Only Connect Viewers Spotted A Tiny Problem With This Harry Potter Question — And It Put The Show’s ‘Correct’ Answer Under Fire

Only Connect is famous for questions that leave viewers wondering how anyone could possibly find the connection.

But on this occasion, fans were baffled for a completely different reason.

A Harry Potter-themed sequence during the show’s semi-finals appeared to lead contestants towards the cast of the 2008 film In Bruges. Host Victoria Coren Mitchell explained the connection after neither team managed to fully unravel it.

There was just one problem.

Viewers quickly argued that one of the key clues did not technically work — because the actor at the centre of it did not actually play the character the programme said he did.

Four Strange Harry Potter Clues

The puzzle appeared during the first round and initially seemed firmly rooted in the Wizarding World.

Contestants were given a series of increasingly specific statements.

The first said: “Grindelwald is the younger of the two main characters.”

Next came: “Fleur Delacour dates Grindelwald.”

The third clue stated: “Mad-Eye Moody is the older of the main characters.”

Finally, contestants saw: “Lord Voldemort is the boss of Grindelwald and Mad-Eye Moody.”

On the surface, the statements made little sense within the Harry Potter universe.

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

The Connection Was ‘In Bruges’

The intended answer was eventually revealed as “Wizarding World actors in In Bruges.”

Victoria began explaining how the characters connected to performers from the acclaimed 2008 film.

She identified Colin Farrell with Grindelwald and Clémence Poésy with Fleur Delacour before explaining that the performers had appeared in In Bruges.

The remaining connections appeared to complete the pattern.

Brendan Gleeson, known for playing Mad-Eye Moody in the Harry Potter films, played Ken Daley in In Bruges.

Ralph Fiennes, who portrayed Lord Voldemort, appeared as Harry Waters, the boss of Farrell and Gleeson’s characters.

Poésy, meanwhile, played Chloe Villette, who becomes romantically involved with Farrell’s Ray.

It looked like a neat crossover between two completely different fictional worlds.

But viewers immediately focused on the Grindelwald clue.

Fans Challenged The Colin Farrell Connection

After the episode aired, viewers took to social media to argue that describing Colin Farrell simply as Grindelwald was inaccurate.

Farrell appeared in 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as Percival Graves.

However, the film ultimately reveals that Graves is actually Gellert Grindelwald in disguise.

At the end of the movie, Newt Scamander exposes the deception and Farrell’s appearance transforms into Johnny Depp, revealing Grindelwald’s true identity.

That distinction became the centre of the complaints.

One viewer wrote: “Hello #onlyconnect Colin Farrell actually played the character of Lord Percival Graves, who Grindelwald was disguised as.

“Grindelwald himself was played by Johnny Depp and then later Mads Mikkelsen. Sorry to call you out in public like this.”

Another was even less forgiving, arguing that Farrell played a disguised version of the character under a different name and therefore should not simply have been identified as Grindelwald.

‘Question Is Wrong’

Other viewers made the same point.

“The Harry Potter/In Bruges question on #onlyconnect would’ve been clever if Colin Farrell had actually played Grindelwald? But he didn’t,” one wrote.

Another agreed that the technical distinction undermined the clue, writing: “Technically, Colin Farrell does not play Grindelwald. It’s Johnny Depp or Mads Mikkelsen. Question is wrong.”

The controversy came down to how strictly the character should be defined.

Farrell’s Percival Graves is eventually revealed to be Grindelwald operating under a disguise, making the intended connection understandable.

But viewers argued that presenting Farrell straightforwardly as the actor who “plays Grindelwald” ignored the deliberate identity twist at the centre of the film.

And on a programme built around extraordinarily precise connections, that distinction was enough to attract attention.

Why Colin Farrell Was The Crucial Link

The reason Farrell mattered so much was that he was essential to connecting the Wizarding World clues with In Bruges.

In Martin McDonagh’s 2008 film, Farrell stars as Ray alongside Brendan Gleeson as Ken.

The two characters are hitmen sent to Bruges by their boss.

That boss, Harry, is played by Ralph Fiennes.

Clémence Poésy appears as Chloe, Ray’s romantic interest.

That produces the intended set of connections:

Farrell links to the disguised Grindelwald/Percival Graves character.

Poésy links to Fleur Delacour.

Gleeson links to Mad-Eye Moody.

Fiennes links to Lord Voldemort.

Their relationships in In Bruges then explain the unusual wording of each clue.

The Other Three Clues Fell Into Place

Once the In Bruges connection was known, the remaining statements became much easier to understand.

“Fleur Delacour dates Grindelwald” referred not literally to those Harry Potter characters, but to Poésy’s Chloe dating Farrell’s Ray.

“Mad-Eye Moody is the older of the main characters” referred to Gleeson’s Ken being the older member of the central pair.

And “Lord Voldemort is the boss of Grindelwald and Mad-Eye Moody” pointed to Fiennes playing the boss of Farrell and Gleeson’s characters.

It was the kind of lateral-thinking switch that Only Connect regularly demands.

Instead of connecting fictional characters to one another, contestants needed to jump from the characters to their actors and then into an entirely different movie.

Fantastic Beasts Complicated The Answer

The first Fantastic Beasts movie was released in 2016 and takes place decades before the main Harry Potter story.

Farrell’s Percival Graves initially appears to be the Director of Magical Security at the Magical Congress of the United States of America.

Only later does the film reveal the deception surrounding his identity.

Johnny Depp appears as Grindelwald following the reveal.

The role later changed hands again, with Mads Mikkelsen taking over as Grindelwald.

That complicated history explains why viewers objected so strongly to Farrell being presented without qualification as Grindelwald.

The intended logic was visible, but some fans believed the wording needed to be much more precise.

A Particularly Awkward Mistake For ‘Only Connect’

For many programmes, the distinction might have passed without much attention.

For Only Connect, precision is part of the appeal.

Contestants are routinely expected to notice tiny differences in wording, obscure associations and connections that can depend on a single detail.

That made viewers especially eager to scrutinize the programme’s own logic.

The puzzle itself had an inventive idea at its centre: take four Wizarding World characters, replace them mentally with the performers associated with those roles, and discover that their relationships describe In Bruges.

Three of the connections fitted neatly.

The fourth produced an argument.

And instead of viewers debating whether the question was simply too difficult, many found themselves debating whether its supposedly correct answer was correct enough in the first place.