Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a complicated addition to the Harry Potter canon. While the film certainly has its problems, for fans, it’s a major expansion of the Wizarding World. As the title suggests, it introduces new beasts, along with new characters, locations, and storylines.
If anything, it grabs onto a few too many narrative threads. Since it’s the first in a series of five movies, many of those threads are left untied.
Fortunately, the Fantastic Beasts film series is set as a prequel to the Harry Potter books. Along with the original 2001 Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them chapbook that served as a loose basis for the film, J.K. Rowling’s writing already reveals a lot about where the movie’s characters end up.
So if you can’t wait until 2018 for the next film, or just want to catch up on the references and allusions you may have missed, read on.