Nifflers <3 And Zouwu <3 - Oversized magical kitty definitely deserves every jingly toy in the world.
I thought about Aurelius-as-rape-baby too, but... Ariana's attack happened when she was six. She's meant to have been fourteen when she died, which is admittedly old enough to have a baby, but...ew? There's also the problem of Ariana's unstable magic and how that would have reacted to sex/pregnancy, so I'm ruling that out. The Dumbledores did have an aunt Honoria, so I've also considered her as a possible connection, but that still begs the question as to why Grindelwald was using the term 'brother' unless he's intentionally trying to manipulate Credence into fixating on Albus. Oh, wait. XD
Maybe they made Credence grow jaw-fuzz because they realised he came across as about 16-ish in the first movie and were like "oh no, he's meant to be in his late twenties" and decided that a patchy beard-thing was the way to go.
You would think that the telepath would understand that mind-control is bad. You'd also think that the fact she lives in New York City would mean she'd have enough of a handle on her powers to not wig-out in the middle of Paris. French is scary, somehow? Eh. Queenie's story infuriates me so much, and the more I think about it the more I dislike it*. Her character had so much potential, and I liked the ditzy-sweet rule-breaking romance that they had going in the first movie. I just can't help think that there were other solutions to their problems like, oh telling Jacob that they could marry in England and could they pretty-please elope?
There were flashes of good writing throughout this movie, but not nearly enough for me to get over the sheer amount of UGH that they also crammed in. I'll also admit that there's one Grindeldepp visual that I like: the bit where he's conjuring the blue fire and moving like a conductor. I thought that moment, that one moment, was probably the closest Depp got to being Grindelwald in the entire movie.
...yeah, it's not good representation at all when your already token gays like manipulating younger men into doing things for them. Not a great message. 0/10 for effort.
It showed Corvus getting off the boat. It also showed him and the woman carrying him fall overboard and her surfacing without him only to dive back under. It's possible that he was rescued, since it's shown from Leta's POV, but I doubt it. The tree showed that Corvus was dead (although it could have been tampered with by Grindelwald, I guess) but the Atlantic is fucking cold. Seriously fucking cold. And a young baby probably would have died fairly quickly even if nameless woman had managed to haul him out of the water.
I'm going to assume that there's a second branch of Lestranges and that they're the ones who became Death Eaters later on. I'm hoping that this doesn't mean that JKR just ret-conned the existence of some of Voldemort's most famous supporters.
That said, I would love to hear more about the Lestranges. If there is a second branch, where are they in all of this? Corvus IV is running around Paris kidnapping black people and raping them and the rest of the family is...??? "Oh, that's just crazy Uncle Corvus. We don't rape people - that's far too uncivilised. No, we just use crucio."
Leta could have been so interesting, and she was so well acted. I'm genuinely bitter that she wasn't utilised more in this film. I wanted a female Slytherin hero, dammit!
The unloved Slytherin trope can go die in a fire. Like, yes JKR, we get that you hate ambitious people and think that cunning is an automatic disqualifier from the human race. We know. Just. Stop rubbing it in? I thought that the line made sense given that she's responsible for the death of her half-brother (and yes, Newt, she is responsible - it's negligent homicide+) and that she's been feeling guilty over it for such a long time. It's more that it gets no response. From anyone. At all. And is taken as fact in the moments before her death.
Leta's backstory and misuse in this movie make me so angry.
And the use of dialogue coming from an unreliable narrator being taken as absolute is something that happened a lot. Largely from Grindelwald and Dumbledore, but Leta too in that case. Then again, Dumbledore's guilty of it throughout the entire HP series, so I'm guessing that it's something Rowling just does. And it's one thing to expect the characters to just blindly believe it; another thing entirely to expect the viewers to.
*The more I think about this movie as a whole, the more I dislike it. Just UGH. +The entire cinema snorted when Newt said that. Like, it was a full cinema; it was noticeable. An entire room full of 'what bullshit is this' at what was presumably meant to be an emotional climax.
no subject
I thought about Aurelius-as-rape-baby too, but... Ariana's attack happened when she was six. She's meant to have been fourteen when she died, which is admittedly old enough to have a baby, but...ew? There's also the problem of Ariana's unstable magic and how that would have reacted to sex/pregnancy, so I'm ruling that out. The Dumbledores did have an aunt Honoria, so I've also considered her as a possible connection, but that still begs the question as to why Grindelwald was using the term 'brother' unless he's intentionally trying to manipulate Credence into fixating on Albus. Oh, wait. XD
Maybe they made Credence grow jaw-fuzz because they realised he came across as about 16-ish in the first movie and were like "oh no, he's meant to be in his late twenties" and decided that a patchy beard-thing was the way to go.
You would think that the telepath would understand that mind-control is bad. You'd also think that the fact she lives in New York City would mean she'd have enough of a handle on her powers to not wig-out in the middle of Paris. French is scary, somehow? Eh. Queenie's story infuriates me so much, and the more I think about it the more I dislike it*. Her character had so much potential, and I liked the ditzy-sweet rule-breaking romance that they had going in the first movie. I just can't help think that there were other solutions to their problems like, oh telling Jacob that they could marry in England and could they pretty-please elope?
There were flashes of good writing throughout this movie, but not nearly enough for me to get over the sheer amount of UGH that they also crammed in. I'll also admit that there's one Grindeldepp visual that I like: the bit where he's conjuring the blue fire and moving like a conductor. I thought that moment, that one moment, was probably the closest Depp got to being Grindelwald in the entire movie.
...yeah, it's not good representation at all when your already token gays like manipulating younger men into doing things for them. Not a great message. 0/10 for effort.
It showed Corvus getting off the boat. It also showed him and the woman carrying him fall overboard and her surfacing without him only to dive back under. It's possible that he was rescued, since it's shown from Leta's POV, but I doubt it. The tree showed that Corvus was dead (although it could have been tampered with by Grindelwald, I guess) but the Atlantic is fucking cold. Seriously fucking cold. And a young baby probably would have died fairly quickly even if nameless woman had managed to haul him out of the water.
I'm going to assume that there's a second branch of Lestranges and that they're the ones who became Death Eaters later on. I'm hoping that this doesn't mean that JKR just ret-conned the existence of some of Voldemort's most famous supporters.
That said, I would love to hear more about the Lestranges. If there is a second branch, where are they in all of this? Corvus IV is running around Paris kidnapping black people and raping them and the rest of the family is...??? "Oh, that's just crazy Uncle Corvus. We don't rape people - that's far too uncivilised. No, we just use crucio."
Leta could have been so interesting, and she was so well acted. I'm genuinely bitter that she wasn't utilised more in this film. I wanted a female Slytherin hero, dammit!
The unloved Slytherin trope can go die in a fire. Like, yes JKR, we get that you hate ambitious people and think that cunning is an automatic disqualifier from the human race. We know. Just. Stop rubbing it in? I thought that the line made sense given that she's responsible for the death of her half-brother (and yes, Newt, she is responsible - it's negligent homicide+) and that she's been feeling guilty over it for such a long time. It's more that it gets no response. From anyone. At all. And is taken as fact in the moments before her death.
Leta's backstory and misuse in this movie make me so angry.
And the use of dialogue coming from an unreliable narrator being taken as absolute is something that happened a lot. Largely from Grindelwald and Dumbledore, but Leta too in that case. Then again, Dumbledore's guilty of it throughout the entire HP series, so I'm guessing that it's something Rowling just does. And it's one thing to expect the characters to just blindly believe it; another thing entirely to expect the viewers to.
*The more I think about this movie as a whole, the more I dislike it. Just UGH.
+The entire cinema snorted when Newt said that. Like, it was a full cinema; it was noticeable. An entire room full of 'what bullshit is this' at what was presumably meant to be an emotional climax.