JK Rowling Spoiled the Credence Twist in 'Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald' Years Ago

Following the success of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, along with the promising promotion and trailers for the sequel, The Crimes of Grindelwald was highly-anticipated to say the least. However, the film generally disappointed Potterheads, with many finding the ending a bit abrupt and not explained well enough. If you have not seen The Crimes of Grindelwald and plan to, beware of major spoilers ahead.

The ending of The Crimes of Grindelwald saw Credence Barebone find out, thanks to Grindelwald, that he was in fact Aurelius Dumbledore. Viewers were probably more shocked than Credence was, confused as to where that plotline even came from. Well, according to Hypable, it seems JK Rowling actually had it planned for some time.

The site points out how on Rowling’s “Answers” page from her official website, there is a banner which includes the Loeb Classical Library Marcus Aurelius—yes, like Aurelius Dumbledore. So literally, Rowling dropped a major spoiler right next to the words “Answers.” Of course, we never would’ve realized until after the sequel was released. Clever, very clever.

Hypable also did a search on when exactly this spoiler was added to Rowling’s site, finding it was uploaded in Oct. 2016. We were then introduced to Credence in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in Nov. 2016. This makes it almost obvious that the acclaimed author had this twist in mind before the first film was released, at the very least.

But not all fans are buying it: some true Potter obsessives have pointed out how the timeline doesn't make sense—which means that either Rowling decided to break canon or Grindelwald is lying. Given the author revealed she is done writing Fantastic Beasts 3, it looks like we won't have to wait too long to find out.

This article also appears on Mental Floss.