Newt, Dumbledore, and compassion in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Compassion in the Harry Potter series is something we fans know and love but we’re taking a more in depth look at it with Newt and Dumbledore.

When it comes to the characters in the Harry Potter series, we find compassion most accurately depicted in Dumbledore. But if you look at both he and Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, it is a truly wonderful site to see.

One of the most powerful aspects of J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world is the pervasive conscience that drives the stories. It is a force that drives light to defeat darkness. It lets us feel we are warriors of light with Dumbledore’s Army, with the Order, with faithful house elves. But in Fantastic Beasts, this force of conscience is handled in a remarkably different way than in Harry’s world.

Dumbledore’s Struggle with Compassion

In the Harry Potter series, Dumbledore is the conscience of the story. Compassion seems innate in him, but he struggles at putting compassion into action. Even stronger than compassion, is his belief in acting for the greater good over individual lives. At an early point in his life, he realized that in his own actions, he needed to make choices between what is right and what is easy.

Sir Michael Gambon as Dumbledore in Harry Potter. Image courtesy of Warner Brothers

But what is easy for Dumbledore that would tempt him away from what is right? Dumbledore’s main strength and main weakness, as seen by many characters and as confessed by Dumbledore himself, is that he loves power. And as a result, individual lives suffer. His first realization of this came with the death of his sister, Ariana.

He didn’t know whose curse killed her, or if her own Obscurial-like suppressed magic exploded. He just realized, through his shock, that he had ignored her vulnerability in favor of making grand plans for Muggle domination. But even with this greatest grief and regret of his life, he still spends the rest of his life doing what is right by taking care of the world at large, while still putting this ahead of vulnerable people’s well-being. He knows this, and it’s a burden.

Newt’s Heart of Compassion

As fans of Harry Potter, we went into Fantastic Beasts assuming that the same values of light vs dark would be the primary motivation for the wizarding world of 1926, the time when Grindelwald was building his followers and power. But it turns out that the battle between good vs evil, fought for the greater good, may be the primary villain.

What compels the conscience is no longer the choice between what is right over what is easy. The only choice, embodied by Newt Scamander, is to save, and heal. Newt is our new conscience in the wizarding world. He never sacrifices anyone, and does his best to rescue those tossed aside in the bigger war, especially creatures.

Compassion for the Villain

J.K. Rowling is an expert at pulling her readers into emotionally shocking climaxes of battling good vs evil. She has written many horrifying passages in her Harry Potter books in which awful things happen to beloved characters. But in all seven of her Harry Potter books, she never approached the kind of raw damage inflicted on an innocent character as she did in Fantastic Beasts.  This came to the forefront of our minds with the character of Credence Barebone.

Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016). Image courtesy of Warner Brothers

And in Credence, the concept of light vs dark has vanished, because both are working against him, from within and without. Credence is profoundly innocent and damaged, and he is also the monster.

Heroes as the Danger

We are accustomed to the aurors in Harry Potter being the pinnacle heroes in the fight against the Dark Arts. It is the job that Gryffindors like Harry and Ron strive for. When aurors apparate into a scene of danger, we believe that they will save the day.

They often aim the spell-light of their wands in unison at Dementors, at Death Eaters, at monsters. It beautifully shows how the aurors are the light that fights the dark. These are the two sides, and we have faith that light will win in the end.

But to Credence, even the aurors are a threat. It isn’t that the aurors in Fantastic Beasts are evil. It is that they follow orders and their duty lies in protecting their larger world, even if it means sacrificing others.

Compassion is key

For Newt, compassion is not an ideal. He lives it. But this is what makes his role in this story transformational. Newt has experienced otherwise good people being willing to sacrifice others, including magical creatures, in the wizarding fight against darkness and exposure. He has seen caring people place compassion aside for a sense of duty to the larger wizarding world, acting in the best tradition of light vs dark. And Newt refuses to comply.

In Graves’ office, dark and light are literally right before Newt’s eyes. Grindelwald, who wants the wizarding world to come out of the shadows, is present in his guise as Graves the auror, who wants to keep the wizarding world hidden. For Newt, in this moment, Graves the auror is the immediate threat. And the fact that he has been arrested to safeguard the greater good can’t be any comfort.

Newt and Graves are both pretending that only the dark wizards would kill for the greater good. But within moments, Graves proves how ruthless the “light” side is, when he orders Tina and Newt’s execution for exposing the magical world.

It was Grindelwald giving the order, but the executioners listened to Graves. Both sides have disconnected their souls from what matters, from the people they are actually fighting for.

Might vs Right as the Villain

We can say that Grindelwald is the main villain, or Credence, since his Obscurus is what’s threatening the exposure of the wizarding world. But the power that Grindelwald had while posing as an auror was a threat in this story only because the wizarding world of MACUSA already gave Grindelwald room to function.

They were ready to take orders unquestioningly from authorities. Graves wants Tina and Newt executed? The executioners lead them right off to the death chamber. Madame Picquery orders the aurors to kill the Obscurus, with what is assumed to be a child at its heart? They kill it.

This is not a world that Newt can ever reconcile. He operates for the “lesser” good, the good of each person, both creature and human, which is really what all the fighting and concealment is suppose to be for.

To see the gulf between Newt’s and Dumbledore’s focus of compassion, remember this passage from Order of the Phoenix, when Dumbledore is explaining to Harry why he has not told Harry about the connection between him and Voldemort:

"“I defy anyone who has watched you as I have — and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined — not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands.”"

Priorities

It seems as though Dumbledore is placing the priority on Harry’s own individual life and happiness. But he is actually, in a way, apologizing for it. In Dumbledore’s mind, all of those “nameless, faceless people and creatures” who could be killed in the future were much more important than Harry’s own life. And Dumbledore is astonished that he would have developed feelings to protect Harry over his mission to destroy Voldemort.

We can see that Dumbledore may have been troubled by his own lack of personal caring since he was 18 years old. In the letter he wrote to Grindelwald shortly before Ariana’s death, he seems to be talking himself into belief that “the greater good” has greater virtue than the personal well-being of others.

Dumbledore spent his entire adult life tormented by his sister’s death, and struggling with the harm he knew would come to individual people in the name of the greater good. Ariana’s death did change him. He was shocked into realizing that he couldn’t be trusted with power. As he told Harry, he tucked himself away in Hogwarts, hiding from the fear of his own power, afraid of misusing it.

This isn’t the Dumbledore we know, who uses his power as he sees fit to fight the Dark. This period while he was hiding from himself, refusing to confront Grindelwald, is as vulnerable as we will ever see him.

Newt as Rescuer

When was Dumbledore’s turning point? The battle with Grindelwald wouldn’t have, in itself, brought his soul out of hiding. We know now that Dumbledore will be in the future Fantastic Beasts films, during the war with Grindelwald. There are already subtle signs that Newt may not have been just a former student of Dumbledore’s, but may be working with Dumbledore as a colleague or spy. If that is so, he would expect Newt to operate as most of the wizarding world does, performing unpleasant tasks, possibly harming others, for the greater good.

But Newt has proven that he will not perform that kind of service for Dumbledore. Newt is not just a rescuer of the innocent, he rescues anybody in need, every vulnerable creature or human, even dark, rampaging clouds of grief that no one has yet seen as redeemable.

Newt isn’t going to sacrifice Credence’s shattered soul for the greater good. He wants to heal it. Dumbledore may have recognized in Newt the kind of compassion that would have wanted to heal Ariana, and who could put his own tormented soul back together.

Next: The importance of what family means to us and the Harry Potter series

And this may be why, in his later years, Dumbledore did his best, in his own flawed way, to bring home the lost, to give even the worst people second chances.