This blog was just meant to be a place where I would share Eddie-related posts I’d seen around Tumblr. I bent my own rule and felt compelled to write something myself (in regards to the hate he was getting from that BS Daily Mail article -_-... You can find that post here if you’re interested). I wasn’t expecting the response I got, so I feel comfortable enough to start sharing my thoughts on other things, like characters and headcanons and such.
So I have this headcanon for Newt. It took a while for me to figure out how to explain it, but I want to share it anyway. Bear with me; I tend to have my points jump all over the place and take forever. I’m going to point out instances and then explain my conclusion.
I want to start with moments in Crimes of Grindelwald, since that’s where my headcanon sparked. When Newt meets Leta in the Ministry, he has no idea why she’s there.
It doesn’t look like it’s her first day on the job. We would think that Theseus might have at least mentioned in passing somewhere that Leta works there, right? Or when they were all together for his book signing? And then further along in the scene she mentions that they keep inviting Newt over and he keeps declining. For whatever reason, Newt really doesn’t want to be around them… or maybe just around her. Also in this scene, Leta mentions causing a pretty big disturbance in school so that she could spend a detention with Newt. He looks confused and acts like he is clueless to what she’s talking about. I don’t know about you, but I think I’d remember if my friend set off a huge bomb of excrement just to hang out with me.
Near the end of the film, Newt tries to console her over the loss of her brother and tell her not to blame herself. And then she drops one heck of a bomb.
And after Grindelwald’s rally, she drops another bomb before sacrificing herself. (Can she stop dropping bombs around this poor boy, dung or verbal or otherwise, please?)
And she had also etched their initials together in her desk at Hogwarts... so don’t tell me that they weren’t **more** than friends before he was expelled.
And let’s not forget when Queenie and Jacob first show up at Newt’s flat. Newt’s completely confused because Jacob should have been obliviated at the end of the first film (even though we knew that wasn’t going to take when we saw the bakery scene). When Jacob says it didn’t work, you would think Newt would have been immediately elated to have his best friend back. He looks panicked.
Now let me take it back to the first film. When Queenie first asks about the photograph in the shed, Newt looks slightly lost in thought and tries to brush it away. He clearly doesn’t want to think about her. Once Queenie says Leta’s name, he snaps out of his fog and looks almost panicky. He doesn’t want her poking around at memories of Leta. And for what I feel like the only time in the film, he gets stern as hell asking Queenie twice to stay out of his head. As far as we know, it’s not like he has embarrassing or scandalous memories of the two of them. Why would he panic?
At the end of the film when he’s saying goodbye to Tina, she asks about Leta. His reaction is to ask who she’s talking about.
That reaction is… odd, to say the least. Tina doesn’t describe her by adding anything about who she is. She refers to her as the picture he carries. He immediately responds that he has no idea. And he wouldn’t lie about that. I honestly don’t think Newt is capable of lying. It’s also a bit odd that he says he *thinks* he’s changed, as if he’s not sure.
Now here’s my actual point. (thank you if you’ve read this far…) When Newt takes Jacob into the shed to take care of the murtlap bite and stands there squeezing venom out of his little swooping evil, he tells Jacob about experimenting with its obliviative properties and trying to erase bad or painful memories.
I think he might have experimented with this on himself. I’ll let you think about that for a minute… Now that you read my point, think back to all of the instances I mentioned. Newt couldn’t remember a memory of him and Leta being close or her doing something to be with him. If you loved someone, and they hurt you, I know plenty of people who wouldn’t want to remember times where they showed affection. It would be too painful to think about. He doesn’t want to be around her and his brother together. Leta basically flat-out stated in the tomb that he loved her at some point in time and he looked miserable about it. He thought it was hilarious – most likely in the sarcastic non-funny sense – for him to be the “best man” at her wedding. I think that Newt was worried Queenie would peer too far into his mind and end up pulling out the repressed memories he’d hidden about Leta and undo everything he did to protect himself. (I believe that obliviating someone doesn’t erase memories, but hides them away like repressed memories) And I felt that even stronger when Queenie showed up with Jacob and told Newt the obliviation didn’t take. When Newt looked panicked, I feel it looks like he was thinking, “If Queenie could undo what the potion did to him, then it’s absolutely possible to do it to me.” And in the cemetery when he hugged Theseus, I don’t think he was simply upset for his brother. Leta said, “I love you,” and directed it at them both. And I will bet that her saying that to Newt may have triggered a whole mess of memories and feelings to come right back, much like how certain images or phrases can trigger repressed memories. And I think that messed him up to the point where it threw him out of his personal comfort zone and he didn’t know how to react, so he chose to copy what his brother would do… which is something one on the spectrum would do, but that’s a whole ‘nother post from me down the road.
So yeah, that’s my headcanon. Newt said he was studying the swooping evil. I think part of that studying was experimenting with the venom on himself. I don’t think he’d ask another person to be his experiment. He’d never want to harm someone, even by accident. He was in love with Leta and it really broke him when she let him take the blame for her mistake in school and get expelled. And then she ends up dating his brother? And then getting engaged to his brother? Yikes… if you were Newt, wouldn’t you want all of that obliviated from your mind too? My poor little broken-hearted Hufflepuff.
Thoughts? Maybe my imagination runs a little wild. These thoughts are only my opinions, not facts. :)
