Fantastic Representation and Where to Not Find It

The trailer for Fantastics Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald dropped on Tuesday and the trailer reveals that one of Voldemort's horcruxes, Nagini the snake, is Claudia Kim, an Asian woman. According to a USA Today article, Harry Potter fans on Twitter were confused about how this reveal fits into the canon, but were especially concerned at the portrayal of an Asian woman who is a circus performer on display and gets cursed to be a snake forever. It's particularly upsetting to see an Asian woman being used as the life blood of a murderous white man seeking domination. There's serious Stockholm Syndrome power dynamics between this new plot between Voldemort and Nagini that I really doubt JK Rowling was aware of. What's even more tone deaf is when a Twitter user called JK Rowling out on casting a Korean woman, JK Rowling said Nagini takes inspiration from Indonesian mythology. She makes this assumption that everyone in Asia has the same mythology and culture and it's not only untrue but massively ignorant. JK Rowling's poor attempts to shoe in diversity instead have her create dangerous messages.