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J.K. Rowling defends the backlash surrounding Nagini's casting

🐍🐍🐍🐍 - by Bianca Mastroianni
  • 28 Sep 2018
J.K. Rowling defends the backlash surrounding Nagini's casting

With the final trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, we discovered that Nagini, Voldemort's most loyal sidekick and horcrux, actually used to be a witch.

It also unveiled to fans finally who Korean actress Claudia Kim would be playing.

However... some fans were not happy that Nagini was being portrayed as an Asian woman, as they found it racist, calling Nagini a white man's "pet".

The Headless HorseVinh 💀 on Twitter

The backlash has been quite excessive, so J.K. Rowling herself has taken to Twitter to defend her decision.

"The Naga are snake-like mythical creatures of Indonesian mythology, hence the name ‘Nagini.’ They are sometimes depicted as winged, sometimes as half-human, half-snake. Indonesia comprises a few hundred ethnic groups, including Javanese, Chinese and Betawi. Have a lovely day 🐍" she wrote. 

Boom.

J.K. Rowling on Twitter

Claudia herself is incredibly excited to play the role of Nagini, telling Entertainment Weekly that she is happy to play the "wonderful and vulnerable woman". 

"It will be so interesting to see another side of Nagini," she continued. "You’ve only seen her as a Horcrux. In this, she’s a wonderful and vulnerable woman who wants to live. She wants to stay a human being and I think that’s a wonderful contrast to the character."

We couldn't agree more!

Bianca Mastroianni
Bianca Mastroianni
Deputy Digital Content Manager | Entertainment & Family

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