Despite a lot of praise, the new Harry Potter trailer has fans concerned – given that it features several moments that never happened in the books. HBO sold the whole series as being more faithful and having more room to develop book-first stories than a series of two hour films. Showrunner Casey Bloys promised “each season will be authentic to the original books,” allowing for a decade of TV with room eight movies never had. Even J.K. Rowling, serving as an executive producer, said HBO’s “commitment to preserving the integrity of my books is important to me.” Fans spent twenty-five years keeping receipts on what the films cut, and somebody was finally fulfilling them.
Then the second Harry Potter trailer dropped with scenes nobody had ever read – and a lot of people lost their minds. What’s got everyone so upset? Before we break that all down here are a few examples of new inventions that are not seen in the first book (for a very specific reason): Ron opens his own letter with his family piled around him and Molly Weasley (Katherine Parkinson) presiding – in the Burrow (a location that isn’t introduced until the second book). The second: Dumbledore (John Lithgow) tells McGonagall (Janet McTeer), “We can’t protect them. We can only prepare them.” Here’s why fans are upset: neither scene is on the page. Neither could be. The Sorcerer’s Stone is written in tight third-person limited, locked to Harry from the first sentence to the last, so Rowling couldn’t have written either moment even if she’d wanted to. Harry wasn’t in the room.
The new additions might be surprising but they speak to what Bloys already said, the show isn’t going to be a shot for shot recreation, it’s going to be “authentic” to the books and there’s a big distinction there. That one rule covers everything HBO has added. Lucius Malfoy (Johnny Flynn) was cast even though he never appears in the first book, where he’s just a name Draco keeps threatening people with. Draco actor, Lox Pratt, indicates you “get to see all the teachers in their little rooms. You get to see Draco at home.” Set accounts even describe a scene in the Gryffindor girls’ dormitory, a room the books established Harry literally cannot walk into. None of that breaks the promise. It is the promise. Warner Bros. Discovery’s JB Perrette said the format lets them “go deeper, and tell more of the story… more of the pieces that you didn’t get to capture in a two hour movie.“
Now look at what the other approach cost. Every grievance this fandom has carried since 2001 is something that was taken away: Peeves, gone. S.P.E.W., gone, and Hermione’s entire political conscience went with it. The Marauders were never explained. Voldemort dies in the book like a regular guy, “feeble and shrunken,” and the movie turns him into epic ash confetti. Then there’s the line, Rowling wrote that Dumbledore asked “Did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire, Harry?” calmly. Michael Gambon, who played movie Dumbledore grabbed him by the collar and yelled it. Twenty-two years later it’s still the first thing a lot of fans will cite to explain how adaptations can go wrong.
Which brings up the thing that should end this argument. HBO cast Peeves. Peter Serafinowicz is playing him and it’ll be the poltergeist’s first screen appearance in franchise history. Rik Mayall reportedly shot the part in 2001 and got cut so thoroughly he spent years telling people about it. The adaptation everyone’s calling unfaithful is the one bringing back the most-mourned cut of the last twenty-five years. Lithgow’s Dumbledore is already being described as warmer and more playful than Gambon’s, which tells you somebody in that room heard the Goblet of Fire complaint and agreed. Authentic, right?
There’s even precedent that additions do not subtract from canon, with an endorsement that’s hard to argue against. Game of Thrones invented the Harrenhal scenes between Arya Stark and Tywin Lannister. Those two never meet in the novels. George R.R. Martin called putting Maisie Williams and Charles Dance in a room together “one of the best things” he watched on that show. Rowling’s in a stronger spot than Martin ever was to take issue with changes – as an executive producer with hands on the scripts. If Ron’s letter were a problem, there’s a good chance she’d be able to get it changed.
Personally, The Marauders is the one that still gets me. The map just shows up. Some kid hands Harry a piece of paper with four nicknames on it and the films never once tell you those were his dad and his dad’s friends, or that three of them became animagi as teenagers so their werewolf pal wouldn’t have to be alone. That’s the emotional engine of the entire third book and it got flattened into a literal prop. Eight hours a season means there’s finally room to sit in those moments instead of sprinting past them.
This version can walk into the Burrow and just stay a while – and that is the whole point.
Harry Potter premieres December 25th on HBO and HBO Max.
