(November 19, 2018 – 2:42 AM)Prudence Browne Wrote:  OR he really is Corvus and Leta was on Grindelwald's side this whole time, lied about it all and sacrificed herself as part of his schemes.

I JUST saw this today #worstfan #momlife #gradlife and this is my favorite theory.

I think it's more likely that JKR just said "lul canon wuts that" and added a fourth Dumbledore sibling that was 1) never mentioned by Dumbledore 2) never mentioned by Aberforth 3) unknown to literally the entire wizarding world since it was never uncovered by Rita Skeeter 4) somehow, for some bizarre reason, was on a random ship to America and just happened to get picked up by Leta Lestrange? There just happened to be two powerful magical babies from powerful magical families rooming across the hall from each other on a Muggle vessel (we know it's Muggle because no one used any magic to save the damn ship) to the US, and Leta conveniently switched the babies like 5 minutes before a shipwreck and then somehow the elf-nurse who had been with the baby every day of its life didn't realize that it had been swapped between that event and when she gave it up in New York (which would have been a considerable amount of time later because that shipwreck did not happen in a harbor and that rowboat wasn't
getting them to shore on its own).

So, yeah, that's probably what we're going to get, but fuck that.

I like this especially because it gives a reason to Leta's totally pointless death, even if we don't know exactly what that reason is yet. Maybe Grindelwald's playing the long con and Leta's death was a way to try and leverage either Theseus or Newt to his side. Or maybe he wanted Leta to get close to Theseus and then die just to emotionally cripple him going forward — he's referenced as a war hero and was apparently a force to be reckoned with the first go-around with Grindelwald.

Another reason this theory works well for me is that Grindelwald would definitely have a motive for lying to Creedence: if he's a disowned Dumbledore, he's got a tangible, personal reason to want to go after Albus Dumbledore whereas if he's Whoever Lestrange he doesn't really have a role in this Grindelwald-Dumbledore conflict and it would take a lot more convincing to get him ready to fight some middle-aged English guy for no reason.

OTHER THOUGHTS:
- Liked the blood pact as a good canonical reason why Dumbledore put off the fight with Grindelwald for so long, besides just angst. Also makes sense as to why he was criticized so heavily for staying out of things because he clearly wouldn't want to publicize the blood pact thing.
- Liked Grindelwald's characterization and his relationship with his henchmen.
- Loved Queenie's plot arch - it didn't really seem in character for her to befuddle Jacob or whatever but if you buy into her starting there, her transformation was really solid and I'm excited to see her continue to develop in later movies. It'll also set up some great angst for her and Tina.
- Liked Newt and his beasts but some did seem a bit shoe-horned in... the cats in the library are one already stated example, some of the circus creatures escaping sort of 'just because' is another one.
- They didn't do shit with Nagini, so I don't really understand why she was there.

OVERALL:
It seems like JKR & co said "Newt and co are really great characters who deserve a sequel, but we don't have a plot for them. Also we could do a pretty epic multi-movie plot arch with Grindelwald but no one is invested in his character/his henchmen yet. How do we combine these two totally distinct movie franchise ideas?" and the answer was "Bring Creedence back to life and retcon him in to someone super important who can tie these two things together and hope everyone just goes with it." I don't dislike Creedence as a character but he was pretty darn dead at the end of FB1, he didn't add much to this movie besides being a McGuffin and I hate where they appear to be going with him.

Would have been better as a FB sequel with a plotline that made sense for Newt and a separate Dumbledore/Grindelwald/war franchise with some Newt & co cameos.