Best Geeky Finds – Where to Find Fantastic Beasts

Blog-BGF“…it is not a book to be confined to the classroom. No wizarding household is complete without a copy of Fantastic Beasts, well thumbed by the generations who have riffled its pages in search of the best way to rid the lawn of Horklumps, interpret the mournful cries of the Augurey, or cure their pet Puffskein of drinking out of the toilet.” 
– Albus Dumbledore, from the Introduction to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander. 

Judging by this introduction, any wizard or muggle (read no-maj) would assume Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is simply a boring textbook for a zoology class, which geeky, studious types enjoy keeping in their home to prove they’ve studied the book; however, it is far from the sort. In the book, Scamander explains about a plethora of magical creatures, ranging from the Niffler, a fluffy, long-snouted creature that burrows itself to dig and hide, but has an affinity for shiny things like gold and jewelry (Ministry ranked competent wizards can cope); to Chimaeras, a rare Greek monster often used in current fantasy literature (Ministry ranked GTFO – my own wording); and many more.

In 2001 when a muggle edition of this book was released by J.K. Rowling, the world never considered that one day we would get to learn about Newt Scamander’s adventures in writing this amazing book. And yet, not long ago we heard news of a new movie set in the wizarding world that was to predate the battles Harry Potter and his friends faced. This movie, written by Rowling and based on Scamander’s adventures in New York City in 1926, shows how he collected magical creatures and studied them for his book.

fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-themUnfortunately for Newt (Eddie Redmayne), he has arrived at the same time as many mysterious magic has been happening around town, destroying homes and neighborhood. An anti-witchcraft group has been holding protests and attempting to protect children from the dangerous magic, while the American Wizard government attempts to handle the constant attacks nobody can pin down. Could it have been Grindelwald, the dangerous wizard who has been attacking people overseas in Europe? Or perhaps Newt, whose case of dangerous magical creatures was accidentally opened not long after arriving in town.

I have been a diehard member of the wizarding community since college when I began reading the Harry Potter series and became hooked. With each story, even with having seen both the movies at the time, I was hooked to see what would happen next, having plenty of new story than what was available on screen. By the time Order of the Phoenix was published, I was eagerly awaiting my sister (who turned me on to the series) to finish reading so I had somebody to discuss it with. Having a brand new story on screen that hasn’t previously been published in print, a new generation will be exposed to the wizarding world as I was as an adult. Meanwhile, fans like myself get to melt into this new tale and see where characters and ideas cross into the modern stories of Harry and childhood tales of the Dumbledore family. This is the first of five movies in this new series, though where the story will progress has not been revealed. Will we see more about Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s friendship and his ultimate defeat? What about Jacob Kowalski and his impressive bread designs? Will the final movie glance into the future to see his grandson, Rolf, and Luna Lovegood meet? Until the next movie, we can only imagine and write more fan fic about these characters.

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