Did The King’s Man Just Reference… Harry Potter?
WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The King’s Man, which is now in theaters.
After a few initial delays, the prequel film to Kingsman, The King’s Man has finally made its way to the cinemas. The film is set around a hundred years before the first Kingsman film, and it shows the formation of the secret organization as they face off against history’s worst criminal masterminds and tyrants. Despite the 20th century setting of the movie and a more grounded story, The King’s Man just seemingly dropped a subtle Harry Potter Easter egg.
The King’s Man-Harry Potter Connection!
One of the main characters in the film is war veteran Orlando Oxford, who becomes a spy in the first World War, despite being a pacifist himself. Orlando is being played by Ralph Fiennes, who also happened to play the role of Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter franchise.
During a calmer scene in the movie, Orlando is seen talking to his son Conrad about his experiences in the war. He explained why he’s a pacifist, as whenever he took someone’s life in the field, he felt like a piece of his soul passed away. While this makes a lot of sense for the character, it also feels like a bit of a coincidence that Ralph Fiennes should be the one saying it, as Voldemort literally rips his soul into pieces as he kills.
Who was Lord Voldemort?
A lot of years before Harry Potter took place, a young student named Tom Riddle sought immortality. He found the concept of Horcruxes, which were actually objects that held a piece of someone’s soul, but this could be only done after they had committed an act of murder. So Riddle went on to murder a lot of people to have his soul split up into multiple Horcruxes. In the end, he made Harry Potter into a Horcrux by murdering his parents and ultimately contributing to his downfall, but Riddle still gained the immortality that he wanted for a while.
Tom Riddle went on to take the name Lord Voldemort, who is played by Ralph Fiennes in the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and onwards. Whether this is intentional or not, it looks like a huge coincidence that the same actor would go on to play a character who describes taking someone’s life as something that causes pieces of his soul to die.
We know that The King’s Man usually doesn’t always take itself way too seriously, and it wouldn’t surprise us if the line was a small Easter egg placed in by the writers. Ralph Fiennes himself might have noticed the similarities too, as playing Voldemort was arguably the most well-known role of his career.
