Hello everyone,
I saw recently another post on Lemmy which was fairly negative towards fans of the HP universe (some people announcing that they would block other people because those are HP fans)
I guess we can all agree by now that JKR's transphobia is bigotry and should be condemned.
However, that still does not say what do to with that universe that we love.
I found an interesting article on that topic: https://www.popsugar.co.uk/entertainment/harry-potter-fans-jk-rowling-transphobia-essay-49214964
I guess the most important part is
Still, there may be a way to enjoy Harry Potter as a trans person or ally. Over the years, many fans have found creative ways to engage with the series's magic while also acknowledging its creator's bigotry. In her paper "Transformative Readings: Harry Potter Fan Fiction, Trans/Queer Reader Response, and J. K. Rowling," Jennifer Duggan, an associate professor of English at the University of South-Eastern Norway — says that it's possible to interpret the text of Harry Potter itself in ways that would certainly horrify its writer. "My central thesis—one which has also been argued by other academics like Thomas Pugh and David Wallace — is that the Harry Potter novels are deeply queer," she tells POPSUGAR. "I mean this in both senses of the term: they champion nonnormativity through the contrast of the 'perfectly normal' Dursleys and Harry, and they are, at their heart, a story about a boy with an 'abnormality' (as the Dursleys call his magic) who comes out of his cupboard under the stairs and discovers and finds and affinity for a hidden, colourful, queer world. I take this argument further to argue that the novels are easily read through a trans lens, since there is a focus in many of the books on shapeshifting, including several cross-gendered transformations."
Fandom, she adds, can provide spaces where Harry Potter fans can explore the series's queer undercurrents while celebrating their own sexualities. "From what I have observed, I have concluded that for the most part, the Harry Potter fandom continues to offer queer and trans fans a positive space," she tells POPSUGAR. "The two main trends I have seen in fan works are an 'answer hate with love' reaction, in which fans focus on trans positivity, and so-called 'spitefic,' which are works that are framed as revenge on Rowling for the hurt she has caused. These works are usually trans-positive, too. That said, I fully understand why some fans feel they can no longer engage with the texts in any way."
Link to the research paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10583-021-09446-9
Seems an interesting way for me to re-appropriate the universe, what do you think?
Harry Potter isn't a good book written by a bad person. It's a bad book. At Christmastime in Grimmauld Place they dress the severed slave heads up in little Santa hats and beards. Hermione makes fun of Umbridge by triggering her (probably rape) PTSD. The series ends on the line "all is well", but nobody has done anything to solve the problems of slavery, second class citizens, oppression, and fascist social attitudes that created Voldemort. Harry becomes a cop for a government that he watched fall to corruption and evil.
The plot isn't the best, the list of issues is so long it's almost embarrassing, but the world is whimsical and comfortable, especially in the first few books. Characters description is well done, their behaviour is believable there is some moral ambiguity for some of them (Dumbledore and Snape, among others). There is a reason the series was so successful, and its popularity was never reached by similar series.
The later books are quite disappointing, especially by not addressing the underlying issues of the magical society, as you said.
In the early books you've still got Azkaban set up as the punishment for criminals, even for a crime as small as having an animal without a licence. Harry Potter immediately went to the grimdark without any sense of criticality to the atrocities in its world. At least Warhammer 40K is supposed to be a satire of fascism. I feel more comfortable reading the Horus Heresy than going back to Harry Potter.
Do you have more details about the animal licence leading to Azkaban? Doesn't ring a bell, is it in reference to Hagrid having illegal animals? I had a look at the list of knows Prisoners of Azkaban, and didn't find any on this list
HP world during the series is not a satire of fascism, but it shows what happen when the government gets complacent instead of addressing the core issues. That is mostly visible with the sack of Fudge, and then Scrimgeour desperately trying to correct the course.
Oh, I'm misremembering. Hagrid actually goes to Azkaban during the second book under suspicion of opening the chamber of secrets. No trial, no proof, they just sent him to super jail because he likes beasties.
Yes, and that is indeed to show how the magic government is corrupt.
They should have addressed those issues at the end of the series, and it would be fine if there was no epilogue, so that every reader could imagine what would happen. Personally, I don't consider the epilogue to be canon.
If you hate the quality of Rowling's writing so much that you'd prefer to rewrite your perceptions of it, maybe you could just consume better written media to begin with. I recommend The Owl House, it does the "magic school in a problematic world" story WAY better and actually addresses the problems in the world.
As for Harry Potter, the reason Rowling is able to acknowledge her world sucks but never has her heroes change it, is that Rowling fundamentally believes disrupting the social order is bad. Once you realise that, you see the books in a different light. Hermione gets made fun of by the author for SPEW, because the author believes ending slavery is bad. This isn't a writing flaw, it's an intentional result of her worldview.
I never said so.I think her style is pretty good, it's one of the things I appreciate the most about the series. Discarding a few pages out of a seven books saga seems reasonable, it is done in a lot of other fandoms. Star Wars fans recently had to discard a whole trilogy, it does not mean that they don't appreciate the original material.
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll give it a try.
That's an interpretation of the series, but then why are the following characters presented as social progress from the statu quo?
Following the magical world conventions, those people should be ostracized, and kept away from society. Dumbledore fought to give them rights, as a way to show that change was possible. Indeed, he didn't completely change the society, but he was also busy fighting another threat, the comeback from a political leader who would completely destroy the rights of the minorities.
About the Elves, Hermione is making fun of because she's trying to get a bunch of teenagers to care about social issues. However, at the end of the series, Ron say that they should warn the elves in the kitchen to prevent them from being harmed.
Dumbledore's treatment of Hagrid, Lupin, and Dobby is controversial, but it's not disruptive. It's a man in authority exercising his lawful power over his own domain. This is how Rowling believes progress must only be achieved. Note that under such a system, the reconfiguration of the government is nearly impossible, and that's why for all the progress Rowling does narrate, nothing fundamentally changes in the systems responsible for all these problems. This is what Rowling truly believes was the best possible outcome. Still slavery, still second class goblins and centaurs, still rich fascists, an incompetent government, and unregulated date rape drugs. "All was well". Rowling was being honest when she wrote that.
Well, he literally gave his life to prevent society to fall under a full bigot dictator. As I said earlier, he had a bigger threat to deal with, and made the biggest sacrifice possible about it.
The series is about the high school years of a kid who has to deal with a bigot dictator who wants to kill him. And actually, things change: Fudge has been sacked, Scrimgeour killed, Kingsley as the new Minister of Magic is hinted to be more progressive as he belonged to the Order of the Phoenix. Powerful families like Malfoys have been sent to Azkaban during the war. If you even take into account information provided outside of the book, Hermione, a Muggleborn, reaches the rank of Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
Of course Harry Potter is not about systemic change and complete overhaul of society. But are other successful fantasy series about this? LotR and a Song of Ice and Fire happen in different world, but Westeros presents much more blatant societal issues than the HP world: classism, racism, misogyny, slavery, etc. Are there critics against GRRM because Jon Snow does not push for global societal change?
Actually, it's interesting, because a lot of fanfiction written about the time period following the last book tackles those issues: how political struggles across the Wizengamot prevent systemic change of wizard society, and how much Hermione, Harry and others have to play political games to actually implement progress. Those stories can be interesting, but they are not as thrilling as the main series.
And finally, if you don't like the series, why even bother commenting here? You don't like it, it's fine, there are other works to talk about.