Our Wild Wizarding World

The new Fantastic Beasts movie comes out this weekend, and while it might not be any good, it's making us look back at the whole wizarding series. Harry Potter had good parts, and parts that made no sense, plenty of celeb fans, and of course plenty of other fans who were nuts.

We of course can't forget about creator J.K. Rowling, even if many people want to. And there are plenty of other wizarding books to look to, and movies, as well as real wizards from history, and real magic wands ... sort of.

Here's a look back at the facts we learned this week. The links all lead to full articles with much more info, so click every one that interests you, because we inserted one piece of our soul in each.

Read it here.

Now let's nitpick some more:

The first book's chess puzzle makes no darn sense. The teachers "protect" their magic stone by assigning series of challenges ... and providing a simple solution for each challenge right next to it.
Harry's a millionaire, and the story keeps ignoring this. If he's gonna keep turning down opportunities to splurge, there was really no need to make him a millionaire at all.

And other "real" wizards:

The Salem Witch Trials also targeted wizards. They put one farmer to death by piling rocks on him, and the brave guy just kept shouting at them, "More rocks!"
Ancient art used to depict Jesus wielding a magic wand. He was a skilled wizard, people figured.
Aleister Crowley was the sex wizard who Mussolini kicked out of Italy. His interest in the occult led him to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a secret society focused on exploring the supernatural, founded by three Freemasons.

That's not the only way the series drifted:

The Harry Potter books were surprisingly good detective stories. At least until halfway through the series, when they abruptly dropped the mystery format.
Fantastic Beasts is failing the exact same way The Hobbit did. A 100-page textbook is not a good basis for a trilogy.

More manuscript madness:

Harry Potter had a prequel, which was stolen. We don't mean plagiarized, we mean stolen—a burglar broke in and took it, and police never recovered it.

For other intersections with the real world:

Intel filed a patent for a magic wand. You could use the wand to control your devices, or to fight duels, and yet they never quite put the product into production.
Harry Potter fans nearly ruined a real-life cemetery. Tourists keep treating the grave of one "Tom Riddell" like it's Voldemort's.