Twenty years ago the world first met The Boy Who Lived – scrawny, scarred and bespeckled. Since then, Harry Potter and his many woes and adventures have revolutionised the world of children’s literature and has become the best-selling series in history. Garnering the hysteria of a cult classic, Harry’s world of magic, mystery and his life at Hogwarts captured the imagination of readers for ten years, culminating in a film series, branded merchandise and even an amusement park along the way.
But within two years of the bittersweet conclusion of the movies in 2011, J.K Rowling had not only announced her intentions for The Cursed Child, but also the beginnings of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them; a tale set long before the horrors of He Who Must Not Be Named ever graced the Wizarding World. The news was met by elation from fans of the books and movies alike and marked the moment where series moved to franchise, expanding the beloved universe of Harry Potter into the much anticipated Wizarding World for another generation to experience.
Upon the release of the movie in 2016, fans were also gifted the published release of the screenplay, documenting the fascinating and endearing story of Newt Scamander; a tradition that was marked by the release of the screenplay for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald late last year. But unlike its counterpart, The Crimes of Grindelwald is a dark and gritty story that takes nearly 300 drawn out pages to explain what is a rather boring plot.
In contrast to the enriched detail of the Harry Potter saga which flourished and transformed over the space of seven books, the plot of The Crimes of Grindelwald lacks the intricate complexity of Harry Potter and instead leaves the reader baffled as to what exactly was achieved, which is very little. Acting as more of a stepping stone, rather than a sequel, the script simply establishes the need for another story, but leaves fans hoping for the opposite. Where characters such as Newt, Tina, Queenie and Jacob once thrived, they now disappoint and the promise of new, intriguing characters such as Leta Lestrange and Nagini are squashed relatively early into the text as they fail to reach the potential of their role. This comes as a disappointment to older fans of the franchise, who witnessed characters as bland as The Dursley’s achieve some form of depth. For readers new to the Wizarding World, it is a let-down that comes as a crushing defeat to the legacy before it.
This legacy is Rowling’s fatal flaw; in her attempt to reproduce it, she merely succeeds in destroying it. Her continuous effort to link both old and new stories leads to obvious errors in the plot, that contradict her own writing, such as the brief inclusion of Professor McGonagall and Nicholas Flamel, along with the use of incorrect spells, the Mirror of Erised, and the Lestrange family tree. Not only is this frustrating to old readers of the series, it also alienates those new to the Wizarding World, who lack the insight on the text to understand why exactly these characters or plots have been added. Ultimately their addition is futile, serving only to confuse the reader more in what is already an unnecessarily complex storyline.
Worse still is Rowling’s inability to learn from her mistakes. Disregarding the widespread criticism highlighting the lack of diversity in her previous works, Rowling’s screenplay is still based in a world that is mainly white and heterosexual. Rather than taking advantage of a new set of characters, Rowling focuses her weak attempts of inclusion on older characters such as Dumbledore, who is supposedly gay within the text. With very little in the text to demonstrate this, Rowling continues to queer-bait another generation of readers in hopes that her blundering effort at illustrating diversity will go amiss.
Harry Potter was a storyline that allowed the reader to mature along with it; gradually evolving into a darker but more elegant tale of tragedy, family and importance of love. It was a story if growth that ensnared the hearts of readers worldwide, for its easy combination of happiness, loss and most importantly imagination. It is a story that despite its own flaws, will adorn the shelves of great legacy in a distant future; passing from generation to generation. One can only hope that Fantastic Beasts will not accompany it.
