That Big 'Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald' Twist Is True, According To Ezra Miller
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald ends with a whopper of a twist – a twist that many fans aren't so sure about. For one thing, it ignores well-established Harry Potter history. Could it be a fake-out? A trick that the movie is playing on audiences? According to Ezra Miller, who plays a big part in the twist, it's the real deal.
Read Miller's thoughts on the Crimes of Grindelwald twist below – and of course, beware of spoilers.
At the end of The Crimes of Grindelwald, that rascal Grindelwald tells Ezra Miller's character Credence Barebone that he's not Credence Barebone at all – he's Aurelius Dumbledore, a long-lost Dumbeldore brother. If you're not well-versed in Potter lore, you might accept this revelation as-is. But fans have pointed out that this Dumbledore sibling has never been mentioned before. According to the books, Dumbledore (played by Jude Law in the new film) only has two siblings: a dead sister named Ariana Dumbledore, and a brother named Aberforth Dumbledore. So where did Aurelius come from?
Perhaps Grindelwald, villain that he is, is lying? Not so, at least according to Ezra Miller. Speaking with EW, Miller maintains that the twist is true – he really is a long-lost Dumbledore. "I was shocked, stunned, confused, 'petrificus totalus' with wonder and fascination," Miller said. "I still have a lot of questions for which I have no answers." The "no answers" thing is an easy way to get around explaining how all this makes sense, but Miller has a pretty good explanation for that – trust J.K. Rowling:
"[J.K. Rowling] knows the mythology so well and I think she's into confounding you for a moment and having a fan go, 'Wait that can't make sense!' and then showing you how things you thought couldn't make sense make sense. I think she enjoys people not getting it for a second. She's done it to us a bunch of times."
Some may call this a cop-out, and Rowling has a history of retconning things after-the-fact. But hey, they're her characters. They're her stories. Sure, they belong to the fans as well, but Rowling has the right to alter history if she wants to. And this isn't the only example of that happening in Grindelwald. A young Minerva McGonagall – Maggie Smith's character in the Potter films – pops up during the events Grindewald, despite the fact that according to the already established timeline, she wasn't even born during this time period. In short, this is J.K. Rowling's world, and we're all just going to have to get used to whatever the heck new thing she wants to throw at us. Is Rowling playing a long-game here? Will all these new revelations make sense in time? We'll see.