Queenie Goldstein

Queenie Goldstein was an American witch, a Half-blood, and a student of Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. One of her grandparents was likely a No-Maj (Muggle). She was sorted into the Pukwudgie house. She had an older sister, the MACUSA Auror Porpentina Goldstein, and a friend and the sister-in-law of the famed Magizoologist Newt Scamander. Queenie Goldstein married Jacob Kowalski, who was a No-Maj (Muggle) and was one of the most important characters in the Harry Potter spin-off movie series Fantastic Beasts. She was an accomplished Legilimens by birth.

Queenie Goldstein appears in all three of the Fantastic Beasts movies, and at the end of the second movie Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, she decides to follow Gellert Grindelwald. However, she returns to support Albus Dumbledore and exposes Grindelwald’s scheme of becoming the Supreme Mugwump to all of the wizarding world.

The role of Queenie Goldstein was played by the American actress and singer Alison Sudol. Also, Anthony Goldstein, who appears in the Harry Potter series, is believed to be a descendant or distant relative of Queenie by many Harry Potter fans.

Early Life

Queenie Goldstein was born on 6 January 1903 in the United States of America. She had an older sister Tina Goldstein. Their parents died when they were young due to Dragon Pox. Therefore, the two sisters grew up together and were very close to each other. Tina and Queenie eventually got recruited into Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Queenie was a member of the Pukwudgie house. They graduated from Ilvermorny after studying there for around seven years. They both got jobs at the Magical Congress of the United States of America. 

While Tina became an Auror at the MACUSA, Queenie got a desk job in the Wand Permit Office of MACUSA. She was considered a beautiful woman. Her gifted Legilimency skills and beauty implied people around her would do anything she wanted. For example, Abernathy, her boss, lets her leave with a suitcase carrying Tina, Newt, and Jacob without further inspection.

Legilimency

Queenie Goldstein was a very skilled Legilimens and could read the thoughts of almost anybody she was in contact with. However, since she was American, she had once mentioned that it is difficult to read the minds of British people due to their accents. This confirmed that the language spoken influenced her Legilimency skills quite strongly.

She read the minds of almost everybody she met, including Newt Scamander and Jacob Kowalski, who arrived with her sister Tina at their apartment at 679 West 24th Street in New York City. She also read Newt’s mind when they talked about Ilvermorny and Hogwarts and later when he brought up Leta Lestrange. She understood Newt and claimed that “she was a taker, you need a giver” about Leta. However, she was unsuccessful in figuring out that Percival Graves was the Dark Wizard Gellert Grindelwald.

Queenie Goldstein would use her Legilimency skills quite frequently. She used it to blackmail the Obliviator Sam by threatening to reveal his affair with a co-worker to his wife. After she joined Grindelwald’s side, she had the job of informing Grindelwald constantly about what Credence Barebone was thinking.

Appearances in the Harry Potter Universe

Queenie Goldstein first appeared in the Harry Potter universe when Tina Goldstein introduced her to Newt Scamander and Jacob Kowalski. Queenie was very amused by Jacob because he was the first No-Maj she had a long and decent conversation with. However, she was disappointed when she found out that Newt and Jacob had abruptly left as she had made hot cocoa.

However, Tina eventually manages to catch hold of Newt and Jacob inside the suitcase of Newt after he successfully retrieves several magical creatures back into the suitcase. However, Percival Graves sentenced Tina and Newt to death. They almost get killed before Newt saves himself and Tina. Queenie blackmailed the Obliviator Sam, freed Jacob from getting obliviated, and carried Jacob, Tina, and Newt outside the MACUSA building in the suitcase.

The four of them later tried to reason with Credence Barebone. They attempted to get him back to human form as he was already an Obscurial. However, Percival Graves attacked him. Eventually, the Aurors from MACUSA attacked him as well, and he turned into dust. Percival Graves was revealed to be Gellert Grindelwald in disguise.

In the second movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Queenie Goldstein uses an enchantment to convince Jacob to marry her, something that he was hesitant about because of the Rappaport’s law as it did not allow for a union between a No-Maj and a member of the magical community. Newt convinced her to remove the enchantment. It eventually led to her storming out of the place.

At the end of this movie, Queenie Goldstein, to the surprise of everyone present, joins Gellert Grindelwald’s side after he convinces her that he can help her marry anyone she wants. Grindelwald uses her loyalty to find out more about Credence Barebone after Grindelwald tells the latter that his surname is Dumbledore and his name is Aurelius Dumbledore.

In the third movie Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, Grindelwald told Queenie to figure out what Credence Barebone was thinking. However, she eventually realizes that Grindelwald, despite claiming to make the world of magic a better place, is using everybody for his gain and, therefore, reveals to the world his plot to cheat his way into becoming the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards.

Legilimency, Queenie, and Snape

Queenie Goldstein was a very accomplished Legilimens, but, more importantly, she had acquired this skill by birth, which made her a natural Legilimens. However, in the case of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series, who was also a very skilled Legilimens, he acquired this skill much later and this made it very different from Queenie’s abilities as Snape had to learn the skill from scratch.

As seen in books like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Snape’s abilities are more influenced by the abilities he picked up over time than by natural talent. In comparison, Queenie could directly hear the thoughts of people as is portrayed in the Fantastic Beasts movies. Snape’s abilities were shown mostly as his ability to read someone, much like a mentalist in the Muggle world, by cold reading, hot reading, and employing several similar skills in this task.

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