Newt Scamander Refutes Rita Skeeter’s Claims in New “Fantastic Beasts” Book
Warning:
Contains details about the new Fantastic Beasts foreword written by J.K. Rowling as Newt Scamander. Do not read on if you do not wish to know the details!
We know Rita Skeeter loves to make some wild claims and doesn’t mind a little bit of poetic license – remember the pieces she wrote about Harry and Hagrid back in Goblet of Fire? – and thanks to Pottermore, we know that she was still in action at the 2014 Quidditch World Cup. But in the foreword to the newly updated Fantastic Beasts textbook, Newt Scamander takes up his pen to refute some of Rita’s wilder claims.
The updated textbook was released today by Bloomsbury in the UK and Scholastic in the US and contains a brand new foreword written by J.K. Rowling as Newt Scamander. In the new foreword, Scamander reveals that Rita Skeeter has written a book called Man or Monster? The TRUTH About Newt Scamander. The main part of the foreword is taken over by Skeeter’s claim that Scamander was a spy for Dumbledore. But Scamander disagrees:
This, as anyone who lived through the 1920s will know, is an absurd claim. No undercover wizard would have chosen to pose as a Magizoologist in that period. An interest in magical beasts was considered dangerous and suspect.
He further adds some more details about the release of Frank, the Thunderbird, revealing that there was a “curse-to-kill policy” in America at the time regarding magical creatures. This changed a year later.
One year after my visit, President Seraphina Picquery instituted a Protective Order on Thunderbirds, an edict she would eventually extend to all magical creatures.
But despite writing that he was not a spy for Dumbledore, Scamander does hint at the fact that his relationship with Dumbledore was something more “than a schoolteacher” – leaving us wondering what exactly the relationship between teacher and student was and how this will come into play in the later Fantastic Beasts films. As we’re sure you recall, in the first film, Graves hinted at this deeper relationship, asking, “What makes Albus Dumbledore so fond of you?” In this new foreword, we’re left wondering about the understanding between Dumbledore and Scamander, leading on nicely to the second film, which we won’t get to see until 2018.
On a more amusing note, Scamander finishes with another claim from Skeeter’s book.
It would take months to contradict every other wild assertation in Miss Skeeter’s book. I shall simply add that, far from being ‘the love rat who left Seraphina Picquery heartbroken’, the President made it clear that if I didn’t leave New York voluntarily and speedily, she would take drastic steps to eject me.
This certainly would have added a different kind of color to the film!
The new textbook is out today, with cover illustrations by Jonny Duddle (UK) and MinaLima (US) and inside illustrations by Tomislav Tomic (UK) and J.K. Rowling (US), as is the audiobook, narrated by Eddie Redmayne (Newt Scamander himself). Plus, there’s also the e-book edition, with a cover design by Olly Moss. As well as the new foreword, the book also contains six new beasts and illustrations. And don’t forget you can get a digital edition of the film right now.
Have you bought the new Fantastic Beasts book yet? Do you like the new edition? What do you make of the new information in the foreword? Let us know in the comments!
