In the series, it is strongly hinted, but never confirmed, that cats could see through the Invisibility Cloak. Is there definitive evidence on this, one way or another, and either way, what explains why cats seem to be able to sense people? Thanks! Answer Cats (and most animals in general) rely on all of their senses more than people do. While a cat may not be able to see through an invisibility cloak they most likely would be able to hear or smell something there, which would naturally arouse their suspicion.

We've seen two of the holidays that the students of Hogwarts celebrate, as far as I remember; Halloween and Christmas. Are there any others? Or do they follow whatever muggle traditions are closest to them; for instance, do Irish Wizards celebrate St Patrick's Day? I'm asking purely because I'm interested in knowing how the wizarding world has altered traditions which are common among muggles. (And I'm not limiting it to religious holidays; are there, for instance, bank holidays, or do goblins not want/need holidays?) Answer Wizards celebrate Valentine's Day, as Meg Coates says. In OotP , Harry and Cho have their cringeworthy, awkward date at Madam Puddifoot's tearoom, and of course in CoS , there's Ginny's infamous singing valentine to Harry: His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad . . . Dave DeLong mentioned this was one of Lockhart's schemes. Halloween and Christmas have already been mentioned. In DH , the chapter Malfoy Manor takes...

In the latest trailer a line is delivered at around 1:41 where Han Solo says "a 190 years old!? You look great" and I was wondering if there is a defined concept of a year in the Star Wars universe or would Han Solo just be familiar with the duration of a Kashyyyk solar orbit. Answer A Galactic Standard Year is based on the Galactic Capital, Coruscant. On Coruscant, a year was made up of twelve months spanning 365 days of 24 hours each, with no leap years. The galaxy used a standardized dating system based off of the galactic capital Coruscant. Standard Year | Wookieepedia This is confirmed by Pablo Hidalgo in Rebels Recon (a behind the scenes show for Star Wars: Rebels ) Q: Nolan Jimenez asks, "How is time measured in the galaxy if each planet has a different time of rotation and translation?" A: We kinda assume that there is a standard hour, a standard day, a standard week, a standard month, a unit of measurement that everyone understand how long that is. A...

Do we ever find out, anywhere in Star Trek, whether standard-issue Starfleet communicators (e.g. TOS-era handheld communicators or TNG-era commbadges) require a server to communicate (like a cell phone), or whether they are capable of direct peer-to-peer signaling, without the intervention of any server/trunked system (e.g. based on a starship, satellite, land base station, etc.)? For example, if two Starfleet officers were stranded an arbirary distance from Federation resources, without anything except the clothes on their backs and their commbadges, could they communicate with each other over a reasonable distance, or would they get "no service" error messages or similar? If a Starfleet communicator can be reconfigured on the fly to serve as a server/hub for communicator networking, that counts as an answer (e.g. "Our ship just blew up and we are alone, so let's reset our communicators to not depend on our lost ship. Lt. Jones, tap the code onto your communicator t...

I'm currently watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and as all you know there are many appearances of shapeshifting/changeling characters like the Founders and Odo. I watched Star Trek Voyager 5-6 years ago, and I think I remember the crew encountering some shapeshifting species as they were travelling home? So, are there any other changeling species in Star Trek besides The Founders?

For years I have been trying to track down a film that I saw a clip of on an old BBC show called Screen Test . They introduced the film as "having used the most scrap from scrap yards than any other film." It was either an Australian or a New Zealand film. Post apocalyptic like Mad Max . In-fact for years I thought Mad Max would be the film, but it wasn't. They showed one scene from the film which the contestants answered questions on. A six wheel truck drives up to the camera. It looks like a Mad Max truck. There are at least two people in the truck, a man sits close to us with a woman next to him. He looks through binoculars (sci-fi bins). He sees a long trailer thing on rails and it has sails. Then this land ship is attacked by bandits on motorbikes or something. The sails fall and people run about panicking. Then we cut back to the truck and it drives away. The film is not Battletruck or Damnation Alley . The truck I think had six wheels, but I could be wrong. Not ...

In recent episode of Doctor Who ‘Listen’, Clara ends up in Gallifrey grabbing the Doctor's feet under his bed. That's not supposed to happen is it? I was under the impression that Gallifrey was on a temporal lock-down or something like that after the time war. Did I miss something? Answer The time lock, as it pertains to the mechanism that prevents the Doctor from re-entering the Time War, does not encompass the whole of Gallifrey's past. It only serves to keep time-travelers from coming into the War, and to keep what's in the War from getting out: DOCTOR: Inside the Time War. And the whole War was time-locked. Like, sealed inside a bubble. It's not a bubble, but just think of a bubble. Nothing can get in or get out of the time lock. Gallifrey's past from before the War was never said to be time-locked; however , there seems to be some kind of implied mechanism, that is comparable to a time lock but isn't exactly the same thing, that prevents Time Lords fr...

Is there a real place that the Dursleys' address was based on? We know in-world that they lived at 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey. Does Rowling ever let us know if there was a real world street she based their neighborhood on, if it's not an actual real place? Answer In-universe, it's probably somewhere near Staines. This article in the HP Lexicon gives a very good argument for Little Whinging (the location of the Dursleys' house) being roughly where it's shown on this map, in the far north of Surrey close to Staines. It was filmed in Martins Heron, Berkshire. The filming location , meanwhile, is No. 12, Picket Post Close, in the village of Martins Heron near Bracknell in Berkshire. Here's a screenshot from Google Street View, so you can see it's the same:

I've been trying to find this darn series of books for ages, I read them back in early 2001-02 and can't really remember much of them. I think there were 10-ish books, it was an easy read but a long series. On early publications, the covers, were mainly yellow, with small pictures of whatever happens in that book. The book began with two siblings, a brother and a sister, running in a forest. She conjures up what can only be remembered as a golem type creature. He then uses a high magic 'blast' and wipes out the golem, knackering himself. His sister laughs at him for being 'powerful' but expending himself too much on one big magic blast. The beginning I remember vividly, the rest, not so much. The story continues as a conflict happens, I believe two worlds are involved? The brother and sister are split up, but this is where my memory becomes vague. The mechanics of the world seems that there are gems, or stones, set in the backbone, which in turn give access to m...

In the second X-Men movie, X2 , Wolverine defeats Deathstrike by injecting her with liquid adamantium. Considering that Deathstrike has a healing ability similar to Wolverine's, would she come back to life if all of the [excess] adamantium was removed from her body? If yes, would there be a limited window of opportunity to perform such a procedure successfully? Answer This answer is purely conjecture, given the limited amount of information we know about Deathstrike from X2: X-Men United . Due to the way that the adamantium was injected into her body, it is unlikely that Deathstrike's healing factor would've been able to save her, unless her cells found a way to regenerate a nervous system around the hardened adamantium. Wolverine's adamantium was bonded to his skeleton surgically, the liquid wasn't injected into his body haphazardly, which is how he was able to survive the process. Additionally, when we last see Deathstrike in the film, she is both submerged and ...

Is there any canon reference that Kylo Ren actually started learning from Snoke? We hear Snoke saying something like: It's time to finish your training. But he is resuming his training of Ren or did he never train him before, giving credit for what he learned from Luke? Answer He started training with Luke. From WGA script: HAN There was nothing we could've done. (hard for him to say) There was too much Vader in him. LEIA That's why I wanted him to train with Luke . I just never should have sent him away . That's when I lost him. That's when I lost you both. In addition, in the Novelization, Snoke explicitly discusses with Kylo Ren that he sculpted him BASED on his training with Luke. "It is your teachings that make me strong, Supreme Leader" Snoke demurred. "It is far more than that. It is where you are from. What you are made of. The dark side--and the light . The finest sculptor cannot fashion a masterpiece from poor materials. He must have some...

On an elementary school field trip to the local library, I had just started reading this book when the teacher took it away claiming that the content was not suitable. When I returned to the library later on, the book wasn't where I had picked it up and I couldn't remember the title. So basically I haven't slept since... and that was a good 15 years ago. I remember the synopsis and the book's cover-graphic pretty well (A person reclined in a chair wearing a what looked like a fighter pilot helmet) Synopsis: It's the cold war, Soviets vs the USA. Both sides have been developing a way to create a telepathic super-soldier. One of the obstacles in creating this telepathic machine/soldier is melding the mind and the machine, which the soviets do via removing the optical nerve or eyeball. (Can see why the teacher took the book away). I distinctly remember there being a part where the Americans, via spying discover a Soviet facility testing their telepathic weapon. They d...

In the television series A Game of Thrones, Khal Drogo melts gold in a cookpot over a seemingly ordinary fire, and then pours the melted metal on Viserys' head. How could the cookfire get hot enough to melt gold? Wikipedia says the melting point of gold is nearly 2000 degrees F. Reference: "Gold" on Wikipedia Answer Khal Drogo's melting of gold in what appears to be a simple cookpot, without the application of some sort of magic or a carefully stoked furnace, the melting should not have happened at all. Pure gold is simply too tough to melt with an ordinary fire. Pure gold has a melting point of 1945 degrees Fahrenheit. The average cooking fire even with good coals can reach approximately 650 to 700 degrees Fahrenheit. So under this premise, it would be impossible to melt gold over a cooking fire with a standard cooking pot. Impure gold can be melted at lower temperatures but the lowest quality gold at 10K yellow gold, still needs around 1600 degrees Fahrenheit. H...

The Hogwarts staff go out of their way to impress upon students that doing magic during the summer holidays is forbidden, even going so far as issuing notes. ...notes were handed out to all students, warning them not to use magic over the [summer] holidays (“I always hope they’ll forget to give us these,” said Fred Weasley sadly)... (Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 17, The Man With Two Faces) . The Ministry takes underage wizardry very seriously. They seem happy to expel people (or Harry, at least) after just two infringements. Yet the vast majority of students go home to spend Christmas with their families (the exception was in Goblet of Fire when everyone wanted to stay for the Yule Ball). There are also the less-mentioned Easter holidays. “My son, Draco, is home for his Easter holidays. If that is Harry Potter, he will know.” (Deathly Hallows, Chapter 23, Malfoy Manor) . I don't recall any mention of any ban on doing magic outside school during either the Christmas or the East...

When Frodo travels to Shelob's Lair, what does he say when he pulls out the vial (English)? Frodo gazed in wonder at this marvellous gift that he had so long carried, not guessing its full worth and potency. Seldom had he remembered it on the road, until they came to Morgul Vale, and never had he used it for fear of its revealing light. Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima! he cried, and knew not what he had spoken; for it seemed that another voice spoke through his, clear, untroubled by the foul air of the pit. The Two Towers - Chapter 9: Shelob's Lair Answer "Hail Eärendil, brightest of stars!" Frodo is referring to the star-glass he carried, which contained the light of Eärendil's star, the Silmaril. You might be interested to see the Gateway pages referring to Quenya , Tolkien's language, and Earendil , the Mariner.

I read a book back in middle school. Can't remember the name of the book or the author or anything. Tried googling all the stuff I remember, but nothing ever fit it. It had a biohazard symbol on the cover, and it was sort of holographic, a bunch of whites and blues, looked kind of like how people interpret dream sequences or warp jumps in sci-fi animation or film. The book involved three kids, and they got a message one day or something, and they eventually decoded it to be lottery numbers, and they were told to buy a submarine with it and some other things. Some weird fog starts appearing all over the place, and these white creatures start beating up on everybody else. When they lose pretty much everybody, they're just kind of sitting in the submarine, and they send a message back in time, I think. It's been a few years. Anybody know what the book is or have any hints on it? Thank you~ Answer This is " The Tomorrow Code " by Brian Falkner. Tane and Rebecca aren...

Instead of using short range celestial bronze (CB) weapons like swords and arrows why not make advanced weapons like machine guns or grenades with CB shrapnel in it? Answer Frederick Chase, Annabeth's father had created bullets with celestial bronze casings. Her father blushed. "Well, not bad for a middle-aged mortal, I suppose." "But the celestial bronze bullets! How did you get those?" "Ah, well. You did leave quite a few half-blood weapons in your room in Virginia, the last time you... left." Annabeth looked down, embarrassed. I noticed Dr. Chase was very careful not to say ran away. "I decided to try melting some down to make bullet casings," he continued. "Just a little experiment." Percy Jackson and the Olympians 03 - Titans Curse, Chapter 18, A Friend Says Good-Bye Celestial Bronze is not a rare element according to wiki Celestial Bronze is normally mined from Olympus, if Hephaestus is upset with his work, he throws pieces...

I read a story back in the early 90s about a group of colonists who landed on a planet where the wheat (or wheat-like equivalent) is some kind of crystalline plant. The colonists face starvation until one of them figures out how to process the wheat. I think it was by Asimov but so far I haven't found it by looking for his works. I also cannot remember if it was a novel or a short story. Answer This is " The Green Book ", a 1986 novel by Jill Paton Walsh It features crystalline plants (which you can see on the book cover) and a starvation theme; Refugees from the dying planet Earth, they, along with other ships, have been sent into space in the hope that some of them will survive to continue the human race. But the success of Shine remains doubtful as crops fail and provisions brought from Earth dwindle. Even the excitement surrounding the hatching of the giant moth people from the "boulders" in Boulder Valley doesn't make the group forget the hopelessness...

This short story is set in one of one the pyramids of Egypt, I think. It may not seem like sci-fi, but I’m pretty sure I read it in a science fiction anthology. The narrator is part of a tour group off to tour a pyramid. As the group makes its way to the site, the narrator begins to notice fleeting images of strange creatures near the group. For example, he glimpses a baboon-like animal darting about on the face of the pyramid. Once inside the pyramid, the group goes deeper and deeper into the structure. Slowly it dawns on the narrator that perhaps they are all dead and they are descending into the underworld. He is the only one cognizant of this possibility it seems. Everyone else seems oblivious as they listen to one member of the group read text from a guide book. I think the last line of the story is something to this effect: We continue to descend.

At the end of Return of the Jedi , the Death Star and the Sith boss(es) are killed and everyone is happy. But thirty years later in The Force Awakens it seems like the new bad guys are bigger and stronger than ever. What did the Jedi and the light side of the Force really accomplish? Answer The Rebel Alliance destroyed the Death Star II and the Sith were defeated, leading to the eventual defeat of the Empire. The Empire was forced to sign the Galactic Concordance , which limited the territory of the Empire and brought peace to the galaxy. The Empire was replaced with the New Republic which was more free like the Old Republic. Ultimately, this gave the galaxy about 30 years of peace and freedom from an evil tyrant with the power to destroy whole planets with the Death Star II. Unfortunately, history repeats itself. The pacifists in the New Republic rested on their laurels and disarmed themselves , similar to how the pacifists in the Old Republic opposed the Military Creation Act ri...

Spider-Man is a Marvel franchise, just like Avengers and X-Men. When they rebooted the Hulk in 2008 it was to incorporate the character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Amazing Spider-Man opens on July 3, 2012 in the USA and is a reboot of the character. Spider-Man 3 was released in 2007. It's only been five years since the last movie for this character! Based on what they did with the Hulk, it seems likely that they're rebooting the series so that they can include the character in the next Avengers movie. Spider-Man is even a member of the New Avengers in print. Has anyone confirmed whether or not the new Spider-Man movie is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Answer No, it is still not part of the MCU According to this article and Wikipedia, Tom Holland will be playing Spider-Man in the new movies, whereas Andrew Garfield played him in The Amazing Spider-Man . Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, has also made it very clear that this is a new version of Pete...

Dr Braz and Josh Keyes tried an experiment on computer to see wheather blowing nuke weapon will cause Earth's core to start spin again but it didn't create good results. So Dr Conrad told his idea: Dr Conrad: You drop a large stone into a pond, you get a big splash, and then that's it, it's over. But drop a smaller stone, wait until the ripples weaken and drop another and another, and another, and fluid dynamics 101. The ripples reinforce each other in geometric progression. Dr Braz: The whole bigger than the sum of the parts. Then we'll have five 200 megaton explosions... Dr Conrad: Instead of one big bang. Answer The whole is better than the sum of it's parts Is a well known idiom An example would be: An orchestra sounds better than any of the individual musicians playing the piece by themselves In the case of the movie, the cumulative effect of multiple bombs exploding in a carefully times sequence gives a better effect that one single huge bomb. Replacing...

I am from India, this anime or animated series (I can't remember this was made by the Japan or other countries) was aired between 2009 and 2012 probably in Jetix/Disney XD (but I'm not sure). This anime starts with a boy (the main character, I forgot his name) who find a stone (or crystal like thing) in his dad's property, his dad was missing that time. Some day he accidentally hire a creature/monster from that stone. Other day some creature attack him and he was saved by his creature and the story begins. In his journey to solve the mystery he meets a middle aged man 'Dante' (probably that was the name; this is the only character name I can remember). He had also some stone. After that they meet with one girl and a women (one of the girls is same age with the main boy character and probably will become his partner as the story goes on). Another women probably Dante's partner. Four of them started their journey to collect all the stone/crystal. They are collecti...

Science fiction anthology story. Indestructible iron bar falls out of thin air. It transfers this property to all it touches. Wars end as no more weapons can be made.

How do owls in Potterverse know how to deliver letters? Is there some sort of training they go through before being out in the field? Can any owl be used, or are there only specific breeds that are more suited for the task? Answer I haven't found any explicit mention of owl training in the books yet, but in the sixth movie the Quibbler classifieds lists "Owl Training" ( here , on the upper left), and I'm not sure that witches and wizards would need to train owls for anything other than delivering mail. As for the owl breed, there's no indication that some owl breeds can't be used to deliver mail, but certainly some are better at it than others. Hedwig, for example, is an exceptionally intelligent and adept owl (as noted by a number of people in the books) given that she somehow knew that Harry had gone to the Leaky Cauldron in the third book, and that she could always find Sirius in the fourth book. This seems to be a sort of sixth sense of direction that o...

It seems to me like Quidditch doesn't actually require any magical ability (unless that's what makes the brooms fly, but since different brooms have different speeds I assume they're closer to cars than bicycles). Thus, it'd be a great way for a squib to overcome their magical disability, find a well-paying wizard job, and earn the respect of their peers. Is there any indication in canon of a squib who was able to play Quidditch professionally? Answer No. All signs point to squibs being incapable of using broomsticks, largely based on the Pottermore article describing the life and times of Angus Buchanan , bestselling author of My Life As A Squib . Angus assisted his brothers in their playing of Quidditch, but his involvement was apparently limited to catching snitches from the ground Angus’s early childhood had been spent dodging curses on an almost daily basis, which meant that he was surprisingly fast for a man of his size. He found his greatest pleasure and pride ...

Would the Horcrux cave potion have killed Dumbledore if: Snape hadn't? Kreacher survived the potion: ‘There was a b – basin full of potion on the island. The D – Dark Lord made Kreacher drink it ...’ [...] ‘Kreacher drank, and as he drank, he saw terrible things ... Kreacher’s insides burned ... Kreacher cried for Master Regulus to save him, he cried for his Mistress Black, but the Dark Lord only laughed ... he made Kreacher drink all the potion ...' Deathly Hallows - page 160 - Bloomsbury - chapter 10, Kreacher's Tale Kreacher crawled to the lake for water and was dragged under by the Inferi who lived there, and Disapparated from the cave back to number 12 Grimmauld Place, per Regulus Black's instructions: ‘Master Regulus told Kreacher to come back,’ he said. What I'm interested in knowing is whether Kreacher survived Voldemort's potion because he was a house-elf and house-elf magic is different than wizarding magic, or if he survived drinking the potion becau...

I've found reasons on this site for Lupin's battered 'Professor' briefcase even though he hadn't taught before, but are the descriptions of his clothes an inconsistency? Can wizards not fix clothing even though a child can fix a pair of spectacles and another has a good crack at fixing a nose? Perhaps Lupin isn't quite as embarrassed about his condition as we think and is crying out for help? Slughorn's clothes are similarly described to show his fall from glory or decline into old age. Apart from the characterisation, is there a reason that wizards can't fix clothes, or is there an alternative explanation?

This question about the Honorverse brings up an interesting point. I’m not familiar with the Honorverse, but from the question, it looks like there is, essentially hyperdrive (involving gravity waves) and that wormholes are also used. Most science fiction universes seem to have just one form of FTL (Faster Than Light) travel. Star Trek has warp drive. Star Wars has hyperdrive. Babylon 5 has jumpgate technology, etc but it seems like each universe has one type of FTL. I’ve noticed that wormholes might also be added as a natural occurrence, but usually aren't a primarily-used form of FTL in most fictional universes. So, what I’m asking is… Which SF universe uses the most different types of FTL travel? Answer Star Trek - At least 34 Star Trek actually has a LOT of types of FTL travel. In fact, due to the tendency for some of the series' to have "tech du jour" I would argue it is a top contender for "most" forms of FTL travel. I have listed the ones I ...

With the 616 version of Wolverine still dead Marvel comics is bringing the Old Man Logan version of the character into their new post-Secret Wars universe. Since a lot of the things happening in the comics seems to be geared towards future movies, like female Thor and Falcon as Captain America, is it possible that this re-branding of Wolverine as Old Man Logan could be used as a loophole to steal Wolverine from FOX? Could they use Old Man Logan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Answer TL;DR - Almost certainly not. 20th Century Fox are the current owners of the live action rights to the character of Wolverine, and have been since the early 90's when Marvel sold the live action rights to many of their characters. Further details about the nature of these contracts (specifically the concept of the rights reverting to Marvel Studios after a set amount of years) can be found in my answer here . The upcoming Wolverine film (spin off from the main X-Men films and semi-sequel to X-Men O...

In the early 70s I read what I'm sure was an Ace paper back. Loosely SF in the same way that the Barsoomian tales might be considered SF. A typical "mighty-thewed" hero is magically transported to an alien planet and must save the fair maiden. What I recall most was that unlike John Carter, this hero was not very likable. He lacked the nobility of Carter and was something of a brute. I'm sure it was written during the same golden age of pulps as John Carter. For all I know it might be Edgar Rice Burroughs. I distinctly remember a race of winged humanoids who kidnap the fair heroine and her rescue is what provides the driving force in the novel. Answer After getting a hint based on a Google search of "Mighty-thewed" I researched Robert E. Howard who did indeed write a planetary romance called Almuric. R-reading a copy of it now that I found on-line at this link .

In Harry Potter, Squibs are generally known as people who cannot perform magic, and all the examples from the books appear to be descended from wizards. In reality, we see various levels of magical control exhibited by Squibs -- they can see magically hidden things (such as ghosts, the true appearance of Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, and magically hidden creatures ), use magical items, develop magical relationships with magic beasts (such as kneazle -cat hybrids), etc. Moreover, there are many Muggles who claim abilities (such as seeing ghosts) which require magical sensitivity as well. While Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them claims that these people are either lying or Squibs, it's also purposefully written with an unreliable narrator. The Muggle-born wizards we see, however, are all of standard wizarding capability. Can Muggles give birth to a magic sensitive (but incapable of casting spells) child, equivalent to a Squib (since the term 'Squib' itself only applies to th...

It is well-known that Tolkien's forte is linguistics and he created various fictional languages in his writings. Although Klingon language started off kind of slow, it's emerged as a viable language, even known to be taught in some schools and is readily spoken and conventions and the like. Which language is the most developed, one of Tolkien's such as Quenya/Sidarian? Or Klingon? For the purposes of this question, developed means being able to use it conversationally or written like a regular language like English or German. Answer Definitely Klingon Although Tolkien's writings on Quenya and Sindarin are extensive, there simply isn't enough to carry on realistic conversations; unless you're willing to go into some of the fan attempts to flesh the language out, you and your Elvish-speaking partner are basically limited to quoting passages of the Legendarium at each other. Tolkien himself actually acknowledged this in Letter 297 (emphasis his): It should be obv...

In a recent post to The Toast, Austin Gilkeson argues that Aragorn, son of Arathorn's claim to Gondor's throne is invalid. The author goes into various details, but the core argument is: Gondor’s own laws and rulers even recognized how ridiculous Aragorn’s claim was. Arvedui, the last king of Arnor before he drowned in a shipwreck, once claimed the throne of Gondor, but the Council of Gondor rightly rejected him, saying the royal line of Gondor was descended from Anárion, not Isildur. Aragorn, like a many an illegitimate dictator before him, was only able to seize power due to the breakdown of law and society during the great crisis of the War of the Ring. Even then, with the doom of Gondor looming, Denethor the Steward of Gondor told Gandalf he wouldn’t bow to Aragorn, “last of a ragged house long bereft of lordship and dignity.” (Denethor may have been Middle-earth’s Worst Dad Ever, but he had a point there: Aragorn came from royal stock, but the only thing his family had a...