Talk: Percival Graves's wand

Mother of pearl inlay?

Does anyone know where the description of it having mother-of-pearl inlay began? I see it repeated it constantly, but it is not from the Pottermore article, or The Case of Beasts: Explore the Film Wizardry of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and it doesn't match the wand's actual appearance. Looking through the history of the article, I see when it was introduced but the statement was never sourced. Where did this description and resulting speculation come from? --Ironyak1 (talk) 02:31, January 11, 2017 (UTC)

As I recall it was from a news article, I think that it was This one, though I'm not sure - the original may have been taken down. I do remember it had no citations, just some rather blurry images and a lot of speculation and since then it's been regurgitated even on photos of the prop wand that clearly have no inlay. Having looked at my own books, I can't find anything - in concept art, pictures of props, or film stills - to back up the story of "mother of pearl inlay", it seems to me people saw the silver banding in a blurred shot and jumped to conclusions? Everything else about the wand - its absurd length in the concept art, the fact the prop is very long, suggests to me it's a Quintana, not a Jonker, but that is just personal speculation.

Estrildis (talk) 09:01, January 11, 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for checking into it - glad to hear that it doesn't show up in any of the sources you have. What's strange is that if you look at the history of this article the info was added in this revision on 7 August 2016, over two months before that news article, and it shows up on Percival Graves article in this revision on 11 March 2016! Apparently speculation began early on this one and took on a life of its own. Seems like a good lesson in removing speculation and unsourced information right away. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 17:53, January 11, 2017 (UTC)

No problem! I have quite a few of the art books and I double checked all of it for wand speculation blog I run when I wanted to do Graves'. And yeah, speculation began way before the film was even out, which is. Suspect. The tendency of people to take unsourced speculation as canon so readily is a constant problem, I find. Glad to be a help!

Estrildis (talk) 17:59, January 11, 2017 (UTC)

Graves' vs Graves's

Given the back and forth name changes that've happened over the years, and for the benefit of future editors, we probably want to document a reasoning for using Graves' or Graves's.

While grammatically there appears to be some flexibility on whether to add ' or 's to names ending in s in both UK and US English allowing for both forms to be correct, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay has many examples of "Graves's" such as, "Graves’s tone softens" (Scene 43), "GRAVES’S OFFICE" (Scene 70), and "Graves’s wand flies into Tina’s hand" (Scene 116). "Graves's" appears to be used in both the UK 1st Edition (Little, Brown/Hachette UK) and the US 1st Edition (Levine/Scholastic) that I now have. I would suggest we stick with this "Graves's" format over the "Graves'" format used in The Case of Beasts: Explore the Film Wizardry of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that I mentioned a while back in my renaming reasoning.

If someone has a later version (perhaps the Pottermore Publishing one?) that does or doesn't use "Graves's" please share as that would be a tidbit of revision trivia to consider and discuss. Thoughts? --Ironyak1 (talk) 23:46, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

The reasoning for the previous title of "Percival Graves' wand" was "This name appears in The Case of Beasts", which is incorrect. All The Case of Beasts says is "Graves' wand", and by that logic we should rename the other wands that appear in that source to "Newt's wand" etc, which is obviously not going to happen because ordinary wands have never been known to have non-conjectural names like this. Furthermore, Pottermore/WizardingWorld, an arguably higher canon source than The Case of Beasts, calls it "Graves's wand" anyway. -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  23:55, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

I think you might want to reread what I wrote - first tier Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay in both UK and US versions uses Graves's including "Graves's wand". That's good enough reason for everyone, yes? Or does someone have a later version of FB|S that revises this? Thanks --Ironyak1 (talk) 00:01, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi. To clarify my edit, I was removing {{SicTitle}} because the template stated that the article title was grammatically incorrect in BrE. Graves' is acceptable in BrE just as much as Graves's (this is a matter of personal preference), so this template's usage was not entirely correct. I agree with you that Graves's is the more acceptable article title based on its commonness throughout FB media. Castlemore (talk) 02:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks - both forms being grammatically correct was my understanding as well given the grammar guides I checked so wanted to make it clear for future editors why one form was chosen over the other. Unless someone has a later version of FB|S that changes this convention, I think we're set for now. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 02:12, 6 November 2023 (UTC)