JK Rowling TERFing her legacy into the bin

[Sin Agog]

To be fair I was a Lotr kid rather than a HP kid but Lotr was escapist shit with no social consciousness (if you believe Tolkien's views on allegory). I suppose Rowling just got lucky that we are a generation of incredibly infantalised idiots, so her books for children could last much longer and inspire a rabid fanbase.

You could also argue that the original Star Wars dropped the standards of the science fiction, even before the prequels.

I don't love LOTR, but as someone who reads a lot of old Viking sagas, Victorian fantasy, origin myths and shit like that, I keep on stumbling across things that must have lit Tolkien's imagination right up.  It all adds to making that world feel rich and lived in, plus leaving any reader who wants it with a bibliography of sources that could get 'em by for years.  Comparatively, Harry Potter is pretty fucking anaemic.

[greenman]

To be fair I was a Lotr kid rather than a HP kid but Lotr was escapist shit with no social consciousness (if you believe Tolkien's views on allegory). I suppose Rowling just got lucky that we are a generation of incredibly infantalised idiots, so her books for children could last much longer and inspire a rabid fanbase.

You could also argue that the original Star Wars dropped the standards of the science fiction, even before the prequels.

I wouldnt say a lack of direct allegory means a lack of social consciousness, if anything the reverse that cheap allegory in things like potter covers a lack of it. I mean with LOTR or Starwars you could at least point to a pretty clear moral message on forgiveness, not sure what the real message of potter was beyond good defeats evil via contrived plotting.

[dead-ced-dead]

I chose Lennon as the other example because I read a 'what would they be doing now if they hadn't died young' piece about ten years ago and the writer suggested that Lennon would have really embraced social media.  Yeah, he was very flawed and long before accusations of spitefulness and anti-semitism he would have been cancelled for pulling 'mong' faces in the sixties.  John would double down by writing a song called All We Need Is Kindness. Who knows? Maybe he'd changed for the better after spending six months in hospital recovering from getting shot in 1980?

It's possible he would have grown up. I remember listening to a podcast (I can't remember the details) that suggested that in the year or so prior to being murdered he had started to mature in his song writing. But I suspect there's a dollop of wishful thinking there.

[bgmnts]

I wouldnt say a lack of direct allegory means a lack of social consciousness, if anything the reverse that cheap allegory in things like potter covers a lack of it. I mean with LOTR or Starwars you could at least point to a pretty clear moral message on forgiveness, not sure what the real message of potter was beyond good defeats evil via contrived plotting.

You may be right, I only have the confidence to go by what the author says though. Maybe that's why I always liked Lotr over HP, it is slightly more adult and less shallow.

In regards to Star Wars I more meant it turned science fiction from interesting HG Wells Jules Verne etc shit to braindead adventures.
Possibly.

[Sebastian Cobb]

jesus christ jo don't write out the accent phonetically

go listen to how people talk, the slang and idioms they use, capture the feel of their speech that way

maybe do at least a picosecond of googling before you write a minority character so that you know what "halal" means

You don't feel the author's sneering contempt when reading Irvine Welsh's unsavoury characters do you?

[dead-ced-dead]

I don't love LOTR, but as someone who reads a lot of old Viking sagas, Victorian fantasy, origin myths and shit like that, I keep on stumbling across things that must have lit Tolkien's imagination right up.  It all adds to making that world feel rich and lived in, plus leaving any reader who wants it with a bibliography of sources that could get 'em by for years.  Comparatively, Harry Potter is pretty fucking anaemic.

Even as a kid, I never liked the way that Rowling would go for the obvious. She called her werewolf Remus Lupin, which roughly translates as Wolf Wolf.

Sirius Black's name, who can turn into a dog, is named after the dog star, for fuck's sake.

Thank god for Alfonso Cuaron for directing Prisoner of Azkaban who injected a real sense of magic in his film, otherwise it would have been completely anaemic, as you say.

And at the time, that was the film the fans disliked the most.

[Buelligan]

I agree absolutely.  Everything I've seen of hers is like that.  She absolutely always plumps for the obvious, the well-trodden, the pedestrian, with a teeny taste of latin or something tossed in to make a DM reader feel complimented on their erudition.  Gah.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'm sure her success outside adolescent readers was all manufactured. Her tale of woe that that was shouted loud seemed reminiscent of those child abuse stories like A Boy Called It that were doing the rounds not long before. Some canny PR hacks were almost certainly involved.

[Paul Calf]

You don't feel the author's sneering contempt when reading Irvine Welsh's unsavoury characters do you?

No. Welsh is a bit of a hack, but he has geuine feeling for and understanding of his characters, even the vile ones like Bruce Robertson and Roy Strang.

It shows in his later treatment of Begbie's story arc.

[idunnosomename]

Death Eaters lol

[JaDanketies]

I wouldnt say a lack of direct allegory means a lack of social consciousness, if anything the reverse that cheap allegory in things like potter covers a lack of it. I mean with LOTR or Starwars you could at least point to a pretty clear moral message on forgiveness, not sure what the real message of potter was beyond good defeats evil via contrived plotting.

Racial purists are bad. Also, love conquers all.

[dead-ced-dead]

I'm sure her success outside adolescent readers was all manufactured. Her tale of woe that that was shouted loud seemed reminiscent of those child abuse stories like A Boy Called It that were doing the rounds not long before. Some canny PR hacks were almost certainly involved.

And her success outside the UK is because her view of England (boarding schools, uniforms, etc.) is very much a touristy, chocolate box view of England that sells like gangbusters - just look at Downton Abbey.

[Blue Jam]

Long before accusations of spitefulness and anti-semitism he would have been cancelled for pulling 'mong' faces in the sixties.  John would double down by writing a song called Kindness Is Magic

;)

What about him writing Run For Your Life and later admitting he hated the song and regretted writing those lyrics? And then writing the lyrics to It's Getting Better ("I used to be cruel to my woman I'd beat her and keep her apart from the things that she loved/Man I was mean but I'm changing my scene")? I think he backtracked over his misogyny at least. Whether he genuinely matured or not is debatable.

I reckon he'd be all Peace And Love like Ringo these days.

[ajsmith2]

John Lennon hate is a bit played out. It always makes me think of this Onion article:

https://local.theonion.com/man-always-gets-little-rush-out-of-telling-people-john-1819578998

[JaDanketies]

Slating John Lennon and David Bowie is leftie iconoclasm. Harsher criticisms could be made about the prophet Mohammed and it feels to me like those who would be willing to cancel Bowie and Lennon would recoil from criticism of Mohammed.

[king_tubby]

How the fuck do you go from Lennon/Bowie to fucking Mohammed?

[Sebastian Cobb]

How the fuck do you go from Lennon/Bowie to fucking Mohammed?

Good anecdotes, buy dinner, no booze.

[selectivememory]

Slating John Lennon and David Bowie is leftie iconoclasm. Harsher criticisms could be made about the prophet Mohammed and it feels to me like those who would be willing to cancel Bowie and Lennon would recoil from criticism of Mohammed.

Dear BBC, I enjoyed Stewart Lee's making fun of Chris Moyles on TV last night, and I look forward to him mocking the Prophet Mohammed in the same way next week.

[jobotic]

Slating John Lennon and David Bowie is leftie iconoclasm. Harsher criticisms could be made about the prophet Mohammed and it feels to me like those who would be willing to cancel Bowie and Lennon would recoil from criticism of Mohammed.

lol

[Wet Blanket]

I always consider that we know so much about Lennon's character flaws because he was so brutally honest about them in interviews. Paul McCartney could be a cunt to Jane Asher but he keeps that to himself.

As for JK Rowling, I don't know how anybody could read her nostalgic books about a public school for magic wankers and then be surprised that she's pretty conservative IRL.

[king_tubby]

Dear BBC, I enjoyed Stewart Lee's making fun of Chris Moyles on TV last night, and I look forward to him mocking the Prophet Mohammed in the same way next week.

Heh.

[Mantle Retractor]

John Lennon hate is a bit played out. It always makes me think of this Onion article:

https://local.theonion.com/man-always-gets-little-rush-out-of-telling-people-john-1819578998

Legend Derke!

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Slating John Lennon and David Bowie is leftie iconoclasm. Harsher criticisms could be made about the prophet Mohammed and it feels to me like those who would be willing to cancel Bowie and Lennon would recoil from criticism of Mohammed.

would that be the historical Muhammed based on what we know from contemporary sources or the prophet Mohammed from the Quran, a book which must be completely true because Allah - I'm sorry,  I can't continue chewing on this tasty bait, I'm still stuck on "did the killer remove the guts because his last meal was halal". I was pretty sure I knew what halal meant in terms of food, and that JoRo didn't know what she was talking about. But just in case, because I didn't want to faceplant into a pile of my own ignorance, I took five seconds to type "halal" into Google. Then I spent a few minutes reading the second search result (the first result is Wikipedia), "What Is Halal? A Guide for Non-Muslims", written by the Islamic Council of Victoria. It's not as if "halal" brings up a ton of anti-Islamic crank websites as the top results. I had to go to the second page before I got any cranks, and even then there were only two. Lazy arse published author couldn't even be bothered to do that tiny amount of work.

Now maybe her detective character is meant to be Islamophobic as well as thick, and another character is feeding him misinformation like "oh a burqua went in there with a big bag of halal food, it's the mooslims innit" to throw him off the scent. But given the tone of OH GOD MUSLIMS EVERYWHERE in the other excerpts, I highly doubt it.

[Dr Rock]

How the fuck do you go from Lennon/Bowie to fucking Mohammed?

You go across the universe in a moonage daydream, ooh yeah

[Shit Good Nose]

[greenman]

You may be right, I only have the confidence to go by what the author says though. Maybe that's why I always liked Lotr over HP, it is slightly more adult and less shallow.

In regards to Star Wars I more meant it turned science fiction from interesting HG Wells Jules Verne etc shit to braindead adventures.
Possibly.

Again though I don't think his comments were meant to state the books were lacking in morality just that he didnt intend very direct allegory such as say The Ring = Nuclear Weapons.

I'v only read a very small amount of Potter a chapter or two in a library about 20 years ago and my memory is it was very bland indeed. I do think Tolkien by comparison has very pleasant tasteful descriptive prose which has always been the main attraction of the books to me(and I think alot of what made Jackson's adaptation so successful), there not really overtly that magical moreso a travelogue across an invented landscape with a sense of deeper history.

Star wars really was always more science fantasy but I would say the real turning point was ET crushing Blade Runner, from that point onwards Hollywood lost interest in more inteligent sci fi unless it was cloaked in action blockbuster garb, Robocop, Terminator, etc.

[Dr Rock]

Although does anyone think fondly of ET these days? I didn't like it much at the time and was the right age. There seems more love for The Goonies.

[Sin Agog]

Top 5 Beatles Songs


As-Salaam Alaikum Together

Allah My Loving

Shi'ite Came In Through The Bathroom Window

Halal You Need Is love

Here Comes the Sunni


Favourite Beatle: Mecca

[Mister Six]

Ohhh, don't say that.  Don't ever say that.  That's really horrible.  Marsha was a poor old gentle glass half full girl with a heart of gold, Suzanne Moore isn't.

It's sad to pollute Marsha with Suzanne but worse, far worse, it lets a little bit of Marsha's lovability shine through the crack in Moore's bird's nest skull and bless her.  She doesn't deserve it.  She really doesn't.

Agree with this strongly, although I'm sure Marsha would make sure she topped up her glass with every sip before it even got to three quarters full.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Although does anyone think fondly of ET these days? I didn't like it much at the time and was the right age. There seems more love for The Goonies.

It's alright.