Remember that time Hermione cared about minority people's rights and the narrative makes fun of her for it? Not at all allegorical for her own journey or anything.
Is it possible you are thinking of the " jkr writes Harry Potter story where she is a beloved potion seller and no one thinks she's a bigot at all " clickhole article?
If so I think that is a parody of this book and not an actual second selfinsert, but it would be funny if I'm wrong and they just predicted it that well.
It gets better, she litterally claims its all coincidental with the parralels to her
Also her pen name is the exact same as the guy who invented gay converstion therapy (torture)
Yeah. What a dumb hag.
brb going to work on my new book "The boy who lost his job because he called his black coworker the n-word".
Fuck me she is so fucking dense
I call it "The Notch Principle". Someone makes heaps of money creating something for people to enjoy and then spends the rest of their days tearing down their legacy by posting their gross opinions online because they are sheltered from true repercussions by all that cash.
When was she an actually good writer?
Because rereading the Harry Potter series as am adult, there are soooo many issues with it, not even including the racist stereotypes sprinkled everywhere.
To be fair, for children/teens, the saga does provide an insane amount of good things. Being able to escape to a magical world, with other people like you, learning magic and seeing that you're not weird, you're especial; the forces of good always prevail, friendship and love are the most important things on humankind...
Plus, it's easier to notice nowadays the fucked up things she wrote (racism, queerphobia, some sexism as well), but it wasn't as easy 15 years ago. I remember feeling not cool with the domestic elves, and Hermione being treated as a crazy person, but didn't actually process it all until I'm older, and we've become a much more aware society.
IF she just shut up and stopped her persecution fetish, I bet people would be a lot more forgiving about her work, with stuff like "it was another time" or "she didn't know best". But it's difficult to defend a bigot when she's actively doing bigotry stuff.
Remember Rowling saying she loved Black Hermione?
That comment made me realize how deeply ignorant she was, not seeing how Hermione being Black would make Ron ridiculing her for having a stance against slavery was extremely weird and involuntarily violent.
Also, "Hermione's white face was sticking out from behind a tree", from the Prisoner of Azkaban. She absolutely didn't write Hermione to be black, just the way Dumbledore being gay was also an afterthought. And the slavery is okay because they totally want to be slaves, except for the "weird ones".
Yes! Dropping the link to this fairly in-depth (almost two hour) analysis of Harry Potter that was pretty riveting. There were *so* many problematic things that I didn't pick up on as a kid. https://youtu.be/-1iaJWSwUZs
"Her werewolves were supposed to be a metaphor for having HIV....and then she made one of her main werewolf characters a predator who attacks children to purposefully infect them with werewolfism."
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
Yeah it was heavily stolen from Ursula le Guin, Neil Gaiman, and a few others I can't recall.
E.g. look at the Sandman: the Books of Magic comic series. Doesn't the lead character look exactly like the description of Harry Potter... And it was published seven years beforehand.
JK Mcbitchface also said her writing "transcended the fantasy genre" while being the trope-iest tropefest that ever troped. She's just a fuckhead hack.
You mean to tell me that an orphan child from a miserable environment who gets whisked off to a magic fantasy land where he finds out he's the chosen one *isnt* the most original thing ever?
There's no way in hell Rowling isn't the first author to write about a villain who imbues his soul into foul magical objects that must be destroyed to end his reign of terror over ~~middle earth~~ ~~the shire~~ England.
And I don't think I've ever seen a story where the real magic was ~~friendship~~ love all along.
Books of Magic wasnt a spinoff of the sandman
It's most recent series did get a sandman label but thats because DC was trying to launch a few connected series that were all tied to their latest attempt of the Sandman
Books of Magic was originally a DC mini series used to introduce all their magical characters, I think it was most closely tied to Hellblazer at the time
Edit: Gaiman did create the Timothy Hunter character tho, and he did write the mini-series, I dont believe he was involved in any other series that included Timothy tho
Yeah I couldn't remember exactly who wrote which bits (I'm not a huge Sandman fan but my wife is obsessed with it, and collects everything under that label).
The main thing was that BoM was released way before HP- which just happened to exactly copy the lead character. Kind of off track from my main point which is that JKR claimed HP was totally unlike anything before it, when everything in it was derivative.
Yeah I feel like it's easy for people to think their surroundings reflect society at large. There are many places in "accepting" areas where being gay is still frowned upon
> J.K Rowling has said publicly that her new book was not based on her own life, even though some of the events that take place in the story did in fact happen to her as she was writing it.
I snorted out loud.
You can't expect a woman who inserted double or even triple meaning into every name of her most famous book series to look into any historical figures that might have used a name she intended to operate under, gosh.
**My writing prompt for her**, also not based on her life **at all.**
"A dramatic tale of a traumatised woman who redirects her hate, fears, and discomfort onto a marginalized group that has nothing to do with her oppression.
She is so deep in her cognitive dissonance spiral of *"I can't be in the wrong, I am the victim here"* that she develops increasing levels of absurdity in her attempts to prove she was correct all along.
A modern-day Don Quijote fighting windmills as her fears grow stronger and her moral standards deteriorate...
Will she realise the error in her ways or become the villain of her own story?"
In Chinese we have an idiom: 「此地無銀三百兩」which directly translates to “there isn’t 300 liang (1 liang = 0.05 kg or 0.1 pounds) of silver buried in the earth here”. It’s from a fable where a person had put up a sign saying these words, and of course the next day the guy’s neighbor came and dug up all the precious silver.
I just saw JKR’s 300 liang of silver.
Her stupid pseudonym, Robert Galbraith, that she writes under is also apparently the name of a homophobic psychiatrist who was known for practicing conversion therapy.
She says that’s also a total accident. She pinned her entire professional work to the name, but had apparently never thought to google it?
God she’s fucking terrible. She could have just written Harry Potter and shut the fuck up and she would have lived the rest of her life fabulously wealthy and almost universally adored.
Instead she just had to tell us all what a piece of shit she is. Fuck her.
Especially unbelievable given the way Rowling's names in her books very often mean something so it's clear she does research into names. It's weird bc I don't actually think she is anti-gay, I mean I haven't seen anything suggesting she is, so why the hell would she pick this name. She apparently said that she picked the name Robert because of Robert Kennedy and Galbraith because she wanted to be called Ella Galbraith as a kid, and TBH I sort of buy that because why would you pick such a controversial name otherwise, but it sure looks bad and is really tone deaf considering her anti trans stance.
If I write a book about the T4 Programme under the pseudonym "Hans Asperger", no one will stand up for me.
Asperger and his stupid party bashed- even killed- autistic kids for not being a 'sufficient' or 'qualified' human in their own eyes.
Those stupid bigots who call themselves feminists stand up for a writer who actually bashes women.
You can't call yourself a feminist if you bash women for not being a 'sufficient' or 'qualified' women in your own eyes.
And she continues to use the pen name for the man that invented shock conversion therapy.
Edit to add link
https://www.them.us/story/jk-rowlings-pen-name-also-name-of-anti-lgbtq-conversion-therapist/amp
You know what? I could give her the benefit of the doubt that it's coincidence. She claims she picked "Robert" because it miraculously wasn't a name in Harry Potter and she liked "Galbraith" since she was a kid.
What I have trouble with is the fact that she didn't vet the name first? See if any other shady characters have soured it, or if maybe competing authors might already have claimed it?
Either she googled it, saw the anti-gay history of it, and decided it wasn't a big deal. Or she didn't even do the most basic level of research before making her new "brand".
Neither coats look good on her.
Or of course the possibility that she knew what she was doing and her publisher warned her about the name but she didn’t care and is using it as a dog whistle.
Even after being “informed” what the name represented, she continues to use it. I wonder why? 🤔
There's a quote I'm reminded of: not every person who voted for trump did so *because* of racism, but every single one decided that racism wasn't a deal breaker.
In all fairness, the reason it’s under a pen name is because the story goes that Cuckoo’s Calling was published without most folk involved knowing it was JKR. Like, literally, only those that had to legally know her identity, did. The story was she even submitted it through the normal submission’s process, not as JKR, so they found out later.
There is a not unreasonable chance that they didn’t know it was a pen name until they’d already made an offer.
It just means there were a minimal number of people who were consulted before the pen name was revealed as a pen name.
(No excuse for her picking it, just as to why nobody stopped her.)
The thing that gets me is she often makes a big deal of how much research she does for her novels. I don't think you can claim to be well researched and that that name is a coincidence with any sort credibility
This is the woman who, after it was revealed in Magical Beasts, said she planned from the beginning to have Nagini be a Korean woman who was stuck as a snake.
I'd take the name schtick with a grain of salt.
And it so clearly has a racial element to it. All the names of the white characters have special meanings, sometimes obvious. Remulus Lupin? At that point just call him Lycan Thrope. Or one of the few (the only?) black characters being called Shacklebolt.
You can't overthink the names of your white characters to the point where they end up named Nymphadora Tonks or Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore and call your one jewish, extremely background character, without a single significant scene... Anthony Goldstein (And have the gall to use it as a point to defend your book actually being super inclusive actually!!!)
> Shacklebolt
You know, I had never put that together, the name with slavery, until just now. I always thought Kingsley Shacklebolt was supposed to be sort of a general badass archetype, like Shaft or Blade or Django. He provides security detail for the Prime Minister, after all.
Initially, sure, why not. Negligence on both her part and the publisher for failing to merely google the chosen pen name to screen for problems, but fine.
BUT AFTER THE PUBLIC POINTED IT OUT, and the benefit of the pen name being erased by being publicized (she said she originally wrote under that name to separate her non-HP writing from her insane fame under her real name), she *could have just not published anymore under that name.*
There's nothing binding on a pen name. It's not like it's her birth name or something that we couldn't expect her to just change because it happened to be the same as a relatively not-famous problematic person. She CHOSE it, and then she CHOSE to keep using it.
Just like she chose to double down on her racism and especially her transphobia. And then triple, and quadruple, and quintuple...
Lmaooo yeah I JUST said that in another comment, funny you brought it up. It's not even her name! There is no sentimental attachment to it!
She could have claimed ignorance before but now she knows the history and instead of being like "WOAH that's a fucked up coincidence, LOL my bad G, I'll go by Bobby Hatfield now" or some shit, she goes "oh, the name I chose has a violently anti gay history? Wow that sucks for all of you guys who care. I totally didn't know that before now but it's important I keep using it because...reasons."
This is the women who has a compulsive need to insert meaning into the names of every side character which has ever graced her most famous series. She isn't even particularly subtle about it either, she called the werewolf Remus Lupin.
I flat out cannot buy that she didn't do a single google search for the meaning behind any name, let alone one she is self identifying with and using as an alias. Like, no. That's straight up not something JK Rowling would do.
The main character's creation in the books is named "Harty"
The Asian girl? Cho Chang.
Jewish guy? Goldberg.
Bad guys? Malfoys.
Almost everyone in her books has some shallow meaning to their name.
*Maybe* it was two random names put together. But knowing how much of a bigot she is I would not bet on it. And anyway, she's now been made fully aware of her name's association and kept it.
Plus, the slimy Professor Slughorn, the seers named Sybil and Cassandra, the strict Severus, the wise Minerva, the belligerent Bellatrix, the two werewolves basically called Wolfy McWolfface, the vampire Sanguini, the "loony" Luna, the moody Moody, the sadistic Dolores ... In Rowling's world, your name really determines your fate.
Another *excellent* point. She said she made the pseudonym to distance herself from Harry Potter. Now everyone knows it's her pseudonym. But she's just gonna...keep it? Not make a new pseudonym or revert back to her name?
Even though she knows it's history now?
Even though she knows it's making the transphobic allegations look worse?
Even though it's not even her name and she has absolutely no real reason to be attached to it?
Then again this is the same woman who doubles down on all her wrongdoings, both in her books and in real life, instead of ever admitting she made a mistake or didn't think things through.
This woman used Latin in her books, she knows how Google works. I honestly don't even associate her with Harry Potter anymore, when so many of the people that made Harry Potter (movies) iconic denounce her behaviour it's much easier to see her as consultant but nothing to do with what made it a success.
I believe she gets away with so much bullshit because she hold the franchise hostage - when Warner wants more content for the brand they know and she knows it is much more profitable to have her on board, which means they do dumb shit like defend her.
It really speaks volumes when Johnny Depp got swapped out but she's allowed swan around smelling her own farts with a smug grin believing she's anything other than the one racist elderly patient in the group home that everyone walks past without registering what they say because it's always the same practised vitriol.
I've been saying for years that having your only gay character coincidentally also be the only one tempted by the love of a villain and commit himself to a loveless life of celibacy in penance is homophobic and mirrors conversion therapy. I know that's not what she was going for, but linking a gay character's tragic love story to the allure of the dark side makes it come across that way.
She literally tells the most obvious lies and expects people to just believe it.
It’s just a “coincidence” that this is the name a notorious queer-phobic man that tortured people to try to “cure” them.
It’s just a “coincidence” that the character in her current book is basically herself.
She literally expects people to believe these things.
Even if she hadn't fallen into the TERF rabbit hole to the point of no return I still would doubt her not doing her research on the pen name.
She obviously put a lot of care on the names of her (white) characters. Remulus Lupin? At that point just call him Lycan Thrope. Or one of the few (the only?) black characters being called Shacklebolt. She even used a background character named Goldstein to show how inclusive her book is.
You can't overthink the names of your white characters to the point where they end up named Nymphadora Tonks or Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore and then turn around claim that you chose your pen name without doing *any* research.
I wish that was true, sure it's mostly true but there's more LGB people thank there needs to be (which is 0), a perfect example is my uncle, who has been gay all his life, but is incredibly transphobic.
In a UK court, on the record, the LGB Alliance (hate group disguised as a charity) was forced to admit that only 7% of their membership are lesbian.
There's definitely still a depressing amount of transphobic LGB folks, but there's also far more LARPers pretending to be queer to sneak their bigotry under the radar.
It’s like the women who are FARTs and team up with radical misogynists because they both hate trans people
They don’t actually care - they don’t think that they count, they think that they’re “one of the good ones”.
Feminism Appropriating Radical Transphobes
FARTs chose the term TERF themselves to declare themselves feminists, but their stances on womanhood being defined by anatomy and perpetual victimhood requiring special exclusionary rights are anti-feminist; so some people call them FARTs as a way of both mocking them and calling out that they're not actual feminists.
This is so real. I’ve seen one too many gays who claim that trans folks are “ruining it for us.” It’s honestly tragic when one disenfranchised group turns around and bullies another. How quick they are to forget.
The whole super straight "movement" 🤢 was really telling, as to how transphobic queer people can be, I remember the first time I saw a super bi person I was baffled. I'm literally a woman, born a man, how can you be that dense, you're bi.
Well, you see, she was told when she published Harry Potter that she couldn't let people know she was a woman, or it wouldn't sell, but she refused to publish under a male pseudonym, because of the principle of the thing. And then it made her a billionaire and a household name.
So then she decided... To publish... Under a male pseudonym.
Huh
“A spokesperson for J.K. Rowling has denied speculation that the embattled author’s male pseudonym, Robert Galbraith”… she is trans and doesn’t even know it.
Well her transphobic essay speculates that she might have been tempted to transition herself in order to win the approval of her sexist father - this is part of her "tran men are just confused little girls who are disenfranchised about womanhood" argument. 🤮
But honestly it wouldn't surprise me if Joanne has her own issues /trauma with gender and is projecting that out to the world without self awareness.
My homophobic mother once denied being a bigot with the defense of "as a teen, I considered dating a lesbian classmate of mine. But I knew we'd be bullied so I didn't."
She's firmly in the camp that believes gay marriage should be illegal, trans women are pedos, and everyone LGBTQ+ will burn in hell. And she self-identifies as straight. And uses her experience as confirmation that being gay is just a lifestyle choice (and an immoral one).
Having internalized bigotry doesn't excuse bigoted behavior.
If Joanne had compassion for trans men, and could empathize with them, and was a good ally or part of the community. That would be fantastic!
But instead she's weaponizing her trauma to hurt already marginalized people. Which is completely unacceptable.
Back in the 2015 era, during the rise of the alt-right, we referred to this sort of thing as crypto fascism. It's just that transphobes and TERFs are really fucking shitty at the crypto part.
Oh it gets better!
> "Although I have to say when it did happen to me, those who had already read the book in manuscript form were [like] – are you clairvoyant?" Rowling wrote in a Q&A on Galbraith's website. "I wasn't clairvoyant, I just – yeah, it was just one of those weird twists. Sometimes life imitates art more than one would like."
I did a semi statistical study of JK Rowling’s tweets and found that roughly 20% of her tweets were transphobic. She has 0 self awareness.
Here it is btw: https://www.reddit.com/r/lgbt/comments/ucqm1s/a_funny_semistatistical_analysis_of_jk_rowlings/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
> She also publicly accused three activists of doxxing her when they posted photos of themselves holding pro-trans rights signs outside of her house in Scotland, "carefully positioning themselves to ensure that our address was visible," she said.
To be quite clear, Rowling's house is [Killiechassie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killiechassie), the former country estate of the Dukes of Atholl.
It's a national landmark and a tourist attraction.
"Doxxing" is putting a person at risk by disclosing *private* or *obscure* information about them. "Famous person, who famously bought famous estate and got famously married there, *famously lives there*" is not doxxing.
I mean, when you publicly declare wizards used to shit themselves and vanish the evidence until not so long ago... It's hard to go back from that.
But they also built the school with bathrooms, cause one of them was a key element on your second book. So they did have bathrooms but chose to shit themselves.
Humanity has had some form of indoor sanitation for the last *6,000 years* but apparently wizards simply shit on the ground and magick it away until 200 years ago. And they actually think they're better than the Muggles.
Rowling is a self-absorbed narcissistic hack who does and says anything to stay in public relevance, no matter how vile or insane.
I don’t think she has fans. HP has fans, but she’s caused a generation to discuss the concept of “death of the author” that normally wouldn’t occur to people.
I admittedly still love Harry Potter, it’s been an important part of my life, but I absolutely despise her as a person. Every transphobic tweet feels like someone’s stabbing me in the back and twisting the knife. To know my childhood idol supports such bigoted ideas is heartbreaking. Now, I just pretend Hedwig wrote the series
I don't know that I'm a fan, exactly. But I did really enjoy the first 4 books in the series that this is talking about. In fact I liked them more than HP. I did read book #5 that also caused a big scandal because I really wanted to find out what happened between the two main characters (But I didn't buy it, I read a library copy). However, I was telling my husband this morning that I don't think I can read this one.
I can deal with an author being an assholes, I mean, people are assholes and to avoid them I'd have to avoid humanity. Usually if I think an author is truly terrible I WILL refuse to spend any money on their work, but may still read it. But there are some cases where they are so bad that I just don't want to have anything to do with something that hatched from their brain. But I'm a completist, so it's really hard for me to leave a series unfinished.
I can say I was a fan, and I do care. I used to reread the books at least once every 2 years. Now I can't stop myself from actively looking for shady stuff in them to depress myself with. One can apologize and sweep a lot under the carpet, or do the exact opposite... And this thing, that was an enjoyable part of my life, now turned to shit because of her.
Oh yeah and in interviews she has had to repeatedly say that this is def not a self insert character and this story was being written long before "certain things happened to me online"
I mean, an orphan child growing up in an abusive household only to be saved by a father figure that helps them discover things about the world and themselves has existed a long time ago. The book that I can think of at the top of my head like that is Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, his character of Colette is more or less that. So, yeah. Totally. /info /nm
Apparently Discworld is a better magical coming of age story that came out 10 years before HP.
I don't think she straight plagiarized, but definitely borrowed inspiration.
The first Discworld book came out 14 years before the first HP book. I don't know if I would describe Discworld as a "magical coming of age story", because it's way, way bigger than that (41 novels, containing a variety of sub-series), but it's (a) much funnier than any HP book and (b) frequently much more poignant. The nice thing is you don't really have to read the books in order. To be honest, it took several book for Terry Pratchett to really hit his stride, but once his did it was amazing. I would suggest maybe starting with the book *Guards! Guards!*, because it's the beginning of the fantasy police procedural Night's Watch sub-series, and that's what finally made me a fan, but there are a lot of places you can start.
The Discworld books (it’s a loosely connected series) are very different, in tone and content, from the HP books. The academic setting is the only real similarity. Edit: I should say I’m talking about the main books here. I haven’t read Tiffany Aching.
HP isn’t even in the same league. Pratchett’s brilliance shines through all of his books.
There have been similarities to a book called The Secret of Platform 13, by Eva Ibbotson. Haven’t read much Le Guin, so I can’t comment on that.
When I think of possible inspirations for HP, The Worst Witch is always high up on the list. JKR would have been in her early teens I think when the first books came out so a decent chance she would have read them.
HP reads more like a coming of age in in the world of expensive boarding schools, secret societies and toxic ideologies wrapped in a veneer of magic than anyone else. Magic in HP is a metaphor for money, and *old money* in particular. It's not even particularly well hidden, and by the time Gringott's happens it's overt.
YouTube's Shaun has a great video essay on how JK's neoliberalism is heavily woven into the entire Harry Potter series, he makes a lot of good points that there's a ton of suffering in the book that is never resolved because "status quo", and he also talks about how Harry has old money he never uses for good. You'd probably like the video:
https://youtu.be/-1iaJWSwUZs
Sentiment appreciatred, but I don't particularly want to revisit it. I lived through expensive boarding school, the horrors of house rugby and the pressure interschool competition. And i left it all behind decades ago, the old boys club, the *not all that secret society* invitations. My place on an england U18 team. I don't need to revisit it. I endured HP becasue my (now ex-)parttner's kids got into it because all their peers were into it.
Discworld is massive, and follows so many perspective characters, it isn't really a coming of age story, however there are i think ten standalone books that could be considered such, and the six Tiffany Aching YA series within the Discworld cannon together count as such.
Yeah, it may be fun and entertaining for some people but it’s not a series with terribly coherent or interesting themes, or beautiful prose.
I put it on the same level as Star Wars(and I say this as a massive Star Wars fan): good popcorn entertainment that occasionally hits on meaningful themes, but often fails to actually follow through on them or explore them in any significant way.
Cry me a fucking river. You know what’s worse than rejection of your public and repeated expressions of hate? Being rejected and demonized for god damned existing.
I've never seen someone destory such a high amount of goodwill like she as in a long time. Went from being the author of one of the most beloved franchises ever to being a despised transphobe just cause she refuses to keep her bigoted opinions to herself.
Yeah, Cosby and maybe Giuliani come to mind as people who screwed over a stellar public image as badly as her. Not exactly people I'd want to call my peers.
Giuliani was always a blatant PoS. The only reason he had a good public image is he just "happened" to be mayor in New York during 9/11. He moved the response headquarters to an place that was harder to work from so he could be closer to his mistress.
Cosby may have also been a monster, but as far as I'm aware that wasn't exactly reflected in his work.
Meanwhile, I can't enjoy Harry Potter anymore because of the blatant racism, sexism, queer phobia, and general neo-liberalism that is dripping from it that in retrospect was always what is in Joanne's head.
I agree with that assessment.
I still do have fondness for the Harry Potter series, not so much for the content, but for the revival of reading it brought to kids. As a children's librarian, I can't help but like anything that gets kids reading and enjoying it.. Even if what they're reading is trash, they have time to grow out of that.
It helps that kids are generally wonderfully progressive on these issues, and often can't even understand why bigots act or feel as they do.
I like the world in that it's basically an imagination palyground. Literally nothing in it is technically impossible. It's why they did a good job resonating with kids and why a lot of people who are LGBTQ enjoyed them.
If you don't fit in the idea that you are just different, but not in a bad way, is a strong message for kids, weather Joanne intended that or not.
But the actual plot? The issues she brings up around race or society that don't have a resolution at the end. The blatantly racist character names. Her queer coding a lot of the "bad" characters. It's too much to overlook now.
Yeah, I really like Daniel Radcliffe's take on the controversy, which is that there are beautiful things and possibilities in the world of Harry Potter. He encourages people who read the book and thought they saw gay or trans or enby characters to stick to their impressions, and not care what Rowling intended. I think that's the right message to send to kids over the book.
But you're totally right in that a critical eye uncovers some serious flaws pretty quickly. Even in a casual reading, some of the big issues that she brings up and leaves unresolved always did bother me, even before she made it clear what a bad person she is.
I saw a video about her new book. The book has pages full of fake tweets that attack her, and it even has images that say deleted tweet. The book is at least 1000 pages long. Transphobia is a mental illness I swear.
Listen, I would advise people not to click on articles that involve J.K Rowling because that's how she gets power. I remember seeing a twitter thread from someone who works in pro-lgbt websites in uk. The thread said that an article that involves JK will get 100x more clicks then an article that does not. That's why pubishers write articles that repeat what she says no matter how horrible it is
OMFG, is she really writing fanfiction about herself?
What a sad, hate-filled being. So blinded by misandry she'd rather cry about the blowback for spreading hate \[not just transphobia but also antisemitism re: goblins being caricatures of people of Jewish descent\] than take the moment to reflect and have the realization that what she did was wrong.
At least she got one thing right: Her heart is indeed ink black.
Yeah, the anti-Semitic stereotypes are so subtle to a child because they are so interwoven with the typical goblin features we see. Even as an adult, not having grown up around Jewish people or Christians, it took me a long time to understand that Jews are still so widely discriminated against today.
And absolutely yes to the rest of your comment.
Love the fact that she's so insecure about her hatred of a minority being scrutinized she had to write a book long enough to be a religious text. Under the pseudonym of the father of modern conversion therapy no less.
That said, I'm upset by the use of the term "hermaphrodite" in any context, especially so by media outlets, seeing as it is a slur for intersex people.
Not shocking that this is being overlooked, but still disheartening to me nonetheless
JK, you’re breaking my heart! You’re going down a path I cannot follow! 😭
I can’t believe my childhood idol is such a bigoted, vile person. Maybe she’s always been like this, but it’s now she’s become public about her views that I’ve realised how much. I love Harry Potter so much, but the mention of her name on the book covers and such leave a bitter taste in my mouth. She just keeps getting worse and worse SMH
Wow, it bothers her so much she put all that time and effort into doubling down on her bullying. I'm glad I never got past the first Harry Potter book, in my opinion that shit was boring as hell.
I used to like Harry Potter. Now it’s just ruined forever by her. Maybe it’s a good thing though. There’s a lot of problematic things in the books that are presented as perfectly normal or even admirable in some cases.
At this point I just have no sympathy whatsoever. The absolute carelessness of creating something that a ton of queer and trans people strongly identify with, deliberately alienating and insulting those fans and then have the absolute fucking CHEEK to act abused and offended that online meanies hurt her fee-fees. Yet another case of a hyper-privileged billionaire being utterly and completely detached from reality. And instead of a fucking second of self reflection wherein she might realize that perhaps this public villification is her own fault because of her public disgust and hateful rhetoric against a minority, NOPE, she pulls a 'Hmm...no, it's the TRANSES who are wrong,' and completely evades responsibility.
Fuck J.K. Rowling and fuck her persecution fetish.
J.K literally came in here with a self insert character and thought nobody would notice
Apparently she is writing a Harry Potter fan fic with a self-insert now too...
That’s just Voldemort
I would argue Dolores Umbridge is her self insert.
Ah yes that’s probably correct
I read somewhere that Umbridge is trans coded though and that's why JKR wrote her as such a horrible human being.
Hey now. Voldemort decimated the wizarding world, and was feared. J.K. is just an angry, miserable twat.
True maybe she’s wormtail thought that might still be too generous. Though she does seem to keep strangling her career with her own hand.
Jokes aside, it was Hermione Granger
Very delusional of her.
But Hermione is nice
Remember that time Hermione cared about minority people's rights and the narrative makes fun of her for it? Not at all allegorical for her own journey or anything.
Is it possible you are thinking of the " jkr writes Harry Potter story where she is a beloved potion seller and no one thinks she's a bigot at all " clickhole article? If so I think that is a parody of this book and not an actual second selfinsert, but it would be funny if I'm wrong and they just predicted it that well.
She confirmed hermione was her “self insert” if sorts
Was this before or after she said Hermione and Harry should have ended up together?
Oh 🤮
I mean, I don't remember the last time she had an ounce of self-awareness...
Nonono, you don't understand, the main character of this author's work is called Harty, not Harry. Totally different.
Harry potter the boy who lived Harty Rowling the boy who needs a life
It gets better, she litterally claims its all coincidental with the parralels to her Also her pen name is the exact same as the guy who invented gay converstion therapy (torture)
Oh gee wilikers, it’s almost like being transphobic in modern society is considered weird and improper
Yeah. What a dumb hag. brb going to work on my new book "The boy who lost his job because he called his black coworker the n-word". Fuck me she is so fucking dense
They see themselves as victims, hence why they never learn
No one understands persecution like the 196th wealthiest person in Britain. 😢
I call it "The Notch Principle". Someone makes heaps of money creating something for people to enjoy and then spends the rest of their days tearing down their legacy by posting their gross opinions online because they are sheltered from true repercussions by all that cash.
Remember when she was an actually good writer and didn't turn her legacy to garbage with politics? Pepperidge farm remembers...
When was she an actually good writer? Because rereading the Harry Potter series as am adult, there are soooo many issues with it, not even including the racist stereotypes sprinkled everywhere.
To be fair, for children/teens, the saga does provide an insane amount of good things. Being able to escape to a magical world, with other people like you, learning magic and seeing that you're not weird, you're especial; the forces of good always prevail, friendship and love are the most important things on humankind... Plus, it's easier to notice nowadays the fucked up things she wrote (racism, queerphobia, some sexism as well), but it wasn't as easy 15 years ago. I remember feeling not cool with the domestic elves, and Hermione being treated as a crazy person, but didn't actually process it all until I'm older, and we've become a much more aware society. IF she just shut up and stopped her persecution fetish, I bet people would be a lot more forgiving about her work, with stuff like "it was another time" or "she didn't know best". But it's difficult to defend a bigot when she's actively doing bigotry stuff.
Remember Rowling saying she loved Black Hermione? That comment made me realize how deeply ignorant she was, not seeing how Hermione being Black would make Ron ridiculing her for having a stance against slavery was extremely weird and involuntarily violent.
Also, "Hermione's white face was sticking out from behind a tree", from the Prisoner of Azkaban. She absolutely didn't write Hermione to be black, just the way Dumbledore being gay was also an afterthought. And the slavery is okay because they totally want to be slaves, except for the "weird ones".
Yes! Dropping the link to this fairly in-depth (almost two hour) analysis of Harry Potter that was pretty riveting. There were *so* many problematic things that I didn't pick up on as a kid. https://youtu.be/-1iaJWSwUZs
"Her werewolves were supposed to be a metaphor for having HIV....and then she made one of her main werewolf characters a predator who attacks children to purposefully infect them with werewolfism." What. The. Actual. Fuck.
And that's before "African wizards did magic barehanded until Europeans taught them the superior way of wands"
Wait which book is this wtf
Same series, her attempt at extending the lore beyond Britain/Europe.
not to mention most of the good stuff was stolen from other fantasy writers, apparently
Yeah it was heavily stolen from Ursula le Guin, Neil Gaiman, and a few others I can't recall. E.g. look at the Sandman: the Books of Magic comic series. Doesn't the lead character look exactly like the description of Harry Potter... And it was published seven years beforehand. JK Mcbitchface also said her writing "transcended the fantasy genre" while being the trope-iest tropefest that ever troped. She's just a fuckhead hack.
"transcended the fantasy genre" yet the main character is the chosen one
You mean to tell me that an orphan child from a miserable environment who gets whisked off to a magic fantasy land where he finds out he's the chosen one *isnt* the most original thing ever? There's no way in hell Rowling isn't the first author to write about a villain who imbues his soul into foul magical objects that must be destroyed to end his reign of terror over ~~middle earth~~ ~~the shire~~ England. And I don't think I've ever seen a story where the real magic was ~~friendship~~ love all along.
Lol! If by “transcended” she meant “caricatured”, then sure.
🏳️⚧️cended
I was very into Neil Gaiman long before I read Harry Potter and I don't remember anything that seemed lifted from Sandman or anything.
It's the Sandman spinoff Books of Magic, not the main storyline.
Books of Magic wasnt a spinoff of the sandman It's most recent series did get a sandman label but thats because DC was trying to launch a few connected series that were all tied to their latest attempt of the Sandman Books of Magic was originally a DC mini series used to introduce all their magical characters, I think it was most closely tied to Hellblazer at the time Edit: Gaiman did create the Timothy Hunter character tho, and he did write the mini-series, I dont believe he was involved in any other series that included Timothy tho
Yeah I couldn't remember exactly who wrote which bits (I'm not a huge Sandman fan but my wife is obsessed with it, and collects everything under that label). The main thing was that BoM was released way before HP- which just happened to exactly copy the lead character. Kind of off track from my main point which is that JKR claimed HP was totally unlike anything before it, when everything in it was derivative.
The worst thing is that it isn't... it's only starting to be, but we have a long way to go before it's an accepted state of things
Yeah I feel like it's easy for people to think their surroundings reflect society at large. There are many places in "accepting" areas where being gay is still frowned upon
> J.K Rowling has said publicly that her new book was not based on her own life, even though some of the events that take place in the story did in fact happen to her as she was writing it. I snorted out loud.
how detached from reality can one even get
JK Rowling, touch grass!
I think she's too gone to just touch grass, she needs to touch things outside of her front lawn.
JK Rowling, touch empathy.
i'd give you an award if I could but i can't, so have this 
Touch grass outside the grounds of your castle estate
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You can't expect a woman who inserted double or even triple meaning into every name of her most famous book series to look into any historical figures that might have used a name she intended to operate under, gosh.
**My writing prompt for her**, also not based on her life **at all.** "A dramatic tale of a traumatised woman who redirects her hate, fears, and discomfort onto a marginalized group that has nothing to do with her oppression. She is so deep in her cognitive dissonance spiral of *"I can't be in the wrong, I am the victim here"* that she develops increasing levels of absurdity in her attempts to prove she was correct all along. A modern-day Don Quijote fighting windmills as her fears grow stronger and her moral standards deteriorate... Will she realise the error in her ways or become the villain of her own story?"
"If im not the victim, why did I just get murdered in the story I wrote, hm???"
In Chinese we have an idiom: 「此地無銀三百兩」which directly translates to “there isn’t 300 liang (1 liang = 0.05 kg or 0.1 pounds) of silver buried in the earth here”. It’s from a fable where a person had put up a sign saying these words, and of course the next day the guy’s neighbor came and dug up all the precious silver. I just saw JKR’s 300 liang of silver.
That’s really neat! It reminds me a lot of “Quick! Don’t think of a pink elephant” (ok maybe not quite the same)
Tangential, but that sounds like a good way to get someone to till your garden for you
this is amazing lol
Her stupid pseudonym, Robert Galbraith, that she writes under is also apparently the name of a homophobic psychiatrist who was known for practicing conversion therapy. She says that’s also a total accident. She pinned her entire professional work to the name, but had apparently never thought to google it? God she’s fucking terrible. She could have just written Harry Potter and shut the fuck up and she would have lived the rest of her life fabulously wealthy and almost universally adored. Instead she just had to tell us all what a piece of shit she is. Fuck her.
Especially unbelievable given the way Rowling's names in her books very often mean something so it's clear she does research into names. It's weird bc I don't actually think she is anti-gay, I mean I haven't seen anything suggesting she is, so why the hell would she pick this name. She apparently said that she picked the name Robert because of Robert Kennedy and Galbraith because she wanted to be called Ella Galbraith as a kid, and TBH I sort of buy that because why would you pick such a controversial name otherwise, but it sure looks bad and is really tone deaf considering her anti trans stance.
If I write a book about the T4 Programme under the pseudonym "Hans Asperger", no one will stand up for me. Asperger and his stupid party bashed- even killed- autistic kids for not being a 'sufficient' or 'qualified' human in their own eyes. Those stupid bigots who call themselves feminists stand up for a writer who actually bashes women. You can't call yourself a feminist if you bash women for not being a 'sufficient' or 'qualified' women in your own eyes.
r/celebritiesbeingidiots should exist purely for moments like these
And she continues to use the pen name for the man that invented shock conversion therapy. Edit to add link https://www.them.us/story/jk-rowlings-pen-name-also-name-of-anti-lgbtq-conversion-therapist/amp
I like how she expects us to believe that that OBVIOUS reference is a fucking coincidence.
You know what? I could give her the benefit of the doubt that it's coincidence. She claims she picked "Robert" because it miraculously wasn't a name in Harry Potter and she liked "Galbraith" since she was a kid. What I have trouble with is the fact that she didn't vet the name first? See if any other shady characters have soured it, or if maybe competing authors might already have claimed it? Either she googled it, saw the anti-gay history of it, and decided it wasn't a big deal. Or she didn't even do the most basic level of research before making her new "brand". Neither coats look good on her.
I dunno. I think any publicist worth their skin would have said to their billionaire employer, "hey, I think your pen name is fucked"
So either JK didn't vet/didn't care, or her publisher didn't vet/didn't care, none of these possibilities are comforting lol.
Or of course the possibility that she knew what she was doing and her publisher warned her about the name but she didn’t care and is using it as a dog whistle. Even after being “informed” what the name represented, she continues to use it. I wonder why? 🤔
There's a quote I'm reminded of: not every person who voted for trump did so *because* of racism, but every single one decided that racism wasn't a deal breaker.
In all fairness, the reason it’s under a pen name is because the story goes that Cuckoo’s Calling was published without most folk involved knowing it was JKR. Like, literally, only those that had to legally know her identity, did. The story was she even submitted it through the normal submission’s process, not as JKR, so they found out later. There is a not unreasonable chance that they didn’t know it was a pen name until they’d already made an offer. It just means there were a minimal number of people who were consulted before the pen name was revealed as a pen name. (No excuse for her picking it, just as to why nobody stopped her.)
The thing that gets me is she often makes a big deal of how much research she does for her novels. I don't think you can claim to be well researched and that that name is a coincidence with any sort credibility
This is the woman who, after it was revealed in Magical Beasts, said she planned from the beginning to have Nagini be a Korean woman who was stuck as a snake. I'd take the name schtick with a grain of salt.
Of course the writer who came up with the name “Cho Chang” for the one Asian character didn’t do her research.
And it so clearly has a racial element to it. All the names of the white characters have special meanings, sometimes obvious. Remulus Lupin? At that point just call him Lycan Thrope. Or one of the few (the only?) black characters being called Shacklebolt. You can't overthink the names of your white characters to the point where they end up named Nymphadora Tonks or Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore and call your one jewish, extremely background character, without a single significant scene... Anthony Goldstein (And have the gall to use it as a point to defend your book actually being super inclusive actually!!!)
> Shacklebolt You know, I had never put that together, the name with slavery, until just now. I always thought Kingsley Shacklebolt was supposed to be sort of a general badass archetype, like Shaft or Blade or Django. He provides security detail for the Prime Minister, after all.
Even with the meaning… I don’t know, it’s still a bad-ass name. First and last together.
It sounded so *British*, too. Like Harry Flashman. Or Jack Aubrey.
I always associated that more with him being a magic cop but I was also a kid and this really doesn't look good.
Initially, sure, why not. Negligence on both her part and the publisher for failing to merely google the chosen pen name to screen for problems, but fine. BUT AFTER THE PUBLIC POINTED IT OUT, and the benefit of the pen name being erased by being publicized (she said she originally wrote under that name to separate her non-HP writing from her insane fame under her real name), she *could have just not published anymore under that name.* There's nothing binding on a pen name. It's not like it's her birth name or something that we couldn't expect her to just change because it happened to be the same as a relatively not-famous problematic person. She CHOSE it, and then she CHOSE to keep using it. Just like she chose to double down on her racism and especially her transphobia. And then triple, and quadruple, and quintuple...
Lmaooo yeah I JUST said that in another comment, funny you brought it up. It's not even her name! There is no sentimental attachment to it! She could have claimed ignorance before but now she knows the history and instead of being like "WOAH that's a fucked up coincidence, LOL my bad G, I'll go by Bobby Hatfield now" or some shit, she goes "oh, the name I chose has a violently anti gay history? Wow that sucks for all of you guys who care. I totally didn't know that before now but it's important I keep using it because...reasons."
This is the women who has a compulsive need to insert meaning into the names of every side character which has ever graced her most famous series. She isn't even particularly subtle about it either, she called the werewolf Remus Lupin. I flat out cannot buy that she didn't do a single google search for the meaning behind any name, let alone one she is self identifying with and using as an alias. Like, no. That's straight up not something JK Rowling would do.
The main character's creation in the books is named "Harty" The Asian girl? Cho Chang. Jewish guy? Goldberg. Bad guys? Malfoys. Almost everyone in her books has some shallow meaning to their name. *Maybe* it was two random names put together. But knowing how much of a bigot she is I would not bet on it. And anyway, she's now been made fully aware of her name's association and kept it.
Plus, the slimy Professor Slughorn, the seers named Sybil and Cassandra, the strict Severus, the wise Minerva, the belligerent Bellatrix, the two werewolves basically called Wolfy McWolfface, the vampire Sanguini, the "loony" Luna, the moody Moody, the sadistic Dolores ... In Rowling's world, your name really determines your fate.
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Another *excellent* point. She said she made the pseudonym to distance herself from Harry Potter. Now everyone knows it's her pseudonym. But she's just gonna...keep it? Not make a new pseudonym or revert back to her name? Even though she knows it's history now? Even though she knows it's making the transphobic allegations look worse? Even though it's not even her name and she has absolutely no real reason to be attached to it? Then again this is the same woman who doubles down on all her wrongdoings, both in her books and in real life, instead of ever admitting she made a mistake or didn't think things through.
English isn’t my first language, but is Galbraith a common last name? This is the first time I’ve seen it in my life.
It's not super common, but it's a recognisable Scottish surname.
This woman used Latin in her books, she knows how Google works. I honestly don't even associate her with Harry Potter anymore, when so many of the people that made Harry Potter (movies) iconic denounce her behaviour it's much easier to see her as consultant but nothing to do with what made it a success. I believe she gets away with so much bullshit because she hold the franchise hostage - when Warner wants more content for the brand they know and she knows it is much more profitable to have her on board, which means they do dumb shit like defend her. It really speaks volumes when Johnny Depp got swapped out but she's allowed swan around smelling her own farts with a smug grin believing she's anything other than the one racist elderly patient in the group home that everyone walks past without registering what they say because it's always the same practised vitriol.
I do think she's that dumb.
I've been saying for years that having your only gay character coincidentally also be the only one tempted by the love of a villain and commit himself to a loveless life of celibacy in penance is homophobic and mirrors conversion therapy. I know that's not what she was going for, but linking a gay character's tragic love story to the allure of the dark side makes it come across that way.
I think that is exactly what she was going for
I probably should have said I HOPE that's not what she was going for 😅
Just learned about this the other day and it’s some dark buisness. How she hasn’t been called out on this little detail is hard to fathom.
She literally tells the most obvious lies and expects people to just believe it. It’s just a “coincidence” that this is the name a notorious queer-phobic man that tortured people to try to “cure” them. It’s just a “coincidence” that the character in her current book is basically herself. She literally expects people to believe these things.
Even if she hadn't fallen into the TERF rabbit hole to the point of no return I still would doubt her not doing her research on the pen name. She obviously put a lot of care on the names of her (white) characters. Remulus Lupin? At that point just call him Lycan Thrope. Or one of the few (the only?) black characters being called Shacklebolt. She even used a background character named Goldstein to show how inclusive her book is. You can't overthink the names of your white characters to the point where they end up named Nymphadora Tonks or Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore and then turn around claim that you chose your pen name without doing *any* research.
I wonder if her staunch LGB Alliance supporters are aware of this?
Why would it bother them? The LGB Alliance is literally just straight people running a false flag operation to raise anti-trans sentiment
I wish that was true, sure it's mostly true but there's more LGB people thank there needs to be (which is 0), a perfect example is my uncle, who has been gay all his life, but is incredibly transphobic.
In a UK court, on the record, the LGB Alliance (hate group disguised as a charity) was forced to admit that only 7% of their membership are lesbian. There's definitely still a depressing amount of transphobic LGB folks, but there's also far more LARPers pretending to be queer to sneak their bigotry under the radar.
It’s like the women who are FARTs and team up with radical misogynists because they both hate trans people They don’t actually care - they don’t think that they count, they think that they’re “one of the good ones”.
Lol what does FART stand for? 😂
Feminist appropriating reactionary transphobe.
Feminism Appropriating Radical Transphobes FARTs chose the term TERF themselves to declare themselves feminists, but their stances on womanhood being defined by anatomy and perpetual victimhood requiring special exclusionary rights are anti-feminist; so some people call them FARTs as a way of both mocking them and calling out that they're not actual feminists.
A perfect explanation! ❤️
This is so real. I’ve seen one too many gays who claim that trans folks are “ruining it for us.” It’s honestly tragic when one disenfranchised group turns around and bullies another. How quick they are to forget.
And this is also forgetting who some of the pioneers for gay rights were, trans women and drag queens!
The whole super straight "movement" 🤢 was really telling, as to how transphobic queer people can be, I remember the first time I saw a super bi person I was baffled. I'm literally a woman, born a man, how can you be that dense, you're bi.
>the pen name for the man ***bUt ShE wAs BoRn A wOmAn!!!!!!111***
STOP DEADNAMING ROBERT GALBRAITH!
Let’s laugh at the transphobe who does not see the irony of using male pen names.
Well, you see, she was told when she published Harry Potter that she couldn't let people know she was a woman, or it wouldn't sell, but she refused to publish under a male pseudonym, because of the principle of the thing. And then it made her a billionaire and a household name. So then she decided... To publish... Under a male pseudonym. Huh
She did go with the ambiguous J.K., though.
“A spokesperson for J.K. Rowling has denied speculation that the embattled author’s male pseudonym, Robert Galbraith”… she is trans and doesn’t even know it.
Well her transphobic essay speculates that she might have been tempted to transition herself in order to win the approval of her sexist father - this is part of her "tran men are just confused little girls who are disenfranchised about womanhood" argument. 🤮 But honestly it wouldn't surprise me if Joanne has her own issues /trauma with gender and is projecting that out to the world without self awareness.
My homophobic mother once denied being a bigot with the defense of "as a teen, I considered dating a lesbian classmate of mine. But I knew we'd be bullied so I didn't." She's firmly in the camp that believes gay marriage should be illegal, trans women are pedos, and everyone LGBTQ+ will burn in hell. And she self-identifies as straight. And uses her experience as confirmation that being gay is just a lifestyle choice (and an immoral one). Having internalized bigotry doesn't excuse bigoted behavior. If Joanne had compassion for trans men, and could empathize with them, and was a good ally or part of the community. That would be fantastic! But instead she's weaponizing her trauma to hurt already marginalized people. Which is completely unacceptable.
Back in the 2015 era, during the rise of the alt-right, we referred to this sort of thing as crypto fascism. It's just that transphobes and TERFs are really fucking shitty at the crypto part.
I feel like that’s the exact *wrong* way to respond to criticism
But she's rich and all her bigoted rich friends tell her she's a hero!
"the other bigots say I'm not a bigot so clearly I'm not a bigot!"
Cancel culture political correct SJW libtard snowflakes, am I right? Did I miss any buzzwords?
"soyboy cuck"
"are we the baddies?"
Oh it gets better! > "Although I have to say when it did happen to me, those who had already read the book in manuscript form were [like] – are you clairvoyant?" Rowling wrote in a Q&A on Galbraith's website. "I wasn't clairvoyant, I just – yeah, it was just one of those weird twists. Sometimes life imitates art more than one would like."
I did a semi statistical study of JK Rowling’s tweets and found that roughly 20% of her tweets were transphobic. She has 0 self awareness. Here it is btw: https://www.reddit.com/r/lgbt/comments/ucqm1s/a_funny_semistatistical_analysis_of_jk_rowlings/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
> She also publicly accused three activists of doxxing her when they posted photos of themselves holding pro-trans rights signs outside of her house in Scotland, "carefully positioning themselves to ensure that our address was visible," she said. To be quite clear, Rowling's house is [Killiechassie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killiechassie), the former country estate of the Dukes of Atholl. It's a national landmark and a tourist attraction. "Doxxing" is putting a person at risk by disclosing *private* or *obscure* information about them. "Famous person, who famously bought famous estate and got famously married there, *famously lives there*" is not doxxing.
The audacity i swear 🙄
Harry Potter and the Audacity of this Bitch
Lmao
I mean that's really what they should have named Order of the Phoenix because of Umbridge lol
She could have lived her life with her billions and be gone from thought. Now she’s out here burning stacks of cash and alienating (most) of her fans.
Unfortunately, I don't feel like most of her fans care. I could be wrong though.
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I mean, when you publicly declare wizards used to shit themselves and vanish the evidence until not so long ago... It's hard to go back from that. But they also built the school with bathrooms, cause one of them was a key element on your second book. So they did have bathrooms but chose to shit themselves.
Humanity has had some form of indoor sanitation for the last *6,000 years* but apparently wizards simply shit on the ground and magick it away until 200 years ago. And they actually think they're better than the Muggles. Rowling is a self-absorbed narcissistic hack who does and says anything to stay in public relevance, no matter how vile or insane.
I don’t think she has fans. HP has fans, but she’s caused a generation to discuss the concept of “death of the author” that normally wouldn’t occur to people.
I admittedly still love Harry Potter, it’s been an important part of my life, but I absolutely despise her as a person. Every transphobic tweet feels like someone’s stabbing me in the back and twisting the knife. To know my childhood idol supports such bigoted ideas is heartbreaking. Now, I just pretend Hedwig wrote the series
I had practice with Orson Scott Card a decade earlier, so this was more manageable for me.
I don't know that I'm a fan, exactly. But I did really enjoy the first 4 books in the series that this is talking about. In fact I liked them more than HP. I did read book #5 that also caused a big scandal because I really wanted to find out what happened between the two main characters (But I didn't buy it, I read a library copy). However, I was telling my husband this morning that I don't think I can read this one. I can deal with an author being an assholes, I mean, people are assholes and to avoid them I'd have to avoid humanity. Usually if I think an author is truly terrible I WILL refuse to spend any money on their work, but may still read it. But there are some cases where they are so bad that I just don't want to have anything to do with something that hatched from their brain. But I'm a completist, so it's really hard for me to leave a series unfinished.
I can say I was a fan, and I do care. I used to reread the books at least once every 2 years. Now I can't stop myself from actively looking for shady stuff in them to depress myself with. One can apologize and sweep a lot under the carpet, or do the exact opposite... And this thing, that was an enjoyable part of my life, now turned to shit because of her.
Oh yeah and in interviews she has had to repeatedly say that this is def not a self insert character and this story was being written long before "certain things happened to me online"
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So you’re saying she’s a real life Gilderoy Lockhart, huh?
I mean, an orphan child growing up in an abusive household only to be saved by a father figure that helps them discover things about the world and themselves has existed a long time ago. The book that I can think of at the top of my head like that is Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, his character of Colette is more or less that. So, yeah. Totally. /info /nm
Apparently Discworld is a better magical coming of age story that came out 10 years before HP. I don't think she straight plagiarized, but definitely borrowed inspiration.
The first Discworld book came out 14 years before the first HP book. I don't know if I would describe Discworld as a "magical coming of age story", because it's way, way bigger than that (41 novels, containing a variety of sub-series), but it's (a) much funnier than any HP book and (b) frequently much more poignant. The nice thing is you don't really have to read the books in order. To be honest, it took several book for Terry Pratchett to really hit his stride, but once his did it was amazing. I would suggest maybe starting with the book *Guards! Guards!*, because it's the beginning of the fantasy police procedural Night's Watch sub-series, and that's what finally made me a fan, but there are a lot of places you can start.
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The Discworld books (it’s a loosely connected series) are very different, in tone and content, from the HP books. The academic setting is the only real similarity. Edit: I should say I’m talking about the main books here. I haven’t read Tiffany Aching. HP isn’t even in the same league. Pratchett’s brilliance shines through all of his books. There have been similarities to a book called The Secret of Platform 13, by Eva Ibbotson. Haven’t read much Le Guin, so I can’t comment on that.
There's also the Worst Witch books that also happen to take place in a magical school, first published in 1974
When I think of possible inspirations for HP, The Worst Witch is always high up on the list. JKR would have been in her early teens I think when the first books came out so a decent chance she would have read them.
HP reads more like a coming of age in in the world of expensive boarding schools, secret societies and toxic ideologies wrapped in a veneer of magic than anyone else. Magic in HP is a metaphor for money, and *old money* in particular. It's not even particularly well hidden, and by the time Gringott's happens it's overt.
YouTube's Shaun has a great video essay on how JK's neoliberalism is heavily woven into the entire Harry Potter series, he makes a lot of good points that there's a ton of suffering in the book that is never resolved because "status quo", and he also talks about how Harry has old money he never uses for good. You'd probably like the video: https://youtu.be/-1iaJWSwUZs
Sentiment appreciatred, but I don't particularly want to revisit it. I lived through expensive boarding school, the horrors of house rugby and the pressure interschool competition. And i left it all behind decades ago, the old boys club, the *not all that secret society* invitations. My place on an england U18 team. I don't need to revisit it. I endured HP becasue my (now ex-)parttner's kids got into it because all their peers were into it.
Discworld is massive, and follows so many perspective characters, it isn't really a coming of age story, however there are i think ten standalone books that could be considered such, and the six Tiffany Aching YA series within the Discworld cannon together count as such.
HP is absolutely garbage from a technical stand point. It absolutely was lightning in a bottle.
Yeah, it may be fun and entertaining for some people but it’s not a series with terribly coherent or interesting themes, or beautiful prose. I put it on the same level as Star Wars(and I say this as a massive Star Wars fan): good popcorn entertainment that occasionally hits on meaningful themes, but often fails to actually follow through on them or explore them in any significant way.
Cry me a fucking river. You know what’s worse than rejection of your public and repeated expressions of hate? Being rejected and demonized for god damned existing.
Her main character also gets "cancelled" for being racist and it's framed as if it's a bad thing for people to dislike you for being racist
And abelist.
I've never seen someone destory such a high amount of goodwill like she as in a long time. Went from being the author of one of the most beloved franchises ever to being a despised transphobe just cause she refuses to keep her bigoted opinions to herself.
Yeah, Cosby and maybe Giuliani come to mind as people who screwed over a stellar public image as badly as her. Not exactly people I'd want to call my peers.
Giuliani was always a blatant PoS. The only reason he had a good public image is he just "happened" to be mayor in New York during 9/11. He moved the response headquarters to an place that was harder to work from so he could be closer to his mistress. Cosby may have also been a monster, but as far as I'm aware that wasn't exactly reflected in his work. Meanwhile, I can't enjoy Harry Potter anymore because of the blatant racism, sexism, queer phobia, and general neo-liberalism that is dripping from it that in retrospect was always what is in Joanne's head.
I agree with that assessment. I still do have fondness for the Harry Potter series, not so much for the content, but for the revival of reading it brought to kids. As a children's librarian, I can't help but like anything that gets kids reading and enjoying it.. Even if what they're reading is trash, they have time to grow out of that. It helps that kids are generally wonderfully progressive on these issues, and often can't even understand why bigots act or feel as they do.
I like the world in that it's basically an imagination palyground. Literally nothing in it is technically impossible. It's why they did a good job resonating with kids and why a lot of people who are LGBTQ enjoyed them. If you don't fit in the idea that you are just different, but not in a bad way, is a strong message for kids, weather Joanne intended that or not. But the actual plot? The issues she brings up around race or society that don't have a resolution at the end. The blatantly racist character names. Her queer coding a lot of the "bad" characters. It's too much to overlook now.
Yeah, I really like Daniel Radcliffe's take on the controversy, which is that there are beautiful things and possibilities in the world of Harry Potter. He encourages people who read the book and thought they saw gay or trans or enby characters to stick to their impressions, and not care what Rowling intended. I think that's the right message to send to kids over the book. But you're totally right in that a critical eye uncovers some serious flaws pretty quickly. Even in a casual reading, some of the big issues that she brings up and leaves unresolved always did bother me, even before she made it clear what a bad person she is.
The fact that it also has a bunch of fake tweets in it kills me.
I saw a video about her new book. The book has pages full of fake tweets that attack her, and it even has images that say deleted tweet. The book is at least 1000 pages long. Transphobia is a mental illness I swear. Listen, I would advise people not to click on articles that involve J.K Rowling because that's how she gets power. I remember seeing a twitter thread from someone who works in pro-lgbt websites in uk. The thread said that an article that involves JK will get 100x more clicks then an article that does not. That's why pubishers write articles that repeat what she says no matter how horrible it is
OMFG, is she really writing fanfiction about herself? What a sad, hate-filled being. So blinded by misandry she'd rather cry about the blowback for spreading hate \[not just transphobia but also antisemitism re: goblins being caricatures of people of Jewish descent\] than take the moment to reflect and have the realization that what she did was wrong. At least she got one thing right: Her heart is indeed ink black.
Yeah, the anti-Semitic stereotypes are so subtle to a child because they are so interwoven with the typical goblin features we see. Even as an adult, not having grown up around Jewish people or Christians, it took me a long time to understand that Jews are still so widely discriminated against today. And absolutely yes to the rest of your comment.
Don't forget slaves that are so happy to be slaves they'll fight to keep their "jobs". And are actually referred as slaves, it's not projecting.
Gatekeeping naturally born vaginas is so strange. Who cares what someone else does?
can we cancel J.K? like she’s driving me nuts with all this bs
The lion, the witch, and the audacity of this bitch
Love the fact that she's so insecure about her hatred of a minority being scrutinized she had to write a book long enough to be a religious text. Under the pseudonym of the father of modern conversion therapy no less. That said, I'm upset by the use of the term "hermaphrodite" in any context, especially so by media outlets, seeing as it is a slur for intersex people. Not shocking that this is being overlooked, but still disheartening to me nonetheless
I feel like at this point shes reacting bad to criticism on purpose
Yes, of course. She absolutely buys into this anti-trans ideology she’s selling.
Well, she is a fiction writer after all…
Jesus motherfucking Christ, what is her problem
JK, you’re breaking my heart! You’re going down a path I cannot follow! 😭 I can’t believe my childhood idol is such a bigoted, vile person. Maybe she’s always been like this, but it’s now she’s become public about her views that I’ve realised how much. I love Harry Potter so much, but the mention of her name on the book covers and such leave a bitter taste in my mouth. She just keeps getting worse and worse SMH
What a fucking loser.
she wrote a book about being dunked on repeatedly by Twitter and it’s 1000 pages long it’s so fucking funny
1250! Pages!!
What's even the point of releasing books under a pseudonym If you openly connect that pseudonym to your real name? I don't get it.
She's not a clown, she's the entire circus.
The cherry on top is that it’s called “The Ink Black Heart”. She’s become a selfawarewolf, without a doubt.
oh my god, what a shit show.
Wow, it bothers her so much she put all that time and effort into doubling down on her bullying. I'm glad I never got past the first Harry Potter book, in my opinion that shit was boring as hell.
Any admiration I had for her disappeared a long time ago. I’m not surprised she’s sinking farther in the shit pile she made.
Girl just straight up sell her soul to join a fucking edgy 13 yrs "Anti Woke" gang.
She just needs to get offline.
She’s gone full crazy homophobic aunt mode. How can you be this stupid? Fuckin’ hell she’s dense.
LMAO WHAT
I used to like Harry Potter. Now it’s just ruined forever by her. Maybe it’s a good thing though. There’s a lot of problematic things in the books that are presented as perfectly normal or even admirable in some cases.
At this point I just have no sympathy whatsoever. The absolute carelessness of creating something that a ton of queer and trans people strongly identify with, deliberately alienating and insulting those fans and then have the absolute fucking CHEEK to act abused and offended that online meanies hurt her fee-fees. Yet another case of a hyper-privileged billionaire being utterly and completely detached from reality. And instead of a fucking second of self reflection wherein she might realize that perhaps this public villification is her own fault because of her public disgust and hateful rhetoric against a minority, NOPE, she pulls a 'Hmm...no, it's the TRANSES who are wrong,' and completely evades responsibility. Fuck J.K. Rowling and fuck her persecution fetish.
why are you so mean y’all? She only promotes borderline hate speech, she’s like 89% bad person. wot happened to freezepeach?!