Update: The brand new, and final, trailer for The Crime of Grindelwald has finally dropped, and thus proved the most highly-anticipated theory of the series to be true.
Nagini isn't just a snake — she's a human member of the traveling Circus Arcanus, who, as an Animagus, can take the shape of a serpent. Actress Claudia Kim confirmed the theory to Entertainment Weekly in an interview after keeping silent on her character's identity for months. “It will be so interesting to see another side of Nagini,” she said. “You’ve only seen her as a Horcrux. In this, she’s a wonderful and vulnerable woman who wants to live. She wants to stay a human being and I think that’s a wonderful contrast to the character.”
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J.K. Rowling herself then took to Twitter (where the trailer premiered) to confirm her fans' inquiries. Rowling says she's been holding onto that Nagini secret for "around twenty years."
To read more about the theory, check out our original post below.
Original story follows.
The trailer for The Crimes Of Grindelwald brought us back to Hogwarts, but it looks like this Fantastic Beasts sequel could be going back to its Harry Potter roots in more ways than one. A new character joining the franchise, played by Claudia Kim, has sparked a lot of fans' interest, specifically in relation to a villain we didn't think we'd be meeting this time around: Voldemort. While Fantastic Beasts tells a story long before Harry Potter or his parents existed, it's possible it's the origin story of Voldemort's snake companion, Nagini. Nagini and the Dark Lord were known to have a close relationship — she was even one of his horcruxes — but thanks to the news that Kim's character is a Meledictus (someone who has been cursed to turn into a beast), people think Nagini may have been more than just a pet. She may in fact be this character.
Vanity Fair points out that there are two clues in the trailer, both at 1:07 minutes and 1:17.
First, there's the part where Kim's character stands up as a stream of dark magic slithers out of Credence's (Ezra Miller) hand in a very snake-like way.
Then, there's this poster. Deadline revealed over the summer that Kim's character was an attraction at a wizarding circus, and the poster from this circus (glimpsed in the trailer and shown closer below) depicts a woman that looks like Kim wrapped up in a snake. Below, the words "Meledictus."
The French Wizarding World is officially opening its doors ... #CrimesofGrindelwald #FantasticBeasts trailer #Wizards #WandsReady pic.twitter.com/jY8QnqOcgM
— Louis (@LouisStevenson9) March 12, 2018
So she's, like, definitely got something to do with snakes. Whether or not she's Voldemort's snake? We'll have to wait to find out. But if I had to guess, if there were actually any more secrets about the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling would have already tweeted them out.