The upcoming Harry Potter prequel, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, will be showing subtle support of same-sex marriage and human rights.

 

The film takes place in 1920s New York, and follows the adventures of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) in a pre-Harry Potter storyline. The world is not a very progressive place.

 

Scamander complains: “You have rather backwards laws about relations with non-magic people. You’re not meant to befriend them, you can’t marry them, which seems wildly absurd to me.”

 

"My heroes are always people who feel themselves to be set apart, stigmatised or othered," explained author JK Rowling, known for her support of the LGBT community and for eventually outing headmaster Albus Dumbledore as a gay man. "That’s at the heart of most of what I write, and it’s certainly at the heart of this movie.”

 

According to sources, much of the new film will draw parallels between the fight for civil and LGBT rights in the US. There is also the possibility of a young version of Dumbledore making an appearance.

 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them arrives in theaters on November 18 worldwide. You can check out a featurette for the film here.