History Film / FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald

* ChildByRape: [[spoilerLeta]], whose mother was under the Imperius curse when she was conceived and therefore couldn't consent.

* BloodBrothers: A crucial MacGuffin in the film is [[spoiler:Grindelwald's phylactery, which contains the magical BloodOath that he and Dumbledore swore to never fight each other. Which is why Dumbledore must rely on proxies like Newt to oppose Grindelwald (and vice versa). Teddy the Niffler manages to steal it from Grindelwald during the rally, setting the stage for their future duel in 1945]].

* BadFuture: In order to try to convince the pureblooded wizards to believe in his evil philosophy that Wizards need to control Muggles for their own good, Grindelwald [[spoiler: shows the pureblooded wizards the future, which in this case is ''UsefulNotes/WorldWarII''.]]

* BloodBrothers: A crucial MacGuffin in the film is [[spoiler: Grindelwald's phylactery, which contains the magical BloodOath that he and Dumbledore swore to never fight each other. Which is why Dumbledore must rely on proxies like Newt to oppose Grindelwald (and vice versa). Teddy the Niffler manages to steal it from Grindelwald during the rally, setting the stage for their future duel in 1945]].

* ChekhovsLecture: Dumbledore tells Newt about the legend that a phoenix will come to any Dumbledore in need. Grindelwald recounts the legend when [[spoiler: telling Credence where he comes from while a phoenix appears before them]].
* ChildByRape: [[spoiler:Leta]], whose mother was under the Imperius curse when she was conceived and therefore couldn't consent.

* DarkSecret: Leta blames herself for the death of [[spoiler: her little brother Corvus. When he was a baby and she a little girl, they travelled to America on a ship. Corvus kept crying the whole time, so Leta, being just a little girl herself, exchanged him for the quietly sleeping baby next door so she could get some sleep. Directly afterward the ship sunk however. The exchanged baby survived with Leta, while the real Corvus drowned.]]

* DeusExitMachina: Dumbledore is unable to move against Grindelwald himself [[spoiler: due to the two of them taking a blood oath to never fight each other]], and chooses to act through Newt and his allies instead. It ends as badly as anyone can expect, all but the main protagonists being thoroughly destroyed by Grindelwald, and the end of the film has Newt and the heroes firmly decide to help Dumbledore move against Grindelwald himself rather than continuing to try to use numbers against him by giving Dumbledore the blood pact to be destroyed, having felt and suffered enough of a humiliating defeat to come to the grim realization that no army can overwhelm Grindelwald. ''Only'' Dumbledore can defeat him.
* DidNotGetTheGirl: [[spoiler:Leta dies,]] leaving Theseus alone weeks before their planned wedding. And while not losing her per se, [[spoiler: Queenie's defection creates a wall in her and Jacob's relationship, since they are on opposing sides now.]]

** Being forced to love a person. Queenie uses a love enchantment on Jacob; even if the two sincerely love each other, the action is still shown in a negative light and she gets called on this multiple times. [[spoiler: Then much later, Yusuf reveals that Leta was the product of forced marriage: her father had cast an Imperius Curse on their mother so she would be with him.]]

** Also during his rally, [[spoiler: Grindelwald acts as if the Ministry are the evil murderers and not his followers, but one of his followers tries to attack the Aurors who enter, and said Auror fires back in self-defence. Grindelwald even paints her as a victim of the "evil of the Ministry", when the follower in question was told not to harm them, yet did so anyway.]]

* LoopholeAbuse: Yusuf is charged by his father with an Unbreakable Vow to kill the person Corvus IV loves most. He thought, at first, it would be Leta, his half-sister. [[spoiler:Turns out to be her ''other'' half-brother, Corvus V, from a different mother]]. It is unknown how [[spoiler: everyone involved being dead]] may affect the Vow, whether Yusuf is now free of it or not.

* LuredIntoATrap: Grindelwald's rally at the mausoleum in Paris ends up being a trap. He goads the Aurors into violence, making them seem like the extremists. He's been manipulating Credence the entire time into being there and finally [[spoiler:wins him over with the prospect of his alleged birth name]]. He also manages to [[spoiler: sway Queenie to his side with the promise that when he takes over, she will be free from her status as an outsider in regards to her abilities and free to marry Jacob]].

** The Lestrange family tree, [[spoiler: stolen from the French Ministry by Abernathy and Rosier, and placed in the Lestrange family crypt. It seemed meant to prove that Credence is the lost Corvus Lestrange V (and lures the heroes to the tomb exactly as Grindelwald wants), but Leta reveals the baby swap no one else knew about, so the book does not actually reveal who Credence really is]].
** Grindelwald's phylactery, which [[spoiler: contains drops of blood from Grindelwald and Dumbledore as part of their BloodOath never to fight one another. So long as it exists, Dumbledore cannot personally oppose Grindelwald. The problem is that it may take a while for Dumbledore to figure out how it can be destroyed and thus recovering it is not an immediate solution to the impending wizarding war.]]

* MoreThanMindControl: Grindelwald's main MO, as Picquery notes, is that he is ''very'' good at getting into somebody's good graces, to the point that he had to be silenced so the Aurors tasked to guard him in New York wouldn't succumb to his sweet talks. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption One turns out to have succumbed anyway]], leading to his breakout. Throughout the movie, it's made painfully clear that most of his followers follow him because they are promised the things they desire the most. [[spoiler: By the end, even Queenie has been swayed to serve him.]]

* OnceMoreWithClarity: Dumbledore's desire, as seen in the Mirror of Erised, gained a whole different meaning after the reveal of [[spoiler: the Blood Pact pendant.]]

* ProxyWar: Turns out Dumbledore and Grindelwald are engaging in this.[[spoiler: The blood pact that they created in their youth prevented direct confrontation.]]

** The many clues pointing to Credence being [[spoiler: Corvus Lestrange]].

** Credence's identity is a double whammy: [[spoiler: No, not Corvus Lestrange, but allegedly Aurelius Dumbledore.]]

** [[spoiler:[=Minerva McGonagall=]]] cameos as a Hogwarts in the 1910s, even though most people had deduced her birth year as 1935 from Pottermore. Even if you accept this as a Retcon or don't consider Pottermore canon, in ''Order of the Phoenix'' [[spoiler: [=McGonagall=]]] says that she's been teaching at Hogwarts for 39 years, meaning that in this movie she's a professor about thirty years too early.
* SheepInSheepsClothing: Leta Lestrange is a nice person and very courteous to the heroes. Her DarkAndTroubledPast, however, alerts the audience that she would somehow turn evil, not the least because the main ''Harry Potter'' series has taught us that someone who is a Slytherin shouldn't be trusted and the most well known character of the "Lestrange" name was [[DarkActionGirl Bellatrix]], even though she only married into the family. [[spoiler: And later Leta seems to do a FaceHeelTurn at the end, accepting Grindelwald's offer to defect, despite the Scamander brothers' plea. Then she lets her hand go and points a wand at him, showing exactly whom she sides with. In the aftermath, she dies a hero's death.]]

* TemptingFate: Jacob is very keen to find Tina and Queenie and get the group get together just like in New York. [[spoiler: It doesn't turn out that way.]]

** Credence addressing a beautiful woman as [[spoiler: "Nagini"]], a name that Potter fans should be ''very'' familiar with.

** A phoenix bursting to flame ''on Grindelwald's command'' and flying to [[spoiler: Credence as "proof" of his identity as a Dumbledore.]]

* SatelliteLoveInterest: For all the hype surrounding her, Nagini plays the part of Credence's love interest/emotional cushion and little else. Granted, her having a role other than the one the fanbase is used to is amazing in itself, and she does break the satellite part in the very end by [[spoiler:not following Credence to join Grindelwald, instead remaining with the heroes (!)]].

* ContinuitySnarl: A flashback from Leta's school days, i. e. the 1910s, shows a cameo of Professor [=McGonagall=], who’s never been given a canonical birth year but had been implied to be much younger than Dumbledore. The film's screenplay and a deleted scene make it worse, as they confirm that it is Minerva [=McGonagall=] and not someone else with the same surname.

** Theseus Scamander has to watch his wife-to-be Leta Lestrange [[spoiler: sacrifices herself defending him from Grindelwald.]]

* AccidentalChildKillerBackstory: A variant. [[spoiler: Leta LeStrange feels responsible for the death of her infant brother Corvus, due to switching him with another infant to get some peace from his crying while they were sailing to America. When the ship sank, the real Corvus was lost at sea, while the other child, presumed to be Corvus, was put into hiding and grew up to be Credence. The drowning infant became her boggart when she was older.]]

* PlayingGertrude: Callum Turner plays Newt Scamander's older brother Theseus. Eddie Redmayne (who plays Newt) is eight years older than Turner.

* MetaphoricalMarriage: [[spoiler:When they were younger, Dumbledore and Grindelwald performed a ritual to create a "blood troth," a magical pact takes physical form as an ornate pendant and constitutes a binding agreement that the two will be committed to each other and can never harm each other. "Troth" is the root word of "betrothed" and the pendant is something of a physical representation of their relationship. The legality of same-sex marriage in the wizarding world is never addressed, but between the terminology and visuals (the ritual involves entwining their hands), the ceremony is heavily coded as being a stand-in for marriage.]]

* MissingMom: Leta's mother died giving birth to her. [[spoiler:She was also Yusuf Kama's mother, so he has this too.]]

* MetaphoricalMarriage: [[spoiler:When they were younger, Dumbledore and Grindelwald performed a ritual to create a "blood troth," a magical pact takes physical form as an ornate pendant and constitutes a binding agreement that the two will be committed to each other and can never harm each other. "Troth" is the root word of "betrothed" and the pendant is something of a physical representation of their relationship. The legality of same-sex marriage in the wizarding world is never addressed, but between the terminology and visuals (the ritual involves intertwining their hands), the ceremony is heavily coded as being a stand-in for marriage.]]

* CreativeClosingCredits: Memorable scenes from the film are depicted in multicoloured smoke, created by [[spoiler:Grindelwald's blood pact phylactery]]. [[JuxtaposedHalvesShot Juxtaposed halves shots]] of the main characters accompany the the actors' names to highlight romantic and antagonistic relationships.

* CreativeClosingCredits: Memorable scenes from the film are depicted in multicoloured smoke, created by [[spoiler:Grindelwald's blood pact phylactery]]. [[JuxtaposedHalvesShot Juxtaposed halves shots]] for the main characters occur during the actors' names, to highlight relationships both romantic and antagonistic.

** Queenie sees Newt and Jacob in Paris and tries to follow them. When she loses them, the street is suddenly drenched with a [[UpToEleven downpour]].

* AdultFear:
** A young Newt feared being stuck in a boring office job with no freedom.
** Leta [[spoiler:watched as the life boat her baby half-brother was on capsized and he drowned as a result.]] She spent her life hating herself for a mistake she made in her childhood.
** Someone you love joins a cult or a terrorist organization because they have been manipulated into thinking it's for a good cause, and there is nothing you can do to save them from themselves. [[spoiler:The look on Jacob's face when Queenie joins Grindelwald says it all.]]
** Queenie gets stranded in the middle of the street in Paris and suffers PowerIncontinence with her Legilimency due to her stress. Then a strange woman approaches her and takes her to her house. The woman avoids answering when Queenie asks her name. Then the woman prevents Queenie from leaving and insists that she has to greet the house's host first. To Queenie's shock, the "host" is revealed to be Grindelwald, ''the'' most wanted fugitive and terrorist.
** In order to try to convince the pureblooded wizards to believe in his evil philosophy that Wizards need to control Muggles for their own good, Grindelwald [[spoiler: shows the pureblooded wizards the future, which in this case is ''UsefulNotes/WorldWarII''.]]

** Alternatively, it's quite possible that Grindelwald had acquired it during his youth after all, but before he disguised himself as Graves, Grindelwald, being the genius and great wizard that he is, used some kind of magic to ensure even if he were defeated, the Elder Wand would still remain under his control. Dumbledore had indicated that had he wanted to, he could keep his mastery over the Elder Wand intact upon his death in order to ensure it's power would break once Snape killed him rather than earning another master, so there must be some ways to tamper with the Elder Wand or at least bend some of it Turn the oven on the fan, Xs rules in a way if you have studied its lore well. As Grindelwald is someone who is very near Dumbledore's level in skill and they both knew the Hallows more than anyone else, he would have most likely knew how to tamper with the Elder Wand to ensure it remains his and made it so that losing while using Graves wand wouldn't affect his mastery of the Elder Wand.

An extended cut was released with the film's digital release on February 15, 2019. A sequel, ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheSecretsOfDumbledore'', is due to be released on April 15, 2022.

* AmbiguousEnding: At the very end of the film, Grindelwald tells Credence his supposed real name, [[spoiler:Aurelius Dumbledore and says his “brother” is trying to kill him]]. However, something doesn’t quite add up and there’s reason to believe it’s anywhere between an exaggeration ([[spoiler:using “brother” liberally to mean another relative]]) to complete BS (spoilers). [[note]] A) Grindelwald is a liar and manipulator who’s been doing it to Credence since the moment they met. B) He thought in the first film that Credence was a Squib and it was Modesty who was the obscurus, who’s a lot younger than him and a girl. This implies he’s never known who Credence really is. C) If he’s actually a fourth Dumbledore sibling his birth year of either 1901 or 1904 (the year he sailed to America and what his adoption papers say, respectively) doesn’t add up. This would have been at least two years since his mother would have died and an indeterminate amount of time since his father did. D) The whole reason Grindelwald took an interest in Credence in the first place is because he wants to use an obscurus to kill Dumbledore, meaning that he has plenty of reason to make Credence hate him. E) He’d been in prison for six months at the start of the film, how is he supposed to have randomly found out a deep, dark family secret of someone he hasn’t seen in almost thirty years? F) He had someone kill Irma when she was about to tell Credence the truth. Irma is probably the only person who truly knows who he is. [[/note]] All that’s proven is that [[spoiler:he isn’t Corvus V]].

* LoopholeAbuse: Yusuf is charged by his father with an Unbreakable Vow to kill Corvus IV's greatest love. He thought, at first, it would be Leta, his half-sister. [[spoiler:Turns out to be her ''other'' half-brother, Credence, from a different mother]].

* OnceMoreWithClarity: Dumbledore's desire, as seen in the Mirror of Erised, gained a whole different meaning after the reveal of [[spoiler: the Blood Curse pendant.]]

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Paris and by extension, the French Wizarding world are portrayed as this, albeit subtly. Paris's equivalent of Diagon Alley is gorgeous, however the entertainment is a freak show where fantastic creatures are treated horribly. More subtly is the fact that [[spoiler:Corvus Lestrange IV either did not face or managed to avoid any legal punishment for using the Imperius Curse while the same crime would have landed him in Azkaban should it be committed in Britain.]]

** The events of the first ''Fantastic Beasts'' film are implied to be set in motion by Dumbledore. Suspecting Grindelwald was in the U.S., Dumbledore ''happened'' to lead Newt to the Thunderbird, which he knew Newt would try to return to its home (Arizona). Doing that, Newt went to New York, which ultimately led to Grindelwald being found and captured there by MACUSA.

* BloodBrothers: A crucial MacGuffin in the film is [[spoiler: Grindelwald's phylactery, which contains the magical BloodOath that he and Dumbledore swore to never fight each other. Which is why Dumbledore must rely on proxies like Newt to oppose Grindelwald (and vice versa). Newt's Niffler manages to steal it from Grindelwald during the rally, setting the stage for their future duel in 1945]].

* CurbStompCushion: [[spoiler:While Grindelwald may have achieved all his objectives in this movie (see TheBadGuyWins) and defeated the good guys, Newt ends up preventing it all from being a complete loss: In addition to once again fending off Grindelwald and surviving while the Aurors didn't, Leta's sacrifice also allows Newt to save Theseus and he then along with Flamel, Kama, Tina, and his brother save Paris from Grindelwald's spell that would have destroyed it. The most important victory that Newt was able to achieve, however, was that the blood pact phylactery preventing Dumbledore and Grindelwald from fighting each other is now in Dumbledore's hands thanks to Newt's [[ThievingMagpie niffler]], meaning he will eventually find a way to destroy it since he canonically wins his legendary duel with Grindelwald.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Grindelwald has successfully recruited Credence to his army and slandered the ministries in the eyes of the wizarding world, Queenie defects to his side, Leta is dead and Paris is nearly destroyed by Grindelwald's spell. The sole silver lining of the film is that Newt's niffler manages to retrieve the blood oath phylactery that prevents Dumbledore and Grindelwald from directly fighting each other and then Newt relays it to Dumbledore for an attempt at destroying it.]]