Only Connect Viewers Cry Foul Over ‘Wrong’ Harry Potter Question — But One Fantastic Beasts Detail Could Prove the BBC Quiz Was Right All Along

Only Connect is famous for questions so difficult that viewers are often pleased simply to understand them after Victoria Coren Mitchell explains the answer.

But one semi-final puzzle produced a very different reaction.

This time, viewers weren’t complaining that the connection was impossibly obscure.

They were arguing that the question itself might be wrong.

The controversy centered on four clues involving familiar characters from the Wizarding World, including Grindelwald, Fleur Delacour, Mad-Eye Moody and Lord Voldemort.

When the connection was finally revealed, some Harry Potter fans immediately spotted what they believed was a major problem.

Yet one small detail from Fantastic Beasts made the argument considerably more complicated.

Four strange Wizarding World clues

The Thrifters and the Suncatchers were battling for a place in the final when they encountered the unusual connection.

They were given four statements:

Grindelwald is the younger of the two main characters.

Fleur Delacour dates Grindelwald.

Mad-Eye Moody is the older of the main characters.

Lord Voldemort is the boss of Grindelwald and Mad-Eye Moody.

Taken literally within the Harry Potter universe, the statements appeared bizarre.

The contestants needed to stop thinking about the fictional characters themselves and instead identify the actors associated with them.

The answer was eventually revealed as:

Wizarding World actors in In Bruges.

That was when the disagreement started.

The connection pointed toward four actors

The clues were designed to connect Wizarding World performers with their roles and relationships in In Bruges.

The problem viewers identified involved Colin Farrell.

Farrell appeared in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as Percival Graves.

But the character was ultimately revealed to be Gellert Grindelwald in disguise.

That distinction immediately became the focus of the debate.

One viewer argued that the clue was wrong because Farrell played a disguised version of Grindelwald under a different character name, while Johnny Depp and Mads Mikkelsen were the actors more directly associated with playing Grindelwald.

Another viewer agreed, writing: “Technically, Colin Farrell does not play Grindelwald.”

A third said the connection would have been clever “if Colin Farrell had actually played Grindelwald.”

For some fans, that technicality was enough to undermine the entire clue.

But there was another way to interpret it

Not everyone agreed that Only Connect had made a mistake.

Farrell’s Percival Graves is eventually revealed to be Grindelwald using a disguise.

That meant viewers could argue that Farrell was, in effect, portraying Grindelwald while the character was masquerading as someone else.

Under that interpretation, the clue still works.

The distinction produced exactly the sort of debate that Only Connect questions can generate: does an actor count as playing a character if the audience initially believes he is portraying somebody else?

For some viewers, absolutely not.

For others, the reveal at the end of Fantastic Beasts was enough to make the connection legitimate.

One fan was far more impressed than annoyed, calling it a contender for one of their favorite Only Connect questions and praising the unexpected crossover.

The quiz wasn’t finished with the teams yet

The disputed Wizarding World connection wasn’t the only drama of the semi-final.

The Thrifters and Suncatchers remained locked in an extremely close contest.

After the anagram round, the teams were level on 20 points.

That forced the episode into a tie-break, where only the captains were allowed to answer.

With a place in the grand final at stake, the Thrifters eventually prevailed.

The victory sent them through to the final, while the Suncatchers moved into the third-place playoff.

Yet for many viewers, the result wasn’t the only talking point.

The Grindelwald clue had managed something unusual even by Only Connect standards.

Instead of leaving people wondering how anyone could possibly have found the answer, it left them arguing over whether the answer should have counted in the first place.