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02nd Feb 2018

Harry Potter fans are fuming about major plot point new film ignores

Kyle Picknell

They’ve taken to social media to vent.

Harry Potter fans have been left unhappy by the news that Albus Dumbledore’s sexuality will not be directly addressed in the upcoming Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them instalment.

The news comes after the film’s director David Yates told Entertainment Weekly that the upcoming release would not “explicitly” mention the sexuality of the Hogwarts headmaster.

The Fantastic Beasts movies are set before the events detailed in J.K. Rowling’s series of books, and centre upon the lives of Dumbledore (played by Jude Law) and fellow wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) before they later fall out and famously duel.

Yates admitted that Dumbledore “had a very intense relationship with Grindelwald when they were young men. They fell in love with each other’s ideas, and ideology and each other.”

Whilst Rowling herself told audiences that “Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was” during a speech at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 2007. “[I] have always thought of Dumbledore as gay” she added.

Rowling has taken to Twitter to defend the movie from criticism, reiterating that it was only one film in “a five-movie series that’s only one instalment in”.