Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.
- The simple fact of seeing a familiar place once again: Hogwarts, as majestic as ever, even several decades before Harry Potter and his classmates were born, along with a very familiar theme playing in the background.
- On the release of the Teaser Promo, we discover several things: Tina has taken to wearing leather and Queenie and Jacob are apparently still together despite it being illegal.
- Credence has reassembled his body after it was torn apart at the hands of MACUSA Aurors while he was in his Obscurus form at the conclusion of the first film. Even better in the film's alternate opening we actually get to see Credence reform showing his full power!
- Not only that, while he is clearly still Unskilled, but Strong, Credence demonstrates Grindelwald was right to desire his power for himself. When in full Obscurus mode, he makes a house explode and attacks Grimmson so badly the smug and arrogant bounty hunter is visibly impressed by his power and has to keep up a shield charm the entire time to disapparate.
- After being given a wand, Credence in his human form casts a spell so strong as to pulverize a mountainside.
- You thought Newt's skills and determination were already pretty badass in the first film? Well.... It gets more and more pronounced here, making it evident that beneath his meek and awkward attitude lies a truly powerful and skilled wizard.
- First, despite being expelled from Hogwarts and working as a non-combative magizoologist, the ministry is willing to remove Newt's travel ban and use it instead to blackmail Newt into joining as an Auror and even outright sends him after Credence of all people. Being acknowledged to be good enough to work alongside his war hero brother Theseus and even more impressively to be send after such a powerful individual is a testament to Newt's ability.
- The Ministry tries to use blackmail to force Newt to join the Auror department, believing that he is so desperate to be able to internationally travel that he'll do it. Oh... Newt proved them very wrong by outright leaving the courtroom without hesitation when Grimmson is revealed to be a candidate.
- Then, when he is faced with Queenie's enchantment of Jacob, Newt takes absolutely none of Queenie's attempts to justify herself, delivers a Reason You Suck Speech, and then ends up lifting that enchantment with just a wave of his wand. The fact that Newt can remove a love enchantment so easily demonstrates his skill.
- Not only that, when Newt will have none of it, Queenie tries to stop Newt, but it's clear she is quite wary of the idea of having to duel with Newt, while Newt is utterly not having Queenie's defense and makes it clear he will lift the enchantment regardless of her desires as her efforts to marry Jacob and disregard the rules have gone too far even for his standards. Even though he is being quite friendly, it's obvious that he is more than willing to get pass her to do so. At that moment, Queenie looks almost afraid, then backs off slowly and when he shoots her an angry look upon realizing just how far she took it, she ends up running away to meet with Tina clearly not just because she was sad that her engagement is over, but because she wants to avoid Newt for now. She never even tries to enchant Jacob again, not even when she was already away from his house. Although it doesn't come quite close to matching Albus's own Tranquil Fury, the fact that Newt can so easily intimidate Queenie reminds us that he is definitely Albus Dumbledore's student who has had years to both learn magic and pick up traits from him, is above regular Aurors and can and will definitely hand Queenie her ass if they duel.
- And when he arrives in Paris to track down Tina, he shows off just how skilled he is with an impressive combination of spells in Paris while tracking Tina, all coming with a comfort of motion and natural ease that would seem unlikely from the man. Presumably, this was honed during his many travels tracking down the beasts under his care.
- As impressive as all those aformentioned things are, it doesn't compare to his feats when he faces Grindelwald the second time. When seeing Grindelwald's visions of the World War II, everyone looks utterly horrified.... But Newton Scamander has experienced the magical version of the World War I and it shows. While the purebloods back away in fear and terror at seeing just what the muggles they looked down on are capable of, Newt seems to be only just wary that another war is coming and that's just it. No lasting horror or fear, just resignation. Not even Jacob, a veteran of World War I, came close to taking it as well as Newt did, which shows the difference between a magical veteran and a normal veteran of the first war. It doesn't stop there! When faced with the same hellish blue fire that kills aurors as easily as breathing, he is able to block those flames by himself and didn't even get a single burn wound on him! And when Grindelwald focuses the spell on him and Theseus, those two brothers immediately display that while they may not have the best of relationships, they are still brothers capable of good teamwork by combining their efforts to shield themselves from Grindelwald's flames.
- Later on, Newt and Theseus also demonstrates that they are in fact more powerful than most wizards and witches around in that while Tina and Yusuf need to use both arms for the spell, the Scamander brothers perform the spell using only one arm. Also, Newt and Theseus cast the counterspell and plunge their wands into the ground in perfect synchronicity, whereas Tina and Yusuf do so a couple of seconds apart. Despite their personality differences, the Scamander brothers are clearly Bash Brothers and very effective when working together.
- Newt's knowledge of magical beasts is displayed most prominently by taming a dangerous-looking Zouwu... with a toy.
- Then he unleashes it against the Matagots at the French Ministry of Magic to help him, Tina and Leta escape. The mighty beast fends them off easily and even opens a magical breach through reality to get Newt, Tina and Leta out to safety.
- Newt displaying once more that beneath his awkwardness and honest demeanor lies a much smarter and more cunning intelligence than anyone expected.
- First, unlike Harry, Newt is sharp enough to see through Dumbledore's manipulations and is able to successfully demand answers. That's right. Newt is respected enough by Albus Dumbledore that when he demands answers, he gets it normally without having to wait too long.
- Even though Queenie was able to somehow arrive on London carrying the enchanted Jacob undetected, it takes only moments for Newt to realize that Jacob was under Queenie's love magic.
- Most impressively, Newt mixes both this smarts of his and his excellent command of beasts to perform the one feat that single-handedly saved the entire world and allowed Dumbledore's defeat of Grindelwald to happen: He stole Grindelwald's blood pact vial not by using any overpowered beast or engaging him magically, but by using a simple Niffler. He had picked up Dumbledore's words when he said he can't move against Grindelwald, not that he didn't want to, and when he saw the vial, he instantly recognized it for what it was and waited patiently until Grindelwald is kneeling on the corpse of a red-haired witch before he then casually sends his Niffler to steal it from Grindelwald's pouch.Newt: Grindelwald doesn't seem to understand the nature of things he considers simple.
- Indeed, this feat astounds even Dumbledore and when he asks Newt about how on earth he managed to do it, his response is just a small smirk as he muses on how Grindelwald never prepares for simple forms of magic.
- First, despite being expelled from Hogwarts and working as a non-combative magizoologist, the ministry is willing to remove Newt's travel ban and use it instead to blackmail Newt into joining as an Auror and even outright sends him after Credence of all people. Being acknowledged to be good enough to work alongside his war hero brother Theseus and even more impressively to be send after such a powerful individual is a testament to Newt's ability.
- The British ministry official who Grindelwald throws out of the flying carriage before throwing out the old man's wand as well. He manages to grab it during freefall and stops himself just before fatally impacting with the water below. Gellert is suitably impressed.
- Tina is starting to display her Auror skills after being somewhat underwhelmed in the first film.
- Her resourcefulness and detective skills, traits that would be very useful for Aurors, is displayed by finding Credence much sooner than any of the other Aurors who tried to find him. In a matter of moments, she intimidated the gruff Skender and forced him to answer her and then quickly figured out Kama's true goals.
- Most impressively, when faced with Theseus's anger, Tina keeps a level-head and manages to do an Offhand Backhand with magic before mocking him for his temper and then subduing and tying him up. Of course, Theseus demonstrates that he is still more powerful than her later on, but this demonstrates she is very much an excellent Auror way above average.
- Then Tina shows why she's perfectly suited to be Newt's wife... by luring the Zouwu back into Newt's case... with the same toy!
- Grindelwald in his fullest glory demonstrates extraordinary magical abilities that exceeds even that of Voldemort, reminding us exactly why he is considered the greatest dark wizard of all time and even Britain admits that their beliefs of Voldemort being more powerful may not be entirely founded as they had never experienced him. His feats during the first film already marks him as an exceptionally dangerous dark wizard, but this time he fully crosses the line between Awesome and Nightmare Fuel, and he performs his spells with the kind of effortless flamboyance that makes it clear to the audience that he can just shoot off an Avada Kedavra to get his point across, but why bother to do it that way when you can do it with style. He shows off a flexibility in his array of magic that demonstrates just how skilled he is in contrast to how Voldemort was portrayed onscreen: Voldemort had an almost slavish dependence on The Killing Curse and prefers the use of brute force spells, but Grindelwald? Grindelwald seamlessly mixes both powerful defense and incredible magical power as if it was natural for him.
- In the opening sequence, he first demonstrates some good physical abilities by being able to casually remain balanced on the top of the carriage as he then uses casual transfiguration spells and charms to summarily take down the aurors riding the Thestrals cart. As if it was as easy as breathing, he rides the Thestrals with one hand while using the other hand to cast spells as he strategically moves down to the river and manipulates it's water to encase the insides before he then returns airborne and a simple cast of the Tempest Jinx rains down lightning bolts from the sky in order to strike down his enemies.
- Near the end of the movie, he casts a darker, cursed version of Protego that manifests in the form of a powerful circle of blue fire that he manipulates as if it was as simple as if it was breathing to kill off every Auror but Newt, Theseus, and Tina and is so strong that it is capable of destroying Paris even with Grindelwald having left and doing nothing to power it anymore.
- Not only that, Grindelwald finally displays his Seer abilities and demonstrates skill with Divination that far exceeds that of anything we've seen Trelawney do. Whereas Trelawney has a case of Aesop Amnesia whenever she has her visions, Grindelwald is able to remember his visions and even has a skull-hookah that he can use to project his visions. Not only that, his visions when shown is quite detailed and terrifying and shows that he truly is a class of his own not just in Dark Arts but also in Divination.
- Not just shining in terms of magical prowess, Grindelwald also demonstrates outstanding cunning and charismatic qualities. Nearly everything going around in the second film ends up as being his manipulations as he lures all he wanted where he wanted them and then delivers a grand speech with a grand display of words swaying many who attended it, even Queenie. He sounds so convincing and plays with his words like they were a beautiful dark rhythm played on a piano. Not to mention, his open talk was also a set up for the Aurors who attended it where one Auror accidentally killed an attendee in the speech in self-defense but is seen by the other attendees which reinforce the evil government view that Grindelwald just spoke causing a battle which costs several lives but helped in drawing many wizards and witches to his cause. By the end of the film, he wins not just because he is so powerful no one in the film is of any challenge to him, but because he is smart enough to be able to think several steps ahead and manipulate his enemies like chess pawns.
- Another thing that Grindelwald proves to be superior to Voldemort in is their mental mindset. Voldemort fears and refuses, point blank, to accept death — the Elder Wand's core is the tail hair of a Thestral, a potent yet tricky substance to master; only a witch or wizard who is capable of accepting death can do so, since only by them can a Thestral hair even be seen. Thus, Grindelwald does not fear Death and truly earns his right to use the wand; he's exceptionally powerful and doesn't fear battle, which is what the wand wants — to fight.
- A contrast demonstrated at the climax of the film. Voldemort would never send his followers away so that he could fight a large group of Aurors by himself! His chronic fear of death always ensured that when he did engage in personal combat, it was either in the company of his Death Eaters, when his opponents were few in number, or else nowhere near him in terms of power. Grindelwald seems to enjoy facing off against more numerous opponents by himself, and would prefer that his followers stay out of his way. Vinda Rosier sticks around for Grindelwald's slaughter of the Aurors at the Lestrange family tomb. But she does nothing more than watch and smile as Grindelwald incinerates the Aurors.
- Even more impressively, when Grindelwald talks about fighting Dumbledore, rather than show fear at the mention or idea of his former lover, he seems actually annoyed that he can't fight Dumbledore due to their blood pact and has to rely on Credence to do it. Whereas Voldemort would really rather avoid fighting Dumbledore, Grindelwald makes it clear that even if he does have some wariness of fighting Dumbledore, it's more because he respects the man rather than fear, and had he not been limited by the pact, he would have been willing to brave a fight with Dumbledore and attack Britain, which reminds us exactly why Grindelwald did not run when faced with Dumbledore. Even with the blood pact broken, for Grindelwald, it just gave him what he needed to finally face Dumbledore in a duel and he fought to the end and even though he lost, he surely gave Dumbledore a good fight.
- Leta dying while attempting to take down Grindelwald after the rally.
- Nicolas Flamel pulling a Big Damn Heroes and leading the surviving heroes in a containment spell powerful enough to prevent the cursed fire from Grindelwald's Protego Diabolica from destroying Paris. Note that Flamel is over six hundred years old and incredibly brittle at this point.
- Other than Dumbledore, whom allowed her to talk back to him and disagree with him and offer alternatives as she was his deputy and he valued her opinion, Professor McGonagall has never exactly... listened... to authority. So when Travers comes marching into Dumbledore's classroom in the middle of class, Professor McGonagall is there to tell him exactly what she thinks.
- Also, one of Dumbledore's students telling Torquil that Dumbledore is the best teacher they ever had.
- Even better, when Torquil callously orders the students to leave, the students turn their heads to Dumbledore waiting for his permission to leave.
