Grindelwald & Dumbledore in the new 5 movies written by JK Rowling

[Blue3]

The first of 5 movies written by JK Rowling herself, set in the Wizarding World but without Harry Potter, is due to be released in about a month.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MONUp4w_YpM

The first one is called Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, with Newt Scamander. But it looks like the subplot of this movie, and likely of the 4 following movies, is the rise of Gellert Grindelwald.



Who is Grindelwald?

 In Sorcerer's Stone/Philosopher's Stone, remember that 11-year-old Harry first learns about Dumbledore by reading his Chocolate Frog card on the train with Ron? It said Dumbledore was famous for defeating Grindelwald in 1945.

 In Deathly Hallows, we learn that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were briefly close friends one summer when they were teenagers. Grindelwald was expelled from Durmstrang, he was obsessed with finding the Deathly Hallows, especially the Elder Wand.


Grindelwald is very different from Voldemort

 Voldemort still wanted to keep wizards secret from Muggles, but he wanted to terrorize and hunt Muggles for sport. And he wanted the pure-bloods to rule in the Wizarding world.

 Grindelwald didn't care about blood status, and he didn't want to keep the magical world secret. Grindelwald believed that wizards and witches should reveal themselves to the Muggles, and rule over them, and that doing this would be "for the greater good" to make life better for both Muggles and Wizards/Witches.

 Muggles would have magic, to make their lives better, even if it was done by magical overlords. Ex: magic to cure cancer, prevent non-magical means of violence, etc. While witches and wizards would be free and out in the open, unafraid to hide who they really are. (Also, Grindelwald never had horcruxes.)

 But Grindelwald did some bad things to advance his vision for the world, saying it was all "For The Greater Good." (Ideas he got from his friend Dumbledore, before Dumbledore came to his senses when his sister Ariana was accidentally killed during a duel between Albus, Gellert, and Aberforth... and JK Rowling has said that Albus Dumbledore was actually romantically in love with Gellert Grindelwald). And a difference between the movie and the book... in the book, Grindelwald dies trying to redeem himself and stop Voldemort from getting the Elder Wand.


How does Grindelwald's story fit into the new movie?

 It's speculated that Grindelwald, upon seeing the horrors that Muggles were doing to each other with World War II and the Holocaust, decided then was the time for the Magical world to finally reveal itself and conquer the Muggles, to stop the Holocaust and the War and save humankind. But that he did his own atrocities to make this happen, leading to Dumbeldore confronting and defeating him in 1945.

 As for how this ties into Fantastic Beasts (and this isn't spoilery, it's from the trailers)... this movie is in the 1920's, and the trailers hint that Grindelwald is already preparing for war and carrying out revolutionary acts of violence in Europe. It looks like some of the wizards in this movie are sympathetic to Grindelwald's cause, and want to stop hiding from Muggles, reveal who they really are, and take charge.

 The last of these 5 movies could very well climax with the famous 1945 duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald.






Who's excited for this?

[Antonio the Sixth]

This seems interesting. I was never that much into Harry Potter, so I haven't read the last 3 books (though I did read the first 4 as a kid), but I got the clear impression that the movies really didn't do them justice. Having Rowling herself write the script might make a huge difference.

Also, from this description Grindelwald sounds infinitely more interesting than Voldemort (which always struck me as awfully one-dimensional).

[Mr. Smith]

So basically, we've got the Wizarding equivalent of Xavier vs Magneto.  I'm stoked!

Pity Ian McKellen's too old now.

And maybe this time, the main villain will be the most interesting antagonist, instead of some somewhat one-off bureaucrat (I'm of course referring to Umbridge)

@Tony: Oh c'mon, Order of the Phoenix was the best of 'em by far.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Hopefully the romance is cute (if you ignore one character is magical Hitler)

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

I can't wait for conflicted, regretful, not-wise-yet Dumbledore. I want to see how he evolves from "anti-Muggle" to essentially good.

[Antonio the Sixth]

@Tony: Oh c'mon, Order of the Phoenix was the best of 'em by far.

I didn't dislike what I read it, at all. I just lost interest in the whole series around the time it came out.

[Marokai Backbeat]

@Tony: Oh c'mon, Order of the Phoenix was the best of 'em by far.

Yep. It's not even close, IMO.

[Warren 4 Secretary of Everything]

@Tony: Oh c'mon, Order of the Phoenix was the best of 'em by far.

Yep. It's not even close, IMO.

Ehhh idk Prisoner of Azkaban is still my favorite. The twist near the end with Sirius, Remus, and Peter is still one of my favorite moments on the series.

[Joe Republic]

@Tony: Oh c'mon, Order of the Phoenix was the best of 'em by far.

Yep. It's not even close, IMO.

Ehhh idk Prisoner of Azkaban is still my favorite. The twist near the end with Sirius, Remus, and Peter is still one of my favorite moments on the series.

Agreed.  Plus, Buckbeak's rescue from death coinciding and converging with Sirius' own escape, plus the novel's ending leaving you (and Harry) with some hope for the first time in his life that he had a family member who cared for him, was kind of a tear jerker tbh.

Order of the Phoenix was the worst for featuring a whiny brat main character, and then dashing all of the aforementioned hope re: Sirius.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Not surprised that a politics forum would have so much love for Order of the Phoenix, but count me as one of the ones aboard that train as well.

Also, I never really got the appeal of Sirius...

[Mr. Smith]

@Tony: Oh c'mon, Order of the Phoenix was the best of 'em by far.

Yep. It's not even close, IMO.

Ehhh idk Prisoner of Azkaban is still my favorite. The twist near the end with Sirius, Remus, and Peter is still one of my favorite moments on the series.

Agreed.  Plus, Buckbeak's rescue from death coinciding and converging with Sirius' own escape, plus the novel's ending leaving you (and Harry) with some hope for the first time in his life that he had a family member who cared for him, was kind of a tear jerker tbh.

Order of the Phoenix was the worst for featuring a whiny brat main character, and then dashing all of the aforementioned hope re: Sirius.

And wtf would you expect for a guy who just witnessed murder for the first time [and processed it], was being hunted down, and no one believed him for a while anyway? And that's without puberty.

Also getting into Snape's mind was very very important.

And I'm sorry, but the ending in London is easily one of the best endings.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

@Tony: Oh c'mon, Order of the Phoenix was the best of 'em by far.

Yep. It's not even close, IMO.

Ehhh idk Prisoner of Azkaban is still my favorite. The twist near the end with Sirius, Remus, and Peter is still one of my favorite moments on the series.

Agreed.  Plus, Buckbeak's rescue from death coinciding and converging with Sirius' own escape, plus the novel's ending leaving you (and Harry) with some hope for the first time in his life that he had a family member who cared for him, was kind of a tear jerker tbh.

Order of the Phoenix was the worst for featuring a whiny brat main character, and then dashing all of the aforementioned hope re: Sirius.

Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite as well but I don't really think Harry's behavior in OotP is as much of a rap against it as a lot of fans seem to. It's not a great portrayal of what he's supposedly going through, but it's not the unmitigated disaster it could have been.

Also, I never really got the appeal of Sirius...

HP

[Vosem]

The first three of the companion books were pretty fantastic (I enjoyed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Quidditch Through the Ages, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard), but Cursed Child seemed to go very, very hard against the description of Voldemort from the main books, and so I'm a bit nervous about the idea of adding more canon material to the series. The basic concept (of movies narrating the rise of Grindelwald) does seem like an interesting one, though.

[Tender Branson]

Damn, I have become so old that I don't even have the desire anymore to comment on this (except for this post) and I used to be a big Harry Potter fan 10-15 years ago (I read all books in German and English and still have them around).

[Blue3]

Johnny Depp is playing Grindelwald

[Enduro]

This is gonna be great, so pumped!

[Blue3]

Here's a new article on MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America):
https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/macusa


And here's the series on the History of Magic in North America, that came out earlier this year:
https://www.pottermore.com/collection-episodic/history-of-magic-in-north-america-en

And Ilvermorny, the American Hogwarts:
https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/ilvermorny

[Blue3]

Has anyone else seen the movie yet??

[NewYorkExpress]

Yes, it was good...though Johnny Depp as Grindlewald was a little awkward.

[Warren 4 Secretary of Everything]

Yes, it was good...though Johnny Depp as Grindlewald was a little awkward.

It was as fantastic, and Johnny Depp was at worst fine, they just need to slightly de-age his character.

[Blue3]

Maybe a little, but we've already seen Dumbledore from the same time period (just 10 years later) and he was also rather old-looking already.

Thankfully, he didn't even look/act/sound much like Depp usually does.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

Yeah I don't really see the point of recasting Dumbledore provided Michael Gambon can still move around fairly easily. It's been established that he still looks relatively the same in the 1940s as he did in the 1990s. I mean technically speaking he's already 60-something in the 1940s -- which is only 10 years off from Michael Gambon's current age anyway.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

someone who's watched it- is it true that they're portraying 1920s harlem as (near-)exclusively white?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Here's a new article on MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America):
https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/macusa

An interesting little continuity error there with actual history, as they have MACUSA meeting in Washington before it was a city. Although, they could have met in Georgetown as it was founded in 1751.

someone who's watched it- is it true that they're portraying 1920s harlem as (near-)exclusively white?

Don't know for sure, but they seemed to me to focusing on the southern part of the isle.

[Blue3]

I don't think they went to Harlem.

They went to a goblin-run speakeasy, that had a giant and house-elf and some wizards on the run.