This is the ‘wait what?’…moment that inspired this new blog series, and that (despite only having seen the film once, and years ago) still rattles around in my brain, appearing at inconvenient moments to distract me from more pressing matters, just because it’s so damn incongruous to me.
So, in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Grindelwald, as played by Johnny Depp before he was played by Mads Mikkelsen, was playing Percival Graves as played by Colin Farrell, who was the Director of Magical Security in Wizard America.
Now, Grindelwald’s in America to find Ezra Miller and use him to destroy the world…or something, I honestly cannot remember the details of his plan. Point is, he’s undercover because he’s looking for a massively powerful kid to win to his evil cause, and for whatever reason, he’s decided the best way to do that…is to impersonate a middle-aged American civil servant. And, most pertinently, in order to stay undercover, Grindelwald is presumably also doing all of the work that Mr Graves would usually be doing.
Y’know, attending meetings, receiving briefings, considering policy, and everything else associated with a desk job. In other words Gellert Grindelwald – terrorist, wizard extraordinaire, visionary, would-be tyrant and extremist – also managed to fit in a few weeks of government departmental duties during his fanatical war.
This one isn’t a plot hole, as such – like, Grindelwald’s plan is just about as coherent as one can hope for. For me, the Wait what?…aspect of this is simply imagining Gellert Grindelwald, the greatest Dark Wizard of his time and the nemesis of Dumbledore, a near-demonically powerful figure obsessed with supremacy and with power…and who was happy to work in what is essentially an upper middle management position.
We don’t know how long Grindelwald was disguised as Graves, but it was at least a few days, and (I think) likely considerably longer…weeks, or even months. And during all that time, Grindelwald’s going to meetings, filling out paperwork, reporting to his superiors, delegating to his underlings, and having to do so to a passingly competent enough standard that nobody realises that Graves has been replaced.
One could run into a similar train of thought in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’s similarly disguised Barty Crouch, but there are enough differences between them that Crouch doesn’t bother me as much as Grindelwald. For one, Crouch is serving a few different roles (spying on Dumbledore and Hogwarts, preparing Harry, and so forth), whereas Grindelwald is really only in America to find this one kid. Crouch is also working in a field at least moderately related to his speciality (the Dark Arts), as opposed to Grindelwald’s sudden bureaucratic competency. And, worst to my mind, Crouch is also himself a servant of Voldemort, whereas Grindelwald is himself second to none, a Dark Lord, and already well established…and yet is perfectly willing to spend a few hours a day going through memos, apparently.
So, what was Grindelwald doing in America? Lots of paperwork, attending departmental briefings, debating policy, assigning work to American Wizard police officers, and probably even more paperwork.
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