Pirating Harry Potter stuff is now not only a moral thing to do, but almost a moral obligation.
I’d say just don’t engage with it at all.
If someone talks about it, pretend ignorance. Like total ignorance of any aspect of the stories.
Or, if someone mentions it, just say you don’t give bigots money.
Editing to expand: by pirating you are perpetuating the cultural impact. The majority of people pay for access to this media, and by engaging with it you make it more costly for other people to skip it.
Even if you pirated, speaking about the movies will encourage other people to watch it, and they might not pirate it. It’s indirect, but it could still give that transphobic doll money
Maybe once they are dead, because history is history. But otherwise…
Just pirated the whole movie series lol
I have always hated Harry Potter. I hated Harry before it was cool to hate Harry.
I’m a mother fucking golden hipster God!
the thing i don’t get is why people are focused on the transgender community so much?
IMO its always about scapegoating, you need to find a minority which is prevelant enough for people to have encountered, but not too many that they’re in everyone’s family or work or friend circle - and that won’t have significant civic or voting power.
Post-ww2, ethnic divisions are more taboo, gay rights are too broadly popular to pursue, but trans people are the conservatives best punching down opportunity, while trying to appeal to people on the fence by being ‘virtuous’ and ‘saving the kids’.
They want to hate on someone but it’s passé to hate on plain old gay people now.
Trans and brown people are trendy now.
She’s such a scumbag. Had it all and ruined her name and art for what? To be hateful? Shame on her and shame on HBO for handing her more money and fueling her hate.
rowling also wants to retcon the og cast members of the films, because they dont like to be associated with her transphobia.
Which is ridiculous because we need 35 year old Daniel Radcliffe to play a 6th grader.
Imagine what good things could be done with the money instead of using it for stuff that’s non of her business. The older they get, the more conservative they turn out to be - sad for someone who brought a wonderful world to life once…
And for filler treatments apparently.
Okay, I’m sure I’ll get vote-bombed here, please don’t jump the gun, I’m pro lgbtq+. I don’t give a shit who or how someone loves, just hope they’re allowed to be happy with themselves (unless they’re hurting people, obviously).
I believe trans rights, and womens rights, are human rights. I don’t think anybody should be treated differently due to gender, sex, race, or orientation, and they shouldn’t be discriminated against in any way. I’m just trying to make sure I understand fully for when I defend the pro trans position that I believe to be correct.
I started looking further into this because a friend of mine, which is a total HP nerd, was trying to give me some context on where her anti-trans activism comes from. It SEEMS like she mostly wants to make sure women stay safe (paraphrasing her own words here). In Scotland apparently they’re changing things so that a dude can just say he’s not a dude, and be legally allowed in all women only spaces if they register with the government or whatever. I can absolutely see how that could be used in a predatory manor, and can see that side of the argument.
I just read her piece here: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/ To make sure I’m getting as complete of a look at the situation as I can.
And it confused the issue a little for me. All of her arguments seem to be coming from a place of reason, and some of them made sense (if the referenced stats were true). Most of her arguments seem to come from a “I don’t want to make it easier for male predators to prey on women” standpoint, which makes sense at the surface level.
is the current climate making it fashionable to transition? I find it hard to believe someone would go that far without truly thinking it’s the right thing to do, but some people are highly influenced by peer pressure. I can also see maybe some women wanting to change to escape the misogyny of our current world. I’m a straight cis-male, and I can’t personally resonate with the idea of changing that because it’s “popular” or whatever, so I don’t put a lot of credence into that argument, but I’m not everyone 🤷.
I also understand that sex and gender are separate, and Rowling seems to be on the train that conflates it, which might be the basis for her position.
Please help me learn and understand. Someone with more context or knowledge, please let me know. I’d love the opinion of some trans folks if you see this. Rowling says she’s getting support from trans women for her positions. And I’m sure that’s true, there’s bound to be some, like there’s women who support patriarchy.
Edit, reordered my statements so my current position is clear at the start
As a cis man who is only tangentially acquainted with transgender issues, and as a person who isn’t particularly eloquent, I cannot do this topic justice myself. You’ll have to trust me when I say that the image of “just any bloke can call himself a woman and go into the bathroom and assault women” is language that is deeply colored by propaganda, and has no basis in reality. When you indulge in language and ideas like that, you are doing harm. Similarly, the “men doing women’s sports” idea is harmful to both cis and trans women, and has, again 0 basis in reality.
If you are truly interested, and not some right wing troll who’s “just asking questions” (we get a lot of those on .world, it’s like the instance attracts them), please, please give these YouTube videos a watch:
https://youtu.be/EmT0i0xG6zg https://youtu.be/qfUsuQ8rfu4
The shorter one is from a cis man, but it seems to me that he explains the idea very well, at least behind the sports thing. And I promise that the longer one is worth it. It will help you understand a deeply marginalized segment of the population much better, and you will be a better person for it. I think that’s worth 2 hours.
It boils down to this for me: If some bad actor is going to pretend to be trans to access some naked lady area, why are we trying to punish actual trans people for that by taking away their access to bathrooms and healthcare?
It’s just stupid.
Such a good point
Thank you for this. I will absolutely go through both videos.
I appreciate the context you provided as well. In my mind it makes sense that someone willing to break the law to hurt people isn’t going to stop because the sign on the door says it’s not for them. That argument never felt particularly strong to me, and I’m glad that you’ve affirmed it basically doesn’t happen.
I’m no troll, and am truly trying to understand further.
Thanks again for your time, I hope to be able to watch those videos soon.
I don’t think you’re a bad person, i think you’re falling into the trap of trying to give bigots the benefit of the doubt.
Most bigoted opinions are manufactured by special interest groups, when you realize that you stop caring about what bigots think or empathizing with them.
Thank you for your openness and candor. I hope you find what you’re looking for.
JK Rowling argument put simply is that women need a safe space, that there are opportunistic men that will abuse workarounds that let them access this safe space, therefore there needs to be tighter regulations on who can enter the safe space.
Does she address that argument in some part of the video?
Yes.
Sorry, at what time?
Why not just watch the video?
Its very long, and is mostly fluff.
deleted by creator
As far as I know, if you’re a dude, you can already just walk into womens bathrooms. There aren’t police outside or anything checking peoples pants. There’s not some epidemic of people legally transitioning just so they can be predators.
These laws end up hurting women, who were born women and were always women, who don’t happen to look “feminine” enough (ETA: or the opposite, cis men who don’t look manly enough), and people start harassing them for using the bathroom they were meant to use.
If you want to go after predators, go after predators. It’s not that hard. You don’t need to go after trans people to do that.
Yeah that one argument never felt particularly strong to me anyway, like men transitioning to win at sports or whatever.
i was going to say transphobia always relate to mysogyny and homophobia as well.
My comment to her is that we need to enforce anti-harassment laws in all spaces. I don’t care if you’re a man harassing a man, a man harassing a woman, a woman harassing a man, or a woman harassing a woman, the cops should come take you away and … educate you why we don’t do that shit in a civilised society. And you don’t need to make a person presenting as a woman use the men’s washroom, or a person presenting as a man use a woman’s washroom, to make that happen! In short, you don’t need to be a dick to people.
Fun fact. I saw a recent news article where a trans-man (i.e., born female, presents as male) went into the woman’s washroom because the only free stalls were urinals, which he couldn’t use. So he went to the woman’s washroom to use a stall there, and got harassed by the police because…well, he was a man in the women’s room. Except he wasn’t. He was born a she, and in North Carolina, you USED to be demanded to go to the washroom of your birth gender, and they’re trying to force that back in again, after it was partially repealed and allowed to expire back in 2020.
It’s not about protecting women. If it was, they’d just enforce the laws on the books about harassment, sexual or otherwise, and be blind to the genders of the perpetrator and victim. But we can obviously see that this is about legally harassing transgender people, and it just uses women’s rights as cover for the hatred. Your only answer as a transgender person to peeing is hold it…or pee yourself. Or move to a state, city, or country that doesn’t treat you like shit because you would prefer to be the other gender…or not be restricted to the binary structure in general!
These are excellent points, thank you.
Your middle paragraph makes so much sense in today’s world, it’s not about what they say it’s about, they just like to demonize people who aren’t hurting anyone
idk if reading a billionaire author’s own statement (managed by a billionaire’s pr-team) on the billionaire’s own site is “the most complete picture you can get”.
I’ve read the text as well, and that isn’t too crazy. But it’s honestly just dog-whistling, as you can see from her going utterly BATSHIT crazy on social media.
Edit not to mention highly illogical. She literally wants a law saying this guy must use the women’s bathroom:
And you don’t think he will get harassed when he goes into the ladies’ because he was born with a vagina?
Or that this person won’t get harassed when they have to go the men’s:
You can prolly see why TERF views aren’t actually feminist at all
I tend to show pictures like that to people complaining about trans people (Not like OP. They seemed genuine.) And they ALWAYS shut down. Because their entire view is crafted by transphobic youtubers and twitter nazis that use ridiculous cartoon images of trans people.
And when they see that most of the time you can’t see if a person is trans or not, their brain just has a seizure.
I wish I looked like the dude pictured 🤣 super jealous
I totally get it, and I don’t have xitter or anything like that so don’t see the majority of the trash she’s reported to say and do, I just wanted to see what her “official” position was as a starting point to compare to what she’s actually doing and saying elsewhere.
People have decided she’s literally Hitler and so are you if you disagree with them. This isn’t a subject where discourse is allowed. The point is to make any dissent of any size unacceptable and to make sure no one is questioning anything, 100% unquestioning acceptance is the only option here, no questions allowed, accept it at face value. People can’t accept things they’re not allowed to think through and thinking issues around transness through means you’re a bigot, fully accept it or you’re a bigot… don’t bother talking to people about this here, there’s no point, shades of gray and nuisanced through is forbidden
You say this as if she doesn’t have a long and exceedingly public history of racism and transphobia.
I don’t think this is the right take.
I think perhaps people on the Internet get jaded towards questions and discourse because it’s often disingenuous or just trolling. Do they jump to a conclusion? Perhaps, but it also feels like you may have here.
My comment above is currently (and I expect forever) sitting in the negative, I think this is probably for the reason you stated. I’m going to leave it as is because it’s an honest starting point for me, and hopefully it’ll also help someone else come in, see a resonance with how they think, and also learn something. One commenter already provided videos for me to study and learn from, which I will do as soon as I can.
I’m hoping overall people understand that I’m coming from a place of honest curiosity and openness. I see all the bigotry around and it disgusts me. I just want to make sure I understand this topic as much as I can as a cis-male.
I started looking further into this because a friend of mine, which is a total HP nerd, was trying to give me some context on where her anti-trans activism comes from.
You deliberately found someone with strong bias to get info from? Maybe you should think about that.
I also understand that sex and gender are separate, and Rowling seems to be on the train that conflates it, which might be the basis for her position.
I think you need to back up a little more on Rowling. If you start dissecting her works, you’ll see she has born/birth/blood nature being a reoccurring theme. Hagrid is naturally angry. Voldemort is evil because he was a rape baby. House Elves are natural
slavesservants. The Weasley family will always be poor(even when Harry should be paying rent or at least buying them a new car). Hell, the Irish character keeps blowing things up. Things are the way they are at birth and anyone who pushes against the natural order is wrong. Hermione Granger, the other outside to magical society took issue with the House Elves being treated as slaves and everyone, including the House Elves and Harry Potter, the first outsider and someone who should have no bias for slavery, treated her as being annoying and wrong for caring.(Also remember when JK implied that Hermione could be Black? Yeah, this isn’t a good look.)If you want a deep dive into Rowling’s writings that isn’t centered on the trans issue, check out Shaun’s review of her total body of work at the time.
How is Hagrid an angry person?
He’s super kind. A tad emotional at times, but not angry.
Also the Irish kid blowing up things is from the movies, not from the books.
anyone who pushes against the natural order is wrong
I mean I get where you’re coming from, I’ve always been bothered by the whole premise of “lol if the muggles knew we had magic they want us to help them so we can’t tell them” and just how unrealistic it would be to be able to keep such a thing a secret, especially when it’s canon and central to the story even that sometimes muggle families have a magical kid, and it can even be just one of siblings. Tweeners are so bad at keeping secrets. Imagine that you’re in a regular school and have regular friends until you’re 11 and then just vanish from their lives or somehow manage to still see them but… you won’t tell them you’re actually magic? Anything about what you’re studying, where your school is, etc etc? Right.
However we can’t deny that within that world the deatheaters are clearly even more racist and evil, and that the main characters fight against them.
Anyway Rowling is batshit nowadays I’m not defending her but I found your criticism factually inaccurate at those small parts so…
It is kinda silly how the wizarding society treats elves, but also it’s not as crazy diegetically, because the crazy author has written the story in the way that the house-elves actually do pretty much crave it. Which in itself is kinda… ew, but it’s not as offensive as it sounds, imo, as the starting concept, seeing as she was probably taking inspiration of mythical house elves, and those are sort of a more respectful concept, but clearly where JKR has drawn from.
The early house elves were by no means merely benevolent figures. The elf was believed to observe the life of the household very closely and judgementally. If the household members did not live in a well-behaved and diligent manner, the easily irritated elf could remind them of his existence, for example by causing a disturbance similar to haunting. At worst, the elf could leave the ill-mannered house altogether, taking happiness away from the house.
Christmas was an important celebration for house elves. On Christmas night, people would prepare a plate of porridge for the elf and put it where the elf was known to live, such as the sauna, barn, stable or attic. It was also customary to leave food for elves at the Christmas table for Christmas night.
https://www.kansallismuseo.fi/en/items-of-the-month/2022/tontut
That’s Finnish folklore, not JKR’s writings. I’ve left out food for tonttus as a kid.
No, Hagrid is a very angry person. He just angry on behalf of the MC most of the time, so we’re routing for him. I found it weird how quickly a grown adult was to attack a child despite not really knowing them or being a threat. If it were an illusion or temporary spell Hagrid used on Dudley, it would be a little different, but he needed an operation to get fixed.
Also the Irish kid blowing up things is from the movies, not from the books.
Still has her name on it. Also, that floor in the bank in the movie wasn’t a good look when you’re already under criticism for the goblins for being a Jewish metaphor.
“they wouldn’t know what to do with freedom”
That’s a line straight out of the anti-abolitionist in America and many, many other places that have slavery or caste systems. Harry Potter kept almost being interesting and I had assumed that the story line would go somewhere before dropping for other reasons. I was pretty surprised when Hermione’s SPEW just fizzled out. I really should have know with a name like that.
If the house elves worked like where she supposedly got inspiration form, they’d be far, far more interesting. Like I said, Harry Potter is one of those stories that kept almost being interesting.
That’s a line straight out of the anti-abolitionist in America and many, many other places that have slavery or caste systems
My point exactly. It’s dehumanising to assume anyone is “born to serve” or some shit like that, but in the books, that’s basically what the elves are. Like it’s not just that the people are saying that, they’re actually magical entities formed from the house. Kinda like dementors are just formed from murderous anger and hostility and all things bad. That’s my point; if you buy into the assumption that such things can be born out of notions or ideas, then it would sort of make sense to have creatures which are so dedicated to house-work. Perhaps the reason I find it easy to understand is because of the Finnish lore about house elves I heard long before ever reading JKR.
The bit I pasted isn’t all the myth there is and they’re not always feared as such. I think there could be way more respect allowed to them in the wizarding world, seeing how powerful they actually are. It would’ve been much cooler for them to have like “risky” servants in the sense that unless they’re allowed the proper respect and protocol and whatnot, they’ll make anyone’s life hell. Like a nasty but very proper matron, who you wouldn’t want to piss off and even the lord of the house would make sure to clean mud off his shoes before coming in to avoid a bollocking.
Yeah, it kept almost being interesting, but as I first read it when it was actually coming out and we had no idea of JKR’s budding insanity (honestly, we got to admit that most artists are kinda crazy, so that’s unsurprising, she’s just crazy in a really toxic way that’s harmful to others) I was around 14 years old so back then I looked at it quite differently. Basically I aged the same time as the characters did, and it was a nice escape.
But yeah, there’s definitely much that could be done with it. I honestly would like to see like a Harry Potter universe version of a show like “Andor”. Like super gritty and political compared to the originals, and mainly not written by the original author, but just using the setting. Like get some of the original cast back and see Daniel Radcliffe actually hunting dark wizards in his thirties. Some non-terf people to write the show, actually good writing, R-rating. I’d watch the shit out of that.
edit also you’ve not convinced me hagrid is an angry person just because he did a little bit of magic on Dudley
Excellent response, thank you.
Also to your first point, I needed to know what her current stance was and the rational being used to do what I could at comparing.
All the points about the series are interesting, and they all ring pretty true. As I recall Tolkien had similar racial vibes in his works. Nothing I realized until someone pointed them out.
TBH the whole house elves thing always made me uncomfortable.
The thing about the House Elves is, she introduced the concept in one book without thinking too much about. Fans then asked her for details and instead of taking the easy route and saying that Slavery is Bad, she doubled down and said that it was perfectly fine. She tends to have petty responses to criticisms and questions. In one book, she introduces Time Travel and fans asked why the following book didn’t have time travel, so in the next book, the fat kid knocked over the table that had all the time travel on it, so no one could use it again. She also wrote a whole book about an author who was being bullied on social media.
Tolkien used his fantasy races as metaphors for real life races/ethnic groups, but was fairly kind to them, considering his time. IIRC, Dwarves were repressive of Jews and while it doesn’t look good that the Dwarves greed for gold was their downfall, a deeper read, it was specifically a certain king that lead them to their downfall and not a trait of the race itself. I’m not a Tolkien head, so I might be getting some wires crossed.
Yeah I’m not a huge Tolkien person either. Enjoyed the movies, struggled through the books.
This is just sad. What could have made JKR use her wealth in such an unkind way?
she seems to have been harboring these feeling since she before she wrote harry potter, there are many people attributing her books to transphobia and antisemitism in a subltle way.
moaning myrtle probably killed herself because she wasn’t accepted.
I know that this is of only tangential relevance to the OP but I think that it could be safely said that “transgenderism” is boring and irrelevant to everybody except for a tiny sliver of the population : Those who love it and those who hate it. And these people seem to talk a lot.
So many people are unique in different ways. Some people eat meat, some don’t, some can’t. Some people are tall, some short, some average. Some people are the life of the party, and some are quiet. Some people feel comfortable in their bodies, and some don’t… And sometimes they want the be different. I don’t fault people for wanting to be comfortable with who they are. They should be comfortable in their own bodies, and if that means changing it, then that should be okay too. Sometimes, there are people that pick on other people for not liking the same things they do, or for not looking the way they do, and this can hurt the people that they are picking on. You may think it’s okay for you to ignore it because it doesn’t affect you, but that’s selfish. What if people decided to pick on you for something that you couldn’t control? Would you want other people to ignore it and turn a blind eye? No, right? You wouldn’t think that that is okay. Sometimes you need to stand up to help people and support them, especially when someone else is being mean to them…because you never know when those mean people might to start picking on you. And if no one helps each other, then the mean people feel like they can get away with it…like they have power over everyone else. But when we speak up, when we say ‘that’s not okay,’ we take that power away. We show them that being cruel isn’t something we accept or ignore.
Standing up for others isn’t just about helping someone else, it’s about creating a world that’s kinder and safer for everyone, including yourself. When we support each other, we build trust, respect, and strength in our communities. We show each other that we matter, just as we are.
So when you see someone being treated unfairly, remember: your voice matters. Even one person standing up can make a huge difference. Be that person."
Just had this conversation with my young daughter about bullies, I adapted it a bit, but I thought maybe you could use it too.
Beautifully put, thank you!
An accusation of selfishness wrapped in a very large bun. Lol.
Having a few people born biological males in your change room or gym class isnt going to ruin your life, theres nothing they can see there that they cant see on the internet.
I mean unless a woman has posted her naked body publicly online then this isn’t really a true point. You actually cannot see anything of mine online and no women aren’t all the same person where if you know/see one you live known/seen them all… saying “you can see boobs online” doesn’t mean what you think it does because no, you cannot see mine online
Well, let’s just be happy that Rowling is jy low pretty old and that we’ll all likely outlive her.
Imagine getting all that wealth just to use it to hurt people
You are describing most of the billionaires.
There is a difference between abusing people to generate money and spending money to hurt people
Most of the Billionaires do both.
My intuition says you’re right, but I’ve learned to question it from time to time. I don’t know any billionaires myself, nor have I read much about them, so I don’t really have any facts either way. Got any sources I should look into?
The 1st thing always come to my mind is Nestlè. But there are many others, doing worse. Like Chevron, Elon Musk and others.
This is why the new tv series will be hated by all. They had a chance to remake and sanitize the series away from the grimy hands of JK and instead they doubled down. So if anything this remake might be even more offensive.
The wild thing is that growing up I had all the conservatives and bible people trying to stop us kids from reading the demonic Harry Potter novels. Now that they realize the author is one of them, they suddenly love the books about witchcraft!
Unfortunately, they won’t be hated. A lot of people don’t actually care all that much about trans people :(
Or anyone else for that matter
They will cast Snape as black and the audience will wonder why Harry immediately hates him.
Are you not aware that Snape literally has been cast as black? Because if not that’s hilarious coincidence.
The potters being violently racist is cannon.
That’s the confusing thing to me, clearly the left audience is done with JK, but the show is also pissing off the right with “woke casting”
Just like the best selling game of the year, Hogwarts Legacy.
I don’t think Hogwarts: Legacy doubled down, though? It’s definitely sad that she made money off that game being sold, but she didn’t have any hand in the writing. The game has trans characters and allows the player to be trans as well.
My comment was only to point out that the mainstream does not care about JKR’s take on trans people and that anything Harry Potter will print money, which is the opposite of OP’s take on things.
she does profit from the IP being sold. and people were like defending the game and her transphobia.
They had a chance to remake and sanitize the series away from the grimy hands of JK
Did they really? My impression was that she used her copyright control
It’s one thing to still support someone despite them having some problematic opinions on the side. I do it, you probably do it, it annoys the shit out of me to know that this thing that I like is made by someone who shares opinion with which I strongly disagree with, sometimes that are even against me, personally, as a trans person.
But not understanding something, being ignorant and being kind of an asshole about it, is very different than what this hateful bitch is doing. She has dedicated her entire life to make people like me fucking miserable. And it’s working!
I’m having a very hard time reconciling the fact that lots of people love Harry Potter and some people in my entourage are the same and they will support and pay for stuff made by this horrendous person regardless because this universe means that much to them. My sister is like that. I’m having a very hard time with that. I don’t want to be that person… but fuck this hurts.
The worst part is that most people don’t know about it. Most people don’t know how much of a hateful, awful person J.K. Rowling is. And I have to admit, those people in my life, I’m genuinely afraid of telling them. Because I know that there is a chance that I’ll tell them everything, and that in the end, they won’t change a thing. Because my rights as a human being matters less to them. And I don’t want to find that out…
I hate everything about this.
I think that you shouldn’t tell people to stop enjoying what they love but to stop buying and funding her campaign.
It is hard to convince people to give up on their interests but it is reasonable to tell them where the money goes.
I myself I am mostly pirating all stuff. I could even help someone pirate it and do it for them. I think they would understand and agree to it. I would add that If they buy something from hp we are not friends/family anymore but if you ask me to pirate it then we could watch it together.
That’s my advice on how to approach this in a reasonable manner and if you need help pirating any hp stuff PM me and I will explain how to set everything up
I’m not trans, but I feel your pain. It sucks, a lot. Why do people have to be so hateful?
Low IQ and a lack of hobbies
First, let me start with saying I am sorry. Currently, the world seems very preoccupied with cocks and vagina’s and who should have what. (Kinda weird, but yeah).
I love Harry Potter. It was the first series of books that really resonated with me. It is really sad to see that someone, who came from nothing and gained it all. Could live the dream, have all the money and affection, is such a massive cunt.
Yet somehow, it doesn’t make me stop loving Harry Potter. When reading the books again, it reminds me of my childhood. Me reading at 2:00 in the morning underneath the blankets with a pocket light in me mouth to not let anyone know I am not sleeping. Daydreaming about such a world where magic exist.
The solution, I am afraid, is something I cannot provide. Money buys news, news poisons the minds. I stand for humanity, and all humans. No matter which configuration. And if someone wants to have a nice pair of tits and cunt instead of a dick, go on and have your merry life.
…
I don’t know if this is helpful or not. What is your solution?
I don’t know, there’s a lot of racism and anti-Semitism in those books as well. I mean the money obsessed long nose goblins? Cho Chang?
They’re good stories, but they do reflect the work of a fundamentally biggoted author.
In general the entire series is mean-spirited. You can see the roots of Rowling’s hate in how she describes any of the series antagonists.
It is important to separate art and artist.
People get a lot of comfort out of religious text knowing next to nothing about the author(s).
This also means you can hate on JK Rowling without making any connection to HP.
No. I’m so tired of this. You can like the IP but you can’t spend a single dime on it without funding transphobia. That’s what we are talking about here.
Edit: The IP also should just die. Its popularity fuels hateful policies and attitudes against my existence.
Edit: This comment on it says it succinctly: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/26719393/14648789
And this is why I pirated Hogwarts legacy…
For me the whole IP has been so tainted by her behavior that I can’t even enjoy it if I didn’t pay. I get a gross feeling from it, like I’ve stepped directly into some filthy place and must be careful not to let anything touch me.
If you are going down that road then there are much big targets to aim at. Are you also applying the same anger (and logic) to organised religion?
The same arguments apply and they are multiple times more powerful than Rowling.
Yeah okay, you are not being genuine. That much is clear now. This is a post about J. K. Rowling using profits from her IP to fund transphobia. People run in to defend the franchise, we try to explain how giving her money means more policies against us is bad, and then you object to that?
Ofc we are talking about HP in the HP post. Why would I talk about religion here? She gave a significant meaningful amount of money to fund hate against me, and she continues to be influential and use her and her IPs popularity to make peoples lives harder.
Why do you think I don’t speak up against any church or organization funding hate and bigotry? You are not being genuine.
giving her money means more policies against us is bad, and then you object to that?
No, you went further and are hating on people liking HP. You are attacking the art not the artist. I am defending art in general. I am not defending Rowling at all or encouraging funding for her. Everyone should pirate anything HP related.
Why would I talk about religion here?
Because you are confusing the art and the artist. That precedent should not be allowed no matter the topic. (By equating religion to art I can make my point quicker. Note I’m not choosing any religion in particular)
Why do you think I don’t speak up against any church or organization funding hate and bigotry?
Do you also try to stop people from believing in that religion? From reading those religious books? No. The art is separate.
You are not being genuine.
I’m highlighting how art and artist are separate. No-one should feel guilty about enjoying a fictional book.
No, you went further and are hating on people liking HP.
Where did that happen?
The IP also should just die.
Yup, fuck organized religion
It is important to separate art and artist.
I completely disagree, both on a subjective selfish aesthetic level, and on a moral level.
On the aesthetic side, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice by making this separation. You’re missing out on this whole other dimension a piece of art has to offer you; namely the context that the author operates in. Star Wars gains this whole other rich level of interpretation if you consider the fact that George Lucas lived through the invasion of Vietnam and other forms of US imperialism and completely opposes it, for example. You’re missing out by ignoring the author.
On the moral side, the argument is more obvious, I think. By ignoring the author you’re denying yourself the opportunity to spend your money and support folks in a way that aligns with your own morals. In my case, I consider trans people people, and think they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. Since I know J K Rowling completely disagrees, I know that if I spend money on her, I will be putting money in the pocket of someone, and platforming them, who actively works against my morals. And I’m thankful for being able to know that spending money on her goes counter to my own morality.
Obviously if the authors views are reflected in the work then there isn’t a separation. HP is badly written with many failings, but it is enjoyable and not anti-trans itself. The art does not reflect the beliefs of the author.
On the moral side, no money needs to be given directly or indirectly to Rowling.
The art does not reflect the beliefs of the author.
It really does though. The moral universe of Harry Potter says a lot about J K Rowling as a person, and there are many parallels with her own life. Morality in the Harry Potter universe is not inherent to an action, but to an actor. Is bullying bad? Depends on who does it. If a bad guy does it (for example the Dursleys), then it’s bad. If a good guy does it (Hagrid), then it’s good! There’s a parallel with the abolition of slavery about half way through the series, and it’s only one character doing it, and they’re the butt of the joke. And of course there’s Cho Chang and Blackie Shackleslave or whatever she called the one black character. The work speaks volumes about her, and vice versa. And you’re depriving yourself of this deeper level of analysis. You’re missing out.
There’s a YouTuber called Shaun who’s done a thorough analysis of her work and its parallels with her dealings with nazis and fellow transphobes. It’s worth a watch.
You can separate the art from the artist for sure but when people are buying HP branded stuff, they are directly contributing to this.
Totally agree. Although in today’s digital world there is no need to spend any money on HP.
I’ll admit this is easier for me because I was never a huge HP fan. But I don’t even pirate it because I don’t want to increase its cultural impact. I don’t even want to seed the torrent, and leeches suck. I want Harry Potter to disappear because even after Rowling dies, the profits will go towards a transphobic foundation.
In some cases piracy increases total revenue by getting more people interested in the product.
The product itself isn’t bad. But you do have a point.
Let’s compare Orsen Scott Card and Rowling. I’m never going to be pressured into taking kids to an Enders Game theme park, but piracy will make Univeral theme parks (and therefore Rowling) lots more money. Disney made more money from selling Churros than streaming.
