JK Rowling’s screenplay for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is full of analogies that speak to our world’s problems and history. We look at Fantastic Beasts and the Harry Potter universe to unpack what Rowling is really saying.
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Transcript provided by Youtube:
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[Music]
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in the Harry Potter spin-off fantastic
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beasts and where to find them
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JK Rowling adapts her magical textbook
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to teach us a few things about our non
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magical world the story is full of
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analogies and metaphors like the
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obscurest
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and the wizard who hates muggles or no
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matches and Rowling uses these to sum up
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societies and history’s biggest threats
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fragmented versus them culture the might
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is right mentalities of dictators and
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the repression that leads to antisocial
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individuals and society disbanded do you
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know anything about the Wizarding
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community in America I didn’t ask you
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things actually I know that you have a
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brother backwards laws about relations
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with non-magic people but you’re not
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meant to befriend them that you can’t
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marry them which seems not they’ve said
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he’s going to marry him
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Rowling power as a writer is that this
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depth is hidden in what appears at first
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to be a sugary escape rolling wants us
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to imagine that underneath our world is
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another layer of reality other forces
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that embody what’s playing out before
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our muggle eyes and somehow more
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fundamental or primal ways my heroes are
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always people who feel themselves to be
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mr. Park stigmatized or offered
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that’s at the heart of most of us right
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it’s certainly at the heart of decision
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directed by Potter’s divagate the story
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of newts commanders visit to New York
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with a suitcase of illegal magical
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creatures is a distant cousin to Harry
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but the tone of fantastic beasts makes
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watching the movie feel a lot like
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reading a Harry Potter book for those
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people that have fans at the Harry
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Potter world it’s taking fall of that
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imagination and taking it to a place
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taking it in 1922 New York in her first
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screenplay just like in her novels
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rowland gives us a mix of genres that’s
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recognizably heard light I’m dark
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sometimes goofy and made for kids
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sometimes on the border of feeling too
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mature for a young audience note the use
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of a wand to imply an erection who owned
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the majors thank you the only one like
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me in fantastic beasts a perfect example
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of Rowling power for symbolism is her
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obscurest
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it’s an uncontrollable lethal force
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that’s created when a young wizard tries
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to suppress either her powers the
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obscurest is a clear metaphor for the
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dangers of repression what she does so
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extraordinaire Alize you understand what
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it is to be an outsider she understands
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what it is to not be included as using
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human experience somehow she understands
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the danger of oppression and the danger
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of intolerance the Latin root obscurest
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means dark in contrast to the implied
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lust or light of a wizard’s inner magic
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happiness even the dog
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what only remembers to turn on the light
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it also evokes our English verb to
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obscure or to cover or conceal
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suggesting the dangers of covering or
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bottling up what’s inside us
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his name’s credence his mother beats him
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should be sold those kids she’s adopted
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she seems to hate him little hear the
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abused beaten down credence is the
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magical equivalent of a mentally
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disturbed serial killer credence is a
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part of the society that is trying to
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stamp out irregularity in the human race
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you remember what a wicked through this
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obscure enjoyment lanes antisocial
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behavior in mid non-magical world if
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we’re conditioned to fear and condemn
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our inner potential we experience an
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unconscious unstoppable backlash within
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ourselves it’s interesting to note that
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credence may not be the first of cereal
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that Potterheads have encountered
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Rowling brought up the dangers of
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intolerance through Albus Dumbledore’s
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sister Arianna Arianna Dumbledore isn’t
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explicitly called an obscure iam but her
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life and death mimic treated this
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journey after she’s attached by muggles
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Arianna lives in hiding fearing her
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power until she explodes she ends up
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killing her mother just as creedence
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killed his adopted mother and also like
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readin she died at the hands of powerful
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wizards who are fighting about how magic
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fits with the non magical world justice
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Arianna’s she died very young didn’t she
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my brother sacrificed many things mr.
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Potter on his journey to find power
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including Diana throughout the Potter
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series this problem of intolerance is at
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the root of all the wars violence and
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pain that plague the magical world my
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god
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and repression isn’t just dangerous for
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individuals but also for societies the
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attempt at total control whether it’s
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one’s own self or a whole society leads
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to the dangerous resurgence of repressed
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power as evil rolling links created this
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story of personal repression to the US
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historical landscape of puritanical
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witch-hunt a strange things going on all
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over the city the people behind this
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they are not like you and me this is
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witchcraft don’t you see in her magical
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1926 you’re the vicious anti which
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climate has forced wizards underground
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the magical authorities imposed
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segregation between wizards and muggles
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or no matches as we Americans apparently
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call them the no match what no magic
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they’re non wizard sorry we call the
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mother then on the opposite end of the
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spectrum the unapologetically evil
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Grindelwald shows the dangers of too
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little control the magical world version
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of Hitler spread the ideology of Wizards
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blood superiority is cool who does this
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law protect us then refused to bow down
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any longer
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Grendel wall reject the need for
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self-control or protection of the less
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powerful there is an element to Grendel
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world that has a kind of autistic and
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malicious equality he has a brutality to
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him he believes in the superiority of
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the Wizarding community over the muddled
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community and he’s ruthless this
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narcissistic love of one’s own magical
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ability is just as dangerous as fearing
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it first inside you cretin
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in America you are American Georgia led
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worship leads to cruel abuses of power
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not sort of the greater good you mean
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yes in both extremes a person’s blood or
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how they’re born here represented by
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magic decides everything Rowling’s
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wizard versus no match divided goes to
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polarized politics of today as well as
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frightening Lee the rise of fascism and
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the onset of World War two in the decade
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after fantastic beasts insatiable the
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word itself no match in contrast to
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Harry’s friendlier British term muggle
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reinforces this divide there are those
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with magic and those without is us
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versus them in the puritanical witch
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hunt the person with special powers is
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oppressed in Grindelwald fascist
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eugenics is the person without powers
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the newest world of fantastic beasts we
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embrace a diverse array of nature the
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movie teaches us if we didn’t already
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learned it from Hagrid
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that the key to the care of magical
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creatures is to accept the inevitable
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chaos and moderate destruction that
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comes with animals just being themselves
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what newt believes as he sees the wonder
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and the brilliance from these animals
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and he believes that the wind in
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community with a proper education could
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learn to live side by side with these
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animals and appreciate how
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extraordinaire news feeds aren’t bad or
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harmful really but they’re a little wild
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and crazy by Nature they’re never going
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to be totally orderly and in control
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existing with others b-day humans or
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other species is living with a measure
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of disorder yes fantastic beasts must be
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controlled but in moderation
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just as our nature’s must be controlled
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by society’s laws and regulations but
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not suppressed by fear and self-loathing
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they’re currently in alien terrain
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surrounded by millions of the most
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vicious creatures on the planet
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human next understanding a difference
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occurs not only the creature friendly
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Hagrid but also Albus Dumbledore the
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moral center of Potter’s world like Newt
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Dumbledore preaches tolerance and the
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coexistence of magical being wizards and
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muggles why then to the sorting has
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placed you in Gryffindor because I want
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it there exactly Harry exactly which
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makes you different no water it is not
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our abilities that show what we truly
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are it is my choice
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but unlike knew Dumbledore takes time to
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reach this perspective before Ariana
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dies Dumbledore is working with
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Grindelwald with the goal of taking over
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the Wizarding World and making muggle
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and subservient his sister’s death
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teaches Dumbledore that power was my
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weakness and temptation
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what makes Albus Dumbledore so fun of
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you when grades who turns out to be
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Grindelwald references Dumbledore this
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resonates more deeply when we consider
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that Newt is here as stand-in for
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Dumbledore’s ultimate philosophy of
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Tolerance in fact stories from Potter
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we know that Grindelwald and Dumbledore
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have already fallen out at this stage we
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also know from the history stated in
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Potter that Dumbledore will end up
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defeating and incarcerating Grindelwald
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in a duel in 1945 the same year that
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world war two ends and Hitler’s fascism
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and genocide are brought down
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the shot of an ostrich running
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inexplicably from central park captures
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the feeling we get throughout fantastic
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beasts we’re seeing a version of our
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world that’s enjoyably unhinged against
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eternal life in our deeper reality at
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the end we the audience like Kowalski
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wake from a dream about our friends but
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we feel the movie stays with us closer
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to our world than we’d ever imagined I
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want to be
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[Music]
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you
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[Music]
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video