Let’s just get this out of the way now: this post is going to spoil the hell out of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. So if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to know exactly how it ends, now is the time to leave.
As for the rest of you: join us, won’t you, in a little theorizing—specifically, about Ezra Miller’s tragic character, Credence.
Pity about Credence, isn’t it? He spends the whole movie getting beaten with his own belt, getting groomed by a predatory auror, and, ultimately getting blown to smithereens when he reveals himself to be the obscurial who has been terrorizing New York all along. (For those who need a refresher: an obscurial is a repressed wizard child who tries to “conceal, don’t feel” their magic away, and end up developing dark, parasitic magical forces, called an obscurus.) But did anyone notice something rather odd about Credence’s ultimate demise?
There’s a rule in film—in supernatural movies especially—that unless you actually see the life leave someone’s eyes, you should never assume that they’re truly dead. For obscurials, we might adapt this to mean you shouldn’t assume death unless you see every last little shred of them disappear. Because that certainly didn’t seem to be the case with Credence. Sure, he burst into a million little pieces—but at least one of those pieces didn’t dissolve into thin air. Instead, it just kind of. . . hovered for a bit.
Credence isn’t dead, guys. But don’t take our word for it; take it from producer David Heyman, who revealed in a recent interview that the film originally included one more Credence scene. In it, we would have seen Credence getting on a boat to leave New York. In the same interview, Heyman also confirmed that Credence will be one of the “main players” in the series going forward, alongside a young Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald. That’s that, then.
If you’re willing to tip-toe out on a limb, J.K. Rowling and company have already planted the seeds for another major Harry Potter character to be a main player in the Fantastic Beasts universe: there are hints that this film series could ultimately tell a Voldemort origin story. And if you’re willing to tread just a bit further out, here’s another possibility: perhaps Credence’s spirit will actually live on within the Dark Lord himself.
Before you completely write this theory off as bonkers—and yeah, we know it is—remember: Fantastic Beasts is set in 1926. Which just happens to be Voldemort’s birth year. Remember, too, that Newt Scamander explains in the film that he was previously able to separate an obscurus from its host. Newt has already proven himself to be less than competent at keeping his magical creatures contained—and there are plenty of ways to imagine the last remaining shreds of Credence getting loose and leaving New York. Maybe they’ll even inhabit the body of a baby or a small child—perhaps, say, one currently stewing in a Muggle orphanage.
Again, all of this Voldemort stuff is pure speculation, of course. But at least we know Credence is coming back. Because an Ezra Miller is a terrible thing to waste.
