#leda lestrange

[gryffinclawinthetardis]

Fantastic Beasts Thoughts

Well, it’s been a while, my dudes. I literally saw the new Fantastic Beasts movie two days early at a special screening and am still only getting to this now. The thing is, I wanted to organize my thoughts and make sure I wasn’t being overly critical before I said anything and...I don’t think I was. The movie was a mess guys.

On the plus side, sitting with these thoughts also put me in a place where I actually think it’s would have been fixable, and I’m going to tell you how for literally no reason. Just stick with me, guys. And there will be spoilers.

1. Cut half the plots of this movie:

Credence looking for his family is all fine and well, but does not help this movie at all. Seriously, I understand they are trying to further the plot point of him wanting to be somewhere he belongs from the first movie, but couldn’t he just be trying to live a normal life in the wizarding world and learning to control his magic and Grindelwald constantly sending people after him is derailing that, making him a threat and causing the Ministry to also want him? Then we could have Credence back and not have the weird magic circus story that exists for no real reason and the moments where we stop the movie short to show a conversation with a random nanny who gives a tiny bit of exposition and then dies. We could also focus more on Grindelwald’s actual followers and power.

 Also, the side plot of Dumbledore literally being unable to fight Grindelwald, totally pointless (I’ll get to more on that one later). He could’ve just had the Ministry watching him because they think he’s searching for Credence and they have conflicting hopes for him, and have sent Newt to find Credence before Grindelwald because Newt wasn’t being watched, and boom, reason Dumbledore doesn’t go after Credence himself. 

So, basically, just have the movie about Grindelwald still trying to remove the Obscurial from Credence, and Dumbledore trying to cure Credence, and the Ministry trying to kill the Obscurial by any means necessary and you have one cohesive plot that you can show Newt using beasts to help him along the way and have Credence back, and have Grindelwald be a threat and all the side plots are pretty much flushed.

2. Better explanations: 

So I’ve heard a lot of people confused about things that happened between this movie and the first. I, myself, don’t understand the sudden jump to Grindelwald telling his followers Credence is the lost Lestrange boy. I’m assuming he just went with the flow when someone brought it up?? But I’d love a clear answer to that. I’d love a clear answer to Why Credence joined a circus in the first place. Or why Queenie turned psycho so quick (That’s also talked on more in the next point). What’s up with Grindelwald’s weird hookah magic? Please explain the series of events that led to that opening escape scene. Why didn’t he just duck out on that dude who switched places with him? He certainly didn’t seem particularly useful anyway. None of these questions are answered, and I’d love if, for all the exposition in this damn movie, we could get useful answers.

3. Don’t 180 established characters for lazy plot reasons:

Okay, we all know who I’m talking about. Queenie was established first movie to be very empathetic and, mostly even despite her seemingly air-headed demeanor and whimsical attitude, an amazingly resourceful and adept witch. So why, when the second movie rolls around, is she suddenly crazy, and then triggered by the word crazy?? She literally kidnaps her boyfriend and tries to trick him into marriage and when he’s not even mad, makes solid logical points as to why they aren’t married, and thinks at her that she’s being a bit crazy (which she is as far as we can tell), she acts like he’s in the wrong and runs off?? The chick we see this movie is not Queenie. Even worse, there is no explanation for why she is losing it, and not being as understanding as we know her to be. Not to mention, making her crazy actually diminishes what they were trying to do. How much more terrifying and awe worthy would it have been if, instead of turning a crazed woman to his side, Grindelwald took our original Queenie and turned her to his side? Or, even better, how about that plot point not exist at all? 

4. Let Dumbledore be gay:

This one is just annoying. Honestly, why couldn’t they have just let him be hesitant to go after Grindelwald because he’d loved him once? Why is that so hard to do? Why mention it if it means nothing to any of the established canon for mainstream audiences? I’m just disappointed in this one. If they had dropped the whole blood oath crap and just let him have the moment in the mirror where it’s just them, that would’ve been enough for me to not be as mad as I am.

5. Stop ruining established canon for pointless fan service: 

I’m talking to you McGonagall and Nagini. There is a right way to do fan service, Nicholas Flamel and going to Hogwarts to see Dumbledore where examples of that. Giving us lore and then taking a giant dump all over it is not. McGonagall should not have been at Hogwarts, you literally have five movies to bring her in and this was the wrong one to do it in. You wanted to show through the raise of Voldemort, so wait for that to show McGonagall. Don’t shove her in early for literally no reason at all. 

Also, let’s talk about how dumb Nagini existing this movie was. She does absolutely nothing to further this plot. She’s just there, making sad eyes at Credence and turning into a snake. She has so few lines, the movie would literally barely be any shorter if she never said anything at all. Every scene she’s in could’ve gone exactly the same without her, with the most minimal changes. Have Credence escape the circus on his own (or subscribe to my idea and don’t do that circus thing at all). Have Tina be the one asking him not to go with Grindelwald since they already have an established rapport, and boom, movie is literally hardly any different (once again, unless we go with my plot). 

6. Don’t waste interesting characters:

Newt’s brother, Thaddeus and his fiancee Leda actually seemed to have pretty good chemistry with Newt, and they did this really clever thing where we see how uncomfortable Newt is with them which makes us realize how close he really is to Tina, Queenie, and Jacob in the first film because it’s a vast contrast to how he is with his brother and former best friend. Then they go and give neither of them anything to do the whole movie and cap it off by killing Leda off at the end. I’m not gonna lie, her talents were wasted, and to make matters worse, I don’t actually care enough about her by the end of the movie for the the death to cause me sadness. Something compounded by the fact that it comes in the wake of Queenie’s betrayal, which is by and large more upsetting. Explore Newt’s possible feelings of abandonment by Leda. Have her have a useful job, one that maybe makes her privy to info about what the Ministry is up to and pass it on to Newt or Dumbledore. Something! Anything but that dumb convoluted sibling plot line that reeked of ignorance and poor taste. 

Also, give Thaddeus more to do. Explore his dynamic with Newt more. Have him more torn about siding with his brother and Dumbledore or siding with the Ministry. He does little else, besides telling Newt the Ministry is watching him (something that presents no hindrance to Newt and his travels whatsoever), and looking worried or strained in places with the other Aurors. Have his job as Auror conflict with Newt’s plans more. Have him chasing his own brother. Like, give him something to do. 

7. Flashbacks or Exposition, not both:

I don’t have much to say other than it halted the movie to show us stuff we were already told. Either show or tell, don’t do both.

8. Make Grindelwald more of a threat:

He doesn’t actually do much in this movie. None of his speeches seem that charismatic. The way he interacts with his followers doesn’t seem very charismatic. We get a lot of people telling us he is, but I never see it. He kills some people who aren’t prepared to fight him, and he has a single fight scene which was actually pointless because he should’ve just escaped and left a dude to die in his place which would’ve shown his real menace at least a bit more than what we got. The running joke is, nobody really knows what the crimes of Grindelwald are this movie. I mean, yes there is the obvious stuff: murder, gathering without a permit, escaping police custody, maybe some secrecy issues?? But for a movie literally named for his crimes, there is still a surprising lack of actual bad stuff he does.

He has one really clever moment and it doesn’t happen until the very end of the movie so it honestly feels too little too late. I will mention that it’s a great example of how well matched he a Dumbledore were though, because we’re led to believe they both knew what would happen if the Aurors showed up at his rally. It’s honestly his best moment, in my opinion.

9. Don’t do that ending you did: 

It’s dumb. It’s terrible. It better be a lie. Once again, it takes a dump on well established canon to do something that isn’t even necessary. i just...no. Don’t do any of that you did. 

[queen-of-erebus]

Slytherin: Jesus Christ, you wouldn't hold up under torture.

Hufflepuff: And you could?

Slytherin: I have

[cpt-tightpants]

Proof of concept for a cosplay idea: Young Newt Scamander! What do you guys think?

[olderthannetfic]

This is a little snapshot of Harrypotterfanfiction.com (HPFF) on the eve of its closure.

HPFF is one of many hefty HP archives that littered the internet in the early 00s. When I recorded this data, it housed 85,767 fics. It doesn’t have as overt a focus as many of those old archives, but looking at these stats, you can get a sense of which part of HP fandom it attracts.

--

Notes:

Other & OC = “Other Pairings” + OC/OC, not a gen ship of other+OC.

Format, rating, and era appear to be exclusive (1 tag per fic). Ships and genres are not.

The archive has a set list of tags to choose from including 45 ship tags and 104 character tags. Ship gender is not a metadata category. (I calculated this based on classifying the list of available ship tags.) The site has primary and secondary ship tagging as an option, but I did not look at that for these charts.

The available m/m ship tags are:

Remus/Sirius - 166

Draco/Harry - 138

Albus/Gellert - 25

The F/F tag is:

Ginny/Hermione - 13

Full ship and character tag list for the curious under the cut because it’s long.

Ships

Other Pairing - 19366 Harry/Ginny - 16018 Ron/Hermione - 14920 James/Lily - 12592 Draco/Hermione - 9500 Sirius/OC - 7292 OC/OC - 5707 Remus/OC - 4521 Draco/OC - 4126 Rose/Scorpius - 3943 Harry/Hermione - 3840 Harry/OC - 2831 James/OC - 2561 Remus/Tonks - 2304 Arthur/Molly - 2089 Teddy/Victoire - 2035 Lucius/Narcissa - 1743 Draco/Ginny - 1681 Neville/Luna - 1609 Ron/Lavender - 1543 Bill/Fleur - 1517 Hermione/OC - 1500 Ron/OC - 1452 Draco/Pansy - 1359 Snape/Lily - 1245 Lily/OC - 1101 Snape/OC - 1062 Ron/Luna - 1010 Ginny/OC - 885 Harry/Cho - 634 Hermione/FredOrGeorge - 567 Harry/Luna - 480 Hermione/Krum - 456 Ginny/Dean - 423 Sirius/Lily - 388 Draco/Luna - 381 Cho/Cedric - 310 Remus/Lily - 166 Remus/Sirius - 166 Draco/Harry - 138 Snape/Narcissa - 115 Dean/Luna - 109 Andromeda/Ted - 65 Albus/Gellert - 25 Ginny/Hermione - 13

Characters

Harry Potter - 39180 Hermione Granger - 37467 Original Character - 35479 Ron Weasley - 31147 Draco Malfoy - 24889 Ginny Weasley - 22903 Sirius Black - 18427 Remus Lupin - 18350 James Potter - 16648 Lily Evans/Potter - 16280 Other Canon - 13697 Severus Snape - 13252 Albus Dumbledore - 12213 Voldmort/Tom Riddle - 10689 Peter Pettigrew - 8420 Fred Weasley - 7816 Neville Longbottom - 6914 Minerva McGonagall - 6703 Lucius Malfoy - 6519 Rose Weasley - 6299 Luna Lovegood - 6287 Albus S.Potter - 6112 Scorpius Malfoy - 6036 James Potter (II) - 5780 Narcissa Black/Malfoy - 5042 Pansy Parkinson - 4693 Lily Potter (II) - 4644 Nymphadora Tonks - 4171 George Weasley - 4155 Blaise Zabini (M) - 3695 Molly Weasley - 3272 Teddy Lupin - 3184 Hugo Weasley - 3076 Bellatrix Lestrange - 3010 Cho Chang - 2415 Victoire Weasley - 2235 Arthur Weasley - 2203 Regulus Black - 1938 Oliver Wood - 1859 Seamus Finnegan - 1847 Alice Longbottom - 1618 Bill Weasley - 1422 Rubeus Hagrid - 1147 Frank Longbottom - 1133 Charlie Weasley - 1133 Percy Weasley - 984 Fleur Delacour - 876 Dean Thomas - 872 Cedric Diggory - 861 Andromeda Tonks (Black) - 812 Rudolphus Lestrange - 701 Salazar Slytherin - 623 Poppy Pomfrey - 614 Godric Gryffindor - 609 Viktor Krum - 595 Rowena Ravenclaw - 584 Kingsley Shacklebolt - 570 Horace Slughorn - 563 Gregory Goyle - 553 Alastor Moody - 500 Helga Hufflepuff - 493 Vincent Crabbe - 485 Dolores Umbridge - 329 Ted Tonks - 290 Argus Filch - 279 Rita Skeeter - 278 Dobby - 259 Kreacher - 256 Sybill Trelawney - 249 Aberforth Dumbledore - 225 Grindelwald         - 224 Pomona Sprout - 203 Cornelius Fudge - 187 Ollivander - 172 Fred Weasley (II) - 136 Ariana Dumbledore - 134 Rufus Scrimgeour - 129 Dominique Weasley - 128 Louis Weasley - 96 Roxanne Weasley - 71 Lucy Weasley - 62 Bathilda Bagshot - 61 Mundungus Fletcher - 57 Molly Weasley (II) - 57 Kendra Dumbledore - 57 Arabella Figg - 48 Elphias Doge - 44 Percival Dumbledore - 40 Fenrir Greyback - 37 Aunt Muriel - 28 Newt Scamander - 27 Gregorovitch - 16 Porpentina Goldstein/Scamander - 12 Delphini Riddle/Diggory - 10 Leda Lestrange - 5 Credence Barebone - 3 Queenie Goldstein - 3 Jacob Kowalski - 3 Modesty Barebone - 1 Percival Graves - 1 Seraphina Picquery - 1 Chastity Barebone - 0 Mary Lou Barebone - 0 Henry Shaw Sr. - 0

[crvcio]

moodboard: bellatrix & narcissa + pale blue + minimalist

[masksofmickey]

You look like a cute hippie chick in those glasses, I love it!

[theelderswear]

I love how chill you are with the weirdest questions 😂

*shrug* I like to think that things roll off my back easily.

[kuppiekay]

i just finished watching fantastic beasts and where to find them (1st time) and like.............. im butthurt???????????????

[animentality]

Ok so my assessment of fantastic beasts 2: how to pander to your original audience is best put into a list. So here.

Strengths:

- characters-

- newt scamander: lovely performance by redmayne. He's probably the strongest character of the two films. He plays awkward and anti social very well, brings a very charming strangeness to the character. I think newt is a good protagonist. just...not for this story. Will explain more.

- Jacob Kowalski: he's still the relatable regular Joe character. I'm fond of him, actually, so no complaints about him. His friendship with newt is pure and his relationship with Queenie is realistic enough.

- Queenie: despite her mistakes this film, I still thought she was a fairly relatable and interesting character. I'm not sure if joining a wizard cult because she wants to marry a man is totally in character, though, as she's not a psychopath and you can advocate for muggle wizard intermarriage without turning to wizard supremacists, but eh. Drama. She was fine. Her sort of cheery kindness and quirky little Americanisms are still rather charming, even though she was overshadowed by other stories. 

- Leda Lestrange: lovely character. I loved her relationship with newt, I thought it was sweet and sort of reminiscent of the mutual outcast friendship that forms between people who aren't understood by others. I thought I would hate having a Lestrange be shoved into the plot for no reason, but she was actually an interesting person, since she was seen as wicked and nasty, and was a Slytherin with a pure blood family to boot. I'm not gonna lie, her line about how newt never met a monster he couldn't love was strangely touching.

- Tina: .... Hm she's still a flat character for me, but her affection for newt's odd mannerisms makes her at least a passable character in my book. I feel like she was a little flatter this movie than last movie, since she really didn't get more than one character building scene, but she was fine. 

-Fantastic Creatures-

- nifflers: adorable as ever. they’re almost too cute, and i usually resist the allure of corporate based “adorable little animals,” but nifflers are too much like platypuses for me to hate them. they’re sweet, and newt’s baby nifflers, and main niffler, were very lovable. the mechanics of their movement also never fail to impress me, they really feel like living creatures.

-the dragon cat thing: fucking amazing. i loved that thing’s design. i loved how it moved, and i loved how newt wasn’t afraid of it. he knew what it needed and he went towards it, hoping to free it by taking it out of the industrial prison it had been locked in. absolutely adored the little cat toy he brought out to lure it into his briefcase. THAT is what these movies should be about, not this whole grindelwald nonsense. more on that later. 

- Newt’s suitcase:  I love every creature in newt’s suitcase, as well as his suitcase. very creative, very visually stunning, seeing how he has multiple ecosystems and creatures living in it. I also love his house below his house. riding the kelpie was such a...it was such a good moment. it actually made me feel like i was watching a harry potter movie. 

- aesthetics- 

- the 20′s aesthetic just works. costume design was lovely, creature designs are realistic, and i love the camera angles over the paris skyline as well as the very 20s look and atmosphere. 

- newt and dumbledore dress very well. 

Now for the weaknesses. 

- These movies do not need to exist. Yes, yes, I know, we love Harry Potter. But this didn’t need to be related to the original Harry Potter for us to be interested in it. Credence could’ve had his own story. Newt, could’ve had his own story, no relevance to the other Harry Potter at all, and still been interesting. The movies themselves existing, sure, fine, but acting like Newt’s story HAS to be connected to Harry’s outside of the very slim connection of being in the same universe? Yeah, that ruins the story of newt scamander. he doesn’t NEED to be under orders of Albus Dumbledore, he’s strong enough of a character to be alone, with a whole new set of characters. Having the stories connect to Harry’s is just emphasizing painfully how little they really have to do with his. 

- it suffers from the classic prequel issue of continuity. Plot holes? I can handle them. But making Credence a Dumbledore, having Leda Lestrange only to kill her off in a dumb way, having MCGONAGALL who shouldn’t be born yet? Yikes. PLUS, Newt manages to get the blood pact thing from Grindelwald, and Dumbledore is like, well I might be able to destroy it....BUT WE ALREADY KNOW WHAT HAPPENS. HE BEATS GRINDELWALD IN A FIGHT? Where’s the suspense? You can’t keep bringing in old characters just for lols and to make the audience gasp, because they clash with the new. We KNOW what happens to them. In a prequel, you should really aim to bring in new characters, and try to be conservative with how many old ones you bring back precisely because of this problem. So that annoyed me. 

- Nagini, Leda Lestrange, Credence, and Albus Dumbledore. Nagini. Does. Nothing. This. Entire. Movie. Her role is literally to hang on Credence’s arm and make puppy dog eyes when he leaves her. There is no depth whatsoever to her character. She’s just a sad beautiful caged Asian lady who follows a suffering white boy around, that’s about it. You could’ve actually focused on her feelings about her blood curse, but they didn’t even do that. She’s literally just there, kind of like Cho Chang. Well done, JK, that diversity thing sure is neat-o. 

Leda Lestrange. She actually had a great backstory, and a lot of potential. We saw that people assumed she was nasty and a bully. We saw that she was misunderstood, and hated for it, and she took it because she felt like she was responsible for the death of her “brother.” Combine that with pure blood fanatics in her family, blood purists, and the fact that she was in slytherin, the “evil” house? yeah, could’ve been wonderful. could’ve been epic, to have her sort of openly fight that. but no, they really under developed her. she had good moments with newt at hogwarts, and i loved her stand against grindelwald, yet i can’t help but feel they didn’t emphasize her fucked up family more. like if you’re gonna bring back the LESTRANGE family, then really fucking go INTO them, you know? They didn’t even really focus on that aspect of her character. They just called her a bully and left it at that. 

Credence. I loved him in the first movie, but fuck, making him a dumbledore? canonically, the only way you can write around dumbledore’s established backstory is to make up some hidden child drama, and boy is that fucking dumb. plus, the Ariana backstory was all we needed for dumbledore?  He regretted not loving his sister enough, he regretted being blinded by ambition and a love for power, he regretted being hypnotized by grindelwald’s brilliance, and his own. That was all we needed from him. But this? A hidden brother, given away by his parents? Why? What purpose does it have? It’s not really adding to Dumbledore’s character, to have him feel bad about an abandoned brother who’s become a monster because of it. It’s just adding another sob story about an orphan to him.

I bet you anything that next movie, Dumbledore will make some line about Credence, or to Credence, about how orphan boys so often feel alone, and unloved, and it’s not their faults, or something stupid, because he’s going to have to allude to The Boy Who Lived at some point. 

Dumbledore himself.  Listen, I love Dumbledore. i think he’s a brilliantly written character with flaws that are fleshed out very well in the last harry potter book. But if you’re going to make a prequel to harry potter...either focus on dumbledore or focus on newt. you’re doing no one any favors by having the two compete with whose story they’re in. dumbledore’s grindelwald drama could’ve easily been a more interesting story on its OWN. making it a side story to newt’s is fucking weird because newt’s IS a side story to harry potter. which brings me to...

THE PLOT

What the fuck?

Literally what the fuck.

I was actually zoning OUT for parts of the beginning and middle of the movie.

Not much actually HAPPENED.

The plot is literally just to chase Credence around Paris. It’s only near the end, really, that we see the dumb family drama.

There should’ve been more emphasis on Grindelwald trying to take over the ministry or find supporters. 

Because Find Credence is like...such a slim plot.

It’s basically Wreck it Ralph 2, except at least that movie never bored me.

Lemme put it this way:

Newt’s objective: Find Credence. Find Tina, who is looking for Credence.

Tina: Look for Credence. 

Grindelwald: Look for Credence. 

Jacob: Find Queenie. 

Queenie: Find Way to be with Jacob. Then Find Grindelwald, cuz he may be the Way, so in short, find Credence. 

Ministry of Magic of Paris: Find Credence. Find Grindelwald.

It’s a movie of finding everything EXCEPT FANTASTIC BEASTS.

it’s just frustrating, is all, because as i was watching it, i just thought christ, are they gonna find this kid or what?

And the “search” plot isn’t necessarily bad.

i mean plenty of movies have plots where they’re essentially just going from point 1 to point 2. 

but what’s bad about this one is that we don’t get many character building between the finding.

we don’t get inspired chase or fight scenes to make the finding interesting.

we don’t even really get a powerful message about wizard populism or the evils of racist demagogues. 

It’s just a story about finding a powerful dude whose powers are ill defined and who just wants to find his birth parents. 

That story could’ve been interesting if they’d just had more character interactions. 

But they didn’t.

The only characters who really interacted well and gave the movie even a sliver of depth were Leda and Newt....and guess who died?

So. 

Yeah.

That’s what I thought of the movie. 

The characters, and actors, are lovely. 

The fantastic beasts really are awesome and feel realistic. They actually feel like Harry Potter, that’s the best way i can describe it. When I saw the Kelpie, I thought, this is what Harry Potter felt like. 

But the plot?

Weak.

The development of characters? Also weak. And uninspired. And it doesn’t use them all to their full potential. 

Nagini? Why have her here? She’s already a dumb extra plot device, this makes it worse by not even having her be useful to the plot. 

Dumbledore? Needs his own story. 

Grindelwald? Not compelling as a villain, not very complex. Also not gay enough for Dumbledore. 

Tl; dr- I liked any part where newt is being newt and loving animals, but acting weird to people. I did not like whenever they tried to make the movie as harry-potter related as possible. 

[imagitory]

Hi, how are you? Have you watched the new fantastics beasts?What did you think about the movie?

*exhales slowly* Just got back from seeing it with my mumand friend (who are also big Potterheads), and…well, we came out of the theaterkind of disappointed. For those of you who wish to avoid spoilers, I’ll just say thatI was not happy with some of the choices J.K. made in regards tocharacterization for the central cast and with the film’s odd focus on Eastereggs to the original books or (possibly) the future sequels at the expense ofmaking sure the twists and characters introduced fit in with the establishedHarry Potter universe and even were necessary to begin with. The visuals andmusic were as always impressive, and Newt and his creatures were just aswonderful as in the first Fantastic Beasts movie, but like The Nutcrackerand the Four Realms I’m afraid the script is where most of this film’sproblems lie.

For those who don’t fear spoilers…read on!

The Good!

+Newt. He is honestly such a ray of sunshine and I so enjoyhim as our main character. Most of the laughs I got from this movie werebecause of him, and he was just as lovable and charming as ever. Eddie Redmayne embodies the character in every single shot he’s in: if everyone else is giving 100%, he’s giving 120%.

+The Fantastic Beasts, both old and new! The creatures wereunique and creative and I enjoyed every scene where Newt interacted with them.He even got to use them in cool, new ways, like using them to help himtrack down Tina, bust him, Leda, and Tina out of the French Ministry, and evenpickpocket Gellert Grindelwald at the end! It showcased Newt and his love of“simple things” as a truly formidable threat to evil, without sacrificing hisgentle, nurturing nature.

+The visuals, both costume-wise and scenery-wise, wereawesome. Costumer Colleen Atwood as always is on point, and the scene whereGrindelwald “calls” his followers with those wispy curtain things coming out ofnowhere to blanket Paris was very eerie.

+Leda Lestrange was a very interesting character! I’llhave to talk about her again in the less positive section, but honestly, shewas my favorite character in this movie. She’s a Slytherin with a dark past, amessed-up family, and a troubled soul, and yet she’s thoroughly a good guy:even when Grindelwald tries to corrupt her, she doesn’t bend and insteadfights him. Plus she was best friends with Hufflepuff Newt Scamander!Huff/Slyth friendship forever, people.

+I like Theseus and Newt’s relationship! I think Theseusbeing a very orderly, law-abiding Ravenclaw type makes for a great contrastwith Newt’s softer, rougher Hufflepuff nature.

+The cameo for Nicholas Flamel wasn’t necessary at all, but Ilike the concept for the character. Would love to see him kick some more ass inone of the sequels!

+Jude Law as Dumbledore. Honestly, I don’t think theycould’ve cast anyone better. He had all of the class, all of the gravitas, andall of the dodgy-ness appropriate to the character. Seriously, when he wasmessing around with Newt at the beginning I turned to my mum and friendand said, “Cheeky bastard.”

+As much as I still wouldn’t have cast Johnny Depp to playGrindelwald (I’m sorry, I would really have preferred aBulgarian/German/whatever else actor: the guy went to Durmstrang,for crying out loud), he really did pretty damn well. My personal fancast forGrindelwald will probably always be Michael Fassbender, and I may have writtenthe character a little differently myself, but the whole rally scene was excellentlystaged and Grindelwald’s manipulation of the Aurors felt very appropriate tothe character set up in the books.

+Really, all of the actors were good choices and theyperformed the material well. The material itself, that’s another matter, buteveryone gave it their all.

The Not-So-Good…

+*breathes in and out…in…and out…in…*

WHAT THE EVER-LOVING FUCK DID YOU DO TO QUEENIE?!

No, I’m sorry, I will get to other bullet points, but thisreally, really made me angry. Queenie was hands-down my favoritecharacter in the first Fantastic Beasts movie – she was a Leglimens,something we’d only ever seen from Dark wizards previously, and she had aflirtatious streak, but she was indisputably a good person with a gentle heart,a romantic spirit, and a sharp brain. She may have looked like a ditz (andpeople mistook her for that, to their detriment), but she was anything but:this is someone who was able to use her wiles to cheat her way into the MACUSAto bust her sister, Newt, and love interest Jacob out of Auror captivity. Shewas never an easily led person, and she was never the sort who would tryto manipulate someone she cared about with A LOVE SPELL and get swayed intojoining a man who advocates the superiority of wizard kind OVER THE OBJECTIONSOF THE MAN SHE LOVES, WHO HAPPENS TO NOT BE A WIZARD. Queenie is a strong, yetfeminine character who, despite her fragile appearance, showed nothing butstrength, smarts, and devotion to the ones she loved. To turn her into a pawnof Grindelwald is nothing short of character assassination in my eyes.

+Way too many things happened in “post-hawk”explanation while having  far-reaching consequences in this film. Queenie and Jacobgot back together and Queenie became so desperate to marry him that she forsome reason decided to enchant him. Queenie and Tina are now not on speakingterms because Tina got mad that Queenie started dating Jacob, even though hebecame Tina’s friend too in the first movie. Tina suddenly is mad at Newtbecause of a misunderstanding, so their relationship is back to square one andthey’re not working well with each other like the first movie. Newt’s old loveinterest Leda Lestrange is marrying Newt’s brother Theseus even though sheclearly still has feelings for Newt. Because we are told all of thisinformation rather than seeing it seamlessly integrated into the storyline, wethe audience have less of an idea how to feel about it and, if the actions seemout of character, we don’t understand how the characters got to the point wherethey’d behave that way. There’s a reason a lot of tacked-on sequels are writtenlike this – the filmmakers didn’t expect to have to write more of the plotline,so it’s often a symptom of them trying to insert more artificial conflict intoa previously “happy ending” storyline. But we know that can’t be the case here, as these sequels were planned! And seriously, there are ways to add new conflictswhile keeping your characterizations from the previous installment intact –just look at the original Harry Potter books. We never had a book wheresuddenly Hermione was drugging Ron with love potion or Harry was suddenlydating Parvati so that he wouldn’t think about Ginny. Even introducing theseconflicts after the status quo was established would have made them easier toswallow.

+Credence should have died. I’m sorry, but the charactershould have died at the end of Fantastic Beasts. Not only was his deathsuch a fitting ending for that story and reversing it (again, post-hawk with noexplanation about how he survived) takes both that emotional gut-punch and thedanger that irreversible character death can provide away, but I also justdidn’t care for the whole “chosen one” prophecy thing they tried to tack ontoCredence. I mean, how many chosen ones does the Wizarding Worldhave? The entire plotline with Credence just got way convoluted, and the twistat the end – really? A Dumbledore? I mean, I’d guessed hemight not really be a Lestrange, but…if Albus was really his brother,why the hell was Credence on that boat? We know that Albus, Aberforth, andAriana were basically stuck in Godric’s Hollow with their parents for most oftheir lives, particularly after those Muggle boys hurt Ariana. But according tothis movie, Credence was a magical child being sent away from Europe by hisfamily who just happened to be swapped with yet another magical childwho was also being sent away from Europe by his family on the samefriggin’ boat. What are the odds? Even if the filmmakers wanted to play it asGrindelwald tricking Credence, lying to him about his ancestry so Credencewould want revenge against Dumbledore and try to kill him, that would’ve beenbetter, but they put bloody Fawkes in there. Just…what?

+On that note, what was the point of putting in somany worthless references to the original books? Fawkes as the pet ofGrindelwald’s new protégé? Professor McGonagall at Hogwarts even though there’sno way she could’ve been teaching at that time? Nagini, who honestly was themost ineffectual, throwaway character I think I’ve ever seen in any HarryPotter movie? She did basically nothing in this entire movie. We get verylittle focus on her and Credence’s friendship (romance? I dunno, there wasn’texactly time for any chemistry), so we don’t feel much of anything for it, and all shereally does is follow him around most of the time. She doesn’t protect himor give him advice to speak of, except at the end where she tries to convincehim not to join Grindelwald, which because it’s the only point we’ve seenher interacting with him on an emotional level doesn’t have any impact. Therewere also minor references in the Ministry characters, with one being namedTravers (whose family would later contain a Death Eater), but really, they allkind of blurred together for me, with none really leaving any impact except forTheseus. Any of them could have been cut without losing anything.

+There was so much going on at all times that there waslittle focus on the most important relationships: Newt and Theseus, Newt andLeda, Theseus and Leda, Newt and Tina (which frankly got so insufferable atpoints, it felt like a bad rom-com), Queenie and Jacob, Jacob and Newt, Tinaand Queenie, and Grindelwald and Dumbledore. Nagini and Credence’s relationship was almost anafterthought, given that they have almost no scenes showing any kind of bond, that it and they may as well have been cut altogether. Therewere moments that did work with most of the main relationships, but theycould’ve been so much stronger if the filmmakers hadn’t added in all these extra charactersand plot lines that weren’t needed, like Leda’s older half-brother bent onrevenge with that weird parasite in his eye. (What did that add??)

+I said Leda was my favorite character in this movie, andthat was true. What makes me mad, though, is that after building up such awonderful, interesting character that has such potential for growth anddevelopment, J.K. killed her off after we only just started getting to know her.Now all we’ll ever see of her relationships with Newt and Theseus (which, as Ipointed out earlier, have only really been shown post-hawk or in flashbacks)are the short scenes inter-spliced between everything else going on in thismovie. We barely even see any of Theseus and Leda’s romantic relationship, eventhough they’re getting married, and half the time we spend with Leda we’re seeing howmuch she still truly cares for Newt, which is messed up when she’s marrying hisbrother, as it almost feels like a substitute AND we’re given no reason for whyLeda and Newt broke up. This all could’ve been explored in future movies ifLeda stuck around, maybe showing Newt and Leda developing more of a friendship-likerapport and Leda and Tina becoming friends and Theseus and Leda having thechance to be adorable, but with Leda’s heroic sacrifice, all of that potentialis gone. Plus I’m a bit irritated that we get such great representation forSlytherin house (and a female POC, to boot!) that then of course has to getkilled off. Thanks a lot.

+There were some really weird mistakes regarding existing canon. I already mentioned McGonagall, who couldn’t have been teaching in the 1920′s without being an old granny in Harry’s years, but the film also makes the mistake of making Dumbledore the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher (rather than Transfiguration), showing a Lestrange family tree ending with Leda and her dead brother even though we know there are future Lestranges (Rabastian and Rodulphus),and forgetting the Leglimency is something you study, not an inbred ability that has the potential to incapacitate a person.

I think this is the first time I’ve ever been so frustratedwith a Harry Potter film in my life. I was angry about Prisoner of Azkaban dueto its haphazard explanation of important plot points and its lack of regardfor continuity, and I was disappointed by Half-Blood Prince’s boring,romance-focused adaptation, but this movie really got me hot under the collar,because there was so much here that was so good, and yet all of the problemscame from Harry Potter’s very creator, J.K. Rowling, and the script shedeveloped. Just about everything outside the script was a home run. And the scriptitself wasn’t without some great ideas and scenes, too – it was just thenot-so-good ideas and scenes that really ran the finished product into the ground for me. I’ll enjoy what I can out of this, but considering that it ignored book canonso thoroughly, put more focus on cameos and plot twists than on organic,engaging relationships, and killed two of my favorite characters in the entirestoryline – one figuratively and the other literally – I’m going to have to goin with much, much lower expectations for any sequel that might be released.

Overall Grade: C-

[dontwakeme-causeimdreaming]

Crimes of Grindelwald Spoilers

Ok so I LOVE the Harry Potter universe but I must say that I have some problems with this movie

1. McGonagall would not have been a professor seeing as she wasn't even born yet???

2. Dumbledore taught transfiguration before McGonagall did... he didn't reach DADA

3. How is Creedence a Dumbledore like where did that even come from what is the familial relation there

4. Im confused why Nagini was even in this movie to be honest she added nothing to the plot at all

5. You can't apparate in or out of Hogwarts

6. Johnny Depp being in this movie in general (but that's an entire other can of worms for another post)

7. I found it overall a little hard to follow there were so many subplots going on at once it was hard to understand the main take away from the movie it almost seemed like a bad fanfiction written by someone who had never read the Harry Potter books

This all being said, the cinematography was amazing and I loved the flashback of Newt and Leda practing Riddikulus and I loved the reveal of what Leda's boggart was (even if it seemed a little out of place in the movie seeing as Creedance was constantly hinted at being a Lestrange and then just...wasn't??) (also were Leda and Corvus on the Titanic or did I just make that up???)

Sorry for the rant these are just my initial thoughts after seeing the movie please see if for yourselves and decide and lmk what everyone else thinks I wanna discuss

[littlekittys-posts]

Yup that's me :D

Others watching the Dumblewald scenes:

Me:

[katiehavok]

Leta Daphne Lestrange

Leta, most likely derived from the name Leda, daughter of King Thestius, who became a Spartan Queen of Greek mythology, in which the story of Leda and the Swan is the focus, who begets two sets of twins; associated with eroticism.

Daphne, Greek naiad pursued by Apollo and transformed by Gaia, the personification of the earth and nature, into a laurel to preserve her chastity; apostle of Artemis.

Lestrange, a surname echoing the French phrase l'étrange meaning literally “the strange one.”

[garr9988]

Considering Leta Lestrange is named after Leda (from the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan), it wouldn’t surprise me if the swan is Leta’s Patronus (if she can cast one), if not Newt’s (at least its first form).

I mean, it does represent beauty and love (and they mate for life, and as of FB1, while Newt does have a burgeoning crush on Tina, he does still have feelings for Leta).

[masksofmickey]

Do you remember your favourite kill? Was it a mudblood? - Young Draco fascinated by werewolves

Bellatrix, drawing her wand, “Watch yourself mutt,”

[dramione-art-deactivated]

I can’t even with how cute this is!!! I have no words!

Still no artist or link for you. Forgive me and tell me if you know who the genius behind this is.

___

I’m at 70 followers now, which is mind-blowing to me! I honestly never thought that this blog would get so popular. So here’s a special extra post today to thank those of you that brought me up to 70: @bloodymysticrose, @leda-lestrange, @malfoylover1999, @slytherin-houses-hatta, @7cupsoftea, @littlekidatheart1216, @someonesomewheretoday, @ullalah, @itsithuriel, @chelsea3100, @itsokaytonotbe, @countessofabe, @pigearth14, and @doristarazona-blog