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JK Rowling's latest retcon draws criticism from fans

feyder

feyder

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Oct 25, 2017
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So, if you watched the latest trailer for the new Fantastic Beasts movie, you will learn that it is revealed that Nagini, Voldemort's pet snake who is also one of his horcruxes, was once a Chinese woman who was cursed to live the rest of her life as a snake.

Not only is this dumb and very George Lucas-esque on its own, many East Asians have found it troubling that they finally get some representation in the series outside of Cho Chang, which is full of straight, white heroes, and it is a cursed woman who will end up being a pet to an evil fascist and who will ultimately end up being beheaded by Neville Longbotton.

Polygon wrote up an article about this, bringing up JK Rowling's already troublesome history with representation in the series, bringing up how she always announces, off-book and off-screen, that the Wizarding World is diverse, but never actually shows it in her work.

Twitter makes it easy to send a quick reply to someone looking for an answer to a long-winded theory (like whether Nagini is the same boa constrictor Harry meets in Philosopher's Stone) or announce a character's sexuality or backstory. There's rarely harm in announcing a more diverse, inclusive and representative Wizarding World, but the more announcements made without any canonical backing, the more performative each announcement seems. It almost never seems like these characters were originally written with these backstories in place. It's one thing to say something is real, and another for it to actually be real.
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The article also brings up another article written three years ago, that brings up the similarities between JK Rowling's handling of Harry Potter and George Lucas's of Star Wars, and how both expanded/are expanding their universes by answering questions no one really asked.

Another article by Bustle explores why this info on Nagini itself is offensive, responding to JK Rowling's response to the controversy:



With actress Claudia Kim portraying Nagini in The Crimes of Grindelwald, however, the waters get a little muddier. Now the character is a Korean witch, and Credence Barebone confirms that she had her Sanskrit name long before she met Voldemort. Leaving the fact that she wound up in Albania aside, can we just address the fact that this feels like the Fantastic Beasts 2 creators tried to make Asian identities interchangeable, without addressing the worlds of cultural differences that exist between the Indian subcontinent and the Korean peninsula?

J.K. Rowling defends Nagini's casting, stating that the Naga come from "Indonesian mythology," and Indonesia is where Chinese people live. Except that the Naga didn't originate in Indonesia, but in stories from Hindu scripture, and Korean people — like Claudia Kim — are not Chinese.
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Someone has also made a long thread of reasons why Koreans are unhappy with the latest revelation about Nagini:

 
Metallix87

Metallix87

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10,533
Nagini never had a backstory at all, so I'm fine with it, at least until I see what the films do with her.
 
HotHamBoy

HotHamBoy

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Oct 27, 2017
16,423
I hate this. I hate what Lucas did in the Prequels, I hate what Disney is doing with shit like Solo.

Answering questions nobody was asking.
 
Valkerion

Valkerion

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Oct 29, 2017
7,281
Non-harry potter fan with no actual stakes in this.

What if Nagini in this movie is just a woman who can perform this magic trick of turning into a snake, impresses...... voldemort? (is he a kid in this?) or one of the people voldy boy likes, and her name kinda becomes a kinda legendary thing among that group. Voldy gets a pet snake that he really likes and horcruxes it while its named after her from what... two/three generations before Harry Potter takes place.

Or all the angry fans are right. Once again, I only got a very cursory knowledge of this series lol so I have no idea how long a snake woman would live.
 
Salty Rice

Salty Rice

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Oct 25, 2017
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Pancake City
Wouldnt be so bad if she wouldnt get her head chopped off.

But yeah this gives some George Lucas prequel vibes.

Get to make more money somehow.
 

Deleted member 268

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5,611
I hate everything about this.

I reject this being part of canon.

Get it fucking together, Rowling.
 

Deleted member 1041

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Next we're gonna find out Hedwig was actually Dumbledores wife and Dumbledore told her to remain an owl to watch over Harry
 
Surface of Me

Surface of Me

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Oct 25, 2017
3,207
Why can't a snake just be a snake? They talk in the Potter universe, you don't need to have it once be a human.
 
Hollywood Duo

Hollywood Duo

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Oct 25, 2017
42,369
The original canon isn't some amazing writing anyway. It's literally a snake whose name means snake. The fact it's a human who is turned in to a snake later is just horrible writing but whatev.
 
Metallix87

Metallix87

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Valkerion said:
Non-harry potter fan with no actual stakes in this.

What if Nagini in this movie is just a woman who can perform this magic trick of turning into a snake, impresses...... voldemort? (is he a kid in this?) or one of the people voldy boy likes, and her name kinda becomes a kinda legendary thing among that group. Voldy gets a pet snake that he really likes and horcruxes it while its named after her from what... two/three generations before Harry Potter takes place.

Or all the angry fans are right. Once again, I only got a very cursory knowledge of this series lol so I have no idea how long a snake woman would live.
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It's been confirmed that Nagini is a Maledictus, a human cursed to eventually permanently transform into an animal form.
 
mael

mael

Avenger
Nov 3, 2017
16,964
This seems uncessary but it's more like something that is part of the Bible of Harry Potter that was never shown because there never was any reason to show it rather than anything else.
the Nagini~~Naga connection works and I don't think Rowling is a bad enough writer to not have made the connection originally when she wrote it at first.
The issue is more about how shoddy Rowling's research is to confuse India, Korea, China and Indonesia.
 
ArkkAngel007

ArkkAngel007

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Oct 25, 2017
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Supposedly she has hinted in the past that there's more to Nagini, but I can't recall if that was pre- or post-Deathly Hallows
 
Hollywood Duo

Hollywood Duo

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Oct 25, 2017
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FormatCompatible said:
The worst fucking fate ever.
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Could be worse
rs_600x600-150722072939-600.Matthew-Lewis-Shirtless-Abs-JR-72215_copy.jpg
 
Pikachu

Pikachu

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Oct 25, 2017
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Frankly I don't care about it.

Only the seven books are canon. Everything else is made up.

That solves all issues. Nagini is a snake.
 
Woolley

Woolley

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Oct 25, 2017
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Nagini was clearly not a normal snake in the books. I don't know why people act like this is out of nowhere. We don't even know anything about the character yet an people just get mad at a bunch of assumptions.
 
Muffin

Muffin

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Oct 26, 2017
10,346
Hamfisting diversity into the franchise because she didn't do it properly beforehand and needs to base her claims that it's actually really diverse on something. Not surprising. It's becoming kind of a theme with her.

Rowling is a TERF anyway, so it's not like there was any sympathy to lose here.
 
Mobu

Mobu

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Oct 28, 2017
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Its not a retcon if it doesnt contradict anything established, hell, i remeber dumbledore being puzzled as to why voldemort was so close to Nagini

It sure isnt a time turner situation
 
SatoAilDarko

SatoAilDarko

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Oct 25, 2017
2,839
It's a bad look because what I remember was that the snake acted like a typical evil animal henchman.

Also Harry Potter's world isn't a very solid thing anyway with how flimsy a lot of it is.
 
Dream Machine

Dream Machine

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Oct 25, 2017
13,085
Valkerion said:
Non-harry potter fan with no actual stakes in this.

What if Nagini in this movie is just a woman who can perform this magic trick of turning into a snake, impresses...... voldemort? (is he a kid in this?) or one of the people voldy boy likes, and her name kinda becomes a kinda legendary thing among that group. Voldy gets a pet snake that he really likes and horcruxes it while its named after her from what... two/three generations before Harry Potter takes place.

Or all the angry fans are right. Once again, I only got a very cursory knowledge of this series lol so I have no idea how long a snake woman would live.
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That would certainly be much better writing than what is being alleged. Actual worldbuilding, instead of Star Wars prequel-esque "______ was actually ______'s ______ all along!" reveals.
 
99Luffy

99Luffy

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Oct 27, 2017
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So is this like that live action aladdin thread where people are all like 'omg so angry, jasmine isn't Indian, shes middle Eastern.'
 
OP
OP
feyder

feyder

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Oct 25, 2017
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Woolley said:
Nagini was clearly not a normal snake in the books. I don't know why people act like this is out of nowhere. We don't even know anything about the character yet an people just get mad at a bunch of assumptions.
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I mean, I'm sure it was assumed she wasn't normal because she had a piece of Voldemort's soul in her.
 
BernardoOne

BernardoOne

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Woolley said:
Nagini was clearly not a normal snake in the books. I don't know why people act like this is out of nowhere. We don't even know anything about the character yet an people just get mad at a bunch of assumptions.
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Yeah, I wasn't surprised at all at the revelation. Nagini's behaviour and relationship with Voldemort always seemed kinda human to me, eh.
 
Metallix87

Metallix87

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HotHamBoy said:
The goal of prequels is to answer questions people are asking.
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Not really. Prequels are largely about fleshing out everything we've seen in the existing films, both including things we actively want to know more about, and things we never really gave much thought to.
Hollywood Duo said:
Was that in any of the original books?
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Her Maledictus status was only confirmed recently, after the trailer dropped. Rowling hinted in the past that there was more to Nagini than we knew.
 
Frozenprince

Frozenprince

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Oct 25, 2017
9,158
I think any prequel worth it's salt needs to expand the mythos not just go "HAHA SEE THE THING" which it seems like they want from this series. The most interesting bits of the last one is exploring how America's Puritanical beliefs seeped off into the magical realm to the point of shutting themselves off entirely. It's world building, it establishes that this is new.

Don't just throw in stuff like this because it's just "OHHH LOOK THE THING" and nobody but people that sleep in Harry Potter onesies at age 30 go nuts over this shit.
 
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