opalczerny-blog

[opalczerny-blog]

[opalczerny-blog]

Regulus Black’s bedroom

[opalczerny-blog]

The position was already cursed before Harry came along, I’m not gonna let him take all the credit. Here are some Defense Agains The Dark Art teachers Dumbledore possibly hired before 1991 - check out the rest on Sparknotes

[opalczerny-blog]

If he had come

[opalczerny-blog]

But can we just appreciate Queenie BAMF Goldstein who managed to smuggle out two convicted ‘criminals’ and dozens of beasts, all of whom would have been killed, by tricking a guy into thinking that she was carrying tampons, prompting him to freak out and not investigate any further?

[opalczerny-blog]

I refuse to bow down anymore.

[opalczerny-blog]

SPOILERY RANT FOR FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM

ok no but I really, really, love how Credence Barebones and Percival Graves were portrayed? Not particularly in the shipping way, but just how every scene in which they interacted were super INTENSE.

You could see how Graves manipulated Credence by offering him the affection and love that his mother never gives. Not just through words (like his promises of how Credence would be honoured and praised among the wizarding world), but also through physical affection (healing Credence’s hands, holding him close) and through gifts (the deathly hallows necklace). He definitely came off as the kind of man kids yell “STRANGER DANGER” about but that just further proves how effectively Graves was portrayed, because he IS a bad, bad man who emotionally manipulated a love-starved boy for his own means.

And don’t get me started about Credence. I LOVED Credence simply because of how human he was. Like whenever Graves offers him comfort, the way he never quite meets Grave’s eyes shows that either 1) Credence does not want to admit that he craves Grave’s affection or 2) he knows that Graves is manipulating him, or 3) both. But the fact that Credence kept coming back to meet Graves just shows the extent of his desperation for love. All of his pent-up anger and sadness that culminated in the Obscurus really hits you because of it sheer destructive power. Credence’s full range of emotions were shown best NOT through his words or expressions (he’s pretty stone-faced throughout), but through his silence and actions, which is absolutely human and raw and genuine.

I was pretty upset that Credence was killed without any chance to reform. But at the same time, I LOVED it. Because the lesson here is that society is unrelenting towards misunderstood and misguided people, and if Credence had lived happily and learned to find proper emotional support, the ending would be terribly cliché and unrealistic. Especially as Newt tries to tell him that he is not alone in his anger and loneliness, Newt offers another form of support in the form of equality and mutual understanding, rather than the one Graves offered of a highly-dependent power imbalance. But just as soon Credence is offered this new insight, he is killed by MACUSA. It’s tragic, heartbreaking, and all the more vivid because of it.

It also struck me that towards the end, Graves yelled that “he only listens to me” (or something along those lines) when chasing down Obscurus-Credence, all the while calling to him and telling him that they will be powerful together. I’m certainly glad Credence didn’t listen to him again. Graves naturally thinks that his hold over Credence is absolute. He isn’t really fazed when Credence rejects him for the first time, because he is so sure the Credence would always come back to him. Not particularly sure of what I’m getting at, but just wanted to point it out.

But in the end, Credence is dead and Graves/Grindelwald is simply arrested. There is not much justice for Credence, and while he certainly deserves much, much better, I’m glad the movie didn’t do it that way. So yeah, I love how the movie portrayed their relationship and how impactful it was. By no means was it a healthy relationship, nor was there redemption for either character. But it hit me in the heart real good, and I personally feel that it was wonderful storytelling.

Also: Why didn’t Grindelwald just use a spell to make Credence to do his bidding? An Imperius Curse would do the job faster and more efficiently. My guess is that 1) Credence is actually a powerful wizard in his own right, as seen by the strength of his Obscurus, and cannot be commanded, or 2) Grindelwald just wanted to play with his emotions, which is sad in the way that Grindelwald never needed Credence’s dependence even in the slightest.

If you’ve somehow read til this point, what do you think?

[opalczerny-blog]

Fantastic Beasts Afterthoughts: Grindelwald and Dumbledore-For The Greater Good [Contains Spoilers]

I know that Dumbledore’s character has received really different reactions. Some love him, some hate him, I’m one of those who love his complexity and consider him a grey character for many reason.

A big thing in the anti-Dumbledore community is how he left Harry with the Dursley’s, how he used him for the war against Voldemort and manipulated him in a way by not presenting the full picture to him, how he never left his ‘for the greater good’ ideology behind and I could go on…

I consider these points valid and I think that Dumbledore is flawed but I also think that he has been vilified by many and  I would like to talk about him in light of this new movie.

We have a very clear parallel here. Dumbledore/Harry and Grindelwald/Credence. Two powerful wizards needing a kid/teenager for the greater good of the magical community.

Both leave the child in an abusive environment. The difference is that Dumbledore does it to protect Harry from Voldemort until it’s unavoidable and doesn’t interfere, possibly because the Dursleys could cast Harry out and break the protection. Grindelwald does not care that Credence is getting hurt. He could save him whenever he wanted but he just leaves him there in order to find the obscurial.

Moreover, Grindelwald views people as magical vessels and as tools. If they have magical abilities, they deserve his consideration, if they can be used to further his goals, they may even get respect, but that’s about it. He turns from Credence to Modesty and then back to Credence without a second thought. What I believe that Farrell portrayed amazingly is that in these moments, he did care. But he didn’t care for the child as a person. He cared for an impersonation of the oppression of the magical community. In Grindelwald’s hands the magical community would be an obscurial… a body whose power has been oppressed in such a way that will burst out and destroy anything that opposed it. That’s exactly why, I do believe that he felt bad for Credence’s death, especially because him dying from the hands of wizards showed that they have reached the point of fighting against themselves instead of fighting back, but at the same time he would have sacrificed him in a heartbeat… but he would just have to “die at the proper moment”…especially if Grindelwald managed to find a way to use the obscurus without the host, which is something he was clearly interested in.

While this situation parallels in some ways the way Dumbledore used Harry in the battle against Voldemort, I would like to argue that the difference is that: 1)he tried to give him the best fighting chance. He knew that Harry might have to die but he tried to manipulate situations in a way that would both help the magical community and help Harry survive. 2)He saw the worth of people. He cared for Harry as a person, he cared for his students, he cared for Neville even though he wasn’t the child of the prophecy and so on. His interest in people’s well-being did not evaporate depending on if they had any use to him or not.

Also, Dumbledore’s goal during the Harry Potter books had nothing to do with a strict personal ideology. Witches and wizards would have fallen in a dictatorship that would destroy everything they had built and would cause immense losses even among them, not to mention what would happen to the non magical community. On the other hand, in Grindelwald’s case the situation wasn’t ideal but as long as they didn’t live with muggles, wizard’s had found a way to exist in that world. He wasn’t trying to defend what they had… he just could not grasp why they had to not live up to their full potential. Why they had to live in fear, ashamed of what they were even though realistically they were the top of the food-chain in the human species.

The point of this is that to judge this characters, you have to go beyond their actions and see the intentions behind it, whether their actions are based on egotism or a genuine concern about humanity, the lengths they would go to in order to achieve their goal and the emotional responses they had to their own choices.

[opalczerny-blog]

Percival Graves- text post meme

[opalczerny-blog]

i can somewhat excuse johnny depp being in fantastic beasts, because he was cast/filmed before the horrible news came out.

but they 100% should recast him for the other films and we should just pretend that nothing happened, like when dumbledore was recast.

[opalczerny-blog]

Colin Farrell as Percival Graves.

[opalczerny-blog]

AU in which Credence is adopted by Newt and Tina and never suffers again

[opalczerny-blog]

i ship credence barebone with happiness

[opalczerny-blog]

me before watching fantastic beasts when i heard there was gonna be five movies:

me after watching fantastic beasts:

[opalczerny-blog]

original 8 chosen children: our precious friends forgot about us T__T

the 02 kids: well gee that's a real shame isn't it. can't imagine what that's like, nope, not at all

[opalczerny-blog]

Keep Will Byers safe in season two and make Eleven his best friend

[opalczerny-blog]

requested by @lizteph​:   ↳ You know, smile?