JK ROWLING DEFENDS CASTING ACTRESS AS VOLDEMORT'S SNAKE NAGINI

JK Rowling's Fantastic Beasts movie trailer has been released and some fans are offended by casting an Asian actress as Nagini, Voldemort's snake-like nemesis.

Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series as well as the prequel, Fantastic Beasts: Crimes Of Grindelwald, says she has been hiding the fact that Nagini was a woman turned into a snake due to a curse. Up until now fans believed the character was simply a snake.

Although the snake was killed in the last Harry Potter film, the Fantastic Beast spin-off seemingly brought her back and in the movie, Nagini is played by a South Korean actress Claudia Kim.

Fans took to social media to share their offence that having an Asian actor play the role of the snake. One Twitter user said: "If you don't see anything racist about an Asian woman being the pet of a white man, who is basically magic Hitler, I don't know what to say."

Another said: "jk rowling: "wow I'm so liberal for having Nagini actually be an enslaved Asian woman who has a curse that can only be passed to women!! also, even though Nagini is stolen from South Asian mythology, we cast an east Asian woman!! ha ha hashtag progress :^))))) (sic)"

However, Rowling defended the criticism by stating, "The Naga are snake-like mythical creatures of Indonesian mythology, hence the name ‘Nagini.’ They are sometimes depicted as winged, sometimes as half-human, half-snake. Indonesia comprises a few hundred ethnic groups, including Javanese, Chinese and Betawi. Have a lovely day".

Rowling has, in fact, had to defend the casting of Johnny Depp for the last movie after allegations of domestic violence were made by his ex-wife, Amber Heard.