Photo: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
The final trailer for Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald released yesterday, and a Harry Potter bombshell was revealed in it.
Remember Voldemort’s beloved snake, Nagini? You know, the last Horcrux to be destroyed when Neville Longbottom killed it with Godric Gryffindor’s Sword? Well, in the latest installment of Fantastic Beasts, Nagini will be getting an origin story and we now know that the snake was once a human woman.
In the trailer, Credence (Ezra Miller) calls for Nagini at a circus and actress Claudia Kim transforms into the giant snake.
J.K. Rowling revealed on Twitter that she’s been holding in that Nagini secret “only for around 20 years,” although fans questioned why the Harry Potter series never alluded to it if Rowling did indeed plan it all along.
Everyone's shocked at the reveal that Nagini has been an animagus all this time but J.K. Rowling doesn't fool me. She just came up with this, otherwise the snake wouldn't have ended up in a zoo wishing to go back to Brasil.
— Alfonsothoth (@AlfonsoSRT) September 26, 2018
Nagini being a woman the entire time is just lazy writing. "J.K Rowling has been sitting on this secret for years!" Yeah it seems like she had a lot of "secrets" that she never bothered putting in any of her books. Convenient how that worked out ?
— ✨ ANDROID 18 ✨ (@SailorSlob) September 25, 2018
J.K. ROWLING: Uhhhh yeah! Nagini was TOTALLY A KOREAN WOMAN THE WHOLE TIME? DUH wasn't it obvious???!!
Everyone: pic.twitter.com/4pPzxipOxU
— Charumathy Nair (@lunalector) September 26, 2018
Some found the casting of an Asian actress in this role problematic:
I feel like this is the problem when white people want to diversify and don't actually ask POC how to do so. They don't make the connection between making Nagini an Asian woman who later on is the pet of a white man. So I'm going to say it right now. That shit is racist.
— Ellen "Call Me General" Oh (@ElloEllenOh) September 25, 2018
I have no words for how disgusted I am by the whole Nagini thing. To have a creature depicted as no more than a beast revealed to be a PERSON, a WOMAN, is bad enough, but for her to specifically be an East Asian woman?
Bad look. Bad fucking look.
— JY Yang ✍? (they/them) (@halleluyang) September 26, 2018
It's even worse.
Let's retroactively turn an animal into a woman of color who is owned by wizard Hitler.
Nagini wasn't even hinted at being formerly human. It's lazy, hack writing.
— snbatman (@snbatman) September 25, 2018
Fans also continue to question why Johnny Depp hasn’t been recast after accusations of domestic violence.
HP fans: Depp is problematic. Can you use the next year to reshoot w/ a new actor?
JK: You want me to show support for women and their autonomy?
Fans: Yes, plea…
JK: Okay, Nagini is now an Asian woman and a future possession of Voldemort.
Fans: Yes, wait, NO!#WandsReady
— J Wolff Hughes (@JWOLFFH) September 26, 2018
us: pleaase show us dumbledore’s canon gay romance! since you brought it up! and it’s important! also please fire abusive shit johnny depp
rowling: nagini was an asian woman all along here she is in a cage— caro ramsey (@caroramsey) September 25, 2018
Meanwhile, can someone check on poor Neville after he realizes that he decapitated a human slave thinking it was a snake?
Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald hits theaters on November 16.
