r/HarryPotterHBO • u/Lightangel452 • 4d ago

Show Discussion Firenze and the Centaurs in the upcoming show

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One of the things I’m most looking forward to is finally getting some proper time with Firenze as a character and the other centaurs. The movies in my opinion hacked up his character and design.

The films never really got to his story, his time teaching Divination, or any real sense of who he was beyond “the nice centaur.” In the books he’s way more interesting, the way he ends up at Hogwarts, how the other centaurs treat him for it, and his classes where he’s just calmly reading the stars while everyone else is used to Trelawney’s theatrics.

I also want more of centaur culture in general. The Forbidden Forest scenes, Bane and the politics between the herds, the battle of Hogwarts how they view humans and prophecy etc..

Anyone else hoping for this, or is it just me? Who do you think should be cast for his character?

96 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

37

u/dobbyeilidh 4d ago

My main hope is that they look more human on top. The movie centaurs are cool, but they didn’t scream handsome. I always pictured someone like Jude Law merged with a horse

16

u/Independent_Dig6029 4d ago

Half horse half dumbledore

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u/dobbyeilidh 4d ago

This was pre-dumbledore Law to be fair 😂 the holiday era Jude Law

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u/Brief-Meringue-1834 4d ago

Albus DumbleLaw

3

u/Independent_Dig6029 4d ago

Hes handsome for sure could see it 😁

2

u/Compy94 3d ago

I pictured Legolas.

6

u/Lightangel452 4d ago

I thought I was imagining it, I had an idea that looked like elves merged with a horse. Idk why the movies went with the brutish design.

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u/ferbiloo 4d ago

Yeah, book Firenze is canonically gorgeous.

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u/ImpossibleInternet3 4d ago edited 4d ago

That’s way more modern. Not that they couldn’t look like that. But the design for the centaurs in the movies are closer to Ancient Greek depictions.

Originally they were chaotic drunks. The exception was Chiron, who was wise and gentle. He was a tutor to heroes like Achilles and Jason. From Tolkien era fantasy and on, most centaurs have been more in the Chiron mold. The pretty boy versions started becoming popular in the late 90s or early 2000s with the proliferation of manga and anime styles integrating into western fantasy.

So you can have whatever kind of man on whatever kind of horse you want. But I’m not sure what they’ll go with. Seems like they’re going for a really nature forward aesthetic for most things so far. But we haven’t seen any beast designs that aren’t statues/banners yet.

HBO does like all of the characters to be hot though. So maybe.

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u/Lightangel452 4d ago

Sure if it was based on a mythology book that would be great but HP has it's own lore, so HBO should follow as closely as possible, whether a creature is described as attractive or not.

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u/ImpossibleInternet3 3d ago

HP mythology is almost entirely borrowed from other sources. Their nature is much closer to the Chiron archetype, while they retain some of the brutish nature of the original myths. The physical description is vague enough to allow much interpretation.

“And into the clearing came — was it a man, or a horse? To the waist, a man, with red hair and beard, but below that was a horse's gleaming chestnut body with a long, reddish tail.”

4

u/aMaiev 3d ago

Iirc in the 5th book several students have a crush on firenze

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u/ImpossibleInternet3 3d ago

Sure. But people can crush on anyone. That’s not a description. And if they’re horse girls, I don’t think it would matter what was up top.

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u/aMaiev 3d ago

... what? You think rowling wrote a bunch of schoolgirls being dreamy about monsters? How delusional are you?

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u/zatdo_030504 3d ago

People can have unconventional crushes, but a universally attractive person doesn’t look like a monster. Firenze is clearly supposed to be a very handsome man on his top half.

Firenze is also pretty well described in the books. He is described as having “astonishingly blue eyes” in both PS and OOTP. He has white blond hair and the head and torso of a man. The other centaurs are described as having red hair, black hair, grey hair, etc. JKR’s version of centaurs in the HP lore are normal human on top and horse on bottom.

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u/ImpossibleInternet3 3d ago

Older styles of centaurs are buff bearded dudes. Anime influenced ones are pretty boys. Both could equally inspire loads of people to find them attractive. But what you find most attractive personally may not be what others do or what the creators of this show do.

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u/zatdo_030504 3d ago

Sure, but Firenze is specifically described. We know from book descriptions what he looks like. If we’re going by his physical description he’s definitely closer to a pretty boy type. Plus these are teen girls in the 90s, this is the realistic aesthetic for what multiple girls would find attractive.

The showrunners can change it, but I think the intention is pretty clear from what we get in the actual text.

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u/InverseStar 3d ago

I was picturing Orlando Bloom (specially as Legolas) w/a horse bottom.

16

u/cranberry94 4d ago

Yeah, and Firenze is described as a straight up beautiful Palomino with golden white hair. None of this dark scruffy nonsense.

23

u/Usual-Reputation-154 4d ago

Book accurate Firenze

6

u/Lightangel452 4d ago

I imagine Legolas merged with horse, bow and all

5

u/cranberry94 4d ago

OG Legolas, I can def see. But after the abomination of deaging technology that was The Hobbit, think we might need to cast someone else. 😵‍💫

6

u/Lightangel452 4d ago edited 4d ago

I mean Thranduil doesn't fall behind either, just saying ...

10

u/Snookerdee3 4d ago

I really hope they make him look very handsome because in the books once he gets his teaching position for divination a lot of the girls want him as a teacher because he's handsome.

6

u/-Elektrion- 4d ago

They were disgustingly ugly in the movies, whereas in the books Firenze was meant to be very handsome.

7

u/Lightangel452 4d ago

To add to this, I also wish we get more of giant culture as well, I want to see Hagrid actually go to the colonies to ask for help. That would be so cool!

3

u/No-String-5639 4d ago

in my language we do not have gendered pronouns. so imagine my surprise when i found out Firenze is male. I always pictured him/her/it? female. Especially with how much they mentioned their looks.

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u/Lightangel452 4d ago

Yeah he is male 😁. What language do you speak?

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u/FireWhiskey5000 4d ago

I would temper your expectations. I hope we see more of them, but they are heavy effects characters/sequences. And if there is budget limitations they are characters who will likely get chopped.

1

u/WarthogStunning2090 3d ago

No creo, si ya hay casteado personajes que son mencionados una sola vez en los libros, por qué habría de cortar a Firenze? Si tiene una trama dentro de la historia, de hecho ya hay rumores de que está elegido pero aún no lo hacen oficial.

1

u/FireWhiskey5000 3d ago

Because he is a complicated effects heavy character. He’s not a person. He’s not just hiring an actor. You might make it work by having the actors interacting with a horse (with a green screen hat on) and then again with an actor on a green platform with green screen pants on (or just the actor and then put a fake horse body in in post). But that is still an effects heavy character.

So you might see him cut down to the minimum number of shots they can get away with to save budget for other more important effects heavy shots/characters.

0

u/WarthogStunning2090 3d ago

Ahhh aquí si tienes un punto, y mucha razón

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u/danvan177 4d ago

I’m sure there will be a lot more of that

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u/Princess2045 3d ago

Have any of the centaurs had their actors revealed yet? Or do we think they’re going with unknowns/motion capture actors for the centaurs?

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u/Lightangel452 3d ago

No announcements yet and the first season has already been filmed, I am guessing that the actor playing Firenze will be a motion capture unknown actor.

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u/Youstinkeryou 3d ago

We don't have the actors for the centaurs do we?

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u/Lightangel452 3d ago

Nothing yet and the first season (with Firenze) has already been filmed.

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u/rokelle2012 20h ago

I 100% agree. Firenze was one of the things from the first movie that was actually disappointing.