GC Rowling's Icky Bog Adventures, part 3: The Prisoners of Trans Cabal

[phantom_power]

Rowling's mates shouting about how Daniel Radcliffe's partner Erin Darke is a transwoman (because they can always tell).

I think they are probably saying that because she is taller than him and they are fucking idiots

[Rankersbo]

Does she even take any notice of the meta-analysis, though? People will pick apart any work of literature that's sufficiently popular, even if it's for kids - just look at all the debates about the (far superior) Narnia books.Molesworth pisses all over Harry Potter. And yes, Hogwarts is a Molesworth reference, JKR is a fan IIRC.

I saw a doc where she claimed it was from an obscure plant in Kew Gardens that she saw and forgot about.

[Midas]

rowling like dog fouling

[pk1yen]

I do think part of the reason Rowling is the way she is is that the books have been so successful, and so ubiquitous, that they're subjected to the kind of meta analysis we've already had on this page. These were books meant to be enjoyed by ten year olds and mostly forgotten! They were written in the 90s and 2000s when having background British-Chinese and British-Asian characters counted as progressive! I don't think any of us would enjoy our work being raked over like this.

And then when she reacted to certain criticism by retconning her books to be more progressive (Dumbledore was gay the whole time, say) and people, instead of whooping and cheering for her, got annoyed it set her on her current bitter path.

I think this is probably the case, sums up my opinions well. A strong argument for creators not interacting with fandoms for any length of time, because all it can do is drive you insane.

One reason why artists definitely shouldn't be on twitter - there are very, very few who can handle that amount of direct criticism and praise without it affecting them mentally.

Imagine not only ignoring the wise advice 'not to read the reviews' - but reading them all day every day whenever you open the app you're chronically addicted to, and being able to reply directly to immediate cheers from supporters. Absolute hell.

[dead-ced-dead]

JK Rowling dealt with criticism (prior to Twitter, at least) in a, "There! You happy now, you fucking nerds?!" sorta way.

The Time Turners in Prisoner of Azkaban were excellently executed in that book and film (Cuaron directing helps a lot) and made for a fun adventure story, but it immediately causes huge problems after the fact, because once it's introduced, it can't be ignored that time travel exists.

Hence the fact that a WHOLE PLAY (Cursed Child) was written to explain how saving the day with time travel, outside of the plot of Prisoner of Azkaban is bad, actually. I believe Neville also accidentally destroys all the Time Turners in existent by bumping into the container they're held in a petulant way, as if to say, "THERE! NOW STOP FUCKING ASKING ABOUT THE TIME TURNERS, YOU FAT CUNTS!"

That's just one example, but she did this a lot. Write in very hand wavy ways why a previously introduced thing can't be used again.

[Shaxberd]

Good thing Tolkien wasn't around in the age of Twitter. Start of Return of the King, all the eagles die of magic bird flu, now stop asking why Frodo can't just fly there.

[Paul Calf]

I do think part of the reason Rowling is the way she is is that the books have been so successful, and so ubiquitous, that they're subjected to the kind of meta analysis we've already had on this page. These were books meant to be enjoyed by ten year olds and mostly forgotten! They were written in the 90s and 2000s when having background British-Chinese and British-Asian characters counted as progressive! I don't think any of us would enjoy our work being raked over like this.

And then when she reacted to certain criticism by retconning her books to be more progressive (Dumbledore was gay the whole time, say) and people, instead of whooping and cheering for her, got annoyed it set her on her current bitter path.

I'm not sure any of these defences can be effectively applied to "LOOK AT HERMIONE! SHE THINKS SLAVERY'S BAD! WHAT A SILLY FUCKING BITCH! GET HER! and calling her protest movement 'SPEW'.

And then Robbie Coltrane - who bullies and mutilates children based on second-hand information - settles everyone down by explaining that the weird little goblin things love their slavery and turn into violent alcoholics if they're forced to live on their own agency. And he's still somehow a lovable cuddly good guy.

[Dr Rock]

Why does a school need slaves anyway?

[superthunderstingcar]

Good thing Tolkien wasn't around in the age of Twitter. Start of Return of the King, all the eagles die of magic bird flu, now stop asking why Frodo can't just fly there.

Assuming Tolkien wasn't hounded off Twitter in much the same way he was forced to get an exdirectory telephone number, he'd probably respond with a lengthy essay containing a number of well thought out, both diegetic and non-diegetic reasons why the eagles only appear at the end.

[Old Nehamkin]

I tend to find some of these scorching retroactive takedowns of the morality of the Harry Potter books a bit tenuous and overzealous and I feel like there's an element of people craving an endless supply of new pretexts to dunk on Rowling and starting to reach a bit (I think this dynamic plays out a bit with Graham Linehan too), BUT, yes, that whole house elf storyline from the Goblet of Fire is deeply weird, unpleasant and heartless in a way that I think struck me even when I read it as a child.

I was going to say that it feels like one of those slightly obnoxious 00s South Park episodes where the premise is basically "caring about things is stupid and lame", but I think that what Rowling reveals about her own outlook there is actually much uglier and more deeply conservative than anything you'd get from Parker and Stone.

Thinking about it more, it's also like Rowling maybe looked at the animal who wants to be eaten from the Hitchhiker's Guide and decided that "a slave who wants to be a slave" would be a similar sort of amusing ethical paradox without stopping for a second to think about how absolutely loaded that particular concept is and just merrily running with it in a way that only someone with fundamentally very reactionary politics would do.

[jamiefairlie]

Assuming Tolkien wasn't hounded off Twitter in much the same way he was forced to get an exdirectory telephone number, he'd probably respond with a lengthy essay containing a number of well thought out, both diegetic and non-diegetic reasons why the eagles only appear at the end.

Written in ancient Dwarven

[king_tubby]

Why does a school need slaves anyway?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagging

[Old Nehamkin]

Imagine that animated film Mars Needs Moms but it's called School Needs Slaves

[jobotic]

Don't forget when she claimed it's dangerous to apply a presumption of innocence to *all groups* of people

[img=350]https://i.imgur.com/1T1e2AB.jpg[/img]

Pure projection. Show me where a trans woman, or trans ally, has said that CIS women shouldn't exist. None have, they just want to be able to live their lives free of these hateful shits. Rowling and KJK and all the others want to see a total end to the existence of trans women. Psychopaths.

[pk1yen]

and calling her protest movement 'SPEW'.

I mean, that at the very least has some interesting comparisons in terms of talking about willing domestic servitude etc:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Promoting_the_Employment_of_Women

[FredNurke]

Assuming Tolkien wasn't hounded off Twitter in much the same way he was forced to get an exdirectory telephone number, he'd probably respond with a lengthy essay containing a number of well thought out, both diegetic and non-diegetic reasons why the eagles only appear at the end.

He touches on the subject in a letter printed in the collection edited by his son Christopher and Humphrey Carpenter, I believe, though he doesn't seen to have worked it out fully. He would, of course, have regarded Twitter (and the internet in general) as the work of Mordor and avoided it entirely.

[greenman]

He touches on the subject in a letter printed in the collection edited by his son Christopher and Humphrey Carpenter, I believe, though he doesn't seen to have worked it out fully. He would, of course, have regarded Twitter (and the internet in general) as the work of Mordor and avoided it entirely.

Yeah I was going to say that, those letters are basically the drawn of engaging with nerd criticism.

[Mister Six]

I tend to find some of these scorching retroactive takedowns of the morality of the Harry Potter books a bit tenuous and overzealous and I feel like there's an element of people craving an endless supply of new pretexts to dunk on Rowling and starting to reach a bit

Yeah, I agree with that, especially the antisemitism thing, which seems like a massive reach (at worst, I think she just lazily copied the "goblins hoarding stuff" element of the Hobbit and applied it to banking in a way she thought was amusing - see also the dragon they have guarding the gold as a security defence, although that might just be in the movies, IDK).

She's already a horrible person for her bigoted anti-trans shite; we don't have to try to pretend she's a million other terrible things too.  Although, yes, the slavery part is fucked.

Thinking about it more, it's also like Rowling maybe looked at the animal who wants to be eaten from the Hitchhiker's Guide and decided that "a slave who wants to be a slave" would be a similar sort of amusing ethical paradox without stopping for a second to think about how absolutely loaded that particular concept is and just merrily running with it in a way that only someone with fundamentally very reactionary politics would do.

It's not helped by the books turning to a darker, more "realistic" tone around the same time as the SPEW subplot. She simultaneously wants to pretend she's making these big important statements about the rise of fascism and the importance of standing up to cruelty while at the same time telling people off for treating other aspects of the same books seriously. HHGG never asks to be taken seriously (well, for a bit in the middle of So Long, I guess) and while its own universe is as capricious and cruel, it at least remembers to have Arthur be appalled by the more horrible aspects.

[Old Nehamkin]

It's not helped by the books turning to a darker, more "realistic" tone around the same time as the SPEW subplot. She simultaneously wants to pretend she's making these big important statements about the rise of fascism and the importance of standing up to cruelty while at the same time telling people off for treating other aspects of the same books seriously. HHGG never asks to be taken seriously (well, for a bit in the middle of So Long, I guess) and while its own universe is as capricious and cruel, it at least remembers to have Arthur be appalled by the more horrible aspects.

Yeah. With a slightly different approach the house elf thing could maybe have been an interesting wrinkle in the story about how the magical wizard world that the reader has fallen in love with over the first few books is actually quite cruel and fucked up immediately beneath the surface. But instead the joke is squarely on Hermione for being a silly little do-gooder who simply doesn't understand the very sensible and pragmatic reasons that the status quo is actually good and needs to be preserved, until she eventually submits after a series of head-patting lectures from the other protagonists.

One hot political take about Harry Potter I do agree with is how conspicuous it is that the series ends with the wizarding world being rescued from fascism and restored to peace without there being any sense at all that any sort of lesson has been learned or that the magic folk are going to reform their society in any way to try and stop the same thing from happening again. I honestly always thought that, for YA fiction, the last few HP books do a broadly good job at conveying the sort of banal horror of the world the characters live in gradually falling under the control of an authoritarian regime. But like the good blue-tick liberal she is, Rowling can't really conceive of anything on the other side of the tunnel beyond a general faith in normalcy and a vague assumption of incremental progress down the line without anything needing to be actually reckoned with.

[mjwilson]

What's odd is that the books absolutely know that there are massive problems in the wizarding world. The Sorting Hat says that the houses will have to unite to defeat Voldemort [1], and there's a bunch of different incidents where the conversation is basically "isn't it a shame that the witches and wizards have historically been massive racists towards every other magic-wielding species?"

There's really the sense that the series is building towards a finale whereby the wizards are going to have to join together with the groups they've oppressed in order to succeed against Voldemort. But... no, it goes nowhere. Carry on slaving, you're the good guys!

[1] Rowling does actually think that this happens in the seventh book, but nobody who read the book had thought that.

[mr. logic]

Small point, but is it correct to call her giving an account of domestic abuse 'bleating'. I know no harm was intended, of course, and I know the wider issues, but that does sit a bit uncomfortably with me.

[Urinal Cake]

The whole world war wizards 1  & 2 thing was always more about interpersonal drama than anything. You had the good wizards, the bad wizards, the wizards just doing their job and the wizards who were about protecting family. The last two of which JKR thinks is the normal state of affairs in the end.

Star Wars started out like that. But then that universe expanded to include some more material concerns and was a bit more nuanced.

[Mister Six]

What's odd is that the books absolutely know that there are massive problems in the wizarding world. The Sorting Hat says that the houses will have to unite to defeat Voldemort [1], and there's a bunch of different incidents where the conversation is basically "isn't it a shame that the witches and wizards have historically been massive racists towards every other magic-wielding species?"

There's really the sense that the series is building towards a finale whereby the wizards are going to have to join together with the groups they've oppressed in order to succeed against Voldemort. But... no, it goes nowhere. Carry on slaving, you're the good guys!

Yeah, I wonder if she was toying with that early on, in a Lord of the Rings sort of way, but struggled to make it work within the constraints she'd placed on herself with the limited cast and "every book takes place over a year" structure, and then sacked it off.

[1] Rowling does actually think that this happens in the seventh book, but nobody who read the book had thought that.

Especially when McGonagall has all the Slytherin kids locked up in the dungeons, and everyone else cheers. "Yeah! Fuck off you little cunts! We hate you!"

[dissolute ocelot]

The Guardian has an article of what fans want from the new TV series (which there seems to be no detail about but that won't stop anyone talking about it). It indicates why the TV series is almost certainly doomed. Lots of calls for things to be be changed, like more diversity and providing more backstory, and lots of calls for it to be exactly like the books. Lots of people with incredibly petty things they want corrected (make Ron less of an idiot, include Peeves, more Ginny being awesome). And calls for every trivial detail to be included, an episode a chapter. No idea how the series per book will work when Order of the Phoenix is 3 times as long as Philosopher's Stone, either.

[jamiefairlie]

" Especially when McGonagall has all the Slytherin kids locked up in the dungeons, and everyone else cheers. "Yeah! Fuck off you little cunts! We hate you!""

Never read the books but I would if that's what they were about

[BritishHobo]

It's not helped by the books turning to a darker, more "realistic" tone around the same time as the SPEW subplot. She simultaneously wants to pretend she's making these big important statements about the rise of fascism and the importance of standing up to cruelty while at the same time telling people off for treating other aspects of the same books seriously. HHGG never asks to be taken seriously (well, for a bit in the middle of So Long, I guess) and while its own universe is as capricious and cruel, it at least remembers to have Arthur be appalled by the more horrible aspects.

Indeed. I think house elves in the kitchen is a fun idea in the tone of the first couple of books, where everything about the wizarding world is just fun and eccentric, lots of blokes in robes and funny hats being very silly. As you say, book 4 especially is where the series starts to explore deeper ideas about that world and its politics. As a kid I remember feeling a bit put out by the way Hermione is treated over SPEW. Children's books usually have smart, plucky kids doubted and laughed at by adults, but ultimately proven right. Here it felt like the smart, plucky kid had to concede and back down.

[JamesTC]

Will Ralph be in the new TV show?

[Dr Rock]

Did it not occur to Rowling to reveal that the house elves were handsomely paid for their efforts, and that's why they chose to do it? I think, as someone said previously, she nicked the idea of the animal that wants to be eaten in Hitchhikers, and it doesn't work for loads of reasons.

[Cerys]

If she nicked most of her ideas then it wouldn't happen.  Solutions like the one you suggest would involve her being able to think for herself.

Note that I'm not saying the derivative bitch nicked most of her ideas.  Or that being derivative or nicking ideas is necessarily a bad thing in an author who can write worth a damn.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Why does a school need slaves anyway?

A good question, but maybe better asked of Eton, Rugby etc rather than Hogwarts. This shit goes back a long way.