#this is foreshadowing btw. paris did grow up to hate him

[sealrock]

andromache: ... there's no such thing as a god-uncle. achille: there is now!

(based on this)

[marauders70s]

So I just watched Crimes of Grindelwald and I have a huge rant list.

Spoilers (obviously). 

Also, I did not like hardly any of it, so I’m sorry. Don’t pick a fight with me after reading a post entitled rant list and then be upset that they are all rants.

- wow AMERICA yeah jo we know what you think of us. it’s obvious in our de-tonguing geneva-convention violating (i know it’s not around in 1927 okay) inhumane treatment of not just grindelwald but apparently all the prisoners and animals we keep in cages (i know our prison system is inherently terrible i’m very aware) but to transport him like a paralyzed stroke victim drooling to a thestral carriage on a Dark And Stormy Night really just is lazy writing on why we should dislike aurors without giving anyone a plot, dialogue, or exposition

- this guy who has been posing as Grindelwald....since the beginning? since when? they cut out his tongue?? but then? it’s just forked? there’s magic? like? could they grow the tongue back?? they can regrow bones in harry’s arm but okay

- this thestral carriage chase scene is really CGI explosion heavy turned actioned film and mostly consisted of me being like what. what. WHAT. wait what. wait who is that. what. why wouldn’t he just disapparate. what happens to these thestrals. okay. what. grindelwald can just dissolve wands since when can people do that why didn’t voldemort do that why didn’t harry do that this presents problems

- okay look david yates and co. you had this incredible opportunity to create an entire wardrobe of WIZARD FASHION in THREE COUNTRIES, most notably the fashion capitol of the world and what did you do you put every single person in trench coats and random muggle garb. Also, not even cool wizard hats. No. Just muggle bowlers and mobster hats.

- Does Newt have a job. If so, what is it? How can he pay for this lovely house with magical modifications? Don’t you have to get a contractor to put that in? Did he do it himself? How does he pay Sad Girl In Love With Protagonist tm? Does he pay her? How did they meet? Why do we never see her again?

- For a movie entitled ‘Fantastic Beasts’ we really gloss over looking at any of the in-house beasts, learning anything about them, or doing anything except a CGI palooza.

- Wow Queenie and Jacob are here ‘hope you don’t mind we let ourselves in’ ah yes rude american trope again. who on earth would do that. also this entire time jacob acts like a goon and newt is like let’s take the enchantment off and i’m like hi that’s hella nonconsensual you’re basically raping and kidnapping him and jacob is somehow okay with this. newt is somehow okay with this. 

- ‘please don’t read my mind’ um dude you’re talking AT her??? 

- movie glosses over how jacob got his memories back with a throwaway line of unbelievable dialogue. If obliviate only worked on bad memories, Hermione Granger really needs to go to family counseling with her parents. 

- mysterious postcard is exposition over really dumb journalism error that could have been easily fixed within seconds by sending an owl because owls don’t need addresses, something queenie conveniently forgets by not knowing how to find her sister

- queenie is a Dumb American for cheap laughs by letting a woman say something in french, laughing, and saying she doesn’t understand anything only for the droll French woman to repeat it in the exact monosyllabic voice. Apparently everyone entering/leaving a country needs to register a visa or something, which is conveniently circumvented by going through a muggle port? It’s unclear. Queenie herself does not seem to have registered.

- French Ministry of Magic is gorgeous. Has a cool roots to iron elevator. It is also probably improperly named as they put ‘American Ministry of Magic’ despite America not having ministries or ministers outside of some serious religious stuff. They put all this effort into creating MACUSA but didn’t use it.

- Is it just me or does the MoM change the interior every time I see it.

- Queenie is devastated she can’t find her sister in a city of millions despite having magic, a means of communication that is foolproof, and enough money to find a hotel and wait to meet up. Queenie is overwhelmed that other people think in their native language. Instead of finding this helpful for tuning out a crowded city (like she does on the daily in New York), she somehow finds it overwhelming even looking for Newt/Jacob. 

- Random woman is Silence In Queenie’s Head. I literally never learned who she was except Hard Bitch Kills Toddler. Or why Queenie can’t hear her thoughts. (Plot twist she’s Bella Swan).

- Toddler didn’t get his own little casket in the French mourning cart. Nice of Grindelwald to give a supposedly muggle family a funeral cart when he could have transfigured their bodies into armchairs or something. (Muggle supposed after he makes the remark about a ‘thorough cleaning.’)

- No one in Paris uses French in spellcasting. Spells are still English-based. 

- Dumbledore is a dramatic bitch for gloves and rooftops. It’s a very specific brand of Gay. 

- Don’t kill me but I don’t...hate? Jude Law as Dumbledore. He was still kind. But he wasn’t auburn and that was dumb. 

- Unclear why Jacob and Queenie have to live in shame and secret when they could move to another country especially when Jacob loves bread and would like Paris. This seems to be Queenie’s motivator which is thin as hell and I didn’t follow her ‘logic’ at all. LAZY WRITING.

- Queenie immediately doesn’t disapparate upon seeing Grindelwald. Queenie somehow gets into this rhetoric. Later Queenie does not get disgusted with apropos wizard-Hitler being like ‘they are lesser beings’ and she, who wants to marry one, is like ‘yeah they totally are because I’m basically Jacob’s mom.’ 

- Grindelwald, in addition to being played by Johnny Depp, is albino, has one mutilated eye with a bad color contact clearly visible in multiple scenes, and is British when it is specifically stated he went to Durmstrang and was expelled for Dark Magic (at Durmstrang, which is noted for its Dark Arts program). As an allusion to wizard-Hitler, I always inferred that Grindelwald was German or Austrian. 

- Wow Paris street magic carnival gave me LIFE and WOW and MAGIC feels. I loved the ducking through the barrier. 

- Weird freakshow circus gets blown apart but Newt only manages to catch one creature that is helpfully foreshadowed it can leap Paris in a single bound. It is a Chinese creature when no mention of Chinese magic, Chinese handlers, or any sort of Asian magic is referred to (except in the cringe-worthy case of the ‘South Asian blood curse of Nagini’ which is a whole other can of worms). In all likelihood, as China is one of the oldest civilizations, their magic and dragon worship would be more paramount. China cat’s serious Great Beast’s weakness is a cat toy. 

- Why is Nicholas Flamel....like that. Sure he’s like 600 years old but (a) is Jacob literally breaking his hand what the hell, (b) as much money and life as you could want does that mean he has to be like 100 years old forever that sucks that’s not even worth being immortal. (c) Where’s his wife. (d) When he goes to battle I thought he’d drink some elixir and be young again but...no.

- Nagini has no purpose in this movie other than to be snake slave and love interest and run around in a circus outfit with tits out bra off. She did not do a single useful thing.

- Wait I’m sorry WHAT you can like...fuck house elves now?? There are half-elves? How....you know what no thanks I don’t want to know.

- Credence, despite the last movie setting up an obscurial as like a suicide bomb, can relatively control mega destruction now and get back into his body fairly easily. No one even wonders why this lacemakers roof apartment exploded.

- Are he and Nagini in love? Are they escaped carnival freak bros? Why isn’t Nagini heading for the hills? She literally has no personality of her own at all.

- Paris is suspiciously white in this film. Especially for the 20s art renaissance. 

- I don’t know why Credence falls into Orphan Must Know Parentage Trope because it’s really overused and boring. And frankly the superfluity of ravens was really beating me over the head. Credence can like...do anything. He could get some money and go to a wand shop. He could just...disappear. I don’t know why he has to be so easy to track.

- By the way who is this weirdo tracking him for Grindelwald/the ministry. It’s very unclear. I never got his name. It’s probably one of the many death eater names they throw in to make sure you know these families great-grandparents are also running around being evil instead of, you know, regular people doing it. So he could be Travers. I guess. LAZY WRITING. 

= Now is a special segment on Hogwarts = 

- The layout of Hogwarts changes every time I see it. Why are the classrooms always different. Why would the wood still have carvings. Why is there a bridge over this lake which is different than the covered bridge leading towards the Forest that Harry and Lupin have a Serious Chat on. 

- YOU CANNOT APPARATE IN HOGWARTS GROUNDS. And don’t you try to tell me Dumbledore instituted that because it’s directly stated in Bathilda Bagshot’s Hogwarts, A History as being a longstanding charm with muggle repelling. 

- Everyone apparates onto the bridge and walks through the castle without anyone bothering them into the correct classroom right away?? Like did they get a copy of the teaching schedule? Did Peeves show them?

- Dumbledore did NOT teach DADA. Dumbledore taught transfiguration. He was still teaching Transfiguration when Tom Riddle went to school. So if Dumbledore is teaching Transfiguration, Minerva McGonagall would not be at Hogwarts because she taught transfiguration after Dumbledore. Pretty sure mcgonagall was too young in 1927 to be a professor. LAZY WRITING. 

- Just looked it up. Pottermore (official JK writing, btw) states that Minerva McGonagall was born in 1934. So she’s officially negative 7 years old and a professor. That’s GOT to be a record. Poor Rowan Khanna will never beat preconception tenure.

- Despite me being ecstatic to hear/see a young McGonagall, the camera never held still long enough for me to see a young McGonagall. Any far away shots only demonstrated despite this being 1920s, she was still dressing in the 1890s. McGonagall, despite the obvious laughs it was going for, would never use magic against a student.

- Haha this dumb neanderthal student is Grandpa McClaggen. 

- Dumbledore, being known for wearing really flamboyant robes, dresses in conservative three piece suit. 

- Why would you not go home for the holidays when you have to take care of a baby raven you can just put it in a box or your pocket for christ’s sake you’re carrying like 6 niffler babies at one time but you never even show them again

- Will say that young Newt’s casting is A++

- WHY ARE THE UNIFORMS NAVY BLUE. WHY DO THEY WEAR RED TARTAN SKIRTS. WHY DO THEY HAVE PHD EMBELLISHMENTS ON ACADEMIC REGALIA? Why do they have colored hoods when the original films (and books to boot) say all black robes. Why are these robes not even proper wizarding robes but just like...cambridge robes. 

- To be honest this boggart lesson is like?? insane?? how did it last for 70 years it’s honestly so unethical and cruel. I’ve ALWAYS thought this even reading it for the first time in POA I was like “people’s worst fears are spiders and mummies?” like my greatest fear even at 12 was people I love dying. The fact that Newt is more scared of a desk than Theseus dying is weird.

- “I don’t want to talk about my boggart” Leta LeStrange means there was an Incident where Dumbledore realized that some students don’t have Great Home Lives and yet persists in this lesson for the next 70 years knowing that multiple kids are going to have their parents abusing them as their greatest fear. 

- Corvus, as a name, just means Raven. How stupid. “Is your house crest a raven?” “Yes. Also my brother. Like if you were named Badger McHufflepuff.” “Oh don’t worry my name is just Lizard Lizard.” “Cool."

- No background or even hints at future background (e.g. they haven’t written it yet) on why Leta gets with Theseus even after the first film where he has a picture of Leta in his suitcase. 

- Theseus and Newt have no screen time interaction. They do not behave like brothers. They have no flashbacks. Even young Newt never interacts with his brother. There is no realism here that Newt says they have a complicated relationship or is annoyed by his brother. This exposition is just lazy writing with nothing on screen to back it up. 

- So you’re telling me Dumbledore had the mirror of erised for SEVENTY YEARS and yells at harry for looking in it for three nights. How did Dumbledore not go mad? Where did he get it? I feel like 70 years is a long time to have it. 

- I guess when you think about it yeah being 40 in the 1920s does put you on the mark to be 110 when Harry meets you but fuck the books did NOT explain HOW OLD Dumbledore was to me I always thought he was like hale and sprightly 70s/80s

- Okay so you’re looking in the mirror and going to just BRAZENLY FLOUT CANON and say his deepest desire looking in the mirror is to relive the memory of the blood oath? That’s exposition. That’s a memory. That’s a pensieve not a mirror. Your greatest desire has ALWAYS BEEN saving Ariana. And even if it was loving Grindelwald this is your GREATEST DESIRE like being together not reliving a blood oath just for the sake of audience explanation. LAZY WRITING. 

------ Back to other rants

- Most of this movie was me squinting being like ‘what’s the plot??’ and if there was a whiff of plot (”we all have to find credence’s birth records!”) most of it was me being confused “why does this matter?” “how did they all get there?”

- The confession of Newt trying to talk to Tina in the records room was painful. Not cute. Not even funny. Just so painful. It was like secondhand embarrassment but like...pity embarrassment. 

- I don’t know why Grindelwald has a map of a Parisian cemetery. I don’t know why he had to give it to Credence except as a big reveal. I don’t remember how Queenie got there. I genuinely DO NOT understand how Jacob got there much less passed through to the secret wizard place as a muggle. 

- No idea why the records lady was attacking them when Leta checked in twice (once as Tina). NO CLUE why they were the worst animated cats of all time or why they became multiple cats or even why when taken out of the French records they became even worse animated ‘real’ cats when they could have just used real cats. The entire chase scene was baffling and unnecessary. The records lady was not an agent of Grindelwald so no idea what’s up with her bee in the bonnet sorry for wrecking all your shit bye.

- I saw this movie less than an hour ago. I’m still confused how Leta, Newt, and Tina all teamed up or why they were cool teaming up or what. 

- This mausoleum has a Greek hellenistic statue of a man reclining for no apparent reason and these shelves are supposed to bear ashes right so why are you putting a dumb pop up book there. Why would Grindelwald’s agent remove the record in drag as an old lady? It was weirdly unnecessary. 

- Yosef’s exposition on how a white man literally imperiused and raped his mother was like WOW NO ONE IS GONNA EVEN TOUCH THAT???? and then for her to die in childbirth it’s like...my dudes wizards have cured so many diseases muggles haven’t you know they’re up there inventing the c-section with Julius Caesar and accio’ing babies out of utero like ‘gimme that catcher’s mitt she’s fully dilated.’ This whole “oh it was the 1900s” nonsense does NOT apply to magic. LAZY WRITING. 

- I immediately forgot what happened to Corvus’ mom. but whatever right? she’s just a disposable woman! this movie does NOT care about consent! much less women! haha they’re just flowers!

- ‘I killed my brother’ yeah i mean we saw that coming she was REALLY SURE he was dead. But I was 90% sure it was going to be a child accident like dropping him down the stairs or shaking him too hard to get him to stop crying and then swapping him with a live baby but no? so i don’t know i feel like you didn’t really kill him.

- this steamer going down is confusing. is it a muggle ship? if it’s a muggle ship than is Credence swapped a baby with...a muggle born wizard? Are their other wizarding families on the ship? If so then why did they drown? you can all magic out of there? your lifeboat wouldn’t go down? why even take a steamer ship to america? you can...apparate or portkey or floo or fly like this titanic nonsense makes NO SENSE. And if Papa LeStrange hates muggles so much why put his only children on an all muggle ship with a half elf (again why) who can’t do magic to protect them

- Finding Credence’s identity REALLY doesn’t need to revolve around the LeStrange’s sordid past. Steamer ships keep passenger logs. So. We really should leave the mausoleum now to go find that. 

- Yosef took an unbreakable vow to kill this white baby and it’s dead so is he released? He was released like...20 years ago. Why does he continue to hang out with these people? Your endless vengeance has rested? No need to team up with the sister you never knew? apparently (their family dynamic was also poorly/not explained). 

- Why is this mausoleum an underground amphitheater. Literally why it makes no sense. Is it supposed to bring up the first David Yates film OotP? I don’t know. It also has a lot of blue fire and people rapturing the fuck out of there (literally when did apparating involve staring up at the sky and blasting off in rocket smoke). Also in re this movie how can you be tracked after apparating (Newt/Dumbledore’s tail). 

- So if you touch this curtain do you automatically teleport to this amphitheater. Also what if you touched it by accident and were like OH SHIT HOW DO I GET OUT. Like wow this guy wasn’t kidding when he said there’s no wizard that can match him magically. This is like Charles Xavier Magneto Level 1 Mutant Power kind of shit. Not even Voldemort could do that. Big Power Too Big trope. Again. How did Jacob even GET there. 

- Johnny Depp wears leather pants. Costume department, get your act together.

- Grindelwald, continuing to be British, shows clips of the Great War, approx 1914-1918. While the tanks and biplanes were appropriate, there were also lines (assumingly?) to concentration camps and the nuclear bomb of Hiroshima, which wouldn’t take place until 1945. So is Grindelwald also a prophet? Is he a seer? They kept referencing this book of poems and prophecy but without letting us see it? it went along with my general ‘I’m getting the gist of this but not really the why because it doesn’t make sense.’ And then Grindelwald rumor mongers and uses fear tactics when one of the police aurors straight up KILLS A WOMAN like wow can we cool it with use of force/police brutality is this guy going to get written up or is he fire now? 

- Ethnically ambiguous Grindelwald supporter (only person of color) gets immediately incinerated for not being 100% sure of his side. When Credence feels the same way, he gets a couple of gifts. 

- Look, I didn’t start this way but I stan Leta LeStrange. She was honestly one of the only people and the only woman in this film with a personality. 

- Queenie stands still as weak, silly, expositional, dumb American. For those of you about to be like ‘She’s spying on Grindelwald! She’s the greatest legilimens that ever lived!’ I just want to beg you to reconsider because if you’re right and if the writers get wind of that you know they’re going to have her like teach little Tom Riddle something just BECAUSE everything has to connect. 

- Poor Jacob he seems okay with being stranded in another country. Is his bakery okay? Do his friends know he isn’t dead? He is super super super brave throughout this movie despite his main comedic strength in the other movie being nervous. But this time he’s like meh firefights and large monsters.

- Credence I understand going over. Nagini continues to not be a character and did not go with Newt and Crew. 

- Wasn’t even sad for Theseus because again, Theseus had little to no character development except being a Whipping Boy to authority. Theseus and Leta never interacted in any meaningful way. Their relationship didn’t even seem real. I wasn’t even sad.

- I feel like Leta isn’t dead though because who the fuck else is carrying this LeStrange line to give birth to Rabastan and Rodolphus. 

- At this point everyone apparates AGAIN to Hogwarts. This time I guess a ghost went and alerted Dumbledore because he’s waiting. But yeah like come on in for tea Newt but fuck all those kids they can wait here. 

- What is this plot?? Is there a plot?? What is going on??

- Who gives someone a wand like this hi I hid it up my sleeve touch me my boy I long for your touch.

- This is a phoenix, not a Raven. Newt is a sad ordinary bird but you’re a bright beautiful phoenix. Apparently phoenixes can grow up in ONE DAY. Foreshadowing Dumbledore is foreshadowing. LAZY WRITING this is so stupid. The books would have been EXPLICIT about a fourth child. 

- Maybe he’s a cousin. Close relative, perhaps? *Pleakley voice*

“He hasn’t got a brother?” 

Dobby shook his head. 

Literally where I’m at right now. 

- ABRUPT ENDING IS ABRUPT I didn’t even realize this was the end of the film because the score, cinematography, and writing did NOT cue me that this was winding down. I literally was like ‘how long does this last’ and then it was like DAVID YATES. Okayyyyyyy. 

- Anyway my sum feeling upon the lights going on was: what the fuck. was there a plot. there were so many loopholes. i was confused about many things almost the whole time because nothing was fleshed out and if they threw enough CGI at me I’d be patched up. 

Final rating: It matches up pretty well to the middle film of The Hobbit trilogy. 

[reginasrandomthoughts]

So I watched Crimes of Grindelwald...

 ...yesterday, opening night (in my country), after a long day, and all I got from it was confusion, a bit of anger and this water bottle:

(and yes, I doctored the image because, just like most of the film, it has dull, dakr colours. I hate it, thanks) Full spoilers beneath because I am just pissed (I think I will think about the positives separately).

So... let’s start with the ladies. Leta Lestrange. 

I will only mention it in passing that here is another Slytherin character getting the shaft, because as much as it bothers me, this is not the point here. By my count there are three black characters named AND with speaking roles and Leta is one of them. (the other female chara is Seraphina Picquery who is gone after the first 4 minutes, the third is Leta’s half brother’s but we’ll talk about him later)

 So anyway: her background story: Leta’s mother, a beautiful black woman of high aristocratic standing was coveted, Imperioed, abducted and raped by Corvus Lestrange, Leta’s father, and I think she died while giving birth to Leta. I think this is the point where someone should have talked to JK about slavery, because if this story is raising redflags for me, a white European, it must be obvious in the US. Gosh. Going on Leta’s father remarries goes on to have another child, that child needs to be taken to America bc Yusuf Karma, Leta’s half brother, swore an unbreakable vow to kill what’s dearest to Lestrange. So now roughly 10 year old Leta is on a boat to the US with a half-elf nanny and the baby that refuses to stop crying and she trades the baby off with another baby boy on the ship (she intended to do it just for a little while) and then the ship sinks and the baby brother drowns. (Sidenote: the switched away baby is Credence). The image of the sinking baby is Leta’s boggart (good luck making that funny). In Hogwarts she was a troublemaking outcast whose only friend was Newt, and as an adult she is described as someone who nobody in the wizarding world loves. Also, she has this thing with Newt where she is totally in love with him but for some reason she is going to marry his brother? She also works at the ministry that is portrayed as one of the bad guys and oh yea, she dies at the end after a fake-out “will she join Grindelwald?” moment. She supposedly dies to protect Newt (Theseus?? I don’t know, her last words are “I love you” and she is looking at where both of them are standing together, so we shall never know).   By the way, remember the time Leta was described as a taker by Queenie? Apparently, her “being a taker” involves her thinking she doesn’t deserve to be loved by Newt because she thinks of herself as a monster. Also, apart from her backstory scenes she doesn’t do much regardless of how her backstory is kind of important for the central mystery of the film and how the final showdown takes place in the Lestrange tomb. 

 Now, next up is Nagini. Remember all the outrage caused by the sudden reveal that Voldemort’s snake used to be an Asian lady who turned into a snake against her own will? Remember how people brought up the submissive Asian woman trope in connection with that? It’s worse in the movie. After Credence and her escape from the circus where she is held she does nothing. She is just there to be Credence’s comfort blanket. She transforms into a snake twice: once in the circus and once when she is attacked but that doesn’t do much and Credence has to save her. (btw, I don’t blame her for it. If i knew that one day I won’t be able to turn back into a human I would, too, try to spend as much time as a human as possible.)  Also, two more things: she and Credence are posed as this couple and we are supposed to be feeling bad for her when Credence goes with Grindelwald to find out about his past rather than build a future with her. But their relationship is already undermined by the fact that Dumbledore says (I think it’s him) that the obscurus grows in absence of companionship and friendship and if Credence were to get it, it would disappear and in the film, Credence still turns into an funky looking angry black smoke bomb so...  REALLY hoping she gets a TON of development in subsequent movies.

 Queenie... Queenie is portrayed as a date rapist here. There is no tiptoeing around it. She enchants Jacob (presumably with a love spell that incapacitates him to the point he cannot cut his own food up) so she can whisk him away so they can get married because Jacob didn’t want to take the risk of marrying her and her being taken to prison for it. Jacob asks her when she planned on releasing him, when they were married with five kids? And Queenie has no answer for it. You know who else did something like this in the HP universe? Merope Guant, the woman who gave birth to Voldemort. Not a company you wanna be in, since it is heavily implied that it was because of the love potion she used that Voldemort became what he was. Also, can we just point out that Jacob already loved Queenie and just wanted to protect her and Queenie’s reaction to this was to take his free will and his ability to disagree away from him?   Queenie ends up joining Grindelwald to create a world where muggles can marry wizards, but Jacob calls her crazy for it and rejects her when she suggests that and she still goes! Her decision costs her the reason why she’s making that decision in the first place! What are you hoping for at this point, Queenie? Another enchantment? 

 I don’t really agree with this sudden shift in character, but oh well. Also, now apparently Queenie also has trouble with her legilimens abilities that can overwhelm her.Don’t know how I’m feeling about that, but how the fuck is a legilimens who can READ PEOPLE’S MINDS gets duped by the bad guys? 

 The other female characters I didn’t see enough of to have an opinion and TIna I mostly liked. She is finally showing bits of the badass auror she could be. Good luck competing with a ghost for Newt’s love though. She and Newt are portrayed as this “we are just getting together” couple but I always felt like Newt would ditch him if Leta wanted him back. Even though Tina is a way better fit. Liked their parallel scenes with the monkey-koi-kitten thingy. 

 Now onto the men. 

Yusuf Karma. Yusuf swore an unbreakable to kill what is dearest to Lestrange after he abducted and raped his mother which resulted in his father going insane. He assumes that most precious son is Credence so he is just going after him and at more than one points he says something along the lines of  “I have to do it, it’s either him or me”. This is not even the proper avenger philosophy because it is literally true, because if he doesn’t kill him the vow will kill Yusuf. Ofc, since a large part of the story is about sympathizing with Credence and wanting to save him Yusuf is portrayed as a villain for a lot of the time.  Also, while I’m throwing stones, isn’t Yusuf’s mother the “woman in the fridge” trope? Put there to create angst for a male character? She isn’t even the one Leta is angsting over. It is literally just Yusuf (and his dad who is never shown). 

 Sidenote: Grindelwald has an Asian henchmen, who is so unimportant that I had to look up his name on Imdb (it’s Krall nolastname) who is the only one of Grindelwald’s followers who dies in the fire (fiendfire??) Grindelwald uses to test the loyalty of his followers. It was foreshadowed but I still don’t get how he betrayed Grindelwald because he wasn’t even on screen long enough to do so. It’s almost like he was only put there to die. BTW, I don’t even think there were any more notable Asian characters apart from him and Nagini. Good representation there JK.

 The other male characters I didn’t have much of a problem with. Newt I liked, Jacob was okay but was better in the first film, Theseus was an asshole but the Leta angst worked and I came to like-pity him a bit, Credence I felt for...  Surprisingly even Grindelwald worked. Even though he always looked like he was just about to fuck whoever he was talking to. I don’t know how I feel about Johnny Depp in the role, but at least it looked like he put in some work. 

 And now the plot.

So many fucking fake-outs. The whole plot is a fucking fake-out. So according to the plot Grindelwald is looking for Credence in Paris and Credence is looking for his birth parents and his true past. And there is this whole confusion because the half-elf servant of the Lestranges’ is the one who signed his adoption papers, and for a while it is thought that Credence is the lost Lestrange baby and Yusuf thus wants to kill him, but then Leta’s backstory is told and it turns out that this whole treasure hunt leading us on was pointless because it turns out that Credence is not a Lestrange and Leta has no idea who he is. At which point Grindelwald offers tot ell Credence who he is and Credence goes with him and BAMM, you’re Aurelius Dumbledore, Credence, Albus is your brother and wants you dead.  HOW???!!! So I read up some theories here but here is the thing, none of the theories that were born so far manage to help this shit make sense. Like, okay, let’s see the flimsy proof for it: Albus Dumbledore says that when in dire need a phoenix will come to a Dumbledore ans Credence finds a little bird and at the end of the film that baby bird turns into a full fledged phoenix. Cool.   But also, this scene ties Credence thematically to Newt, who also was shown nursing a baby bird (although a raven, which is the Lestrange emblem, so please @me any crazy theories about how that foreshadows that Credence is a Lestrange and how Newt will save him or how Credence is a Scamander or even ship things. all three would make more sense than Aurelius Dumbledore does)  So, the first reaction from people seems to be “Grindelwald is lying to get Credence to go after Dumbledore” because we know that he thinks that Credence is the only one who could kill Dumbledore. I am leaning towards this but at the same time I REALLY hope it’s not true. Why? Because then this whole fucking movie is pointless. Credence’s arc throughout the series would just be this shit: Credence you are an unimportant squib, no actually you are a powerful obscurus, no actually you are the lost Lestrange baby, well actually you are Aurelius Dumbledore and then presumably, actually I lied I have no idea who you are, probably just a nobody who just happened to be strong.   I can totally see it go this way, I feel like it will go this way, but can we just lay off the clichés please? Anyway, prime points supporting this conclusion apart from logic is: Grindelwald was looking for a much younger obscurus than Credence, a.k.a. he could not have been looking for a lost Dumbledore, Grindelwald knew about the Dumbledore family legend as well so he could have faked the phoenix (??), thematically this whole “your past is not as important as your future and it does not defy you” theme would play into this. 

 Now there are of course other theories, like “he truly is a Lestrange and the elf-lady had to die to hide that fact and the records were manipulated” but so were Leta’s memories then? Also, the elf-lady had to die so Credence would have no choice but to walk into Grindelwald’s trap for answers.   My favourite one has to be “Credence has Ariana’s obscurus in him” simply because of the how? That goes against HP canon, that goes against obscurus lore and that goes against Fantastic Beasts timeline. So... yea, I hope it is true, because at least that would be interesting. If we gonna go crazy go full crazy.

 Last but not least there were a few elements that mildly annoyed me. Like Yusuf having a weird eye parasite, which I read as a fake-out as to why he needed to kill Credence, but which went nowhere. The “Newt has an assistant at home who is in love with him went nowhere. And the best of all, Grindelwald is going to be brought down because a fucking niffler stole his fucking jewelry that binds him and Dumbledore to not fight each other. What the fuck is up with that. 

 Also, I just remembered it, which is a shame, but Grindelwald was campaigning for a wizard take-over by showing the future a.k.a. World War II to his followers, including the atom bomb, and saying this is what will happen if the muggles are allowed to rule themselves. CAN JK ROWLING PLEASE NOT LEAN INTO THE WORLD WAR II AND NAZI REFERENCES FOR ONCE??? Just once, look at the real world parallels JK and walk away! Fuck.