#although! its even worse bc they both fit into the archetype. i just don't think they're both as morally grey bc bheem is just good. imo.

[marklikely]

oh big surprise the guy whose favorite character archetype is "morally grey person who ruthlessly follows their goal no matter the sacrifices, especially as it takes a massive emotional toll on them" became hopelessly obsessed w RRR on sight. as if its my fault.

[thestrangestriddle]

If you need an excuse to go off about Vinda you have it, because oh boy I have complicated feelings about her

HOO BOY, here we go.

I wouldn't know if I can describe my feelings towards Vinda as complicated, but I definitely have a lot of thoughts on her.

One of the problems of FB as a whole is that, since it's not a book series, unlike with the HP movies where the audience simply filled in the gaps (and holy shit, are there a lot of them - GoF and HBP gotta be the worst offenders in this, but fandom favourite PoA is not free of its many faults) with lore they had from the books, we have, well, nothing to fill gaps with. One of the gaps is that, as of now, Team Gellert feels about as flat as a flounder - and now that two members dropped off and are back at Team Albus, it looks even worse.

Vinda could've been a good candidate to put a bit of flesh on their bones. After all, she is supposed to be Grindelwald's second-in-command (Poppy Corby-Tuech describes her as his "queen-woman", which I love. If Credence was the ace up Gellert's sleeve, then Vinda is the "good ol' reliable" who's got what it takes to get the job done.) She is what Bellatrix was to Voldemort without the obsessive love but, it seems, rather a genuine mutual trust between the two of them.

She is interesting in that she is very much an archetypical femme fatale with her good looks, dark and form-fitting attire, and being a powerful Dark witch (again, if she weren't talented, I doubt Gellert would have her as his lieutenant). At the same time, and that's why I took notice of her is that she is so very... queer-coded? In her first proper scene where she recruits Queenie, she practically lures her in for Grindelwald to talk to her. She is cordial and superficially friendly (as vulnerable and naive Queenie may be, I doubt if she had seen any red flags from Vinda that she'd have gone with her to what she thinks is her house) but there is also something predatory in how she watches Queenie. Then of course there is the whole "Are you married?" "Let's say deeply committed" exchange between them where Vinda is throughly amused by Queenie - of course because she knows that they succeeded in bamboozling Queenie, but also because it humours her that she thinks Grindelwald and she are romantically involved, when the truth couldn't be further.

We mostly see her in dresses except for two occasions, under interesting circumstances: when Team Grindelwald show up at the German Ministry of Magic where Big Daddy G officially is not a wanted felon anymore, and before that in CoG when Gellert shows the pure-bloods his not-so-good vision of the future, Vinda chose to skip the dresses and goes for a suit and trousers respectively. Seen by the entire crowd and she picks pretty unconventional attire for a woman in the early 20th century; and it is at least unusual for witches as well, given that the only one we see in trousers other than her is Tina, and Tina wears trousers out of practicality, whereas Vinda almost does so as a sort of statement piece. Interesting...

And still, we know nothing about her as a person besides that she is from an influential pure-blood family with branches in both France and the UK, is most likely very skilled at Occlumency (note that Queenie hears everyone's thoughts even if they're in French - she gets zilch from Vinda, only absolute radio silence), got a good relationship with her boss and is very dedicated to his ideology, although she would go the extra step and kill all Muggles, and got major lesbian vamp vibes.

Now, I don't want to have her entire backstory to be laid out in front of me nor do I need that because filling out the gaps is just fine enough and fun but... she is still barely two dimensional, and that is a general problem of movies like FB (bc it's hardly the only ones w that problem), where they pretend to be ensemble pieces but really only a handful get characterisation worth anyone's money and the rest just floats around in the ether, being pushed from A to B to C bc the narrative requires it. I don't want the chronicles of one Vinda Rosier, but I want her to feel like a complete character.