1. Reclaiming the "Legacy Beads" in the seven originals of "Harry Potter"
The biggest feature of Rowling's storytelling is that she loves to leave behind inconspicuous details, which are inadvertently connected to each other by readers. Eventually woven into a dense net. What’s interesting is that when she wrote the seven main stories of Harry Potter, she didn’t conceive of writing the story of the series of "Fantastic Beasts", so this time, Rowling can no longer be the one she once had. The author of "God's Perspective". She seemed to be acting as her own "reader", and came up with a reverse thinking: like a fellow humanist, Rowling collected interesting details in the seven originals of "Harry Potter" and renewed these details. Interpretation, divergence and extension, thereby creating a new "setting".
For example, although the setting of the supporting actress Quinnie's mind-reading was plagiarized by Professor X from Marvel next door, the "mind-reading technique" actually already exists in the original biography of Harry Potter. Newt and Quinnie had just met and said that she was a "legilimens" (legilimens). This strange, seemingly newly created vocabulary actually comes from the spell "legilimency spell". The curse of "Chen Shen Shu Nian" played a crucial part in the fifth "Order of the Phoenix". It was precisely because Harry hadn't learned Occlumency from Snape to resist the magic of the "Desire" curse, Voldemort took advantage of the emptiness and gave him false information, leading him into the trap of the Department of Mysteries. , Which eventually caused the death of Sirius. In "Where are the Fantastic Beasts", the mantra of "Cathing the God" is further extended, and the "mind reader" who is good at this mantra becomes a type of wizard.
Interestingly, Dumbledore himself once said in Chapter 37 of Book 5 that he is an accomplished legilimens (an accomplished legilimens). not much. Since Dumbledore will appear in the later parts of the "Fantastic Beasts" series sooner or later, the setting of "Mind-Reading Charm" may also become an important foreshadowing.
In this movie, the cute pet "Sniff", who loves "gold" as his life, has made a big splash in this movie, and it was also collected by Rowling from the seven originals of "Harry Potter". In the fourth "Goblet of Fire", "Sniff" appeared for the first time in the "Fantastic Animal Protection Class". It was another kind of "magic" that Harry and his fourth-grade classmates need to learn after frying the snails. animal". Hagrid, the teacher of the "Fantastic Beast Conservation Class", had just been exposed by the unscrupulous reporter Rita Skeet as a hybrid giant, so he was bombarded by various media and his parents sued. Hagrid finally gave up his beloved brutal magical animals (such as snails) and created a cute thing for the students to play with. This cute thing is "sniffing". He buried 100 Irish fairy gold coins under the ground, and asked the students to claim a sniff to dig the gold coins.
The "sniffing" at this time is very different from the "sniffing" that appeared in the movie "Where are the Fantastic Beasts". The book describes:
"This is the most fun protection section they have ever seen. Magical biology class. Sniff went in and out of the field, just like in the water, each one hurriedly rushed to the classmate who let go of them, and spit the gold coins into their hands. Ron's The harvest is so much, the thighs are quickly filled with gold coins."-"Goblet of Fire Chapter 28, Mr. Crouch Is Crazy"
However, in the movie "Where are the Fantastic Beasts", the "sniffing" we see is extremely naughty, running around, not listening to New’s special envoy at all, and unable to catch it, let alone find a good gold coin and rush back to the owner. Pour gold coins. However, the "sniffing" in the original biography is so different from the "sniffing" in the movie "Fantastic Beasts". It seems to be a plot loophole, but in fact it is very clever and reasonable after careful thinking: because of the "Where are the Fantastic Beasts" The story, "Harry Potter" is more than half a century old. In the past half-century, it is entirely possible that Sniff has been domesticated from a "naughty mischief" to a "master's gold rush assistant." Such changes can even reflect from the side Newt, the "magic biologist", who has made outstanding contributions to the understanding and domestication of magical animals.
However, in the story of Goblet of Fire, Sniff does not have a very obvious personality. Its appearance is functional and serves the plot: through the plot of sniffing and digging gold coins, Rowling naturally and concealedly lets readers know from Hagrid for the first time that the Irish fairy's gold coins will disappear, and the "golden coins" "Disappearance" was a very crucial clue in "Goblet of Fire".
In the fifth "Order of the Phoenix", Sniff also appeared, this time it already has its personality in "Where are Fantastic Beasts": Senior student Li Qiaodan threw Sniff into the Ministry of Magic official and teacher Wu In Mrich’s office, the golden and luxurious office of the old witch was destroyed. The "Sniff" at the opening of "Fantastic Beasts" made a big bank scene, in fact, it subtly catered to the scene of the big trouble in Umbridge's office. In these two plots, the image of "sniffing" is both a mockery of greed and wealth, and a blissful destruction and destruction of the authority of the "capitalist".
However, the most wonderful re-creation of "Where Are Fantastic Beasts" based on the seven original stories of Harry Potter is undoubtedly the setting of obscurial/obscurus. This sad setting extends from Dumbledore's sister Ariana. In the twenty-eighth chapter of Book Seven, Dumbledore’s brother Aberforth tells the story of his mother and sister Ariana:
Ariana played alone in the backyard when she was young, and she couldn't control her magic. The Muggle boys in the neighbor's house saw it and forced her to perform the trick again. Ariana couldn't do it, and the Muggle boys cruelly tortured her. As a result, Arianna had a huge fear of magic, and permanently suppressed her magic. However, the suppressed magic did not leave her, but became a painful nightmare. She often broke out of control, and even accidentally killed her own mother. It was precisely because of the death of his mother that Dumbledore was forced to stay in his hometown Godric Valley in the summer of graduation, and met Grindelwald, who later became the dark wizard. In the end, in a dispute between him, Grindelwald and Aberforth, it is unknown who of the three people faulted to kill Ariana who was stimulated and broke out again. Grindelwald in "Where are the Fantastic Beasts" began to frantically search for obscurial, probably because he saw the magical power of Ariana in the runaway.
Although the concept of "repressive magical nature will cause more intense outbreaks" obviously comes from Arianna, but Arianna's story is only a rudimentary form. The setting of obscurial/obscurus
in "Fantastic Beasts" is more complicated and has a lot of meaning: First, in the setting of "Fantastic Beasts" on obscurial, all the boys and girls who become the host of this dark magic power are normally Live less than ten years old. Ariana lived to be fourteen when she died. We can reasonably speculate that the dark power in her body did not develop into a truly powerful "obscurus", but just a rudimentary form. After all, she was persecuted only once when she was a child. Of course, there is another exception in "Fantastic Beasts", that is, Credence Barebone, a black boy who has obviously lived more than ten years old (the explanation given in the movie is that he was saved from death because of his extraordinary magical powers, and his true His life experience, why he has such a powerful magical ability, is still a mystery that jeopardizes people’s appetite. The answer to this mystery may be the highlight of subsequent works.)
Secondly, if Ariana’s tragedy still seems to be just an accident and is mainly confined to Ariana’s individual and her family, the setting of obscurial in "Fantastic Beasts" takes this tragedy to a broader level: this is A dark historical era, a human tragedy in a dark society. Newt explained obscurial to the fat Muggle Jacob: "Before the wizard went underground, Muggles were still hunting for wizards. Many young wizards began to suppress their magical nature in order to avoid persecution." The core connotation behind the obscurial setting is actually the long-standing contradiction and hatred between the two groups of "Wizards" and "Muggles." In other words, obscurial maps the persecution and exclusion that human beings have never ceased from "alien", and the "hatred" that this persecution inevitably brings.
So from the setting of obscurial alone, we can already see Rowling's ambition to further explore historical and social issues in the "magic world".
2. "Harry Potter" appendix?
In fact, in addition to the seven true stories of "Harry Potter", Rowling has been publishing small articles on the official fan site pottermore.com several years ago to tinker with the wizarding world. These short articles are very interesting, in addition to complementing some supporting background stories (the most exciting is the reason why Lupin was bitten by a werewolf, Draco’s childhood, and the history of Professor McGonagall’s failed marriage with Muggles), Luo Lin has also been completing "Magic World History" and "Magic World Geography" in short articles. Except for the United Kingdom, the magic schools and magic societies of other countries have been introduced one by one.
To some extent, although these small articles are published on the Internet, they are not "official" publications, but these "patch articles" are like Tolkien's appendices to the back of the "Lord of the Rings" series, which are the authors. The perfection of a fictional world in terms of historical depth and geographic scope. Such a "patch" enables this fictional world to extend simultaneously in the two dimensions of time and space.
Of course, there is the most essential difference between Rowling's "Magic World" and Tolkien's "Middle-earth". If "Middle-earth" is an allegorical world with medieval rhyme far away from the present society, the most fascinating thing about the "magic world" is that it is very close to us, and it is rooted in the history and society we know. The "magic world" has never been a paradise. The "magic world" is in our real world, as trivial and filthy as the real world, full of human ambiguities-even like a mirror, contrasting the good and evil in the real world.
In any case, Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" appendix has long become the most precious treasure in our study of Middle-earth. It's a pity that, except for the fanatical fans, few people pay attention to Rowling's articles on Pottermore. There are few excellent Chinese translations of these articles on the market.
Since the news of the shooting of "Where are the Fantastic Beasts" came out, Rowling has successively uploaded a series of short articles about the North American Magic Society in Pottermore, introducing the history of North American wizards and government structure. Among them, the most relevant information about the movie "Where are the Fantastic Beasts" is undoubtedly that in the North American magic society, there has always been a deeper separation and hatred between "Wizards" and "Muggles" than most other countries. .
According to the article "Magical Congress of the United States MACUSA", the United States is the only country in the world where the wizarding government and the Muggle government do not have any cooperation. Chapter "Another Minister" once exposed that the British wizarding government and the Muggle government cooperated).
From this article, we also know that the historical background of "Where are Fantastic Beasts" is New York in the 1920s. There is still a "ethnic segregation bill" in the wizarding society of North America, which prohibits wizards and Muggles (no Magicians) make friends, intermarriage, and even daily communication must be kept to a minimum. Violators will be deemed to have violated the wizarding law. Rowling also emphasized that the North American wizarding government punishes those who violate the wizarding laws particularly harshly. Wizards and criminals in the United Kingdom are usually sent to Azkaban for imprisonment, while in North American law, a wizard who commits a crime will be directly sentenced to death.
Why is there such a deep gap between wizards and Muggles in North America? In the article "History of Magic in North America", Rowling traced the history of the magical world of North America to a real historical event: in 1692, the state of Massachusetts was still under colonial Puritan rule. "Salem Witch Trials" (Salem Witch Trials). Perhaps most people are not familiar with this historical event, but they will certainly have heard of many literary works adapted from it, such as Arthur Miller’s famous play "The Melting Pot." In short, this is a notorious case of religious persecution in American history. A total of 25 people were killed, 19 of which were hanged and 2 babies died in prison.
Rowling weaves this real historical event into her (fictional) North American magical history and uses it as an important historical node. She said in the article that at that time wizards all over the world were proposing to go underground and sign the "International Wizarding Confidentiality Agreement" (this agreement can be regarded as the most important setting in the Harry Potter biography), of which the United States is the most important. Countries that actively propose to sign the "International Wizarding Confidentiality Agreement" are precisely because American wizards have just suffered a serious impact from the "Salem Witch Trial".
According to Rowling's narrative in "North American Magic History", the root of another wizard and Muggle hatred lies in an organization called "scourer" (translated as the scrubber?). Because of the colonial background in North America, the wizarding society in North America was very chaotic at first. There was no government and no laws. Therefore, many black wizards in Europe fled here and black magic was rampant. At this time, the Christian persecution of wizards in the United States was very popular. Some opportunistic dark wizards formed a gang called "scourer" to hunt down innocent wizards and submit them to the Muggle church in exchange for money. In the later stage, they even arrested innocent wizards. The Muggle pretends to be a wizard and turns over to the church for huge profits. However, after the North American wizarding government was established, many dark wizard members of the scourer organization were not brought to justice. The descendants of the black wizards of the scourer organization left behind in the Muggle society have thus become the biggest hidden danger of the wizarding society in North America. This also made the wound of hatred between North American wizards and Muggles unhealed for a long time.
In Rowling's setting, it was the "descendants" of this dark wizarding organization that gave birth to the wizard/Muggle segregation bill in North America. Rowling named the bill Rappaport's Law. The story goes like this: In 1790 (that is, one year after the U.S. Federal Constitution was passed and the nation was founded in 1789), under the general rule of a wizarding government surnamed Rappaport, there was a very trusted Secretary of the Treasury. The finance minister is proud of his political career, but neglects to take care of his daughter. His daughter's magical talent is not high, she prefers to dress up, and dreams of becoming a socialite. Once, Rappaport’s daughter went to a party in a small town and met a handsome mysterious man. She was so confused, she took all the secrets of the international wizarding society that her father had, including the location of the wizarding government of each country. How to enter , And the neighborhoods of common wizards from all over the world told the handsome mysterious man.
However, the true identity of this mysterious man is the descendant of the scourer members of the dark wizarding organization in Muggle society. The man has always been full of hatred for the wizarding society as a whole. After obtaining these secrets, he reported it to the US government at the time. After almost exposing the huge crisis of the entire international wizarding society this time, the American wizarding society began to strictly enforce the Rapparport's Law, especially beginning to severely prohibit the love and intermarriage between wizards and Muggles.
The background of this bill (Rappaport's Law) is extremely important for the "Fantastic Beasts" movie. First of all, it makes a very important line of love in this movie more moving. Without understanding this background, we may easily feel that there is something inexplicable between Queenie and the fat Muggle Jacob. Why do their feelings seem so cautious? Why must they be separated? Why doesn't the movie end when Newt bids farewell to Tina, but the final scene of the two of them seeing each other?
In fact, just because in the North American society of that era, the love between wizards and Muggles has been taboo from the very beginning. They crossed the crowd to look at each other, which just hinted at the hope of breaking the taboo.
Secondly, there is a very interesting foreshadowing in the Rappaport's Act: the descendant of the dark wizard who almost overthrew the entire international wizarding society by himself, his name is Bartholomew Barebone. The surname Barebone happens to be the "New Salem Charity" in "Fantastic Beasts" that promotes the execution of wizards (the name of this charity clearly shows its fanatical admiration for the "Salem Witch Trial") organization The last name of Mary Lou Barebone. As a descendant of the Scourer organization, especially the descendant of Bartholomew Barebone, she hates the wizarding society so much, and it is not surprising that she believes that wizards need to be driven out. But what’s interesting is that her “hate” towards the wizarding society this time was packaged as a hypocritical “charity society”: on the surface, she adopted orphans and distributed food to poor children; but in reality, she said “ Under the guise of charity, she is imposing her "hatred" towards wizards, along with Barebone, a surname with a bloody history, on her adopted children.
Rowling has always been concerned about this institutionalized "hypocrisy." For most of the time after the Harry Potter story ends, Rowling has been painstakingly running her charity "lumos" (in the wizarding world, Lumos is actually a spell that summons light, which is translated as "fluorescent blinking" in Chinese). The main goal of this charity is to oppose the persecution of children in corrupt institutionalized orphanages on a global scale.
As the adopted son of the mother of the "philanthropist", Credence, who grew up into Obscurial due to abuse, is also named Barebone. This is obviously a kind of irony: just as the children abused by the orphanage are still asked to thank the orphanage for their support, when the "hatred" accumulated between Muggles and wizards for centuries forced Credence to desperate and helpless, he still has to bear it. Barebone, a surname symbolizing hatred and contradiction.
However, Rowling's good intentions may be that only when such historical hatred is added to the boy Credence, we can finally see the other side of this hatred that makes people infinitely compassionate. Credence's tragedy makes us not want to distinguish between the wizard and the Muggle who is right and who is wrong, and we are more unwilling to further strengthen the insurmountability of this gap. We are forced to face the bloody fact: How unfair is it that such an extinct hatred needs to be borne by an innocent teenager?
There is no doubt that the estrangement and contradiction between the "Witcher" and "Muggle" has always been the core theme of Rowling's "Wizard World". It's just that in the seven main stories of Harry Potter, the definition of "evil" is more focused on Voldemort's admiration of pure-blood wizards, and the persecution of innocent Muggles by wizards who abuse their power and talent.
Relatively speaking, in the seven main biography, the hatred of "Muggles" towards "Wizards" is relatively shallow. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia did not get enough positive descriptions of the domestic violence of young Harry. And even Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia’s hatred of Harry is more derived from the British orthodox middle class’s disbelief in the existence of “magic” and their contempt and disdain for unruly “outliers”. It has not risen to the hatred of wanting to kill an ethnic group.
When "Where are Fantastic Beasts" moved the story to the United States, the contradiction between "Muggle" and "Witcher" has undoubtedly become darker and more complicated. Here, Muggle’s hatred and persecution of wizards has become more specific and intense. It is no longer just an orthodox prejudice against aliens, but has become an insoluble religious and historical issue.
Therefore, when Grindelwald advocated initiating a war between "wizards" and "Muggles" in North America, it seemed more profound and incomprehensible than Voldemort's "pure-blood" arrogance: if Voldemort appeals to people's hearts, more use is People's greed for power, what Grindelwald uses is "hate" itself. He uses "hatred" to create more "hatred" and uses this to push society into the next cycle of unsolvable evil.
Inevitably, this is reminiscent of the original appearance of British and American politics in real life. British elite politics and aristocratic traditions can indeed be contrasted with Voldemort's "pure-blood" arrogance. And since the United States has spread from the era of slavery to the present, the racial hatred that has not been cut and cleaned up is undoubtedly reflected in the unsolvable hatred between American wizards and Muggles.
But in my opinion, the changes in Rowling's "magic world" also reflect the changes of the times. From the 1990s to the present, what has our world experienced? The most significant scar is undoubtedly terrorism. Perhaps in the age of terrorism, it is no longer enough to talk about power generating evil.
When human society drags the wounds of 9/11 into the 21st century, no one is an absolute and eternal victim. In the hatred of each other, everyone's hands were covered with blood. The "hatred" itself, which has been glorified as "justice", has become a stranger of evil, and has become our sharpest weapon to stabbing each other.
This is probably why, in "Where is Fantastic Beasts", the relationship between the "center of power" and the "vulnerable edge" has become more ambiguous: who is the center of power, wizard and Muggle, and who is on the verge of persecution? Or is it that the wizard and the Muggle are each other's "others", and no one is truly innocent?
So the real "justice" is to use the same irrational and indiscriminate "hatred" to avenge the opponent and the entire ethnic group? Or against the "hatred" irrational, undifferentiated logic itself?
From this level, the setting of Obscurial is the most pitiful interpretation of this unsolvable "hatred".
The dark power of Obscurial is the product of "hatred". It can even be said that Obscurial is symbolically the desperate situation of human society during the terrorism period: under the pressure of a kind of extreme "hatred", retaliation by the same extreme "hatred" seems to be the only way to survive. However, in Rowling's setting, this dark power derived from "hatred" always acts in both directions. While destroying revenge on others, it also destroys itself. In other words, the power of Obscurial's "hate" is a tragedy that will never win.
However, Rowling's interpretation of this "Obscurial desperate situation" is by no means a kind of pessimism.
She created a series of cute characters like Newt, Tina, Queenie and even Jacob. They give us hope, precisely because they are doing their best to get out of the vicious circle of "hate" between Muggles/witches. Rather than sinking in the desperate situation of "hate revenge", they face the existence of darkness, actively think about why such a desperate situation arises, and actively prevent the occurrence of such a desperate situation. They are struggling to find another way besides "hate revenge", even if this is extremely difficult, it is much harder than defeating Voldemort, Grindelwald, these flesh and blood demon kings-because the invisible hatred rooted in everyone's heart And prejudice is always the most difficult to eliminate.
When Grindelwald said to the dark power of the 8-year-old girl who died, "She has no use value?" Newt replied angrily: "It was this dark power that killed this 8-year-old girl, and you Want to use it?"
Faced with the undisguised use of "hatred" and "rejection " in the face of today's crazy political situation, Newt's words are probably what Rowling wants to say.
Reference:
History of Magic in North America:
https://www.pottermore.com/collection-episodic/history-of-magic-in-north-america-en
The Magical Congress of the United States (United States Magic Council):
https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/macusa
There is also some interesting background in these two articles. For example, in real history, Prohibition was enforced in New York in 1920; but in Rowling's setting, although Muggle society was forbidden, the wizarding society at that time was not forbidden. Rowling joked that because the wizarding society cannot help drinking, the wizards on the streets of New York are always very conspicuous: among a group of sober Muggles, the drunk must be a wizard. The wizarding government is worried that this will increase the risk of exposure, but the president of the Queen in the movie said: "Our lives as wizards have been so difficult, and we can't live without the'laughing water'." At that time, American wizards called wine "giggle-water". This "can't help drinking" setting can be regarded as ridiculous and sad.
In addition, there is another setting that is very important. Maybe it will be a big fuss in the follow-up series: The article "American Magic Council" took a long time to introduce, because of the severe situation of the prevalence of dark wizards in China. As soon as the wizarding government of the United States was established, it first recruited twelve elite Aurors (warriors specializing in hunting down dark wizards). Most of these twelve Aurors were killed, but many of their descendants became North American wizard politics. The big names, their surnames have also become well-known big families in the political arena. In this movie, Colin Farrell played Percival Graves, the Minister of the Legal Department, who is one of the descendants of one of the twelve Aurors. The Graves family is also an important force in the North American wizarding political arena.
And, among the twelve Aurors, there is also a surnamed Potter, Rowling said in the text that "his long-distance blood connection with the famous Harry Potter will be discovered in the future."
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