Read this: Add the Sorting Hat to the list of things J.K. Rowling is wrong about
Aux Features great job internet
The end is in sight, dear reader. 2020 has reached its sunset hours, and, fittingly, most of those hours will be quite literally dark. It’s difficult to imagine that anyone came out of this year unscathed, whether their particular burdens to bear involved the loss of a loved one, the diminishment of their own physical and/or mental health, financial hardship, pervasive loneliness, individual and systemic injustice, the list goes on. Were you to rank the losses of this year, odds are that the inability to deny the transphobia and casual cruelty of one J.K. Rowling wouldn’t crack the top 10—it’s been a bad year, after all—but it would definitely make the list, somewhere between the staggering loss of life (at the top) and the failure of Universal to release the Cats butthole cut (at the bottom). For many, it’s a significant loss, a betrayal of the arguments for empathy, decency, and compassion found in Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
The cognitive dissonance Rowling’s self-righteous, deeply harmful stance engenders has perhaps never been so clearly articulated as it is in “Who Did J.K. Rowling Become?”, a frank yet mournful examination of Rowling’s descent into bigotry from The Cut’s Molly Fischer. We’ll have some thoughts of our own later this week (hint hint: she may just make an appearance on our list of the year’s worst internet things) but Fischer’s clear-eyed piece, brilliantly framed through the lenses of ownership, fandom, power, and authenticity, is just too good to let pass by. It begins with the arrival of The Leaky Cauldron webmistress Melissa Anelli at Edinburgh castle on the eve of the release of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book in the series:
Rowling lived in an ivy-covered Victorian stone mansion set within landscaped gardens, and, like Edinburgh Castle, it was something of a picturesque fortress. After a stalker had taken to showing up at the house, Rowling and her husband had, despite their neighbors’ objections, implemented increasingly strict security measures: first an eight-foot-high wall and an electronic gate, then CCTV security cameras. Anelli and [Emerson Spartz of MuggleNet] were ushered into Rowling’s office, an outbuilding with honey-colored wood and floor-to-ceiling windows.
Rowling arrived: She gave them hugs, and when her husband walked in with their 6-month-old baby, she made introductions all around. Then the family cleared out and the interview began. Anelli and Spartz asked Rowling everything they could about the world she had created. For example, the Sorting Hat — it peers into the thoughts of each new Hogwarts student who arrives, then assigns them to one of four school houses.
“Has the Sorting Hat ever been wrong?” Spartz asked.
“No,” Rowling said, unequivocal.
There’s much to admire about Fischer’s piece, which we encourage you to read in full, but that answer about the Sorting Hat is one of its most potent observations. The final pre-epilogue act in the final book of the series sees the old notions about the Sorting Hat tossed out the window; the surviving students of Hogwarts don’t sit at their designated house tables, they just sit, divisions based on some external assessment of who they were at age 11 set aside at long last. People can be brave and bookish, ambitious and loyal, and they can change and evolve and become better, more empathetic people. The Sorting Hat may never be wrong, but it is also never right. Here’s Fischer again:
“Perplexed” was a common reaction. Rowling had never been a particularly controversial figure. Her books sold hundreds of millions of copies, they inspired films that brought in billions of dollars, and she used the money she made to save children from orphanages. In 2012, she gave enough to charity and paid enough in taxes to knock herself off the Forbes billionaires list. In 2020, she was tweeting links to a store that sold pins that said F*CK YOUR PRONOUNS.
Read another way, though, the latest turn in Rowling’s story looks perhaps less perplexing than inevitable. It is the culmination of a two-decade power struggle for ownership of her fictional world — the right to say what Harry Potter means. The Harry Potter books describe a stark moral universe: Their heroes fight on behalf of all that is good to defeat the forces of absolute evil. Though the struggle may be lonely and hard, right ultimately beats wrong. For fans, when it came to the matter of trans rights, the message of Harry Potter was clear. For Rowling, this was no less the case.
“She absolutely believes that she is right, that she’s on a mission, and that history will eventually bear her out,” Anelli told me. “She thinks she’s doing good work right now.”
So did Dolores Umbridge.
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279 Comments
No way am I plowing through those books again, but I thought there was a part where the Hat said it wasn’t always such a good judge of character?
Think it was referring to Voldemort and should have known that Putting him in Slytherin would lead down that path.
Dumbledore says to Snape that he wonders if sorting is done too early, IIRC. Basically saying that Snape should’ve been a Gryffindor.
Which is an interesting idea that pre-judging the teenage lives of stupid inexperienced 11 year olds and moving them into fanatically devoted near cult level houses in an isolated boarding school where people can torture each other, maybe isn’t the soundest idea the wizarding world could have come up with.
I wonder if it was a comment on the UK’s 11 plus exam?https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleven-plus
Your point is entirely fair, but *gestures toward the whole of the public school system in Britain.*
While separating kids into teams based on whether they’re [conniving/impetuous/nerdy/other] clearly isn’t the best idea, I’d go a step further and say that boarding school, period, isn’t usually the best idea.
never met an eton boy huh?
Then he should have asked The Sorting Hat not to put him into Slytherin.Not even sure why this part of that article even exists. Sorting Hat sorts based on the info it has, not that of millions of possible futures. It’s quite simple in that regard.And, JKR is now a shit, and possibly always was. So what does her stating that the Sorting hat is wrong show?
Sorting the students into different houses is a stupid idea, and doing away with the sorting hat was the one good idea Voldemort ever had.
Correction: The author of the Harry Potter series is not J.K. Rowling, it’s J.K. Simmons.
He’s not the greatest of writers, but each book did come with a free Farmer’s Insurance policy.
And it’s full of pictures of Spider-Man
Juno’s-Dad J.K. Simmons, or Whiplash J.K. Simmons?
Portal 2’s J.K. Simmons. Cave Johnson is the best.
Oh fuck I forgot about Cave Johnson!
We Do What We Must, Because We Can.
The Peter Parker hater.
He could calm down if anyone would just get him some damn pictures of Spider-Man!
Sam raimi spiderman or mcu spiderman? I prefer my j jonah Jameson to have morals.
And a flat-top toupee.
Yep, can’t do Jolly Jonah without the flattop toupee, EdKed.
Newspaper or Newsmax?
Peanut M&M J.K. Simmons.
So long as it’s not Oz J.K. Simmons. I still have nightmares about that guy.Prison would be bad enough, being J.K. Simmons prag…the horror, the horror…
Watching JK Simmons on Oz and Law & Order (as an affable psychologist) at the same time was a real trip.
Yeah, the only way to beat that guy is to bash him with a weight and shit on his face.
Ah, “Was Adebisi’s dick bigger than mine?” while he scoops a hanful of bearing grease out of the tub always comes to mind whenever I see a Farmer’s Insurance commercial.
“the world may never know”
I still dont know who’s bigger, him or Adibisi
Oz- JK Simmons
Whiplash aka the Best JK SimmonsI remember watching it with my wife and she was like “He’s a monster” and I was like “Yeah, Miles Teller is the worst”
Oz J.K. Simmons…
Oz’s J.K. Simmons.
Counterpart J.K. SImmons, you never know what you’re going to get!
“Counterpart” confirms that the universe contains more than one JK Simmons.
Peanut M&M J.K. Simmons.
Stanford Pines surely?
Oz’s J.K. Simmons. The editors had a hell of time toning down the racist overtones of the original Harry Potter incarnation. Sorting Hat was originally a white Klan hood. Just a mess all around.
And his brother who’s sorry to have bothered you, N.M. Simmons.
I thought the internet had decided that it was Britney Spears? https://news.avclub.com/today-in-weird-britney-spears-news-1843954969
I shall never again mock Dumbledore.Bicepticus Beveinier!
Jacked Kut Simmons
“Where is the Auror guy? Moody?”“Right now?”
“Right now.”“He is in a detention room at Azkaban.”“Why?”
“He was trying to board a train to Hogsmeade. We had his name on a hot list. Dementors pulled him in. Don’t know why he was trying to go to Hogsmeade.”“You don’t know.”“No, sir.”“We have no extradition with Hogsmeade.”“Oh! So what should we do with him?”“For fuck’s sake, put him on the next train to Hogsmeade.”“Yes, sir. Okay.”“Okay. So the groundskeeper is dead.”“Yes, sir.“The body is…”“That’s gone, sir.”“Okay.”“But there was a snag.”“What?”“Well…this analyst, Weasley, was attacking the groundskeeper guy. It was in broad daylight, on the street. Our man did not know what to do. Felt he had to step in.”“Yes?”“He…he cursed the analyst.”“He cursed Weasley. Good. Great. Is he dead?”“No, sir. He’s in a coma. They don’t think he’s gonna make it.”“They don’t think…”“They’re pretty sure that he has no brain function.”“Okay. Okay. If he wakes up, we’ll worry about it then. Jesus, what a clusterfuck.”
Yeah, some the HP movies definitely would have benefited from the Coen brothers writing the screenplay!
“What do we learn?”
“I dont know sir.”
“I don’t fucking know either.”
“I guess we learned, not to do it again.”
“Yes sir.”
“I’m fucked if I know what we did.”
Think of how many more copies of Harry Potter Simmons would have sold it he’d ever gotten those blasted photos of Spider-Man. Parker!
SPIDERMAN IS A MENACE!
Are you sure it’s not Richard Simmons?
NOT MY TEMPO.Fun story: 10+ years ago I ran into J.K. Simmons at the Arclight Hollywood. I already worshipped the man like a god at the time, so I literally prostrated myself upon the floor and said “I’m not worthy!” He laughed, and probably thought I was insane.
“Wingardia Levi-”“Stop there. Not quite my tempo. Try again.”
Type!Fucking TYPE!
I was going to read it but Lee Tergesen shit on my copy.
Wait, seriously? Emil Skoda from Law and Order? I’ve never read the Harry Potter books.
Earth Alpha JK Simmons or Earth Prime JK Simmons?
Spike Lee angrily tweets out J.K. Simmons’ home address.
Aang and Katara’s son J. K. Simmons?(This thread is really just a reminder that Simmons is The Man)
Wait, it wasn’t Britney Spears?!?!?!
And yet the vast majority of Harry Potter fans operate on the assumption that it’s worthwhile to sort people into four types.
Settle down, Hufflepuff.
Ugh, you’re such a Michael.
We’ve got a Ross who wants to be seen as a Joey.
Pfft, says the Monica of the thread.
That’s so Raven!
What a Marcia thing to say.
It’s the future I can see.
Spoken like a true INJF
I always loved the idea that slytherine are pure evil and Gryffindor are obnoxiously full of themselves, whereas Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are just the relaxed fairly normal places at Hogwarts.
Slytherin=Omega Theta Pi from Animal HouseGryffindor=Alpha Beta, the jock frat from Revenge of the NerdsHuffelpuff/Ravenclaw=Tri Lams/Omega MuThe Weasley twins are a two-man Delta house
when everyone knows theres 16 types.
A neat and balanced number – that’s so Libra.
cancer INFJ
Aries INFJ 5w4!
Sorting Hat: You’ve got your jocks, aka the orthopedic surgeons. Mean girls go into plastics. Your All-American, girl next door types, they’re gonna be in OB. The true geeks, they’re the neurologists. The rebels are in the ER. Stoners, anesthesia, and peds gets your sanctimonious church-goers.
Harry: How about us?
Hermoine: Surgery’s a melting pot, a little bit of everything, which basically means none of us get along.
On a related note, I always liked how in OITNB, when Piper took an online Sorting Hat quiz, she got put into Slytherin despite the fact that she cheated. Which, fittingly, is a good indication as to why she is a Slytherin.
Yeah, you’re aiming to be Choatic Neutral, but you’re really a Lawful Neutral
Should have done the “What School House Are You” listicle on Buzzfeed instead.
I used to think like that too. Which was a very Blue Lions way of looking at things. I’m way more Golden Deer now that I’m older, all about knocking down barriers between people.
LOL. Saying a man is not a woman just because he says he is got yall mad.
“Has the Sorting Hat ever been wrong?” Spartz asked.“No,” Rowling said, unequivocal.There was a time, not too long ago, when an adult wouldn’t ask another adult this kind of question. And, you know what, never mind. I’ve got to go ask my dresser drawer which socks I should wear.
Spatz was also a home schooled teenager at the time, so not really an adult asking an adult a silly question, is it?
Welcome, welcome to the drawerIt’s time to put on socks once moreDon’t try anything too cuteYou’re putting on a goddamn suit
Dear, dear drawer don’t you knowThe time of suits was long agoMatching, boring are no moreIt’s only cute that we’re here forSo join me drawer while I shout Hooray! The only suit in my future is called birthday
A proper suit will hide the socksSo why not go with whatever rocks? But don’t overplay the hand you’ve been dealt: Do not put on a garter belt.
It’s an abstract question, it’s not necessarily about a hat in itself.
If that time existed, it was further in the past than you think. Charles Dickens, for instance, used to do public readings of his work, and people would bombard him with questions about the tiniest minutia of his novels. And yes, Dickens totally counts as a fantasy author (he didn’t write fantasy exclusively, but neither does Rowling) given that his most enduring work is about an old man who travels through time with the help of magical ghosts.
Fandom. Fandom never changes.
Yeah, I tried to go change that bit and found out that I have no idea how to edit my works now. I’d love to know what kind of questions Dickens got!
Apparently a common one was less a question than a complaint (fandom really never does change!) about Dickens killing off Little Nell, the tragic orphan with a heart of gold from his serial The Old Curiosity Shop. People were LIVID about that one.And yeah, Kinja’s editor is a damn mess. I’ve given up on it, honestly.
Also, Little Women. LMA was bombarded with angry fans’ reactions that Laurie and Jo didn’t end up together.
“What the fuck is Cold Boiled?”
When Conan Doyle killed Sherlock, fans wore black armbands and hounded him until Sherlock was unkilled. I have a book of annotated Sherlock stories that tries to solve every continuity errors, and it is an amazing work.People, it turns out, have pretty much always been people. There were probably fierce arguements about which cave drawings were really canon.
Original version of “Grugg Kills Mammoth” much better. Me hate special edition where Mammoth attack first.
“How dare Oog retcon drawing with fire?”
And now I can’t help but think of Dickens having to field the 19th century equivalent of “I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder!”
No there wasn’t.
“No there wasn’t.”I suppose it depends on how old you are. When I grew up, even the teenagers were already getting pretty serious with summer jobs and knew how to tie a tie. I never heard an actual adult discuss fucking Star Wars like it was their 401k.
this is a common question actually. bla, it’s a fictional magical talking hat in a great story, like being assigned to House Mackenzie on sports day at school. there is no, I repeat no gender analogy in the sorting hat.
there is no, I repeat no gender analogy in the sorting hat.Yes, there is.
“There was a time, not too long ago, when an adult wouldn’t ask another adult this kind of question.”Yup. Just look around. Them this year: “Waaaa my dryer blew a fuse. Must be time to buy a whole new laundry set instead of getting it fixed!!”Me: “What the hell is wrong with you that you can’t spend 20 minutes learning how to swap a dryer fuse”Them: “How dare you fucking judge me. Adulting is hard.” (goes off to binge 4 seasons of The Office which they’ve already seen)
The Hat was never wrong, as such, but was unable to say “You’re asking the wrong question”.
Could be worse. There could have been Sorting Underwear that figured out if you went to the boys’ dorm or the girls’ dorm.
Not enough stars
That IS pretty good.My kudos as well, and whatever pronoun is appropriate to honor it.
Isn’t there a version of that in HP? IIRC, male students are magically banned from entering the female students’ quarters, but female students are able to enter the male students quarters since whatever sexist wizard put the spell in place thought that Ron or Draco might try to sneak upstairs to sex up his classmates, but that Hermione and Ginny would be completely uninterested in a little after class hanky-panky.
There’s a magic staircase for the Gryffindor girls’ dorm that keeps boys out, but it’s just the one house. I guess Slytherins and Ravenclaws can get up to all the midnight grab-ass they want. Hufflepuffs would never sneak around after lights out.A staircase in a wizard school seems like it’d only be effective against the first-years and the slow kids. When you have flying broomsticks, stairs aren’t much of an obstacle.
Honestly, it’s just fucking uncanny to watch the rest of the world realize Rowling was incoherent in her worldbuilding after a whole subset of the fandom thought she jumped the shark hard by Half Blood Prince, and that’s not even getting into the neoliberal/Blairite philosophy bleeding through the subtext that might have served as the warning shot to Cursed Child and then the TERFy bullshit. A bunch of the fandom saw this coming even before Pottermore.
She’ll be voting Tory in five years or less, just watch.
I haven’t got a fucking clue at what you’re even trying to say, simp.
You’re an idiot
I assume they have secret ballots in the UK as well, but if you’re willing to make a bet, I’ll take the opposite side regarding whether she’ll do so openly.
A lot of people never finished reading the entire series. They don’t have context for the evolution of Joanne’s writing. Casual fans were just content with drinking their butter beer at Universal Studios.
“A lot of people”
What’s worse is that some people don’t realize quite how derivative her writing is. The books started out as a cheap rip-off reboot of the Worst Witch series, with similarly fanciful and irreverent world-building. It was only when her publishers saw the dollar signs in the broader universe (during the third book) that they brought in other professionals to try to help her build the world out and level up her writing. She’s pissing off so many people right now, it’s only a matter of time before one of her ex-staffers breaks contract…
Butterbeer at Universal Studios was such a disappointment.
You say this as if she hasn’t always voted Tory. Once he’s of age, Harry is absolutely getting a seat on the wizardy House of Lords.
How would you have any insight into this?
Assuming the other branch of government is the House of Muggles?
Yeah, she’s a dyed-in-the-wool elitist Tory. Her story is a book about a boy who is elevated from cupboard-dweller to world’s most powerful person just because of his parentage. He steps into a world of wealth and celebrity and is lauded even though he’s mediocre at best at everything he does. Book after book, he Boris-Johnsons his way to victory through a combination of clumsiness and getting the credit for other people’s hard work. The Harry Potter series is unintentionally telling children that the only way to succeed is through inheritance and privilege.
I remember criticizing whole thing with the Thunderbirds and how she severely oversimplified and generalized the beliefs of a specific group of Native Americans and applied it to all Native Americans. IIRC, a bunch of people on io9 got on my ass for saying she did really bad worldbuilding.
IIRC, a bunch of people on io9 got on my ass for saying she did really bad worldbuilding. Oh weren’t those the days. Same thing happened to me. her treatment of American Indians was probably the worst of it, but her world building of magic in the U.S. was both inept and insulting because it came across as if she really couldn’t be bothered to do the lowest bar decent job of it. It was so arrogantly colonialist in attitude.You still get some Rowling apologists on every critical article about her, but there are for more people who’ve swung over to how actually terrible of a person she is.
Don’t forget the part where she decided that China, Korea, and Japan all share one Japanese wizarding school that can somehow accomodate the entire population and has no mention of the constant simmering tension between those countries.
She’s such a colonialist, she belongs in the 19th Century. Imagine the ignorant hubris to have China and Korea attend school in Japan.
Like how could there be a Magical Congress for the United States when the very idea of a United States didn’t exist until the mid to late 19th Century? Colonial America had local legislative bodies, such as Virginia’s House of Burgesses, but as far as the white people were concerned they were British subjects. It would be one thing to say there was a Colonial Parliament of Magic and they changed the name later.
The more I read her History of Magic in the U.S., the madder I got. There was such an “I can’t be bothered to do an even halfway competent job of research/writing here” attitude about it. For any other good-to-decent writer, that history would’ve been a first draft. Her editors/publishers are either a) completely cowed by her, or b) have lost their ability to judge a decent job of writing, or c) don’t care because she’s going to make them a boatload of money. Or any combination of the above.She comes across as so arrogant in regards to other cultures and peoples as well. I mean, only 11 magic schools for the entire world? That’s not even common sense. You’d need a couple of schools at least for the U.S., and is Rowling even aware of the population of China? And the stuff about Thunderbirds and American Indians was just downright insulting.
that’s io9 for ya
One upside – NK Jemisin blogged about what an American wizarding world would look like if written by someone who knew America ( http://nkjemisin.com/2016/03/it-couldve-been-great/ ), and that’s how I discovered NK Jemisin.
ooh nice.
You generally don’t know what you’re talking about when you post comics panels, so I think they were just going on past knowledge of you
I always thought it was obvious. I liked the books for their fairy tale atmosphere and the main characters are pretty endearing, and honestly Severus Snape was a great foil.
However, the worldbuilding was literally “a wizard did it,” which I know sounds very counterintuitive, but it’s actually bad for fantasy worldbuilding.
Arthur Weasley was a grown adult man whose job it was to understand the society and technology of non-magic using people. He regularly asked his son’s friend about how things like telephones worked, because he had no goddamn idea.
The world-building of Harry Potter was always garbage. It was an interesting setting that immediately stopped making sense once it became even slightly more mature than a children’s book.
The bad guys’s professed superiority looks pretty silly the second you realize they’d be confounded by things that elementary school students can understand.
A common premise I’ve seen in Harry Potter fanfics is either the wizards getting stomped by muggles because superior technology beats magic or the wizards have to adapt to modern times. On the other hand, people following an idiotic bigot because they like the cut of his jib isn’t unrealistic.
As much as I enjoy the series, and I really do despite everything, it was so painfully obvious that she was winging it the whole time and had absolutely no idea where the story or characters would go at any given point, meanwhile patting herself on the back for every allegory she came up with.
she had the entire series plotted out before she began writing the first book. after that she followed the blueprint she had laid out for herself.
The general plot and details, sure. But there’s no way that someone who famously revises her characters’ details and motivations on a whim stuck to even those very closely, and it shows. Admittedly, that can also be attributed to inexperienced writing, but some of the plot points feel very “first draft” compared to others.
She was fairly Anti-Corbyn so I wouldn’t be surprised if she voted Tory in 2017 and 2019… and frankly, even if she’s back to voting Labour under Starmer, Starmer’s basically Diet Tory. I’d argue we’ve done the US thing of our “Left” being the “Right” of a few decades ago now.
She was fairly Anti-CorbynSo was most of the UK, given that he’s a pretty flagrant antisemite (and plowed Labour into the ground).
But I am sure people will be waiting in the wings to gaslight me and tell me he was “jUsT cRiTiCiZiNg IsReAl” even though we have a whole EHRC report showing how that’s not the case.
But I am sure people will be waiting in the wings to gaslight me and tell me he was “jUsT cRiTiCiZiNg IsReAlApparently not. Wrong again eh?
Blairite? I seem to remember her being pretty critical of Tony Blair for following W on his Iraq adventure.
Boarding school literature is inherently bourgie.
90% when I hear somebody praise an author’s “world building,” unless they’re talking about JRR Tolkien, what they really mean is “this author types a lot of words.”
She’s a dumb person who writes books for babies. What do you expect
The best way to scare a Tory is to read and get rich. But stay away from JK Rowling’s later work. —IDLES
Hot take: The world-buildling makes no sense at all, which is why I never became a fan of the series.
Remember when Rowling was the plucky underdog we all had to defend against the right wing idiots insisting the books were making kids evil? Turns out we were just fluffing up her ego the whole time, so now she doesn’t see any need to ever consider she might be wrong about something.
Yes, the irony is too rich and upsetting here, now with Rowling herself instigating the moral panic.
Or maybe it’s you that has that issue.
In truth Alan Moore was correct and Harry Potter is in fact the Anti-Christ…
I haven’t been keen on much of Moore’s latest work—the last LoEG volume, his Crossed miniseries, and the Lovecraft stuff did nothing for me—but having Mary Poppins sort out Harry Potter’s shit was pretty great.
I only ever think he did a Crossed series was because he knew for a fact nobody would want to talk to him about since nobody would actually read Crossed.Crossed is basically the worst thing Garth Ennis has ever written.
Crossed is basically the worst thing Garth Ennis has ever written.There’s a panel in the first issue of Crossed that has stuck with me for years. But yeah, that comic ain’t great.
>Crossed is basically the worst thing Garth Ennis has ever written. That’s a very competitive category! Honesty I don’t know what to make of Garth Ennis; so much of his work is puerile garbage and even his popular books (Preacher, The Boys) will have scenes that are completely indefensible so I want to dismiss him as a hack but then he’ll write something fantastic like Fury:MAX and totally change my mind.
He basically seems to be one of those writers who needs both material that he’s genuinely interested in and an editor willing to dial his worst impulses back a bit. His war comics are usually pretty high-standard, since you can tell he’s really interested in it and there’s little opportunity for the kind of gratuitous puerility he’s infamous for.I’ve always found it interesting, though, that he has such a hate hard-on for superheroes due to the fact that they’re potentially harmful unrealistic power fantasies, which is a fair enough position… except he utterly loves the trope of the grizzled tough-guy vet who Does The Tough-But-Necessary Things You Don’t Have The Guts To Do, Chickenshit, an arguably even more potentially harmful unrealistic power fantasy.
You’re probably not wrong; I’ve read most of Ennis’ earlier work, and eventually came around to re-evaluating most of that in light of his constant reuse of problematic tropes, but Crossed seemed to me to not only be bad, but to be a pretty obvious grab at some sort of The Walking Dead-type quasi-zombie type franchise, even as he’s making fun of comics/SF/fantasy-type nerds in the very first issue. And, not just Moore, but a number of other well-known comics writers have taken a stab at it, causing me to lose a bit of respect for them. (All of Si Spurrier’s Crossed: Wish You Were Here was available online, which is the only thing that kept me from literally throwing it at the wall.)
Slightly OT: I love that you have a comic panel for every situation. You’ve introduced me to several books I’d never have considered otherwise.
I still hate the Harry Potter thing, not for any specific reason of protecting JK Rowling’s precious franchise, but just because Alan Moore gets all upset when people profane *his* work but everyone else’s is fair game for him.
So did Dolores Umbridge.
We all aspire to write a kicker that good.
Speaking of which you remember when they deliberately set her up to get raped? Now that was a trip
What?
Harry and Hermoine lure her out into the forbidden forest where she was then captured by centaurs.. Centaurs that according to myths love raping women. Hermione also makes a quip about knowing whats going to happen to her (forget the exact words). She then comes back with her hair disheveled with twigs and leaves in it but according to the characters: Professor Umbridge was lying in a bed opposite them, gazing up at the ceiling …. Since she had returned to the castle she had not, as far as any of them knew, uttered a single word. Nobody really knew what was wrong with her, either. Her usually neat mousy hair was very untidy and there were still bits of twigs and leaves in it, but otherwise she seemed to be quite unscathed. So she wasn’t beaten or tortured and has no visible injuries yet is so traumatized she couldn’t speak. and some people might think oh JK wouldnt insinuate someone getting raped, but Voldemort was born because his mom used a spell/potion on a dude to make him bang her and love her for a year before it wore off…
also my comment was less about glorifying it but more about wow remember how ridiculous those books were? however it might have came off wrong so if you were offended im sorry.
I wasn’t offended I was just wondering what you meant. Thanks for the explanation. Yeah that’s horrible.
And then in the seventh book her PTSD is basically treated as a silly joke that she gets scared by horse sounds. JK Rowling loves women.
It’s possible that the Sorting Hat assigns you to the place where you’ll grow to become the person that you are destined to become. That opens up a whooooole lot of uncomfortable questions about destiny, but it’s possible that JK Rowling is correct when she says the Hat isn’t ever wrong. You may not like Voldemort, but the universe predetermined that he’d become what he became, and being in Slytherin was instrumental in that. If so, the Sorting Hat wouldn’t be at fault for that. It doesn’t make your destiny come true. It only puts you on the path that destiny has already decided.
the sorting hat is bad, ok? It should be burnt and thrown in the mud, revolution for Hogwarts!
we’re expected to live within a defined set of structures and rules, sometimes set out by the adults and sometimes leftover relics from the past. From childhood onwards we are shaped, bound, and channeled. If someone can’t or won’t conform to the world around them, say they’re a Slytherin who breaks both legs and in their recovery falls in love with a giantess physician, then they can either go build their own hospital or work to redefine those structures within and without. It’s hard work, but it’s doable. Attacking JK Rowling for tweeting stuff won’t make that work any easier for the left or for transwomen, in terms of their own inner space, and in terms of how UK society operates. they are wrestling in the mud over chicken wings.
how exactly does someone who writes:
‘The Harry Potter books describe a stark moral universe’
then get so flabbergasted by:‘“Has the Sorting Hat ever been wrong?” Spartz asked.“No,” Rowling said, unequivocal.’
of course the arbiter of good and evil is going to always be right in a stark moral universe. otherwise it wouldn’t be stark, it would be nuanced.
The sequence of those comments matter. Molly Fischer is first flabbergasted by the response. Fischer had assumed there was more nuance. To make sense of this, Fischer comes to the conclusion that the books are set in a stark moral universe.
God you’re such a dumb asshole.
How does an adult read Harry Potter and not conclude that it’s set in a stark moral universe? I’m not sure I can take seriously the literary commentary of someone who only concluded that Harry Potter isnt a nuanced, grey shaded work until she read about the counting hat
THERE IS NUANCE, AND THEN THERE IS NUANCE. THE MAIN CONFLICT IS QUITE CLEARLY BLACK AND WHITE, BUT THERE ARE PLENTY OF PLACES WHERE THE NARRATIVE MAKES CLEAR THE ISSUES THAT LAY JUST UNDER THE SURFACE OF SOCIETY. THE TREATMENT OF HOUSE-ELVES, THE USE OF DEMENTORS, THE WILLINGNESS OF THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC TO USE ROUGH METHODS TO FIGHT VOLDEMORT, DUMBLEDORE’S PROBLEMATIC EARLY LIFE, AND SO ON. WE GET LESS TIME WITH THE BAD GUYS SO THERE IS LESS THERE, BUT EVEN THEN WE HAVE SOME HINTS, SUCH AS PETTIGREWS WEAKNESS, THE MALFOYS BEING WILLING TO THROW OVER VOLDEMORT FOR DRACO, THE IMPLICATION THAT MANY WEREWOLVES HAVE BECOME EVIL DUE TO DISCRIMINATION, AND OF COURSE, SNAPE.
‘“Has the Sorting Hat ever been wrong?” Spartz asked.“No,” Rowling said, unequivocal.’ONLY A SITH DEALS IN ABSOLUTES!
The irony inherent in that declaration is why Order 66 was such a glorious day for that galaxy.
Nobody an artist hates more than their younger, more talented self. Eh, George Lucas?
Maklunkey!
So, seeing as we only hear it when someone is shot, I would assume it is a curse word.So now we just need to figure out if it is f**k or s##t. Because someone just asked if I wanted to go maklunky out back, and I don’t know if I should be excited or scared.
It’s p&&S.
Excited it is.
Oh, you kids these days. Once you hit 40, they’re both equally exciting!
Given the context of how it’s been used, I think it’s something like this:
Even the Sorting Hat said the Sorting Hat was wrong.
I think Harry tells the Sorting Hat that it was wrong of it to believe he should be in Slytherin.
Important note: Harry Potter sucks, it always sucked, and if you ever liked it past the age of 8 you’re a suss little dork.
You had me up until the personal attacks. People like what they like and shouldn’t be shamed for it. Everyone has different levels of maturity and liking something immature doesn’t make a person anything other than a person.With that being said, I agree with your opinion on Harry Potter. It’s quite disconcerting seeing a 23 year old talking about “what house they belong to” or whatever the hell Harry Potter fans are doing when they talk Potter, like it’s a real thing.
Just a quick correction:JK Rowling does not live in Edinburgh Castle, unless there’s some sort or really secret dungeon or something that’s not open to the tourists. Anelli and Spartz just started their day there.The quote you cited just noted both are essentially “picturesque” fortresses.
Wealthy lady who’s been wealthy for decades is out of touch, says wrong-headed things. Film at 11.
The weirdest thing about the whole JKR ark is that all she ever had to do was nothing. She could have done nothing and carried on being untouchably wealthy and (improperly as it turns out) beloved. And she couldn’t manage to do it.
Yeah imagine taking a moral stand about something you think is right. And objectively is. No one owes fealty to your dumb social causes.
kill yourself
There was a time, a mere five years ago in fact, that she was actually queen of the internet for withering putdowns of “no u dum!” to the likes of the Westboro Baptist Church. If only she’d stayed on the right path!
It’s because she believes she has Important Things to Say, and has already done so many good things speaking out for poor single mothers like she used to be, so she can’t deny the world her Voice.
The same thing could be said about Roseanne Barr. The past few years should have taught JK that celebrities should just keep their mouths shut from time to time.
People have opinions and are wildly unfounded. In fairness to her, she didn’t go on a massive book tour or literary tour and start saying this. We only got her nonsense hot takes when it became available to her via phone. I suspect she doesn’t really get how inept, petulant, and evil she sounds because in her world, this is her expressing a minor view within her catalog of belovedness she was essentially bathed in. I mean, don’t get me wrong, screw her and her evil hot takes but I don’t see anymore depth than a Karen who got lucky writing books and too many millennials think too deeply about when they’re children’s books.Guess what? Most Children’s book authors aren’t much smarter than children and it shows….
JKR also seems to be existing an uncomfortable space where we have both Orson Scott Card-levels of problematic politics that now color her work along with George Lucas-levels of not being able to leave her world or mythology alone. All of it leads to a not super enjoyable experience for most fans.
Sweet jeebus. Who cares?
Is the correct answer.
Some people.
Why are we continuing to hold a Boomer to the standards of Gen Z? She’s old and stuck in her ways, society moves on, what’s the problem?
Being old doesn’t give anyone a free pass on being on the wrong side of history.
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/gop-senator-quotes-j-k-rowling-while-blocking-vote-lgbtq-n1231569This, right here, is the problem. Rowling has influence, and a platform. Her name has instant recognition. So this senator quotes her when blocking a bill on LGBTQ+ equality and her name recognition brings more attention to his words. And people who don’t know much about the issues go, “Hey, this guy’s saying this. And he says JK Rowling is saying this, I know her. Maybe they’re onto something.” And suddenly one Boomer’s opinion is the opinion of lots of people across generations.If you read the article, Lankford quotes the most reasonable-sounding parts of Rowling’s screed. It’s about empathy and “wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats or abuse”. He doesn’t quote her bizarre, tired bathroom attacker fears or her constant why-is-everyone-so-mean-to-me self pity. Empathy and hearing people sounds good, right? Too bad it’s a fig-leaf, and Lankford and Rowling know it.
“Empathy without threat of abuse for me, harassment and hate crimes for thee.”
That works both ways.Many seem to think it is ok to demonize the old but wrong to even criticize in any way the young.
She isn’t a boomer. She’s gen X.
Wait, isn’t Rowling Gen X? I realize that this is nitpicking and does not negate your point, but it doesn’t mean a criticism shouldn’t be accurate.
Of course no one is answering the real question.How bad do think that hat fucking smells after being put on all of these greasy childrens’ heads?
After a certain point it just sorts them all into “has lice.”
Needs moar stars.
In hindsight, it is a very interesting storytelling decision to have a magical object tell children that their personality traits at that age have already put them on a path of some sort which should be continued upon, rather narrowly, for their continued childhood and upbringing and inform the course of their life and this is nigh-unquestionable (until oops, fascism, but I tend to think that was a course correction in the last book versus intended trajectory)
The Sorting Hat is a fucked up idea anyway. Here is just one example of why.
Until recently you were fine with it
Mitchell and Webb to the rescue.
Not just this, they saw the fricking future coming years ago with the whole Quiz/ Stay Indoors thing.
This is absolute gold.
What’s that MacBeth line? ‘A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’. I’ll leave it up to you to interpret that as a commentary on rabid fan zealots, on pop culture articles, or on the author herself.
None of the above – you’re just a MacBeth fan!
Please, call us The Scottish Fans.
Look, I get that she has, over the last couple of years, said and written stuff that is…not…great. But I don’t see the point of trying to psychoanalyse everything she says (when asked direct questions) about the fictional world she created.
I don’t think you understand how this meme works.
(Agreeing with PF77 to be clear)
Ah, my mistake then.
You just might not understand how takes are created on the internet
This reminds me of the movie “Back to School” where Rodney Dangerfield’s English teacher/girlfriend gave him an “F” on a paper about Kurt Vonnegut saying “you know nothing about Vonnegut!” When the joke is Rodney paid Vonnegut to write his paper and cheated. Um, she wrote the thing, so her opinion is pretty much the only one that counts.
but that answer about the Sorting Hat is one of its most potent observations Way to make me never click that link lol
It’s weird this piece has focused on that – well, apart from the fact the writer has her own forces metaphor to put into the story. Because the article itself is fascinating, a really good deep dive into Rowling’s public persona, examining it from multiple sides with insight and nuance. So of course the AV Club reduce it to one bit of snark.
It’s so reprehensibly fake I wonder at some point if they lost the plot and forgot they were trying to convince us they meant it. It’s now pretty obviously the mask they use to deliver hot news under, stuff they won’t stop revisiting and writing about no matter how supposedly #cancelled the subject in question gets.
Been kind of funny to watch people who flipped out over Harry Potter for the last 15 years try now to figure out what to do with Rowling.
In retrospect, the hat that sorts adolescents into prescriptive groups was the first real clue to Rowling’s transphobia.The hat was always bad.
The hat at least recognizes multiple possibilities. Harry begs to be put into Gryffindor. The hat asks if he’s sure, since he would make a good Slytherin. Harry says no. It is, of course, ridiculous to ask a child to make a choice that will affect the course of his life for the next seven years, but in the end, Harry does get to choose for himself his own house identity.
The Potter world exists in monarchic England where lifelong roles were indeed assigned to children at birth simply based on who their parents are. This isn’t about transexuality, its about class stratification. If you don’t like the sorting hat abolish the British monarchy.
England’s an extremely class-based society and her books reflected that. I mean, a large part of the plot is over the Malfoy’s thinking they’re super-special because they come from an old wizarding family and looks down upon the Weasley’s because they’re poor. Harry comes from an old, famous wizarding family but because he grew up an orphan and with Muggles, he’s looked down up too even if it’s as rich as everyone else. The whole book is clearly about English class issues
“If you don’t like the sorting hat abolish the British monarchy.”
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
Good piece. I hadn’t known she was a sexual assault survivor. If fear of cis men is the key psychological reason for her trans bigotry, as the article suggests, how tragic she is this way, hurting others because she can’t get over her own hurt, in a cycle of hate and violence. And when the books she wrote, that came to define her and their fans offer a better, more compassionate and empathetic way—if only she would take it. But, yes, since she has had the power to build up young people’s lives, help them with coming into their identities, it is a moral offense she has selfishly, stubbornly not changed her mind, regardless of the reasons she had.
I think it’s also a bit of a snake-eating-its-own-tail situation, where being criticized by trans people and their allies makes her upset and defensive, and this just reinforces whatever crap she’s reading on TERF websites about the evils of trans activists. And every time she says something she gets criticized more, and meanwhile the other TERFs and right-wing reactionaries are showering her with praise for bravely standing up to the almighty trans lobby.
Then she’s invested so much into this viewpoint that it would be difficult to change her mind, which still wouldn’t win back the love of all the people she pissed off, so it’s like an emotional sunk cost fallacy. So instead she just keeps doubling down and embedding herself further into the views and communities she feels safe in, viewing herself as a heroic martyr all the while. She’s probably going to drift further and further right over the next five years, because those motherfuckers love her now.
Exactly. This “emotional sunk cost fallacy” (nice) feedback loop applies to many things, especially political beliefs. Why getting mad at Trumpers for how could you be this dumb, while it may feel good to get it of our chests, has the counterproductive blowback effect of making them believe in it even more. I don’t know what the solution is except for getting rid of the toxic media and discourse, or reducing it as much as legally possible online and in the media.
Also even before this whole trans thing started—for years, for years she was showered with shit by insane Snape fans (not talking about all Snape fans, I love him myself) who were angry about his fate. (And Draco fans and…you get the picture.) We all know about those absolutely batshit fans, who say “they” should be allowed to “take Snape away from her,” that she “obviously doesn’t understand her own character.” Women who sincerely believe they are married to an actual Snape. I remember reading this diatribe on the Leaky Lounge about how JKR owed—owed!—”us” an entirely rewritten series. I mean, people. were. nuts. You write a series that connects with enough people—a critical mass—then a certain portion of those fans are going to be crazy and they’re going to pester her with tweets and screeds and emails over and over and over and after awhile she’s going to start hating fandom. Plus the constant “shut up about your own series.” Plus the constant “she only wrote Cursed Child to squeeze out more money.” I imagine that got very, very old after awhile and probably turned her off to reading any responses to her tweets.I got nothing about the rabid anti-trans stances though. I read the article because I’m so baffled about how someone who wrote a seven book series that preached empathy, inclusivity, kindness—how could such a person turn around and deny those values to trans people? Who are some of the most vulnerable of our population? It seems very odd, very out of character. The article talks about trauma which at least gives me some kind of an explanation but man—she is listening to the wrong people. She is being encouraged and egged on by the wrong people. Hateful people, people who don’t share your value system. Trans women are no threat to cis women. Be better, Joanne. Be the values you preached.
Ah yes, that term ‘CIS men’.
“enhance… enhance…”
I don’t use the word much myself, but it’s only three letters long, completely benign, and the language of new diversity and new populations isn’t onerous. They’re just words.
Which basically means men on this side.
but there’s no physical violence or structural discrimination, right? Rowling wrote blog posts and tweeted stuff, she’s not out there banging on trans activists’ doors. this kind of social punishing behaviour is not deserved.
And, beyond women stuff, there are other causes that need attention too.
“Rowling wrote blog posts and tweeted stuff, she’s not out there banging on trans activists’ doors. this kind of social punishing behaviour is not deserved.”One of the biggest authors on the planet is out there actively drumming up hatred and transphobia and “this kind of social punishing behavior is not deserved?” It absolutely *is* deserved.
no, it is not. A woman was fired from her job for speaking her mind, so far as I understand right now. as a man, any more comments on this topic would be inappropriate. thanks.
I am only one person. I don’t know the answer to this question, but I can say that I read Rowling’s blog post and found her account honest and thoughtful. I didn’t sense any great hatefulness in those words.
but there’s no physical violence or structural discrimination, right?In general, or by JK Rowling herself? I mean, in the case of the former, just Google “violence against trans people”. In the case of the latter, JK Rowling is a structure at this point, so the case could be made that her tweeting and writing blog posts is a form of structural discrimination. But you are correct in that JK Rowling has not physically harmed a trans person. I think.
But that’s still very damaging. She is one of the most famous authors in the world, having written a hugely influential series. Her words carry enormous power.
.
J.K Rowling hardly qualifies as a ‘bigot’ by any stretch of the word’s definition.
I mean are we surprised someone who has such a stringent opinion on gender and sex also believes a magic hat definitely tells you exactly who you are at age 9
Free will does not exist.
Do you recall that debate from some years back on whether Holmes and Watson were gay? The obvious truth is Holmes and Watson were only what was written on the page because they did not exist beyond the bounds of the books. Rowlings is the Harry Potter author so anything Rowlings says is necessarily canon. If she wants Hermione to sire offspring in litters like kittens and then eat them afterwards there’s nothing you can do about it.
>Rowlings is the Harry Potter author so anything Rowlings says is necessarily canon.It has to actually be in the written text to be canon.
Damn it, I hope she doesn’t, otherwise this Hermione fan-fiction I’m working on will seem really redundant.
what
well, Rowling’s no Beatrix Potter sitting around making up stories about cutesy wabbits, that is for certain now. For me, I need to separate out Rowling’s story of what happened to her at the hands of a man (which I found compelling and of which I support the telling) from her political stance against transwomen.
It’s not clear exactly what form the erosion of rights will take in the United Kingdom. I get the impression that speaking out is increasingly silenced by the radical left. No laughing matter. I’ve seen my fair share of Australian women and men gleefully silencing out of the realisation that they could.. stamp stamp stamp.. they experience structural violence but have also internalised and embodied a great deal of that violence themselves, and can’t or won’t think outside of that. I mean, they also get to have fun, muck around, and maybe find a way forward that works for them, but a lot of them are young, only kids, not understanding that on some social questions we’re in the same boat and sometimes there’s some push and pull, and sometimes there’s no absolutely right answer.
Rowling jumped off her billionaire kid’s book author pedestal, and she did it for something she believes in, with a clear, thoughtful story to tell. Maybe she’s not so sweet anymore but, tbh, unprocessed food of any variety tastes better to me nowadays. Rowling’s an author and she did that for herself, by herself, she’s not taxpayer funded, she can say what she wants.
Stop. Talking. About. Her.
On. yer. period. then?
I’m just sick of seeing her given the oxygen of publicity.Although, when it comes down to it I don’t know how attached I am to the idea of her getting the oxygen of oxygen…
Yeah just like in the 1930s germany…
Sidenote here but it’s always funny when people use HP as an example of the rote and prosaic ‘chosen one’ narrative because the books make it clear Potter is only important because Voldemort thought he was important. It’s actually a great subversion of the ‘chosen one’ idea.
Of all the batshit craziness of the woke progressive morons who make a lot of noise in Anglo-speaking Twitter but almost do not exist in real life, the decision to declare war on JK Rowling is the most baffling.Not only is she immensely popular, she says things that 90% of people agree with. Most people would see her as a left wing liberal, but listening to the people here you would think she is a far right activist. That’s how far these people are disconnected from reality. But please continue.
This. No one has any conception that her opinions are mainstream. People don’t think violent male sex offenders should go in womens’ prisons, or that men who went through puberty should play womens’ sports, or that a teenager girl who spontaneously wonders if she’s trans shouldn’t be thrown on puberty blockers after a couple visits to a clinic. You can cry that this is evil and bigoted but these are opinions fairly grounded in reality.
The problem I find with a ‘stark moral universe’ that it tends to fall apart when the world expands. Are we to believe that every witch or wizard (or at least those from Britain) can all be categorised into one of the four houses, for example? It’s very limiting.I feel the same way about Star Wars. Dark/Light side is all very well and good when you’re making a rollicking adventure film based on old serials, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny once you expand out to include The Clone Wars, The Mandalorian, any number of books and games etc. Is everyone not aligned with the Jedi evil? Is anyone displaying fear, anger or, God forbid, sexual attraction, about to fall to the dark side? Some of the recent stuff has tried to include bits about how Republic or Empire, some people will still suffer, but it felt a little tossed off, a line here or there to get people like me to shut up about it! Basically what I’m saying that that a Manichaean philosophy isn’t really conducive to making a coherent and interesting fictional universe, though it can make for the occasional great film.Also, the plot of The Goblet of Fire makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
If you read or watch some of the expanded material (some of which isn’t canon anymore), there are force users not allied with either the Jedi or Sith. I believe there are even some, like Ahsoka, who try to thread a needle between the Light and Dark sides. Plus there is some indication that the Jedi’s rules for emotional detachment and chastity may not be correct. Love was partially what corrupted Annikin, but it also was what ended up saving him. Much of the prequels and Clone Wars TV series focused on how the Jedi were too detached from the common man and too ideologically rigid, and the Last Jedi in particular leaned in hard on that interpretation.There is a lot more depth and nuance to it than most give it credit for, at least in my opinion.
Oh I absolutely agrre that a lot of that stuff is there, but it tends to come in from the EU stuff as you say and I don’t think it’s what Lucas initially intended (though obviously I can’t claim to actually know what Lucas has intended)My feeling has always been that Lucas views Sith as unambiguously bad, and the Jedi as definitely good but very fallible, which they’d have to be to have been all but wiped out by Luke’s time!I’ve thought that a good way for the sequels to go is that there has to be some realisation that to bring balance to the force, both Jedi and Sith need to exist, rather than the baffling Jedi view that ‘balance’ is wiping your enemy from the face of the galaxy.
Who the fuck cares about this stupid woman and her stupid opinions. She writes books for babies. Are you a baby
The Sorting Hat does not sort students for life. It sorts them into school houses. For whatever reason the school is subdivided into houses, and that’s what the hat does. It does about a good a job as any standardized test administered to 11 year olds.Perhaps we are setting the stakes a bit high for a magical hat.
I thought that was what school was all about: bad lunches and being crammed into whatever round hole was seemingly arbitrarily assigned to you.I went to Catholic school; being sorted by hat isn’t the kookiest thing.
The photo of her next to a sign for Human Rights…..ugh.
I’m gonna go fuck a pronoun now, excuse me.
They should be fucked.
Counterpoint: Fuck Slytherins. Even the only “good” one was a creepy racist-curious stalker who was willing to let his boss kill his crush’s husband and then he was a miserable asshole to the crush’s kid.
That little scene you use as your point involves NO Slytherin students. They all noped out to hang out with their racist mommys and daddys in their KKK cosplay.
The only good Slytherin is a dead one.
Meh. I always thought labeling children was a really bad idea.
It therefore doesn’t surprise me that she’s transphobic. It fits in with the entire shit.
Jesus fucking wept, have any of you read the comments section on the original article over at TheCut. Will make you despair for humanity.
I really enjoyed the point that was raised in the article that while her transphobia is shitty, the fear of male violence (based in experience) that a lot of TERF’s have is genuine. As much as I find their opinions to be offensive and wrong, I think it’s worth considering the real fears that underpin them and trying to make steps to allay those fears where possible.
Having said that – I don’t understand how all of these people talking about the dangers of men taking over women’s spaces can’t just look at the world and see that in places where bathroom laws are in place that this HASN’T happened, and doesn’t happen. It just means Trans people are safer and happier, which can only be a good thing. Like I get their argument in concept, but real world examples clearly disprove the argument, so I don’t understand why they cling to it.
Honestly, this all kind of seems like what happens when a mid-quality children’s book series about a wizard school is treated by its fans as both modern mythology and foundational moral text in ways that it’s ultimately not equipped to be.
See Wars, Star…
Oh, don’t get me started on that one.
Merry
Christmas!, Thanks For Sharing
The final pre-epilogue act in the final book of the series sees the old
notions about the Sorting Hat tossed out the window; the surviving
students of Hogwarts don’t sit at their designated house tables, they
just sit, divisions based on some external assessment of who they were
at age 11 set aside at long last. People can be brave and bookish, ambitious and
loyal, and they can change and evolve and become better, more
empathetic people. The Sorting Hat may never be wrong, but it is also
never right.Ugh. The entire premise is that SOME people are born with magical ability and others are not. It’s a fixed mindset from the start. It’s like talking about diversity at Harvard—there’s a strong limit built into the conversation.
That the few non-magical people we meet are treated with disdain and even the best of wizards continues to call them “muggles” dismissively says it all. Let’s stop pretending Harry Potter is anything but a precocious fantasy for those who think they’re more “special” than their peers.Full Disclosure: Enjoy the series and her adult mysteries.
The British children’s series ‘Thomas The Tank Engine’ was accused back in 2017 of classism, repressive authoritarianism, sexism, racism and anti-environmentalism. Sometimes you get the impression that British culture is not the mirror image of American suburban liberal values that we thought it was. People seem to be angry a the likes of John Cleese and J.K.Rowling for not being 20-something American hipsters.
I don’t understand the purpose of this article. Are we upset that an author is fighting for artistic rights? Are we upset that a person has an opinion? I’m confused. Based on the article, it sounds as if JK Rowling maybe said something in a recent interview about trans people? Maybe I’m just dumb. Oh well.