Yeah, I can believe the film producers cutting down a lot. Partially since they are books and adapting that into a film requires some cutting, but also partially because some of the stuff she wrote was really out there.

I don’t think the new adaptation has the same sense though. I cringed a little when I heard that they decided to cast a black guy as Snape, because the scene that immediately came to my mind is the one where he’s being bullied and hung off a tree by Harry’s father back when they were kids. When you make the target of that a black guy… it kind of paints a different picture.

In a vacuum it shouldn’t matter, you don’t do that to people. But there’s this historic precedent with white people hanging black people from trees. I’m not against gender-bending or race-bending characters at all, but you have to think of the context in which it happens. Dumbledore or McGonagall would’ve made more sense. Or Hermione, which Rowling herself has previously said could be black, why not put that money where her mouth is?

I’ve said it previously, I enjoyed the books as a kid. I’ve fond memories of reading them when I was really sick for a while. I enjoyed seeing the films in the cinema. Back then I was ignorant to many of the horrible things in the world.

I’m not anymore, and I really struggle to believe that Rowling was that naïve. Hell, she was 50-ish when she likened lycanthropy to HIV/AIDS, like that was literally just 10 years ago.

Haha, I actually use the regular phi95 theme, mostly because it is a little nostalgic. :)

I’m getting pretty tired of this tirade, honestly.

Rowling’s hateful and bigoted ideology is reflected in the books, it’s right there for anyone to see. You cannot extricate that from the story she tells. The story is bad, because her ideology is bad.

That’s not to say that there aren’t redeemable moments. Hitler treated most anyone badly, but he was pro animal-rights. I somehow don’t find that redeems him or his works as a whole. Apply the same to Rowling.

Yeah. I enjoyed these books as a kid, which makes sense because I was oblivious to the prejudices of society. One could argue that maybe Rowling was too, but given her actions I just don’t believe that.

Also, are we just going to ignore Professor McGonagall being childless and devoted to her career in academia in which she thrives and holds the respect of her peers and pupils?

You know what, that’s fair. McGonagall is a mostly unproblematic character, I feel. There are some moments where I feel like she meted out very strange punishments, like sending the kids out into a dangerous forest they were prohibited from being in because it’s potentially lethal, or when she locked Neville out of the Gryffindor common room while a murderer was on the loose.

That said, Caroline Easom did a video on the female characters that appear in the top 100 characters by mention in the books and there are some less savoury patterns in how Joanne portrays women.

Ah yeah, I’d forgotten about that. Pulled up the book to that chapter, and came across this

“Can Dobby give Harry Potter his present?” he squeaked tentatively.

“’Course you can,” said Harry. “Er . . . I’ve got something for you too.”

It was a lie; he hadn’t bought anything for Dobby at all, but he quickly opened his trunk and pulled out a particularly knobbly rolled-up pair of socks. They were his oldest and foulest, mustard yellow, and had once belonged to Uncle Vernon. The reason they were extra-knobbly was that Harry had been using them to cushion his Sneakoscope for over a year now. He pulled out the Sneakoscope and handed the socks to Dobby, saying, “Sorry, I forgot to wrap them. . . .”

[…]

Dobby now handed Harry a small package, which turned out to be — socks.

“Dobby is making them himself, sir!” the elf said happily. “He is buying the wool out of his wages, sir!”

The left sock was bright red and had a pattern of broomsticks upon it; the right sock was green with a pattern of Snitches.

“They’re . . . they’re really . . . well, thanks, Dobby,” said Harry, and he pulled them on, causing Dobby’s eyes to leak with happiness again.

A boy with a vault full of gold, couldn’t give his supposed friend something better than his uncle’s knobbly, “oldest and foulest, mustard yellow” socks. His slave friend appreciates it nonetheless, but like, surely he had nicer socks?

I can’t with this author. The fact that at the end of all of this, nothing has changed; people’s worth is still determined by breeding and bloodline, the slave race is still enslaved, just kind of makes the entire journey seem pointless to me.

Oh yeah, you killed wizard-Hitler but the wizard-nazi ideology is not just at large, but commonly practised by everyone, including by the good-guy rich-orphan turned wizard cop and his friends.

Pirating Harry Potter media is the only ethical way of consuming it. When I quoted the books here it was from an epub I obtained the same way the big corpos do it.

No, they’re bad entirely on their own merit.

Given that Rowling is still making money and is actively using that money to harm people, you cannot extricate the art from the artist.

If one want a whimsical world of magic, I’d recommend Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. If one wants a little darker story about a magical school, I’d recommend the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik.

It would be worth discarding as a “just the evil guys” thing if only the evil guys employed it. Alas.

This is literally in the epilogue, I’ve cut down a paragraph describing the appearance of the group.

Draco Malfoy was standing there with his wife and son […]

“So that’s little Scorpius,” said Ron under his breath. “Make sure you beat him in every test, Rosie. Thank God you inherited your mother’s brains.”

“Ron, for heaven’s sake,” said Hermione, half stern, half amused. “Don’t try to turn them against each other before they’ve even started school!”

“You’re right, sorry,” said Ron, but unable to help himself, he added, “Don’t get too friendly with him, though, Rosie. Granddad Weasley would never forgive you if you married a pureblood.”

Given that Voldemort’s whole thing was “pureblood” you’d think the lesson of the story would be that your breeding blood doesn’t matter, but alas. If this was a one-off thing then you could discard it, but it’s not. It’s all over the fictional world she’s created.

Harry is frequently the target of “you have your mother’s/father’s X”, Hagrid is seen as lesser for being half-troll (not to mention how his brother is treated), “Loony” Luna Lovegood is seen as insane, coincidentally just like her father, and Argus Filch is what’s called a “squib”, someone who is born to magical parents, but is unable to perform magic. Ergo he has to be part of the wizarding world, but he cannot partake in it, and he cannot be a part of muggle society. He’s forever an outcast in the world, working at a magical school, manually cleaning a place where the students treat him like shit.

Those aspects are never resolved in the books. There’s never any reflection on “maybe we should be nice to Luna” or “perhaps your heritage doesn’t matter”, instead Voldemort is evil not because of his provably erroneous beliefs about purebloods, but because he’s… what, attacking the good guys?

Then… Gods. Rowling has talked about lycanthropy being a metaphor for AIDS.

As far as I can recall there are two primary examples of werewolves in the stories. Remus Lupin, a good guy, works as a teacher for a while, but eventually quits because he realises that he is a danger to the children due to his condition.

Then there’s Fenrir Greyback who is, and I quote from the Potter wiki

infamous for his general savagery and preference for attacking children

Now what subset of the population is primarily brought to mind when you think of HIV/AIDS? That’s right, homosexual men. I believe up until 2023-ish, I wasn’t able to donate blood in my country because I’m a gay man; my having a preference for men makes my blood dirty. Like mud, perhaps. Mudblood maybe? That’s entirely rooted in the HIV/AIDS hysteria, something which we are still facing the stigma of.

A stereotype we face fairly often, something trans-people also face, is that we’re specifically targeting children.

Out of the two AIDS victims werewolves that come to mind, both are dangerous to children, per her own words. Could this just be a massive middle-aged moment style fuck-up? Absolutely, but you’d think a billionaire would have the money to hire editors and whatnot to catch this sort of thing before they happen.

It’s not a stretch, it’s entirely false.

It’s like saying that Microsoft Windows is open source because you can run the binaries on your own computer.

At best it’s a misunderstanding of what open source is, at worst it’s a wilful misinterpretation to try and paint these models in an undeserved better light.

There is no argument. You’re allowed to believe what you wish, wrong or not. I just don’t have the energy to waste on apologists and supporters of such heinous politics. Rowling’s politics are apparent in all of her writing, she’s always championed outdated eugenicist beliefs. If you choose to ignore that, that’s your prerogative and I don’t think anything I say or show you will convince you otherwise.

Ergo, this conversation here is just a waste of time for the two of us.

Sure. If it makes you feel better, then whatever.

Excuse me, but I can’t agree with your position here.Is a woman not allowed to realize itself through motherhood?

Of course. And according to Joanne KKK Rowling, that’s the only way you can be a woman; if you can produce children. Women are the ones with the large gametes! That’s the definition of woman, nothing else. Screw all cis-women who don’t fit the mold.

You’re not allowed to be too feminine, but also if you don’t adhere to white-feminine beauty standards you’re also bad.

Also Molly was smart and fierce (remember fight with Bellatrix Lestrange?

I do! “NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU DON’T!”

No matter what, Molly is nothing but a mother. There’s no character there beyond that.

And I personally know such girls.It’s perfectly normal for a girl to be like that.Also her persona and stance evoke respect in the reader, as well as a sense that she is being treated unfairly.

You’ve missed my point. My point is, there are many ways of being a person, and many ways of being a girl or a woman. Rowling doesn’t believe that, and the narrative she pushes explicitly defines what is and isn’t from her perspective, an acceptable way of being a woman. She very clearly values men over women.

Ember Green did an excellent video essay that touches on this topic.

Goblins didn’t strike me as jews exactly because they were friends with Harry Potter’s world Hitler.A big nose and banking isn’t enough.

There’s a Wikipedia entry on Jewish sterotypes. You could turn it into a drinking game, if you’d like to die of alcohol poisoning.

Edit: As a child I looked past these things. I didn’t see them, I lacked the cultural context. I’m no longer a child, and now it’s blatantly obvious.

These books were written by a grown-ass woman who couldn’t possibly be so stupid as to name the only fucking Chinese character Cho Chang on accident. Her name is almost Ching Chong!

She couldn’t have been ignorant to the nazi rhetoric she spewed out, or the pro-slavery bits.

The books are soaked with racism, ableism, and misogyny and I don’t understand how anyone can go back to them as an adult, having obtained the cultural context, and still think the stories are okay.

You’re right, that was hyperbole. What I should’ve written is “every character that expresses traditionally feminine interests”, save for of course, the tradwife, like Molly Weasley whose entire character is just being a mother. Does she have interests beyond being a mother? No, with seven children who has time to be a person?

Hermione doesn’t engage with anything traditionally feminine, she’s a “not-like-other-girls” type character, hell she doesn’t really have any friends that aren’t boys. Even so, she’s often not taken seriously. She’s mocked for studying hard, and she’s mocked for her anti-slavery coalition, which people only really join half-heartedly in order to placate her.

There’s obviously Dolores Umbridge. She’s into cute, frilly, fluffy, pink things. She’s also a sadist. Her punishment for being bad is to be carried off by centaurs to get raped in a forest.

Luna Lovegood was introduced as another character to be bullied, and she remains on the outskirts throughout the book, but Rowling softened up on her once she got extremely popular with the fans of the series.

Just a couple of years ago “people with massive noses” having kahoots with Hitler would be oxymoron.But now, after genocide of Palestinians…

Ah right, the massive genocide of Jews, disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, and other minorities back in the mid 1900s was okay because the Israeli state is now running a genocide of their own. Rowling was correct to be antisemitic actually!

I enjoyed it as a kid. As an adult, the flaws are really hard to look past. From the goblins with massive noses that run the wizarding worlds economy, and is in kahoots with wizard Hitler, to the eugenics related hereditarianism views, etc. etc.

Every single woman character in her books are ridiculed, or plain evil, if they take up space at all. There are like three non-white women, two are basically clones. And every single character is good or evil based on genes. Harry is a mix of both his parents, having personality traits from both, despite never having met them. That’s not how things work.

It perfectly explains why Rowling pushes the politics she does. Her ideology is based on the long since discredited sciences of the early to mid 1900s, the stuff the Nazis were basing their ubermensch stuff on. Also explains why they so readily go hand in hand with neo-Nazis.

Works just fine on iOS too.

Yes, Rowling does have garbage views. Everyone knows that she hates women, Jews, and non-white people as is evident by her garbage stories, and her political actions. It’s rubbish and shouldn’t be platformed.

Why is anyone watching that garbage?

That’s what ぶっ掛け means, though. You pour/splash something onto something. There’s a dish called bukkake soba.