#fantastic beasts

Doodle

Newt Scamander of Fantastic Beasts

It is of my utmost comprehension that Credence is in dire need of a hug (in Newtese : a forehead bonk), pastries, coffee, a Niffler and a pretty dress. And slippers, very important.

This is partly @mu-mumie’s fault because she wore the perfect Credence dress and got the look, so I had to draw it.

[image ID : Newt, a white man with tousled red hair, freckles, wearing a white shirt, yellow waistcoat with Pickett peaking out of the pocket, purple bowtie, black pants and brown shoes, is holding a cup of tea with a snake pattern and fidgeting with his sleeve. He’s leaning his head against Credence’s. Credence, a white man with long black hair, is leaning sideways against him. He’s wearing a purple blouse, a black dress, black stockings and brown carpet slippers. He’s holding the Niffler, who’s clutching Credence’s necklace. They are sitting on flat rocks in shades of brown, among bushes and trees. A bowl of pastries is put next to Newt. end ID]

grindeldorefanatic:

Albus has some good taste…

bckr-in:

There are 3 pics: GGAD & GGad & GGADad☺️

And the second image was inspired by Schiele’s Death and maiden

Grindeldore Wicked AU.

That’s it. That’s the post

If I had a nickel for everytime I’ve seen the fate of an entire race be defined by the two most powerful gays the world has ever seen having a divorce, I would have two nickels.

Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

The third Fantastic Beasts movie is a deeply disappointing mess of a film that tries - not even hard - to save a sinking franchise. Only instead of being doomed by water pouring inexorably in, it seems the many plot holes and head-scratching twists act as all sorts of exits in the ship through which the magic inexorably escapes. The Secrets of Dumbledore proves many things, chief among them that it is never a good idea to try to capitalize on a very successful franchise just for the sake of money. The eight Harry Potter movies stand proud as one of the defining franchises of a generation, each movie critically and financially successful; now they are tarnished by the whims of this lesser, uglier, distant-would-be-sister franchise which tries too hard to emulate the success and magic of its predecessor. Only it doesn’t know how to do it. Or rather, JK Rowling doesn’t know how to do it.

BecauseFantastic Beasts is a case in point for why great writers don’t necessarily make great screenwriters. Retrospectively, it is even hard now separating the writer from the person; applying the adjective ‘great’ to Rowling seems a little bit exaggerated, regardless of her controversial personal views. As children growing up with each Harry Potter book and eagerly anticipating the next sequel, it was hard to take a step back, so engrossed and involved were we with the story. We lacked the necessary wisdom and intellect that come with age to assess the flaws of these books, no matter how much we loved them. Rowling has adopted the very bad habit of trying to keep interest in the Potter mythology by providing post-scriptum comments and other addendums that she did not write into her books, making it difficult for some to accept this as real parts of the story and for specific topics, not as some poor attempts at retconning her story to be more relevant in our own times.

The most infamous of those post-book revelations by now is that Dumbledore was gay and in love with Grindelwald. The reveal was largely negatively received, not because of its nature but because it was not written into the books and was only said by Rowling in passing. It was interpreted as a feeble attempt at inclusion in an otherwise overly straight array of characters. Then the second Fantastic Beasts film came and focused on Grindelwald and still did not acknowledge the relationship between the two wizards. The fault lies solely on Rowling, a probable combination of her personal views and of her dubious capabilities as a screenwriter. The three films of the Beasts franchise stumble largely in part because of their shoddy scripts and these were written by Rowling herself. Back when the first Fantastic Beasts was greenlit, Warner Bros agreed to the author’s demand that she be the only power behind the scripts, with absolutely no right on any rewrites. This move, which could only be fueled by ego, proved very dangerous and while the first movie was well-received, things got completely off-rails by the second with lesser financial revenues and critics turning away for the first time in the overall Wizarding World franchise. Warner Bros acknowledged the problem and for Secrets, Rowling - whether by her own volition or not - is not the sole screenwriter anymore, being joined instead by Steve Kloves, who helped pen previous Harry Potterscripts.

Following the woes of Crimes of Grindelwald,Secrets has the difficult task of righting the ship as well as restoring the magic that was still here in Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. It only does so very partially, ending up just a tad better than its predecessor, and only because it seemingly wraps up its story - albeit in very loose ends - as opposed to the second one which had no proper ending. The problems were so colossal that in order to solve them, Secrets just decides to eschew a good chunk of them in a very dismissive way. A large part of the twists and turns of Crimes are just swept under the rug or retconned in an eyebrow-raising way.

• The most infuriating and ridiculous twist Rowling tried to push at viewers was that Credance was somehow a long-lost Dumbledore brother. Other than being a frankly unnecessary attempt at making an original character more relevant, it also contradicted a lot of what was already known about the Dumbledore family. One dead sister revealed in Deathly Hallows was more than enough. Now we also got a secret brother. When did Harry Potter turn into such a Young and the Restless-level soap opera? This was absolutely not needed and put the spotlight onto Ezra Miller, an actor who was absolutely not the focus of these films. Warner Bros must have bit their fingernails following the various reports of Miller’s erratic behaviour in which they attacked people and were arrested on several occasions. I must admit that I was never a fan of Miller - their presence in the first two films was just okay - but here, knowing who the person was behind the character (which I didn’t even like) seeing their face every time Credence was on screen made me cringe. I just didn’t want to see them on my screen, I didn’t want them to have so much screentime and seeing Credance go wild with violence on Dumbledore, knowing that some version of it is also how they behave in real life was just very off-putting.

• So how does Secrets deal with the biggest twist that literally made the cliffhanger of Crimes? By retconning it into the stalest resolution possible. Faced with the criticism of that plot development (if we can even call it that), Rowling and Warner Bros could not backtrack and just say that well, Credance is in fact not a Dumbledore after all! No, he is, unfortunately. Only he is not a brother to Albus, he is the secret son of Aberforth! Soap-opera levels I’m telling you! This solution is the only one that could actually work with what we know of the established lore and also with reducing the importance of Credance as a character. It also contradicts everything Crimes was working for. What was all the fuss made about him being a Dumbledore? Why did Grindelwald target him specifically? Why did he tell him he was a brother to Albus? No one knows and no one wants us to ask the questions. Oh, and dear Ariana was an Obscurial! This is the latest example of woke revelations Rowling seems so fond of using, trying to make herself clever but really all it did for me was uttering a loud 'Really ?!’ followed by a heavy sigh. So the Obscurial thing runs in the family I guess. Aberforth was sexing up some random girl, who gets no mention at all; why she’s out of the picture, why was Aurelius abandoned, how exactly did Albus and Aberforth come to know of his existence… all of these points which could have been used to further develop the characters, are not even brushed aside. They’re not even considered.

That’s the second biggest flaw of Secrets. In having so many problems to solve, the film copies the exact same formula that doomed Game of Thrones’ final season a few years ago. The story is what counts, character development be damned. Here again, the action jumps all over the place - in a 'sort-of-funny’ way, the characters justify it because Grindelwald can somehow see the future and anticipate their movements, hence why they have to behave erratically - and the characters we’ve come to love and … um… care for? … are relegated to being simple pawns to be moved on a larger chess. One blatant example is the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of Theseus – for unclear reasons – which serves absolutely no other purpose than giving Newt a detour to the German Wizarding Prison to free his brother, which he does. But the sequence is the occasion to see another fantastic beast, so I guess that has to count right? It seems producers still don’t understand that what makes or breaks a movie (or a worldwide TV phenomenon) is the characters. Moving on from the fact that Rowling sidestepped Newt as the franchise’s original central character in favor of the more appealing Dumbledore, which renders the Fantastic Beasts title very moot and preposterous (seriously I will never stop ranting about the fact that this has become an incredibly mistitled franchise! What are the beasts here for if not for just pretending that the title is still somewhat relevant?) any personality that was left in the cast of Fantastic Beasts is seeped away in this entry. Crimes had at the very least this going on for it. Through its many twists and turns, it gave some of its characters some depth and set up stories that had potential. Here Dumbledore is essentially the only one who is allowed some semblance of emotion.

• Going back to Credance (and this is the last we will speak of him), the character is reduced (not that we complain about it) to being an angry boy who has no real use in Grindelwald’s grand scheme other than being so angry at Dumbledore that he tries to Obscurial-murder him. Then the big family reveal happens, and we see absolutely no gradual change, no emotional turmoil before he just decides to be a nice guy and go with his newly found father, no matter the immense issues left between them.

• Nagini who? Remember in Crimes of Grindelwald, Rowling tried another of her clever twists by attempting to write the backstory of Nagini, the snake companion of Voldemort, a reveal she says she sat on for a decade. Why she decided not to include it in the books then is an entirely valid question but in retrospect it was probably for the best because that revelation backfired spectacularly with an overwhelmingly negative response to an Asian woman cursed to eventually becoming subservient to an evil dark lord. (Not to mention that she had somehow to end up in Albania at some point). Nagini in her human form nonetheless made for a somewhat interesting character. Despite her dubious reasons for even being here, it would have been interesting to learn about her origins, and the path that would take her to Voldemort. She was also Credance’s only friend (or possibly more). At the end of the second film, she had seemingly joined the good guys which gave her even better potential given her eventual turn to evil. Secrets deals with her… by not dealing with her, erasing all traces of the character, and pretending it never happened. She is not even mentioned, her absence is completely unexplained, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the future if Rowling backtracks and says this was just a snake-woman coincidentally named Nagini but who shares no link with Voldemort’s favourite pet.

• Moving on to yet-another deeply disappointing point of contention is Queenie. Arguably one of the breakout characters introduced in Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, she was paired off with Jacob in an instantly well-received love story. The second movie spent a great deal of time focusing on her inner turmoil, which stemmed from the pain she experienced of not being able to marry Jacob who is a Muggle. She resorted to deeply troubling ends and her fragile emotional state eventually made her embrace Grindelwald’s views on the basis that she would eventually, finally be able to be with the man she loved. This turn to evil for the greater good was one of the most heartbreaking twists of the film and it gave the character infinite potential in her story. The Secrets of Dumbledore infuriatingly does away with all that could come with this development, choosing simplicity instead of following on one of its few interesting storylines. Aside from the visual transformation showing not so subtly that Queenie is a pale version of her former joyful self, she is unfortunately relegated to just being a member of Grindelwald’s circle, useful only for her Legilimens ability. We spend absolutely no time on what her time with Grindelwald has been like, what effect it had on her own views, if she started espousing his beliefs or if she started drifting away (the film hints at the latter) … Her own goal – and what he promised – of a peaceful union between Muggle and Witch is not mentioned at all and the next time Grindelwald does speak about it, he is categorically against it. Sure, she still has feelings for Jacob but the potential of a former ally and lover going full evil in the name of love has been utterly wasted. Instead, she is just… standing there, very passive. And in another example of a character acting only out of necessity for the story, she returns to the good side in the final climax of the film, for no other reason than because Jacob tells her he still loves her. There is no internal debate, no emotional struggle with what she must have done, with who she is as a person and even worse there are no consequences. Grindelwald just dismisses her and Jacob, torturing the latter in the process but only as a demonstration for a larger crowd which greatly diminishes the importance of it. The film then tries to make some semblance of a happy ending with a wedding between the two but in doing so, it just kind of erases all that has happened between them, the drama and the trauma that must be there between them, and above all, Queenie suffers absolutely no consequence for having been part of the inner circle of one of the greatest evil wizards of all time.

• Aside from Jacob who is still the comic relief of the franchise and gets next to no development aside from a coreless wand (whaaaat?) which he doesn’t even use – really what was the point? – we cannot talk about Queenie without mentioning Tina. Katherine Waterston was the most vocal on her opposition to Rowling’s controversial views and it is all but a given that her role was drastically reduced in consequence, either by her own choice or Rowling’s. Officially, Warner Bros hides behind the COVID excuse, but it is a hard pill to swallow when Tina was the female lead of the first two movies. Even more preposterous here is the excuse by which they explain Tina’s absence. She is too busy with her work as Head of the Auror Department. Meaning she is in the country! She’s not even away! And you mean to tell me that she is busy working on something that’s more important than averting the rise of Grindelwald, given what his larger scheme for Wizards and Muggles is (which she witnessed first-hand)? More important than trying to save her own sister who has joined the enemy? The whole thing seems very much contrived and her only appearances towards the end of the movie just feel awkward. She also seems to be in some sort of relationship with Newt, seeing that he carries photographs of her but whatever happened between the two, we are not made privy to. I must admit that given that we know the two are to be married when all this mess is done, the first time I listened to the score and heard the final track, it instantly screamed wedding and I thought this would be Newt and Tina’s as a way of wrapping up the story as well as the character.

• Another character whose importance Secrets retroactively lessened is that of Leta Lestrange. The inclusion of a member of the Lestrange family was no doubt an attempt to explore the ancestry of this prominent family in the Potter lore. Entire parts of the second movie’s plot revolved around her and her family’s long-lost member and one of the numerous twists was that this forgotten brother was not in the end Credance but Yusuf. Leta also had some history with the Scamender brothers, being engaged to Theseus but having been a close friend (and possibly more) of Newt. Then she was killed by Grindelwald and her relevance faded with her. Whatever seeds of rivalry between Newt and Theseus over her were brushed aside, Theseus is not even shown mourning over the loss of his fiancée (mind you, for those saying that it’s been a few years, Jacob casually mentions that he has known Newt for less than a year which means the insanity of these three films is compressed within a few months! Or maybe this is yet another mistake in this convoluted story…) and Yusuf, left largely with nothing important to do, provides absolutely no insight into his mind, his persona, his story. The Lestrange family link is another plot that Secrets just pushes on the side as something that didn’t work. Yusuf’s only role in the movie is to go be an infiltrated double-triple spy in Grindelwald’s circle which absolutely doesn’t pay off because he sort of disappears until the climax of the film, having provided no aid whatsoever for either side. In the process, he allows Grindelwald to casually destroy whatever memories he has of his sister and (seemingly) proves himself to be a good Legilimens since Queenie scans him and confirms to Grindelwald he is on their side. Or perhaps she lied. Or perhaps Yusuf really was and then had a change of heart. So many characters do so for no real reason and it’s excruciatingly boring to try and keep up.

• The same can be said about the various members of Grindelwald’s circle, the most prominent member being a woman who doesn’t even get a name (?), whose motives we don’t know, whose link or relationship to Grindelwald we know nothing about either … she and her pals are just there. And so many other characters make unwarranted heel turns it’s almost comical. The previous movie also showed this particular trend and it proved as head-scratching as it is now. Here for some reason, Grindelwald’s followers also include several high-ranking members of the German Ministry of Magic, including (it seems, I’m not even sure!) the Minister himself. But these characters are the latest in an ever-growing cast and understandably, don’t deserve the time that is not even given to the leads. So, obscure they are, obscure they stay. Why they joined Grindelwald in the first place, what role they play, which consequences some will have to pay at some point, it just doesn’t matter in this kind of bloated, over-simplified story.

• It’s almost sad that nothing can be said about Newt, the original titular character of the franchise, because aside from his endearing persona, he is unfortunately a rather bland character. Like Jacob, he stays very stale and gets no character development. For some reason at the beginning of this movie he is in the Amazon, alone and in search of a magical creature named qilin. Do not ask why. He’s ambushed by Credance and company, it takes two (!) Avada Kedavras to kill the qilin mother (since when?) and even then, she’s not entirely dead (!) and after overpowering Newt, Credance and company just leave him alive (for obvious plot-armor reasons) You would think there’s a reason why he must live but his survival has no incidence whatsoever because he has absolutely no role in Grindelwald’s plans. Newt’s new acolytes are his secretary Bunty, which is probably the only thing she’ll be remembered for and Lally, an Ilvermorny teacher who has been corresponding with him. And Newt does not even spend that much time with them to establish any real bond. Newt spends much of his time alone and the short time he is paired off with his brother unfortunately amounts to nothing more than a comical/tense escape scene. It has no real effect on Newt, or Theseus for that matter. 

• Yet again, much potential is wasted after Ilvermorny, the American Wizarding School, was tantalizingly mentioned back in the first film, prompting many to imagine what a visit to it would be like, what a contrast it would be to the Hogwarts we know. Lally unfortunately doesn’t provide any more information and for the unattentive viewer, she might as well be one of the yet-unseen teachers of Hogwarts. For the sake of bringing back the magic, the producers lazily settle for a return to Hogwarts, complete with the old John Williams’ theme and gratuitous shots of Quidditch and students in the Great Hall, in the process perpetuating the now-very-old trope of Slytherin’s gang of boys being snickering morons/implied-bullies. For some reason, the Great Hall at breakfast is the perfect place for Aurors, Muggle, Magizoologist and co. to meet and Dumbledore decides to discuss his big plans here rather than in his office. Minerva McGonagall proves that Nicolas Flamel can go f**k himself with his search of eternal life (yet another big absentee probably relegated to the closet of unwanted, unnecessary characters with Nagini) by persistently appearing as a teacher at Hogwarts, against all that had been previously established in her biography, notably that she didn’t start to teach there until decades later.

• And finally, after as many detours as in the film, we can focus on Grindelwald. I will say it from the get-go. Johnny Depp’s performance was superior. There, it’s been said, and it is out there. Now, Mads Mikkelsen is an incredibly talented actor (I personally loved his work in Hannibal), and he does wonders in trying to salvage the role. His Grindelwald has charisma and some chemistry with Jude Law’s Dumbledore. He becomes quiet and menacing – essentially a toned-down version of Hannibal. But Depp had an edge on the character that Mikkelsen does not (or perhaps chose not to explore). Depp’s Grindelwald had equal (and I’d argue, more, in light of his closing speech in Crimes) charisma. He was also quiet and menacing, in his own way. But what Depp gave to the character – as he did with all the roles he played – was a touch of craziness, that subtle hint that behind the veneer, there was this real possibility for sheer, axe-crazy, madness. There was real hidden danger, something that Mikkelsen, in his calm demeanor, changes into quiet threat. Mikkelsen exudes fear and respect, not letting anyone near while Depp infused some sort of perverse accessibility to the character, which made him all the more enthralling and seducing – and that more dangerous. It is much easier to imagine a warmer, more tender version of Depp’s Grindelwald in his past relationship with Dumbledore than Mikkelsen’s more aloof iteration. Following Depp’s departure, Grindelwald also reverts back to a more formal appearance. Warner Bros pushing Depp through the door was a PR disaster for the movie, especially after they had previously backed him up through the second film. Considering the current outpour of support for him and Ezra Miller’s fall from grace, the joke is on them.

• Despite being the second most-important character of the film, Grindelwald also suffers immensely from the bad writing plaguing Secrets. The previous film ended with him having made a very charismatic speech that gained him hundreds of followers. That was in Paris. For some reason, at the beginning of this movie, he is ‘wanted’ and with a lot less followers. And we’re now in Berlin. Again, do not ask why. Then mid-film, he is absolved, again for reasons, and allowed to present himself at the election for the next great leader of the Wizarding World (!) The nuances and subtleties which composed his reasons for his actions, presented in the second film as wanting to avoid the horrors of the Second World War and protecting the Muggles from themselves and from inflicting unimaginable destruction (he could see in the future back then but inexplicably, he needs a qilin in this movie to do so…) are eschewed completely in this film, dashing in the process so much potential at exploring what the involvement of the Wizarding World would have looked like in the Second World War. Instead, it is reduced to a simple fascist retread of Voldemort’s later motto of ‘Wizards being superior to Muggles’. This removes much of the complexity that characterized Grindelwald and unfortunately, without that, there’s not much left.
  

• It would have been interesting to dive into his past, learn his story, what his relationship was to Albus and how these ideas were born between them. It would have been interesting to actually see the ‘greater good’ beyond his hatred for Muggles. Instead, we are treated to a very closed-off version of the character, which commands respect but whose thoughts we are not privy to. Crimes succeeded on some level because it gave viewers some insight to his private thoughts, what made him act this or that way, but Secrets downgrades him to the standard villain to be defeated. Ultimately, his past and love story with Albus is rendered moot because like so many plot devices that seemed interesting at first but were not properly thought through, Secrets just does away with them in the most bizarre and contrived way. The blood pact between the former lovers was a formidable item that prevented the two from ever attempting to harm each other. Given that Potter-lore established that the two eventually found a way to stalemate in one of the most formidable magical duels of all time, it was incredibly exciting to see how we could ever come to that place. But that was really overestimating Rowling’s creativeness because she breaks the blood pact at the end of this film, and nobody understands the how or why. A killing spell from Grindelwald is countered (!) by two unnamed spells from Albus and Aberforth and that, somehow, is what breaks the blood pact. Albus and Grindelwald then engage in a duel and it’s the most understated, disappointing duel ever. Lasting perhaps less than a minute, it’s made essentially of the two of them apparating and disapparating to avoid each other, locked in some sort of alternate dimension in which they are alone, preventing unwanted destruction to the real world. Aside from the melodramatic hands on each other’s hearts and the ‘Who will love you now Albus?’ - unfortunately undermined in its harsh, shouted delivery - there isn’t much to save in this scene which still serves as the final appearance of Grindelwald. The duel results in a stalemate and before he can be arrested, Grindelwald escapes. By the way, now that we think about it, I must ask, what WERE those secrets of Dumbledore (aside from Credance’s unuseful brother-retconned-nephew)? Because if we’re talking about the secrets he had with Grindelwald, well, surprise, they’re still…secrets.
  

While this is clearly done to serve as a de-facto series finale in the event Warner Bros pulls the plug on the franchise, Grindelwald’s larger scheme seems to fall flat given that he spent much of the first two films targeting Credance only for it to come to nothing and assembling followers of his views and trying to achieve power, only for it to come to nothing as well. Grindelwald’s rise had no effect on the Wizarding World as a whole except being equaled to the rise of fascism and racism; unlike what Peter Jackson did with The Hobbit, no link is established to bridge Fantastic Beasts’ conclusion to whatever comes with Harry Potter. Rowling’s established mythology asserts that Grindelwald’s reign of fear lasted a few more years before he was finally defeated which is probably the content of the two planned final films of the franchise. She has stated that the fifth film would push to 1945, which is (not so) coincidentally the end of the Second World War, all but confirming that the event plays a role in Grindelwald’s story. Neither film has been greenlit so far and though it is possible that Grindelwald’s potential might be restored if Warner Bros decides to continue with the franchise (and we could finally witness a real version of that historic duel) we shouldn’t get our hopes up that Rowling will know to include all that’s missing in Grindelwald’s story. That’s not even mentioning the fact that he has the Elder Wand, has been potentially researching the Deathly Hallows and that it surely must be tied to his larger plan, or that his favourite symbol is inexplicably not the Deathly Hallows but a complete custom one…

All this amounts to a disappointing film, tasked with course-correcting the flaws of its predecessor but proceeding to do so in the worst ways possible. The Wizarding World franchise’s fall from grace results in a standard Hollywood blockbuster, shining with CGI and big spectacle sadly hiding a deep hollowness of plot holes and bland characters. It is quite sad to see such a downgrade, especially from such a beloved world. The Secrets of Dumbledore cannot even argue that it is visually better than Crimes because in spite of its beautiful CGI, it does not boast any visually arresting sequence like the one that closed Crimes (that one above). Even Crimes’ opening sequence was better than Secrets’. The only aspect that has been consistently good over the entire three films is James Newton Howard’s musical score which – much like Ramin Djawadi’s work on Game of Thrones – elevates the film to levels it could only dream to achieve without it. The composer’s work for the Beasts franchise is one of his best and the skill with which he weaves the various themes and leitmotifs is rarely seen. The result, especially noticeable in CrimesandSecrets, is an incredibly pleasant musical score, made of various returning themes that convey way more meaning and emotion than what actually transpires through the screen.

Critics have said that The Secrets of Dumbledore is a better film than Crimes and that it more resembles the first film, being a funnier adventure and achieving the task of recapturing the magic. I’d argue against that point. Secretsis not a better film than Crimes, or only marginally so, and most probably only because it does try to wrap up its numerous storylines. But the plot devices by which it solved the problems of Crimes are problematic in themselves as well. Solving a problem by pretending it didn’t happen is not a solution; it’s just an extremely lazy form of writing. This should be demonstration enough that Rowling shouldn’t be allowed to pen the future scripts of the following films – if they ever happen. Having written some of the past Harry Potter scripts, I doubt that Kloves is behind most of the problems plaguing this one. Financially, the film is also largely underperforming. Warner Bros can again hide behind the COVID excuse and pretend that the numbers will be good nonetheless. But with the lowest opening of any film in the Wizarding World franchise, and a cume that’s nearing only $400 million (the first and second movies made roughly $800 and $650 million respectively) it is evident that more and more people are not fooled anymore by the simplistic Hollywood-blockbuster formula. The very existence of the two next films relies on the critical and financial performance of this one. That no work has even begun on them yet in a sign that Warner Bros hesitates, and they have good reason to between the box-office failure, the mixed reception, and the incredibly problematic people behind the scenes. Neither Rowling nor Miller have been punished the way Depp was; even if Miller could be written out, Rowling is unfortunately here to stay. Many people have pushed for the film to be boycotted and instead are pirating it. I will admit that I checked it out – and rather lately - only out of curiosity and because I had nothing better to do, and because this particular world (and story) retains some sort of interest to me (I did grow up with Harry, Ron and Hermione after all, and I experienced firsthand the phenomenon that surrounded the excruciating wait and release of each book and subsequently, of each film) but there was no doubt that I wasn’t going to the movies to see it and boy am I happy not to have paid for such a disappointment. There is even a part of me that would have been quite fine if I didn’t get to see the movie at all. Magic can die, indeed.

So - American Wizarding has gotten a lot of feedback in the last couple months both in expectation of and in reaction to JK Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I won’t lie to you, loyal followers, we have been sort of dreading the release of this movie for a lot of different reasons. While we have never claimed any sort of ownership of Harry Potter or the vast, wonderful, wild world of its Fandom, we hope you can understand that we’ve spent years working together to build what we think is the most accurate and “realistic” interpretation of what the magical population of the United States of America set in the Harry Potter universe would look like – for probably more than a decade before this blog even got off the ground. It’s been a labor of love, and I hope you can understand and forgive how we have grown very attached to these ideas and head-canons. And why, after viewing Fantastic Beasts, we won’t be giving any of them up.

So I guess that’s the first official announcement: American Wizarding will not be altering any of its head-canons to fall in line with Fantastic Beasts. This blog will continue more or less unaffected by JK’s new Canon, and will stand as an alternative for anyone who wants to join us in our sandbox, or use our ideas along with some invented by JK or other fans to create their own marvelous, wonderful worlds of American Wizarding (we certainly hope you will share with us in turn).

The rest of this post will be a response drafted by yours truly (Admin. John – Laveau Academy – Class of 2006, Juris Doctorate of Magical Law, The Randolph-Poythress Institute, Class of 2010) to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Please note this review will be about as SPOILERIFFICas you can possibly imagine – hence the jump cut below and the tags. Please also note that this will not be a critical review of the film on the merits of cinematography or from a filmmaker’s perspective – I greatly enjoyed the movie for its own sake, and thought it was a lot of fun and well worth seeing and discussing.

No – this review will be solely a response to JK’s new canons about American Wizarding Society and the new magical elements for the wider world introduced in the film or, more specifically, the many, many reasons we won’t be adopting them and what we disliked, and liked, about the ideas. This will, of course, touch on what we consider some plot holes and problems with storytelling, but as I feel there are a hundred critics better equipped than I (including my own co-mods whose opinions were of course taken into consideration when drafting this)  to give you feedback on the film itself, I won’t be doing so.

So! Spoilers beneath this lovely cut.

RACE RELATIONS AND A BLACK PRESIDENT: So I feel like I need to address what I see as probably the biggest ethical failure of the film, and that is, very frankly, the complete erasure of race-relations in the United States and, indeed, the entire magical community. JK is on record as saying that in the World of Harry Potter, wizards and witches care more about whether one has magical powers than what color one’s skin is. There has been a huge outcry against this all ready, and I don’t want to bore all my readers with a long diatribe about race relations during the 1920s in America and why this train of thought is not only exasperatingly short sighted of JK, but intensely offensive as well (there are a hundred such articles), so I will keep it to the following points:

1.      The Wizarding World is not, in fact, a separate world. Comingling with Muggle society is not only the norm, but a requirement. Mages do not live so aloof from their non-magical counterparts that they can pretend not to know about the injustices being perpetrated in the US in 1926. Muggleborns, at the very least, would have been brought up in a culture where racism was ingrained into the very fabric of their lives. What about those born into slavery with magic? Where they just expected to forget that experience? And if African and Native American mages just sat back while their people and their cultures were decimated by Europeans I will eat my pointy hat. JK’s point of view wants us to believe that magical peoples are justenlightened enough not to care about race but notenlightened enough to stand up to bigotry in the Muggle world. Narratively it is far more likely that the magical population is just as racist as the muggle one, with the added benefit of purism for an added complication.

2.      In 1865, the Muggle Congress passed the 13^th Amendment, which was intended to end Slavery once and for all. This movie takes place in 1926, 61 years after the passing of the 13^th Amendment. There are men and women still alive at this point who were themselves born into bondageand remember it. More importantly, in the Muggle world at the very least, Jim Crow laws are still in place around the country. While often thought of as a purely southern thing, segregation was a national phenomenon engrained into both habit and law.  Legal Segregation would continue in some places as late as the 1960s and, in many ways, the fight is still going on today. In 1926 alone:

a.      Georgia legally began classifying anyone with even one-quarter black-heritage as black for the purposes of state law and began requiring, as a matter of law, school segregation. Teachers in schools that didn’t segregate would not be paid as a matter of law. Georgia further decided that clergymen were only allowed to perform wedding services for people of their own race.

b.      Texas legally segregated its schools.

c.      In Corrigan v. Buckley the Supreme Court of the United States of America upheld the legality of “racial covenants,” basically allowing housing discrimination based on race to continue as the norm for another 40 years.

3.     Seraphina Picquery is not a celebration of diversity and acceptance in the Wizard Community: she is an erasure of Black America in the 1920s and indeed all race problems in the Harry Potter universe. As the only black character of any consequence in New York City during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, and one for whom character depth is extremely lacking¸ Seraphina’s whole role seems to be one of misdirection. She a Black character devoid of any Black experience, and seems to be used solely so the audience can be mollified that JK and the casting directors made some vague motions to equality without once even trying to lift a wand and actually address the issues. For a series that has dealt so extensively with discrimination to have the perfect time and platform on which to address the issue, the failure of the HP series to do so is more than the normal sort of disappointment: it’s a travesty.

4.      I wish I had more to say here, but the complete dearth of any reference to anything outside the monotonous “English but different” vibe of what wizarding culture waspresented means I cannot. New York in the 1920s was a massively diverse place, both racially and culturally. Chinatown, Little Italy, the Harlem Renaissance…all left conspicuously absent.

American Wizarding has, since its very inception, struggled to celebrate the fact that there is no one America. There is not an America that belongs to any one person or type of people, because as trite as it is -American is a melting pot, and for a film that introduced magical creatures from Australia, Asia, Africa and South America to not bother and include a single person or voice from those places or peoples is…a hugely missed opportunity.

MUGGLE RELATIONS IN THE USA

In a truly surprising twist, Muggles and Wizards are not allowed to have anysort of social interaction in the United States in 1920s America. Even friendships are, apparently, verboten.

…Which, of course, raises a lot of questions, the most of important of which is, very simply, what about muggleborns? Are they simply removed from their families? Are the families the one exception? Or do they simply memory charm their families? What about families that move to the United States, or visit the United States, who are already mixed? The Statute of Secrecy is seriously a major ongoing problem in anywork, canonical or otherwise, involving the HP Universe – but this seems like overkill and, for anyone who knows anything about American concepts of individualism, highly counter-intuitive. Leaving aside the strange political implications of the Statute and the fact that its implication coincided with large scale immigration from Europe to the New World (an immigration that probably included witches and wizards seeking to evade the new law) this answer doesn’t seem appropriate.

And, even within JK’s own Canon, wasn’t Ilvermorny founded, at least in part, by a Muggle?

MACUSA – A NEW YORK CAPITAL:

I will admit – I adored the interior of the MACUSA. It is exactly the imagery I have been trying to convey for years and I think it is perfect. What doesn’t fit, however, is the location. For anyone who knows American History (and/or listened to the musical, Hamilton) the placement of the nation’s capital was an extremely contentious and political argument. Some Southerners threatened to quit the union entirely if the capitol was placed in a Northern city, and many of the opposing side felt the same about the South. Control of the capital was seen as a major deal for a lot of reasons. It meant military access and the potential right to control access to and from what they hoped would be the thriving heart of a new nation. It meant an influence on taxes, and it meant prestige. We still aren’t completely sure what deals were brokered to place Washington, D.C. in its current location in what used to be part of Virginia, but the history of that city is fascinating and important to our whole nation.

Simply put, it makes no sense for the capital of the wizarding world to have stayed in New York given the political climate. New York has not been the capitol of the US since July of 1790 and while American Wizarding does believe that the Nine Magical Bureaus are spread across the country, we have always held and will always hold that with a city like Washington D.C. being built for the express purposes of serving as the American Capital, there is no reason for American Wizardry to not have taken advantage of that process to construct its own mirror-capitol…especially given the someone mystical and occult backings that went into much of the city’s design and construction.

US AURORS – LAW AND PUNISHMENT:

I don’t actually have a lot of say here – save that we have upheld that the death-penalty is still an allowable punishment in much of the AWC, and it seems that this has made it into the movie albeit…without the normal course of American Legal Process. I don’t believe for a moment that on the words of a single man, albeit a man who leads the whole of the Aurors, apparently, that two people could be sentenced to Death. No Judge, No Jury and none of the founding principles of law and justice that were absolutely essential to the Founders. So much so they were written into the Constitution of the United States of America. It is apparently standard practice in JK’s universe, however, to skip all of that based on one man’s authority on a regular basis, even if one of those sentenced is a foreign national of a friendly country whose ambassador is standing right upstairs. I wish I could make a bigger deal about this, but given that JK created the Ministry of Magic, which is one of the most corrupt and tyrannical governmental organizations I have ever seen in a fictional novel, I guess it shouldn’t be as surprising as it is.

ILVERMORNY – AN “AMERICAN” MAGICAL SCHOOL

This should come as a surprise to no one, but American Wizarding is not going to be embracing Ilvermorny in any way, shape or form for a number of reasons:

1.      JK Rowling has no concept of how large the United States is. Or, more importantly, that it is more than seven times the size of Great Britain. Or, even more importantly, that that immense size also comes with immense regional differences which, until recent times, are been just as strong as national identities. Southern Witches and Wizards would not have sent their children to a Northern School. Californian mages would have felt the same way about a Southern School. The distance and the cultural differences would have been huge and that is without taking into account Americas cultural and ethnic diversity colliding with a long and bloody history of racism. One school is not enough for the number of students. One school is not enough for the regional preferences and cultural differences. And one school does not even begin to sample the diversity and complexity of American culture.

2.      Ilvermorny as a “Native American” inspired school is, frankly, offensive for the reasons already mentioned above and many others. While our own ‘Seven Schools of Sorcery’ include classes and, in the case of the Mesa Academy, entire curriculums, we have never shied away from the bloody history and the complexity of relationships between the Tribes and the AWC that made that possible.

3.      Ilvermorny is Hogwarts-lite and the ongoing theme of “British but different” becomes more and more taxing the more it keeps coming up.

PROHIBITION AND MAGICAL PEOPLES:

The 1920s in America was the time of Prohibition, which, while only alluded to in the film, was an important part of America’s cultural, legal and political histories. Many don’t understand just how big of a problem alcoholism was in the years proceeding prohibition. In some cities there were as many as one bar for every twelve men, and the almost non-existent regulations on the production of alcohol made it a huge health hazard. Unlike most of Fantastic Beasts, prohibition was not created in a historical vacuum, and people often forget that.

Of course, it also gave us a fantastic peak into the fact that Wizards, like Muggles, have their own secret bars and criminal underworlds: a seedy underbelly upon which, in my opinion, a whole separate story could have been drawn. And that this secret underworld would be a safe place for second-class magical peoples to find their own positions of power? That is truly brilliant. I will admit that here at American Wizarding we had never thought what the role of House Elf might have in America outside of the normal roll of servant…it has always been our position that as rare as House Elves are in Britain, they are even harder to find in America, being such expensive signs of class and wealth. House Elves acting as bar-tenders and public servants? Brilliant and very American.

MAGICAL CREATURES:

First off…THUNDERBIRD. American Wizarding will happily embrace the creature design offered by the movie for the Thunderbird. The design, like many of the aesthetics in the movie, was beautiful. In fact, all of the creature designs were lovely, and it is good to know, finally, how a Billywig works.

What is troubling is the implication that the American Wizarding community, along with being fine with executing private citizens without benefit of a trial, completely not-racist so long as you have magic, and apparently fine with kidnapping magical children from muggle parents because Muggles and Mages can’t intermingle ever, is pretty much entirely genocidal when it comes to magical creatures.

I understand that America does not have the greatest track record when it comes to ecological concerns. Indeed, the extinction and near extinction of many species can be put on the heads of American settlers and frontiersmen. But in the late 1800s and early 1900s a certain fascination with nature had started seeping into the American consciousness, and people were starting to push for national parks and nationally funded wildlife refuges, zoos and conservation efforts. Often heralded as America’s “best idea,” the national park service was well on its way to preserving some of America’s greatest natural treasure by 1926. 

There is a logic that magical creatures provide a problem for a magical community trying to keep itself hidden. Dragons, after all, do not like having their range limited because the humans with magic sticks are trying to keep magic a secret from the stickless humans. But the automatic destruction of such creatures seems to be more a narrative tool for showing how dystopian and authoritarian magical society is, rather than a real attempt to reflect a reality about our real history and society.

But seriously. THUNDERBIRD.

[That’s the Sound of AMERICA]

THE PROBLEM OF THE OBSCURUS:

Okay – time to face the Erumpent in the room. The Obscurus, from a purely narrative and world building point of view, makes absolutely no sense.

While American Wizarding, like many fanfiction and head-canon creators, has discussed how magical talent might be suppressed and how that might be unhealthy for the Mage involved, or even how it might be expressed in strange and unsettling ways that are hard to manage, the idea that magical children who aren’t taught to harness their magical talents might become community destroying nightmares that take entire teams of Aurors to control is sort of a HUGE POINT that we can’t help but feel should have come up at some point before now.

It just makes no sense. Purist wizards in the initial Harry Potter series don’t seem to believe that muggle-born children have any place at Hogwarts. Salazar Slytherin built a hidden chamber with a freaking basilisk in it for this very reason. Conservative, purist Wizarding society seems hellbent on separating the magical world for the muggle, and keep any impurities [IE: Muggleborns] on the outskirts.

This is bad enough when seem from a humanitarian standpoint, but when you factor in the idea of an Obscurus-like creature, a creature whose nature is apparently well known to someone who was trained to fight dark magic, makes the whole stance legitimately dangerous in a very real and practical sense. It goes from being simply poorly thought-out to being actively dangerous to everyone involved.

JK has a history of doing this, sadly (see the “Muggles stealing wands to become witches” accusations in DH). The idea of Obscurus seems to be the sort of plot-contrivance used to shoe-horn in an unnecessary storyline (which will be discussed next). I don’t think it is an understatement to say that including the idea “If we don’t get to magical children and teach them how to embrace their powers they might become actively dangerous to muggles and wizards alike and could kill countless people)” into the mix completely changes the whole premise of wizarding culture and politics.

At the very least, I think we should have heard about this by now from someone.

[We’ve had like 15 DADA Professors by now. You think it would have come up]

GRINDELWALD

I’m sorry but it makes absolutely no sense for Grindelwald, a wizard of immense and considerable magical power with an admittedly “fanatical” following to have come to United States himself. Why could Graves not have just been a Grindelwald sympathizer or sycophant of great talent and power? Wouldn’t it have been more meaningful for someone of such authority and respect in the US to have been a collaborator all along? To show that even bastions such as the MACUSA can be infiltrated by fascists and those with evil tendencies? Especially now? Clearly the Obscurus is powerful, but is it so valuable that you would put your whole organization at risk to capture it?

[As a side note: I really miss this actor]

CUSTOMS AND IMMIGRATION: Finally, one niggling point, but I cannot believe for a second that the United States, a nation which pretty much invented immigration control, does not have the magical equivalent of customs with agents hanging out at major points of call to identify wizards and witches coming into the country with contraband. If the nation is so paranoid that it needs to issue every foreign wizard or witch a license for their wand then WHY DON’T THEY ENFORCE THAT?

[Pictured Above - Someone Who Clearly Didn’t Get Probity Probed at the Border]

So, ultimately…American Wizarding will continue as it always has. We will not be replacing any of the canon we’ve established here, and while Fantastic Beasts was a fun movie, I wouldn’t consider it a particularly well thought out or researched one.

At the very least it gave us this Niffler.

I will always love this guy

[I didn’t make any of these GIFS. I thank those who did and will source if someone provides me links]