A software engineer has discovered what are presumed to be the four houses of Ilvermorny, the American version of Hogwarts.
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Writing on Reddit under the username Tigerc10, amateur sleuth Federico Ian Cervantez says he stumbled across the names while scouring the source code of Pottermore’s Ilvermorny page.
Directed by David Yates and starring Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Jon Voight, Gemma Chan, Ron Perlman, and Ezra Miller, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is scheduled to hit United Kingdom and USA cinemas on November 18, 2016.
The Thunderbird is described as a “very large bird, capable of generating storms and thunder as it flies”, while the Horned Serpent is described as a “dragon-like serpent with horns and long teeth”.
Every Harry Potter fan has a house they claim as their own. “We will release and confirm new information about Ilvermorny in the near future”.
Although some of those names may sound unpronounceable and plucked from thin air, they follow in the footsteps of Rowling’s recent Pottermore short stories that took inspiration from real Native American cultures and mythology.
Basically the problem is that the mystical Native thing is played out, and Native Americans are exhausted of being portrayed as magical creatures.
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A wampus cat, for example, is a “creature in American folklore, variously described as some kind of fearsome variation of a cougar”. It was mentioned in Pottermore’s History of Magic in North America as the creature whose hair is the preferred magical material of accomplished wandmaker Johannes Jonker. It’s no surprise, then, that they’re also turning their analytical minds to the upcoming Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The Pukwudgie is said to be “two-to-three feet tall and human-shaped, but with a larger nose, ears, and fingers and smooth, grey sking that sometimes glows. Horned Serpents were major components of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex of North American prehistory”.
