'Fantastic Beasts 2's inclusion of key Harry Potter character could fall foul of series canon

It could be that there’s a tear in the fabric of time in the Harry Potter series, thanks to the inclusion of a much-loved character from the novels appearing in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

According to reports, the actress Fiona Glascott is playing the young Professor Minerva McGonagall in the new Potter spin-off, played by the legendary Maggie Smith in the Harry Potter movies.

But there’s a potential problem with that.

McGonagall, per J.K. Rowling’s novels and the world of Pottermore, appears to have been born in 1935, while the action in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald takes place in 1927, some eight years before she was born.

Potter enthusiasts (via Screenrant) have plumbed down into the canon, and with McGonagall’s character in Fantastic Beasts 2 being in her late 20s or early 30s, it throws up something of an inconsistency to have her involved in the action.

Having put so much effort into creating the storyworld, it seems a somewhat glaring error, but, equally, a bit of bending of the timescales may not be the end of the Potterworld, though it could open the door to further manipulation of the original texts for this new film series.

Glascott will more than likely be appearing on screen with Jude Law’s young Albus Dumblebore, the future headmaster of Hogwarts.

Meanwhile, Eddie Redmayne reprises his role as the magizoologist Newt Scamander for the movie, alongside Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller and Johnny Depp, as the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald.

It’s due out on November 16.

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