The Harry Potter remake could include all of Rowling’s after-the-fact canon additions, but some of these either don’t fit or are better left unsaid.
Summary
- The Harry Potter remake has the opportunity to include additional lore and details from spinoffs and notes, but some additions should be left out.
- Revealing Dumbledore’s romantic relationship with Grindelwald adds depth to his character, and it’s important to maintain his private and mysterious nature in the remake.
- Some retroactive additions like Nagini’s human origin and Aberforth Dumbledore’s lost son feel forced and would detract from the central story.
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HBO’s Harry Potter remake will have the chance to include far more than the movies, but some after-the-fact additions to canon are better off left out. These details came from a mix of spinoffs and notes from the author, making the lore surrounding Harry’s story even more complete. Many of these helped us better understand the characters and their circumstances, while other big reveals felt disjointed. The Harry Potter remake will have an opportunity to incorporate these with the central story, and though some could be an asset to the HBO series, others would be a mistake to include.
Since the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, author J.K. Rowling has added a few installments to bolster Harry’s story. The stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child picked up right where the Harry Potter epilogue left off, following Harry’s son, Albus Potter, through his first year at Hogwarts. Then, there was the Fantastic Beasts prequel series, which sought to dive deeper into Dumbledore’s past rivalry with Gelert Grindelwald. Both of these spinoffs, plus the tidbits posted by Rowling on Wizarding World (formerly Pottermore), have widened the story for the better. However, some retroactive additions are more effective left outside Harry’s story.
RELATED: HBO’s Harry Potter Show: Release Date Prediction, Cast, & Everything We Know
10 Dumbledore’s Romance With Grindelwald
Revealed in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
Even before Fantastic Beasts, Rowling revealed that Albus Dumbledore had shared a romantic relationship with Gelert Grindelwald. There certainly are signs of this in the Harry Potter books, since Dumbledore’s emotional reaction while discussing Grindelwald’s death at the King’s Cross Purgatory in Deathly Hallows seems like more than a man lamenting an old friendship. Regardless, Dumbledore never told Harry about his feelings for Grindelwald, which makes the most sense for his character. Dumbledore being an extremely private, mysterious old man is a significant part of what made him interesting, and the Harry Potter remake must keep him this way.
9 Nagini Having Once Been Human
Revealed in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald introduced a human character named Nagini, who was the victim of a blood curse that would eventually turn her into a snake forever. This was quite a surprise since there was never any indication in Harry Potter that Voldemort’s companion was anything but a snake. It’s an exciting thought, but it makes Harry’s mission to kill her far more complicated and a little darker than is necessary. Ultimately, it was Neville Longbottom who managed to take her down, and the reveal that she was a human being significantly tarnishes this big moment for the underdog Harry Potter character.
Nagini’s plot was dropped after Crimes of Grindelwald, so adding it to the Harry Potter remake would feel even more forced.
8 Aberforth Dumbledore’s Lost Son
Revealed In Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
Another surprise of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is that the Obscurlial, Credence Barebone, was Aberforth Dumbledore’s long lost son. Since Credence was doomed to die, it’s assumed that he had long since passed away by the events of Harry Potter, which means the man Harry met in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was even more tragic than he appeared. Aberforth never mentioned Credence, and Dumbledore rarely even talked about his brother in Harry Potter. Though the HBO remake could change this, adding Credence’s name to the series would feel like a forced attempt to legitimize Fantastic Beasts, and that’s the last thing the new series needs.
7 The Way Time-Turners Work In Harry Potter
Changed In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Though some after-the-fact additions and changes are just better off unsaid, the Time-Turner change in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child completely contradicts what had been established by Prisoner of Azkaban. The magical objects played a massive part in Harry’s third year at Hogwarts when he learned that the past can’t be changed. When he went back in time to save Sirius, Harry realized that he had already saved him. It’s a paradoxical method of time travel, which doesn’t lead to alternate timelines. Cursed Child threw this out the window, and if the HBO remake adopts this change, it would destroy the whole point of Prisoner of Azkaban.
6 Dolores Umbridge’s Family History
Revealed on Wizarding World (Formerly Pottermore)
Dolores Umbridge is remembered as the most despicable character of the Harry Potter series. She was prejudiced, hypocritical, and cruel, which made her even more hated than Lord Voldemort. It was interesting to learn more about her character on the Wizarding World website, where it was revealed that Umbridge had a Muggle mother and Squib brother. This made perfect sense for her character, but, in the long run, the information isn’t necessary for the Harry Potter series. Understanding her past neither made her more sympathetic nor any worse. She would never tell anyone this tidbit, and any time spent on flashbacks to her past would have little value since Umbridge is the worst one way or another.
5 Minerva McGonagall’s Love Story
Revealed on Wizarding World (formerly Pottermore)
Another big surprise of the Wizarding World website is that Minerva McGonagall had lived a tragic life in the way of romance before the events of Harry Potter. She had fallen in love with a Muggle man but rejected his proposal since she was unwilling to live in a world where she would have to keep her magic a secret. Then, only a few years before Harry started at Hogwarts, she was married to a man who died tragically shortly after. It’s really a heartbreaking story, but part of what makes it so impactful is that there was never any sign of this sad past in the Harry Potter series. It’s far better to simply know this fact while leaving it unacknowledged since McGonagall would never tell her students about her past.
4 Hogwarts Offering Foreign Exchange Programs
Revealed on Wizarding World (formerly Pottermore)
The Wizarding World website broke down the different wizarding schools that exist across the globe and included the tidbit that Hogwarts participated in an exchange program with some of these schools. The problem with this is that there was never mention of international students at Hogwarts, aside from during the Triwizard Tournament. Since students from other countries were such a spectacle in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it seems this would be mentioned. If they were thrown into the Harry Potter remake, it would ultimately downplay the events of the Tournament.
3 The Pronunciation Of Voldemort’s Name
Revealed By J.K. Rowling
Lord Voldemort’s name is taboo in the wizarding world, but it seems that no one knew how to pronounce it properly anyway. After all the Harry Potter movies had concluded, Rowling shared on Twitter that the Dark Lord’s name was supposed to be pronounced with a silent final letter, like “Voldemore.” This makes a decent amount of sense when considering the French word for death, “le mort,” which also includes a silent “t.” However, after so many years of saying the word phonetically, it would be an uncomfortable change for the Harry Potter remake to apply what is apparently the correct pronunciation.
RELATED: Everything That Happened To Voldemort Before Harry Potter
2 Voldemort & Bellatrix’s Daughter, Delphini
Revealed in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
The biggest surprise of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was that Lord Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange had conceived a child together at some point during the events of Harry Potter. Delphini served as the central villain of Cursed Child, pretending to be friends with Albus and Scorpius to trick them into going back in time and preventing Voldemort’s defeat. For this to be true, Bellatrix would have given birth to Delphini sometime during Deathly Hallows, which means the Harry Potter remake could easily throw the whole event into the series. However, this would be a relatively mature subject to include, so it’s better off ignored.
1 Harry Potter’s Career At The Ministry Of Magic
Revealed In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry decided that he wanted to be an Auror when he left Hogwarts. Of course, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child reveals that he succeeded in this career choice after Harry Potter and became the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic. This fits well enough with Harry’s character arc, but given his feelings about the Ministry of Magic, it’s difficult to imagine him being happy in this position for long. It makes far more sense for Harry to have become Hogwarts’ Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and that seemed to be where his story was headed in Harry Potter. Hopefully, the remake can fix this wrong by ignoring this retroactive change to canon.
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