Well buying used book does not give jkr one penny, watching dvd does not give and algorithm engagement, amd any old offline game will not either.
i don’t consume any of it but mostly because they’re bad and she’s a bad writer, but being a transphobe certainly didn’t help her case either
Oh no! A boycott coming from people who doesn’t consume the product. What a loss!
I’ve had the first four books in the study at my mom’s house since I was a kid. My nephew and nieces will read them. We have the box set of DVDs from forever ago. Same deal. I wouldn’t consider myself a die-hard fan. I still don’t understand why die-hard fans could still be spending so much money on the franchise. Did they add to the books?
The short answer is it’s not books. It’s mostly licencing deals in the form of video games and merchandise… However HBO is about to put forward a new series that JKR will have executive control and an executive sized pay check for.
It’s the “well it already exists and licencing deals are already paid, might as well watch it/play it/own it” that keeps the whole engine rolling on. Every time there’s a little bit of advocacy to disengage from the fandom it is always spun as “too late” or focuses on the books or death of the author… But all that’s really required is ambivalence.
Inevitably the new HP thing will come out and whether or not trans people mention anything people will drag up the controversy, use the reminder to brigade the spaces trans people connect online, try and goad their trans coworker for a commentary and set off yet another flurry of right wing backlash that makes elevating the franchise a patriotic duty to “stick it to the moralizing trans people to show them who is boss”. All of this causes more cultural pressure on a population already underwater with being chased out of the public sphere but it will be framed as a just retaliation for a perceived slight.
It’s a song and dance that will continue ad infinitum as long as it’s profitable because appearantly nostalgia is worth turning a blind eye to the where the money goes.
Sure, Karen.
I liked the (first four) movies. Honestly awesome if short Alan Rickman screentime. I pirated them. I watch hem whenever I want, not when you think I have to be a soldier for your cause, and that bitch still don’t get a cent from me.
Like, sure, conveniently I won’t have any spare time to rewatch them this month, but that’s because life is busy not becuse you think you’re right.
You’re really giving off “you can’t tell me what to do” vibes on par with angsty teenagers and black conservatives. But good on you for pirating.
My wife’s name is Karen. We have multiracial friends, gay and trans friends, and we don’t demand to speak to the manager. But she has to put up with the name she received at birth being used as a lazy slang term for horribleness - which to me is one of the most hypocritical behaviors a trans person or ally can engage in. But that’s just like, my opinion, man.
just call her K-dawg
Or you could just… watch better movies.
But … Then I won’t understand the memes. 😕
what are some fun trans-inclusive universes? doesn’t have to be fantasy
Discworld explores gender a few times in a way that I like.
Monstrous Regiment is about a bunch of women who pretend to be men to join their military. For the most part - these aren’t trans characters, they identify as female. The funny is the characters slowly discovering that everyone else in their group is doing the same thing. One character though, explicitly identifies as male after the “reveal” and has male pronouns used for them.
Discworld as a series tends to be irreverent without punching down. Comedy is a weapon in Pratchett’s hands, but his targets are capitalism and oppressive systems.
LeGuin has a lot of interesting takes on gender. The Hainnish cycle is about a race of humans who had previously colonized a bunch of planets and did lots of experimentation on those populations - kinda Vault Tec vibes. The civilization collapses/gets better, and the POV character is usually some type of researcher/anthropologist looking at how those planets develop The Left Hand of Darkness is a sci fi classic: a planet where people stay sexless until they go into “heat” and will develop the opposite genitals of the person who they are attracted to. There’s lots of switching back and forth. It’s a big deal when the king gets pregnant, because only children the king carries can inherit the throne.
Any LeGuin is good. Earthsea is a far superior children’s series compared to Harry Potter. Nothing that really makes it explicitly trans but the process of finding your true name and accepting yourself is something that resonated very much with me. (Also props to LeGuin for being very forceful with insisting that the characters not be depicted as white. None of this pussyfooting retroactive “I never said Hermione was white!”)
Anne Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy is also more gender bending sci fi. Everyone is “she.” The first book was part of the Sad Puppies drama, because it won Hugo’s and absolutely pissed a bunch of a bunch of chuds.
Pratchett did indeed inspect gender quite a bit in the Discworld books.
It’s never quite explicitly explained where Nobby Nobbs’ peg fits, but it turns out he certainly prefers to wear women’s clothing and is reluctant enough to change back into his male uniform at the end of Jingo that he has to be explicitly ordered to do so.
There’s also Equal Rites, the very second story (and third book), which explores the notion of, “Just why can’t a woman be a wizard, anyway?” (It turns out she can. And quite a powerful one, too.)
Gender is a pretty big deal to the dwarfs on the Disc, too. It’s a recurring theme ever since Cheery Littlebottom is introduced in Feet of Clay.
I read her catwings when I was very young and it made me cry. the ending is so happy. i love her
If you wanna play the game, pirate it and then play it offline.
I wasn’t interested in playing it, but now I’m gonna do this out of spite.
The game is alright, just go to the trans person and go and see the burning JK rowling picture
I made the same decision with Brandon Sanderson and his fuckin fanclub takes it extremely personally when I point out how problematic he is as an author.
Yes, his writing is good. Yes, his writing is remarkably inclusive with regards to sexual orientation, disability, and mental illness.
However, Brandon is a Mormon first and foremost, and actively tithes to his church. That means a significant percentage of ALL Dragonsteel profits go directly towards the suppression and disenfranchisement of LGBTQ+ programs, sex education, and effective mental health services.
He might write a good story, but his IRL politics are repugnant.
Neat, gotta start reading this guy books then
Oh, when you brought him up I was worried he had actively done something bad. But no, you just don’t like that he’s Mormon, that’s literally your only gripe.
Financially supporting the harming and oppression of others is a problem, no matter how it’s labelled. I think it’s completely fair to call that out.
So how many degrees of separation are necessary for your morals? Because unless you grow your own food, weave your own cloth, make everything you own yourself, and consume no media; I can pretty much guarantee there are things you have spent money or time on that contribute to groups or individuals that you find reprehensible.
That is some very intense False Equivalence you are brandishing.
Funnily enough, ignorance is a valid excuse here. You can’t be expected to investigate the companies behind every single product you buy or use in the day to day, but that’s not what were talking about here.
We’re talking about Brandon Sanderson, specifically, and how his tithes to the Mormon church significantly contribute to the open oppression and abuse of LGBTQIA+ communities. You, buying your mistborn and stormlight archive books, are DIRECTLY supporting that behavior.
Every time he tithes to that house of abuse and oppression, he IS actively doing something bad. Is that not enough for you?
No. And his books are good.
He tithes and hopes those funds go toward the good things the church accomplishes.
He has a lot of explanation on his relationship with the church and his stance on not allowing his religion to negatively affect his writing.
He has consistently advocated for lesser know authors and fought against Amazon to improve conditions for them.
His books are full of LGBTQIA+, neurodiverse people, women passing the bechdel test, and irl cultural inspiration from around the world.
He actually hires people to consult on things like schizophrenia so he doesn’t promote misinformation.
The thing you are asking him to do is abandon his community. Instead he works to better it from the inside. He is a lecturer at BYU and is directly exposed to the future leaders of that church. Let him cook.
So yeah I don’t like his religion’s track record but anyone who has investigated the guy can see he’s a fair author and the criticism is hyperbole.
No different than Rowling in that regard. Giving money for others to actively do something bad is also bad. You don’t get to launder your shit politics by paying someone to do the dirty work and it doesn’t absolve you of those politics.
I read the Mistborn books, and wasn’t terribly impressed. Anyone that repeatedly and unrepentantly uses the phrase “decked him in the face” is not a good writer. :)
Mistborn were his first books, the first trilogy is definitely a bit rough around the edges.
And how! That said, they weren’t entirely without entertainment value, and I did finish all of them, but I didn’t feel the need to read any more of his stuff, either.
I would love to understand why saying “Don’t support cunts” is such a non-controversial statement.
Until it comes to Harry Potter.
Especially considering how simple it is to do.
it is interesting how JK Rowling hasn’t had the same boycott pressure than Elon Musk and Tesla, I think trans rights are just not as motivating to most people, unfortunately
because it’s Don’t support assholes,
but what if it affects me personally?
They’re basically swifties ffs.
Same thing for nintendo
There is a huge difference between a company being very protective about their intellectual property and somebody actively working on destroying lives on humans.
Nintendo just has a weird concept of protecting their property. Rowling instead is an arsehole
Yeah, I’m gonna stop enjoying fun books or movies because somebody else is upset about the author…
If you are not upset at the author then it is really no surprise you are not going to stop consuming their content. But it does say more about you than anybody else.
If Your Important Thing was publicly maligned you would want us to support you. And we would. Because we’re good people. Please do the same for us now.
We understand that you don’t instantly change attitudes when an author betrays her readers. We’re not asking you to do that. We’re asking you to show support with a kind word, the way your parents taught you when you learned the golden rule. Please.
If you are fine with suppression of LGBTQ+ programs etc, like, not upset about it, sure! I guess this post is not meant for you then.
Tbf there were likely people saying the same thing about meine kampf when Jewish people were going missing.
I’ve never really been a HP fan, so it doesn’t bother me. And as a straight white male, pride has fuck all to do with me… Buuuut I’m capable of seeing why trans communities would take issue with her inflammatory statements, and funding of discrimination against them.
Her latest venture is entirely funded by her, and aims to provide legal support for fighting against trans inclusion; Regardless of whether you agree with trans people, surely you can understand why they wouldn’t want to fund that?
You’re comparing a book about wizards and magic to… Mein Kampf?
No. It’s not necessary. Read the article.
Not quite. I’m comparing an author that oppressed people to an author that is oppressing people.
The contents of the books never came up in my comment, but nice strawman nonetheless
As a counterpoint; do you think it’s acceptable to fund oppression of any marginalised group?
The contents of Mein Kampf are anti Jew… It literally describes the process of becoming anti semetic
Harry Potter is not about becoming anti trans…
Why are you comparing a book about wizards and magic to mein kampf?
We’re discussing the authors, not the books.
Unpopular opinion coming, but fuck it. Harry Potter was never great, besides being set in the modern day it’s very generic and the movies were mid. some people will worship whatever JK Rowling breathes on
It’s alright but it’s definitely got more popular than literally all the other coming of age teen fictions through sheer luck. And I read a lot of these as a kid so I know what I’m talking about.
I’ve also heard that she was immensely helped by translation because when her shit was translated she was already starting to get famous, so the publishers contracted their best, and apparently the originals are a lot less “well written” than e.g the french version. I personally never bothered to check because I have more interesting things to read.
Fun fact about this one : when my librarian mom brought the first volume of Harry Potter home, I remember she told me that it must be good because she had never heard of the author (and she was specoalized in kids literature so she knew a thing or two about children and teens book authors) but she knew the translator
Why are Harry Potter fans so uniquely unable to let go and find a better franchise to support? I know TRANS people that Joanne could apparently deadname them and spit in their face and they’d still spend every disposable dollar they have to buy HP games, merch, and go to the amusement park again.
Keep taking those tests to affirm you’re still a Hufflepuff, I guess.
I’ll never. Ever. Understand being rich enough to enjoy the rest of your life and choosing to spend that wealth harming innocent people.
Hmm so I have 51.397.624.942 dollars, lets get that to 52BN, right?
It’s so stupid.
In my humble opinion it also breaks the social contract; where money is used as a substitute for labour, no one should have hundreds(or wayore ofc) of lifetimes of labour sitting in an account, it doesn’t even make sense.
How on earth can this be changed/reformed? Having the ability to gift someone a lifetime of labour is a very powerful incentive, one that we did not vote for when it comes to the billonaires.
Am I making sense?
Trans people: “this is doing harm to us please stop!”
Cis: “Is it really though? Asking people to quit their pottertreats is just alienating stop being so dramatic!”Go read Le Guin’s Earthsea books instead, which are genuinely better written, and LeGuin was a great person who wrote a lot of socially progressive literature. Not to mention that it hasn’t been turned into a fucking corporate media franchise like LOTR.
JK Rowling:
We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.
Proceeds to fund fascists
Ursula K. Le Guin :
Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape? The moneylenders, the knownothings, the authoritarians have us all in prison; if we value the freedom of the mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can.
(Apparently frequently misattributed to Tolkien. I love his writings but the man was not nearly as based as Ursula Le Guin)
I know this has
energy, but I did try to look for a Rowling quote that wasn’t some uninspired one-liner that she unconsciously copied from some Disney movieWait what was that about the hydrogen bomb and the baby thing
I mean there is a a terrible TV adaptation starring Iceman and Lana Lang as well as a beautiful but boring Ghibli movie, but I agree that Earthsea is amazing.
Her books are timeless
