Fantastic Beasts 3 Star Defends Crimes of Grindelwald’s Queenie Twist

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore star Alison Sudol has defended her character Queenie Goldstein’s decision at the end of the second Fantastic Beasts film to join forces with Grindelwald. The Fantastic Beasts series of films began in 2016 as a spin-off of the Harry Potter franchise, focusing on the wizarding world in New York City in the 1920s. Following the magical zoologist Newt Scamander from the spin-off book of the same name, the series is planned to comprise five installments of which The Secrets of Dumbledore will be the third.

Queenie Goldstein is a sweet half-blood witch from New York City and the younger sister of protagonist Tina Goldstein, Newt Scamander’s Auror love interest. Queenie works at the Wand Permit Office and is a valuable ally to Newt and Tina for most of the first two films, but she quickly finds herself falling in love with Jacob Kowalski, a ‘No-Maj’, which is the American term for Muggle. This quickly proves problematic, because the wizarding world is highly prejudiced against these relationships between no-Maj and wizards. At the end of the second film, The Crimes of Grindelwald, Queenie ultimately decides to switch allegiances to Grindelwald under the promise of being able to be with Jacob and to extend that privilege to other such couples. Grindelwald’s true motivations, however, are far darker than simply fighting prejudice.

Sudol defended Queenie in an interview with Digital Spy ahead of the release of the third film in the Fantastic Beasts series. She explained that Queenie’s decision has to be seen in the context of the prejudices of the wizarding world in the 1920s. Sudol also teased Queenie’s potential fate in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Read what she said below:

“If you follow through the film, and you really think about it, she was in one unfortunate circumstance after another because of the way that the Wizarding World operates and the prejudice. Really, all she wants to do is just be with the person she loves, and the narrowmindedness of the world she lives in puts her into a really vulnerable position where somebody that’s really manipulative can tell her what she wants to hear. That’s going to have an impact… She’s in a tricky, interesting position. We don’t really know where she’s going to go and who she is and how she’s going to move forward. She’s at a point in her life where she has two ways to go, but she’s made a decision that you can’t really just say to Grindelwald, ‘I’m sorry, this is actually pretty creepy.’ Maybe she won’t be able to get away… or maybe she will.”

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is set to be initially released on April 8 in the United Kingdom and a week later in the United States. The film comes four years after the second entry in the franchise, which was released in 2018, after the start of production was delayed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The role of Grindelwald was also recast, with Mads Mikkelsen stepping in for Johnny Depp voluntarily left the franchise after his public libel case regarding Amber Heard’s allegations of abuse against him. After The Crimes of Grindelwald became the lowest-grossing film to date from the Wizarding World franchise, producers will be hoping that The Secrets of Dumbledore restores interest in the series to set up for the next two films.

Sudol’s defense of Queenie teases fans that redemption, and perhaps a happy ending, may still be on the cards for her character. It also suggests that the Fantastic Beasts films may be about to take a much more nuanced approach to the question of good and evil. The Harry Potter franchise has been criticized in the past for its protagonists’ seeming lack of interest in changing the wizarding world for the better – here, the question of Grindelwald and Dumbledore’s attitudes towards the wizarding world’s prejudices is much more complex. That said, there are still another two films to go – so the ultimate conclusion of this question and whether Queenie will get her redemption (or punishment) in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is still unclear.

Source: Digital Spy

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