How Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Disrupts Harry Potter Canon

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

There are several plot inconsistencies in the film that are difficult to explain.

The story of the magical biologist Newt Scamander, his clumsy Muggle friend Jacob, sisters Tina and Queenie, as well as the rise of the dark wizard Grindelwald, who is preparing the putsch, expanded the universe of "Harry Potter" and once again transported viewers to the world of witchcraft and magic.

At the same time, The Crimes of Grindelwald did not receive the highest ratings from critics and viewers. Many noted the weakness of the plot and the oversaturation of plot lines, due to which the film seems to have no main character, as well as the lack of clarity - it is not easy to figure out what is happening in the story right away.

However, we will not talk about this, but about how the new picture freely handles the events of the books and films about Harry Potter. While Warner Brothers is in a hurry to shoot the next episode, meticulous Potter fans are outraged at how the new film ignores important details of the canon.

Credence may not be Albus Dumbledore's brother

Most of all interest and doubt is caused by the ending, where Grindelwald tells Credence, who throughout history has tried to figure out his origin, that he is actually Dumbledore's brother, and his real name is Aurelius.

Not the most attentive viewers might think that we are talking about the same brother of Dumbledore, who secretly lived in Hogsmeade and helped Dumbledore's squad in the movie "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." However, that was another, "official" brother - Aberforth. Albus Dumbledore also had a younger sister, Ariana. But no one had ever heard of the fourth sibling before.

From the books and the official resource on the Potterian, on which additional materials and character biographies are laid out, it is well known about the Dumbledore family.

In 1891, they had a misfortune. Neighboring Muggle boys, noticing how little Ariana was doing magic in the yard, decided to find out exactly how she does it, and, according to Aberforth, who told the story to Harry, Ron and Hermione, "got carried away a little." Seeing how the boys beat and torture their daughter, the father of the family, Percival Dumbledore, severely punished them in a fit of rage. Ariana was damaged by the experience and forgot how to control her magical abilities, and Percival was imprisoned in the Azkaban prison guarded by the Dementors for attacking the Muggles.

And in 1899, the mother of the family, the Muggle-born sorceress Kendra Dumbledore, died at the hands of Ariana, who, after the attack, was subject to attacks with uncontrolled bursts of magical powers. Kendra hardly managed to give birth to Credence-Aurelius: firstly, there is no mention of her pregnancy, and secondly, the events of "The Crimes of Grindelwald" take place in 1927, which means Credence should be at least 28. In the film he looks much younger - he is a young man, almost a teenager. It turns out that at the time of his birth, Kendra was already dead.

In theory, Credence could have been the son of Percival Dumbledore and some unknown woman. However, since that same ill-fated year, when Ariana was mentally traumatized, Percival was imprisoned in Azkaban, where he later died. It is unlikely that local dementors provide an opportunity for romantic dates, and it is strange to imagine that a prisoner did something like that.

Based on all this, Credence cannot be Dumbledore's brother in any way (at least if we mean by this common parents).

Either this is a very crude script flaw, or Grindelwald lied.

Most likely, the dark wizard really leads the young man by the nose in order to somehow set him up against Albus. As for the phoenix, which appears as if in confirmation of the words of Grindelwald, these creatures are not only representatives of the Dumbledore family. For example, Fawkes flew to the aid of Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets.

Even if Grindelwald is lying, yet another misinformation about Credence's origins already looks like a bad joke: too often it was repeated throughout the film, and it sounds too strange just such a lie in the light of the Dumbledore family tragedy. The story of Albus, Aberforth and Ariana is an established part of the Harry Potter canon, and fans even make their own film adaptations based on it. For example, this plot concerns the donated film Voldemort: Origins of the Heir, filmed by Tryangle Films.

If we assume that Credence is the brother of Albus, Aberforth and Ariana, it is unclear how and why he got on the ship that is shown to us in the film. Was he sent there right after Kendra died? Who is the woman who was with the child? There are no answers to these questions yet, and it is unclear if they will be convincing enough in the next films.

Minerva McGonagall was not born yet

When the movie takes place at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall briefly appears in the frame. Dumbledore refers to her by her last name and asks to take the students out of the class. Some viewers liked this episode, because the appearance of familiar characters in a familiar habitat is always a pleasant fan service. However, the caustic fans were outraged.

Recall that the action takes place in 1927, and Minerva McGonagall already works at Hogwarts. Whereas in the books about "Harry Potter" it is mentioned that she became a teacher only in 1956, before that, having worked for two years at the Ministry of Magic, where the talented girl got right after school. Young British wizards graduate from Hogwarts at about 18 years old. It turns out that Minerva was born in 1935 or 1936.

On Minerva's page on the Pottermore project, only her birthday is indicated, October 4, but there is no year, although other characters have it. Some fans have speculated that the information was removed from the site when Professor McGonagall decided to include it in the new films in the franchise.

There is no adequate explanation for how it happened that the professor ended up at Hogwarts even before she was born.

Most of all, in this situation, it is not even the factual error that confuses, but its meaninglessness. Minerva is shown only briefly, she has no meaningful actions, and her appearance does not affect anything. It looks as if the character was introduced into the film only for the audience to feel a second recognition.

Dumbledore did not teach protection from the dark forces

The scene was filmed in the same classroom in which Professor Lokons and Professor Lupine taught, and Dumbledore does about the same thing as Lupine in the third part of "Harry Potter": he invites the students to fight the boggart - a ghost who turns into what a person is most of all afraid. It turns out that Dumbledore is a teacher of defense against the dark forces (ZO. T. S.).

At the same time, in the canon, Dumbledore, before becoming the headmaster of the school, taught transfiguration - the magical science of transforming one object into another. This is all the more strange when you consider that when Harry Potter was a student at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall taught Transfiguration. It is not clear what kind of item Minerva is leading in the Fantastic Beasts world if she and Dumbledore have the same specialization.

Either way, it has never been mentioned in the books or previous films that Dumbledore was the teacher of the Z. O. T. S. Apparently, they decided to include the scene only because of its recognizability (many remember how Neville Longbottom dressed the Boggart who turned into Professor Snape in his grandmother's hat) and in order to show the fears of Newt and Lita Lestrange.

Why does Rowling do it

One would assume that "Fantastic Beasts" and all their possible flaws are on the conscience of Warner Brothers. However, in reality, everything is a little more complicated. J. K. Rowling personally worked on the script for The Crimes of Grindelwald and had ample control over what went on in the film. Her influence on the new franchise is stronger than on other people's screen versions of Harry Potter.

Working on a book is somewhat different from working on a film script, where it is necessary to strike a balance between the needs of the script and the technical side of the issue. When the script part sags, the scenes of the film look ill-conceived, drawn out or, on the contrary, crumpled, fateful decisions are made in the blink of an eye, and unnecessary plots are drawn out. There is reason to think that the writer is not very good at screenwriting.

However, the most questionable is JK Rowling's careless handling of the canon of his own books. The writer has repeatedly said in interviews that the universe of "Harry Potter" is wider than what was included in the books, and was thought out in advance for many years to come. Most likely, Rowling is disingenuous: it is noticeable that the plot becomes more complicated from book to book thanks to the flight of her imagination, the scale of the problems grows with the characters, and plot twists are invented along the way.

So somewhere, Rowling just might be wrong about the facts. Another thing is that she does not like to admit her mistakes, coming up with complex explanations. Sometimes they can be discouraging, such as in the case of Hermione's race. It turned out that the girl was originally conceived to be black, and even the testimonies from the text, able to refute this, did not interfere with the writer.

Perhaps in the script for the new film, Rowling will somehow explain the plot holes of the previous part. However, this can only be hoped for.