Skip to main content

harry potter - Who is the Professor McGonagall in The Crimes of Grindelwald?


Spoilers Ahead. If you haven't watched Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald yet, please do not read further.


According to this and many other such fan pages, Minerva McGonagall, Harry's Transfiguration teacher was born in 1935 (although Pottermore only mentions October 4, and no year). Now, in The Crimes of Grindelwald, we see a "Professor McGonagall" when the Aurors come to question Dumbledore about the whereabouts of Newt Scamander, which must have happened at least in the late 1920s if not exactly in 1927, if we follow the timeline shown in Fantastic Beasts. The same professor is also seen in a flashback which may have happened around ten years before this incident, when Dumbledore is teaching Newt and Leta's class. This would have happened in the 1910s then?


I even conjectured that maybe this is a different McGonagall teaching at the time Newt was a student, but the credits show Minerva McGonagall! If she was born in 1935 and these events occurred in 1927 or so (and earlier in the flashback), she wouldn't even have been born yet. How come she is fully grown and teaching in 1927? Was this some Minerva McGonagall senior? An ancestor to our beloved Transfiguration teacher and headmistress?



Answer



I think there might be an explanation in store in future movies.
The year 1935 is never mentioned anywhere "official", neither on Pottermore nor in the "Short stories from Hogwarts" ebook, where her life story is told. it only ever says "4th October".


The reason so many people believe she was born in 1935 is because when asked by Umbridge in book 5 how long she has worked at Hogwarts, she says "this december it will be 39 years". From there, using the information we have about her life and when she started, the year 1935 can be calculated for her bith.


Meaning, this 1935 date relies entirely on the assumption that Minerva told Umbridge the truth!



The scene where she talks to Umbridge is the ONLY clue we ever got to her actual age. If we assume that she lied, it's totally plausible for her to have been alive and teaching in 1927. She'd still be younger than Dumbledore, so it's not far-fetched to assume she'd still be around in the 90s.


It might just have been a mistake of course, but I personally still have a bit of faith that there's a good explanation to all of this, and that we might even get a reason that would make her lie to Umbridge later (though she might just have done it because she hated her).


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...
1 comment
Read more

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...
Post a Comment
Read more

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...
Post a Comment
Read more