The Fantastic Beasts 3 Detail That Has Harry Potter Fans Scratching Their Heads

The arrival of "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" in theaters marks the end of a four-year gap between Wizarding World projects from Warner Bros. and "Harry Potter" creator J.K. Rowling. The new movie meets Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), Theseus Scamander (Callum Turner), and Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) reuniting with Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) to try to prevent Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) from seizing power over the international wizarding community and launching a war against the non-magical world.

"Fantastic Beasts" continues its globe-trotting ways in the new film too, with characters visiting China, New York City, Berlin, and Bhutan and even making time to stop at Hogsmeade Village and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry throughout its 142-minute running time.

"Secrets of Dumbledore" should give Wizarding World fans plenty to dissect while Warner Bros. works out whatever might come next for the Wizarding World property; we finally learn more about Credence's (Ezra Miller) heritage in the new movie, as well as the long-awaited on-screen confirmation that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were romantically intertwined when they first met as young men in Godric's Hollow.

Like with many of the "Harry Potter" film adaptations, though, some fans are noticing details that don't seem to line up too well with established facts from the original book series. Some fans have pointed out that a notable piece of Grindelwald's iconography appears to be largely missing throughout the film, despite the fact that the character spends time campaigning for something of a political office in the movie.

"Harry Potter" fans on Reddit noticed that the new "Fantastic Beasts" movie makes little use of the Deathly Hallows symbol. In "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," Viktor Krum (Stanislav Yanevski) tells Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) that Grindelwald adopted the Deathly Hallows symbol as his own while a student at Durmstrang. Krum strongly implies that even decades after Grindelwald's defeat, many wizards primarily recognize the symbol as a show of support for the Dark wizard.

The first two "Fantastic Beasts" entries use the symbol prominently; Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) even gives Credence a necklace with the symbol in the first movie. In the new movie, the Deathly Hallows symbol does not appear often, with little reference to their existence beyond Grindelwald's possession of the Elder Wand.

Redditor u/Pristine_Nothing noted that Grindelwald's use of the Deathly Hallows symbol seemingly disappears in the film, even though there is a political symbol Grindelwald's supporters appear to use during rallies concerning the international wizarding election. "But in this movie, Grindelwald has a nice, geometric, political symbol that his followers shoot up in green," they wrote. "And it is very much not the Hallows symbol."

Some fans wondered whether Warner Bros. does not want to use marketable merchandise as quasi-fascist symbolism in its own movies, with Redditor u/LiquidAether noting that the "Fantastic Beasts" movies play fairly loosely with established lore from the original "Harry Potter" books anyway. "I'm pretty sure WB looked at all that [D]eathly [H]allows merch and said 'we're gonna get some blowback if we point out it's a magic swastika,'" wrote u/eden_sc2.