Is There A Hidden Story Behind The Casting Of Lavender Brown?

The Harry Potter character was played by three different actresses.

Do you remember Lavender Brown?

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She was Ron Weasley's girlfriend in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; famed for being clingy and just plain rediculous.

Maybe you remember the nationwide casting call which resulted in Jessie Cave landing the role in the sixth Harry Potter film.

Before Jessie Cave, there were two other actresses who played Lavender in the second and third films. Shockingly, they look nothing like their successor.

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(Left) Kathleen Cauley as Lavender Brown in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

(Right) Jennifer Smith as Lavender Brown in Harry Potter and the Prisoner if Azkaban

Wait...did she just switch race?

There could be several reasons why Lavender was recast, but most likely only these three reasons could explain why she made the switch from black to white.

Reason #1:

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In the sixth film Lavender Brown went from being a background character to Ronald Weasley's actual girlfriend. It's possible that Warner Brothers wanted to avoid backlash for putting a beloved main character in an interracial relationship. But who could blame them? Remember what happened with Rue in the Hunger Games?

Reason #2:

Warner Brothers thought it would be in bad taste to depict Ron's clingy girlfriend as a black woman, especially since the series was already at a lack of admirable black female characters.

Reason #3: In a strange plot twist, Lavender had always been black, but realized that the only way she could get Ron's attention was if she looked like...

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So braced with the limitlessness of magic, Lavender sold her soul to an octopus woman named Ursula and switched over to the white side. She followed this up with a powerful charm that fooled everyone into thinking she had never been black at all.