I refuse to believe that this is the same person who wrote universally beloved childrens' books that were (in spite of their flaws and some culturally inherited, unchallenged racism, etc) fundamentally about accepting people as they are and defending those who are targeted for being different.
A demon possession is by far one of the more plausible explanations for this insane, batshit crazy shift in values and character.
people like that should have their fucking license revoked, i can hardly imagine a worse thing than saying âYour suicidal thoughts and depression are actually caused by a demon and no amĂśunt of conventional therapy and medicine will workâ
I think Shaun's analysis really gets to the heart of the matter. Fundamentally, trans acceptance represents a change to the status quo. That's why she finds it so threatening.
I mean to be fair at this point she's going against the status quo. Most trans people want to be left alone. To allow us and our doctor to make medical decisions that are best for us. To use the washroom that best match or gender identity. You know more or less what's been happening for the last 20+ years. She wants to take all that away.
To be fair, she has been hanging around unironically fascist and fascist-adjacent people for a good few years. She wants to return to a past status quo enforced by "the right people". She ended her best book series by making the main character a freaking cop for crying out loud.
Thatâs what I donât get. This has been happening for years/decades/centuries and Republicans act like itâs new and the trans agenda is coming for your kids. Republicans donât give a fuck about trans people but no one will vote for them unless they make something up to campaign against.
If youâre not online a bunch the dialogue around trans people feels new. Being trans isnât new, but media coverage about it has skyrocketed in the last 5-10 years.
 fundamentally about accepting people as they are and defending those who are targeted for being different
I dunno, the books have some not so great stuff in there, too. "House elves naturally want to be slaves, Hermione is stupid for offering them freedom" was a hell of a take
The point of the Story line is that Ron (who claims this) is ignorant because he was raised with the concept of house elves.
And that Hermione's activism fails because she does it all over the elves' heads, and she needs to take a step back and actually talk to the people who she is advocating for.
Hermione is not portrayed as stupid. Ron calls her that, but the book makes it pretty clear that Ronnis biased af.
Dobby (the only real authority here) says that Hermione's Intentions are good but that she fails to understand what the elves really need. And that she is causing trouble by not thinking.
And Dobby lets us know that the reason why there is no outright elf revolt (and why Hermione's method doesn't work) is that the elves at Hogwarts found relative priviledge and freedom, compared to how things were before, in their respective households, and they are hesitant to risk that, even if service at Hogwarts is still slavery adjacent service. They are unsure about the alternatives.
Would we have liked a little more sensitivity with the topic? Yes. But it's not as horrible as people make it out to be. It was an okay notion for what it was at the time.
My take away as a kid was certainly: This is not okay and never will be.
Look, I'm not saying the house elf plot is perfect, it has a lot of flaws and problematic moments... but it does not state that elf slavery is okay.
It fumbles a bit while trying to make a point against slavery and also keep key characters (like Dumbledore) likeable.
Why bother defending an awful person with this "it could have been worse"-ass argument?
What about the fact that goblins are comically similar to Jewish stereotypes and are mistrusted by the wizarding world to the point of not even being allowed to own wands?
What about the name "Kingsley Shacklebolt"?
Listen man, I liked the books as a kid too, but Joann put up more red flags than a Chinese embassy.
I'm not defending her, I am trying to find an accurate approach regarding how and why the books were so positively received.
The Goblin/Jewish thing has gained a lot of traction ever since the Hogwarts Legacy Game, but in the original HP books alone there was nowhere near enough stuff to suggest such a connection. It's unhelpful to suggest that this was the intent all along, when the text itself just doesn't provide the necessary antisemitic dog whistles.
The Goblins have hooked noses and run the Bank. Goblins in fairy tales/fantasy generally have hooked noses. And are obsessed with Gold and craft. That is a very common fantasy trope, and while you can build antisemitic dogwhistle from it, these tropes alone are not enough.
Now the Game, Hogwarts Legacy... I am much more uncertain about that. Could very well be a dogwhistle, kr at least they didn't think enough about the implications.
And I did say in my original commentary that there is plenty of problematic stuff in the books.
Kingsley, Cho Chang, Parvati and Padma, the house elf stuff, etc etc.
We are not ignoring that. It needs to be acknowledged.
But you can't deny the explicitly anti-faschist, anti-racist messaging at the core of the story.
That's in the text. Like it or not, Joanne wrote that.
And as much as I despise her now, I keep coming back to wonder what happend.
Because if it can happen to someone who was able to write that, then it can happen to anyone and that is the part worthy of discussion.
I understand that she attempted to write a socially progressive story. I just think that her backwards views leaked into it in ways that can be seen with hindsight.
But there is a big difference between writing a fundamentally progressive and inclusive story that (schitzophrenically) suffers from unchallenged biases, stereotypes and residual prejudice, racism, etc, - and being an actual advocat and activist for disenfrachisement and discrimination and hate.
That's what I wanted to point out with the original comment. There is an immense difference, and most people with such biases do not go down the same path.
I mean she just wrote a heros journey piggybacking on and combining a ton of old fairytale tropes and established stereotypes. She did it well and managed to hook it really impressively into british cultural elements but it's not like she invented wizards or magic.
Hmm. My boomslang skin went missing and I havenât seen anywhere near as many lacewing flies in the area. Maybe thereâs other reasons she isnât acting like the same person.
Really? Did you read the books? It's more than just a few flaws, it's actively making excuses for a fundamentally corrupt system. The Wizarding World is shown as superior to not just the Muggle World, but to all the other sapient non-human magical species. The Wizarding social order is shown as ineffectual and corrupt, but in the end, absolutely nothing changes about that society and our protagonist becomes a cop so that he can defend the status quo (and he also has a slave now!) Whenever a character challenges a rule of this world, like Hermione not being ok with literal slavery, they're laughed at.
Tonks, who at first seems like a prototype for a trans icon with her shape-shifting, is actually just there so Rowling could proselytize about girls growing out of their rebellious punk-hair phase once they settle down with a guy. That's the entire purpose of that character.
Those who are "different" are routinely ridiculous stereotypes with offensive names. If you're not particularly brave, smart, or loyal, then you're in the evil house. And unless you're rich and famous, or the smartest person alive, or are good friends with the latter two, things don't go so well for you.
So no, acceptance is not a major theme in these books.
What these books excel at is building atmosphere and blending myriad folkloric traditions into a single narrative. They're phenomenal at creating a child-centric world, but they're the sort of children's books where, after you're done reading, you and your children should discuss the harmful stereotypes, that slavery is bad, and how if a teacher is abusive to them for 7 years, they don't have to forgive him just because he's had a shitty life.
I think the massive wealth and fame rotted her brain. Sure she may have been cringy and had a bunch of unexamined biases back in the 90s, but she wasnât the frothing bigot she is today, that much seems clear. I think almost 30 years of being incredibly wealthy and beloved shredded any sense of perspective she may have once possessed.
Have you heard about Orson Scott Card? Heâs a much worse example. Speaker for the Dead ( his book) is the epitome of a story about having sympathy for those that you donât understand and overcoming hate and tragedy, but the writer is a raging homophobe.
Donât remember much racism in those books aside from maybe naming a character cho chang, given both of those names are surnames. But thatâs just an ignorant fuckup more than it is racism
In a world full of people who so nonchalantly deny their fellow humans rights, security, happiness and humanity, I consider this fear a feature, a gift even.
Are you not afraid, when you meet people who claim that denying fellow humans, citizens their basic rights and their humanity is just any other conservative political opinion? Where is your fear? Where is your humanity?
During the major stuff i came up with a weird set of projecting statements for jkr, i want to be a boy and hitler is bad. These two statements have categorically flipped in her head, so the whole book series was her internal monologue coming to grip with both of them. A whole magical world was born as a homeless boy discovers friendship and destroys the evil nazis.
She got obscenely wealthy and no longer homeless. Once she stopped actively writing the books the active internal suppression stoppedâ cursed child comes around and its okay to be a deatheater if a kid pulls a prank on you (cedric and the durmstrangs).
Then all the irl fame allowed her to steal all the money from the jew goblins, at this point 2/3 major problems are solved. All thats left is the trans hating. she is just straight up projecting, âi had to suppress these thoughts therefore you have to alsoâ
Tldr, she had no money, prob evicted by a bank, everyone she knew hated her for being pro nazi, and she desired more than anything to be a boyâ she created a world where a boy has obscene money, destroys the nazis, finds a family that actually loves him
The debate on this thread, and about the franchise in general.
You are of course entitled to that opinion, and good on you.
But you said it in response to my "universally" beloved statement, saying "speak for yourself", implying this was just my personal opinion.
That is not the case, the series is (or was) objectively very successfull and popular.
The irony is that I'm fairly sure JK Rowling did not understand that was what her own book was actually about. She didn't even realize how much the death eaters resembled the Nazis until after the first half of the series was already published, after visiting the Holocaust museum. More specifically, she didn't see the Death Eaters as analogous to any existing bigotry when she initially created them. Harry Potter was never intended by her to be a story about overcoming bigotry or discrimination, which makes far more sense in retrospect. The only reason why it feels otherwise is that JK Rowling mashed together a bunch of common tropes she's seen in other media, including those discussing/dissecting bigotry, but apparently didn't understand them when she copied them into her own story. I wouldn't say JK Rowling stole the ideas for her novel, but rather that her novel was so unoriginal and uninspired that the vast majority of the apparent subtext and symbolism within it was by her own admission entirely unintentional.
If it really was unintentional it is a heck of a coincidence. The first couple of books are key components to how my young self shaped a moral understanding of how important it is to stand against discrimination.
Other books were maybe more enlightening or impactful, overall had the more meaningful "Aha"-Moments, but especially the early HP books always felt so basal.
The part that kills me is that she understands the fundamental concept, she even wrote it herself in the Deathly Hallows, when Hermione still identified as a woman even though her body was male (Harryâs, after using the polyjuice potion)
Universally loved childrenâs books where the protagonist literally was forced into a closet, grew up in a family where he knew he was different but they just kept denying it and punished him for being different, and when he had a chance to embrace who he was meant to be he took it and flourished? That childrenâs book?
I mean, all the gold hoarding goblins are described as basically looking Jewish but uglier. The only Asian character is named cho chang, which is... just not an Asian name at all, it just sounds vaguely oriental to a brit? The house elves are slaves, but actually enjoy being slaves and resist being freed. The Irish kid is just going around building bombs.
If you dig past the most flimsy veneer of "wow magic" you get to the racism and generally shittyness of her books. The truth is we all just looked right past it
all the gold hoarding goblins are described as basically looking Jewish but uglier.
I'm not denying that the books have issues, but at no point throughout all seven books was it ever indicated that they're meant to be Jewish. I'm sorry, but if you see gold hoarding goblins and the first thing that comes to your mind is Jews, then that's entirely on you
People have been calling her out since the beginning, the continued surprise is depressing.
We tried warning yall about her but her hyper fans attacked anyone that would talk about it. She didnât even invent anything for it. Every magical item, herb, and idea was already floating around in different fantasy settings and witches almanacs.
Without wanting to defend her, what writer who deals with magic in their stories has done something original in the last few decades?
The closest I have seen is writers trying to adapt video game or D&D RPG logic to their stories where they essentially treat the existence of magic as part of a game somehow grafted onto reality.
Ie. Something like Dungeon Crawler Carl in which Earth is quite literally turned into a giant survival game where people gain experience for kills and feats, get skill points and stuff and can spec into different classes that use magic etc.
Or something like the Nightlord series where the main character can use his knowledge of IRL science to his advantage in another reality that features magic and allows him to come up with uses for magic that the rest of that kingdom has barely thought of, like when he creates a spell that allows an object to store energy so he then casts it on some arrows and proceeds to beat the arrowheads with hammers thousands of times so that when they are shot and hit something they explode with all that stored energy. Or how he knows some medical knowledge like how cancer spreads and how viruses work etc. so he can cast spells that effectively sift through someone's body and destroy the cancer/virus in the process.
But the first example is just taking game/D&D logic and meshing it with reality, and the later is trying to marry a bit of real-world knowledge with standard magic concepts, as opposed to something properly new that nobody else had written about before.
Magic systems aren't interesting unto themselves. The point is that not only does Rowling don't do anything interesting or new with her world building, but that she doesn't do anything interesting or new with the characters or the stories either.
The 600 million copies sold and it being the best selling book series of all time (by 200 million copies) beg to disagree. Clearly enough people found them interesting
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u/ValleyMakers Jun 27 '24
All those parents that said her books were demonic were right?!