The way the Harry Potter fandom (and the reading community at large tbh) casually overlook the myriad of disturbing and offensive content in these novels is shocking to me. Especially given how many professed fans of the series are grown adults.
(Spoilers for themes, plot, and worldbuilding of Harry Potter)
!The slavery apologia is by far the most disturbing content in Rowling’s work. I cannot believe a novel that was published in the year 2000 has extended passages of characters lifting arguments in favor of slavery verbatim from real world historical arguments that slave owners and racists used to justify holding human beings in chattel slavery, while at the same time continuously ridiculing Hermione as hysterical SJW for trying to advocate for the rights and freedoms of enslaved peoples. And yet the fandom will talk circles around you about how because the enslaved group (house-elves) are a fantasy race, that makes it totally acceptable to enslave them and repeat real world arguments that were made when holding African peoples in bondage in the Americas.!<
!The way people uphold Rowling’s books as radical anti-prejudice tomes of social justice while completely sweeping under the rug the ways in which she characterizes non-human creatures with vile racist caricatures is awful. House-elves are basically walking Uncle Tom stereotypes who love to be abused and mistreated slave workers. Goblins embody all of the horrid tropes of antisemitism with their huge noses and disfigured faces, associations with banking and wealth hoarding, and constant description as conniving and greedy. And the centaurs are coded as indigenous peoples who engage in capturing humans who stray onto their protective lands to meet violent and lurid fates.!<
!Rowling certainly isn’t a stranger to other forms of prejudice in her writing either. Her fatphobia is well documented in both Harry Potter and her later adult novels, which obese individuals being dehumanized in cruel and corpus descriptions of their bodies and attitudes. Rowling’s well documented transphobia is on full display with villainous character of Rita Skeeter, who’s constantly described as ugly, mannish in appearance, and with other non-traditionally feminine characteristics that are meant to make the reader feel put off by her.!<
!The series in general does not hold up to a feminist reading either. Women and girls in the series receive constant scrutiny and ridicule for both the crime of being ugly, and the crime of being too pretty/overly concerned with their appearances. The text in general heavily emphasizes parenthood (and especially motherhood) as the best and most righteous path for someone to follow, and indeed most of the characters we are meant to view as good who survive the series end up married with children. Though this heteronormative and judgmental outlook on gender and family isn’t really much of a surprise given what we know now about Rowling’s own personal believes on those things.!<
It’s just all so awful, and it pains me to see so many readers simultaneously try and tout themselves as politically enlightened and socially accepting while turning a blind eye to all the terrible content in this series that’s meant for children.
It never ceases to amaze me how people list all these woke crimes in works of fiction and completely ignore non-woke crimes. If immorality in a work of fiction bothered me (which it absolutely doesn’t), I think that stereotyping imaginary creatures would receive a lower priority after all the rampant child abuse.
Agreed tbh. There are better stories of wizarding schools out there than hp too.
give me the recs lol
I enjoyed Charlie Bone.
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novic, for one. It’s definitely not in the same vein as HP, as it’s a a very grim capitalism allegory, but it’s still an excellent trilogy. Dives into the depth of what a magical school could be more creatively than hogwarts, imo, and comes away with a much more optimistic and hopeful and encouraging worldview than HP did, despite its grim setting.
Get the hell over it. I don’t agree with much that you wrote, but even if this were all true not everyone needs to live a sheltered mindless life. Bad things happen in real life and in books. Read what you like and leave others alone
How does the OP at all seem to reflect someone who lives a “sheltered mindless life?” They seem to have good exposure to many historical ideas and the intellectual tools to apply them in literary analysis of one of the most popular book franchises of all time.
Squirrel is the one with the sheltered mindset. So sheltered they have to believe that OP is making shit up because they can’t imagine the world outside their self-absorbed little bubble.
all the conservative snowflakes are just here being mad with zero arguments lol
Calm down. They’re analysing the work of a multimillionaire. It’s healthy to view works through a critical lens. You don’t need to get angry or nasty about it.
Oh, ffs. What drivel.
Hi, please keep rules 1 and 2 in mind: discussion is the goal, and maintain a civil tone.
Am I supposed to feel guilty for enjoying Harry Potter because of your list of psychotic rants? Because I don’t.
Hi, please keep rules 1 and 2 in mind: discussion is the goal, and maintain a civil tone.
Ironically you sound like Hermoine right now 😂.
Glad to know you laughed during the subplot where everyone demeaned Hermione for trying to fight back against chattel slavery.
Oh I’ll clear it up, my ancestors didn’t engage in worldwide colonizing and chattel slavery! It’s easy to enjoy a good book when you don’t worry about the crimes of the past. Lucky for me :)
All this did was point out that you don’t know how to read or write critically… unless of course this is satire. If that’s the case keep the course because this is terrifying yet beautiful.
So what do you think Rowling wanted to convey with her description of house elves and their treatment by the wizarding world? You think it was actually a critique or something?
To show the complexities of slavery. How about to create a sympathetic group of characters, so that Dobby can rise from them and become a hero after interacting with the main hero. How about adding just adding more evil to the wizarding world for our hero to overcome or rise above? I can keep going if you want, but to stop at racism seems a bit childish if you are serious about writing.
The OP is literally the definition of reading critically.
Guys look at the username, they’re not serious.
They’re a “snowflake dog whistle”.
So liberals can’t criticize things now?
Did we read the same books?
Lol fatphobia
Hi, please keep rules 1 and 2 in mind: discussion is the goal, and maintain a civil tone.
Ban books where bad things happen 🗣️
-OP
Now do LOTR.
Then the Bible.
Then the Bible.
didn’t have to cut that deep man LOL
I’m sure you’re not open to a good faith conversation on these, but LotR is pretty deeply orientalist and chauvinist, promotes retrograde ideas about political organization, and also most disturbingly has pretty gross ideas about racial purity.
There’s one big glaring flaw, however: why the hell would J.K. Rowling, who’s spent her entire life living in Europe, write a book series where a bunch of the characters are based on American racial and ethnic stereotypes?
American racial and ethnic stereotypes?
boy, do we have some news for you…
Upon this basis we would “need” to discard entire genres.
You’re welcome to do so but most of us just aren’t going to.
I can’t even decide whether this is an unbelievably stupid serious post or an incredibly genius satirical one.