micah: There were a couple of… these are random theories, but people were hot on Mark Evans for a while, if there was going to be any relation to Harry. And then… what was the…? Oh, I wanted more out of the gum wrappers that Neville’s mom gave to him.
Andrew: Yeah, that was a good one.
Laura: Oh, gosh, there were so many… talk about the plot point that went nowhere, that launched a thousand ships.
Eric: It should have. It should have gone somewhere.
Laura: It really should have. Didn’t we theorize that Neville’s parents were passing him coded messages via those gum wrappers, and that it was going to come out that yes, they were still driven to insanity by Bellatrix and co., but there was still some retention of who they were, and they were trying to communicate with Neville?
Eric: It was in The Ultimate Unofficial Guide, and it’s still my favorite of all those theories, that they were locked in and they couldn’t communicate correctly except through Neville, and that Neville would have to fix it or save them.
Andrew: I feel like MuggleNet used to have a page where they had some stuff like that, or maybe there’s a Reddit thread or something. Just old theories that went nowhere.
Micah: There’s the whole editorial section that used to explore theories.
Andrew: Right, explores that type of stuff. In terms of ships, just to circle back on that really quick, Dramione. I would get behind that one.
Eric: That would have been interesting, yeah, definitely. Draco did have a, I think, very satisfying redemptive arc. I think he’s unique in… or very few people really had that, what he had. But the Dramione thing really would have been an interesting angle, because again, they are academically similar.
Andrew: Exactly, and they’re both… there was that coffee shop fanfiction. I’m forgetting the name of it, but I read several chapters for that fanfiction episode that we did, and it was really compelling. I was into it.
Micah: Was there a deleted…? It wasn’t a deleted scene, but there was a scene that was shot where Draco tossed Harry his wand?
Laura: That’s right.
Andrew: Oh yeah, yep. Part 2.
Micah: In the… right after he jumps out of Hagrid’s arms.
Andrew: Yeah, and you see it in behind-the scenes footage, during one of the featurettes or the documentary making of series. Yeah. All right, two more questions here. Rachel said, “If you could resurrect one character from the series, who would it be?” Lavender Brown, baby.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I’m assuming she was dead. I want her back.
Eric: Oh, never give up hope.
Andrew: I’ve lost so much sleep over Lavender.
Eric: Oh, man.
Micah: Dobby.
Andrew: Oh, that’s a good one.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: I was going to say Dobby, but I don’t want us to be too much on the same page about it. I would say Tonks. I really regret that Tonks, she’s such a cool character, but she was ultimately set up to be another sacrificial mother figure.
Eric: To yeah, suffer and die.
Laura: Yeah, and there was clearly so much there with her character that could have been fleshed out, but it ultimately just got boiled down to motherhood and the mother’s sacrifice, which is obviously really important and a key full circle moment for the books, but I still think she could have been a more fleshed-out character.
Eric: If we got a Sirius Black resurrection – because there seemed to be that open-ended “Ooh, is there something to the veil? Can you hear the voices?” – we would have gotten the Department of Mysteries back, and so kind of hopping on what you were saying, Laura, about your ideal alternate time. Yeah, I would choose for Sirius to be back; I think that’s who I would go… or Hedwig, because Hedwig did not deserve…
Andrew: So I was going to say a more serious answer is Hedwig, and I remember Rowling at the time said it marked the end of Harry’s childhood, but I don’t think Hedwig needed to die to symbolize that. [laughs] Seems a little unnecessary.
Eric: I think she got a bit carried away, honestly.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Well, I mean, I understand the symbolism of what she was doing because Hagrid got Hedwig for Harry; Hagrid was transporting Harry when that whole sky battle happened that resulted in Harry losing Hedwig. I understand the significance of why she did it, but man, that was, what, five chapters into the book?
Andrew: Yeah, it was very early.
Laura: And I remember when we were reading it on launch night, we were just like, “Augh!” I think y’all got to it before I did, but I heard each one of you gasp, and I was like, “Oh no, already?”
Andrew: Uh-oh.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Who wants to take the final question?
Eric: Geoff has said to us, “If you were running for office in the wizarding world, who would be your ideal running mate?”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I guess besides each other, because that would be cool. That would be really cool.
Andrew: I think it’s cooler to run with a wizarding world character. No offense.
Eric: There’s been some love for Tonks, but I want to go all in on that by… but Book 5 Tonks, where she’s just like, “Wotcher, Harry.” She’s really quirky and stuff. I would make a campaign based around how weird Tonks would be, and I would be; we’d lean into all the wacky stuff in the wizarding world. Be like, “We need to fix the stuff that needs to be fixed, but we’re just going to have fun with it.” Even if we couldn’t win, we would have a heck of a campaign. So Tonks and me for Ministers of Magic.
Laura: Neville.
Andrew: I would go with… oh.
Micah: That’s a good one.
Laura: I would run with Neville.
Eric: That’s really sweet.
Andrew: Don’t you think he’d get nervous up on stage? I guess he comes into his own by the end, but…
Laura: Yeah, of course he would, but I think the whole point of Neville being in Gryffindor that we see at the end of the series is that he had it in him all along. And I think beheading Voldemort’s last Horcrux probably gave him a little bit of… a bump in confidence, so I think he’d be okay.
Andrew: I’m going to run with Umbridge.
Laura: Oh, God.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I really like what she stands for. I’m kidding.
Eric: And thank you for listening to MuggleCast…
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: No, I think I’d run… I think Hermione.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: She’s fun. She’s smart. She can turn on the humor when she wants or needs to. She’s got it all for a politician.
Eric: As a book reader, you know that she becomes the Minister for Magic, so you would win.
Andrew and Laura: Right.
Laura: Would you still want her at the top of the ticket? Would you want to be the vice…?
Eric: Ooh, the Deputy Minister of Magic?
Andrew: Yeah, I don’t need to be head dog. Hermione can do it. Granger-Sims, 2024.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: All the glory and not the… hey, I would sell those shirts. New dropship idea.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: There we go.
Micah: I’ve got to pick McGonagall.
Andrew: That’d be fun.
Eric: Yeah, she’s got the…
Micah: She’s my Tim Walz. She would not take…
Laura: There you go.
Andrew: “She’s my Tim Walz.” She holds a little piglet upside down and scratches its tummy.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: She’s got mass appeal. Former Quidditch player, Deputy Headmistress, Transfiguration…
Eric: Yeah, we don’t get enough jock McGonagall. We don’t get enough of it. Just in the way she supports Harry…
Micah: And she doesn’t take bleep. I’m thinking the Umbridge encounters.
Andrew: Well, thanks, everybody. This was fun getting together, right? IRL and doing this.
Laura: Loved it.
Eric: This is going to be wonderful.
Andrew: This is an hour ten currently, so it’s just like a normal episode of MuggleCast.
Eric: Sorry, Andrew.
Andrew: No, it’s fine. Thanks to patrons for submitting those questions. We only asked for questions earlier in the day, and as always, y’all came out with questions quickly, and great questions. We didn’t get to all of them, but we did get to a lot, so thank you, everybody. This show is brought to you by those Muggles and many more Muggles. We were able to record this podcast together tonight because of listener support; the support helps us attend events like Podcast Movement, and we’ve been here to learn tips and tricks about podcasting and growing. They’re all looking at me right now. [makes distressed noises]
Eric: We’re watching you. We do this all the time.
Andrew: I know, I know. But there are two great ways to help us out, and we really need your support. We’re entering this new phase of MuggleCast as the TV show comes up and is getting closer, and we’re going to be there with you through all that. So to help us out, if you’re an Apple Podcasts user, you can subscribe to MuggleCast Gold, which gets you instant access to ad-free and early releases of MuggleCast, plus two bonus MuggleCast installments every month. And for even more benefits – and this is the best way to support us – pledge at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and you’ll get all the benefits of MuggleCast Gold, plus livestreams, yearly stickers, another new physical gift every year, a video message from one of the four of us, and a lot more, including access to our private Facebook and Discord groups. We couldn’t do this without you. Eric is wearing our new “19 Years Later” T-shirt. And thank you everybody for sticking with us for 19 years and counting. The reason is you! To quote Hoobastank.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “And the reason is…” That would be my karaoke song, actually.
Eric: Oh, I love that.
Andrew: All right, y’all. Thanks, everyone, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Whoa, that was fast!
Eric: Too fast!
Andrew: Yikes! Whoa.
Laura: I was trying to match y’all’s energy.
Andrew: That just freaked me out.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Bye, everybody.
Eric: Got a little dizzy there.
Andrew: They really want to play Codenames, I think.