Green coat, shy outlook, and his never-ending love for beasts, Newt Scamander (and the very dashing Eddie Redmayne) has won all of our hearts right from the very start of the Fantastic Beasts series. The question is very simple: Can anyone not admire Newt? Not at all.
While the second movie in the Fantastic Beasts series might not have been that great, there’s still hope to believe that the upcoming stories will be better connected and hopefully everything that left us wary now will make sense. And more importantly we will get to see more of Newt Scamander in action.
Accio Spoilers! You have been warned.
Apart from being the very loyal and hardworking Hufflepuff, Newt is a wonderful character in the making.
‘Newt, you’re next,’ says Albus Dumbledore as he stands with his students in the Defense Against The Dark Arts Class. The Boggart suddenly turns into a table filled with piles of paper.
‘That’s an unusual one. What Mr. Scamander fears above everything else is….,’ says Dumbledore.
‘Having to work in an office, Sir,’ Newt immediately answers, a little shaken and confused. The entire class bursts into giggles.
It wouldn’t be wrong to say, a lot of us millennials are like Newt. We fear the cubical and fear the bondage that comes with it. And perhaps we can all, especially us confused, quarter life struck ones learn a few things from the delightfully honest, hilarious and heartwarming Newt Scamander.
Daring to say No
There’s a scene in the second movie when Newt is placed in front of a few officials and his brother Theseus. Apparently it’s his fifth time in that seat. Newt is being offered to work with his brother in an ‘Office’, and he immediately declines and walks away. The price is that his international travel ban continues. And yet, Newt declines. He know’s that’s not what he wants. Well, maybe his complicated status with Leta Lestrange also contributes to it, but either ways, it takes a lot of courage to decline an offer like that. Perhaps we need that to, from time to time.
Appreciating his true self
Okay, Newt is awkward. We all know that, especially when Tina’s around. Not so much of a romantic. But who cares? He’s funny, he is an intelligent wizard, and in the words of Albus Dumbledore, he does not seek power. Newt does what is right because it’s right. And I’ve had the vibes after watching the two movies that Newt does indeed appreciate his true self. He might not be as classy as his brother, he might not have a great job with an office, but he’s okay with it. And that’s already so lovable. (He does end up complimenting Tina with the ‘Eyes like Salamander’ phrase.) Hopefully we can learn to be a little more appreciative of what we have instead of dwelling into comparisons.
Respecting his Dream
‘Newt was expelled from Hogwarts’, says my sister as we sit down to talk about the second movie.
‘But how did he survive then? Financially?’ I ask. A very 20 something year old question at the moment. (Maybe quarter life crisis exists in the magical world too!)
‘He was a researcher! He wrote books,’ exclaims my sister.
‘But who would buy a book written by an expelled student?’ I ask.
‘It’s probably like engineers working for Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg,’ she says.
Newt loves his beasts and he follows his passion of knowing and caring for them. And in following his dreams he becomes the best-selling author of Fantastic Beasts, the very title of the series. While Newt did follow his dream, I find it more important that he respected it. He doesn’t think its weird or less than the other fancy jobs wizards and witches take up. We often forget that about our own dreams. Whether we follow it or not is another story, but we should all respect it.
‘You never met a monster you couldn’t love,’ says Leta of Newt.
It’d be a delight to watch Newt’s character develop in the movies further. Since Fantastic Beasts hovers around adult characters, hopefully we’ll see some complex real life decisions to be made and the self discovery process of growing out of ones own shells.
Till then, let this very lovable character remind us that we’ll always be surrounded by great friends, like Jacob, and mentors like Dumbledore, and let Newt remind us of being ourselves!
