Transcript – Episode 35



[Show music begins]

Noah Fried: This is Episode 35 of Alohomora! for June 15, 2013.

[Show music continues]

Noah: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the show. I’m Noah Fried.

Kat Miller: I’m Kat Miller.

Laura Reilly: I’m Laura Reilly.

Rosie Morris: And I’m Rosie Morris.

Noah: We’ve just completed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. How does it feel? Can I get everyone’s opinion on this? Because I’m ecstatic.

Kat: I can’t believe we’re already here. We’re already 3/7 of the way through.

Rosie: It’s crazy.

Laura: Yeah. It’s more of a “where does the time go?” thing. Because we… I mean, we passed our one year anniversary, but this feels more like we’re already… I remember starting, obviously, Sorcerer’s Stone, and yeah, time flies.

Rosie: Feels like yesterday. [laughs]

Kat: I’m actually happy because, I mean, as much as I love the first three books, the last four are the meat of the series.

Laura: Yeah, no. I am… I know… I don’t know everyone’s opinion, but I know everyone keeps repeatedly saying that Prisoner is their favorite or up there. For me, that’s Goblet of Fire. So I’m so excited to be moving toward Goblet of Fire.

Rosie: To be fair, those first three books together are about the length of one of the later books. So…

Kat: It’s true. It’s very true. It’s very, very true.

[Rosie laughs]

Noah: We’ve got our work cut out for us.

Rosie: We do.

Noah: Absolutely.

Kat: I think our transcription team… I’m not sure who, but someone figured it out, and we’re going to be podcasting until 2016.

Rosie: Wow.

Laura: I’ll be graduating college.

Kat: Yep.

Laura: How [unintelligible]

Kat: So I hope everyone out there listening likes us…

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: … because you’ve got us for another about two and a half years at least.

[Laura laughs]

Noah: Yeah, I mean, we clearly have a dedicated following, especially in the forums.

Laura: And I love seeing a lot of new names in the forums.

Kat: Yeah, now that our forums are fixed – thank you, by the way, everyone, for sticking with us through that – there'[re] a lot more people joining now, finally. So it’s good.

Laura: And lots of very involved comments. I will give a quick shout-out to She Floo Like A Madman, who’s first initial comment was a whole page long, but so beautifully formatted. So…

Kat: Yeah, it was very nice looking, wasn’t it?

Laura: So speaking of these comments, I guess we’re going – before we move in to our book wrap-up – to talk about last week’s chapter, which was the final chapter of Prisoner of Azkaban, Chapter 22. So all of these comments come from you guys in our forums, and She Floo Like A Madman, [whom] I have just given a shout-out to, says… one of her many comments says,

“IMO, Lupin has such a low opinion of himself, such low self-esteem, that he was always expecting to get fired.

“So as soon as Snape outs him, he goes straight into self-loathing-werewolf mode. He falls on his sword (saving Dumbledore the unpleasant task of firing him) and is like, ‘oh, well, obviously… of COURSE I’m going to be sacked, so I may as well resign ANYWAY because OBVIOUSLY the parents will object, and I KNEW they would because who would want a MONSTER like ME around their kids?’

“So him leaving quickly is like ripping off the band-aid (to borrow an Americanism ^_~).”

Wasn’t aware that was just an Americanism.

Rosie: Yeah, we call them “plasters.”

Laura: Aha.

Kat: Wait, what? “Plasters”?

Rosie: Yeah.

Noah: Oh.

Kat: Hmm.

Noah: So the…

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: That’s one piece of British slang I’ve never heard before.

Laura: I’ve heard it in songs.

Noah: Do you say “ripping off a plaster”?

Rosie: Well, we know of the phrase “ripping off a band-aid.”

Noah: Oh.

Rosie: We don’t really say it at all. [laughs]

Laura: Yeah, so obviously, this comes up from the discussion of just that Lupin didn’t even put up a fight, didn’t even do anything. He just left in the wake of him not actually being fired but just resigning.

Rosie: Yeah, I think I agree with it all.

Kat: Yeah, I agree, too. He’s just so tragic. Poor Lupin.

Laura: Yeah. At this time, I guess I want to just give another quick shout-out to Padfoot42. Comment was a bit too long for our time, but everyone should check it out. She, on the subject of sad Lupin, made an interesting juxtaposition of the characters of Harry, Lupin, and Voldemort [by] saying that they were all put in tragic situations. They’re arguably the three most tragic childhoods and just how their choices deeply affected how each one of them took those terrible circumstances. So I really liked that comment. So go check that out by Padfoot42.

Kat: Yeah, the whole thread for the last episode is just awesome.

Laura: Right. So long and so involved that I had such a difficult time choosing just a few of these. So yeah. This next comment comes from HP_Man_9009. It says,

“Once you guys mentioned ‘Why can’t the Ministry send an owl to Sirius to catch him?’ Jo answered this question on her old site: ‘Just as wizards can make buildings Unplottable, they can also make themselves untraceable. Voldemort would have been found long ago if it had been as simple as sending him an owl!'”

Rosie: Thank you very much for clearing that up, Jo. [laughs]

Laura: Why doesn’t everyone make themselves untraceable then?

Noah: You’d think that.

Rosie: Because you want to receive post. [laughs]

Kat: Right.

Laura: Well, everyone… I guess I think of Harry in the Deathly Hallows and all the trouble…

Rosie: Yeah.

Laura: … that had to go with that, but…

Rosie: And the whole trace and everything.

Noah: But Hedwig can find Sirius. So can…

Kat: Right. So I mean, there’s got to be a hole in this. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m not going against what the queen is saying…

Noah: I am.

Kat: … I just… there’s got to be a hole in this if Hedwig can find Sirius.

Laura: Right. There’s another comment that was talking on the intelligence of Hedwig in particular, and everyone always comments on the fact that it’s a very smart bird that he’s got and everything. So Hedwig might be more of a special skill in not requiring an address. Because what would be the point of addressing anything then?

Rosie: Maybe there’s a Secret-Keeper thing where you can select certain people…

[Laura laughs]

Rosie: … like a “safe” list of who can actually contact you. [laughs]

Laura: Yeah. There [were] people talking about that, too. Of the fact of them being personal friends and stuff.

Rosie: Yeah.

Laura: Yeah, I definitely think that it has the same kind of Secret-Keeper magic idea.

Noah: I still think it’s a little… I don’t quite understand that open-ended… I think maybe Jo made a mistake.

Kat: Yeah, I think there’s a hole in the theory there, but I mean…

Noah: A hole that Hedwig flew right through to find Sirius.

Kat: Into the land of Hoot.

Rosie: I have to say, I think it’s amazing how much we’ve discussed owl post in these three books. It’s such a simple thing, but it’s really not. [laughs]

Kat: No, not at all, is it? Not at all.

Noah: Do you remember when we talked about the owls going on strike?

Rosie: Yeah. Or sending them through the Floo Network?

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: Mhm.

Rosie: There'[ve] been lots of things we’ve said.

Noah: Those were the days.

[Kat laughs]

Noah: Alohomora! nostalgia moment.

Kat: So long ago.

[Rosie laughs]

Laura: All right, this next comment comes from Firebolt. It says,

“I’d like to disagree slightly with the hosts when they said that Dumbledore isn’t worried about things at this stage.”

“Things” meaning Voldemort coming back.

“Remember, we are seeing things from Harry’s point of view, and Dumbledore keeps him in the dark. I think Dumbledore has been extremely worried about the return of Voldemort ever since the night Harry got his scar. I’d argue that the only reason he doesn’t seem worried is that he has just been waiting for it to happen.

“This also goes for keeping on Trelawney. I think he thought there was every chance that there might be another prophecy, and he wanted to a) have half a chance at hearing it and b) stop it from getting into the wrong hands. A lot of Dumbledore’s perceived omnipotence is actually just good planning. If there is half a chance that a Time-Turner might come into play in the future he stalls the execution.”

Of Buckbeak. So I agree. Basically, the point of this is saying that Dumbledore isn’t this omniscient, really awesome thing and planning everything. He’s just a really good planner, and a lot of the time his plans work out. So I think… yeah. I think he is worried about this, but he was expecting it.

Noah: I mean, do you think that’s why…? Obviously, he kept Trelawney on because of that one good prediction.

Kat: Oh, absolutely.

Laura: Yeah. I mean, there’s… she’s a useless teacher, and I think… but she’s proved to him, at least, that she does have use. And the fact that [that] prophecy is what set the whole deaths of the Potters in motion… if Dumbledore is the only one around to hear the prophecy, that’s a lot safer than how the last one went down.

Rosie: I always thought that he kept her on to protect her. Because she was the one who made the prophecy, she would be at risk…

Laura: Oh, yeah. Very true.

Rosie: … of people trying to find her and get her to predict something, I guess. But…

Laura: Does Snape – and Voldemort, for that matter – know that it was Trelawney specifically? Or was it just a Seer?

Kat: I think Snape…

Rosie: Snape must know.

Kat: Yeah.

Rosie: Because he overheard it.

Kat: Snape must know.

Noah: He probably passes her mean looks in the hallway. Trelawney has no idea because she was in a haze when it happened.

Rosie: I don’t think… Snape has nothing against the prophecy itself. I don’t think he would be mean to her because of it because if anything, it’s his fault that Voldemort got it, and that’s why Lily got attacked.

Kat: Right.

Rosie: So he should be [giving] self-loathing looks rather than evil looks at her, if anything.

Noah: I think that’s his entire demeanor – self-loathing.

Rosie: Yeah.

Noah: He hates himself more than anyone else.

Kat: I was going to say, “I think he has plenty of self-loathing.”

Rosie: Yeah. [laughs]

Kat: Yeah.

Laura: Yeah. All right, this next comment comes from MischiefManaged. It says,

“The only time I remember we see a Ministry official using Priori Incantatem in a ‘criminal’ investigation is to establish guilt: the guilt of Winky in casting the Dark Mark. This fits so well into the way the Ministry works: much, much more concerned with establishing guilt than innocence. It would seem as if the ministry goes by the opposite mantra to the US legal system’s ‘innocent until proven guilty’ […] So Fudge (or any other law enforcement Ministry official) wouldn’t probably have cared much to prove Sirius innocent. He’s already been ‘proven’ guilty.”

So yeah. I think this is pretty correct in that… as far as Fudge not really caring and spending the effort. He just wants him in Azkaban. He doesn’t want potential innocence to come in the way of getting someone behind bars, which is awful but…

Kat: Do we think that their government has always been this corrupt, this bad?

Noah: Maybe all governments are bad.

Rosie: I’ve always seen the allegory to World War II, with the whole rise of Voldemort and everything. So I would think that the idea of punishing Nazis and that kind of thing would be the equivalent of punishing Death Eaters and things. So you… there are unforgivable things that happened during that war that make you attack or make you be that suspicious and [un]forgiving of…

Noah: But at a certain point don’t those executions and trials become just to build up the façade of the government as a powerful force and just for public approval?

Rosie: Yeah, there’s plenty of being seen to do something, and I think that is a fault of the British government in its history and probably in its present as well.

Noah: Oh.

Rosie: And I think it’s the fault of a lot of governments in a lot of places. Unfortunately, politics being a figurehead of the people, the people want to see something happening, and you get a mob mentality at the head of the state.

Noah: I mean, I don’t think the American government is any better.

Rosie: No. But yeah…

Laura: I will say just a little bit of contrast to this in saying that the whole idea of Winky casting the Dark Mark, of using Priori Incantatem to establish guilt, I mean, it could have equally established innocence.

Rosie: Yeah.

Laura: It’s kind of a thing with that where if it [weren’t] the Dark Mark then that would have equally established innocence. So it’s more establishing evidence.

Rosie: Yeah, all that one does, though, is it proves that that wand was used. It doesn’t prove that Winky used it. So it’s interpreting that evidence in a way that proves guilt rather than innocence.

Laura: Yeah, that’s true.

Kat: Mhm.

Rosie: But we’ll get to that next book!

[Laura and Rosie laugh]

Laura: And this last comment is just a funny one from sapphire_skies. It says,

“I’m curious as to how Ron explained to Mrs. Weasley that Scabbers is gone and Pigwidgeon is his pet now. […] I can totally imagine Molly flipping out upon hearing that they had been harboring a mass murderer in their home for 12 years.”

[Rosie laughs]

Laura: I thought that was funny. Just the idea of… “Yeah, so the rat that we’ve had for twelve years… kind of a murderer.”

[Laura and Rosie laugh]

Kat: I can imagine Dumbledore going to the Burrow and actually talking to Molly about it.

Laura: Well, I mean, I’ve always thought about this. And this is more leaning toward the Order of the Phoenix, but everyone there had to be instructed in how Sirius was innocent in that they’re all playing house with him by the time Order of the Phoenix comes along.

Rosie: We see the moment that Molly meets Sirius, though, and that’s not until the end of Goblet of Fire, and she still thinks that he is a mass murderer. So I don’t think she ever found out about Pettigrew. Not until after the end of Goblet of Fire, after Cedric had died, after the Dark Lord was rising again. That’s when the truth came out.

Kat: That’s true, probably. Because…

Noah: You don’t think Ron or somebody told the Weasleys?

Kat: No. YNow that I think about it, I think Dumbledore probably told them to keep it quiet because…

Laura: Just say that Scabbers died.

Kat: Well, yeah. And the less people [who] know Sirius is alive and that they know where he is or that they helped him escape, probably the better.

Rosie: And Molly knew that Scabbers was looking ill when Ron went to Hogwarts at the beginning of the year.

Kat: Right.

Rosie: So it’s not too much of a stretch to assume that his old rat died.

Laura: All right, well, crushing all the fun.

[Kat, Laura, and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: Sorry.

Noah: [in a deep voice] And now it’s time for the Question of the Week! [back to normal] That was a bit maybe too intense. But anyway, here it is.

[Rosie laughs]

Noah: “Does Dumbledore know about the curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts job? Why hire Lupin this year?” Obviously Prisoner of Azkaban year. “Why would you risk hiring a werewolf to a job that always ends in the teacher leaving at the end of the year?” And I guess sort of the underhanded question there is “Why would you bring a werewolf onto the job when it seems very likely that his transforming into a werewolf is going to be contributive to his leaving, which could end in the mauling of a student?” Is that the main question here?

Rosie: Yeah. Yeah.

Noah: Okay. So the first comment – or answer – is from Tweak[6], who… great commenter all the time we’ve been doing this show:

“Dumbledore defintiely knew about the jinx on te DADA job. We are told about the jinx by Dumbledore himself! (Dumbledore after showing Harry the memory of Voldy askign to teach at Hogwarts) ‘”Oh, he most definitely wanted the Defence Against the Dark Arts job,” said Dumbledore.'”

Let me change into my Dumbledore voice.

[as Dumbledore] “‘The aftermath of our little meeting proved that. You see, we’ve never been able to keep a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher longer than a year since I refused the post to Voldemort.'”

So that answers our question. Dumbledore did know about the jinx.

Kat: I mean, if I [were] on the episode I would have told you that. But I wasn’t, so…

[Rosie laughs]

Noah: Oops.

Laura: Well, I think the bigger issue here for me is almost putting Lupin in jeopardy a bit if he knows that this curse is existing. The type of teachers in the past – Lockhart, Quirrel (those are the ones we know at least) – are not good people. So it’s like, “Oh, they’re gone. Oh, well. We’ll get over it.”

[Rosie laughs]

Laura: But Lupin is such a good guy that he’s putting him in this position that he knows he’s probably not going to keep for the year, for tragedy or otherwise. The other last two have been tragedy. So…

Rosie: Yeah, the question was meant to be more “If Dumbledore did know about this curse…” – which we believe that he did – “… then why did he hire?”

Kat: But I guess I’m curious overall. Why at all hire Lupin? Not even the werewolf factor. Just… what made him go, “Oh, I think I’m going to call Remus Lupin”?

Noah: Well.

Laura: Maybe the fact that no one would take the job due to the curse, and he knows that Lupin was desperate for employment and capable. Clearly the most capable teacher we’ve seen.

Noah: Well, everyone…

Kat: So they stay in touch then.

Laura: Because the teachers we see past this are Moody, who’s – well, fake Moody – really tough and can handle this crazy job, Umbridge, which is a Ministry appointed thing, and then Snape, which is by that point such a last resort thing. And then Death Eater. So it’s like this is the last almost… Lupin is the last professor we see [who] I feel like Dumbledore asked to take on the job because no one else would take it.

Rosie: I don’t see Snape as a last resort. I see Snape as Dumbledore wanted to keep Snape on staff, so he never gave him the DADA job until the year that he knew that he would not be able to continue because he was going to kill him at the end of it.

Noah: Well, hey, gals. We have another comment…

[Rosie laughs]

Noah: …from Lupin13.

[Laura laughs]

Noah: And it might offer some insights into why he would pick Lupin in the first place. From Lupin13.

“First…”

Oh, it was actually Lupin himself answering this question about himself. That’s actually cool.

[Rosie laughs]

Noah:

“First it seems he is having a hard time finding anyone, and it appears that he has no choice but to turn to his friends to fill the post [since] he can’t find anyone else. The last three people Dumbledore hires in the post (not counting Umbridge, who if I remember correctly was the Ministry’s choice, not Dumbledore’s) are friends of his: Lupin, Moody, and Snape.

“It seems that by the fourth year he planned on the curse because the arrangement with Moody was that he would only teach for one year as a favor to Dumbledore. And with Snape he had a pretty good idea that he would be gone at the ne dof the year anyway, and at that point it would probably be easier to find a Potions teacher than another DADA teacher.

“Also, he probably is picking people whom he knows will be beneficial to Harry and teach him things he needs to know to survive. And as others have said he probably thought Lupin would be a safe choice and that even if he ended up leaving at the end of the year at least it would be in a way that did not harm others or end in his own death.”

So right at the end there is the big answer to the Question of the Week, which is that perhaps Lupin was brought on because Dumbledore knew Lupin would help Harry.

Laura: Right. Well, yeah. I obviously clearly agree with this comment because this is everything I was trying to say before. Should have waited but…

[Noah and Rosie laugh]

Laura: … yeah, no. All about this comment. [laughs]

Noah: You guys?

Rosie: There’s a lot in that short paragraph. It’s very good. So yeah. The bit about Snape was what I was saying that he was only planning to ever be [in the position] one year and that it was easier to find a Potions teacher to replace him. What else was there?

Kat: Do we think part of Dumbledore’s motivation is that he realizes Harry is getting older and is going to be curious about his parents? And having Lupin there is a way for Harry to discover about his parents and to maybe mature and grow up a little bit?

Rosie: Then why wouldn’t he hire him for the second…? For Harry’s twelfth to thirteenth birthday year? Because, I mean, he’d seen the whole Mirror of Erised thing. He knew that Harry saw his parents. So he has these questions, and it would have been nicer to put him in touch with Lupin then perhaps.

Kat: Well, if Pottermore ever catches up with us…

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: … and releases everything. Because by the time they release it, I think we’re going to be in Goblet, which kind of sucks. But…

Laura: Yeah. [unintelligible]

Kat: Well, maybe Lupin was unavailable. He was out chasing squirrels somewhere.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Laura: Yeah, well, I’m never going to understand why Dumbledore hired Lockhart to begin with but whatever.

Kat: I think that was just in Jo’s “I want to get back at this rude guy in my life” phase.

Laura: Yeah.

Kat: [laughs] So I’m going to put him in my next book.

Laura: I feel you, girl.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Noah: You just broke the fourth wall, though, because you… we were talking about Dumbledore’s motivations, and then you went to J.K. Rowling’s motivations for writing.

Rosie: Well, she’s already said that Dumbledore is the most like her, so…

Noah: Ooh.

Kat: Dumbledore is her, and she is Dumbledore.

Noah: Isn’t…? That’s kind of pretentious. “I’m as great as Dumbledore.”

Rosie: No. She’s been saying [that] his views are her views. She writes herself into him.

Noah: Oh. But Dumbledore is so wise. She’s very wise.

Kat: Helloo.

Rosie: Obligatory genius moment. [laughs]

Noah: Here’s the next comment from Indigo.

“I have wondered about this before, and I’m actually more surprised at his choice because Lupin was such a great man rather than because he was a werewolf.

“Thinking about this, I sometimes wonder whether Dumbledore wanted Lupin and Harry to meet from the start.

“I also thought that maybe Dumbledore thought that Lupin might be willing to tell him anything he knew about Sirius’s location or plans if he was kind to him and gave him job. It’s a stretch, I know, and a very manipulative thing to do, but we know that manipulating people is one of Dumbledore’s specialties! At the start of the year, Dumbledore still thought Sirius was guilty, and he knew that Lupin had been his friend.”

Woah, that puts a twist on it.

Rosie: See, this one’s interesting because I see that motivation that Lupin was Sirius’s friend, but I see it in the opposite way. So if Dumbledore still thought that Sirius was guilty, he might have thought that Lupin was a target, so bringing him to Hogwarts would protect him.

Noah: Why would you think Lupin would be a target? Just because Pettigrew was killed?

Rosie: Well, Sirius… if Sirius [were] guilty, he has killed James, Lily, and Peter. So Lupin is the only one left.

Noah: Wow. That’s really…

Kat: I never thought of it like that. Yeah, that’s a good thought.

Rosie: If he’s going to protect Trelawney just because she said one thing once that no one knows what that thing was, and no one knows it was her…

[Kat laughs]

Rosie: … then protecting Lupin would be a good place to start.

Noah: Yeah, I…

Kat: That’s true. And he’s not… I mean, as much as Lupin is a strong character, he’s also not… what’s the word I want to say?

Rosie: He’s vulnerable, I think.

Kat: I don’t know if he’s… yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely vulnerable because of the…

Laura: He’s sickly.

Kat: Yeah, because of the werewolf thing.

Laura: And he’s slightly destitute from what we can gather. He doesn’t have a lot of resources or even that much family, I would say, keeping an eye over him. It’s a sad thing because if something happened to him, who would know?

Kat: Who would know? Right. That’s what I was trying to get across. Thank you.

Laura: The book is perpetual Lupin tears.

Rosie: [laughs] But I think it’s an interesting idea. If Snape had outed Lupin earlier in the book, I don’t think Dumbledore would have let him go. But because Dumbledore knows that Sirius was innocent at this point, and because Dumbledore knows that the threat level is down, he allows Lupin to leave.

Kat: That’s so true. You have converted me, Rosie.

Rosie: Yay! I win.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Kat: Point to Rosie.

Noah: Yeah, that was really great. And here is the final comment from advance owl purr. Okay.

“I was wondering: ‘Why didn’t the curse stop after Quirrell?’ Voldemort was technically there in the classroom.”

In that very first year. Shouldn’t that have broken the curse?

Rosie: Yeah, he taught for a year.

Noah: I mean, that’s interesting to think about.

Laura: I mean, he’s not really talking.

Kat: And he wasn’t there the whole time.

Noah: But if he was manipulating Quirrell, maybe he was in the back going, [as A Very Potter Musical Voldemort] “Hey. Hey, Quirrell. Hey, Quirrell, let me teach this one. Let me teach the class. I’ve always wanted this.”

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: I still think… I don’t think that Voldemort had any interest in teaching DADA at that point. He was way too interested in getting his body back.

Noah and Rosie: Yeah.

Laura: I still think that if Dumbledore had just given him the job that things would have turned out a lot greater. I know he had done a lot of bad stuff by then, but I think he… Hogwarts was his home, and I think if he had just given him the job, he wouldn’t have…

Noah: He wouldn’t have gone evil?

Kat: Are you coming to his defense?

Noah: Are you coming to Voldemort’s defense, Laura? Because…

Laura: I’m coming to Dumbledore’s criticism. That’s not a proper sentence but…

[Kat and Laura laugh]

Laura: No, I mean, I’m not Dumbledore’s greatest fan, but I just… I think that he just wanted to teach. Should have let him teach. Things would’ve worked out a lot better.

Noah: You know what? I agree. I mean, think about how manipulative Dumbledore is, potentially causing the Potters’… just everything he’s done in the series. Can we really say Voldemort or Dumbledore… that one of them is more evil than the other?

Kat and Laura: Yes.

[Kat, Laura, and Rosie laugh]

Noah: Okay.

Laura: Significantly. I’m not that much against Dumbledore’s side.

Rosie: The way he treats Riddle in the orphanage and everything… it’s so different from the way we’ve ever seen him when Harry was younger. You have to wonder how much of Riddle’s attitude is to blame and how much of his surroundings [are] to blame. Is Dumbledore to blame for part of Riddle’s formation of ideas because he was taught that magic was scary, therefore you should be scary with it? The whole burning wardrobe thing? That’s terrifying.

Kat: Right.

Laura: Yeah.

Noah: So you think Dumbledore played a role in making Voldemort into a maniac?

Rosie: Well, he didn’t sugarcoat anything. [laughs]

Noah: So maybe Voldemort was very much a product of his environment and really isn’t morally responsible for anything he’s done.

Kat: He’s definitely morally responsible.

Laura: He is morally responsible.

Kat: Let’s not get back there.

[Laura, Noah, and Rosie laugh]

Laura: I don’t think anyone’s not morally responsible for anything. Everyone gets to make the choices. That’s the whole point of this series.

Kat: Do we think that if Dumbledore had in fact given him the job that…?

Laura: I think he would’ve. I’m not saying… because he had already at that point done a lot of evil things. He’d killed people, he’d done the whole thing with the Chamber of Secrets, with all that. But I do think, genuinely, the only place ever felt [at] home was Hogwarts, and I think that if he had been given that job that I think…

Rosie: It could have been a turning point.

Laura: I don’t know. He almost would have… I don’t want to say settled down…

[Rosie laughs]

Laura: … but chilled off the whole evil, controlling the world thing.

[Rosie laughs]

Laura: … and just…

Kat: I don’t think so.

Noah: I think it would have been the opposite. It would have empowered to him. He would have developed a small army of students to take over Hogwarts…

Kat: I think so, too.

Noah: … and kill Dumbledore.

Kat: Yeah, I think so, too.

Laura: Really?

Kat: Yeah, I do.

Laura: Oh, well.

Kat: Although I do think that he might have… how many Horcruxes did he have at that point? Four?

Laura: Yeah, I know the whole thing with him eyeing the sword of Gryffindor is a bit of a tick against him.

[Rosie laughs]

Noah: Yeah, once you go Horcrux, you don’t go back.

[Kat laughs]

Rosie: But isn’t that the second time that he actually asks? Didn’t he ask the first time as well?

Kat: Yeah.

Rosie: So if he’d been given the job the first time, then it might have been fine, but the second time…

Laura: I am all about giving people chances.

[Noah laughs]

Rosie: So to get back on track, thank you all so much for these amazing comments on the last episode. We had such an amazing response, and just the amount of comments that we got on the question of the week and things, I think, were possibly the most that we’ve ever had, particularly in a one-week span. So yeah, thank you very much! But that is the end of our recap from last week, and it is time to get on to our official book wrap. So over this last however many weeks it has been, we have been looking at Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and here are some statistics and all that boring facts stuff that’s not particularly boring [laughs] about the book. So Prisoner of Azkaban was first released in the UK on the 8th of July, 1999. God, doesn’t that feel ages ago? [laughs] And it was…

Kat: That’s so long.

Rosie: It was released in the States on the 8th of September, 1999, which was actually only three months after Chamber of Secrets.

Laura: Oh, my gosh.

Rosie: It is 317 pages in the UK edition but 435 in the States even though it holds the same amount of words.

Kat: Is that because Americans are dumb?

Rosie: I think you guys have a smaller book size than us, so that might be why.

Kat: Oh, yeah, your books are a little bit bigger, that’s true. The pages are taller.

Rosie: Yeah.

Noah: The words are probably smaller.

Rosie: So you can fit more words on the page.

Kat: Yeah.

Noah: Oh, Americans…

[Kat laughs]

Noah: [in a British accent] … what have you done?

Laura: He says in his British voice.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Right. Exactly. [laughs]

Rosie: The book’s UK release was actually slightly delayed to ensure that kids wouldn’t skip school to read the book. By this point the [series] was already becoming a phenomenon, and it was not quite large enough to get midnight releases here, but it was released at 3:45 on Thursday, July 8 so that kids could leave school, go to their bookshops, and buy the book on the way home.

Kat: Do you remember that?

Rosie: I was in Year 5 or 6 so no, I don’t.

Kat: Oh.

Rosie: I wish I did. I remember the next one but not this one, unfortunately.

Noah: She was ten years old.

Kat: Were you reading the books at this point?

Rosie: I was ten years old. Yeah, I was reading the books by this point.

Kat: Yeah.

Rosie: My sister was buying them herself, and I was reading her copies.

Kat: Oh, okay.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: Thanks, Charlie!

Laura: See, my mom, when she got me…

Rosie: Thanks, Charlie!

Laura: … The Prisoner of Azkaban that was… I started reading the books with Prisoner of Az… well, I didn’t start with Prisoner of Azkaban but when that was coming out because she got me all three of them in a bundle. That’s what she got in the line at the grocery store. Just like, “Here, all three of them,” so I just read them all in a row.

Kat: I feel really old because 1999 was my last year of high school.

[Laura laughs]

Rosie: Aww. [laughs]

Kat: I graduated in 2000 so old lady.

Laura: Kindergarten. [laughs]

Kat: [laughs] Shut up. [laughs]

Rosie: [laughs] So Prisoner of Azkaban sold 68,159 copies in its first two days in the UK.

Kat: That’s so small comparatively.

Rosie: It is, but it was huge at the time.

Kat: Mhm.

Rosie: In the States, there were actually some stores opening at midnight for the first time, and before it was released the States had pre-ordered 61,206 copies from Amazon.com, and 50,000 additional copies were sold on the day in bookshops around the country.

Kat: Wow.

Rosie: So that gives you an idea of the different size of the UK and US markets because the entire first two days, our book run was sold pretty much before the release, but then you guys had been hearing about this craze since that book was released in July, and you had to wait those couple of months to actually get your hands on it, so that might be why that pre-order total was so high.

Laura: I’m so glad that trend didn’t continue. That would have been evil.

Kat: Oh, yeah, that would have been… yeah, that would have sucked. Well, plus, too, we have to remember, the UK – or the US – is – what? – eight times the size of the UK? So I mean…

Rosie: Yeah. It’s probably bigger than eight times.

Kat: It’s not surprising that we sold more. Yeah.

Laura: That’s true.

Rosie: So Jo Rowling was actually a multi-millionaire by this point. Bloomsbury, her UK publisher, had seen a dramatic increase in its profits, and their share price had actually tripled in 1999 and their gross profits rising by over a third in that time frame as well, largely due to Harry Potter. So it’s just giving you an idea of how big this thing actually was at the time.

Noah: And it makes me wonder: How much – toward the end – pressure was she under by multiple different businesses to write another Harry Potter book…?

Kat: So much.

Noah: …so that they could return funds?

Rosie: It would have been crazy.

Kat: Why do you think that they’re coming out with $800 book sets? I mean…

Laura: And the special edition covers and…

Kat: Right.

Noah: You got to milk that thing as far as it goes.

Kat: You bet they do.

Laura: I love the special edition covers that are coming out. I know not many people do, but I absolutely love them.

Noah: But will that…? Is that worth $800 to you, Laura?

Kat: No, those are not worth $800.

Laura: But they’re not… they don’t cost $800.

Kat: Right. The anniversary covers she’s talking about are the new ones from [Kazu Kibuishi].

Laura: The guy with the long name.

Kat: Right. The $800 book set is the Monster Book of Monsters one.

Laura: Yeah, no. Not paying for that.

Kat: There'[re] only a thousand copies in the world or something ridiculous like that. I have the special edition of Beedle the Bard. That’s enough for me.

Rosie: [laughs] I have the original gift special editions of Goblet of Fire and Deathly Hallows in their nice blue and black covers.

Laura: I have nothing.

Kat: Your covers are so much better, but we’ll get to that.

[Noah laughs]

Rosie: Yeah, we’ll get to that.

[Kat laughs]

Rosie: Okay, so the book dedication in this one, as we mentioned at the very beginning of our coverage, is to Jill Prewett and Aine Kiely. And it’s the… they were called “the godmothers of Swing” because during Jo’s time in Portugal, they often visited a restaurant called Swing. And it’s a really interesting dedication to this book, considering everything that we’ve talked about with the concept of Harry’s godfather and the importance of friendships within the events. So to have the book dedicated to very good friends and to people [whom] she called godmothers, it’s… yeah, you can see the importance of that, especially now that we’ve finished the book.

Kat: She’s so damn smart.

Laura: She is.

Kat: Clever.

[Rosie laughs]

Noah: Not only that. It’s just very… that’s very sentimental. That’s very cool.

Rosie: Yeah. It’s nice and personal.

Kat: Mhm.

Noah: And these messages go out to so many different readers everywhere. She’s immortalized these friendships.

Kat: I hope they’re still friends.

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: Yeah.

Noah: Oh, damn.

Laura: Recalling all the books.

Kat: Right. That could be a regrettable decision if they’re not.

Noah: Yeah.

Rosie: But if not, it’s just a bit of a time capsule, isn’t it?

Kat: Mhm.

Laura: And we also see Prewett. Obviously, she names a character after Prewett.

Rosie: Yeah, of course.

Kat: Mhm.

Laura: So that person had to be significant.

Kat: Right.

Rosie: It makes you think: All of these authors who stick to dedications within their family and that thing and all of these… this is just before the series really took off that she decided to dedicate this book to these people. Would she have dedicated it to other people if it had already been this huge, crazy phenomenon? Would you be more afraid of mentioning other people in your life that aren’t as well known in the public eye? Or would you maybe be a bit more cryptic in what you’re saying about them?

Noah: What are you saying? Are you saying that there’s a potential danger in dedicating something to someone so close because then they could be a target? Or…?

Rosie: I just think that her later dedications… I think a lot of other authors tend to make dedications really cryptic and personal in a way that only the people who[m] it’s dedicated to and the person [who] dedicated would know what that’s about.

Laura: Well, to be fair, the way that this is worded doesn’t describe that they were her flatmates.

Rosie: That’s true, yeah.

Laura: That was only after an interview, I’m sure, when she was asked about that. So it is fairly cryptic, if not the most cryptic of all of them. [laughs]

Rosie: So Prisoner of Azkaban is actually the only book in the series not to have a chapter of the same name. There is no chapter called “Prisoner of Azkaban” within the book, and similarly, the phrase “Prisoner of Azkaban” itself never appears in the book, unlike all of the others. So we see a Philosopher’s Stone, we see a Chamber of Secrets, we see a Goblet of Fire, we see the Order of the Phoenix, a Half-Blood Prince, and the Deathly Hallows, but we never actually see anyone called “Prisoner of Azkaban” within the book.

Kat: That’s so true.

Laura: Are those…? “The Sorcerer’s Stone” a chapter? I want to say it’s not. It definitely isn’t. I’m an expert on the chapter titles.

Noah: That’s because it’s “The Philosopher’s Stone.”

[Kat laughs]

Laura: No, but it’s… there is no chapter that’s called “The Philosopher’s Stone.” There’s “Nicolas Flamel”…

Rosie: Is there not?

Laura: … and then there’s “Through the Trapdoor” and then there’s “The Man with Two Faces.”

Rosie: Oh!

Laura: This is my only realm of expertise in the Harry Potter series – the chapter titles. [laughs]

Noah: Wow. That’s really [unintelligible].

Rosie: I apologize for being misleading then. I got that from an unreliable source. [laughs]

Laura: But there is… you are correct in saying that the phrase “Prisoner of Azkaban” never appears in the book.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: How awkward would that be? I wonder if she did that consciously. I mean, like, “Oh, Sirius Black. He’s the Prisoner of Azkaban.”

Noah: What if she would go back and rewrite it and be like, “Sirius comes strutting in.” Dumbledore’s like, “Hey, it’s the Prisoner of Azkaban!”

[Kat laughs]

Laura: No, but – and I know this has been spoofed on television shows before – it’s always slightly awkward and fun when you’re watching movies and TV shows, and they name-drop the name of the series or the movie.

Rosie: Yeah.

Laura: I just started reading [A Song of Fire and Ice], and I was reading a quote, and they say… there’s a quote that says “the Game of Thrones,” And I was like, “Ha! Look at that.”

Rosie: [laughs] I do think, though, that they could have had a line where Sirius was jokingly calling or saying like, “Oh, aren’t you afraid of me? I’m the Prisoner of Azkaban!” Blah blah blah. It could have been worked in, but it would have been awkward.

Laura: It could’ve.

Kat: That would have been a stupid movie-ism probably.

Rosie: Probably.

Laura: “Look! It’s the Prisoner of Azkaban!”

Noah: [as Harry] “I love magic!”

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Kat: Hey, wasn’t “I love magic” the one that won the cheesiest line in the Harry Potter Oscars?

Laura: It was. It was.

Kat: Yeah, I thought so.

Noah: I always thought it was terrible.

Kat: It was amazingly cheesy.

Noah: I mean, it depends… yeah, it’s super cheesy, but is that what they were going for? I mean… all right, so that’s a whole other book. I’m sorry.

Kat: That’ll be another nine months from now. We’ll talk about that when we get there.

[Kat and Laura laugh]

Rosie: So The Prisoner of Azkaban is also the only book where no one dies, not even a bad character or a monster. And Laura might argue with this as well, but I’m saying that the Basilisk actually dies in Chamber of Secrets. Because Riddle was already a memory, but technically the memory dies as well, so…

Noah: Not to mention all those mandrakes.

Rosie: … in every other book someone dies but not Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. [laughs] Noah!

Laura: [laughs] Yes. Specifically, not to mention all of those mandrakes!

Noah: Do you know how many mandrakes died in Chamber of Secrets? Just guess a number.

Rosie: You don’t know either, Noah.

[Kat laughs]

Noah: It was three thousand. It was three thousand.

Kat: It was not three thousand! They did not have that many mandrakes.

Rosie: How do we even know that they actually died? Maybe she just harvested leaves from them or something.

Noah: It’s specifically in the series – I’ve actually looked this up if you can believe it – and they’re killed; they’re shredded.

Kat: Yeah, I think she says “chop them up.”

Noah: “Chop them up,” yeah. And there’s no… they squeal, and that’s just it.

Kat: What a sad day.

Rosie: Moving on…

[Laura and Rosie laugh]

Kat: But I mean, couldn’t we say that theoretically Scabbers died?

Laura: No.

Kat: Why not?

Rosie: Because Pettigrew lives on.

Kat: I suppose but…

Rosie: Scabbers himself is not… there’s no actual mourning of a death or anything.

Laura: And it’s also… Scabbers technically does live throughout… he can still transform into a rat. Does Pettigrew ever transform into a rat past this?

Rosie: Not that we see.

Laura: It’s silly.

Rosie: I guess you might have to think about once he gets his silver hand, that probably doesn’t transform.

Noah: That would be awkward.

Rosie: So would he be a rat with a human hand?

[Kat and Laura laugh]

Rosie: Or would it fall off?

Noah: It probably would just [be] pulled around with him.

Kat: It’d be awesome. No, he must… because he goes all the way to Albania. I doubt he walks there.

Rosie: Yeah. I would assume that he did that as a rat.

Laura: Well, I imagine it would take siginificantly longer as a rat to walk there.

Rosie: Well, no, because he could board a boat or a plane.

Noah: It becomes a silver paw, and then he leads the rats as Silverpaw.

Kat: Is this going to be your new adventure online, Noah? Silverpaw? Is that going to be your new fan fiction?

Noah: The Adventures of Silverpaw. Pettigrew when he goes and finds a whole bunch of rats and leads them for the cause of the Death Eaters…

Kat: You should make a comic book.

Noah: Slowly he becomes their king, and of course he has to… didn’t we talk about him totally mating with a rat at some point? That did come up.

Kat: Maybe in your dreams.

Noah: No.

Rosie: No, I tweeted you about it.

Noah: It was discussed on the show. A couple episodes ago.

Rosie: Yeah. It was discussed on Twitter. It wasn’t on the show, Noah.

Noah: We mused on the ability of… oh, was that on Twitter? That was on Twitter?

Rosie: Yeah.

Noah: And now I just put it on the show, didn’t I?

Rosie: Yeah.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Noah: Moving on…

Rosie: Never mind. [laughs]

Kat: Oh, well.

Noah: Silverpaw!

Rosie: [laughs] So Prisoner of Azkaban won several prizes in 1999. It [was named an] ALA Notable [Children’s] Book [and] Los Angeles Times Best Book. [It won the] Booklist Editors’ Choice [Award] [and] FCBG Children’s Book Award. It was a number one New York Times best seller, it won the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year, the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, which the first book also won as well and I think [the second book, too]. I think that prize has actually stopped now, which is a bit sad. It won the Bram Stoker Award for [Best] Work for Young Readers and the Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award and probably millions of others as well, but that’s the selection I managed to find online.

Kat: What was the Smarties Book Prize? Did they get a lifetime full of candy or…?

[Everyone laughs]

Rosie: No, it was just funded by Smarties, I think, but…

Kat: I was going to say, “I would like to win that prize!”

Laura: J.K. Rowling lives in a castle of candy.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Mm.

Rosie: But my copy of Philisopher’s Stone actually has a sticker on the front of it that says Nestlé Smarties Book Prize winner of 1997 or whatever it was.

Laura: Yeah, they seem to advertise that award pretty heavily.

Rosie: Yeah.

Laura: Must have been a big deal.

Rosie: It was at the time. I think it’s been replaced by something else now.

Laura: Right.

Kat: Like everything else.

Rosie: Yeah. But there are things like Blue Peter Book Awards as well if anyone knows. Do you guys know about the Blue Peter Book Awards? Probably not. It’s a very English thing.

Laura: Oh, yeah, I do, actually.

Rosie: Okay, good. Several of the books won that. I don’t think this one did. Maybe that’s what the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize won. So Rowling herself said that Prisoner of Azkaban was the best writing experience she ever had, and she was in a very comfortable place writing Book 3. Immediate financial worries were over, and press attention wasn’t yet by any means excessive. That’s kind of what I meant by the worry about dedications in later books. The press attention was minimal at this point.

Laura: And I think it’s also funny… I know in a different interview, perhaps the same one, she said that Goblet of Fire was the worst experience she ever had…

Rosie: Yeah.

Laura: … following this breeze that was Prisoner of Azkaban because she had written a whole separate – I mean, I know this is Goblet of Fire territory – character that wasn’t Rita Skeeter, that was the forgotten Weasley cousin of Slytherin.

[Rosie laughs]

Laura: But it just turned into this huge plot hole, and she had to go back and rewrite everything.

Kat: Oh, my God.

Laura: So it was just hell for her, so… [laughs]

Kat: I want that information on Pottermore so bad[ly].

Rosie: Yeah.

Laura: Oh, it’s very highly available. The character was named Mafalda – she was basically filling the void of Rita Skeeter – but I think the hole was that there were certain things that a child confined to Hogwarts wouldn’t have been able to know, and that’s how the whole Animagus thing with Rita Skeeter came into play.

Noah: Hmm.

Rosie: Interesting.

Laura: But yeah. Mafalda. Don’t miss her.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: I think this is very much a turning point in the books. We mentioned before that maybe a couple of moments could have been seen as the main change or the most perilous moment and various things like that. But the end of this book does mark a significant change in tone, in Jo’s comfort level in writing as we’ve just seen, in length obviously, and in the general kind of characters. Thirteen is the age where you really start to think about who you are and your place in the world. And we have just finished Harry’s thirteenth year, and it only gets more intense from now on.

Noah: Darker.

Laura: This is really his last year in having a normal year because there is no way you can consider next year slightly normal at all…

Rosie: No.

Laura: … with having to do the tournament and having the two schools and then everything that happens at the end.

Noah: I mean, he didn’t really have a normal year any of the years. He did have to kill a giant basilisk.

Laura: Right, but he did get to chill a bit… but all those things happen at the end of the year conveniently.

Rosie: I think this is the end of his childhood, though. After this he starts being a young adult.

Noah: You don’t think…? What about the death of Hedwig? The death of Hedwig is often the loss of innocence. Maybe that was the point.

Rosie: You can have a loss of innocence and a loss of childhood at a different moment, I think. But I think he’s definitely lost his innocence before he loses Hedwig as well.

Noah: We don’t quite know what happened with Cho in the fifth book, so…

Rosie: [laughs] I didn’t mean that, Noah.

Kat: I am so ready to defend that book, so let’s not even go there.

[Noah laughs]

Kat: That’s my favorite book.

Rosie: I just meant that at this moment he becomes a teenager, he becomes a young adult. And I think this is the shift between the children’s books and the young adult literature books.

Noah: This is when he starts getting angry, actually.

Kat: Mhm. I agree.

Rosie: Yeah, we’ve already seen sassy Harry. Now we get angsty Harry.

Laura: I don’t know. I feel like I’d still say Goblet was the shift in that but almost halfway through Goblet because the whole thing with the Triwizard Tournament… it’s not that it was fun for him by any means, but it’s still this… the danger’s being put upon him by this contest and stuff, and it isn’t until Voldemort with Moody becomes a threat within it that it really shifts into the darker… but I think the Triwizard Tournament is almost fun to read, and it’s still… all the stuff with the dance… that I think it’s more toward the end of Goblet is where it really shifts like, “Oh, we’re not having fun anymore.”

Rosie: But I think a major theme of Goblet is Harry is the young one battling against older students, and it’s finding his older level within himself and growing up a bit so that he can actually challenge them in a significant way. That is an actual theme of the next book, so it would still mark that this one is the end of his childhood.

Kat: Let’s move on to our favorite part of the book wrap show, which is looking at the book covers from around the world. And Caleb is really sad that he couldn’t be here, but we will do a good job on his behalf. Unfortunately, our favorite site, The Last Muggle, does not have a post on the Prisoner of Azkaban book covers…

Rosie: Oh, no.

Kat: … which makes me so sad. I emailed them, and no one got back to me, so sorry.

Noah: Maybe The Last Muggle died.

Kat: No, it’s just been inactive for seven months, so…

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: It’s sad, but maybe if everybody writes to The Last Muggle, we can get them back up and running. Anyway, okay. So the first book cover we’re going to look at is the Danish cover, and this is one of the ones that actually looks like it’s very realistic. Buckbeak looks like a legitimate horse with a long tail and…

Noah: A lot of horse butt.

Kat: There is a lot of horse butt. It’s true.

[Laura laughs]

Noah: Horse butt is a great percentage of this cover.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: I mean, you’ll see that there’s a lot of horse butt on all these covers actually.

Noah: But I’m saying on this one particularly…

Laura: But none quite as realistic.

Noah: … it’s just a huge…

Kat: Right. It is a very large horse butt.

[Noah laughs]

Kat: But they’re flying up toward Hogwarts on the night of the full moon. It’s Harry and Hermione on the back of Buckbeak, and that’s it.

Rosie: Hermione kind of looks broken. What is her body position in this?

Noah: I know what you mean.

Kat: I think she’s doing “I’m the king of the world.”

Rosie: [laughs] Well, I can show you the world. It’s Aladdin, yeah.

Kat: Oh, there you go. That makes sense.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: So the next cover that we have is the Dutch cover, which also, again, has Buckbeak and a full moon on the cover. This time, I think I’m only seeing Harry on the cover, though. The version I have is pretty…

Laura: Yeah.

Noah: Yeah, me, too.

Kat: … bad. The bit that I like is up at the top. It has J.K. Rowling’s name, and there’s a little circle with a rat face.

[Laura and Rosie laugh]

Noah: It looks like a pig.

Laura: By giving the rat… I know we’ll get to it in the US cover. If you do check in some corner of it, there is the rat. But by making the rat this prevalent, it’s… I don’t want to say “spoiler-y,” but it makes it seem like this rat’s going to play a part in the series more than he has in the past.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: Right. I think the creepiest part of this cover is the Dementors.

Rosie: Yeah. Dementors.

Kat: At the bottom.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: Yeah.

Rosie: Ooh, very creepy.

Noah: Oh, I didn’t even see those. Now I’m creeped out.

Kat: Well, it was because the whole background of the cover is black, and then Dementors are really black and…

Noah: Also worth noticing is the hippogriff design is different from the other one. It’s more of a bird face than a…

Laura: It’s eagle-like.

Kat: Well, I mean, it is half eagle.

Noah: Yeah. I’m just saying that this one is more on the side of bird than… I’m thinking all the covers show a different kind of hippogriff, and this one is a bit more bird-y in front. Well, I guess actually…

Rosie: The previous one was more horse than bird, and this one is more bird than horse.

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: Right. Exactly.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: All right, so onto the next cover[, which] is the French cover, and these are always fun because…

Laura: They’re so cute.

Kat: They look like – and I don’t want to insult the illustrator…

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: … it just looks like a young child drew the covers because they’re very playful…

Noah: Ooh.

Kat: … and it’s the style. They’re more…

Noah: I think you just insulted the entire French population.

Kat: I don’t think I did, especially because I said I’m not.

Laura: I’m pretty sure she didn’t.

Kat: No. I’m pretty sure I didn’t.

Noah: She didn’t?

Laura: No.

Noah: Okay.

Laura: France. These covers are some of my favorites just because [they] maintain that style throughout the whole [series].

Kat: Mhm.

Laura: But in these first couple ones, they are very childish and magical, and you can see they’re all wearing their wizard hats and everything.

Kat: Which I love.

Laura: Yeah.

Kat: I like that they look like little pilgrim hats.

[Laura and Noah laugh]

Laura: Yeah. But they still keep this crayon-looking style in the future but with more mature themes.

Kat: The bottom of it kind of looks like the new Casual Vacancy cover.

Laura: It does.

Kat: With the steeple and everything.

Laura: What are they flying over there? Is that Hogsmeade?

Rosie: I guess.

Kat: I think it’s just a bad representation of Hogwarts.

Noah: Why? Because of the French artist, Kat?

Laura: Now you’ve insulted the French.

Kat: Yeah, now I insulted the French. Okay, I’m sorry. But I particularly like the ears on this hippogriff.

Laura: Oh, yeah. That’s true.

Kat: They’re huge. They kind of look like rabbit ears.

[Rosie laughs]

Laura: Yeah. This one [is] also significantly more bird than horse.

Kat: Mm.

Laura: And rabbit.

Kat: And a little bit of rabbit in there, and…

Noah: And rabbit. It’s a good touch. It’s a nice touch.

Kat: … the beak is particularly large, so I feel like it’s like a toucan or a pelican or something.

Laura: Mhm.

Rosie: It’s definitely a raptor, though. Look at that clawed beak.

[Kat laughs]

Rosie: It’s going to devour something.

Noah: You know what they say about large beaks.

[Prolonged silence]

Noah: They say nothing.

Rosie: Good at eating things?

Noah: Large talons.

Kat: “Large talons.”

Rosie: [laughs] Okay.

Kat: Got it. So moving on to our favorite psychedelic-esque cover…

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: … I could say, is the German cover.

Rosie: He’s kind of rocker, punk, emo Harry in this one.

Kat: He is, and his hair always looks green on the German covers, which I find…

Laura: The German covers are some of my favorites because Harry has perpetually got this sassy face on. He’s always got one eyebrow raised.

[Rosie laughs]

Noah: What’s he so curious about?

Laura: He’s always looking directly at the reader like, “Whatcha looking at?” Oh, well.

Rosie: He’s kind of got his head tilted to one side as well as if he’s judging you. He’s…

Kat: He’s breaking the fourth wall is what he’s doing.

Laura: But like he perpetually has that face for all seven covers. The German ones.

Kat: But it’s something to note that this is one of the only covers that does several things. First off, it doesn’t say “J.K. Rowling.” It says “Joanne K. Rowling”…

Laura: Aha!

Kat: … which I find very interesting.

Noah: Obivously speaking to the fact that the German population cares less about a female author.

Kat: Correct. And also, it’s one of the only ones that doesn’t have Buckbeak on the cover. This one has – it looks like – very, very, very tiny Dementors in the background…

Noah: Ohh.

Kat: … and then it has a dog.

Laura: Oh, I didn’t even see that.

Kat: Yep, it has a dog.

Noah: That dog looks kind of like a cheetah.

Kat: A little bit like a cheetah. It’s true.

[Rosie laughs]

Noah: And I have no idea where they are.

Laura: I like the colors of this one.

Rosie: This is… I actually have the German copy of Prisoner of Azkaban because I did like this cover, and Prisoner being my favorite book, and me studying German at the time.

Noah: Can you pronounce it in German?

Rosie: Not well.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Noah: Try it.

Laura: We’re borderline getting offensive if we try to attempt this.

Rosie: Okay. Harry Potter und der Gefangene von Askaban.

Noah: Wow.

Kat: Good job, Rosie.

Noah: Thank you, Rosie.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Good job. All right.

Rosie: I haven’t done German for years. It’s not good.

Kat: So our next cover here is the Italian cover. And if you guys remember my favorite cover from I think it was the first book was the one with all the little mice on it.

Noah: Mhm.

Kat: That was the first book, right? Yeah.

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: So then here’s this one again. I like it because it looks kind of water color, and nobody has faces. You just see glasses and tiny little dots for eyes. But again, they’re on Buckbeak, and it looks like Buckbeak has a leash or a collar or wait…

Laura: Seems like something’s in his mouth also.

Kat: Is that Hermione’s pants?

Rosie: I think…

Laura: No, it’s definitely… no, I think it’s a collar.

Rosie: I think you’ve got the red trousers, then a tiny little ankle, and then a red slipper.

Laura: But look… no. Her… look how tiny Harry’s legs are.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Laura: Compared to how big Hermione’s [look]…

Rosie: That’s true. Maybe the black bit is her leg. And Harry’s you just can’t see. It’s a very confusing cover, really.

Kat: It is.

Rosie: There’s not horse in this hippogriff at all.

Noah: It’s really just a bird.

Laura: But I will say… I know we’re going to get to the US cover, but I do not like the US covers because they’re so detailed in the plot that almost it’s… every one is so spoiler-y. Versus this one… [it’s] a little bit more up in the air.

Kat: You’re right, though. There are no legs on this bird.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: I mean, this is not a hippogriff; this is a giant eagle. And it looks like it’s carrying a dead caterpillar.

Laura: There is zero percentage of horse butt in this one.

Kat: Yeah.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: But again in the background.

Rosie: But I do agree with Laura. There'[re] no clues as to what’s actually going to happen in this book.

Laura: Which I like.

Rosie: Other than at some point they get to fly on an eagle.

Kat: Okay, so the next cover is the [pronounces cas-tih-YAH-no] castellano [Spanish]. I never say that right. I apologize.

Noah: [in a Spanish accent] Castellano.

Laura: Castellano.

Kat: And again, it’s just a piture of Buckbeak although it is looking hopeful this time. Buckbeak is staring into the sky, mouth open, and Harry and Hermione are like, “[gasps].”

Noah: [laughs] Looking at what? Who knows?

Laura: But I will not forgive this book for that awful choice of font.

Kat: Right. No. I mean it is pretty bad.

Laura: It’s Comic Sans.

Kat: Yeah, they’re all bad. But again, all that there is in the background is the night sky and a full moon. And I’m beginning to wonder if nobody had an original thought when they were coming up with these book covers.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Because they’re all the same.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: They’re all the same.

Noah: Except the German.

Kat: Until of course we get to our next book cover, which is the Ukrainian book cover.

Laura: Always Caleb’s favorite.

Kat: Yeah, always amazing. And here Buckbeak for sure has a collar on, and it looks like even leads.

Rosie: Reins, yeah.

Kat: Reins. Exactly.

Noah: You can see the individual strands of Hermione’s hair.

Laura: You can see the Time-Turner.

Rosie: Yeah.

Noah: Whoa.

Kat: You can see the Time-Turner on that one. That’s true. These are always very detailed.

Laura: And Harry rocking some Converse.

[Kat laughs]

Rosie: It’s interesting because Harry’s outfit in this one is very much like [the one on] the American covers that StarKid based their Harry outfit on, isn’t it? The yellow shirt and the red shoes and the jeans.

Kat: Mhm.

Rosie: That’s very much a StarKid Harry.

Laura: Also, the fact that Hermione is in her uniform, and Harry isn’t.

Rosie: Oh, interesting.

Laura: As it would appear.

Kat: Well, no, it looks like Harry has his robes on.

Laura: He’s in jeans, and…

Kat: Yeah, but I think his robes are behind him.

Rosie: He’s wearing a tie.

Noah: Yeah, you can kind of see a shadow of robes coming off him, I think.

Kat: Yeah. Right.

Laura: Mhm.

Kat: But I like the Buckbeak on this cover because it’s very definitely horse and bird even though I find it weird.

Rosie: The bird looks a bit weird, though.

Laura: I like the Dementors in the corner of this one.

Rosie: They look like they’re on a [cigarette] break, just smoking in the corner.

[Laura laughs]

Kat: They do, don’t they? They do. They totally do. I know. I thought that. I was going to comment on the casualness of the Dementors on this cover.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: They’re just…

Laura: They look very much more Grim Reaper-y but more… I don’t know if anyone’s ever seen The Muppet Christmas Carol…

Rosie: Yeah.

Laura: … the ghost of the last Christmas one. I don’t know. Which one is that? Christmas to Come?

Rosie: Christmas for the Future, yeah.

Laura: Yeah. Looks like that one.

Kat: It does. And they’re just hanging out in the courtyard of Hogwarts.

Laura: Do you see the tiny little “HP” in the bottom left-hand corner?

Kat: Mhm. Right on Buckbeak’s foot.

Laura: It’s cute.

Kat: Yeah, it is cute.

Rosie: What’s with the random fountain?

Kat: I think they’re in a Hogwarts courtyard.

Noah: Yeah.

Laura: Wait, that’s actually interesting that it’s “HP.” When looking at this cover, the way the Ukrainian letters are there is no “HP.”

Rosie: Yeah, the “HP” logo is… the branding needed to be there even if it’s not actually in the actual name.

Kat: I wonder if that is from who[m]ever put the image online, though. If that’s on the real book cover. I always really like these covers, though, because there [are] details in them, but it doesn’t feel spoiler-y to me. You don’t know that that’s the Time-Turner.

Rosie: No, you wouldn’t know until you read.

Kat: Right, it just looks like an hourglass.

Rosie: Mhm.

Kat: Which I like. Okay, so moving on to the Japanese cover, I’m not sure we’ve ever looked at one of these before, but I particularly like this one. This is one of the other ones that does not have Buckbeak featured on the cover. What it does have is the silver doe – not the doe, the stag – and then there’s a tree on the right, a castle on the left, you see a rat sitting on the bottom, Buckbeak is flying, and you see a little teeny-tiny person leaning out of a window from the Hogwarts castle.

Laura: Oh, you do.

Kat: And it looks like two teeny-tiny people riding on Buckbeak as well.

Laura: And it looks like teeny-tiny Dementors at the bottom, too.

Kat: Oh, yeah. Walking on the path. Maybe that’s Macnair and everybody.

Laura: I absolutely love this one. I think it’s beautiful.

Kat: It is beautiful.

Laura: I also like that Harry is not on it.

Kat: Right.

Laura: At all.

Kat: Right.

Noah: Are you anti-Harry, Laura?

Laura: I’m anti the depictions of everyone’s faces no matter the illustrator, which is why I like the one before that just had the two dots on the eyes because I don’t like getting an image put in my head of what the people are supposed to look like. I like using the descriptions and everything. And I think the US ones, and even the UK, they…

Rosie: They give you an idea, yeah.

Laura: … their depictions of what they look like are kind of weird. I just like the more, or the less literal, artistic rendition in general, and I think that this one is perhaps the best at not being literal. But it has those Easter Eggs of Sirius peeking out the window that, once you’re done, you can see what’s happening, and it’s much less literal.

Kat: Right, you look at it. and it’s really cool after the fact. Yeah.

Laura: Go Japan!

Kat: I’m wondering what the pumpkins are for, though. Maybe just because the pumpkin patch. I mean…

Rosie: Yeah, that’s where the hippogriff was released from, so I guess that’s…

Kat: Maybe. It just seemed kind of random on such a beautiful cover. Anyway.

Rosie: It kind of balances it out, though. You’ve got the little bit of orange at the bottom and the little bit of orange at the top, so…

Kat: That’s true.

Rosie: It’s got a nice symmetry to it.

Kat: That’s true. Very, very true. So the next cover we’re going to look at is the Fin[nish] cover.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: And th[ese] one[s] [are] always very animated. Lots of fun.

Laura: Love it.

Kat: Very…

Rosie: I want to see a hippogriff that looks like that.

[Kat laughs]

Laura: Look at Buckbeak’s face! He looks like… doy. [laughs]

Kat: It kind of looks like a dodo bird face, doesn’t it?

Laura: I was just… yeah, exactly.

Rosie: It’s less eagle and more duck.

[Laura laughs]

Kat: It is very duck-ish.

Laura: And the noses on all the characters always [on] these [covers]… I just love it.

Kat: Yeah, I love how exaggerated they all are. But again, it’s Harry and Hermione flying on Buckbeak in front of the full moon and the castle except on this one we do get a couple of extra little bits. There'[re] some Dementors at the bottom and a dog.

Rosie: The Dementors are weird, though. They’re in white rather than black.

Kat: Right. I’m wondering if that’s because the moonlight is supposed to be hitting them.

Rosie: Ah, maybe, I guess.

Kat: Not sure. Does this say…? Is that the artist’s name written on the belly of the hippogriff?

Rosie: I doubt it.

Laura: We are not the experts on that, so…

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: It looks like it says “TAMALI,” but I don’t think it does.

Laura: I’m willing to bet it doesn’t.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: I mean, I’m sure it doesn’t.

Laura: Actually, I’m probably sure the artist’s name is in the bottom right-hand corner at the bottom right there.

Kat: Oh, yeah, the signature. I mean, that’s probably legit. That’s true. It still looks like something is written on the belly. And look, I just noticed that the hippogriff has spots.

Laura: Yeah.

Kat: Like a leopard. Interesting.

Rosie: It’s amazing how many of these Harrys are wearing Converses.

Laura: Even… yeah, the Iranian one next.

Kat: Yeah.

Laura: Kind of hard to see.

Kat: This one is the most…

Laura: Ridiculous.

Kat: … amazing, random cover I’ve ever seen in my life.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Kat: So Harry is riding on something that looks like a weird cross between a bird, a hedgehog, and a rat.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Granted, this is a very fuzzy photo. So I don’t know how much of this is the real, actual cover. He’s wearing stripes. He’s by himself. No Hermione on this cover as far as I can see. There is a rat, which looks more like a hamster, a frog on the bottom left [of the] cover… is that a disembodied arm? Oh, that’s the rat tail, never mind. [laughs] And then there is a tiger.

[Kat, Laura, and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: Where does the tiger come from?

Laura: For unexplicit reasons.

Kat: I don’t know. I mean…

Laura: I just love how this just looks photoshopped, like clipart. And then you didn’t mention the creepy faces in the corner. I don’t know if those are supposed to be Dementors. I don’t know who the person at the bottom is [who]’s casting something. But this cover… I’m not sure as far as legitimacy, totally. It does have a logo in the corner. But I know they made these for The Sorcerer’s Stone and something else. But then they stopped making, I think, this little version of it.

Kat: Yeah, it definitely looks fake. And I think the faces are supposed to be on the woodwork – or the stonework – of Hogwarts.

Laura: Yeah.

Rosie: Yeah, like gargoyles.

Kat: Yeah, exactly.

Laura: I’m pretty sure, yeah, it was just Sorcerer’s Stone through where they did these covers, and then past that it was the US editions with the just Iranian – or Arabic – lettering.

Rosie: Yeah, I think they actually created a different version of Harry Potter 3, in Arabic as well, which was possibly more like the American covers.

Kat: It’s just so random. Somebody… I want somebody out there to write a story about the lion on this cover.

Laura: Yeah.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Or the tiger.

Laura: Abnd by “lion” you mean “tiger,” yeah.

Kat: I want a story about that.

Laura: He is the prisoner of Azkaban.

Rosie: It’s like the toad could be Trevor. The dormouse, I guess, is a bad rat.

Kat: [laughs] A very bad rat.

Rosie: But where’s the tiger from?

Kat: Right. It’s so random.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: The only thing I can think is…

Rosie: Is it like Gryffindor?

Kat: I was just going to say, “The only thing I can think is that it might represent Gryffindor.”

Laura: Possibly a werewolf.

Rosie: It’s so strange. [laughs]

Kat: Oh werewolf, perhaps. Perhaps.

Laura: Possibly. Oh, well.

Kat: Okay. So the last cover – the last international cover – that we have is the Vietnamese cover. And this one is, yet again, very much like the other ones. It’s Harry and Hermione riding on Buckbeak. This time there’s no moon, though. And we do see Hogwarts, but it’s very close up. We just see the stonework of the building.

Rosie: Hermione is blonde.

Kat: Hermione is blonde. And she appears to be wearing a skirt because I think that’s bare leg I see.

[Laura laughs]

Kat: Racy. These covers.

[Laura laughs]

Kat: But I mean, this one is a very small, fuzzy photo. I don’t care for it as much.

Rosie: No. It’s quite a simple cover. We don’t really… there’s not any detail in there.

Kat: Right.

Laura: Team Japanese cover.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Right, exactly. So then we move on to the one that I would think most of our listeners would know – to one of the two – is the American cover. And we’re looking at the full version here, so if you were to open up your book jacket – your hardcover book jacket – and look at the whole thing. We’ve got Harry and Hermione riding on Buckbeak on the right. “The Prisoner of Azkaban” looks to be on a scroll, which is what I would assume to be the Marauder’s Map. Yeah?

Rosie: Mhm.

Kat: A little tiny rat in the bottom right corner, Sirius’s silhouette… we have Dementors, the Whomping Willow, a dog – or a werewolf – and the stag. Plus, oddly enough, not a full moon.

Rosie: That’s corrected in recent covers, I believe.

Kat: Is it?

Rosie: They changed it.

Laura: Mhm. Interesting.

Noah: I have to say that this still remains my favorite cover. And I might be slightly biased because it’s the American edition, but it’s pretty great. Just all the details, the fact that so much is included. Even the Patronus on the far left.

Rosie: I love the reflection of the Patronus in the water.

Noah: Yeah.

Rosie: But it’s not my favorite cover.

Laura: I like the coloring of this, particularly the back cover. I tend on the US to like the back covers and the inside jackets stuff more. I like the Whomping Willow and the way it’s depicted there. I love all the coloring of it. But like I said, I’m just not a fan of how they depict the characters’ faces. I’m much more for subtlety that I just don’t like the US covers.

Kat: I just noticed that Crookshanks is under the Whomping Willow.

Rosie: See, I thought that that…

Noah: It’s little stuff like that. It’s amazing.

Rosie: I thought that the creature under the Willow was going to be the dog. But then I guess Sirius… we’ve seen his silhouette, isn’t it? So it wouldn’t be him.

Kat: Right.

Rosie: Because I thought the creature on the very bottom was the werewolf, and then there was a dog under the tree. But I guess it could be Crookshanks even.

Kat: I think it is. And is that Hagrid’s hut with smoke coming out of it on the left?

Rosie: Yeah, I would think so.

Kat: And a very vague pumpkin patch.

Rosie: And maybe a pumpkin patch.

Kat: Yeah. Yeah, this one’s not… I mean, I don’t dislike the Mary GrandPré covers. I just… they give a lot away. Even though there is avery ambiguous… you don’t know what’s going on, but it still gives a lot away.

Laura: Yeah, there’s not a single Mary GrandPré cover that I like. Really, the only one that has ever really struck me is the special edition Deathly Hallows one that has…

Kat: The dragon?

Laura: … them riding the dragon. The coloring in that is gorgeous, but…

Kat: Yeah.

Rosie: I’m just not a particular fan of her cartoony style. I love the [British] edition and its naturalistic art. I think they’re beautiful.

Kat: Speaking of [which], go ahead and take those away, Rosie.

Rosie: Cool. Okay, well, we’ll start with the original children’s edition, which ,like all of the other covers that we’ve seen apart from perhaps two, features Harry and Hermione on the back of Buckbeak and riding in front of a full moon. And that is the entire cover. Or at least it’s the entire artwork of the cover. And I just think that Cliff Wright’s artwork here is just beautiful. The watercolors… actually, I went to see an exhibition of his work a couple of years ago now and saw this as a large, actual painted image, and it is just beautiful. The amount of detail in his watercolors is… yeah, I love them. And on the back cover, which you guys don’t have an image of, but perhaps you can find it, we have a very nasty-looking Grim. It’s a very gruesome-looking dog, which I guess is meant to be Sirius, and we later find out that he’s not anything to be afraid of. But from the back cover, it would appear that he would be.

Kat: So he looks very violent?

Rosie: Yeah, let me see if I can find it for you. So yeah, sadly we can’t find the image of the Cliff Wright back cover, but I will scan that in so [that] you guys can see it. But we’ll move on now to the adult edition covers. I don’t think we ever spoke about the original adult covers from the UK that Laura has managed to find. But it’s a rather disturbing…

[Laura and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: … photo fit of a hippogriff with an actual eagle and an actual horse combined.

Kat: [laughs] It’s so bad.

Laura: [laughs] It’s so scary.

Rosie: Yeah, it’s a bit strange.

Laura: And the funny thing is that the point of the adult covers were to make it subtle so that adults wouldn’t be embarrassed to be reading a children’s book. Which in the Sorcerer’s Stone and the Chamber of Secrets versions of this, it’s a very Muggle-looking train and a Muggle-looking car in the sky, granted. But this one, it’s rather magical-looking.

[Rosie laughs]

Laura: I wouldn’t – if I were embarrassed of this to begin with, which of course I wouldn’t be – feel less embarrassed by reading this weird-looking half bird, half horse thing.

Kat: This looks more like a griffin to me than a hippogriff.

Laura: I don’t want to look at it at all.

[Rosie laughs]

Laura: So I’m going to scroll down now because it’s scary. [laughs]

Kat: And it is pretty bad, yeah.

Rosie: It’s like bad TV graphics. If you’ve ever watched Xena or Hercules, the series that were on in the ’90s, it’s kind of that mythical creature. I can see why they did it.

Laura: The colors are so sad.

Rosie: Yeah, it’s very gray.

Laura: Very gray.

Rosie: But also very gray is the new cover that they created, which actually shows Azkaban itself. You’ve got this island with this tower on it, which I actually think is quite a nice cover. It’s very, very different from all the other ones we have already seen. There is no hippogriff, there is no Harry, there is no implication of Hogwarts or anything like that. You just see this imposing tower, which links more to the “Prisoner of Azkaban” idea than anything else that we’ve previously seen.

Laura: Mhm. And I’ve never been on an episode where we’ve done this book wrap business before, but… so let me say, the new version of the new adult covers are by far my favorite covers ever…

Rosie: They are beautiful.

Laura: … because, like I was saying, I totally prefer subtlety and not having the character depictions on them, and I like more the idea of having significant objects. So with the exception of one cover, which I do not like – the Deathly Hallows cover of the adult ones – I am a huge fan of all of these ones. I think they’re beautiful. And this Prisoner… in fact, [on] all of my digital editions that I have on my Kindle I have replaced the covers so that they look like the adult ones, just because I love them so much…

[Rosie laughs]

Laura: … and I don’t have actual copies of [them].

Kat: I prefer these, too, and I’m wondering if that’s a real building?

Rosie: Umm.

Laura: I doubt it.

Rosie: Everything that…

Kat: But it looks like a photograph.

Rosie: Yeah, well, all of the adult covers… they are like photographs. The Slytherin locket in particular is the most gorgeous thing.

Kat: I absolutely love it.

Rosie: And the movie prop is horrific compared to that, the original locket that’s in that photo. I think they are just particularly good graphic artists and particularly good at finding locations…

Laura: I am…

Rosie: … but I don’t think this island in this particular way exists. There may have been a tower that they have taken and then they photoshopped on to an island.

Kat: Yeah, probably. That’s what I was thinking.

Laura: Well, and I was wrong before when I said that my exception [is] The Deathly Hallows. My exception is The Chamber of Secrets. I got that wrong. Not a fan of the Chamber of Secrets adult one. But yeah, no, I remember, actually, I had no idea what the adult versions were. I remember being little thinking that [laughs] they were a different plot because the first thing I saw was the Half-Blood Prince adult cover. And I love the Half-Blood Prince adult cover. And I remember searching on the Internet for hours, looking for these adult editions, trying to figure out… I thought it was a totally different plot.

[Rosie laughs]

Laura: … so I just didn’t understand the concept of people being embarrassed by covers, and I was getting so frustrated as to what these secret plots were…

[Kat laughs]

Laura: … that I couldn’t find.

Rosie: That’s actually a very common question. Working as a bookseller, trying to sell the adult editions of the books, we actually get asked all the time if they are different versions. They’re not. They’re exactly the same words. They literally just have different covers. But yeah, for some reason, I think it’s probably less embarrassing now for adults to be seen reading it than it was at the time that these covers were produced. But they are beautiful covers.

Kat: And a totally random thought on different words. I was watching Doctor Who the other day, and they said “scarpered.”

Rosie: Yep.

Kat: And I laughed because I thought back to that episode that we argued about it.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Proven wrong once again.

Rosie: Git. [laughs]

Kat: Good, but there we go. I mean, that’s the end of our book covers from around the world. If you want to see the book covers that we were talking about in the episode, head over to alohomora.mugglenet.com, and we will have a link to a page with all of the covers in our show notes.

Laura: Okay, so that finishes up our book everything. [laughs] So be sure to join us at 10:00 AM Eastern Time on June 22 for our global movie watch and live podcast following immediately. So this is really exciting. I haven’t been on a movie episode, yet, and I’ve super wanted to. But the fun thing with this is that all you guys can join in a live chat, so you’re not even just watching. You are able to chat with all of the people you talk to on the forums. Please welcome new people, and you all chat while the movie is going on, and then the hosts will be hopping on right afterward and giving you a live show. Which you guys can call into and everything, so it’s super fun.

Kat: And [on] the last show – the last global movie watch that we did for Chamber of Secrets – we had about six hundred people watching the movie, which doesn’t seem like a lot considering how many people we reach, but that chat in the room goes really fast, and it’s a lot of fun, and people talk about it for weeks after on the forums, so…

Rosie: It’s really a brilliant event.

Kat: Yeah.

Rosie: But make sure you all have your own DVD or digital copy of the movie to watch because we are not going to be broadcasting it. You guys need to watch your own copy.

Laura: Yeah. And it should really be an exciting episode because if there is any a movie where there is super strong feelings…

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: It’s this one.

Laura: … it’s Prisoner of Azkaban. So there is going to be a battle going down between people [who] love this movie and the people [who] despise it more than anything. So…

Rosie: Definitely worth tuning in.

Laura: … be prepared to defend your side in the chat.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Right.

Laura: It’s going to get ugly. [laughs]

Kat: And hint, hint, this is not yet confirmed. Even my fellow hosts here don’t know quite who[m] I’m chatting about, but we’re 95% [certain of] get[ting] a special guest. So definitely check it out. Can’t promise it, but it’s pretty close.

Laura: And if not, you’re just going to have to enjoy our lovely company.

Kat: That’s right. Exactly.

Laura: Which is worth it any day.

Kat: Totally.

Rosie: But if you would like to be our speical guest, because I’m sure you’re all as special as who[m]ever it is that Kat has got lined up, you can also be on the show. We are now scheduling for Goblet of Fire, so make sure you get your clips sent in to us. You can head over to our website – alohomora.mugglenet.com – or email us at alohomorapodcast at gmail dot com, and in the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes becuse we love hearing from you all.

Kat: We do, and if you want to contact us in any other way, follow us on Twitter – @AlohomoraMN – [Like us] at facebook.com/openthedumbledore, or leave us a voicemail – 206-GO-ALBUS (that’s 206-462-5287) – or on Skype – AlohmoraMN. And that is how we do our live show, so if you want to call in to talk to us on the live show, that’s the phone number to call as well. So write it done.

Laura: Yeah. And also be sure to check out our store. As always, we have all our shirts – the host shirts – and we’re going to be having some new stuff there soon, so always be sure to check out that, and while you’re shopping, be sure to check out our exclusive app, which is available in the US and UK for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Kindle – $1.99 in the US and £1.29 P in the UK – and that has transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and more, and be sure… in the next coming weeks we’re getting really exciting stuff there because the hosts will be at LeakyCon, and we’re going to have lots of fun things for you.

Kat: It’s always fun when we’re all together.

Laura: We’ll have interviews and stuff like that.

Rosie: But we’re not all together.

Kat: Well…

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: We’ll all be together in August.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: The original four will be together in August anyway.

Rosie: That’ll be cool.

Kat: Yeah.

Rosie: I’ll miss you guys. I hope you guys have a good LeakyCon. Sounds like it’s going to be amazing.

Kat: Yeah, it’ll be a lot of fun. Everyone, if you’re going to LeakyCon, check us out. Our panel is on Saturday the 29th at 10:00 AM. In Oregon [Ball]room 201. So it’s going to be amazing. We have some special guests lined up, so check it out.

Laura: All right, so that about wraps up this episode.

[Show music begins]

Laura: We’ll see you guys next week live. I’m Laura Reilly.

Noah: I’m Noah Fried.

Rosie: I’m Rosie Morris.

Kat: And I’m Kat Miller. Thank you for listening to Episode 35 of Alohomora!

Laura: Open the Dumbledore!

[Show music continutes]

Noah: [as Dumbledore] “Say ‘please,’ Tom.” [as Tom Riddle] “Never!” [laughs]

Rosie: Okay.

[Laura laughs]

Noah: That didn’t happen. That’s [unintelligible]

Kat: Yeah, actually, it just did. [laughs]

Noah: Oh, no.

Rosie: Noah, your Dumbledore voice is kind of like Michael’s Harry voice. It’s kind of confusing.

[Noah laughs]

Kat: And since his are the official voices, I’m not sure you’re allowed to do that voice anymore.

Rosie: That’s true. [laughs]

Noah: I just do voices. There’s no guarantee that they’re the actual characters.

Laura: Anyone [who]’s British just gets the same voice.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: They’re all British. Does that mean they all get the same voice?

Laura: I know. That’s my point. According to Noah…

Rosie: Okay.

Laura: … everyone sounds the same.

[Kat and Noah laugh]

Rosie: Well, I’m happy to say, “I don’t sound like Noah’s Dumbledore.” [laughs]

Kat: I know. Us, too. [laughs] Us, too, Rosie.

Noah: I was doing more of a fierce Dumbledore. [as Dumbledore] “Did you put your name in that Goblet of Fire?”

Kat: Well, we have plenty of time to get to that. It’ll be, I think, February next year.

Noah: Oh, my dear.

Laura: [laughs] Oh, my God. I can’t even.

Rosie: Just in time for my birthday. It’ll be fun.

Kat: Mhm.

Laura: Speaking of birthdays – that’s a good segue – happy birthday, Kat.

Rosie: Happy birthday, Kat!

[Laura and Rosie laugh]

Kat: Thank you. Thank you very much.