“Fantastic Beasts”: Seven Things We’d Like to See If the Movies Were Novels
With all the exciting buildup for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald happening, there is plenty to speculate about: movie predictions, plot twists, connections to the existing Potter-verse. And all of this is possible because we don’t have the books to fall back on as we did with the Harry Potter series, so none of us knows what will happen. Which made us wonder… What if the first of the Fantastic Beasts movies had been a novel? What would it have looked like? Focusing on one character at a time, we listed seven things we’d love to have seen in a novel version of Fantastic Beasts.
1. Newt
First of all, there’d be more of this guy! This beast-loving Hufflepuff has already conquered a lot of hearts – but wouldn’t it be great to get a peek at his mind and his real feelings? We know how he feels when his case is taken from him at MACUSA – and it brought us to tears – but beyond that, the movie doesn’t often tell us what Newt is thinking. Who knows? He might constantly be connecting his knowledge of fantastic beasts to social situations!
2. Queenie
This book wouldn’t have to be written just from Newt’s perspective. What if we read from Queenie’s point of view as well? What is it like being able to constantly read other people’s thoughts? What part of Jacob made her instantly fond of him?
3. Tina
Confession time: At first, I didn’t like Tina. Her decisions didn’t make much sense to me, and she mostly seemed like a stern upstart. Of course, I changed my mind about her, but I still believe that reading her thought process would add to her character. Also, we’d doubtlessly get more of an insight into MACUSA and American wizarding life – and more worldbuilding is hardly ever a bad thing.
4. Jacob
Jacob’s perspective would be the absolute opposite of Tina’s. Being a No-Maj, but also open to a world he can’t truly be a part of, he would be the perfect representative for the reader. Think Harry in Book 1 but with a distinct wall between him and the world. The fact that Jacob accepts and enjoys the magic as much as he can instead of resenting it for not extending to himself makes him an amazing character. This could definitely be explored more on the page. (Also, could this unconditional love and wonder be what Queenie saw in him from the start?)
5. Credence
In the scenes at the Second Salem Church, we’d be looking through Credence’s eyes. Imagine getting to read how Grindelwald managed to get under his skin so easily. Picture what it would be like to read his anger. If there is any way we could be more convinced that Obscurials should not be hated, it would be by reading from the viewpoint of one.
6. Grindelwald
Grindelwald’s storyline could give the book that same mysterious atmosphere as the Potter books. Already, the reveal at the end of the movie was huge – but imagine how much like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the book version could feel if more hints toward Graves being Grindelwald were given. Because it generally takes longer to read a book than to watch a movie, the reader would have more time to try to figure this out themselves. It would feel as magical as discovering with Harry that it was Quirrell all along, that Pettigrew was the traitor instead of Sirius, and that Snape, all this time, had been trying to save him.
7. The Beasts
Of course, these can’t be forgotten. Stepping into Newt’s case in the movie was magical and everything we could have wished for – but still, I can’t help but wonder how all those beautiful things would’ve been described on the page. We’d get more details, perhaps a closer look at the personalities of the different beasts, and – who knows? – Newt might even reveal a bit about how he managed to build the entire thing in the first place!
These are seven things we imagine could be conveyed in a different and interesting way if the movies had been novels first. What do you think? Is there anything you believe would’ve been in the books that wouldn’t have been in the movies? If you were to write this book, how would you do it?