Headscratchers / Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

• My guess is that Riddikulus is a spell that lies in a gray area in between Transfiguration and DADA - you are using it to forcibly transform something into something else, which is what Transfiguration is. It'd be no different than Prof. Flitwick teaching his class the Patronus Charm, which happens to be useful against dementors. DADA isn't a specific branch of magic like the other courses are. It's any type of magic that's used for self-defense, so there's probably a lot of overlap there. (Though this doesn't explain why Dumbledore is teaching in the DADA classroom.)
• Maybe she got sick at that moment, and Dumbledore was working as a substitue DADA teacher, until she got better?
  • Or maybe it was supplemental lessons to prepare the students for the outside world during Grindelwald's reign of terror, unlike the Ministry in Harry's time?
• Or filmmakers simply forgot about all these pesky details and retconned it.
• Galatea Merrythought might have been on study leave, or on assignment with the ministry of magic. She taught Dumbledore so undoubtedly would trust him with her class, and we don't know if Dumbledore always taught transfiguration (undoubtedly he would be qualified to teach pretty much everything). He might have taken over the post for a year or so while Galatea was busy.
  • Dumbledore was removed from the position as DADA teacher by Travers during the events of the film, so the retcon is not as severe as previously thought.
    • It may not even count as a retcon at all; the books established that Dumbledore taught Transfiguration when Tom Riddle was a student, but I don't think that it was ever stated that was the only subject he ever taught.
• Maybe this video will shed some light: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgFPrXoW90g&index=345&t=0s&list=WL
• In the first book, Quirrell was coming back from a sabbatical year after teaching Muggle Studies to teach DADA. There’s precedence for this in the series.
  • Over the years, the teaching of the Boggart could easily have gone from Transfiguration to DADA.

• Credence being Dumbledore's little brother makes absolutely no sense. According to JKR, Dumbledore was born in 1881. His mother died when he was 18 (1899/1900), his father has been in Azkaban since before that. Unless Dumbledore's dad somehow got it on in Azkaban, there is no way that Dumbledore can have a brother that, given that he was 16 in 1926, has to have been born around 1910.
  • The third movie, Secrets of Dumbledore, clears this up. Credence is actually the son of Albus's brother, Aberforth, who fathered him through a Muggle girl he met around the same time that Albus met Grindelwald. The mother was sent away after that, and Aberforth never brought up the possibility of a child to Albus since then, hence why he didn't know about it. Thus, Credence is a Dumbledore; he's just not Albus's brother.

• I think it is reasonable to assume that Grindelwald is a good occlumens and can thus hide certain thoughts from her and Queenie, being used to knowing what people think, is not used to (successful) deception, which makes her an easy target for people who have the capacity to actually hide their thoughts from her and on top of that she was in a very vulnerable state when she was contacted by Grindelwald and he told her exactly what she wanted to hear.
  • Also, it doesn't seem like Grindelwald thinks of it like that. He sees it as a revolution, a change in the world's order. That may be what Queenie sees/hears in his head.
    • Its certainly possible he wants to give Queenie the freedom to be with Jacob, but in the same manner he wants to give everyone else the freedom to own, mistreat, and forcibly “marry” muggles at their pleasure.
  • Assuming Grindelwald is an accomplished Occlumens or has warped thinking, his true intentions vis-a-vis muggles will (or should have) likely become painfully obvious to Queenie through reading Grindelwald’s supporter’s mind’s. Even if Grindelwald is a psychic poker face, those around him aren’t likely to be so subtle.
    • Supporters aren't always on the same page as their leaders. There have been hundreds of examples in real life where revolutions have been hijacked or teachings/philosophies corrupted because of supporters essentially picking and choosing what they want to think their cause stands for. It's entirely possible that Grindelwald keeps his mind clear of his plans for Muggles and if Queenie senses his supporters' hatred of Muggles, he can just write it off to her as being "a few bad apples who don't get it".
  • My personal thought is that she was drugged by something in that tea Vinda Rosier gave her that either made her more pliable to brainwashing or susceptible to mind-control. Either way though, Grindelwald likely thinks in German, so maybe she just can't understand his thoughts. She does say that she has a harder time reading British people's minds because of the accent.
  • In the real world, it's not uncommon for people with friends or loved ones from marginalized groups to get duped into supporting political leaders who persecute those groups (No Real Life Examples, Please!). Like many real-world bigots, Grindelwald avoids explicitly saying he hates Muggles or that he wants them exterminated. This can trick a few well-intentioned people into thinking that their friends and loved ones will be spared because they are "one of the good ones."
  • Plus, Grindelwald says during the film that he doesn't want to kill Muggles...After all, beasts of burden will always be a necessary part of society. His plan to keep them in check using magic isn't that far off from what Queenie did by enchanting Jacob, and that might actually be her new endgoal due to falling out with him at the end of the film: she knows he's not going to accept her back willingly, so she's helping create a new world order where she can force him to love her without repercussions.
• Grindelwald isn't from an English speaking country. Unless Queenie learned German, she'll have no idea what Grindelwald is thinking, and will have to rely on what he's saying.
• Judging by her behavior, very different from the first film, one could suggest she became several screws loose from all that stress and is eager to believe anything as long as this lie will promise her happiness.
  • It's possible Grindelwald is insane enough to genuinely believes what he says while also blind to the hypocrisy of the methods he takes getting there. If Grindelwald thinks he's doing good, that's all Queenie will get out of him.
    • Moreover, Grindelwald would actually have to think about his intentions for Muggles in Queenie's presence for her to even have a chance to pick up on such a thought. And from what we've seen, he honestly doesn't think Muggles' lives or deaths or sufferings are worth bothering to think about. Murder a family in cold blood? Eh, no matter, let's check out this nice new French house we'll be staying in.
  • Problem with that (and Grindelwald's image as whole in this movie) that he does too many things For the Evulz to appear as Well-Intentioned Extremist. Unless they all are very good Occluments, I don't believe any Legillimens could look into their minds and be deceived, language barrier or not. They killed a few muggles and a child out of convenience, for crying out loud.
    • But Grindelwald himself didn't. He was outside the house when the parents were killed and he deliberately left the room before the child was killed. Of course he absolutely meant for them to die, but he's clearly giving himself deniability ("Oh, that was such an unfortunate incident; of course I didn't mean for those Muggles to die! I'm not a monster..."). To anyone else, he does appear as just a Well-Intentioned Extremist - the entire point of his rally (besides getting Credence) was to paint himself and his supporters as victims by essentially baiting the Aurors into violence. Think about the language he uses in that scene: he tells his supporters to let the Aurors pass, then instantly talks about how they imprisoned him and killed his followers and that of course it's only natural to want revenge against them... He creates a situation where violence is inevitable but still keeps himself deliberately separate from it. And in the end, it's ultimately him that Queenie is believing in.
• But even in that case why couldn't Queenie and Jacob just stay in England and marry there? Wasn't that her plan to begin with?
  • She freaked out after the love charm was dispelled and left abruptly. Then he left to Paris, before she could return to her senses and be talked into this option. By the time they reunited, she already suffered mental breakdown and was roped in by silver-tongued G.
  • If Jacob were willing to move to a new continent, they would have. He has his bakery that he's dreamed about his whole life and considers a tribute to his grandmother. He fought in WWI and likely picked up a lot of patriotism. It's not a small thing to ask Jacob to give up his entire life and home and everything and everyone else he knows, to move to a country neither of them has ever been to before!
  • Secrets of Dumbledore goes with the idea that she was just distraught and under a lot of pressure at the time she defected to Grindelwald, since she's clearly unhappy working under him and ends up returning to the good guys in the end. She and Jacob end the movie with a private wedding held in his bakery in the States.

• The whole reason for why there's such confusion over whether Credence is a Lestrange or not is because Leta and her brother Corvus were travelling by ship to be adopted for their own protection, Leta switched her brother with another baby that wasn't crying nearly as much, and baby Corvus drowned when the ship sank. So:
  • 1. Why put the children up for adoption at all, and why was baby Corvus being adopted too? Obviously Lestrange didn't care at all about his daughter and wanted her off his hands, but why would he give up his precious heir? Why didn't Lestrange simply use the Fidelius Charm to protect his children?
    • Leta was not put up for adoption. She was just accompanying the child and the nanny. Leta's father was putting Corvus where Yusuf could not find him. As for not using the Fidelius Charm, Lestrange was such an odious man he probably had nobody he trusted enough to make Secret Keeper.
  • 2. Why were they going to America to be adopted? Why wouldn't a wizarding family in France or England have taken them in?
    • Redundant precaution to throw Yusuf Kama off the baby's trail.
  • 3. Why were they even travelling by ship in the first place? There's a huge amount of unnecessary risk; case in point, the ship sank. Why didn't Lestrange simply organise for them to use a port key, the Floo network, or another form of instant magical transportation?
    • The whole point of sending them with the half-elf nanny was to leave as little a magical trail as possible. Sending them by ship fits that as well.
    • There's no evidence of anyone being able to travel across the whole ocean by magic alone. Newt travels to America by boat, too, after all. Another continent, so far away, is likely beyond the reach of portkeys and floo networks, let alone apparition.
  • 4. Assuming Leta didn't admit what she had done, since everyone else believed Credence was Corvus, how did the boy end up in a Muggle orphanage and then with the Second Salemers? Presumably it would have been arranged for a wizarding family to take him in, who wouldn't have repressed his magic and caused him to become an Obscurial.
    • Lestrange's paranoia account for this. Yusuf Kama would never believe that someone of Lestrange's pedigree would willingly send his only son and heir to be raised by muggles.
    • There also seem to be indications that wizards, aside from naming a baby's godparents at birth, don't seem to have the whole adoption thing figured out.
• Did I miss something or do we never find out why Leta who was born presumably in France didn't go to Beauxbatons but Hogwarts instead?
  • The HP series establishes that every now and again higher-class pureblood families send their children to schools out of the country - particularly, it's implied, if they don't agree with the way the home country school does things. Draco Malfoy mentions in Goblet of Fire that his father Lucius originally wanted to send him to Durmstrang because they didn't have the same aversion to the Dark Arts as a Dumbledore-run Hogwarts - but he was talked down by Narcissa, who didn't want her only son going to school so far away from home. Conversely, Leta wasn't particularly cared about by her father after Corvus V was born - and it's fairly likely that her stepmother wouldn't be keen on having a living reminder of her husband's union with another woman nearby. Add to that the fact that it's almost explicitly stated that the Lestranges were very chauvinistic (which may sadly be the only reason Leta was treated the way she was) and you have a number of reasons why Leta may have been sent out of the country to attend school.
  • What's weird is that in an interview, when speaking about international wizarding schools (specifically whether American wizards could attend Hogwarts), Rowling stated that Hogwarts only services Britain and Ireland.

• Nagini says she opposes pureblood supremacy because they hunt Maledicti for sport. How, then, does she end up serving Voldemort?
  • By the time she becomes Voldemort's pet she is fully a snake incapable of returning to human form, probably for decades. It is impossible to know at this point if she remained sane enough to retain any memories or moral convictions from her human life.
  • Maybe later events will change her worldview?
  • Is there anything in canon to indicate that they're the same character and don't simply share a name — a name that means "female snake"?
    • The fact that both snakes look the same, maybe?
  • Parselmouths are extremely rare. The draw of someone who could actually understand her was probably strong enough to outweigh her moral reservations, especially after many years on her own as a sentient human trapped in a snake's body.
  • We don't even know that she remains a sentient human in a snake's body. In Prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius said that the dementors didn't affect him as much when he was in dog form, since it had less complicated thoughts and emotions than his human self. If the form a Maledictus takes is anything like that (and it could be even worse, since it's identified as a curse, and snakes probably have even less complex emotions than dogs do), Nagini might actually lose her human mind and identity completely when she transforms into a snake.
  • For what it is worth, it is mentioned in The Tales of Beedle the Bard that transforming/being transformed into an animal means a complete loss of consciousness unless you are an Animagus: if, as a normal wizard/witch, you accidentally turn yourself into, say, a cat, a cat's mind and magical abilities is what you will have, and you will need someone else to turn you back.
    • In this movie Nagini is like a witch whose only magical ability is to turn into a snake and back at will, like an Animagus without other magical powers (she resists turning into a snake during the performance shown in this movie until the circus master is visibly angry). It depends on how exactly she gets stuck as a snake later.

• According to the screenplay, the ship that baby Credence was in sank in 1901, meaning he was born in 1899/1900 and, in turn, making him about 26 years old during the first Fantastic Beasts film. However, everything in that film points towards him being a teenager, or barely an adult at the most. Seems like a retcon... But if it isn't, and Credence really was supposed to be in his late twenties, then why does he remain in an oppressive and much-hated household, being abused like a child? Why doesn't he just leave, or why doesn't his mother kick him out, for that matter? Specially since in that time period he'd be old enough to get a job, marry and have children of his own.
  • Mary Lou may have manipulated him enough to believe that he owed it to her to stay with her and wouldn't survive in the outside world. Or, since we don't know how long Graves was manipulating Credence, he may have believed that he had to stay to find the Obscurial. Or he stayed to protect his sisters.
  • The previous movie clearly shows him as not much mentally developed, so he easily can act as if he were much younger than his actual age, like a child even. As to why doesn't his mother kick him out: why would she? She needs him to do chores.
  • For what it’s worth, Credence’s adoption certificate apparently gives his birthday as being in 1904, which would make him slightly younger than the screenplay indicates.
  • It seems likely that in the first movie, he was envisioned as being a teenager, or perhaps a very, very young adult. Ezra Miller was only about 24 years old in 2016, which is 3 years younger than Credence would’ve been if he was born in 1900. In that first movie, they presumably didn’t plan on him being a Dumbledore, so they had to retcon his age later to better fit the timeline.

• This movie shows what seems be the closes to Hogwarts one can apparate -namely the middle of the stone bridge. Am I alone in thinking this is awfully close to the castle? The books were vage about it, but the general sense was that no-one could apparate within the castle grounds, and that included a good chunck of the Forbidden Forest (as mentioned in The Goblet of Fire). The spot where Newt and company apparate at the end to meet Dumbledore is literally the threshold of the castle. Is this a retcon, a change in the school's limits over the past century, or simply a cool visual that the filmmakers didn't think through?
  • Considering that this movie shows one of the earliest chronological appearances of Hogwarts, it may also predate the need for the previously seen levels of security. Both Grindelwald's and Voldemort's wars are in the future. In previous times, allowing visitors to apparate on the bridge would be seen as a courtesy to spare them the danger of moving through to the Forbidden Forest to reach the castle.
  • Why do people constantly forget that Half-Blood Prince clearly explains that the Headmaster-of-the-day can lift the Anti-Apparition and Anti-Disapparition spells temporarily in areas of the castle? All it takes is for the Ministry of Magic to send a few owls to the Headmaster-of-the-time, asking for permission (and the ability) to Apparate to the castle for a quick briefing with Dumbledore.
  • This was before Voldemort came along and Grindelwald was actively avoiding Britain and Dumbledore. It is very likely that the wards protecting Hogwarts are not as extensive during this time period because nobody expected anyone to lay siege to the castle. It is, after all, filled with professors who are very skilled at magic (including Dumbledore himself) and it would take a significant attacking force to get far past the entrance, especially if you cannot apparate any closer than halfway across the bridge.

• Do we know that the boat sailed from France, and if so, why were the Dumbledores on it? Or if it didn't sail from France, did the Lestranges travel to England?
  • It's highly unlikely that any Dumbledores were at the boat, considering that the woman caring for little Aurelius tried to save "him" muggle-style (namely, diving desperately towards the sinking bundle), and failed to. Had there been any of his relatives, a simple spell could have saved his life.
  • About the country of departure, it wasn't uncommon of ships to travel from France to the United Kingdom or viceversa before crossing the Atlantic; the Titanic herself would do so a decade later, stopping at England, France and Ireland before starting her journey.
• For that matter, unless the child was a Squib, why didn't his own magic save him? We have plenty of examples of magical children falling out of a window and bouncing, or leaping all the way onto the roof to escape a beating. Shouldn't young Corvus have floated to the surface inside a magic bubble or bounced off of the water instead of falling in or something?
  • Harry almost drowned in the Black Lake and he almost drowned in that lake in the Forest of Dean. Just because underage or accidental magic usually protects the wizard doesn't mean it always will protect said wizard. And doesn't Neville mention in Philosopher's Stone that his Uncle Algie pushed him off the pier at Blackpool and he nearly drowned as well before another relative got him out?
• The "aunt" traveling with the child was very likely a squib. As noted above, an actual witch would have been able to just Accio the baby out of the water and could have then obliviated all the witnesses. In the mayhem of a ship going down in a storm, it would not be hard to cover up the open use of magic because any muggles who claimed to witness supernatural events would likely be dismissed by other muggles as having simply been suffering from hysterics. Especially if their memories were hazy. Plus, you would just generally expect any capable wizards and witches to use magic to improve their odds of survival rather than relying on muggle methods.
  • Secrets of Dumbledore reveals the truth: Credence was actually the child of Aberforth Dumbledore and an unnamed Muggle girl. The "aunt" who was with him as a baby on the ship was one of the girl's Muggle relatives, undoubtedly taking him to be raised outside the spotlight in America. She was not a Dumbledore.

• How is Minerva McGonagall teaching at Hogwarts in 1927 when she wasn't born until 1935, based on the information she gives Umbridge and what we get from Pottermore? It can't be her great-grandmother whom she's named after because she wasn't a McGonagall.
  • Who says it has to be that Minerva? There could have been a relative on her father's side with that name, too. We don't assume that the MacLaggin we see in this movie is the exact same one who Hermione Confunded, why does everyone think there can only be one Minerva MaGonagall?
  • Did they ever actually call her Minerva? I only heard them call her "Professor McGonagall" in the movie, so she could easily be a grandmother or great-aunt or something.
    • Except the McGonagall name is from her Muggle father's side. Repeat: Muggle father. Minerva McGonagall is the half-blood daughter of the witch Isobel Ross and Muggle Robert McGonagall. The original screenplay of the film even directly calls her YOUNG MINERVA MCGONAGALL. So we're stuck grasping at straws as to how a woman born in October, 1935, was teaching in her early twenties in the 1920s.
  • Simple enough: Writers Cannot Do Math. A mistake with dates not matching up is nothing new on Rowling's part, and the screenplay writers obviously didn't bother to check Rowling's established dates on Pottermore. A Continuity Snarl either way, but my guess is we're meant to assume movieverse McGonagall is older than her book counterpart, which is the easiest handwave.
    • Except that Rowling herself wrote the screenplay which means she didn't bother to check her own established dates. So, again, Writers Cannot Do Math.
    • JKR freely admits that she is rubbish with math and precise details. The earlier books are full of similar mistakes, and JKR has said that Hogwarts has flexible geography and moving staircases simply because she knew she would never be able to keep it straight. It was probably meant as a fun throwaway Easter egg for the fans, and no one thought it all the way through. It's also one line in a very long movie, does it really matter this much?
  • This is the same woman who gave Hermione a Time-Turner so she could take more classes, and furthermore, according to Miss Granger, "She had to write all sorts of letters to the Ministry of Magic so I could have one." So maybe she's doing the mother of all time-missions for the Ministry.
    • Except Time-Turners can only go back five hours. We're talking a minimum of 50 years. And how does one come up with the conclusion that Minerva is working on a time mission for the Ministry from her simply writing letters to the Ministry about letting a responsible girl use a highly dangerous magical object to attend more classes at the same time?
  • Or maybe she's a... wait for it... TIME LORD!
• The easiest answer is that JKR simply decided to retcon McGonagall's age.
  • The only reason she was thought to have been born in 1935 is that some fans ran some math based on the information available at the time, and JKR went with it until recently. (Now, of course, she has to explain what McGonagall was doing the rest of the time. Or not.)
  • Something similar happened with regard to Harry's parents — Rowling has admitted that she did not intend for them to be so young at the time of their deaths. And I've heard that Dame Maggie Smith (who was about a decade or so older than book-McGonnagall's math-based age) was someone Rowling always had envisioned as playing the part. So she probably always imagined her as being older and didn't think through the exact numbers that she put into her books.
• Most works consider the original medium or stories to be canon, and adaptations to be less real or less official than the source material. In the Harry Potter series, the books came first, and give a lot of detail straight from the author, so they are generally considered to be more "canon" than the movies. Any info on Pottermore, stated in interviews, etc. is not canon, and is subject to being superseded by sources that are canon, such as if JKR wrote another Harry Potter book. In the case of the Fantastic Beasts series, the movies are the original source material, so they are considered "canon". Therefore, if the movies give us new info which doesn't contradict anything explicitly stated in the books, it should be considered more "real" than info from Pottermore or interviews. The easiest way to reconcile the two is to assume Minerva was a young teacher in the movie timeframe, then took a break from teaching, and then resumed teaching at Hogwarts. (Since this opens up the possibilities for her doing anything from raising a family to becoming an international spy/sniper/reporter/etc, this option has the most potential!)
  • Actually, just to point out, information on Pottermore that Rowling wrote herself is always considered canon, even if it contradicts previously established canon. And the Fantastic Beast screenplays hold more canon over the Fantastic Beast films (such as in Co G, the Protego Diabolica has black flames in the screenplay, but blue in the actual film, so the spell's effects are canonically black flames).
• Another possibility is that WB wanted another recognizable character and she just made the most sense to use. The 1935 date hasn’t ever been confirmed. It’s an estimation that stuck.
  • That is, of course, the Doylist reason, but we're having fun speculating about Watsonian explanations!

• Why isn't Tina in the records of the French Ministry of Magic? When Queenie asks for her, the secretary acts as if she had never even heard of her. Did Tina travel to France and go about her mission as a foreign auror without even notifying the host goverment? If not, wouldn't she feature in the records of active aurors opperating in national grounds, or something like that? If the secretary meant that Tina wasn't at the Ministry at that moment, then why did she behave like an unhelpful, uptight jerk, effectively misleading an already lost and vulnerable Queenie?
  • Tina might have used an alias to stay undercover.
  • Maybe her mission was secret enough not to disclose her presence to some random ditzy askers?
  • The screenplay explains: Tina told Queenie she was going to France on official business, but actually went there off the books to look for Credence. She didn't inform the French Ministry she was coming, but Queenie didn't know that.
    • Problem with that: how is Tina going to lie convincingly to a telepath who is probably at this point the one person around who knows her best and has the closest emotional bond with her? Even if Tina leaves some crucial details out of what she's saying, she'd have to be thinking about those details to avoid blurting out info she doesn't want her sister to know.
    • As Queenie tells Newt, she and Tina haven't been on speaking terms lately, since the latter disapproves of her seeing Jacob again. She could've left a note telling Queenie where she was going, or written to her about it in a postcard. If not that, these are sisters we're talking about — Tina probably picked up on how to lie convincingly to a Legilimens out of necessity just from growing up with one.

• What's with the flagrant security breaches within the Ministry? Newt and Tina are given free access to the archives by dropping the name Leta Lestrange, without giving nor being asked any proof. Presumably, this is how Grindelwald's lackeys managed to steal the book, too. Yes, the gatekeeper witch gives a malign knowing look, but she never stops them from waltzing inside the vault with zero supervision for an absurd amount of time. And yet, if that wasn't easy enough, Leta later checks on the archives from the second floor, apparently skipping the formality with the gatekeeper! This is sensitive information about the wizarding families they keep there, why isn't it better protected?
  • My theory is that the clerk did know they weren’t who they said they were, but was toying with them, and it took her so long to get them because it took her a while to find/summon the Matagot things. And with Leta, she is a visiting member of the British Ministry of Magic with French ancestry - perhaps she was given permission to find her family archive in the Archive Vault without consulting the clerk (or the clerk had vanished to get the Matagots, so Leta took initiative and went to the second floor to summon her archive there because she can’t open the door).
  • The screenplay doesn't say anything about Leta bypassing security using the second floor — it says she entered the archives the same way Newt and Tina did, so I'm guessing the second floor is just an alternative, but equally secure way of accessing them. As for how Newt and Tina got in so easily, I'm guessing the receptionist knew or was expecting someone to come searching for the Lestrange family tree, since the reason Theseus and the British Aurors are there is to use it to verify Credence's identity. So when two people who resemble Theseus and Leta request access into the records room, she doesn't really think anything of it until the real Leta also shows up.
  • Someone manning a desk isn't necessarily equipped to confront an intruder head-on alone. My impression was she played it cool to avoid a confrontation (which for all she knew could turn violent) and let them in, then as soon as they were out of her sight she called for back-up.

• Small detail, but in Leta's flashback we hear some students mocking her for (among other reasons) staying in Hogwarts during the summer vacations because, apparently, her family didn't love her enough. Why is she allowed to stay when many years later both Harry and Tom Riddle are denied this exact petition? Specially unfair since young Tom lived during WWII, a time when London was under the threat of air bombings, and yet Dumbledore had no qualms in sending him back there rather than allowing him shelter in the school.
  • Both of these are easily explained if you go back and read the books. First off, Hogwarts had a different headmaster when Tom was attending school there, and the only reason he wasn't allowed to stay for the summer is because the Chamber of Secrets was open at the time. It was seen as too dangerous for students to needlessly stay there outside the school year, as is explained in Chamber of Secrets. Meanwhile, Harry was only denied permission to stay there because the only way the protection over Privet Drive holds is if he returns home to live there every summer. There was no way in which Voldemort could touch him as long as he lived with the Dursleys, whereas at Hogwarts, it was at least possible. Comparatively, neither Hogwarts nor Leta herself are facing any threats or dangers that would make it too dangerous for her to stay there.

To be more specific, we have: Newt creating an extremely powerful current of wind that affects only one man, to the surprise of all the people walking right beside him; a feather that flies on its own accord trapped in a glass jar in a street cafe (maybe in that French Diagon Alley, but we can't be certain); a Chinese lion-dragon wreaking havoc in the middle of Paris (definitely not in the French Diagon Alley, because the thing turns over a few cars); having this fantastic beast disappear inside a tiny suitcase; and, of course, the gigantic fiendfyre dragon that flew over the city, blowing up tombstones and being destructive in general. Why is none of this an issue?

• Perhaps the same reason that the Knight Bus is legal and Wizards are allowed to live among Muggles (Ariana's magic is witnessed by Muggles and the only reason the family was prosecuted was because Percival went after them) and things that, that aren't overt are tolerated?
  • The feather was in the French version of Diagon Alley, and the hurricane-on-a-single-person could be explained by virtue of Muggles with a rather good Weirdness Censor, but as for the Zouwu and the Protego Diabolica spell...yeah, I got nothing.
• For several weeks to come the Parisians will speak of great fireworks display - I swear, that one looked like a dragon, darnedest thing, really, probably reflected off a cloud, you know how clouds make shapes all the time - and the lion that escaped from zoo or circus, probably spooked by fireworks, and rampaged in the streets - My maid saw it, swear it had tusks like a boar, tail like a peacock and was the size of a house, haha, you know how fear warps the perception, of course it seems the size of a house when it runs towards you. Minor news - someone vandalized the whatever cemetery.
• Or the Zou Wu is likely one of the many magical creatures that are either invisible to Muggles such as dementors, thestrals, or have their own brand of magic to make themselves scarce like house-elves.
• I once read something somewhere suggesting that the French wizarding community is just in really, really bad shape as it is, so much so that the events of the film don't really matter in comparison to all the other issues it's facing. You've got a Diagon Alley equivalent with a circus that features people as one of its acts, a Ministry that isn't interested in helping people who are clearly lost and in search of someone, a records department that lets people in without checking for any identification, a guy who can use the Imperius Curse to take someone as his wife without facing any legal repercussions...Plus, when Grindelwald publicly announces a rally he's holding and basically invites all the Aurors in Paris to attend, the only ones who show up seem to be British Aurors under the command of Theseus.
• Of note is that this movie happens in the middle of the international magical community's ongoing war with Grindelwald, due to which the Statute of Secrecy has already been compromised before. If the Zouwu and the Protego Diabolica spell aren't written off by the Parisian public by default, they're likely to be absorbed into French Ministry/ICW's growing list of things that will need be Obliviated anyway. We know that by the time of the original Harry Potter series, there don't seem to be any threats of magical exposure on record, so it's a Foregone Conclusion that everything will turn out alright.

• Grindelwald tries to recruit followers by showing them visions of a future world war (i.e. World War II), stating that joining him will allow to prevent a disastrous global war to happen again (the movie is set during the The Roaring '20s; IRL everyone at the time was traumatized by the Great War's bloodbath, especially in France, where the scene happens). Most of the visions make sense (visions of battles, of destruction, of ruined towns), but one of them doesn't. It shows people being loaded inside trains. To modern audience, this immediately remind the Holocaust, but to people from the 1920s (well before Hitler gained the power in Germany), it couldn't (since, well, it didn't happen yet; also, a scene where people board trains wouldn't seem as horrible, out of context and without knowledge of this future). Why did the screenwriters choose to use footage of a scene which wouldn't mean anything to the In-Universe audience? There would have been other scenes which could have been used to evoke the Holocaust to the movie viewers while being consistent with the War Is Hell theme of the sequence to the In-Universe audience: for instance, piles of starved corpses, a group of skinny and diseased-looking persons standing behind barbed wires, etc.
  • Even though we associate it with the Holocaust, to Grindelwald and his followers might just have been an endless line of refugees whose life has been destroyed, which is another real consequence of war, and also bad enough to feature in his vision. Maybe Grindelwald himself didn't even know what it really was.
  • As I understand he sees and feels stuff from the future, but gets no context. Holocaust was very impactful, so it sent ripples back in time regardless of whether a seer picking them up could interpret them.
  • This fits with what we see of seers elsewhere in the Potterverse; Trelawney's powers don't work the same as Grindelwald's, but she also just gets snatches of important future events, not their full context. I'd assume Grindelwald was just showing his followers what he'd seen and trusting the whole was ominous enough to freak them out even if they didn't understand every piece any more than he did.
    • Isn't he just playing that vision from the skull? In that case he cannot do anything - what's there is there, and you interpret what you can, leaving everything else to occur in due time and be understood.
  • You could just as well say that the mushroom cloud isn't really applicable since the atomic bombs were only dropped on Japan. The fact that the viewers don't personally know the people in the vision isn't important. What matters is that they're seeing people — any people, from anywhere — whose lives are being displaced or taken away by a war that can be avoided, if only the wizards step in to prevent it.

• We learn in this movie that Dumbledore and Grindelwald made a vow not to fight each other. But they did duel when Grindelwald attacked Aberforth, so maybe Ariana died because when one or the other tried to kill each other, the spell backfired?
  • It's very likely this is the reason why Dumbledore is so reluctant to go against the oath, lest it backfire again and harm more innocent bystanders.
  • I assumed they made the oath AFTER the incident.
    • Considering the sole footage we have about them creating the blood oath, in which they both look very invested in each other, it's quite unlikely that that scene played out AFTER the huge argument and three-way duel that ended in the death of Dumbledore's sister. After all, isn't her death the point when Dumbledore's and Grindelwald's relationship shattered completely?
  • It may depend on the precise mechanics of the oath; it might not prevent them from fighting so much as prevent them from actually harming each other if they do fight - after all, the only casualty of the altercation was Ariana, who presumably wasn't a party to the oath...
  • My theory is this: the oath doesn't actually physically stop them from fighting, but causes serious consequences/casualties for fighting each other (like the Unbreakable Vow, which imposes the magical consequence of death for failing to fulfill the vow). Ariana's death was the result of Dumbledore and Grindelwald fighting even though they had taken an oath not to.
  • Do we know for sure that Albus and Gellert were on opposing sides during the duel? There could be something I'm not remembering, but if Albus didn't realize the error of his ways until after he realized his sister had been killed in the duel, why would he have wanted to attack the guy he thought he was still friends with? Maybe he was actually helping Gellert against Aberforth, or just standing in the middle and trying to stop both of them.
    • My headcanon is a mix of this and that the oath makes bad things happen if they fight. Personally, I like to believe that Dumbledore was trying to stop the fight. He parries a blast from Aberforth, and shoots a stunning spell at Gillert, but wait, the spell backfires and a big boom happens, and now Ariana's dead.
  • The blood oath probably serves as a form of magical shield. It's not that their wands won't cast spells against one another, it's that those spells can't affect them. Dumbledore expressly mentions in the King's Cross scene that Ariana's death was the result of a rebounding curse.
  • Secrets of Dumbledore expands on the events of the duel that killed Ariana; apparently, Aberforth confronted Albus and Grindelwald, but Albus says it was only him and his brother who drew their wands against each other while Grindelwald only laughed at the spectacle. Not that that lines up with the events surmised from Half-Blood Prince.

• How is Newt even able to defend himself from Grindelwald's uber-powerful blue fire dragon when most accomplished aurors just died on spot? Isn't he supposed to be your everyman in regards to magic, and only stand up when magical beasts are concerned?
  • When Fred and George started their dark-art protection product line, they were surprised with amount of requests from aurors, so it must tell you something about their proficiency. As to him defending successfully: seems like it depends on your reflexes in general - aurors were caught off-guard, and he's quick-witted enough to react correctly.
  • I always figured that Newt was a very formidable wizard, its just that he was too focused on beasts. Consider his creating of massive magical zoos (complete with large tracts of wilderness) in a regular basement and in a suitcase. Also the Ministry wanted him even though he was kicked out of Hogwarts - heck, in this movie they try their hardest to get him work as an Auror, which would require either a lot of training, or a lot of raw talent. He didn't finish Hogwarts so guess which he had. Also we know that magical prowess is kinda genetic, and Newt's brother is a strong and famous Auror, so it stands to reason Newt is rather talented as well.
  • It's an uber-powerful blue fire dragon. If anyone would be sufficiently fascinated by the bestial forms in which Fiendfyre manifests to develop a Fiendfyre-deflection spell just so he could get a proper look at them and determine if they were something he could befriend, it's Newt.
  • Prisoner of Azkaban sets the precedent of spells being more powerful (or having completely different effects) when they’re cast by more than one person simultaneously: when Harry, Hermione, and Ron Disarm Snape at the same time, the result is so strong that it slams him into the wall and knocks him out. So even an average wizard like Newt teaming up with an accomplished Auror like Theseus could conceivably manage to hold the blue flames at bay, for a time, at least — especially since they clearly aren’t doing it especially well. It takes their all just to remain on the brink of being swallowed up.
  • The other aurors didn't even try to fight it off. If you watch the scene closely, all the aurors do is run up the stairs to try to get away from the flames or Disapparate out of the room—and in both cases, the flames chase and consume them. Newt and Theseus were the only ones there who actually attempted to defend themselves with a spell instead of trying to flee.

• Newt might have been able to recognize the blood oath for what it was, but how did he come to the conclusion that it belonged to Grindelwald and that it involved Dumbledore, too? It was unlikely he ever saw it in Grindelwald's possession (being inside a pocket, and whatnot), and he only found it after the niffler had snatched it, in a room with a crowd of a couple hundred people, so it could belong to anyone there. Now, Dumbledore did mention a while back that he couldn't fight Grindelwald himself, but it was quite a bold shot in the dark on Newt's part to connect all the dots and come to the conclusion that the blood oath was theirs.
  • Grindelwald was wearing it openly during that speech, and Dumbledore adamantly refusing to fight Grindelwald is widely known fact, perhaps their previous connection is leaked in the gossip too - Ministry men shown him a record, referring to it as a known fact. Still a big leap, but not ridiculously so.
  • We've also seen Newt use magic that reveals traces of people and actions. It's reasonable to think that he used a similar spell on the blood oath and found traces of Grindelwald on it.
  • Wasn't there an Auror or someone who saw the vial as Grindelwald was being prepared to be transferred overseas, before Grindelwald took it back? From what I remember, MACUSA gave it to him as one of Grindelwald's possessions, and he survived the escape attempt — he could've been the one who identified the vial as belonging to Grindelwald. And as for linking it to Dumbledore, my guess is that they didn't. At least not directly — once they realized it was a blood pact, they just asked themselves, "Hmm, now who would be close enough to Grindelwald to want to make one of those...?"

• Sure, he could tell them, but there's no guarantee they would believe him. I would imagine something like that would be difficult to prove (unlike an Unbreakable Vow, which leaves scars, without the actual vial it's just his word). Theseus was the one who took his side and released the Ministry tracking after Newt returned it, and that was only after he had personally fought off Grindelwald and after Newt had (probably) explained to him what exactly it was and what it meant for Dumbledore.
• Also, I envision the conversation going something like this: "Oh, so you made a blood oath with Grindelwald? You must be on his side."
• Albus is also secretive; he rarely tells people important information unless he thinks they absolutely need to know. We see this throughout his interactions with Harry and Snape as well, and Aberforth explicitly calls it out as a flaw of his in DH ("he learned secrecy at our mother's knee.")
• He has enemies in the Ministry, both G.'s moles and simply haters. As soon as he tells about the oath, he's branded as G.'s secret ally, accused of sabotaging resistance efforts, detained and maybe even thrown in Azkaban.
• Even worse than that: if the Ministry's hard-liners learned about the Blood Oath, and if the Oath's magic is of a kind that - like an Unbreakable Vow - would kill whichever one of them fought the other, then the Ministry's agents might well force Dumbledore to confront Grindelwald anyway (perhaps by threatening Newt and Albus's other friends) while wearing a disguise, fully expecting that both Albus and Gellert would be struck dead on the spot by the Oath. Because with so many Aurors' and innocents' lives already squandered in the pursuit of Grindelwald, what's one more life - even that of a popular Hogwarts professor - sacrificed to the cause?
• If you ask me, his reaction to finding out Newt has the vial does look marginally humiliated. So a little embarrassment could've factored into it, as well.
  • In fact, the screenplay actually calls for Dumbledore to look “tormented” and “bitterly ashamed” at the revelation that Newt has the blood pact and that he knows what it is.
• I got the impression that when Newt found out about it, he put two and two together and realized they were more than friends. He also stops just short of telling Travers (something about “closer than brothers”) and Auntie Muriel says in the last book that there were always “strange rumors about that Albus”. So he probably didn’t want more scrutiny on what exactly the relationship was either. They’d probably say he was some kind of pansy too weak to fight his ex.
• I figured it was like the Fidelius Charm in a way, part of the Blood Oath is that you can't tell anyone about it, note that throughout the entire film, whenever someone asks why they can't fight, neither one explicitly mentions the Blood Oath specifically, it's only when someone mentions the Blood Oath that they do. The amount of trouble it would've saved Dumbledore if he just told someone about it is obvious enough to be weird. Another possibility is the Blood Oath can only be made with love, and it was made when they were teenagers say they were 16-17 when it was made, that's 1897-8, not a time when homosexual relationships were thought of well, hell, it was illegal until about 70 years later.

• That particular Auror didn't avoid using lethal force, that's all. He was on edge, he was being attacked, he was in a crowded space full of people who were all just as likely to kill him. Maybe he was the loose cannon of the Auror force sent out.
• The screenplay confirms it; he just happened to be the jumpiest member of the squad.
• Always thought it was Grindewald's mole, specifically instructed to stage a fight if things don't go violently from the start.
• Given the popularity Grindelwald enjoys amongst the general populace, this particular Auror or someone he knew might've had a negative experience with Grindelwald's supporters in the past, explaining why he would feel a bit trigger-happy when he's in the middle of a huge assembly of them and they're all being subtly goaded to attack him or his fellow Aurors. You don't need to have a propensity for violence to feel a bit nervous under those circumstances.

• Grindelwald presumably grew up on the continent and went to England around age 18. So shouldn't he have a German/Scandanavian accent instead of an English one?
  • It's possible for people to hide their accents to appear more presentable to their peers, especially someone whose greatest asset is their ability to speak with people. His English is just very good.
  • Also, we don't know that Grindelwald grew up in mainland Europe. We only know that he went to Durmstrang, which is also an option for British students, seeing as Draco's parents were contemplating sending him there.

• Are you seriously comparing actual physical removal of a tongue with a simple jinx that can be fixed with a flick of a wand?
  • Well, yes. The effect is virtually the same, and how painful can the tongue removal be, considering Harry got all his arm bones removed without feeling anything? And Grindelwald also returned Abernathy's tongue with a flick of his wand, so is not like it was permanent.
  • A jinx is inherently magical effect. It is reversed by a simple countercharm. Actual body mutilation is harder to fix as it requires actual healing magic - which takes time and effort as we've seen a lot of time in Harry Potter books. Grindelwald healing Abernathy was so easy because its one of the most powerful wizards of all time using Elder Wand. It would probably take a LOT more effort for anyone else. And what has pain to do with it? The point was that they physically mutilated him to make him shut up, probably because he could nonverbally dispel simple jinxes wandless, I wouldn't be surprised.
  • Was what Leta did tongue removal? It looked more like she just fused her mouth shut.
  • Leta fused her classmate's mouth with a jinx that was easily reversed (and they were still students, it can't have been that difficult of a jinx). MACUSA maimed a prisoner (illegal) by removing a piece of his body. And it's Grindelwald, so you can bet they didn't care about making it less painful. It's also explicitly stated that they outright tortured him.

• Why does the text at the beginning of the movie identify MACUSA as the American Ministry of Magic?
  • Convenience for the audience? Either that, or just lazy editing.
  • This movie primarily takes place in Europe, where MACUSA would probably be more commonly (if less accurately) referred to as the American Ministry of Magic.

• In this story we have two instances of people using magic to...have their way with someone they've admired — Leta's father used the Imperius Curse, and while the method Queenie went with isn't spelled out, Newt does say that she's "enchanted" Jacob and is able to use a spell, rather than an antidote, to undo its effects. Lestrange Sr. using Imperio makes a bit of sense, but why would Queenie use magic instead of a love potion on Jacob? (Also, is there magic that can make someone fall in love with you, apart from an Unforgivable? If so, what's even the point of love potions?)
  • Imperius aside, it seems like both charms and potions have some side-effects and generally are of limited duration. As to why she didn't use potion on him - judging by Ron's behaviour under the potion, it works like aphrodisiac with selective targeting, while charm clouds general reasoning. First one is useful when you're trying just to boink someone, for pleasure or child, and charm is to nudge one to certain decision, like marrying. When potion wears off, victim can claim it's Date Rape, and the only thing holding them would be blackmail, while charmed person will admit they considered such choice (otherwise they would shrug it off eventually - remember, HP could resist even Imperius with his will alone) and suck up to it.
  • In Chamber of Secrets, Lockhart mentions "Entrancing Enchantments." This might be one in action.

• The one thing I don't get about the escape sequence is why it had to happen in the first place? As we find out, the Grindelwald inside the carriage is really a Polyjuiced/Transfigured Abernathy and the Abernathy who went chasing after the carriage is really Grindelwald. But that means Grindelwald was free to leave MACUSA from the very beginning — the only reason he went after the carriage was to retrieve his Dumbledore-blood-oath vial, which was something he (as Abernathy) turned over before the carriage left. Unless the real Abernathy was really important to him for some reason, what was stopping Grindelwald from leaving with his wand and vial earlier?
  • It could just be showcasing that Grindelwald is much different to Voldemort in that he doesn't just think of his followers as pawns that can be expended to protect the higher pieces (in Voldemort's case, himself and his Horcruxes), but actual people who will be rewarded. Also, we don't know exactly when Grindelwald switched with Abernathy - it could have been literally an hour before Speilman showed up. As for having to go after the blood pact - he had to hand it over because President Picquery was standing right beside him and knew about it herself.
    • Well, we know the switch had to have happened before the transfer, since Abernathy was really the one who had his tongue cut out. As shown when Grindelwald gives him a new one.
    • Then a new theory - the switch did happen not too long before the transfer (we'll say an hour), but it was actually Grindelwald who had his tongue removed (which we'll say happened a few days ago). Just before he had it removed, he was trying to presuade Abernathy to join his cause, got discovered, and had his tongue cut out. But MACUSA was too late in doing so, as Abernathy, while able to hide it (somehow), was swayed to join Grindelwald, and decided to help him. So, after learning that Grindelwald was planned to be moved to Europe in a few days, Abernathy plotted an escape route for his new master. Checking over these plans, Abernathy made sure he would be on guard the day Grindelwald was due to be transfered, and got him out, but, not knowing how to regrow a tongue (for sake of arguement, let's say this is not common knowledge for...Rowling knows what), chose to willingly cut out his own tongue and let Grindelwald have it, meaning that the tongue Grindelwald now has is in fact Abernathy's. Grindelwald then used some Polyjuice Potion that Abernathy happened to have (again, for sake of arguement, let's say Abernathy found some in MACUSA)to transform both him and Abernathy into each other, meaning Aberwald was now locked up, and giving Grindelnathy enough time to locate his wand, and the blood oath vial, before Speilman arrived to take who everyone thought was Grindelwald. Grindelnathy then chose to reward his new follower by freeing him, as well as retrieve the vial, give Abernathy a new, if forked, tongue, and use the carriage as a free ride to Europe, this time on his own terms. Incredibly long theory, yes, but it's the best way I can see this all taking place.
  • In addition to all of the above (valuing Abernathy, retrieving the Blood Oath)taking the carriage also provided transport to Europe. No one has been shown to Apparate or use Port Keys to cross oceans or the involved governments wouldn't have used a carriage in the first place.

• So the movie answered the "Why is Dumbledore teaching DADA in the trailer?" question by showing Travers removing him from the position after he refuses to stand against Grindelwald, suggesting that he only resorted to teaching Transfiguration as an alternative. But at the end of the movie, the two cuffs that were tracking Dumbledore's magic use were shown being removed — doesn't that mean he's off the hook and could go back to teaching DADA? He was only off duty for a couple of days, it seemed.
  • We have no clue as to when Dumbledore started teaching Transfiguration, only that it was around the time Riddle started attending. Perhaps he decided to take over teaching it when the previous teacher left, but no one else was qualified to do so, but there were many candidates for DADA.
  • If that was actually Minerva McGonagall teaching, was she the Transfiguration teacher? She then left, allowing Dumbledore to move to that position and then she came back when Dumbledore became headmaster.

• As much as I loved this movie, there are two characters who I feel are portrayed a little strangely considering what we're told about them in this and the first film - Leta, and Newt's brother Theseus.
  • In the first movie, Newt acted as though he and Leta have grown apart and gone in very different directions since he left Hogwarts, and Queenie surmised from his thoughts about her that they had a sort of toxic or unhealthy relationship, with her being All Take and No Give. In this movie, though, Leta comes off as a perfectly decent person and never seems like she's taking advantage of Newt, even during the flashbacks to their time at Hogwarts. Even though she's engaged to his brother, the two of them appear to get along perfectly fine, without any major hints of animosity.
  • As for Theseus, he also seems like a perfectly decent older brother, and I never got the impression that there was anything wrong with him as a character. But the film almost has this undertone of there being tension or a rivalry between him and Newt, and Newt's response to seeing him tied up and bound to a chair is "That was the greatest moment of my life," even though we're never shown anything to suggest that Theseus deserved this. If anything, the film kind of portrays Newt as the aloof sibling and Theseus as the well-meaning one.
  • Eddie Redmayne does portray Newt as being on the autism spectrum, so it is entirely possible that Newt misinterprets aspects of his relationships with Leta and Theseus. With Leta, it could be that she found his fixation on magizoology to be a problem. She does not appear to be the sort who would enjoy gallivanting around the wildernesses of the world looking to bond with dangerous magical beasts. Theseus seems to be more emotionally and physically affectionate than Newt is comfortable with. Plus he's a By-the-Book Cop style Auror in the present, and his one mentioned instance of prior rebellion was choosing to fight in World War I. So it could just be that their personalities confound Newt and thus he views his relationships with them as "complicated". Queenie was only reading Newt's mind, and if his perceptions were skewed then so might Queenie's interpretation of them be.
  • Leta being a "taker" not a "giver" doesn't necessarily mean she was a bad person. She grew up in a household where she was unloved, neglected, probably abused if her father fit the usual pattern. She had a huge unfilled need for attention/affection/love, but had very little experience with how to express such things herself. Newt being on the spectrum probably helped, since she would have found the attentions of most boys that age overwhelming, and not known how to deal with it. (And again, if her father fits the usual pattern for abusers, he might have subjected her to abuse that any teenaged sexual overtures would have triggered hard!) Newt's mannerisms are exactly the sort that are least likely to spook a frightened animal, and they were probably just what Leta needed, too. He also didn't demand overt affection from her, just her friendship, and if anything more developed, it would have been slowly and gently, something most teenagers aren't that good at. She likely learned enough from being friends with Newt to be able to develop a more normal relationship with others, including his brother Theseus, and both of them would have picked up mannerisms and ideas from Newt that the other would find familiar and reassuring. Leta was probably still more of a "taker", more needy when it came to love and attention, than she was a "giver", expressing that love freely and fully to others, but that's something some people find appealing, the ones who need to be needed. She and Theseus were, in the end, probably a better match than she and Newt would have been, because Theseus could help her continue to grow in confidence and emotional depth.

• Through most of their discussion about Credence, Newt and Dumbledore use side-along Apparation to stay together as they move throughout the streets of London. However, there's one point where Dumbledore Disapparates without taking Newt with him, yet Newt is able to Apparate to his next location seconds later. How did he know where Dumbledore was going in that instance?
  • Maybe Newt is just so good at Apparition that he can think of a person but not the location to Apparate to them? Either that, or this is a regular occurrence and Newt was able to remember all the locations he and Dumbledore had previously visited and what order to go to.
  • Also Dumbledore is sort of the master of apparition (The Deluminator in book 7 shows this) so he could have done something to help Newt find him.
  • Perhaps this is a different type of spell than the Apparition that's described in the books. Apparition has always operated a little differently in the films than in the books.

• So, Grindelwald's right-hand woman...Did she know that Queenie was a witch when she found her in the street? Grindelwald's plan revolves around subjugating Muggles, so it seems odd that one of his followers would care that much about a random Muggle woman being lost and alone in the middle of the city, but I don't know how she would've known Queenie was magical or not.
  • Grindelwald (as Graves) had worked in MACUSA meeting both Tina and Queenie more than once. After Newt and Tina took him down in New York, he may simply have told his followers to be on the look out for certain people. She saw Queenie in a vulnerable state and thought she could turn an enemy into an ally...and it worked. That's what I'm thinking at least.
    • Plus Abernathy is now in league with Grindelwald, and appears to have been Queenie's direct superior at MAUSA.
  • Grindelwald is also a seer. Nobody's appearance in the film seems to surprise him. He might have seen that Queenie was in Paris and, as noted above, remembered her from when he was masquerading as Graves at MACUSA. So he sent out his henchwoman to go bring her in.
  • When Queenie goes to the French Ministry looking for Tina, Rosier and Abernathy are there, obviously seeing and recognizing her. This is right before Queenie's breakdown in the rain. So Rosier knew she was magical, because she'd just seen her in the Ministry.

• The British Ministry of Magic has banned Newt from travelling internationally due to the "damage" his escaped beasts caused in New York in the first movie. Even if MACUSA still wanted to hold anything his creatures did against him after he Obliviated the city for them, how do they tell what he's responsible for apart from what the Obscurus did? Especially since Newt seemed pretty diligent about repairing the damages his beasts caused — Jacob's apartment, the zoo enclosures — and everyone who could've remembered it had their memories wiped anyway.
  • Because the International Confederation of Wizards delegation was present when Newt was initially arrested, including a member of the British Ministry of Magic, so he knew that something had transpired that involved Newt and his creatures, so probably filed a report with the British Ministry of Magic at the first chance. Plus, MACUSA most likely was required to file a report of all the events that had occurred that led to a near breach of the International Statute of Secrecy the likes of which the Wizarding World had never seen, which just so happened to include the damages, however small, that Newt's creatures caused, even if Newt was diligent enough to repair the damage near enough instantly after it was caused. And as for who helped distinguish the damage Newt's creatures made from the Obscurus? Well, Tina and Queenie were present (or, at least, witnessed the aftermath) when Newt's creatures did cause any damage.

• Does Credence in this film know that it was Grindelwald pulling all those manipulations on him in the last one? Maybe this was explained in a deleted scene or some such, but if he does know, why is he so eager to trust him again? If Grindelwald lied to him once, he'd certainly do it again. If he doesn't, why doesn't anyone just tell him? Even with Yusuf's story occupying most of their attention, Tina and Newt both had plenty of time to explain this in the Lestrange family's tomb. I feel like that would've at least had the chance to keep him from switching sides.
  • Credence was blasted apart before Newt revealed that Graves was really Grindelwald, so he wasn't a witness to the reveal and he certainly wasn't on speaking terms with MACUSA or any other nation's Ministry afterward. It is very likely that President Picquery didn't want to call attention to the fact that Grindelwald had managed to infiltrate MACUSA and impersonate their head Auror. So that part of events was probably never told to the wizarding public and Credence had no way of learning about it.
  • Okay, but the second question: why don't Newt and Tina tell him when they meet up in the Lestrange tomb? He's the reason both of them were in Paris in the first place, and they were nearly able to talk him down in the last movie, so you'd think he would listen to them if just about this one thing.
  • The last time that Credence listened to Newt and Tina he literally got blasted to bits by MACUSA Aurors! Why would he trust them or listen to them again? You will notice in the big final battle that Credence outright ignores it when Newt calls out to him. He does not see them as friends. It would have taken some time for Newt and Tina to explain about Graves having really been Grindelwald and even then they had no proof other than their own word, which Credence had no reason to believe.
  • Why would he trust them again? In the first movie, Tina stopped his mother from abusing him and told the Aurors at the climax not to frighten him by resorting to violence. He can't remember enough to associate her with the Auror attack without also remembering that she tried to stop it.

• How would the Ministry know if Newt had left the country? I'm hardly an expert on international travel, but if he uses a Muggle form of transport, and goes through Muggle customs inspection...wouldn't any of his information only get passed through a Muggle network? It was established in Half-Blood Prince that the Prime Minister is the only authority figure who holds knowledge of the existence of the wizarding world, and Black's escape from Azkaban was deemed a special enough case to have him make the Muggle world aware of it...Are we meant to believe that the Ministry also gives him/her a list of magical people who aren't allowed to leave the country? Newt was able to take a Portkey to France, so it's not like they were keeping track of him some other way.
  • The Ministry could still prosecute Newt if they ever found out that he left the country and, as we have seen repeatedly, their idea of "justice" tends to be rather arbitrary. He could face very severe punishment if they were feeling spiteful. This is probably why Theseus makes a point to warn Newt that he's being spied on. There is room for some coercion here as well, since the Ministry would most certainly not properly care for Newt's beasts if they threw him in Azkaban and Newt knows it.
• Newt had a Muggle passport in the first movie. I don’t know about how U.K. passports work (especially in the 1920s) but in the US your passport isn’t your personal property, it belongs to the state department. I’m sure there’s contacts in the Muggle government, someone could always tell their source to put a hold on Newt’s Muggle passport or confiscate it.

• A fair chunk of Newt's storyline in the movie centers around tracking down Tina, who is very angry with him because she thinks he got engaged to Leta Lestrange. This was due to her reading a mistaken article about it in an American wizarding tabloid. Since we know that wizards have international postal service, plus Tina is an Auror and the various international Auror offices seem to work together, why didn't she just do a little investigating before getting into a snit over Newt's non-existent engagement? Surely one inquiry to the British Ministry about the Scamander wedding would have quickly revealed that Theseus was the one engaged to Leta. Especially since Leta seems to have been something of a target for gossip and it was also no secret that Newt wasn't allowed to leave Britain, which would account for why he had not come back to see Tina in New York.
  • People will overreact when they see or hear something that insinuates their loved one/crush is seeing another person. Tina was already aware that Newt had a thing for Leta in the past, and so probably thought it was true because it made sense in her mind (even if she didn’t like it).
  • That Magical Law Enforcement in most countries is grossly unprofessional (and unethical) is a staple of the Potterverse. But honestly, an Auror takes tabloid news as fact without further evidence? That's just plain scary!
  • It's very possible she just didn't realize how much the story had been misconstrued when its country of origin was an ocean away from her. Alternatively, the possibility of a mixup didn't occur to her because Newt clearly didn't mention anything in his letters about Leta and Theseus, so how was she expected to think that there may've been a misprint? All she knows is that Newt knew Leta from school, so him being engaged to her and purposely not telling Tina about it is automatically going to sound more plausible than his brother being engaged to her and him neglecting to mention it to Tina...just because, I guess. Even if we accept that Newt is impersonal and not that close with his brother, it still is a wonder that the engagement never came up in passing, especially since he's supposed to be best man at the wedding.

• Not an avid fan so maybe missing something, but how was Jacob able to enter the Parisian equivalent of Diagon Alley on the statue pedestal? Aren't muggles physically unable to enter those sorts of locations as mentioned for Platform 9¾? AFAIR he never entered a location like that in the previous movie, which is why it's not brought up, but here...?
  • I can't speak for the books, but in the Chamber of Secrets film, we see Hermione's Muggle parents in Diagon Alley buying schoolbooks for her, and I don't recall anything saying Muggles couldn't access the train platform either. Considering there are Muggle-borns all across the wizarding world, it would seem that there would be a constant need for them and their parents to be able to access magical locations as necessary.
  • Never, has it ever been stated that Muggles cannot enter magical places, only that they cannot normally see them. Also, there are several instances of Muggles in magical places - Hermione’s parents in Diagon Alley in CoS, Myrtle’s parents going to Hogwarts when she died in CoS, and Petunia and her parents on Platform 9&3/4 in DH, to name a few.
    • Then that just raises a different question: How has no Muggle leaned on the brick wall at King's Cross and accidentally fallen onto 9¾ yet?
    • We don't know that no one has. But going by the platform's depiction in the films, if a Muggle did stumble upon it by happenstance, they probably would think it was just another train platform at first glance; their biggest question would probably be what and where this "Hogwarts" place listed on the sign is supposed to be. As soon as they try and ask someone what's going on, they'd be outed pretty quickly as a Muggle and then Obliviated and sent back into the regular station, I bet.
    • There are more than likely spells put around that specific wall to prevent that from happening, such as Muggle-Repelling Charms - but having knowledge that it is there, and being brought through by another witch or wizard overrides the spells. Again, it has never, in the entirety of Potter history, been said that Muggles cannot enter magical locations, but neither has it been said that they can enter on their own - all notices of Muggles in magical places I gave were either the Muggles in question having been told about the place, or being accompanied by wizards.

  • Jacob arrived in France via magic and was in the company of a wizard. So the usual muggle-repelling charms probably did not apply to him. It would have been very different if he had tried to do this on his own.

• Is there a reason in canon why the ICW couldn't use a Portkey to bring Grindelwald back to Europe? Long-distance Apparation is only possible for powerful witches and wizards, but Newt is able to Portkey to Paris from Britain, implying it at least isn't limited quite as much by range. Was it said somewhere that even Portkeys couldn't cover the distance across the Atlantic Ocean, or was there some other reason?
  • It is unclear if portkeys can enable travel over such a large distance. England and France are close together, but the U.S. is on the far side of the Atlantic Ocean. We do know from canon that wizards and witches were traveling to and from America on Muggle ships, which they presumably would not bother to do if portkeys that could span the distance were readily available.
  • Except at the Quidditch World Cup they set up loads of portkeys specifically for long-distance travellers, such as from overseas, because Apparition at that distance becomes iffy/finicky and broom travel tedious.
  • Maybe they were worried that Grindelwald could hijack the Portkey nonverbally, get it to take him somewhere besides where they wanted him to go. But there's only so much a prisoner can do to escape if you just throw them into a flying carriage and keep wands trained on them so that they don't do anything.

• In the first movie, it was stated that Obscurials weren't able to survive past the age of ten. Credence was supposedly powerful enough to be an exception to this, but even then, his Obscurus was still prone to lashing out and causing damage without his control, particularly during the climax, where it looks as though it's eating him up on the inside or something. Yet in this film, the fact that he has an Obscurus is only brought up once, and it appears to be brought out as a directed attack against the Auror who killed Irma and then is quelled moments later. Did Credence somehow learn to control it in between the two films? Why doesn't his life seem to be in danger anymore?
  • He does seem calmer than he was in the first film, along with being aware of what he is now, perhaps his "destruction" and reformation "fixed" the worst aspects of being an Obscurial, along with being the oldest living one and being a member of a powerful wizard family, perhaps in the time between films, he learned how to channel his powers, and the reason it seemed worse in the first film was because he only was able to use it in rage, maybe in blinding rage it ends up "burning him out" so to speak.
    • I would also like to point out that, while Dumbledore states an Obscurus grows in the absence of love, Newt says in the first film that it is developed through surpressing one's magical powers, which is why Harry never developed one. Credence, in this film, is no longer surpressing, but is in fact embracing magic, which may help when it comes to having an Obscurus. And the end of the screenplay states that, now Credence has a wand, the power of his Obscurus can be channeled.

• Yusuf's father told him to kill the person Corvus Lestrange (for brevity I'll call him Sr.) loved most. Yusuf believed this to be Leta until they met in the film. But we learn that Corvus never loved Leta, only Corvus Jr. But Corvus Jr's been dead for twenty years. Wouldn't the vow have become invalid since Corvus is dead?
  • Probably. But Yusuf didn't know Corvus was dead until Leta explained how it had happened in the tomb, so as far as he knows, the Unbreakable Vow is still in effect until he kills Credence or dies trying.
  • The Unbreakable Vow seems to have certain rules, with the person making the Vow having to know facts for the Vow to finish, perhaps if Yusuf had killed Creedence and Lita had not been present, the Vow would of counted as fufilled, as Yusef believed he killed Corvus, it seems to work on the fact that the Vow(ee?) has a strong enough belief that they have fufilled the Vow for it to release its' hold.
  • Note that Yusuf did not suffer any ill effects of failing to fulfill the Vow once he realized that Corvus Sr. didn't love Leta. It wasn't until he found somebody that Corvus did love that he was driven to fulfill it. The Vow didn't seem to stipulate that Corvus Sr. still had to be alive. So it is kind of a magical case of Loophole Abuse. The Vow does not apply until the terms of the Vow can be fulfilled. This is why Yusuf didn't fall over dead when Leta told him that her little brother died at sea. That was probably because his father made the mistake of choosing such a specific condition to assign to the Vow. Since that condition could not be met, the Vow is invalid. Mustafa Kama would have been wiser to choose a more general form of vengeance, rather than one that was so conditional and specific.

• The Wizarding World has been previously established as being prone to buying into ridiculous rumors, but was there any evidence this time to make people start thinking that a random American boy like Credence was actually a member of the Lestrange family? The entire plot kind of hinges on it, but I can't stop myself from wondering how it came up or why anyone thinks it's so significant, apart from that book of poetic prophecies.
  • Desperation among the Purebloods probably played a large part in it. Since Leta was female, the Lestrange family name would not be carried forward when she married Theseus Scamander. That Credence might be the lost Corvus made him the sole potential male heir to the French branch of the Lestrange family. That said, notice that opinions were mixed. Newt and Tina, for example, cared more about Credence as an individual than as the Lestrange heir. The British Ministry (quietly supported by the French Ministry) was actually looking to kill him for being an Obscurial and a possible pawn of Grindelwald. This is why so many fans considered this subplot to be nothing more than padding.

• Related to the above, rather than Yusuf's vow being nullified when he learned that Corvus was dead...shouldn't he have died as well? It was established in Half-Blood Prince that the punishment for failing to uphold the vow is death. Maybe Yusuf would've been spared if Corvus Sr. never held any love for anyone, but that's not what happened — Yusuf was supposed to kill baby Corvus and specifically failed to do so before the boat sank. So what would constitute a failure of the vow to kill someone if they can still die of other causes?
  • It is doubtful that anyone would use Unbreakable Vows if they worked that way. The conditions need to be specific, and need to attainable. Baby Corvus did not live very long. So the Vow went dormant until Yusuf got wind that Credence might be the long-lost Corvus, miraculously still alive. Then he became compelled to hunt him down, only to find out that he was not Corvus. Which is why the Vow did not kill him right there in the tomb when Leta revealed the truth.
  • This. There's an evident difference between refraining from fulfilling an Unbreakable Vow, and it literally becoming impossible to fulfill the Vow you've sworn. The former kills you for your intentional defiance of the Vow's terms; the latter negates the Vow, because you aren't willfully failing to carry through.
  • Note that Snape was in no hurry to kill Dumbledore, despite having made an Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa Malfoy to to do so if Draco could not. Why? Because he knew that Dumbledore was dying anyway and he was rather hoping that the curse would do the job so that he wouldn't have to. Had Death Eaters not been present to witness it then he would not have done it, and would have been freed from the Vow when Dumbledore finally succumbed to the curse. If it were otherwise, Snape would have had to worry that Dumbledore might die before he could murder him.

• From what we learn from Irma Dugard, Mary Lou Barebone was supposed to look after Corvus V (thought to be Credence). Mary. Lou. Barebone., who was well known for her active persecution of witches and wizards. Why would Old Corvus send his son, the person he loved most in the world, to someone that he knew would mistreat his child?
  • He probably didn't know Mary Lou would mistreat him. In fact, he might not have intended for Mary Lou to care for him at all and it just happened that way. Probably the same way that Dumbledore was hoping the Dursleys would care for Harry as their own.
    • Irma's instructions were most likely to take baby Corvus to America, find a family in New York to give him to, and keep the paperwork so that Corvus IV could track him down later. It's unlikely that Corvus IV had any plan whatsoever for who would actually wind up with his son. And then it was all rendered moot when Corvus V died on the way to America (despite the fact that Irma believed she'd handed over Corvus Lestrange V, Corvus IV still had that magical family tree that would have told him Corvus V was dead).
  • Corvus IV probably had no idea what happened to his son. I do not recall it being outright stated, but I think that it was implied that he died in conflict with Mustafa Kama. Both Leta and Yusuf seem to refer to their fathers in past tense, even though wizards generally live longer than muggles in the Potterverse.
    • The movie never says or implies that Corvus Sr. was killed by Mustafa — in fact, it’s said he sent his children away after catching wind of how Yusuf has sworn revenge, which only happened after Mustafa’s death. Plus, Mustafa’s entire plan was to make Corvus feel the pain of losing someone he loved. He can’t feel that pain if he dies before his son does, so Mustafa killing him wouldn’t make sense.
    • Yusuf was placed under an Unbreakable Vow by his father, which could not have been done after Mustafa was dead. The Vow was originally impossible to fulfill, because Corvus IV did not love anybody until Corvus V was born. It is doubtful that Corvus IV would have sent his children to America out of fear of Yusuf, who was a much younger wizard than he was and who he could probably have defeated in a duel. But Mustafa might have decided to act sooner when it became clear that killing Leta would not have been the revenge that he wanted. She and Corvus V were several years apart in age. If Corvus IV had been engaged in an ongoing covert war with Mustafa, he would not have felt a need to send Leta away because he did not care about her. But when Corvus V was born he had reason to send his beloved son to safety. Regardless, Leta ended up at Hogwarts rather than Beauxbatons, which implies that by the time she returned to Europe she went to stay with the British branch of the Lestrange family. Given that she speaks of her father in past tense, the implication was that he was dead by that point. Yusuf was not a threat to her because she was not applicable to fulfilling the Vow. This can all be chalked up to a simple mistake. Characters in a story are not necessarily omniscient about the story that they live in. Mustafa probably had no idea how difficult it would be to fulfill the specific terms of the Vow he laid out. How many people do not love anybody?
    • Corvus IV could have learned from his misogynistic family tree that Corvus had died, and that Leta had somehow been responsible. Depending on how often he bothered to look at it, he could have found out almost immediately after the crossing that Corvus was dead.
  • For that matter, if Corvus Sr. wanted a son so much and now has one, wouldn't he have wanted to raise him and moved abroad himself instead of just sending him off and never seeing him again? There are ways to hide from people.

• Crimes of Grindelwald takes place in 1927, about six months or so after the first film. There are supposedly going to be five of them in total, theoretically leading up to the duel in which Dumbledore takes down Grindelwald and wins the Elder Wand, which took place in 1945. If my speculations and math are both correct, there would have to be a timespan of 4.5 years or more between at least two of the movies in order for them to cover 18 years' worth of events before the finale. How in Hufflepuff's name are they going to manage that?
  • The next movie is scheduled for release in November 2021 and will supposedly take place in the mid nineteen thirties, so the time jumps will be irregular in nature rather than spaced out equally. Basically, we'll all have to wait and see.

• One of Grindelwald's visions involved a nuclear detonation. To us Muggles it's a terrifying weapon, but Grindelwald is later able to conjure up a spell to destroy all of Paris on his own. If a powerful wizard can do magic equivalent to a nuclear bomb - and presumably this is common knowledge, since the Aurors and Newt didn't act at all surprised Grindelwald could do that - why would the image of a nuke be worrying to any wizard? Wouldn't it be like showing a wizard a gun, to which their (rightful) reply would be "Cool, we can kill people at a distance too. It's called Avada Kedavra."
  • Notice how Grindelwald only used the Protego Diabolica after most of the rally left. The only ones left were Aurors who knew that Grindelwald is extremely powerful, and Newt, who also knew Grindelwald is extremely powerful. Not to mention, Grindelwald is explicitly stated in the film to have only one equal - Dumbledore. So Grindelwald might be able to create the magical equivilant to a nuclear bomb, but that doesn't mean your average, everyday wizard can. Also, the entire point of the vision was for Grindelwald to show his followers that the Muggles are catching up in terms of power to wizards - one of his lines is "How long will it be before they turn their weapons on us?" - that doesn't say to me "We are unable to match this".
    • That's exactly it, though - If in terms of raw power wizards are still able to match Muggles then why would they be concerned with a nuke?
    • And I said that the point of the rally isn't for Grindelwald to demonstrate wizards are becoming inferior to Muggles, but that Muggles are catching up and might soon turn on wizards! And, again, one thing Grindelwald says is that the wizards need to rise up against the Statute of Secrecy and rule over the Muggles before they use their weapons on wizards. Also, it doesn't matter if they can match it in terms of power! If you learnt a species or race or whatever that you thought was primitive compared to your own was capable of matching you in terms of weapon power, you'd be utterly terrified and want to stop it from happening!
  • Try to keep in mind that everyone in the crowd had lived through World War I, the first war to include things like bombing from aircraft and artillery of never-before-seen destructiveness. It is very likely that some wizards, especially ones living in places like France, had to evacuate their homes and hide out magically-protected shelters to avoid being killed by the new muggle weaponry. Now Grindelwald is showing that the muggles are on the verge of developing weapons that can level entire cities all at once!

• When Grindelwald releases the spell to destroy Paris, what about his own followers? Many of them were shown to be locals. Just because they had left the mausoleum would not mean that they had all left the city entirely. How was he planning to explain some of his followers getting incinerated? It would not be very credible to claim that the French Ministry allowed the Aurors to destroy their own city.
  • We know that the spell he had used in that scene was not Fiendfyre, but something called Protego Diabolica — the same magic he used to sort out loyal followers at the rally in the tomb. It’s very likely that once let loose on Paris, the spell would only incinerate those who weren’t loyal to Grindelwald, while passing harmlessly over those who were already his followers.
    • It still doesn't make much sense for Grindelwald, who's trying to present himself as the good guy, to go around destroying cities though.
  • Just a simple "I lost control while fighting Aurors, and ended up accidentally destroying Paris. I apologise, but promise my loyal followers and their families to help them rebuild a new city in its place", and Grindelwald has automatically removed all doubt from his followers - he is charismatic enough to sway Queenie, who knows what type of person he is, so it's not too out there. And for any followers who still doubt him, or refuse to follow after...well, we saw what he did to Krall when he showed doubt. Out of sight, and out of mind.
  • Do note that Grindelwald only seemed to lose control of the fire after Leta destroyed his prophecy-skull-thing. So it would technically be truthful of him to say that the good guys were responsible for the near-destruction of the city, even if he didn’t make any effort to prevent it.

• Leta switches Baby Corvus for the baby across the hall. And Irma never notices that she has a different baby than the one she started the journey with? It's only years later that Leta reveals his fate?
  • The boat was sinking, and Irma was most likely panicking. So when she saw Leta holding a baby, she of course would naturally assume that baby is Corvus, and never think otherwise, because she has no reason to. Both were boys, both were around the same age, and both had similar clothing.
  • During the sinking I can understand, but even after the boat reached America? Or did she know and kept it a secret to protect Leta?
  • It's likely that Irma didn't have the baby's exact features memorized, seeing as she's just a nanny who's there to place him for adoption. Even if Credence and Corvus looked dissimilar enough for her to pick up on it, she's more likely to dismiss it as a slip in her memory, not jump to an insane conclusion like "The real Corvus must've drowned on the ship because Leta swapped him out for another baby."

• What was Leta's motivation for swapping out her brother for another baby? Did she or did she not plan to reclaim the real Corvus later? The most pertinent issue at the time was that Corvus was crying and Leta couldn't sleep, while the other baby was much quieter. It feels like it's played up by the fandom as something psychological that must stem from her not feeling as loved as Corvus, but even if Leta had been that conniving as a child, what kind of an outlet was swapping him out supposed to be when she admits she didn't want to hurt him?
  • Leta said she 'wanted to be free of him for a moment'. To her, as a young child, baby Credence was more appealing to hold than baby Corvus because Credence was asleep and quiet. She also didn't know that the ship was sinking, and so probably thought that she could get away with it by placing Corvus in Credence's place 'for a moment' and hold Credence, so if Irma came back, she'd just see Leta holding a baby like before, and assume Leta had managed to calm Corvus down, and later, Leta would swap Credence and Corvus around again when everyone was asleep again. And, again, Leta is a child, and was sleep-deprived - it may not have been the best thought-out plan, but not everyone can think clearly when sleep-deprived.

• According to what we're shown:
  1. The secret about Corvus being revealed was Leta's literal greatest fear, according to the boggart scene shown earlier.
  2. Credence was accepting toward Yusuf needing to kill him, as long as he could die with the knowledge of who he really was.
  3. The real Corvus has been dead for years, so it's not like killing the wrong person now will mean that Yusuf's vow is unknowingly still in effect.
  4. Credence would've drowned as an infant if Leta hadn't swapped him with her brother, meaning she's basically admitting to being responsible for all the suffering he endured at the hands of the Barebones by telling the truth now.
  5. She probably knows that he's the dangerous Obscurial everyone's looking for, so she should figure he would react badly to finding out he's not who everyone thinks he is.
  • Because Leta, despite all her flaws, is still a decent person. She doesn't want an innocent person (well, almost innocent) to die because Yusuf thinks he's Corvus. And her fear isn't the secret being revealed, it's her having to live with the guilt of being the one responsible for Corvus's death. Also, notice how, throughout the film, Leta has been insistent to everyone saying Credence is Corvus that Corvus is dead, despite Credence being very much alive. She couldn't take it anymore that people were refusing to listen to her and instead believe The Predictions of Tycho Dodonus that Credence is really Corvus, so had to reveal that she killed Corvus when he was just a baby to stop Yusuf from murdering the wrong person for the wrong reason.

• Why was Credence employed by the freak circus? He doesn't look abnormal, he cannot control his power, and his most impressive magic involves turning everyone and everything around him to dust. The boss already had a house elf to take care of menial tasks. What could Credence possibly do to profit the troupe?
  • Its a freak show filled with 'oddities'. Credence is probably the oldest Obscurial on record.
  • It's unlikely that Credence actually told the ringmaster who or what he was; more likely, he claimed to be a Squib in desperate need of a job. The house elf can't be everywhere at once, so having a second pair of hands to keep the show operating at its peak was worth the ringmaster paying Credence a pittance. He kept working there despite the lousy pay because he discovered that he and Nagini have a lot in common, as both have been reviled for what they are and have been warned that a horrible fate - dying like every other Obscurial for him, becoming a snake permanently for her - is hanging over their heads.
  • A deleted scene explains this: despite having a house elf the Circus Arcanus stills needs to appear like a normal circus when outside magical areas and a house elf can't be used amongst Muggles — they needed laborers to help move the circus equipment and paraphernalia off the New York docks and onto the ship bound for Europe and Skender chose Credence basically at random from a crowd of would-be roustabouts.
    • Maybe not so random, he likely could tell Credence had some sort of magical connection. We don't see wizards mistaking Muggles for fellow wizards, there seems to be some way of sensing the difference.
    • Which seems to be confirmed when Grindelwald has the little boy killed - as mentioned further up, he was probably confirming whether the boy was magical and thus of value or not.