Fantastic Beasts 2 Ending And Twist EXPLAINED

4. Credence Is Aurelius Dumbledore

Now there's the big one.

Right, so let's be honest, this was silly. It was done as fan-bait of the worst kind, in order to get as big a reaction as possible out of the fanbase and manipulate the conversation on the films in one direction. That's all well and good, but the twist requires a LOT of unpacking.

In fact, it takes a fair bit of explaining.

So, the twist establishes that the last surviving male of the Lestrange family was killed as a child in a nautical disaster (which makes the fact that Bellatrix Lestrange somehow marries a male character (Rodolphus) who is himself the son of a male Lestrange born in 1926 - a full year before the start of The Crimes Of Grindelwald. Apparently, nobody pays any attention to the Lestrange family tree.

ANYWAY, that child was lost, but there's a theory that Credence Barebone is him and his arc in the film focuses on his attempt to discover if this is true. He seemingly confirms it only for the ass-pull twist at the end to reveal that Leta Lestrange actually swapped the Lestrange baby for an unknown baby while aboard the ship that sunk (no idea why she was on the ship with him, nobody ask). Only the baby wasn't actually a nobody, it was Aurelius Dumbledore, Albus and Aberforth's infant brother.

This makes no sense by any established timeline so far, but who the hell cares at this point? What matters is what it means. It means, basically, that Harry Potter's timeline is broken and the Dumbledore family tree that we knew now makes no sense. It also means that Credence has more reason than most to want Albus dead since Grindelwald has told him he wants to kill his own brother.

In effect, Grindelwald uses the secret of his parentage to weaponise him against Dumbledore and this time it's personal. Or something.

Once you start trying to work out who the hell gave birth to Aurelius, it all becomes a mess, but maybe that's intended. Maybe JK Rowling has established inconsistencies to challenge the idea that Grindelwald is even telling the truth to Credence. Maybe it's all genius?!