Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

Grindelwald doesn't actually want to stop the holocaust, ffs. He's planning one. Don't forget, this is an out-and-proud fascist who wants to exterminate muggles (and literally murders a toddler earlier in the movie). He's just riling up his base with visions of bad things muggles do to justify his intentions.

"The good guys in Fantastic Beasts want to make sure the holocaust happens" is a dumb bad-faith reading the internet outrage police made up, because apparently there aren't enough legitimate reasons to criticize JK Rowling.

I mean I always assumed he would stop WW 2 and the holocaust...by killing and enslaving the Muggles.

But does he ever bring up his vape visions from the last movie? Since there are elections going on, shouldn't he bring this up again to rile up support?

Or does he solely rely on the magic deer to drum up support?

I don't think they mention the vape visions at all. When the movie starts, he already has plenty of support from muggle-haters. There are throngs of protestors at the German Ministry of Magic, demanding they let him run for wizard president.

That was his plot, yes. Basically his thing is "We need to enslave the Muggles before they destroy the world and us with it."

Well, that's what he says. There's no sensible reason to take him at his word. Hell, the holocaust only benefits Grindelwald's plan because that's just muggles taking each other out. At one point one of his cronies says something about exterminating muggles entirely and he responds with "We don't say such things out loud."

I assume Grindelwald's goal was to enslave Muggles and put Wizards on top for the "greater good".

So the holocaust would be detrimental to that.

Granted, Rowling did imply in an interview it was no coincidence that Grindelwald was defeated in 1945.

Ruling over Muggles means weeding any Muggle that would resist such rule for their own good.

Grindelwald doesn't want the Nazis to discover the Wizard World and dedicate their resources to destroy or conquer the wizards with their guns and bombs. He, like many manipulative bastards, would want the Nazis to fight other Muggle governments, weakening the whole Muggle world and allow him to conquer them with ease.

Remember, he also shows the atomic bomb to his followers. That's not a Nazi weapon, that's a US weapon. His message is quite clear: All Muggles are too dangerous for their own good and must be reduced to a slave race for the sake of the world.

If this is all about the Nazis, how is he going to convince his followers to go after Britian, France, USA, and the Soviet Union? They were opposed to the Nazis and will do anything to stop Hitler. Why should the Wizardly World attack those nations as well?

Yeah that makes sense.

Granted, I still haven't seen this movie, but I don't think Grindelwald ever brings up WW 2 as a rallying point again. Though perhaps he did it off-camera since he does have so much support.

Grindelwald probably "bothsided" things by making all Muggles equally to blame for WW II.

I mean, muggle start killing themselves in mass and them now soon after they decide to do so again even with bigger guns, for a wizard the idea muggle cant just avoid killing themselve might sound appeling a this point.

This is something people forget but while voldermort wanted explicit wizard superiority, grindwald motto was "for the greater good".

Which means of course he is a good damn tau play-wait, wrong british setting. Carry on.

I kinda pity Santos' opponent. Barely on the screen and didn't even do a thing.

To be fair, Santos didn't do a thing either.

It's weird how this movie goes more all in for Wizarding politics and it's just a bunch of nonsense.

Do we even hear about the positions of each candidate? Besides Dumbledore or Grindelwald.

The politics of the wizarding world have always been weird, which was mostly fine for a children series where it wasn't a huge focal point throughout the story. But with these new films she's decided to put the political stuff front and center which in my opinion was a mistake.

You can only get so self-serious in a fantasy movie before people start to roll their eyes, a focus on political elections/politics isn't exactly what I would be interested seeing in my escapist fantasy movies personally.

Edited by clockworkboy on May 30th 2022 at 8:23:33 AM

I guess trying to be serious is also why all the important Wizards are dressed in muggle business suits instead of robes.

Eh, the whole wizards dressing in regular clothing never bothered me, it's a common thing across nearly all urban fantasy stories these days. Now if we ever see a flashback to magic users in like the 8th or 12 century then yeah we better see them in robes. But any story taking place in the 20th or 21st century I'm cool with them wearing suits, hoodies, or t shirts.

It’s one of those things lost in the transition from the book since it reinforces how out of step the wizarding community is in regards to the non-magic community. Even when we have characters wearing suits they’re depicted as being flamboyant, with the clear exception of Crouch Senior where he’s supposed to be the type even Vernon couldn’t make out to be a wizard.

Edited by Cross on May 31st 2022 at 12:08:54 PM

I think they went with regular clothes just because it was easier on the costume budget.

Ehhhh, a big budget studio like WB has more than enough funds for wizarding robes, I feel that it's a more aesthetic choice like notes.

I liked how out of touch the Wizards were in the books, it was charming, and you got good comedy out of the tri-wizard preparations. Granted, some of it aged poorly, but still out of touch wizards are funny.

Plus the wizarding professors like Dumbledore, Mc Gonagall and Snape owe part of their iconic look to their robes.

All the wizards look like boring corporate executives, even Dumbledore dresses like an average member of society, even when teaching.

Like Jason Isaac specifically made the look for Lucius because a pureblood supremacist like him would definitely go out of his way not to look like a muggle.

Never underestimate how cheap a studio can be in certain respects even if they have all the money.

Yeah that. It's why since Movie 4 (and even Movie 3) of the main series the students somehow forego their robes look. Probably easier for the costume department. Even the faculty is affected too, since only the characters introduced early on had the standard magical attire.

Well, Movie 3's intention was to have the students dress like students; they wear their uniforms messy and have casual clothes for off hours.

It didn't make sense for, say, Slytherin to wear normal muggle clothes, but the trio could be argued.

And then all the other movies took that as go ahead to just be lazier with the costuming... :/

Yeah — civvies were an intentional change by Cuaron, in contrast to how Columbus treated the robes in the first two films.