A National Trust survey conjured up a bunch of angry fans.

Outrage from “Harry Potter” fans comes following a proposal to move Dobby’s “grave” from Freshwater West beach to a more stable location, due to concerns about the current site’s infrastructure, reported the Independent.

The beloved character in the “Harry Potter” series — a gentle “house elf” who was freed from his abusive masters when gifted a sock — met his tragic and undue end during the franchise’s seventh film installment and was “laid to rest” at Freshwater West beach, prompting fans to leave tokens of goodwill, primarily socks, at the gravesite.

But now, the organization that manages the site has released a survey that could determine the future of Dobby’s memorial.

“Over the past few years we have seen an increase in visitors wanting to experience all that Freshwater West has to offer, including its beautiful beach,” the group began in a statement.

“We love welcoming people to the site, but the increase in numbers does mean its facilities and infrastructure are under even more pressure. We want visitors to have an enjoyable, safe experience while ensuring this special landscape is looked after for future generations,” they wrote.

The purpose of the survey would be to “relocate the memorial to a suitable publicly accessible location.”

Potter-heads, however, are stupefied over the proposal.

“Noooooo leave it be, it’s lovely and it’s not doing any harm,” wrote one fan on Twitter.

“Removing it is pointless, people will still visit there, leave Dobby rest in peace!” they added.

“You can’t just move a memorial at your whim,” another tweeted.

Embattled author and “Harry Potter” creator J.K. Rowling once stated to fans on social media that she actually regretted killing off the heroic character. “I apologize for killing someone who didn’t die during the #BattleofHogwarts, but who laid down his life to save the people who’d win it. I refer, of course, to Dobby the house elf,” she wrote.

One reader responded that she “wish[ed]” to be more like the sweet and selfless Dobby. Responded Rowling, “That answer really touched me.”

“Harry Potter” actress Miriam Margolyes is defending J.K. Rowling, insisting anger over her trans comments is “misplaced” — and offering to broker peace talks with the younger stars who have denounced her.

The 80-year-old actress, who played Professor Sprout in the wizardly series, stood up for the bestselling author, who has faced death threats and calls to be canceled over her remarks.

“There isn’t one answer to all these trans questions,” Margolyes told the UK’s Radio Times magazine, according to Yahoo News.

“We all know people who are slightly pansy or a bit butch or whatever you call it,” the actress said, saying that “there is a spectrum and people can be anywhere along that.”

“But I think the vituperation J.K. Rowling has received is misplaced,” she said of the vitriol directed at the author.

“I admire her as a human being. She’s a generous woman, she’s a brilliant writer,” the actress said of Rowling, saying that if people were kinder to others, “a lot of the misery would disappear.”

She also said she would mediate talks between Rowling and the Potter stars who have denounced her comments, including leading actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint.

“I would if anybody asked me,” she said.

Rowling’s cancel-culture backlash started in June 2020 when she sarcastically responded to an article about “Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate.”

“’People who menstruate,’” she tweeted snarkily. “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

Margolyes’ co-star Robbie Coltrane, who played Hagrid, was initially a lone voice from the franchise defending Rowling.

“I don’t think what she said was offensive really,” Coltrane had also told Radio Times, in September 2020.

“I don’t know why but there’s a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended,” he said, admitting he sounded “like a grumpy old man.”

Set in the Wizarding World created by author JK Rowling, the same cinematic universe as the Harry Potter series, Warner Bros’ attempt at recreating the original’s success looks like a distant dream.

It is not even about the quality of the two films that we’ve seen so far — most will agree, though, that the second film is indeed pretty bad — the chief reason for the fans’ disillusionment is that the story that the series is telling is simply not appealing enough. But that is not the only issue that has plagued the franchise.

Why is Fantastic Beasts not as exciting as Harry Potter if it is set in the same world?

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First, context. The Fantastic Beasts franchise is named after Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a book that exists both in-universe and in reality. Written by Magizoologist (a wizard or witch who studies magical creatures) Newt Scamander, it was also released as an actual book by Rowling. The first Fantastic Beasts movie and the book share the name, and on paper at least Newt is the primary protagonist.

Played by Redmayne in his trademark dorky, shy way, Newt instantly charms, and is a refreshing change from the usual sci-fi/fantasy protagonists with their inflated abs and egos. A Hogwarts alumnus, the first film begins with him arriving in New York in the 1920s. But he is not as super-talented wizard like Harry Potter or Hermione Granger, although it can be argued that Rowling never intended for Harry to come across as super-talented in the first place. Newt can, however, hold his own in a confrontation, and he avoids violence wherever possible.

Newt is a refreshing change from the usual genre protagonists with their inflated abs and egos. (Photo: Warner Bros)

His sole purpose of existence, it appears, is to care for and raise awareness about the magical creatures that reside in a pocket dimension inside his normal-looking suitcase. Are you a cat person or a dog person? Newt is a Niffler person. He knows the specific peculiarities and habits of probably each and every single magical creature known to wizard-kind.

And yet, as interesting a character as Newt is, he is no Harry Potter, whose very destiny was tied to the story’s primary antagonist, someone with whom he shared a yin and yang relationship with him. Newt does not much care for Grindelwald and his machinations, though we are told later that he was sent by Dumbledore himself. So while Newt is a person you would love to befriend in real life, in this story, it was probably not a good idea to make him the primary focus when everybody wants to see that titanic duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald that the series is building towards.

Grindelwald also does not have that innate aura of evil that Voldemort possessed. He is too much like a… well, a man, despite the grand ambitions to unite wizards and witches and rule the world. Voldemort, on the other hand, was evil personified; more a force of chaos than flesh-and-blood, even when he did acquire a vaguely corporeal form. Rowling clearly wanted Grindelwald to feel like some sort of strongman world leader, but she has reduced the threat he possesses. Add to that, we know Voldemort is the greatest dark lord in history and Grindelwald is only second on that list.

Apart from the faults in writing, there are also real-world reasons that many fans have been put off from Fantastic Beasts. Rowling in recent years has come under fire for her alleged transphobic tweets and statements. The author has attracted the ire of trans people, activists and their allies, many of whom have been reevaluating the diversity quotient in her works. Her supporters, on the other hand, were saying that even if her opinions don’t align with those of others, she should have the right to express them.

The stars of the Harry Potter films, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, have also taken issue with her comments, albeit not directly. Although it is not official, she has become a liability for Warner Bros. This must be said, however, that she seems to have regained the studio’s confidence, even if she now has a co-screenwriter on Secrets of Dumbledore (as opposed to The Crimes of Grindelwald, for which she had the sole credit). Her name has been was prominently displayed on the trailers of Secrets of Dumbledore.

Mads Mikkelsen as Gellert Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. (Photo: Warner Bros)

One other liability, who is now removed from the franchise, was Johnny Depp, who played Grindelwald in the first two films before being replaced by Mads Mikkelsen in the third. Accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife and fellow actor Amber Heard, he was dealing with a libel case against UK tabloid The Sun, and lost. He was immediately removed from the franchise, with the studio allowing him to save face by implying the decision to bow out was his.

Can the franchise recover and overcome these blows and shortcomings?

The short answer is, it can. But WB’s way of dealing with these issues is to bring the franchise closer to Harry Potter, cash in on the nostalgia (it is another matter that the last HP movie released just over a decade ago). So, we got to see Hogwarts in the second movie, with a version of John Williams’ iconic “Hedwig’s Theme” playing in the background. But then, it was taken too far. There was a shot or two of a young Minerva McGonagall (played by Maggie Smith in the HP movies) herding a group of students, probably in her early 20s, the year being 1927. But as per the lore established by Rowling herself, she wasn’t even born back then.

It doesn’t end there, not by a long shot. We’d been told that Dumbledore had two siblings, brother Aberforth and sister Ariana. The writers’ thinking perhaps went, “Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), the troubled young man who had developed an Obscurial and whose identity reveal we have been teasing is none other than a long lost Dumbledore sibling we forgot to tell you before.”

We do not know how Fantastic Beasts can be rehabilitated (perhaps Rowling was not born to be a screenwriter? just a thought), but this doesn’t look like the best way to go about it.

Hello, Book Lovers! It’s time for another installment of The Pulse and boy do we have some gush-worthy items to share. From unnecessary, yet totally unsurprising drama in the book world to some fabulous book-to-film announcements that readers are absolutely going to love. We have some inspiring news coming from across the pond, too. Heck, there’s even a surprise for Harry Potter fans! So, grab a refreshment and get comfortable as BookTrib spills the tea.

STANDOUT READS BOOKTRIB’S DISCUSSING

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt: “Brilliant storytelling that evokes emotion — from tears to laughter. This was a Read With Jenna pick and I highly recommend it, as well! My new favorite recommendation!”

May’s Top 10 Audiobooks: “This month, listeners visit a small island in the Gulf of Finland, banter with book lovers, meet the man Jane Goodall dubbed the “chimp whisperer” and much, much more. So, grab your earbuds and queue ’em up!”

West Side Love Story by Priscilla Oliveras: “It has all the romantic yearning and simmering chemistry of Shakespeare’s original but with a hard-won and happy ending that left me with a big, deeply satisfied smile on my face.”

NEWS FROM THE BOOK WORLD

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) acted swiftly and decisively when they announced the removal of this year’s SFWA Grand Master, Mercedes Lackey, from the virtual conference on May 22, 2022, after she used a racial slur during the “Romancing Sci-Fi Fantasy” panel.

The Hunger Games’ prequel The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes cast its lead actress this week, and it’s none other than West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler who will play the role of Lucy Gray Baird in this highly anticipated book-to-screen adaptation. In other film adaptation news, Taylor Zakhar Perez (The Kissing Booth 2 3) and Nicholas Galitzine (Cinderella) have been tapped to lead Prime Video’s romantic comedy Red, White Royal Blue, based on Casey McQuiston’s bestselling novel of the same name. Deadline reported that Charmaine Wilkerson’s Black Cake is headed to the small screen, with Adrienne Warren set to star.

For podcast listeners, it’s being reported that a podcast series based on Laurie Faria Stolarz’s Jane Anonymous is in the works, with actors Mina Sundwall and Michael Cimino cast in leading roles.

Some great news worthy of celebration comes from the UK! Penguin Random House UK donated its entire audio back catalogue to Calibre Audio, a charity providing a free-for-life audiobook service to anyone who has a disability that makes reading print difficult. Bravo!

AWARDS AND ACCOLADES WORTHY OF NOTE

Audiofile announced the recipients of the 2022 Golden Voices Audiobook Lifetime Achievement honors: Adjoa Andoh, Rupert Degas and Juliet Stevenson. Sui Annukka has won the Women’s Prize Trust’s Discoveries Writing Award for her “original, intriguing” coming-of-age novel in progress. IndieReader announced the 2022 Discovery Award winners this past week. Ghost Forest author Pik-Shuen Fung wins the 2022 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. BookTrib would like to extend a hearty congratulations to all the winners!

MORE BOOKS THE MEDIA’S BUZZING ABOUT

Tom Felton, better known to millennials and Harry Potter fans as Draco Malfoy, has announced his upcoming memoir, titled Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard, which is set to release this fall.

Kathleen Buhle, the ex-wife of Hunter Biden, recently spoke about her upcoming memoir — titled If We Break: A Memoir of Marriage, Addiction, and Healing — and her fraught marriage with President Joe Biden’s younger son in an interview with People magazine.

Barnes Noble selected Leesa Cross-Smith’s Half-Blown Rose as the latest pick for its book club.

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According to Australian website news.com.au, the Chinese version has chopped six seconds from the film’s final cut, including two lines of dialogues that referenced a previous romantic relationship between lead characters, Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald, played by Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen, in the movie.

The lines in question were, “because I was in love with you” and “the summer Gellert and I fell in love.” The Secrets of Dumbledore is the third film in the Fantastic Beasts series, a prequel spin-off in the popular Harry Potter franchise based on the book series by JK Rowling.

Also starring Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Ezra Miller, Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler, Callum Turner, and Jessica Williams, the film was released in China on April 8.

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Warner Bros said the spirit of the movie remains “intact” despite the cuts. “As a studio, we’re committed to safeguarding the integrity of every film we release, and that extends to circumstances that necessitate making nuanced cuts in order to respond sensitively to a variety of in-market factors. “Our hope is to release our features worldwide as released by their creators but historically we have faced small edits made in local markets. In the case of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, a six-second cut was requested and Warner Bros accepted those changes to comply with local requirements but the spirit of the film remains intact,” the studio said in a statement to Variety.

The company said they want the audiences, including in China, to enjoy the film. “We want audiences everywhere in the world to see and enjoy this film, and it’s important to us that Chinese audiences have the opportunity to experience it as well, even with these minor edits,” Warner Bros further said in the statement.

In 2007, Rowling announced that Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is gay and that he and Grindelwald were in a relationship when they were young. The English author made the remarks following the publication of the seventh and final Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows. Dumbledore was not explicitly gay in the book series.

The Secrets of Dumbledore officially acknowledged the character’s sexuality on screen for the first time. Previously, Bohemian Rhapsody, the Freddie Mercury biopic, was famously chopped by Chinese censors, omitting all references to the Queen frontman’s sexuality.

Even the best actor Oscars acceptance speech by Rami Malek, who played Mercury in the film, was altered on Chinese television when the subtitles replaced “gay man” with “special group”.

YEREVAN, APRIL 20, ARMENPRESS. Armenian readers have the chance to dive into the Harry Potter world thanks to Alvard Jivanyan, the translator who has translated the immensely popular series of the fantasy novels by J.K. Rowling.

Speaking to ARMENPRESS about the art of translation, the peculiarity of the Harry Potter novels and children’s literature, Jivanyan emphasized that nowadays there is big demand for children’s literature.

According to Jivanyan, both children and parents prefer the fantasy genre, the “escape from reality”, something that is dictated by the social-political context.

However, the translator says that the Harry Potter novels aren’t at all solely for children.

“Even the volume of the book is telling us that it’s not just the children who are going to read it. Any serious children’s book has its adult readers as well. Let’s not forget that today the adult readers of Harry Potter are from the generation when the Harry Potter books were first being published during their youth,” she said.

Asked to present her opinion on what made the Harry Potter novels so popular and what feelings and emotions the book caused during translations, Jivanyan said: “I’m translating already the fifth volume which has numerous themes on war. The author, Joanne Rowling, is speaking with irony about the human tribe through the centaur, saying that they must learn to live in the brief period of peace between two wars. It is a surprising book with all its relations, and Rowling’s success is explained by the fact that she was able to bring back the young readers with her exclusive talent and skills of telling rich stories, something many contemporary authors lack.”

What might seem like a scene straight out of any mystical film, where avians are pros at singing, a European starling is breaking the internet with its musical talent. The bird called Zephyr, who can not only croon but also beatbox recently went viral on TikTok singing the Harry Potter theme song without a hitch.

Posted by its “bird mom” user @farijuana_ on the platform, a woman who keeps sharing various videos of the talking bird, wowed all with the recent video that amassed over 20 million views. “The breath he takes in the middle,” the woman wrote in the text on the video amused by the bird’s antics of showing off its skills.

“I love how he even mimics the breath I take in the middle of whistling,” the woman wrote on TikTok sharing the now-viral clip.

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A post shared by Animals Doing Things (@animalsdoingthings)

Meanwhile, ‘Muggles’ on social media were amazed how the bird nailed the theme music so well, with some remarking it would fit in the Hogwarts’ setting perfectly.

Earlier this year in January, the Harry Potter reunion ‘Return to Hogwarts’ not just gave fans a galore of nostalgia, it took them back to Hogwarts and what went behind the making of the mega-franchise as lead actors sat down for a chat.

A Tennessee church leader who fears “witchcraft” has befallen his church claimed that God “directed” him to lead a book burning event to rid the world of “Harry Potter,” “Twilight” and other such best selling fantasy books.

He also invited them to destroy “tarot cards, Ouija boards, healing crystals, idol statues, spell books and everything else tied to the occult.”

Pastor Greg Locke of the Global Vision Bible Church in Mt. Juliet, near Nashville, began his sermon on Wednesday night with an announcement that he’d received a missive from God — to skip Holy Communion on that particular evening and instead hold a book burning event for his followers.

“We always have communion on Wednesday nights … but the Lord specifically directed me tonight not to do it,” the Pentecostal preacher said.

“There’s a mixed multitude in this tent. I ain’t breakin’ bread with witches. You hear me? … I ain’t breakin’ bread with demons. I ain’t breakin’ bread with freemasons. I ain’t breakin’ bread with occultism.”

He added, “We’re not going to prostitute communion by letting some witch curse up this house tonight.”

The tent-based fellowship had made plans to hold a bonfire that night, Locke reminded his audience.

“We have a Constitutional right and a Biblical right to do what we’re going to do tonight,” he later continued. “We have a burn permit, but even without one a church has a religious right to burn occultic materials that they deem are a threat to their religious rights and freedoms and belief system.”

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