#jk rowling

accio:

jk rowling pretends she’s all about women when most of the women in her books get torn down for arbitrary reasons

rita skeeter and umbridge’s appearances get mocked in subtly transmisogynistic ways, same with marge with a dash of fatphobia, lavender brown is too girly and *checks notes* loves her boyfriend, cho chang is too sad despite *rechecks notes* the fact that her boyfriend was violently murdered, pansy is ‘pug-faced’ to the point of it being her defining trait

and i know some of these examples are antagonists but, like, if the worst thing you have to say about your female antagonist is that she’s ugly? that says more about you

purplebuddhaproject:

“I think it’s the books that you read when you’re young that live with you forever.”

— J.K. Rowling
(viapurplebuddhaquotes)

i don’t know if i trust a bunch of push over boomer liberals who’s complacency directly enabled the re-emergence of fascism on how to prevent bad ideas from spreading , you know? 

 Also jk rowling is terf trash lmao

Should I read one of the books on my two pages long books-to-read list or should I reread harry potter series again FUCK YES HARRY POTTER ALL THE WAY SORRY OTHER BOOKS YOU WILL JUST HAVE TO WAIT

Regarding the Founders’ Artifacts in Harry Potter…

Is the implication literally that Helga Hufflepuff could only contribute a CUP because she’s big and presumably liked eating and drinking?? We know JKR doesn’t like and downplays the capacity of fat people. Hufflepuff takes ‘all the rest’ into her house…because she’s greedy??

Do you ever figure Rowling deliberately made it so that the only subjects her half-human hero characters could speak with authority on were things that directly related to their non-human attributes?

Lupin or Hagrid couldn'tve been the Potions or Astronomy teacher? B-but, they’re DARK CREATURES so must talk about the dark creatures subjects!

I guess we should be thankful Dobby never became the home ec teacher from his experience of cooking and cleaning

benjamingross:

JK Rowling, in addition to being a terrible person, is such a fascinating case study in how quickly someone can tank an extremely successful career. I have neverseen anyone fuck themselves over so deliberately and so effectively as she has. The last Fantastic Beasts movie made a franchise-low $655 million across the globe. With a $200 million budget, the movie was basically a box-office flop. This is in hugecontrast to the first FB movie, which was extremely successful (and released before her transphobia came fully into light).

Also, the way that JKR is treated on social media is unique. While pretty much every author and high-profile figure has antis, JKR has pretty much exclusivelyantis. With the exception of some TERF groups, no one supports her. Her fanshate her. The actors from the original HP movies have denounced her. Other authors that got opportunities because of the Harry Potter franchise have denounced her. It’s insane.

And what’s more insane is that she LITERALLY could have avoided this by just shutting up. Most famous figures have controversies- they eventually blow over with most of the world because they a) know when to stop talking, or b) change and grow. 

Not JKR! If anything, she gets LOUDER every time people tell her she’s wrong. Get criticised for liking a TERFy comment? Make a transphobic post. Criticised for that post? Write an anti-trans manifesto. Begin to die down in the public eye? Time for another Tweet about the horrors of Penised Individuals™. Shit is crazy and I struggle to see any way that she isn’t purposefully sabotaging herself at this point as a martyr for TERFdom.

Sheclearlythinks of herself as a martyr who is going down for some revolution that does not exist. This is the story of someone martyring themselves. And I feel simultaneously horrified (for obvious reasons) and clinically fascinated to watch it happen.

rasdhar:

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. If your ‘childhood is ruined’ and you are shattered by JK Rowling unveiling her transphobic nastiness for the world to see, then you should re-examine why a book series that depends so heavily on racist stereotypes, ret-conned diversity, the subtle whitewashing of slavery, and an explicit valorization of classism, speaks so much to you.

And a reminder of what Ursula K. LeGuin saidabout Rowling’s “amazing originality” that you all love so much:

> “I didn’t originate the idea of a school for wizards — if anybody did it was T.H.White, though he did it in single throwaway line and didn’t develop it. I was the first to do that. Years later, Rowling took the idea and developed it along other lines. She didn’t plagiarize. She didn’t copy anything. Her book, in fact, could hardly be more different from mine, in style, spirit, everything. The only thing that rankles me is her apparent reluctance to admit that she ever learned anything from other writers. When ignorant critics praised her wonderful originality in inventing the idea of a wizards’ school, and some of them even seemed to believe that she had invented fantasy, she let them do so. This, I think, was ungenerous, and in the long run unwise.”

Rowling is very lucky that Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch series has not retained the popularity it had once upon a time.

TWW features a down on their luck protagonist child with two sidekicks, a smart friend and a clumsy, gregarious friend. Their child enemy is the wealthiest kid in school, also a bully - who is favoured by their Potions teacher, a tall, thin magician with dark hair and an acid tongue, who makes sarcastic comments & appears like they might be able to read minds. This teacher has an unconventional grudging friendship with the elderly school principal who is kind, friendly, and forgiving of the protagonist’s mistakes.

Other teachers include a short-haired woman sports teacher, and a teacher who believes all kinds of crazy things with a dishevelled appearance. Oh, and it’s a boarding school. These books were published in the 1970s-80s.

Any of that sound at all familiar?

After watchingShaun’s fascinating video about Harry Potter it really struck me regarding Joanne Rowling being a neoliberal against cultural change…

After Harry frees Dobby from enslavement, making him nominally ‘a free elf’ who can be paid for his labour, supposedly because the concept of someone being enslaved is wrong and horrible… he himself never pays Dobby for any of the tasks he then asks of him!

This pretty much softens the message off the bat from Slavery is Wrong, to Being a Slave to an Abusive Master is wrong, Slaves should be treated politely while they labour for you for free! Jesus Christ Joanne…