Changes: The Quibbler

Revision as of 08:45, 27 September 2015

Ted Tonks: "The Prophet? You deserved to be lied to if you're still reading that muck, Dirk. You want the facts?, try The Quibbler."

Dirk Cresswell: " The Quibbler? That lunatic rag of Xeno Lovegood's?"

Ted Tonks: "It's not so lunatic these days, you'll want to give it a look. Xeno is printing all the stuff the Prophet's ignoring, not a single mention of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks in the last issue. How long they'll let you get away with it, mind, I don't know. But Xeno says, front page of every issue, that any wizard who's against You-Know-Who ought to make helping Harry Potter their number-one priority."

— Ted Tonks and Dirk Cresswell discussing The Quibbler in 1997^[src]

The Quibbler is a wizarding tabloid published and edited by Xenophilius Lovegood, father of Luna Lovegood. Luna gets every issue of The Quibbler when it is published, which could contribute to her often odd beliefs.

The Quibbler publishes odd articles, including conspiracy theories and discussions of imaginary creatures; it also published Rita Skeeter's interview of Harry Potter on Lord Voldemort's return. Many think The Quibbler is rubbish, including Hermione Granger, Rita Skeeter, and Dirk Cresswell; the latter referred to it as a "lunatic rag," and when Hermione informed Rita that she would be publishing the interview in the Quibbler, Rita looked at Hermione with disdain.

History

In the early to mid-1990s, The Quibbler published many ridiculous articles, such as those on the supposed existence of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. In July or August 1995, the magazine published an edition with an article that put forward the theory that Sirius Black was actually the reclusive rock star Stubby Boardman.^[1] When Harry Potter read the article on the Hogwarts Express, he found it to be total rubbish. The same issue also had a segment written in Runes which caused the reader to look at the magazine upside down.^[1]

Interview with Harry Potter

"Dad's reprinting!....I can't believe it, he says people seem even more interested in this than the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks!"

— Luna Lovegood^[src]

The Quibbler scored a journalistic coup in February of 1996 when the magazine agreed to run an interview with Harry Potter concerning the Rebirth of Lord Voldemort.^[2] The interview, given by ex-Daily Prophet columnist Rita Skeeter, was published in the March edition, and as it offered another take on recent events, the magazine quickly sold out.^[2]Dolores Umbridge, a Ministry bureaucrat acting as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Hogwarts High Inquisitor, and later Headmistress at Hogwarts, banned students from having copies of the Quibbler after this article, as she and the Ministry were intent on denying Voldemort's return.

However, Hermione was very pleased about this, saying that the one thing Umbridge could have done to make all the students (and teachers) want to read it was to ban it, as the students were very focused on rebelling against the sadistic tyrant. Harry received lots of fan mail during breakfast at the Great Hall, and some letters said he had them convinced, especially after the Ministry's poor reaction to the 1996 mass breakout from Azkaban. In the article, he names all the Death Eaters he saw in the Little Hangleton graveyard and gives as many details as he could of the night Voldemort returned. Though Rita was displeased about writing for the Quibbler, and even more displeased that she wasn't going to get paid for it, she was blackmailed into writing the article by Hermione, who threatened to reveal to the world that Skeeter was an unregistered Animagus.

The interview with Harry went on to be one of the biggest selling individual issues ever. After the Battle of the Department of Mysteries and the world was forced to believe Voldemort had returned, the Daily Prophet began to stop slandering Harry Potter and call him the "lone voice of truth". In addition, they used this interview in their paper, calling it "exclusive", even though it was printed in the Quibbler months ago. By late summer that same year, The Quibbler had returned to its usual form, offering an issue with free Spectrespecs to see wrackspurts.^[3]

Second Wizarding War

During the height of the Second Wizarding War, when Voldemort took over the Ministry of Magic, The Quibbler was one of the only media outlets to print the truth and publicly support Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.^[4] To combat this dissent, the Death Eaters abducted Luna, and held her hostage against Xenophilius's good behaviour in the basement of Malfoy Manor.^[5]

Due to his daughter's capture, Xenophilus began printing stories advocating the capture of "Undesirable No. 1" (Harry), and when Harry, Hermione, and Ron Weasley came to visit his home in the spring of 1998, Xenophilius tried to turn them in to the Ministry (i.e. the Death Eaters) in a desperate attempt to get his daughter back. The trio narrowly escaped, and Xenophilius was imprisoned in Azkaban and his house was blown up because of an Erumpent horn .^[5]

Later work

"[The Quibbler] has returned to its usual condition of advanced lunacy, and is appreciated for its unintentional humour."

— J. K. Rowling on the Quibbler after the defeat of Voldemort

After Voldemort's defeat, The Quibbler returned to printing its strange theories, possibly including proof of the existence of some creatures discovered by Luna Lovegood, who became a famous wizarding naturalist.

Known articles

Main article: The Quibbler articles

File:P1100788.jpg

The Quibbler - Harry Potter Studios

Best-selling Quibbler

"HARRY POTTER SPEAKS OUT AT LAST: THE TRUTH ABOUT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN"

— a label in front cover of March 1996 edition of The Quibbler^[src]

Quibbler-Luna — Luna reading *The Quibbler* (upside down).

In an effort to make people believe Harry Potter's story of what happened in the graveyard on the night of Lord Voldemort's return, Hermione Granger arranged for an interview between him and Rita Skeeter to be published in The Quibbler, as the Daily Prophet was painting Harry as either a liar or a nutter, in line with the Ministry's stance that the Dark Lord had not returned.

This turned out to be the best-selling issue of all time. Dolores Umbridge banned the magazine from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Educational Decree Number Twenty-Seven once this interview was printed, but students found ways to magically hide the magazine and read it anyway, with many of them reading it purely because Umbrige banned it. This caused a surge in the popularity of The Quibbler making it have to reprint. Xenophilius eventually sold the story to the Daily Prophet once the Ministry was forced to admit that Voldemort had returned, and he and Luna used the money to travel to Sweden in search of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.

Behind the scenes

A cover of The Quibbler which lists Harry Potter as "Undesirable No. 1" was created for the film however it does not appear in the final cut of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
The website The-Leaky-Cauldron launched the online version of the Quibbler, all previously published issues can be access via this link.
The website theHPfan.com published their own Quibbler articles too, but it is no longer available.
To quibble is to avoid or to be vague, so therefore a quibbler is one who avoids or is vague.
At The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Dervish and Banges sells authentic Quibbler wallpapers and copies of it with added Spectrespecs.
The film version of The Quibbler included a number of advertisements, such as one for a Hairdresser.
In the Harry Potter films, The Quibbler sells for one fourth of a Sickle. Exactly how this works in unclear, since one Sickle equals twenty-nine Knuts, which is not divisible by four, and there are no smaller denominations of wizarding currency.
In the Brazilian translations of the Harry Potter books published by Editora Rocco, The Quibbler is translated as O Pasquim. O Pasquim was also the title of a real Brazilian periodical, which was among the most well-known of the media sources to resist against the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985.

Appearances

The Harry Potter Wiki has 91 images related to The Quibbler.

Notes and references

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Chapter 10, "Luna Lovegood")
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Chapter 25, "The Beetle at Bay")
↑ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Chapter 7, "The Slug Club")
↑ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Chapter 15, "The Goblin's Revenge")
↑ ^5.0 ^5.1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Chapter 20, "Xenophilius Lovegood")

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 {{Dialogue a-b-a|Ted Tonks|The ''[[Daily Prophet|Prophet]]''? You deserved to be lied to if you're still reading that muck, Dirk. You want the facts?, try ''The Quibbler''.|Dirk Cresswell| ''The Quibbler''? That lunatic rag of [[Xenophilius Lovegood|Xeno Lovegood]]'s?|It's not so lunatic these days, you'll want to give it a look. Xeno is printing all the stuff the ''Prophet's'' ignoring, not a single mention of [[Crumple-Horned Snorkack]]s in the last issue. How long they'll let you get away with it, mind, I don't know. But Xeno says, front page of every issue, that any wizard who's against [[Tom Riddle|You-Know-Who]] ought to make helping [[Harry Potter]] their number-one priority.|[[Ted Tonks]] and [[Dirk Cresswell]] discussing ''The Quibbler'' in [[1997]]|Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows}}