idk what you’re getting at specifically but I’m not pretending that it’s a perfect work of art with absolutely no flaws. Just that I can enjoy it without being constantly aware of real-world views of the author.
Because JK Rowling puts her real world views in her world. As a kid, I stopped reading the books halfway through and just assumed that the House Elves and SPEW storyline would be resolved by the House Elves being freed. By setting up that would be storyline and leaving it at status quo, Rowling is endorsing race based slavery.
There’s a lot of small story elements that can be brushed off if they stood alone, but together add up and reveal Rowling’s conservative word view. Hagrid is naturally violent, the sorting hat, there’s a whole school house for evil kids and not one of them ever breaks expectations… I could go on if I wasn’t on my phone.
My whole reason for dropping the books halfway through was nothing ever changed. It was frustrating.
Ok, and some people are able to put that aside and enjoy them anyway. If those people are pirating the content she gets no money. If those people are able to say “yeah, that part is bad/shit/wrong” then her shit beliefs aren’t being propagated.
The people who care about this sort of stuff are already aware. The people who don’t aren’t going to be reading articles like this anyway.
This discussion is about whether or not there are ethical ways to consume the content, not about the merits of the content itself, which is the rabbit hole you seem to be stuck in.
We know. We aren’t defending it. We’re just saying that it is possible to get the content in ways that don’t enrich the creator’s bank account, and it is possible to consume it without going “Rowling was right”.
So your priorities are a wizard book for children that you like some of, then below that, in second place, the rights and lives of persecuted minorities.
“to the well trained mind, doing mental gymnastics to ignore harm to minorities is the next great adventure” - Professor Domblewomble, probably.
My personal, individual consumption of the media, which does not enrich the author financially or in the spread of the author’s ideals, has literally no effect on the rights and lives of persecuted minorities.
It’s not an either or situation. These two things do not have some direct inverse relation.
Every time you read a problematic passage about the house elves, ICE stomps on the nuts of another non-white person? Brother they’re doing that regardless of what I do.
I whole heartedly disagree with this seemingly recent concept that consumption of a thing somehow magically proliferates the problematic elements of that thing. It only does that if the consumer proliferates the problematic elements. I’m not going to.
Better not pirate the bible, the quaran, any HP Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain (some horrendous takes about jewish people that no one seems to remember he said). Better tell historians that they need to establish careful rules about how many times anyone studies Mein Kampf.
I don’t have the words to engage with this idea in good faith. Yes, horrible people will use this shit to reinforce their horrible ideas. That doesn’t mean that everyone consuming it has a measurable effect on the proliferation of those horrible ideas, and that proliferation of horrible ideas has a direct connection to horrible actions. There are definitie and obvious connections, but every step is a significant level of abstraction from the one before it.
And for the record, I’m not even going to pirate this series. I am simply that opposed to this batshit concept I see paraded around more and more lately.
Even in this fantasy universe, saying Voldemort’s name didn’t actually give him more power.
Yes because sometimes entertainment is just there for entertaining me and finding political plotholes in everything is already tiring enough considering my beliefs.
Wouldn’t something similar affect most of Fantasy? In TLoTR there are many races that are evil, with no redeeming qualities whatever. The race makes them evil, endorsing some racists ideas too.
I actually don’t like most fantasy, but Lord of the Rings is a bad example of that. Most of the races are not evil, but had evil or faulty leadership. The Uruk-hai weren’t a natural race, but a corruption created by Sauron.
Most fantasy that do have evil races are descended from D&D, which has self described, biological determinist, Gary Gygax to blame.
By setting up that would be storyline and leaving it at status quo, Rowling is endorsing race based slavery.
Her point was to make a point about young people, when they quite often make the mistake of thinking that issues can be fixed easily. Making actual changes is hard and gradual work.
A brilliant thing to teach young people before they make that mistake, in my opinion. At least if you want them to make a difference.
No, that really wasn’t her point. That was my theory when I was reading it as a kid and when I dropped the books halfway though for being annoying, I had assumed that it would be addressed later. I was shocked when I learned it was never addressed. Did it seem right with you that the Weasleys wanted a house elf? How about when Hagrid used house elves to test for poison in foods? Or when Harry thought that Hermione was being annoying about her whole Civil Rights thing?
The house elf situation is actually really easy to fix. At least within Hogwarts. Dumbledore could have simply given them freedom and payed them to stay. Little Witch Academia did a House Elf story in 23 minutes that links to the greater season story arc. Reign of the Seven Spellblades did demihuman rights as a core part of it’s first story arc and world building.
Lisa Simpson is an example of having the right idea, but being too young to have a greater effect. The show depicts her as annoying, but right. Rowling depicts Hermione as wrong because she’s annoying.
Rowling is either a bad writer or a bad person if she couldn’t or choose not to address the slavery of the house elves in the seven books of the series.
I’ll agree but also say even putting her aside, these look like they’re going to be garbage, the movies did not need a reboot. Just over a decade since they finished and they decide it’s time to reboot them
I wouldn’t even pirate this garbage
That’s a whole different discussion about the “seperate artist and art”-argument, not wether or not I want her to get any money off of it.
For example: EA is a garbage company but I’m a sucker for their open world formula so I have no problem pirating their games.
So about those House Elves. What did Rowling mean by that?
idk what you’re getting at specifically but I’m not pretending that it’s a perfect work of art with absolutely no flaws. Just that I can enjoy it without being constantly aware of real-world views of the author.
Because JK Rowling puts her real world views in her world. As a kid, I stopped reading the books halfway through and just assumed that the House Elves and SPEW storyline would be resolved by the House Elves being freed. By setting up that would be storyline and leaving it at status quo, Rowling is endorsing race based slavery.
There’s a lot of small story elements that can be brushed off if they stood alone, but together add up and reveal Rowling’s conservative word view. Hagrid is naturally violent, the sorting hat, there’s a whole school house for evil kids and not one of them ever breaks expectations… I could go on if I wasn’t on my phone.
My whole reason for dropping the books halfway through was nothing ever changed. It was frustrating.
Ok, and some people are able to put that aside and enjoy them anyway. If those people are pirating the content she gets no money. If those people are able to say “yeah, that part is bad/shit/wrong” then her shit beliefs aren’t being propagated.
The people who care about this sort of stuff are already aware. The people who don’t aren’t going to be reading articles like this anyway.
This discussion is about whether or not there are ethical ways to consume the content, not about the merits of the content itself, which is the rabbit hole you seem to be stuck in.
We know. We aren’t defending it. We’re just saying that it is possible to get the content in ways that don’t enrich the creator’s bank account, and it is possible to consume it without going “Rowling was right”.
nah. There are Harry Potter fans who’s world views are shaped by the franchise. To the extent that they’ll write articles defending the House Elf Slavery. Here’s one example. https://web.archive.org/web/20191002072741/https://www.pottermore.com/features/to-spew-or-not-to-spew-hermione-granger-and-the-pitfalls-of-activism
Those people are already fucked. Me pirating or not pirating has no bearing on their existence and bad takes.
So your priorities are a wizard book for children that you like some of, then below that, in second place, the rights and lives of persecuted minorities.
“to the well trained mind, doing mental gymnastics to ignore harm to minorities is the next great adventure” - Professor Domblewomble, probably.
My personal, individual consumption of the media, which does not enrich the author financially or in the spread of the author’s ideals, has literally no effect on the rights and lives of persecuted minorities.
It’s not an either or situation. These two things do not have some direct inverse relation.
Every time you read a problematic passage about the house elves, ICE stomps on the nuts of another non-white person? Brother they’re doing that regardless of what I do.
I whole heartedly disagree with this seemingly recent concept that consumption of a thing somehow magically proliferates the problematic elements of that thing. It only does that if the consumer proliferates the problematic elements. I’m not going to.
Better not pirate the bible, the quaran, any HP Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain (some horrendous takes about jewish people that no one seems to remember he said). Better tell historians that they need to establish careful rules about how many times anyone studies Mein Kampf.
I don’t have the words to engage with this idea in good faith. Yes, horrible people will use this shit to reinforce their horrible ideas. That doesn’t mean that everyone consuming it has a measurable effect on the proliferation of those horrible ideas, and that proliferation of horrible ideas has a direct connection to horrible actions. There are definitie and obvious connections, but every step is a significant level of abstraction from the one before it.
And for the record, I’m not even going to pirate this series. I am simply that opposed to this batshit concept I see paraded around more and more lately.
Even in this fantasy universe, saying Voldemort’s name didn’t actually give him more power.
Yo dawg I ain’t reading all that but congratulations, or I’m sorry that happened to you or whatever.
Yes because sometimes entertainment is just there for entertaining me and finding political plotholes in everything is already tiring enough considering my beliefs.
Political plot holes? What are you talking about?
Wouldn’t something similar affect most of Fantasy? In TLoTR there are many races that are evil, with no redeeming qualities whatever. The race makes them evil, endorsing some racists ideas too.
I actually don’t like most fantasy, but Lord of the Rings is a bad example of that. Most of the races are not evil, but had evil or faulty leadership. The Uruk-hai weren’t a natural race, but a corruption created by Sauron.
Most fantasy that do have evil races are descended from D&D, which has self described, biological determinist, Gary Gygax to blame.
Her point was to make a point about young people, when they quite often make the mistake of thinking that issues can be fixed easily. Making actual changes is hard and gradual work.
A brilliant thing to teach young people before they make that mistake, in my opinion. At least if you want them to make a difference.
No, that really wasn’t her point. That was my theory when I was reading it as a kid and when I dropped the books halfway though for being annoying, I had assumed that it would be addressed later. I was shocked when I learned it was never addressed. Did it seem right with you that the Weasleys wanted a house elf? How about when Hagrid used house elves to test for poison in foods? Or when Harry thought that Hermione was being annoying about her whole Civil Rights thing?
The house elf situation is actually really easy to fix. At least within Hogwarts. Dumbledore could have simply given them freedom and payed them to stay. Little Witch Academia did a House Elf story in 23 minutes that links to the greater season story arc. Reign of the Seven Spellblades did demihuman rights as a core part of it’s first story arc and world building.
Lisa Simpson is an example of having the right idea, but being too young to have a greater effect. The show depicts her as annoying, but right. Rowling depicts Hermione as wrong because she’s annoying.
Rowling is either a bad writer or a bad person if she couldn’t or choose not to address the slavery of the house elves in the seven books of the series.
Ok, let me rephrase.
That’s what she has said in an interview to be the point of all that.
I don’t believe her.
I rather pirate this so my friends and family won’t get tempted to give this cunt any money.
I’ll agree but also say even putting her aside, these look like they’re going to be garbage, the movies did not need a reboot. Just over a decade since they finished and they decide it’s time to reboot them
me neither but I will watch it if its conveniently free.