download the new version for apple Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

There are still plenty of contemporary narratives that treat nonhuman antagonists as monstrous, especially when these creatures emerge not from our own world but from outer space. Yet it would be false to think that somehow the modern world is simply more humane in its treatment of monsters. We learn, along with Harry and Newt, that often the most monstrous acts are performed by other humans.

When we enter this world, we explore the boundary between human and beast, asking ourselves where true monstrosity lies. The world of Harry Potter and Newt Scamander contains not just dragons, phoenixes and hippogriffs, but also beings that are not so different from humans, such as house elves, merpeople and centaurs. If evil exists, it is in the harm that humanity inflicts upon itself and the world. In these increasingly secular times, the devil, once a malevolent force seeking the downfall of humanity, is often seen as nothing more than a metaphor, a symbol of our own darker impulses. This transformation may also be the result of our changing perception of evil. Heroes of Greek and Roman mythology also confront monsters: Theseus fights the minotaur, who resembles a man with the head of bull Bellerophon confronts the fire-breathing chimera, which possesses the head of lion, the hindquarters of a snake or dragon, and the body of a goat Hercules defeats the seven-headed hydra, just one of the many beasts he encounters during his 12 labours. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, written in Mesopotamia 4,000 years ago, the eponymous hero and his friend Enkidu must fight the Bull of Heaven, who has been unleashed upon the city of Uruk by the goddess Ishtar. Stories involving fantastic beasts are some of the oldest narratives we possess, but the threat posed by the beast is usually perceived as being genuine. When some of his specimens escape into a city brimming over with tensions between the magical and non-magical communities, Newt must find them before they come to harm at the hands of those who perceive them as a threat. A “magizoologist”, he studies and, where necessary, rescues these fantastic creatures. The latest instalment in the Harry Potter franchise, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, sees wizard Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) entering New York in 1926, smuggling a briefcase full of exotic animals through customs.

Download the new version for apple Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them