Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

Okay, fair enough. But I do think it's questionable that the big change in Rowling's society is basically cutting off an entire race from government positions and then exterminating them.

Because the fact that this happens because said race betrayed the government.

Which does sort of remind one of the whole "stabbed in the back" myth that nationalist Germans were fond off to justify abuse of Jews and other minorities they felt like blaming.

Regardless, that is a fair point on the whole sentience thing making them more evil, but would it be fair to say literally all Dementors are evil if they can display sentience? Like genuine question.

From what I understand, if the Dementors are based on any real people, it would be mercenaries you hire for war or prison. With said-mercenaries being Sociopathic Soldiers. The Dementors were only recruited by the Ministry of Magic not because they were concerned about a race's wellbeing but because they saw Dementors as useful tools to inflict horrific trauma on prisoners they deemed dangerous, regardless if they were actually guilty or not guilty. It's quite telling that when a sociopath like Voldemort comes into town and promises them more victims, they willingly jump ship.

Considering the debates of prison ethnics and the behavior of many guards and managers at those prison complex, especially military prisons, I find that very few people would be willing to support Dementors, the very manifestation of depression itself, to work at any government level.

I'm not sure if a Dementor could change their ways since they are born from depression itself and could only die if depression is reduced.

Edited by Shadao on May 1st 2022 at 10:23:07 AM

Fascinating comparison, TY.

The big issue about Dementors is whether or not they have any free will about their behaviour. Because if they can literally only live by leeching positive emotions from others, yes it's horrific but is it actually evil?

Like, the government found a use for them but they were shunned and despised (understandably) which lead to their collective jump to team Voldemort. But again this is potentially a case of Then Let Me Be Evil if they are hated just for being what they are.

According to sites like Pottermore, the Dementors originated in one place, Azkaban. And it's rumored they are the creations of a 15th century Dark Wizard Ekrizdis, who created the original fortress and kidnapped Muggle sailors to torture and then kill them for his Dark Arts, which were described to be the worst of its kind. Keep in mind, Azkaban was an uncharted island protected by magical charms.

After Ekrizdis died, the island was discovered by the British Ministry of Magic, and it was there that the world learned about dementors' existence. First instinct was to avoid the island because of the dementors. Then by the 17th century, an authoritarian and anti-Muggle Minister Damocles Rowle decided to repurpose the island as the government's prison and the dementors as its guards to save money on building an actual prison. Keep in mind, this guy won the platform being "Tough on Muggles".

Honestly, the history of the dementors is associated with the worst of wizardry. And I do believe they're meant to be unnatural and artificial in nature considering that they may have been byproducts of Dark Arts.

Edited by Shadao on May 2nd 2022 at 1:37:34 AM

That's actually a really interesting story, I wouldn't mind seeing more of this kind of worldbuilding in potential sequels of the Fantastic Animals series.

If I'm not mistaken, the wizard government considers Dementors to be "non-beings", it is, amortal spirits personifying human emotions that were never "born", and thus cannot die. Dementors come from depression, Poltergeists from chaos (which is why there is one at Hogwarts, since there are hundreds of teens making pranks and the such), and Boggarts from fear. So while they can communicate and even be argued with (Peeves the poltergeist has some respect for Dumbledore and the Bloody Baron, and the Dementors sided with the death eaters when Voldemort offered a better meal) they are more anthropomorphic personifications than species. So I assume that it is less that Dementors feed on sadness and more that they are sadness, in a way. They are unnatural, wicked spirits that make people miserable by nature, the only reason the government worked with them was to make Azkaban the worst place possible. There are also the Leithifolds, but no one knows exactly what these are, only that they are repelled by the same spell that repells dementors. It'd definetely be interesting to see a Dementor siding with the protagonists like how Peeves helped to protect Hogwarts though, even if through sheer pragmatism.

Edited by good-morning on May 2nd 2022 at 11:10:06 AM

fun fact about the guy who created them, Dementors were the nicest thing the Ministry found at Azkaban.

Man, all this talk about Dementors and their lore really makes me wish they stuck to the premise of the first movie.

Like just have Newt be traveling around the world and learning about the creatures of the magical world.

Sure, Rowling struggles to portray non-British aspects of her wizarding world, especially if they aren’t white but she is quite creative in creating magic animals and obstacles for our heroes to solve.

Just don’t have her write the politics or government. The magical Murica in the first movie is pretty awful.

Was kind of a bummer how they nerfed the Nundu ngl. Some magical creature it was.

Dementors, even if they are sentient (which I find somewhat dubious as any "communication" with them tends to happen off screen and I somewhat wonder if it's less communication and more... like, akin to Hagrid working with Buckbeak or Bill with a Dragon), they are fundamentally parasitic.

Like, they literally need to abuse people in order to feed and survive. And it's not some cutsey Vampire work around of like 'Just eat at a Blood Bank!' or 'Eat Animals' or anything. They fundamentally need other living people to suffer in order to live... die... un-live? Whatever. You get the point.

They only have a symbiotic relationship with wizards because wizards put them in the one place where wizards can't give a fuck about the collateral damage they do just to exist.

I... don't actually think it's wrong to want Dementors gone. Like, there is balance of nature and all that but there are also some things in nature that are inherently bad for anything that encounters it. Invasive Species can be an example off the top of my head. Even if that species doesn't mean to be detrimental to the habitat doesn't change that they're fucking everything up.

And when there's no habitat that they can exist in where they won't damage it... well...

Dementors are basically a folklore monster, only created just for the Harry Potter verse. They're a personification of a part of the human experience, rather than an actual species.

You can said dementor are rowling take on specter and bad ghost and evil spirits, specially in the film who look like reapers.

Makes me think of Killer Bob from Twin Peaks, who was an otherworldly entity that fed on human emotions, and literally got high on pain and suffering. But even in that case, other beings that were like Bob demonstrated that they didn't absolutely have to feed on pain and suffering, so it still amounted to being a choice for them.

The thing is... if Dementors are sapient and simply eradicating them is off the table, then putting them in a place where they only feed off people like Gellert Grindelwald and Bellatrix Lestrange seems like the most ethical choice, right?

The problem is that there's one wizard jail for all wizard crimes. Getting thrown in the Dementor castle isn't just a special punishment for the wizarding world's worst monsters.

It's also a very different perspective on what prison is supposed to be. The American Legal system LOVES Prison as a punishment that should be as harsh as possible... which really only creates more criminals who can't do anything better when they get out. And if you weren't fucked going in, you probably got some really bad habits on the way out.

There is the perspective that prison should be rehabilitative.

And well, when you said it yourself, when there's a single prison for all crimes and the dementors police all of them equally... There's no rehabilitation going on. There can't be under those conditions. And if anyone gets out, I don't think it'd be surprised if they did do some mass murdering after conditions like that...

...wait a minute, where the fuck is Naginini?

If I remember right, Neville killed her in the Final Battle since she was a horcrux.

Scheduling conflicts thanks to Covid and her IRL Pregnancy prevented her actress from appearing in this film.

Concerning Dementors, one should remember that Rowling based them on her own struggles with depression. They're an allegory.

Which is weird since Remus treated them like fear. Where would Dementors fit in considering some people are told they have to learn to live with depression. Dementors are obviously represent the severe end of it, but it depression won’t up and disappear like they seemed to.

That aspect is represented in the books. Dementors can be driven back but they cannot be destroyed.

And while Dementors do induce fear, the thing that makes them really horrible is their ability to drain positive emotions out of their victims. Their soul eating is the ultimate extreme of this.

So what you've got is an unkillable monster that eats your happiness away until you feel nothing. The monster can be fought and driven away, but it can always come back.

Edited by M84 on May 3rd 2022 at 9:22:52 PM

I feel like all this talk about Dementors is getting a bit off-topic.

Its harry potter related its technically on topic but dementors dont appear in this fantastic beasts movie soo technically it's off topic

Yeah this discussion is still more on topic than discussing JK and her bigotry for the nth time.

Thinking in it, Dementors not being in this series is a bit of a missed opportunity since they are Harry Potter’s unique monsters.

They're not in these films because their presence would be incredibly jarring I think