The final trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was teeming with Harry Potter clues and tidbits, but one in particular has fans – how do we put this – losing their shit this morning: The reveal that Nagini, who we know was Voldemort's final horcrux and erstwhile pet snake, is alive and well in the Beasts era, and she's actually a human woman (Claudia Kim).
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According to the updated Harry Potter Wikia pages, Nagini is a Maledictus, or a human with a blood curse who slowly transforms into an animal.
By the time we meet her in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Nagini is fully a snake (and later a horcrux), probably with snake-thoughts and a snake-brain (so you can ease your conscience that Neville murdered her).
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To be clear, a Maledictus is distinct from an Animagus – a wizard who turns into an animal at will. An Animagus chooses the animal and chooses when to transform. Nagini does have control over her transformation in the trailer; Kim told EW that her character knows a full transformation is inevitable.
Rowling claimed on Twitter that she's been holding this secret for "around 20 years," and whether or not that's true it changes our entire perspective of Nagini the snake. Even if she was no longer human by the time she met Voldemort, she has an entire human life and history that will be explored in The Crimes of Grindelwald.
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This Nagini is part of the Circus Arcanus with Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), whom we know to be an Obscurus whose magic sometimes loses control and bursts forth, often leading to destruction. What a pair!
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Some on Twitter expressed immediate concern over the fact that, while there's another character of color in the series, she's turning into an animal and eventually into the Dark Lord's pet.
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It's also worth noting on the subject of representation that Nagini is a Sanskrit name and actually describes a half-woman, half-snake creature from Indian mythology. "Nagin" is Hindi and Urdu for snake. Whether human or snake, the name's etymology is pretty unambiguously South Asian but the character is not.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald premieres Nov. 16.
Topics Harry Potter
