Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros
Topics: Harry Potter, TV and Film, Celebrity
Joe Harker
Harry Potter fans are freaking out about the puppet the movies used for Dobby, and we totally understand why.
While the Dobby you see on screen in the Harry Potter movies is CGI with the voice of Toby Jones, they did create an actual Dobby puppet at times during production.
A Dobby puppet was created for visual reference during filming of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, while Daniel Radcliffe cradled a puppet of a dead Dobby in Deathly Hallows - Part 1.
In that second example it makes sense to use a puppet as they've got a dead, motionless quality about them, but people seeing Dobby's puppet from Chamber of Secrets have been left seriously disturbed.
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House elves in Harry Potter have always looked a bit weird but with the help of a sprinkling of movie magic Dobby had a certain charm about him even if his first appearances involved getting Harry in trouble to try and keep him out of Hogwarts.
However, without the movie magic the puppet really is just a creepy creation which stares lifelessly at you out of those gigantic eyes.
Speaking as part of the behind-the-scenes-features for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Jones explained why Dobby's movement was so important.
"I enjoyed playing Dobby, that said I never really take full credit for the character as a large part of its character comes from its movement which I can only suggest and they can realise," he said.
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"When I did it in the second film it was very much me in a sound studio working with the film that had already been shot with a ping-pong ball on a stick which was gonna be me and offering up suggestions how he might move."
Jones went on to praise the work of Dobby's stand-in Diane Gibbins, saying she 'gives a scale to what I've suggested and proposed'.
Without that movement the creepy puppets of Dobby are, as some Harry Potter fans have put it, 'f***ing terrifying'.
Another one said 'f***ing Dobby will be in my nightmares now', pointing out the exact moment in the behind-the-scenes footage where the off-putting puppet stares out at them.
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Ever since production wrapped on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 there's actually been a grave site for Dobby at Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire where his burial scene was filmed.
The place is full of rocks and pebbles laid down by Harry Potter fans in tribute to the character, and despite fears that the site would be cleared away the decision was made that it would be allowed to remain for the time being.