At this point I'm thinking JKR doesn't actually care about antisemitism unless it's to score points against socialism/leftism.

CW - talking about antisemitic depictions and about the house elves and the depiction of slavery in the books.

I'm having a frustrating day with a lot of physical pain, so I'm not the best at judging currently if I should be posting all of these thoughts. It's a response to multiple arguments by rude anons that I blocked (not for being rude, for being transphobic), but the arguments themselves stay on my mind and I just. Need this out. Ignore this, it will be all over the place, I'm basically venting. Hoping it'll be the last bit of HP criticism I post.

I'll tag it for you to block, as usual.

I've been asked what I expect of Rowling, since my criticism of the goblins included the books. She already wrote the books, they're printed and they're out there. She can't just change them, criticism does nothing because she has no path to correct her mistake.

First of all, with her transphobia - as far as I'm concerned she has blood on her hands at this point. The way she emboldens transphobia endangers lives and erodes queer rights. Anyone who contributes to the current push against trans people is complicit in trans genocide - and she made herself a symbol of that movement. Even if she did a 180 on her issues with Jewish stereotypes, she wouldn't redeem herself.

But she isn't the only one who wrote a story and then realized that her story has deep issues. What does it look like, if an author doesn't want to perpetuate those?

From what I know of Tolkien (and I know nothing LOTR or anything, just heard this from other Jewish creators who discussed this issue, treat this paragraph like I'm repeating a rumor) - Tolkien did stumble on an antisemitic depiction while writing his dwarves. Then he course-corrected by creating a more complex and nuanced picture of the society in his future works. Basically, he leaned into the idea of his dwarves as a Jewish allegory and made it a better and more respectful allegory. They have wonderful cultural details, like having foreign-language names used outside of their community - and names in their own native language that they call each other. Half of my family comes from France, and my mom was born there. She had a Hebrew name and a legal French name. That's extremely common among Jews in some areas of the world.

This response is what I would have expected if an author cares about being respectful of Jewish people. Acknowledge the issue, and try to do better.

But what if the issue was brought to your attention after you completely finished your story? In that case: "Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was writing an antisemitic narrative with my depiction of this fantasy race." Support the voices criticizing your work, and apologize. Let it be an example of tropes to avoid, and encourage others to be careful of the same pitfalls.

What you don't do, is act horrified and say "Oh, how could you, I never intended to make the goblins an antisemitic allegory! Surely if I don't mean it, it can't be hurtful!"

Also, if you truly care, you don't then abuse the memory of the holocaust when you write spin-offs of your original story, including its imagery to support a bigoted villain's argument.

Marginalized people understand that not everyone knows what we do. The stereotypes and the harmful ideas that weaved themselves into popular culture are about us. We know that it's invisible to people who aren't the target, and as a result aren't forced to learn these things. To many people, it's just a trope they're used to seeing. Like villains have hooked noses - it's practically a shorthand for an evil character.

All the stories we tell are based in some measure on stories we heard. Narratives and tropes feed off each other between different pieces of media. It's easy to pull together a harmful narrative without realizing, when the tropes that make it up usually go together, and are so common they're everywhere. So we know a person who means no harm can create something really hurtful, without knowing it.

That's why we criticize media: we want you to see and be aware.

In addition to this, I've been accused multiple times of ignoring the fact that these books discuss bigotry and condemn it. I'm not ignoring it, I know they do - or they try to. But Rowling wrote a story against racism without understanding it and without interrogating it in herself. She only knew to condemn it when it's rude and violent and outright hateful. Not the foundations of it.

So, sure, say she didn't mean to write something harmful. What does she do when she learns she did? Nothing. And not just about the issue of the goblins - about everything. I detailed the problems with her depiction of lycanthropy, but she did the same thing with the house elves.

There's lore about creatures called brownies. They'll perform chores for you, but they'd rather not be seen while they do. If you try to pay them, they'll get offended. If you give them clothes, they'll leave. This is a very partial description, but you can see the inspiration here.

And then she turned them into a slave race. They're bound to their enslavers, possessing powerful magic but using it in their service, forced to punish themselves for disobedience and endure extreme abuse. Kreacher actively wishes to have his head put on display when he's too old and weak to be of use.

To show the reader the horrors of freedom for an elf, JKR turned poor Winky into a depressed drunk with no purpose in her life. Winky's story is horrifying.

Only Dobby takes care of Winky for that whole year. She never recovers during it. Then she's made to witness the interrogation of Barty Crouch Jr., which upsets her and causes her distress. As a result, she hears about Crouch's death through a toneless forced confession - and the interrogation continues around her. That same day, she watches the last member of the household she loved have his soul taken by a dementor, and then she's left alone with the body while Dumbledore argues with Fudge. Only after, he sends Madam Pomfrey to do what she can for Winky, and take her to the kitchens where Dobby will take care of her again.

And Rowling wrote all of this. Did she think this is an example that even compliant house elves suffer and get neglected, even by the sympathetic wizards? Was this a lesson that even those who don't seek freedom suffer and lack agency in this system?

No. Rowling turned it into a cautionary tale against freeing slaves. Unless they're "weird" like Dobby.

Maybe she didn't try to be racist, but this fits disturbingly well with the arguments against ending slavery in reality. That enslaved people will turn into aimless drunks. That they need to be enslaved to have purpose. That those who want freedom have something wrong with them.

And I know this was criticized. What was the response to the criticism? Nothing direct as far as I know, but after all of this - there was an article published on Pottermore to argue that Winky's story is a warning against freeing the elves. It was taken down fortunately, but after this article the arguments against freedom are no longer the opinion of characters within the world - it's a message given to us by real people.

She doubles down. Every time. People keep yelling that she had nothing to do with Hogwarts Legacy, she's not responsible for the way it builds on her original canon. Well, she seems to approve of it. It continues painting the same line with the same brush - just bolder.

She doesn't care about the racism, she doesn't care about antisemitism - she just wanted to use the nazis as her easy villains. She doesn't have the imagination for any other kind.

Why the "good faith" argument doesn't work for HP/ JKR

TL; DR: JKR has, even though the discussion of racism and anti-Semitism in Harry Potter has been around for decades, never shown any support for a good faith interpretation of her works by acknowledging and apologizing for her "mistakes" - quite the contrary.

As the upcoming Harry Potter HBO series will undoubtedly, as has the publication of the latest Wizarding World Videogame, lead to an influx of "good faith" arguments by liberal HP fans who want to find reasons to watch the show without feeling guilty for compromising on their values. And I just want to help debunk these arguments*.

To break it down: Many liberal fans I've seen argue against a boycott of Rowling's works or related franchises use the following argument: "JK Rowling didn't know what she was doing, we should consider her works in good faith and not project our modern sensibilities on it" - this is basically a version of the "They are just a person of their time" argument that gets used all the time. However, this just doesn't work - especially in 2023.

Why? Well, because JKR has never shown any support for this argument herself. The arguments of racism and anti-semitism being present in the books (published 1997-2007) and movies (released 2001-2011) have been around for quite a while - just by searching for the keywords on Google and specifying the articles to be released between 1997 and 2001 I found a variety of articles on both topics which mentioned the portrayal of goblins as anti-semitic stereotypes [1] and discusses how race is portrayed in the book [2]. By widening the search parameters to include the end of the movie releases, I found more articles in a similar vein, arguing both sides of the aisle.

This means that JKR, at this point, has had over 22 years to address these concerns and clarify her stance both on racism and anti-semitism**. If she were acting in good faith, she would have done so. She would have, at some point between now and 1997, put out a statement along the lines of: "I have been made aware that my books/movies contain racist and anti-semitic stereotypes that harm the marginalized communities. I was not aware of how much harm I was causing because of the privileges I have experienced as well as a lack of critical thinking skills at the time of writing these books. I am deeply sorry for any harm that I have caused and will ensure that future publications will do their best to minimize this damage. Furthermore, I will endeavor to educate myself further on both of these topics and will, additionally, donate x amount of money to charities that support anti-racist and Jewish causes." Now, I am sure that JKR and her agency would be much better at formulating such a statement than me, but you see what I mean.

Now, concrete measures would, of course, have depended on when precisely such a statement was published and how it was published - in collaboration with publishers or Warner Brothers or only by JKR herself. But the fact that such a statement was never published and that JKR seems to have taken no measures to support those communities she has harmed to me suggests that she is fine with what she wrote/produced. And that, to me, suggests that she is, at best, ignorant and, at worst, racist and/or anti-Semitic.

I can understand making mistakes and being blinded by your privilege - I myself for the longest time did not realize why certain tropes in German fairy tales (and Harry Potter) as well as a variety of other books I read as a child/teenager are anti-semitic and/or racist and also had to be educated by other, better-informed people (largely online but also at uni). Making mistakes is understandable - but how you deal with them shows your true character and intent. And JKR, in my opinion, has not dealt with her "mistakes" (if you are willing to extend her enough good faith to call them that) in a way that shows she has matured, educated, and informed herself.

On the contrary, as her latest release within The Wizarding World shows, she is still using anti-semitic tropes literal decades after people first brought to the public's attention how problematic this is and how she is harming vulnerable communities with her works and her seal of approval on related franchises. Rather, she seems to be doubling down, which shows her lack of concern for the Jewish community and her lack of willingness to change.

This is what should turn any liberal HP fan off the works and any, especially official, related works forever - not that JKR lacked critical reading and thinking skills in 1997 when she first created the goblins from pre-existing folklore and created a world that claims to be race-blind but has an entire creature-race of slaves but that she still has not made any changes in her attitude or her work to show that she is aware that she made mistakes and caused harm.

Please feel free to add additional commentary, especially if you are part of communities hurt by JKR, as well as sources or opinions to this post. If I have said anything that you consider wrong or problematic, please do contact me via this post or via DMs - I have tried, in the last years, to educate myself as best as possible but I am aware that I am not perfect. I also hope it provides some arguments when coming across remaining HP fans.

*Just to clarify: I myself am neither Jewish nor am I a person of color and I would ask you to not just read my post but also read content by members of both communities discussing their concerns with Harry Potter/ JK Rowling. I will also not argue against these points from the perspective of either of these groups (because I don't belong to them) but rather wish to provide a general argument.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/26/movies/potter/readers-comment-on-harry-potter-and-the-sorcerers-stone.html

[2] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/07/31/under-the-spell

** I am aware that JK Rowling, in the early 2000s, visited a Holocaust Museum and compared the ideologies of Deatheaters and Voldemort to the ideologies of the Nazis - however, this does not address the issue of her using anti-semitic stereotypes to portray the goblins in both her books and movies (and just always felt a bit icky to me personally).

J.K. Rowling and Transphobia

First, I must apologize for not posting this sooner. In the light of her recent transphobic tweets, I had to do a lot of self-evaluation before posting a word.

When I read Harry Potter at the age of 12, I feel in love with both Harry and its author. For many years if you asked me who I wanted to meet most in the world, I would say J.K. Rowling. I idolized her.

When she liked a few tweets awhile ago by transphobic people, I didn’t necessarily step up to defend her, but I didn’t “cancel” her either. I reasoned to myself that she probably didn’t realize the implications of liking the tweets, that everyone made mistakes, etc. She didn’t actually say anything transphobic herself, I didn’t think, so she just made a mistake. We’re all human. It happens.

But even then, I had niggling doubt. If it was an ignorant mistake, why didn’t she come out and apologize? Why didn’t she read and acknowledge her fan’s concerns and apologize to them?

And now, I’m here. I have made excuse after excuse for her behavior up until now, but I can’t ignore it any longer. My high opinion of her has collapsed.

The easiest thing to do is to say, “death to the author”. To love Harry Potter with all of your heart, but disavow J.K. Rowling. But that’s the problem with fiction - it’s a product of the author, of the author’s thoughts and values, whether it’s done consciously or unconsciously. And Harry Potter reflects that. It is liberal - to a point. Muggle-borns and half-bloods are stand-ins for minorities, but this avoids actual meaningful diversity. There are very few black people in the series, and the only Asian character doesn’t even have a culturally appropriate name. LGBTQ+ characters are nonexistent. She made some strides after the book came out, revealing Dumbledore to be gay, accepting a black Hermione, etc., but these were not a part of the original books. In the past, I’ve excused this because she wrote the series in the 90s, when issues like this were less explored in fiction. But the fact of the matter is, the books series lacks.

One thing I’ve long been disturbed by is the fact that house-elf slavery is played off as a joke most of the time. By the end of the series, this issue isn’t really solved, and there’s not much of a hint that it will be solved in the future. Recently, I was enlightened that goblins are essentially an anti-semitic, stereotypical portrayal of Jewish people - they are greedy, money-hoarding, short, oppressed creatures that you shouldn’t trust. (The only notable goblin, Griphook, betrays Harry.) Whether this was done consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know, but it was done. By the end of the series, Harry isn’t fighting for a new, better world after Voldemort, he’s fighting for a return to the status quo.

The books cannot be fully divorced from J.K. Rowling as much as we’d like to pretend. She created them. But then how do we move on? Because I have invested too much of myself in the book series. I’ve been running this Hufflepuff blog for years. I am currently the president of the Harry Potter fan organization at my college. Every summer I help run a Harry Potter camp for little kids. I discovered one of my favorite hobbies - writing - by starting with Harry Potter fanfiction when I was 13. And quite a few of my friendships were initially forged through a common love of Harry Potter. How can I toss something aside when it’s been such a huge part of my life?

As someone with a Hufflepuff blog with a decent following and as a leader of a club, I know I have a platform to say something. But I’m struggling to say something that would be meaningful and put-together when I feel so lost myself.

So, I will say this - whether you chose to burn the books or continue to cherish them, that is your own decision. I think everyone has their own decision to make that is personal to their own experiences. But one thing Harry Potter has created is this beautiful community. This community includes transgender people, non-binary people, and more, and I will defend them a hundred times over rather than defend J.K. Rowling. As Harry Potter fans, it is our job to stand up for our trans members within our community.

I hope you will stand tall with me in defending our community against the bigotry and ignorance of J.K. Rowling and creating a place that is inclusive for our trans community. I don’t want any trans Harry Potter-lover to feel excluded by the HP fandom, and I will attack anyone who thinks they don’t belong.

Oh, and - trans women are women. I hoped that would be common sense and straightforward, but apparently it isn’t. But there it is, loud and clear, in case anyone was confused. (By the way, J.K. Rowling - trans women are not “confused” or being pressured into changing their gender identity. They’re also not infringing on women’s spaces, because they ARE women.)

4,18,25

Thankss for asking Lil! Sorry for ranting in the first qn more than the actual rant qn hahaha!

4 - Do you think it's okay to separate the artist from the art?

I think to a certain extent, yes. I can't remember any good examples right now where the art is greater than whatever awful beliefs the artist had that slipped into their works.

The main two examples that come to mind when I think about this and want to not engage with the media they have created are: JK Rowling with Harry Potter and Joss Whedon and whatever he's touched.

So with Joanne 🤢 her shitty beliefs have definitely slipped into HP.

See: Using werewolves as a metaphor for gay people and HIV/AIDS patients. Then she goes and uses Fenir Greyback a child predator as one of the most prominent werewolf. What THE FUCK are you trying to insinuate Joanne??? But yeah it clearly doesn't help the old outdated belief that the queer community gets lumped in with pedophiles.

Also Goblins being Jewish people that's just fucked and reinforces so many toxic stereotypes about Jewish people.

I'm not super familiar with all of Joss' work and @/mysharona1987 has really good takes on how his toxicity against women has slipped into his works throughout Buffy, Dollhouse (especially this one) and of course we all saw how sexualised Black Widow was in Avengers 1 and 2.

Like I can enjoy these media but I think it's important for us to acknowledge the faults within them and view them critically. Or be like me and just swear off them if it triggers or makes you uncomfortable in any way!

*

18 - Rant about your favourite musician

(Lol not me going on a lowkey rant for the previous qn)

Olivia Rodrigo is currently my favourite artist and I think she'll always be at this point! I JUST LOVE THIS GIRL SO MUCH she has so much talent in her little 18 year old body. She's like the little sister I've always wanted. I also see a lot of my younger self in her - I really do think I could have ended up like her (prolly not as famous ofc) if my dad didn't actively discourage and shut down my music career. I truly hope she's doing okay now that she has expressed everything with Sour and also seems to be in such a good place after the break up

One bad thing I do wanna rant abt her is that I kind of wished she had called off her more rabid fans who were sending Joshua and Sabrina death threats. Like if Josh and Sab had the respect for her to shoot down the rumours/questions and still support her, she should have done the same. But my guess is her management might have wanted her to not engage at all. I sincerely hope all three of them worked it out privately in the end (cos hearing abt what Josh went through during the DL drama was really scary and sad to read about.)

*

25 - What's something you can't stop buying?

Jokes on you I'm broke and don't buy anything if I can help it. However if I had to pick a thing it would be books. That's the only thing I save up for and get on a regular basis!

***

Ask Me A Question!

Asks: Bridgerton Edition!

Prompts/Requests Are Open!

so I can't speak for everyone on why I love pansy but really for me it's just the fact that she /was/ such a terrible character. Not just like, a bad person, but she was so, SO poorly written. I am forever going to be spiteful towards jkr for creating such a one dimensional character that seems to embody everything stereotypical and bad about a teenage girl without ever giving any any HINT that she could have a personality beyond 'blood purist'. So for me, it's kind of like what we've done with-

the marauders, which is build a character on minimal information. obviously we have more to go on with the marauders but I guess I'm trying to say- Nobody really loves /canon pansy/. She was terrible. I get that. But I reject that she was so terribly one dimensional and stuck up and BAD. And nothing against demelza or any of the other underdeveloped female characters in hp but pansy stuck out to me because she /bothered/ me and I guess the others just didn't quite so much.

i don’t want to start anything so i’m going to just kind of lay out my argument in the best way i see how and then be done with this topic (i mean unless i get more asks in which case i can’t help myself but anyway). if you are easily offended/really really love pansy parkinson, don’t read this

pansy didn’t have the space to be a terribly written character because she’s not really in the books at all. i don’t have the time or energy to look through my books right now, but i’ve read the series enough to know for a fact that she was not featured or important enough in them to be developed. it would have been a waste of both words and paper to give us more of her backstory, to describe her, to really show her as a nuanced character because she basically contributed nothing to the story other than being an asshole. it wasn’t as if jk rowling was writing her as a major character and left her underdeveloped - she maybe speaks five times in the entire series, and is definitely in it much much less than the gryffindor girls such as parvati and lavender. pansy serves the purpose jk rowling intended her to. furthermore, you act as if jk rowling creating this underdeveloped, one-dimensional character (which is an assessment i don’t agree with simply because there’s no need to fully develop a character when they barely play a role in a series) is this huge terrible thing, as if she hasn’t created a million, billion other characters for you to choose from. i know i reblogged a post elaborating on this, but you have parvati and lavender (who were both sold short by jk rowling and deserve more love and nuance and actually play a relatively more significant part in the series than pansy) and amelia bones and hannah abbott, all who can be developed wonderfully, and all of who weren’t blood supremacists.

the problem with people in the harry potter fandom who love pansy is that they ignore the blood purist part of her personality. it’s fine if you want to also make pansy obsessed with bunnies or really into painting, but you cannot ignore or erase the fact that she was a blood purist. she supported voldemort. this is not something you can change. i don’t care if she goes through a redemption arc - she still supported voldemort at some point, and that needs to be addressed.

you can make pansy nuanced and add onto her story while not forgetting the fact that she was a blood purist and acknowledging that that is at the forefront of her personality.

for context, think of it this way: death eaters are a metaphor for nazis. i, and hopefully you, wouldn’t give a shit if a nazi or a nazi supporter loved to paint, was a “strong woman”, or had a multidimensional personality. THEY WOULD STILL BE A NAZI.

this brings me to my next point: PANSY PARKINSON IS NOT A FEMINIST. i have no idea how anyone can justify this to themselves... anyone who is the equivalent of a nazi can never and will never be a feminist. i do not care how strong of a woman they are, how snarky they are, how tough they are. they do not respect all women, and therefore they are not a feminist. i don’t even know why i need to say this, because it should just be common sense.

now, onto the topic of death eaters = nazis. jk rowling has said many, many times that she wrote the death eaters as an allegory for the nazis. voldemort, therefore, represents hitler. i feel like a lot of harry potter fans forget this, and if they kept this in mind, would be a lot less apologetic of voldemort’s supporters.

there’s a trend i’ve seen recently in the harry potter fandom, and it’s one of shipping characters and those who want to oppress them. i don’t know if you guys just throw together two characters without regard to their personalities or backgrounds or if you actually just don’t care, but i’ve seen some rather disturbing pairings. i don’t think you realize that shipping people like hermione and tom riddle is disgusting because that’s literally like shipping a jewish person and adolph hitler in 1940s germany. how do you not find that wrong? there are certain ships that simply should not exist, and others that can only exist with meticulous character development and/or a complete changing of canon. pansy/hermione is one of these. pansy bullied hermione on multiple occassions and supported a person who literally wanted hermione killed. i’m sorry, but that doesn’t scream “they’re in love!” to me. if you want to ship p*nsmione or whatever the hell, go ahead and do so (i can’t stop you), but you need to be aware of why it’s wrong. the only way i, myself, can justify the ship is with miles and miles of character development from pansy. and even then, it still feels wrong to me.

which brings me to my next point: why does everyone in this fandom treat hermione like utter and complete shit? it’s all very lowkey, not very overt, but it’s evident in literally almost every ship you guys make up for her. IT IS NOT HERMIONE GRANGER’S JOB TO REDEEM ANYONE. she is a muggle-born, and, honestly, if i was her, i would never ever in a million years fall in love with or even get near someone who had been complicit in my oppression. ever. i understand that some of the most popular ships in this fandom (namely, dr*mione) are sometimes written in a way in which draco redeems himself on his own and then has to work for hermione’s love, and while i personally can never feel comfortable with that, i do find that less disturbing and don’t really have as much of a problem with people shipping that. the problem is that people usually don’t take that route, and so it is left to hermione to change her oppressors.

on the topic of draco, another thing that the harry potter fandom does not seem to understand: SLYTHERIN HOUSE IS SYSTEMICALLY RACIST (i.e. BLOOD SUPREMACIST) IN CANON. i’m not talking about like if you personally think you’re cunning or whatever and sort yourself into slytherin so don’t come message me with dumb ass “i’m not racist!!!” comments. i’m saying that the house of slytherin is literally a racist house. i don’t know how you guys can argue like the founder of it was literally like “i only want to teach purebloods.” obviously not every single god damn slytherin is racist, just like every single white person is not personally racist, but as a whole, the group is complicit in oppression of muggle borns. i don’t know how it’s so easy for you guys to see this in the real world when it comes to white people, or straight people, but you can’t acknowledge this in slytherin house. furthermore, slytherin house is all about tradition and family values, so it’s no surprise that this way of thinking festered and thrived in the house, as many of the students would simply be parroting their parents. like i don’t know why you guys want to argue so hard against this fact - it’s a book series. there are people who are more bad than others. the slytherins, as a house (NOT AS INDIVIDUALS), are these people.

but i’ve gotten off track. here’s what i really want to say about pansy. IF YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE READING THE REST, AT LEAST READ THIS: pansy parkinson is a bad person. there’s no use fighting it - there are bad people in books, just like there are in life, and pansy is one of these. it does not mean you can’t like her character. it does not even mean that you can’t add your own nuance to her character, make your own headcanons for her. what it does mean is this: YOU CANNOT ERASE THE FACT THAT PANSY IS A BLOOD SUPREMACIST. NO MATTER WHAT THEIR PERSONALITY, A NAZI IS A NAZI, END OF STORY.

I don’t personally have a problem with HP (like you said, it’s too much of a foundation of my childhood), but I had in the past a similar rejection towards some piece of media (think of the many tv shows that are so well done *except* the queer or POC character is killed or evil-stereotyped, or bisexuality is erased or asexuality is “cured” etc). A suggestion I have for people struggling is consuming fanwork! Not only you get to enjoy the world and characters without benefitting / acknowledging the author and their flaws. But also, as bonus point, you can consume or create fanwork that pays justice to those minorities that have been mistreated in the original media and/or by the author outside of their work. Take what you like in Harry Potter and read or write or draw about a version of the story where Ron is transgender, Hermione is bi, Harry is Jewish or whatever else makes you feel good with it - extra bonus point if you imagine JKR being pissed off about it.

(Also I don’t know about Harry Potter, but in other fandoms there have been queer fanfiction that have been turned into original books. Go buy those to help a starting writer and flip the ultimate middle finger at your average homophobic TV writer 🌈✨)

This is such a great suggestion and something I definitely used to do a lot, too! Thank you!