antishurtugal_reborn | I found this article.

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I found this linked to a thread on Twitter/X.

I don't know what to think about it, so I wanted to share it with you.

(I might end up deleting this post later)

There comes a time when you have to decide what matters more: your integrity, or some silly book series you enjoyed as a kid. And quite frankly it should be a no-brainer. Anyone who picks the book has just shown you their true colours.

I agree. People thought I was being a hard ass about Hogwarts Legacy, but I wasn't. I can't stop someone from continuing to engage with things that make Rowling stronger but I can sure as hell understand that to them my safety is not a priority.

What gets me the most are the people who are vaguely aware that Rowling is trash but pretend that doesn't matter so they can have the thing they like. It's a level of cowardice I simply cannot respect. Like let's pretend that Tolkien was trash (Sorry professor!). Tolkien's been dead for decades. It doesn't matter how odious he might have been in his personal life because his personal life is in the past tense. Rowling is alive. Rowling is rich, and Rowling is using her money and fame to nudge humanity towards another Dark Age.

People like that always start out sounding perfectly rational, reasonable and concerned. That's how they sucker you in, just as with any cult.

Or they just like ask you to pay them $18,000 to be flown out to a secretive compound where sweaty men will yell at you as you crawl through mud. Grifts are fascinating sometimes.

But yes. It always starts reasonable - how do we recover Germany's economic position in the wake of a devastating war that we lost? How do we recover our national pride since this treaty basically doesn't let us have a military? And then two years later its all "Obviously all this is the fault of homosexuals and jews and has nothing to do with mistakes made by previous generations of leadership."

I am comparing Rowling to Hitler to highlight that the tactics really are the same. I am not meaning to imply the personages are the same because they aren't.

Date rape drugs (why was Lavender Brown or whoever it was never punished for slipping a mickey to another kid??)

Not just this, but Fred & George (Who we're supposed to like and be rooting for) sell date rape drugs when they open a shop (Which only women are interested in for some reason) in one of the later books and no one says anything. Voldemort's mother also used said drugs on her husband and iirc the book doesn't really go into that and treats it as tragic when the guy runs for it the one time he is not constantly being dosed.

So this is a consistent pattern in Rowling's books. Sexual aggression is okay (in general) but especially when (cis) women do it.

heroes who stoop to torture and mind control which goes unpunished

I can see this in a more adult story. Protagonist uses torture and mind control to win, no one punishes them for it, but because they're basically a good person it haunts them for the rest of their life. Kinda like what Suzanne Collins did. Arguably The Hunger Games is about PTSD. Anyway that's not what Rowling did. Harry uses these things that are forbidden for good reasons and then is just basically fine. Which is both morally bad and bad storytelling.

Knda like what Suzanne Collins did. Arguably The Hunger Games is about PTSD.
Interesting.
Personally, and please don't kill me, the truth is that I have never liked the hunger games. For me, they are an example of how not to write in the first person (not to mention that it was indirectly responsible for creating a subgenre that should never have existed).

From there on out, I understand what you feel. I'm not trans, but it's understandable that, after years of enjoying a book series, you no longer feel welcome in a place you previously thought was safe.

I don't know if I explain myself

It's fine to not like the Hunger Games. Personally, I do like them, as I believe that Suzanne Collins works interesting themes in her work, and is clearly educated (for example, in the prequel, the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, there is a discussion woven into the book of how humans are in their natural state, without civilization, with enlightenment philosophies drawn upon.)

However, I do believe the hunger games ripoffs miss the point. For example, the love triangle in the Hunger Games is not about romance, it's about how Katniss has to act a certain way, and play a part that is not authentic in order to survive. However, in a lot of knockoffs, they are just straight-up romances that aren't very interesting.

Personally, and please don't kill me, the truth is that I have never liked the hunger games. For me, they are an example of how not to write in the first person (not to mention that it was indirectly responsible for creating a subgenre that should never have existed).

It's okay not to like a book lol. It's been a minute since I've read the series so I can't comment on Collins' writing style. I don't think it's necessarily fair to blame Collins for the copycat books that followed The Hunger Games and I think you agree because of your use of the word "indirectly".

I will say that Collins was very concerned with acting, pretense, and trauma. She wrote one of the few love triangles I find acceptable and it's because it's not really a love triangle - it's a corner and Katniss has been backed into it and it's stressing her out. The constant unrelenting scrutiny of Katniss' behavior and the fact that the only time she really gets to take her own back is when she's performing an act of violence - shooting at the judges, everything that happens in the arena, destroying an aircraft with an arrow, killing President Coin - seem perfectly calculated to create a character who can never know peace, and Collins follows through with that in the end instead of trying to give her an uncomplicated happy ending.

I don't know if I explain myself

You're fine!

I agree. People thought I was being a hard ass about Hogwarts Legacy, but I wasn't. I can't stop someone from continuing to engage with things that make Rowling stronger but I can sure as hell understand that to them my safety is not a priority.

If you don't stand for something then you stand for nothing, and it's not even just a matter of principle when it's your own life being actively endangered by that fool and her lies. With me I'm just doing it to be supportive. I can in theory walk away. But I'm not going to do that.

What gets me the most are the people who are vaguely aware that Rowling is trash but pretend that doesn't matter so they can have the thing they like. It's a level of cowardice I simply cannot respect.

SAME. 100% SAME. Grow a damn spine! People are being MURDERED! But a stupid video game is more important to you? Seriously?

I am comparing Rowling to Hitler to highlight that the tactics really are the same. I am not meaning to imply the personages are the same because they aren't.

They're both people who spread or are spreading bigotry, so of course there are parallels. Disturbing ones.

Harry uses these things that are forbidden for good reasons and then is just basically fine. Which is both morally bad and bad storytelling.

I can understand that the rest of the wizarding world lets him off the hook (the winners decide what the warcrimes were, after all), but yeah, he definitely shouldn't be at all comfortable with himself after what he did. One of my characters (mistakenly) believes he committed genocide and is so tormented that he voluntarily turns himself in and says he accepts whatever punishment is handed down to him. Harry just goes off and becomes a magical police officer. When the trauma he went through should quite frankly make him ineligible.

SAME. 100% SAME. Grow a damn spine! People are being MURDERED! But a stupid video game is more important to you? Seriously?

It's at the point where I can't actually say anything about it without murdering my social relationships and gaining a reputation as the stop having fun girl (Which is exactly the position I was in with Cyberpunk 2077 so it's not unfamiliar). The ability of reactionaries to reframe women of conscience as some kind of demon out to make everyone miserable really pisses me off.

The key takeaway here is that for Death of the Author to apply, the author must actually be dead.

Harry just goes off and becomes a magical police officer. When the trauma he went through should quite frankly make him ineligible.

In Rowling's little fantasy land where being a wizard cop or indeed any kind of cop is an okay thing to be, you're right. Harry's warcrimes and trauma should make him ineligible because they indicate he won't do the job with the strict rigor it requires. (Although I would argue that even within Harry Potter, wizard cops do not do good things and should not be idolized)

However I don't think cops are good. I think they're lazy at best and actively malicious more often. Under that view, the fact Harry tortures people and feels nothing about it makes him an ideal police officer precisely because police officers are bad and it's not okay to want to be one.

The ability of reactionaries to reframe women of conscience as some kind of demon out to make everyone miserable really pisses me off.

It's just gaslighting when all is said and done, not to mention misogynistic. Once when I made a stand about something objectionable the response I got (from another woman, no less) was being called "nasty" and "arrogant" and she hoped I would "learn to be kind". Ugh, it was eight years ago and thinking about it still enrages me.

I didn't even hit back; just blocked her. I don't like confrontations, and no doubt it's a learned behaviour. First they tell you to be quiet and polite and don't make a fuss, and then a few years later they complain that you're not assertive enough! Well maybe that's because I never really learned how? Ugh.

The key takeaway here is that for Death of the Author to apply, the author must actually be dead.

And therefore no longer making money off the work. Lovecraft was a vicious racist, but he's also been dead since 1937. Rowling is actively giving money to anti trans organisations.

Under that view, the fact Harry tortures people and feels nothing about it makes him an ideal police officer precisely because police officers are bad and it's not okay to want to be one.

And lest we forget, anyone he brings in alive gets sent to a nightmarish freezing cold dungeon and subjected to torture.

The ability of reactionaries to reframe women of conscience as some kind of demon out to make everyone miserable really pisses me off.

Women's anger is something to be ridiculed, men's anger is something to be feared. People like that, who dismiss valid concerns, don't want to learn. Many women have internalized misogyny, for their part, and don't care about women's problems because they see those things as a part of life, to be dealt with. For their part, many men just don't get what women face, how women have live their lives.

The key takeaway here is that for Death of the Author to apply, the author must actually be dead.

Rowling's done so much messed up stuff. I find it so interesting how Rowling talks about the violence that cis women face, and then doesn't care about the violence that trans women face. It just shows that this isn't just "defending women" or whatever she says. I genuinely do not know how someone could have so much hate for trans people.

or indeed any kind of cop is an okay thing to be, you're right

I disagree on this point. I do not think cops are inherently bad, and I do think we need police. Of course, there needs to be regulation and oversight, and a mandatory body cam law.

Edited 2024-04-19 02:46 (UTC)

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I found this article.

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