You can't judge a book by its cover… or a beast by its fangs. Okay, maybe you can judge a beast by its fangs, actually.
J.K. Rowling goes to a lot of trouble to describe each and every magical creature in Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them to give us an idea exactly what it looks like. Sometimes its looks tell us to stay away—big, bad fire breathing dragons are a no-no. Other times, appearances are deceiving—you probably don't want to get to close to the kelpies no matter how pretty they look.
So, appearances can tell you a lot about a fantastic beast, but they're clearly not the whole story.
Questions About Appearances
- Why do you think it took so long for wizards to figure out that it wasn't what creatures looked like, walked like, or talked like that made them beings or beasts?
- Why do you think dragons from different regions developed different appearances? What would be the point of having different scales and tails and fire-breathing abilities?
- Muggles love unicorns and fairies, but only one of them actually lives up to the hype in the wizarding world. What do you think gets lost in translation?