Book: Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
Author: JK Rowling and Steve Kloves
Rating: 5 Out of 5 Stars
I wish that these had been turned into books instead of movies. I’m putting that out there. You can see the bones of a great story and I think had JK Rowling written the books, we could have had something that was up there with Harry Potter. The scripts are very well written. They just don’t come across the screen, at times, the best.
This is the third volume of the Fantastic Beasts series. It picks right up where the second one left off. Grindelwald is gaining ground in the world and it is up to Newt and company to spot him. Newt is called upon by Dumbledore to do so and will be joined by a rather odd mix of characters. While many of them are familiar to us, there were some new faces. With a rather complex plan put in place, the group starts on their mission. If they fail, Grindelwald could end up being in charge of the magical community. The stakes are high.
This one is a lot different from the first two. While the first book focused more on the action, flare, and plot of the wizarding world, this one slows all of that down a little bit. Instead, we get to look more at the characters, which is what I think the movies were missing all along. I enjoyed this change in direction. Up until this point, I felt like I didn’t know the characters. I hadn’t had a chance to bond with too many of them. Here, we finally get that. There were a lot of times that it felt kind of slow but I like it. We get to see the Dumbledores together as they try to make sense of the past. Newt and Theseus have a lot of brotherly moments. We see little hints of other bonds being formed. It’s like all of these characters were finally given their moment, their time to allow their talents to come into play. We needed this. What made Harry Potter stand out was the deep bonds that the characters had with one another. We get that here. While it is not as well developed as Harry Potter, we can see it trying to come into play. I only wish that it had happened sooner in the series.
We can also see Grindelwald becoming the villain that we have been told about. In this one, we see why he brings people to him. He is lonely and wants company. He wants to feel welcomed by others. We still don’t know what he hates Muggles though. This is something that I think would drive his character arc home. We just know he doesn’t like them. With Voldemort, we know why through his backstory. Because of this, Voldemort’s actions do make a little bit more sense. We don’t get that with Grindelwald. He is still one of those characters who has not been fully developed. If we had this little bit of information, it would help his character. I just don’t think he is developed enough to have the allure at Voldemort. Unlike Voldermort, we also know what Grindelwald is up to. This takes away a lot of the suspense. If Grindelwald was not a point of view character, it may also help.
Like the other volumes, there are some things that don’t check out with the Wizarding World lore. I am one of those people who is fine with the world being modern, but it doesn’t fit what we know about this world. I don’t know. I know a lot of people have complained about this, but I guess we’ll have to live with it.
Anyway, I still did have a great time with this one. It’s always great to return to this world.