Muggle Mail: Trial is Not Emotional

Eric: Okay, the next Muggle Mail comes from Bill, 29, of Kansas City. His subject is, "Missing the motive: the fandoms are the ones that should be upset." It's kind of long here so I'm going to go really fast.

"I'd like to comment on one issue that I think was completely underrepresented during your discussion on the trial, though one of you, I believe it was Eric, made a couple attempts. You, me, and the rest of the fans are being manipulated by lawyers that insult our intelligence at every turn. This trial has, or should have, nothing to do with J.K.R.'s feelings or anyone else's. It may be true that she doesn't need the money, but that doesn't mean that it isn't about money. It clearly is. She is a billionaire. Steve Vander Ark is not and he put considerable work into this encyclopedia. She says the material is sloppy and lazy in book form, but worthy of her personal endorsement online? The nature and quality of the work in question was not an issue at all until an attempt to sell it was made so that argument doesn't hold. Every successful fiction has unofficial companion books. You can spot them from a mile away. No one is going to get confused and even that is beside the point. This case is about whether or not Steve Vander Ark is negatively impacting her existing works, not something she might create in the future. Many of the MuggleCast hosts have taken emotional bait. I find the comments that anyone that sides with SVA is clearly lacking principles extremely offensive. The emotion in the trial may be based in reality, but I assure you that J.K.R.'s tearful admission that she just might not be able to carry on if she loses this case is a deliberate legal strategy, as well as a childish threat. All this talk of putting Jo through this is nonsense. Remember that she is the aggressor here, Steve Vander Ark is defending himself. Are we honestly to get all twisted up inside because she needs to take a few days to fly all the way across the Atlantic to testify in a trial that she brought? And I say she because all of this is all Warner Brothers dragging her into it. Then she wouldn't be up there crying. I want her to keep creating, especially in the HP universe as much as anyone. Let's be careful, however, not to automatically give her the moral, ethical, and emotional high ground. Why for her is it not about the money and for him trying to make a quick buck? SVA wouldn't need to defend his considerable work if all he was doing was cash in. This isn't about us wanting her to do more work. This isn't about her current works being disparaged or diminished. This isn't about her feeling sad inside. This is about fair use under the law and based on the four legal criteria I think he's well in the clear. If this suit isn't over money then it is most certainly over ego. Thanks once again, Bill."

Andrew: Yeah, I like this e-mail because a lot of people e-mailed in saying similar things that we have to keep the emotions out of it and keep in mind this is a court trial with law. This isn't about - this isn't about who can put on the best, you know, water works show. This is about the laws and the four points of the Fair Use Doctrine. And I think that he's absolutely right.

Eric: This was a good - yeah, this was a good e-mail to choose, Andrew, because it is so - so completely passionate in the direction that we didn't even go in. You know, I mean we had made points to try to be objective but this is really the other side. And it's saying that Jo is a smoke screen.

Andrew: Yeah.

Eric: It's saying that all of this is supposed to guide us and misguide us into, you know, taking sides without actually realizing that it's, you know - legally, it might not be a good enough case.

Micah: I just wanted to point out two things that Bill brought up. First, was him saying that "she doesn't need the money but that doesn't mean that it isn't about the money. It clearly is, she's a billionaire, and Steve Vander Ark is not, and he put considerable work into his encyclopedia." That's great, but the work is not his.

Matt: Exactly.

Sloppy and Lazy

Micah: I mean it is his in the sense of he took the time and effort to organize it in a certain way, but the work itself, the actual context, is not his. And then also the comment about, "She says the material is sloppy and lazy in book form but worthy of her personal endorsement online?" Yes, it is worthy of her endorsement online. We don't have the book. We don't know what it looks like in book form. She does. Therefore, that is why she was able to comment on it. You're not able, Bill, to comment on what the book looks like...

Eric: I would...

Micah: ...because you haven't read it.

Andrew: I've said before, though, that there are...

Micah: She has read it.

Andrew: ...pages of the book online and what it is - it's an A to Z index.

Eric: Well...

Andrew: I mean, I'm with Bill here...

Elysa: Can I say something?

Micah: What? You're with him in that sense?

Andrew: Well, I'm with him in that - hold on one second, Elysa. I'm with him in that - I'm not taking either of your sides. What I'm saying is that I've seen some pages of the book. They're online on that legal website and it's an A to Z index. It's just a copy and paste of what Steve did. And Steve didn't put work into this. He just - I mean he put work into his free website but not into his book that he's paying for - that he's making...

Elysa: Yes, exactly.

Andrew: ...people pay for.

Laura: That's what I think the context is. It's just exactly that. It's not sloppy and lazy to put together stuff for volunteer work or to put something up for free that's, you know, that's available by access for fans who are really into the books. But it is sloppy and lazy to take what had previously been free for the past what, six to eight years?

Andrew: Yes. Yes.

Laura: And then try to sell it.

Andrew: Yes.

Laura: When people can still get it for free online.

Micah: Well, there is a sloppy and lazy element to just taking something and copying it over, right? I mean...

Laura: Yes.

Andrew: Oh yeah. I - yea. [laughs]

Micah: That's why I'm not agreeing with what he's saying here, and I think it was worthy of her personal endorsement online because she looked at what he did, what MuggleNet did, what Leaky did, what a host of other fansites have done, and she acknowledged that, and I'm not - it's impossible for everything, the way that it's organized online, to be put into the book the exact same way, and she even brought points - some spells, a character, that were not, you know, the same as what she knew it to be when she wrote the book. So I think that's also the points that she was referring to when she said it was sloppy and lazy.

Matt: Well, you can also - can't she also say it's sloppy and lazy compared to, you know, her encyclopedia that she's going to be posting?

Andrew: But it's not the same thing, and J.K. Rowling's isn't even - encyclopedia - I mean, this is one thing we discussed last week, and thank God she is calling it an encyclopedia, because her case wouldn't stand as much. I mean, yeah, it wouldn't affect the Fair Use Doctrine, but it would affect what else WB is trying to fight - the fact that J.K. Rowling is developing her own encyclopedia and Steve's would take away sales from that.

Elysa: Well I...

Andrew: Imagine if - Go ahead, Elysa.

Law is on Rowling's Side

Elysa: Okay, I just wanted to say - I think it was Eric or someone that pointed out that this was a really passionate e-mail and sort of like the opposite argument - and, you know, what's curious about that is that passion is an emotion, and secondly, at the end it says, "if this suit isn't over money then it is most certainly over ego." I have to be honest. I don't really care what it's over. I don't care if it's over money, or ego, or what Bill or anyone else thinks is the root of the issue. Who cares? I don't care if she cries. I don't care if she goes out and says that she hates infants and puppies. I don't care what she says or what she does. I don't care what Steve Vander Ark does. None of that matters to me and I respectfully, completely, and utterly reject the notion that as Harry Potter fans we're somehow incapable of also being objective. I can be objective. I can't speak for anyone else but I'm being objective when I say that I really, honestly don't care how many water works she or anyone else puts on. This is, in my opinion, about the principle, and I do agree with Bill that it is, in fact, about the law, and as a law student I just personally think that the law's on J.K. Rowling's side. That's all that there is to it, so I think, you know, I think that just because we disagree does not necessarily make us unable to be objective and somehow others who side with Steve Vander Ark are objective. I mean, clearly there was a lot of emotion in the responses to us as well, so we're certainly not the only ones.

Andrew: You say it, girl!

Laura: Yeah, really.

Elysa Clearing Up Her Statements

Eric: I want to bring up two things. First of all, you really offended a lot of people that I know, actually, Elysa, last week when you said that people don't have principles if they don't know about - you said like the world wide had no principles out there and that was kind of really brash and kind of inappropriate, I think, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not calling to chew you out. But the Harry Potter Lexicon - Micah mentioned the fansite award, which had been given. Now I've found in the transcripts something that I just want to share with you guys quickly because it kind of goes with one of the points that this Bill guy was saying.

Elysa: Hold on. Wait, wait. Can I just interrupt really quick? I mean, like no, I don't - I'm not offended by you saying that, Eric, but I do want to attempt to at least respond to that. Okay? So can I respond to the offensive thing?

Andrew: Go.

Eric: Yeah! You're a host.

Elysa: Okay... [laughs]... good, because I didn't want to skip over that. I believe what I said, and if I didn't then I will apologize for not making this clear, but what I said and what I meant was that if people cannot understand how this can be an argument over principles then they are probably not principled themselves. That doesn't mean that if you disagree that you don't have principles. You can disagree and still be a principled person and understand, but then you're disagreeing on principle. You're disagreeing based off of the premise of law and not based off of, in fact, emotion. So that's all I was saying is that if someone says this isn't about principles, this is only about money and only about profit, and taking a very cynical approach, I would argue that they haven't seen, you know, they haven't had experience in the principled version of the law before, so...

J.K.R.'s Fansite Awards

Eric: I always go along with my school principals. So getting on with this thing here. I have this quote here that I wanted to bring up before we moved on, and it's a really good - I don't want to call J.K.R. out anymore - especially anymore than Bill just did, but there's a quote here that someone brought to my attention as well. It's on Day 1 of the trial. This is just - I'm going to run through this fast. Question - this is to J.K Rowling in court trial Day 1. "Question: Did, in 2004, did you give a fan site award to the Harry Potter Lexicon Web site? Answer: Yes, I did. Question: Is that the only Web site you've given fan site awards to? [Answer:] No. I believe I've given the fan site award to about eight Web sites now. Question: Why did you give the award to the Lexicon? J.K. Rowling answers, I believed then that Mr. Vander Ark was showing quite obsessive interest in the Harry Potter books. But in a positive way. I didn't think that what he created was of immense use, but I thought that it demonstrated a real passion for my work. And I - I gave the award, I would have to say, as a kind of A for effort. I could see that time had gone into his creation. Question: Did you give the award because you thought the site was of great quality? Answer: No." Okay, so J.K. Rowling has said that, but then I've gone back to J.K Rowling's official site when she gave Steve Vander Ark, the Harry Potter Lexicon, the site award, and this is what J.K Rowling wrote then: "This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an internet cafe while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter (which is embarrassing). A website for the dangerously obsessive; my natural home." So...

Andrew: Later it was cleared up in the trial, Eric. I think it was J.K. Rowling herself that said she had said that on the website to be nice to him about it.

Eric: Well, that's exactly what I'm trying to prove.

Andrew: Because she needed a reason to give him the fansite award.

Eric: So she lied. Is that what it is? Or so she made them look good? Like, I'm just saying, is J.K. Rowling being honest on her site? I mean, she gives a fan site award to someone who has effort, but who she doesn't necessarily like as much as she tells us she likes.

Andrew: Well, I wouldn't like them either if someone had created the MuggleCast encyclopedia and then we endorsed it and then they turned it into a book.

Laura: Yeah.

Eric: But the MuggleCast wiki is fun to read.

Andrew: But it isn't a book.

Laura: Yeah, but they're not selling it.

Eric: I'm saying she wrote this about the website, and in court here she's responding to how she felt then about the website. And I'm saying, you know, what can we trust with J.K.R. now, because that really threw me. That threw me that she was so kind of against it. I guess some of it's the heat of this court, but she said basically, she saw it as obsessive and not very useful. And she's telling us, when she gave him the fansite award, that it was so useful. It was her second home.

Andrew: She used it herself.

Eric: Yeah, and so I'm thinking, well, what can we - how can we trust J.K.R. now, is my question. Because, clearly, this is - I can't help but think there's some reasoning to what Bill is saying and what I had guessed before, that it's kind of a smoke screen to have J.K.R. in this trial at all, that it's kind of confusing the legal...

Andrew: I think that's an interesting point, but I think it was said later on that she - she did say that to - she did say what she said on the fan site award to create purpose.

Eric: But that's an issue with me because she slanted the truth.

Andrew: Well, you got to say what you got to say in court to protect your...

Eric: That's true, that's true.

Andrew: If she admitted in court that it was useful to her then that's basically saying it's useful - then that meets one of the Fair Use Doctrines. Is it useful? Does it give purpose to the - what was the point?

Eric: Hm. Whose side is that, though?

Andrew: It gives purpose - do you remember, we discussed that last week? It gives purpose to the...

Eric: If it creates sort of appreciation. If it enhances the appreciation.

Andrew: That was it. Yeah.

Eric: That was point one.

Andrew: Yeah, so I think that could answer it.

Micah: Just one final thing, though, that Bill mentioned was the fact that, sort of, J.K. Rowling started this whole thing. And, I just want to say, reading through some of the testimony from the first day, and Laura mentioned this before, it didn't have to get to this point, and it was actually - I believe it was Warner Brothers who filed the suit. And if you look through that testimony, RDR Books, okay, did a lot of underhanded stuff throughout the course of this entire process. So, to say, "Hey, Jo, you started this," I don't really buy into that because I know that Jo tried to resolve the situation and did not want it to escalate to the point that it got to, and RDR Books was not compliant at all with Warner Brothers from the get-go.

Muggle Mail: When Will We Find Out The Judge's Decision?

Andrew: One last e-mail today from Jonathan Wu, 13, of Rochester, New York.

"Hi guys, I'm currently listening to Episode 142 when you are talking about J.K. Rowling and her case against RDR Books and etc. I would like to know when we are going to find out the ending or whatever it's called in court where they choose what happens to who. Sorry if I sound confusing. Keep up the good work."

Well, we get your point, Jonathan. And it's a couple weeks at this point. Right? And the judge is going to make his decision. Is that correct, Micah?

Micah: Yeah. I believe so. I mean I haven't heard anything official, really, in anything that we've read that says he's going to deliver a verdict on this date or that date.

Andrew: No, there's no set date. I think...

Eric: Well, weren't they going to go to the Supreme Court?

Micah: He even said...

Andrew: It could.

Micah: No, that's only if they appeal.

Andrew: Yeah.

Micah: I mean, that's...

Andrew: Which will happen.

Micah: Whoever loses this case is going to appeal; there's no question about that. But the thing is, the law is so vague in this case and we talked about it on the last show and even Elysa brought up, you know, previous court cases which Judge Patterson is going to have to use in his decision, obviously, and it's just - it's going to take a while to come to a decision about this, and that's why he, you know, was so strongly trying to support the idea of a settlement, which I don't think is going to happen either. So, it's going to be interesting and it's going to be a while before we hear something.

Andrew: Anyway, enough trial talk for today. Laura, we have to let you go now because you're, like, being studious or something.

Laura: Yeah, you know.

Everyone: Bye, Laura!

Laura: Bye, everyone!

Chapter-by-Chapter: Chapter 17, "The Final Hiding Place"

Andrew: It's time now for Chapter-by-Chapter. This week we're going to take a look at Chapter 27, "The Final Hiding Place." It's an extremely short chapter.

Eric: The end. [laughs]

Andrew: It's literally six pages long in the U.K. edition.

Matt: Oh. You're reading the U.K. version. Ooh.

Andrew: Yeah, I got my U.K. book here. Brings back memories. "Final Hiding Place," and, Matt, what happens in this chapter? A brief summary?

Matt: This is the chapter after the Gringott's chapter where they left on the - do we even know what dragon it is?

Eric: Yeah, oh it's not...

Matt: Is it even talked about?

Eric: Yeah, we don't know what it is. 'Cause we thought, we had speculated, that is was the Opal Eye...

Andrew: Not at this point, we don't.

Eric: Because of the opal eye, but actually it's just any kind of other dragon, but it's been blinded, you know, by living down in the dark so long. So, we were wrong.

Matt: Right. So, we find Harry, Hermione and Ron in the middle of their flight on the dragon to wherever the dragon is going. They have absolutely no idea where the dragon is going because they have absolutely no idea where they are. They left Diagon Alley and they are flying over, I believe it is, like, Muggle villages. And so it...

Andrew: Well, it said London. It said London.

Matt: Right. Well, yeah, they flew over London. Sorry.

A Dragon Flying Over London

Andrew: Yeah, and here's the first thing that got me: what - don't people see these guys flying on a dragon? Isn't this - shouldn't this be reported? It's like, I mean, you know, whatever. Obviously, they got to get out of there, but maybe if it was darker. I don't know. This is just...

Matt: Well, you know, London is very cloudy. I mean, it rains a lot.

Andrew: Yeah, that's true.

Eric: It's a temperate zone. It's a temperate zone.

Matt: There's overcasts all the time.

Andrew: I guess you could make that case, sure. It's just like the flying car thing, but even with...

Matt: But they were seen.

Andrew: Yeah, they were seen, weren't they?

Eric: They were seen in the flying car, yeah, but, I mean, the point I want to make is that they couldn't control the dragon; they can't steer the dragon even if they wanted to, because trying to do so would alert the dragon to their presence. They have to lay low. They are so helpless, powerless to really control anything on the back of this dragon because they can't really let him know that they're there. Even when they jump off the dragon they have to do it stealthily because, well, it probably hasn't eaten in a really long time, and, you know, the quote in the book is three "highly edible humans" were riding on its back, so it's kind of dangerous, but cool all the same. They were, you know, yeah - they're holding on for dear life.

Matt: And the book also says the dragon was flying fairly high, and so probably if anyone ever saw them, they'd probably think it was a plane or something. Kind of like how only six or seven Muggles actually reported that they saw a flying car. There was probably a bunch more people but they just shrugged it off and thought it was just something else.

Andrew: Ah, it's just another flying car.

Eric: Here's another question, because it was - because Diagon Alley can't be seen by Muggles, at least at first, and I guess, you know, Muggle parents of wizard children do go to it, you know, as we've seen, I guess. We saw the Grangers in Flourish and Blotts in Book 2, but I'm thinking because it came out of Diagon Alley, and kind of went straight up into the sky, maybe it was protected under some kind of concealment charm? You know, so that they wouldn't have seen the - because I mean, it's not exactly like the Leaky Cauldron - that Diagon Alley is geographically in the same location as like the buildings in London. It's not like - so do you see what I'm saying - that the dragon might still be protected because...

Hidden Geographical Locations

Andrew: Yeah, I have a question about that. Is Diagon Alley like unmapped territory?

Eric: Well, you'd think that...

Andrew: Like, if you flew over it, would you see it as a Muggle?

Eric: Well, no.

Matt: No.

Eric: You'd think that Muggle people would've realized that there's a sort of three block long gap in between, you know, the streets and stuff.

Andrew: Well, right. I know.

Eric: So I wouldn't...

Andrew: Unless the Ministry of Magic bought the property.

Matt: I think it's basically like the same excuse they use for Hogwarts, the castle at Hogwarts.

Andrew: You just can't see it, yeah.

Matt: You know, when someone comes across it, you just can't see it or it doesn't even exist. Like, there are probably buildings all around it, just like with Grimmauld Place. The apartment or the house just comes out of no where. I mean, it's magic.

Andrew: It is magic.

Matt: It's magic, guys.

Eric: And it could be like St. Mungo's, which is what, an actual department store location, Purge and Dells, and then that actually happens to be St. Mungo's. So we've seen a big variety of buildings used - sort of how they work.

Harry Casts Protective Charms

Andrew: Yeah. So the dragon lands - well, the dragon is descending and Harry, Hermione and Ron jump off the back into the water as soon as they think they're close enough, and they get to the shore, and immediately Harry summons all these protective charms, and, Matt, you're saying this is the first time he did this. Do you think there was a reason?

Matt: Yeah. Well, I think basically because he was the person who was at an emotional ease at the moment because I think he was - I think it says he was the first person to get on shore and collect himself, probably. Because he was the one who was thinking the most.

Andrew: Yeah, Hermione just collapsed.

Matt: Hermione had pretty much an emotional breakdown, it seems, when she was at the dragon. She was crying during the entire flight, so she was probably collecting herself that whole moment, too. I mean, it was a pretty traumatic experience. And Hermione is usually the one who actually does all the summoning charms, and this was just Harry's time - first time to do it.

Flying on a Dragon is a Traumatic Experience

Andrew: You would think, now, that flying on the back of a dragon wouldn't be very traumatizing at this point in their lives, don't you think?

Eric: No, you wouldn't! It's still a big dragon.

Andrew: Wouldn't that be like just riding on - in the back of a car to them?

Matt: Well, maybe she's crying because she has like, half a dozen sores on her body, too.

Laura: Yeah.

Andrew: Well, I'm just putting it all in perspective. I mean. You know.

Eric: We - they don't actually realize, though, how high they are in the air on this dragon - which is three, four times their size. I mean, even if you were realistically twenty feet off the ground on something really hard - or sorry, something really huge - and you're holding on by these scales - these metallic - there's no handlebars, there's no seat belts, and you're going so fast at such a speed the wind is - I mean it's amazing they were able to hold on. They were holding on for dear life and the higher they went, the colder it got. They're just happy to be alive. I'm surprised they could move once they got in the water. You know, because of how fast they'd been traveling.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, I hear you.

Matt: Yeah.

Andrew: I was trying to be funny.

Matt: I - I can see that.

Harry Inside Voldemort's Mind

Andrew: So, with the big part of this chapter is that Harry gets into Voldemort's mind.

Eric: Yeah, as big...

Andrew: By the big part, I mean all four pages.

[Eric laughs]

Eric: Out of six, yeah.

Andrew: Four out of six. Yeah.

Eric: [sighs] It's - it's - yeah, it's really cool. I liked this part a lot - this scene.

Matt: So, basically, Harry gets a glimpse inside Voldemort's mind, and this usually occurs when Voldemort has, you know, extreme emotional reactions to something. And we all know what it is. Vol - we see Voldemort at Gringotts in front of a group of bodies and things, and there's this one goblin whose saying like, "Forgive me. They went in." And he's like extremely, extremely disgruntled right now, and he's asking, "What did they take?" And they said something about - let me see. Do you guys - do you guys know what it said?

Andrew: Well, I mean at this point, Voldemort is the most furious I think we've ever seen him thus far. He just starts killing people left and right.

Matt: Well, this - 'cause this is the scene where Voldemort finally comes to the conclusion that they know - they're after the Horcruxes, and they know what they are.

Eric: Or he suspects it. It's just the first time he suspects it. He's even angrier when he finds out that his Horcruxes are missing, but, I mean, he found out he lost one of them, and he thinks he still has like four or something, but, you know, later he realizes he doesn't. I mean, when you were speaking about if Harry went in intentionally to Voldemort's mind, in this instance, no, but I think in this point he was expecting it. You know, I mean the reason that it's called "The Final Hiding Place" - this is pretty much, you know - Harry says to Ron and Hermione, "I think they may have noticed we broke out of Gringotts." Or maybe Ron said that. Yeah, that was Ron...

Matt: That was Ron that said it.

Eric: So they really know that Voldemort is about to find out, and they're going to have to go as fast as they possibly can. And so Harry's kind of - I bet Harry is expecting to be so taken into Voldemort's mind when he wants to kill everyone.

Matt: Well, what - this is - this is what I find fascinating, is when Voldemort gets very angry or very emotional, he always becomes submissive to Occlumency, and that's why Harry can go into his mind.

Eric: Well, I don't know that it's Occlumency...

Matt: Because he's vulnerable.

Eric: I don't know, if someone were trying to penetrate his mind in the normal defenses...

Matt: Or not...

Eric: ...he would still be able to rebuff them. I mean, I think this is...

Andrew: But he couldn't in this situation, that's what Matt's saying.

Matt: But you always see - you always see him going into his mind when Voldemort is very emotional or very angry.

Eric: Well, that's when it crosses the barrier. Usually they would live in harmony, but when Voldemort's very angry, it's that his anger is felt through all sort of parts of, you know, Harry's connection, and it crosses over.

Elysa: Yeah, I would of thought - I would have thought that Voldemort would've, you know, done something to prevent this because, I mean, he knows that Harry has this ability.

Eric: Well he was.

Elysa: He knows that this happens.

Eric: The - in Book 5 they said, "we have reason to believe that Voldemort is now using Occlumency against you," like trying...

Elysa: Right, exactly.

Eric: Yeah, to prevent Harry from blocking his - but in this case, I mean you guys got to think about this - somebody who knows and thinks that they are immortal. Somebody who killed - who made seven Horcruxes, put them in the far reaches of the globe, who was absolutely not concerned with really, really dying, has found out that some obscure item, this little cup - of all the things in the Bellatrix Lestrange's vault, or in the Lestrange's vault, this little cup, the one he turned into a Horcrux, and Voldemort's daring not to believe it. He's a - you know, maybe they like cups. You know ,maybe Harry has a cup fetish I don't know about. You know, because he can't...

[Elysa laughs]

Eric: He can't possibly accept the heinous truth, the horrible truth, that somehow they found out about his Horcruxes.

Matt: No, he knows they know.

Eric: No, he doesn't

Matt: He just knows.

Eric: Not yet he doesn't

Matt: Yeah, he does.

Eric: No, he doesn't.

Matt: He's trying to - no - he knows that he's safe. He's in denial of the fact that they have them because he's in denial saying, "no, this Horcrux is safely in this place, he will never know about this one."

Eric: Well, that's - that's the thing.

Andrew: Well J.K. Rowling writes it as, "it could not be true, it was impossible. Nobody had ever known. How was in possible that the boy had discovered his secret?" So I think he did know.

Elysa: Yeah.

Andrew: I mean, what are the chances?

Eric: He knows - he certainly know that Harry has a Horcrux of his, but at this point, I think until he discovers that the other ones are gone - that some of the other ones are gone, he doesn't really know how screwed he is.

Elysa: Right.

Matt: No, he knows. He's trying to convince himself that it's not true, and he tries to convene that he's - that it's not true that Harry knows all about them. Who can possibly tell Harry what the Horcruxes are and then he goes to Dumbledore. And he goes, "surely Dumbledore was always the one who was after me, and knew my secrets."

Eric: He's considering the possibilities, but at this point I don't think he knows they certainly have him pinned. I really don't because he...

Matt: I think so...

Eric: ...because he was certain...

Matt: ...because it's the reason why he goes - then why does he go to all his Horcruxes, then, after this argument?

Eric: Because he wants to double their protection just in case.

Matt: Exactly.

Eric: He wants to double their protection just in case. And he says...

Elysa: He wants to make sure.

Micah: He goes after the Horcruxes - yeah, exactly, to make sure. He's not a hundred percent certain at this point.

Eric: But he's worried. He's more worried than he's ever been.

Micah: I wouldn't say he's one hundred percent certain. But he's worried. He's absolutely worried, and that's why he decides to go out and look for these Horcruxes. He's - it's not- He's in denial, there's no question about that, but I don't think he knows one hundred percent certainty that Harry has destroyed...

Elysa: No.

Micah: ...all the remaining Horcruxes. There's no way he's going to know until he actually gets to these places.

Elysa: Right, like he was obviously - he was obviously suspicious. I mean, I think that's why he was going through all of those justifications with himself and saying, oh no, he couldn't know this, how could he know that, whenever else, but there's no possible way that he knew, that you know, whatever - Regulus Black and had taken the Locket, and there's no possible way that he knew that Dumbledore had gotten the Ring whatever else. So, I mean, he was obviously suspicious enough that he wanted to go out and protect them and find them, but I don't - there's no way he could have known the specifics at that point.

Andrew: This leads back to our original point, why Harry could get in Voldemort's mind, and I think it's just that Voldemort was so distracted he can't concentrate on keeping Harry out. Isn't that it? Can you subconsciously keep your mind closed?

Eric: No, when you're that...

Andrew: From intrusion?

Micah: Well, he's very powerful.

Matt: Especially when a really big blow hits you.

Andrew: Yeah, exactly. Well, that's what I'm saying.

Matt: I mean this was a tremendous blow.

Andrew: It was such a big hit that he's not concentrating on - I mean, yes he is thinking about Harry but he's not thinking about keeping Harry out of his mind. He's got this huge blow to his plan, I mean, you know.

Micah: Well, if you look throughout the course of this book, though, it wasn't more about trying to maybe get into Harry's mind and seeing where he was or what he was doing, trying to lure him into another place. Voldemort was so committed throughout this entire book, you know, to getting the Elder Wand, to pursuing that whole thing. And Harry was able to follow along, and if not for Voldemort, you know, letting his defenses down in this way, Harry would've never figured out...

Andrew: Yeah.

Micah: ...these pieces to the puzzle.

Andrew: Yeah.

Micah: And, you know, this is just kind of like the final moment where Voldemort is starting to - like you were saying, Andrew - he's starting to let his guard down. He's just not as...

Andrew: He has.

Micah: ...you know, as fortified as...

Andrew: I mean.

Micah: ...as he was initially.

Andrew: Yeah. Well, what an idiot when, you know - he's having - the thoughts that he's having right now are the most important thoughts Harry could hear other than hearing the exact locations of where the Horcruxes are.

Matt: Well, now he knows for the fact that Nagini is one of his Horcruxes because he says it, that Nagini cannot stray away from him anymore and she has to be under his protection at all times.

Eric: Exactly.

Elysa: Well, here's what's interesting, though, is that Voldemort was clearly off his guard, and not just because of his emotion, because - I'm looking on page 550 in the American version. It says that, "A modicum of calm cooled his rage now." So, he was calming himself down and you can visibly notice it in the writing, that he's not nearly as angry as he has been previously. And then he starts thinking in his mind rationally, logically, where everything was. I think the second - I mean, I think that, first of all, it's a little ironic that one of Voldemort's major downfalls will be his emotions, and secondly, the fact that once he had calmed down he hadn't thought to himself, "Oh jeez! I know how this connection with me and Harry works. I was just really pissed off, and perhaps I should close my mind down right now before I start thinking about finding all these secret hiding spots," but he didn't. So, not only he was emotional, he just wasn't even being logical either.

Eric: Mhm.

Matt: Yeah. Well, Harry was in his mind, but I don't think he ever thought about the fact that Harry might still be out there, subconsciously aware of Voldemort's mind.

Eric: Yeah, I think he's got the Potter issue kind of really taken care of, you know, in his mind. He knows he's still out there, but certainly had no clue how far Dumbledore had let Harry in until now. But that said...

Matt: Mhm. Well, he had no clue about how much Dumbledore knew about him too to begin with.

Eric: Well, I always wanted to say, I mean, just the idea that Voldemort has prized possessions, that he's human enough to have sort of grand scale of importance. Yes, he's egocentric and, you know, just the fact that you can follow a pattern with Voldemort is still really cool and kind of leads to his downfall, because Dumbledore is able to use, you know, certain things and try and figure out what's important to Voldemort. You know, everybody has sort of a set of things that are very important to them and it's just, you know, Voldemort is just shocked that somebody took so much interest, I guess. But he's now very in danger.

Matt: What I like about this whole going through his head, what Voldemort does, is the most interesting is that it answers the question, what happens when a Horcrux is destroyed? Because it goes through - like in page 443 in the U.K. version, it says, "But surely if the boy had destroyed any of the Horcruxes, he, Lord Voldemort, would have known, would have felt it." He goes, "well, it's true that he didn't feel that the diary was destroyed when it was by Harry, but surely any of the other ones he would've felt it." He's trying to convince himself that even though he knows the truth that he himself can't feel a Horcrux being destroyed.

Eric: He's scared, which is, I mean, it's so great for J.K.R. to be able to personalize - oh sorry, characterize this because previously she's...

Eric: ...characterized him as being so evil, like in the graveyard scene, and pretty much every other scene. You know up till now he's been very evil, not vulnerable at all, very - well, he's always been vulnerable but, you know, for all different reasons. Now he's scared and that's something you don't see in Voldemort very often, you know. She only characterized him as being scared before when he was a kid, you know, and was fearful of Dumbledore as a kid. And it's just - it's so brilliant to have this. I think it's very well written.

Micah: But would he be able to feel it, really? I mean, you know, we talked about him really being capable of being feeling any sort of emotion and, you know, the...

Eric: Dumbledore doubts it.

Micah: ...the fact that he split himself into all these different pieces, I would think, would have such a negative affect on him that, you know, even if one of his pieces of his soul were destroyed, I mean you're constantly cutting your soul into smaller and smaller halves or, you know, fractions or however you want to phrase it. Yeah, so aren't you losing a bit of yourself every single time that you do that, so the ability maybe to feel just diminishes every single time that you - you create a Horcrux.

Eric: That's what Dumbledore said. Dumbledore said that specifically. He said he thinks, you know, Voldemort was so out of touch with his other, you know, the fragments of soul. His soul was so fragmented that he doubts he will be able to feel if a Horcrux was destroyed because Harry asked him that.

Matt: Yeah. Well, he also has a half-life also. If you recall, he did drink the blood of unicorns in the first book. So maybe that made him, you know, numb to the fact that he can't feel his Horcrux being destroyed too.

Micah: Yeah, it's possible.

Matt: I don't know. I'm always constantly trying to think what the whole significance of him drinking unicorn blood did to his fate.

Eric: Yeah, that hasn't come out but that's not really terribly a big deal I guess, because he lost his parasitic body and then was reborn so I kind of - I think it kind of passed over maybe. Maybe he escaped the unicorn blood curse.

Andrew: So...

Eric: But...

Andrew: ...moving along.

Eric: ...then it's the end of the chapter. Then it's...

Andrew: No, it's not.

Eric: It's the end of the chapter.

Hermione's Reaction

Matt: Well, no they - basically they - okay, after Harry comes out of the Voldemort coma, so to speak, he tells Harry and Hermione - or Ron and Hermione about what happened. And what I find really interesting is this is the first time that Hermione is very intrigued on what Harry saw in Voldemort. She's actually - this actually was a positive thing that actually happened to it and she's not complaining about him...

Andrew: Well, it's about time.

Matt: ...going into Voldemort's mind.

Andrew: I mean, you know, for the longest time...

[Matt laughs]

Andrew: ...finally Hermione is coming around and pulling the stick out of her you-know-what, and it's like...

Eric: Did you just really say that?

Andrew: Yeah, because I feel like, obviously, this was a huge thing for them to know.

Matt: It's what they needed.

Andrew: And I mean - yeah, whether Hermione wanted to hear it or not, she needed to hear it. So...

Matt: Well, and also basically...

Andrew: ...I thought...

Micah: There was no choice.

Matt: ...you know, Voldemort's on the run now after them. There's no point in...

Micah: Yeah.

Matt: Who cares now?

[Eric laughs]

Micah: There's no choice.

Eric: They just need to get to Hogwarts. They need to find...

Making a Plan

Andrew: So they realize it's a race against time, and at this point, you know, Harry's rushing to get to Hogwarts, and Hermione's saying, "No, we need to make a plan," which would probably be a good idea of taking a look at what happened in Gringotts and what happened...

Eric: No, that's the whole thing. It's a good idea to move forward because their previous plan sucked. They spent three weeks doing the exactly that - planning at Shell Cottage, and at the end it just turned out to be whim of the, you know, on every whim whatever they could do to escape.

Matt: But this situation's just a little bit different that Gringotts. They broke in, they know where they are now, they know they're after the Horcrux, and they know that Voldemort's on their tail now. They don't really have any time to plan anything anyway now. Whether they could in Gringotts, they can't now.

Eric: Right, but if they did it would be worthless because they don't know - they don't control the board. They don't know at all what they're facing.

Matt: Well, they don't know what's - they don't know what's going on now. The only thing that they know is - is that it's in Hogwarts, and that's the only thing they could do. They have no idea what's at Hogsmeade or Hogwarts. All they can do is just go there now and just face what they can because there's no way they can find it out for themselves anyway.

Andrew: Wow. And also, the thing about rushing the plan - the last time they rushed a plan, they went to the Ministry of Magic, and - I mean, yeah, they got out of it, of course, but that - that plan also sort of fell apart, and they rushed that. Remember when...

Eric: Yeah...

Andrew: It's basically the same situation. Hermione was like, we need to have a plan, and Harry was like no we need to do it now, and Harry was right, but, you know, this is what happens, and...

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