The TQ Archives Please Do Not Litter!

The premiere of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban has many a muggle excited. But how well have the muggles done with the story of the most famous young wizard in the wizarding world?

“They’ve done quite well,” responds Harold Edenton, an expert on the quirks and workings of muggles. “For attempting to capture magic in a bottle, so to speak, they’ve really accomplished loads.”

Not everyone agrees with him.

“The witch who detailed the life of young Mr. Potter—and continues to detail it—was almost perfect in her relation of the story. She wrote it all down exactly as it happened. Those muggles who took the stories and adapted them into motion pictures left out quite a bit of her version of the story, and that is distressing,” says Mary-Anne Morenan, a witch who works for the Ministry of Magic’s Muggle Relations Office. “The point was to make sure they understood exactly what happened with Mr. Potter. When you reverse the roles, change the words, and alter the characters a wee bit, it detracts from the truthfulness of the story.”

The first motion picture, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was a fairly faithful adaptation, but left out some important occurrences.

“There was virtually NO Quidditch!” cried Ludo Bagman, a representative of Muggle games and sports, who would not reveal how he managed to see the muggle movie. “One great scene…but no epic battles, out there on the pitch, with great whallopings by the Beaters. It was a travesty.”

The movie makers also altered the scenes in the Forbidden Forest, making it so that Ron Weasley accompanied Harry, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy instead of Neville Longbottom.

“I suppose it detracts from the characters a bit,” said Mr. Longbottom himself. “But I often get caught in such nasty situations, it was much better off that I managed to get out of that one, at least in the muggle version!”

The second Harry Potter adaptation, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, made even more editing changes.

“Again, no Quidditch,” mourned Bagman. “And the third, I hear, has even less…”

The second movie also left out some important scenes, such as Gryffindor ghost Nearly-Headless Nick’s 500th Deathday Party.

“I suppose I should expect such things,” said Nick. “After being denied the Headless Hunt, nothing more could seem shameful.” Also omitted were a great many Ginny Weasley scenes, many scenes detailing Harry’s exile by the rest of the school, and, perhaps most importantly, Peeves, the school Poltergeist.

“Peeves personally defiled every copy of the Harry Potter movies we managed to get our hands on,” said Argus Filch, Caretaker of Hogwarts. “Not that I mind a bit, as they tend to portray certain characters in a negative light.”

Further, events were added in that would never have happened in the books. “I believe the muggle actor who played me actually tried to kill Potter at the end,” said Lucius Malfoy, chuckling. “As if I would be so foolhardy to attack the boy in the school with an Illegal Curse!”

When Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban began to release images from its version of the Potter saga, many wizards were skeptical.

“It looked like a Potter story, but then it didn’t,” said Morenan. “So gritty…and yet some of the images were so very wrong…”

“AND NO QUIDDITCH!” said Bagman, flustered. “NO QUIDDITCH CUP! A TRAVESTY!”

Given the muggle critics responses so far, however, it appears that the new film, despite what wizards think, may just be the most faithful of any of the three stories.

“The word for word paragraphs won’t be present,” says Edenton. “There is no Quidditch Cup, the Whomping Willow scenes are somewhat out of control, and Harry doesn’t receive his Firebolt when he’s supposed to. But overall, muggle reviewers with the opportunity to preview the story say that it captures the essence of Harry Potter, which the other two films haven’t quite achieved. In that sense, it may just be the truest adaptation around.”

“It is the spirit, after all, that counts,” says Harry himself, who appears to be proud of the muggle achievements. “Even if they’re not telling the whole of the story, they’re telling the heart of it, and it is that which the movie should aim to do. In this particular version, I believe they’ve done just that.”

And, after all, its not as though muggles can’t encounter the real truth. Those who want to know the actual story can simply find their way to their local library—and read the books!