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Fantastic Plot Holes And Where to Find Them

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I swear I’m not obsessed with Harry Potter.


Okay, maybe just a little.

That's only proven by the fact that the "Potterverse" was the first thing to pop in my head when I read this prompt. Let’s be honest, there’s A LOT of rule-breaking that happens in Harry’s world, especially after the seventh book when J.K. Rowling goes back and tries to change the entire narrative by providing us with “new” information that she suggests was there the whole time. Looking at Dumbeldore’s supposed queerness here.

Between The Cursed Child and Newt Scamander’s movies, I’m not really sure what is canon anymore. However, for this blog post specifically, I want to chat about Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald.

Let’s list some of the ways this movie violates the canon of probability:


  • Minvera McGonagall shows up as a professor in the movie, which is set in 1927, eight years before she was born.
  • Dumbledore, canonically a Transfiguration professor before becoming Headmaster is shown as the professor Defense Against the Dark Arts.
  • All of the Lestranges die in the movie, so how do Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange end up in Harry’s time.
  • Apparating on Hogwarts’s ground is a no-no, but it happens ALL the time in the movie.
  • The Mirror of Erised shows a flashback in this movie, but canonically it is supposed to show your deepest desire and only that. In the movie, it acts as more of a pensive, which is a whole other magical artifact that already exists.
  • The Blood Oath/Unbreakable Vow taken by Dumbledore and Grindelwald doesn’t fit in the timeline. If they did it before the three-way rule between Aberforth, Albus, and Grindelwald that led to Ariana’s death, the two would have died as a result of attacking each other. After the duel, they’re no longer friends/lovers/etc so there’s no chance or reason for them to do so.
  • Nagini suddenly is a person rather than a snake and is cursed to become a snake with a spell we have never heard of before this movie.
  • Leta Lestrange is born of circumstances very similar to that of Voldemort. Her father used a mind control spell and Voldemort’s mother used a love potion. However, Leta is able to feel love, unlike Voldemort.


There are tons and tons more (and that’s ignoring everything from Rowling’s online Twitter postscripts).

The Elder Wand passes to a new owner when the owner is defeated and disarmed, which Tina does to Grindelwald. Yet, she does not become ruler of the wand.

Okay, we get it, Em, there are a lot of plot holes/violations of the narrative probability. Why are you telling us all this? Well, each of these violations changes and destabilizes the canon. It removes us from the story and basically makes viewers go “WTF, Rowling?!?” when watching. It takes us out of the wizarding world and back into reality.

In the simplest sense, Rowling is reinventing rules established in the books to create Newt’s narrative and thus sell more merchandise, more books, more movie tickets, and so on. In my opinion, there is no real canon for the Potterverse any more. Can a narrative break all its rules and still be immersive? Well, I went to see the movie on a date, and my partner (who isn’t a major Harry Potter fan) got a bit annoyed with me because the whole movie I kept whispering “wtf” and “that’s not right” to myself. So, I’m going to say no. That these kinds of violations make it impossible for us to remain fully immersed in the narrative.

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