Any potential Fantastic Beasts 4 movie can finally fix Harry Potter‘s weird Gellert Grindelwald retcon. Fantastic Beasts acts as the prequel to the beloved Harry Potter series, although the Fantastic Beasts movies have largely failed to live up to their much-vaunted predecessor. In this same vein, Fantastic Beasts 4 is still up in the air after the lukewarm release of Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore – but a sequel is still needed to fix one glaring Grindelwald retcon.
In J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book, there is one scene between Grindelwald and Voldemort. Voldemort is searching for the Elder Wand to kill Harry Potter and has tracked its last location to Grindelwald, who had stolen it when he was young. Voldemort questions him about the wand’s location, but Grindelwald refuses to say and is killed. It is later speculated in the book by Harry and Dumbledore that Grindelwald did this out of affection for Dumbledore and didn’t want Dumbledore’s grave to be desecrated in an attempt to get the wand. However, in the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Voldemort still visits Grindelwald to ask him where the Elder Wand is; and Grindelwald freely tells Voldemort it lies with Dumbledore in his grave with a smile on his face and is left alive.
In this way, Grindelwald is given redemption by refusing to give up the Elder Wand and his one-time love Dumbledore in the original Harry Potter books, but, in the films, Grindelwald is portrayed as still vengeful and even having contempt for Dumbledore – immediately spilling the information Voldemort is pressing him for. As a result, if Fantastic Beasts 4 is made, it would be the perfect opportunity to fix this retcon and portray the final throes of the first major LGBTQ+ relationship in the Wizarding World in a more positive way rather than having Grindelwald spitefully give up his former love.
If a Fantastic Beasts 4 is made, it could address this character change in a few ways. After their big battle, Dumbledore could make Grindelwald promise not to sacrifice his life. This would mean Grindelwald telling Voldemort what he wants to know would not be a betrayal but instead doing what Dumbledore asked of him. A potential Fantastic Beasts 4 could also add a flash-forward to the scene in The Deathly Hallows Part 1 and show Grindelwald having a vision that Voldemort would lose, as Grindelwald is confirmed to be a Seer and so his laughing is due to knowing Dumbledore has bested another villain, even in death. Not only would this make the scene in Deathly Hallows Part 1 more in line with Grindelwald’s intended character arc but it would also align with the masterful skills of manipulation Grindelwald is shown to have in the Fantastic Beasts films.
As it stands after the events of The Secrets of Dumbledore, Dumbledore and Grindelwald are an LGBTQ+ couple that appears doomed to an unhappy ending. As they are the only canon LGBTQ+ relationship in both the Fantastic Beasts and Harry Potter series to date, a potential Fantastic Beasts 4 should correct the Harry Potter movies’ odd Grindelwald retcon to ensure that this couple is presented as less of a tragedy and more in line with the idea that love is always the most powerful magic.
