Current Events > Why are people mad about the Nagini thing in Fantastic Beasts 2? *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

For those who don't know, in the most recent trailer it was shown that Nagini is not "just a snake", but now a Maledictus. A woman who was cursed to eventually turn into an animal for good.

In the trailer, the human form of Nagini is played by a Korean woman.

Apparently this is bad because there are very few non white characters, and having one of them be "a snake" is Korean?

I want to know why this is considered such a negative thing.

From my perspective, I can see being angry that JK definitely pulled this "Nagini was really a human at one point!" out of her ass. That was definitely not the intent of the character in the original novels. At least, I can't personally recall when that was ever made cannon that Nagini is a cursed human being. Obviously this was a retcon to just add something interesting to that character.

That being said, why is it bad to reflect the area of the world from which the word Nagini comes from? If the idea of the character now is to reflect Naga from Indonesian heritage, wouldn't it have been offensive to cast someone who is not Indo-Asian?

I don't necessarily think it's a good decision to turn Nagini into a character who was once human, but to be mad that this choice is now being reflected in the nationality of the character being true to their name? That seems to not make sense to me.

NOTE - I am a Cisgender White Male from North America. I understand that my critical lens and how I view things is influenced by a world in which I am represented in many different ways in popular culture on a daily basis.
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Why don't they just shoot Voledmort and his followers with a gun?
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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

I can see being angry that JK definitely pulled this out of her ass.

She does this all the time. She just listens to fan theories and occasionally is retroactively like WELL YEAH THAT'S TRUE
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From what I was told about this whole thing, it apparently looks bad because you are portraying an Asian person who essentially becomes a submissive to a white "pureblood" supremacist.

Ordinarily, yeah, you are right in that it would make sense for this sort of character to fill the role (at least as much sense as this particular sort of Plot Twist can make), but it leaves a sour taste in some people's mouths due to uncomfortable resemblences of real world politics.

Personally, I don't care about the whole thing, but as my spouse is a HP fan and a twitter user, it was inevitable for me/us to hear about it.