Welcome to This Week in Fandom, the OTW’s roundup of things which are happening! Before we start, have you seen the new trailer for the upcoming Captain Marvel movie? What do you think?
Speaking of trailers, there’s another one that’s got people talking today. The final trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was just released, and it contains a surprising reveal. Warning for spoilers in this section!
As io9 discusses in an article, there’s a brief shot of a woman who appears to turn into Nagini, Voldermort’s horcrux snake. What this has to do with Newt Scamander or Grindelwald is unclear.
Early speculation centred around the possibility that Nagini might be an animagus, but a tweet from J.K. Rowling clarified that Nagini is in fact a maledictus.
Fan reaction has been intense. It’s ranging from shocked and surprised to excited and happy to kind of uncomfortable. Do you agree with these reactions? Let us know what you think in the comments!
Elsewhere in fandom, there’s renewed discussion of gatekeeping after an unfortunate encounter at a convention. The Mary Sue posted an article about a Tumblr post, which was later posted in a tweet, that detailed a conversation about Doctor Who between an adult man and the poster’s 11-year-old daughter:
A burly, older man plopped down nearby. He looked at my little girl’s [TARDIS dress] outfit, smiled, and said, “Do you even KNOW anything about Doctor Who?”
WTF, dude?
I was too stunned for a second to even respond, so he started right in with the ‘quizzing.’
“Who are the Doctor’s biggest enemies, and what planet does he come from?” this stranger asked.
The Mary Sue‘s article calls this “unacceptable” and explains some of the history of “fake geek girl”-related gatekeeping according to a Forbes article from 2012. The Mary Sue‘s article concludes with the statement that gatekeeping “will drive people away from things they love. Because they are told they have to prove themselves and that they don’t really like what they like, and that they’re just fakes.”
Fan reaction to this story has been an assortment of outrage and sympathy and people sharing their similar experiences, with a smattering of advice on how to handle situations like this. However, there are still some people who doubt the story’s truth, or who are outright encouraging gatekeeping.
Lastly, SyFy Wire published an amusing round of Frak, Marry, Kill that focuses on animated characters. Warning for mature themes, but if you’re looking for something a little more light-hearted after that gatekeeping discussion, this might suit.
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