Poll of the Day > What is considered canon in the Harry Potter fandom?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I enjoyed the original run of books when I was a kid, but I only saw the first few movies and never bothered with the Fantastic Beasts movies. I understand J.K. Rowling wrote the movies, so are they considered canon to the books? Are the original Harry Potter movies a separate canon or do they all mesh together? Is the upcoming Harry Potter RPG going to be canon?

I don't care all that much, but with the universe expanding I'm curious as to how fans are taking it.

My Immortal is definitely canon

---

At this point I don't think any body cares

The Harry Potter books were never really tight on canon to begin with (for example I think Hogwarts is described as having ~1000 students at several points, which makes no sense given Harry's class size), and Rowling has built up a reputation for adding things to the canon with no thought given to it, usually in a fairly lazy way (for instance, the number of additional magic schools in the world aren't distributed in a way that make sense and have very boring names).

And since the Fantastic Beast films were shit and Rowling is a transphobe, her opinion on things has become worth about as much as used TP.

---

Blightzkrieg posted...

Fantastic Beast films were

Blightzkrieg posted...

transphobe

In short, she's effectively discredited herself with her post-DH works and her Twitter posts.

Blightzkrieg posted...

the number of additional magic schools in the world aren't distributed in a way that make sense and have very boring names

It seemed to me like she was just writing schools for different countries just for the sake of it; not because there is a story to be told for all of these schools, which is in my view, the only reason why such fictional locations should exist to begin with.
---

EclairReturns posted...

It seemed to me like she was just writing schools for different countries just for the sake of it; not because there is a story to be told for all of these schools, which is in my view, the only reason why such fictional locations should exist to begin with.

that would be fine if she hadn't named the japanese magic school literally "magic place"

---

While you'll get multiple answers, the easiest guideline would be the books, the Fantastic Beasts movies (which don't have books), and the play. Conversely, you could just ignore everything outside the confines of the original books and then consider all of the films to be a separate canon (and the play to be nothing, which would be fair since it adds nothing to the franchise)

Blightzkrieg posted...

And since the Fantastic Beast films were shit and Rowling is a transphobe, her opinion on things has become worth about as much as used TP.

Which means anybody on the fence about her Dumbledore retcon can now safely ignore it.

---

EclairReturns posted...

It seemed to me like she was just writing schools for different countries just for the sake of it; not because there is a story to be told for all of these schools, which is in my view, the only reason why such fictional locations should exist to begin with.

I don't have an issue with lack of story or extensive detail for everything, I'm fine with names being dropped for the sake of making things seem bigger (the original Star Wars films most famously used this a lot). But these things are being dropped into an existing world that also exists within the real world. There are apparently 12 magic schools total and 4 of them are European, which feels bizarre without additional context (I don't know if more context was added later, I never kept up with Pottermore).

---

I have no freaking idea. I've read the books and watched the Fantastic Beasts movies (which I actually think are good) but I haven't followed the Harry Potter community since I was like 13.

Harry Potter was one of those 1998-2001 things that caught on and were basically designed to be released in that era, to that generation when consumerism was at its peak but the internet was still new.

---

The only thing that is canon is Hagrids face from PS1.

---

papercup posted...

My Immortal is definitely canon

---

Cannon is the device we fire the author, and most movies or extended material, out of for the sake of sanity and continued enjoyment of the seven books.

---

Imo the only canon is books 1-7

no horrible movies

The History of Quidditch and Fantastic Beasts "books" were actually kinda fun supplemental material

---