Imagine an alternate reality where JK either moved on from transphobia or never had it: She would easily go down in history as one of the best writers of the modern era, and her Twitter could just be silly jokes about Hogwarts classes starting up, Harry Potter holidays, or just worldbuilding.
Harry Potter itself wasn't for me and I read the whole series, but I at least had respect for her. Now she went full clout-chaser with the whole "DAE le trans people BAD!?!?! THANKS FOR THE CASH, TWITTER!"
there would be think pieces every few years about how fucked up the house elf slavery stuff was, or the anti-semitic goblins or whatever, but i don't imagine any of that would ever stick without the author publicly doing her best to make the world a worse place
Yeah all of that stuff only gets more attention than “Huh yeah that’s iffy” because she keeps throwing vile tantrums all the time. If she had just shut the fuck up I really don’t think any of that would’ve been blown up as much as it (reasonably) has been
eventually someone would have done the shriekcast or something like it, and there would have been plenty of analysis of the shitty stuff, but it would have no penetration into the broader culture. randos on twitter would have no opinion beyond "i liked the books when i was a kid"
they still picked a bank with a star of david mosaic on the ground for the goblin bank set, but apart from that :bruh-moment: they toned down a lot of the racism, slavery apologia, fat shaming, lookism and general meanspiritedness of the books.
I'd say most successful and not best, because her books aren't very well-written. They are children's books of course and no one should expect flawless story structure and zero plot holes from those, but her whole project is one big problem and would have seen critique eventuallyregardlesss. There is SO MUCH else in there to critique, from wizards being pro slavery to Harry's unending obsession to become a cop even as the system fails him time and again to racist-ass naming conventions to...everything. So much of it is bad that I feel she was always destined to become what she is now and it's just the details of what she gets canceled for that would change.
For example, the whole 'wizards used to just shit on the floor and then magick away the evidence' thing, which she probably said in response to someone asking light-heartedly why old timey Hogwards has indoor plumbing, shows her making up the dumbest shit ever and pretend like she thought about it in advance. It's painfully obvious she is doing this . She could never admit that she just didn't think about these things while writing and for some reason she has to present herself as infallible, leading to garbage retcons and inane takes. Her meme status was always inevitable and thanks to the slavery angle alone she was always destined to be cancelled for something.
Man not even, he just wants to go to magic high school and not die to the evil wizard(s), the books literally do not even talk about what he wants to do with his life until the epilogue is like "oh and harry became a magic fed"
he mentions a couple times "maybe i'll be a cop" but it always comes across like he doesn't really know what he wants to do. and then he just goes ahead and becomes a cop
I distinctly remember him talking about wanting to be an Auror, or at least saying it when asked by random people. Been a while since I read these books tho and I ain't going back ever.
Imagine an alternate reality where JK either moved on from transphobia or never had it: She would easily go down in history as one of the best writers of the modern era, and her Twitter could just be silly jokes about Hogwarts classes starting up, Harry Potter holidays, or just worldbuilding.
Harry Potter itself wasn't for me and I read the whole series, but I at least had respect for her. Now she went full clout-chaser with the whole "DAE le trans people BAD!?!?! THANKS FOR THE CASH, TWITTER!"
there would be think pieces every few years about how fucked up the house elf slavery stuff was, or the anti-semitic goblins or whatever, but i don't imagine any of that would ever stick without the author publicly doing her best to make the world a worse place
Yeah all of that stuff only gets more attention than “Huh yeah that’s iffy” because she keeps throwing vile tantrums all the time. If she had just shut the fuck up I really don’t think any of that would’ve been blown up as much as it (reasonably) has been
eventually someone would have done the shriekcast or something like it, and there would have been plenty of analysis of the shitty stuff, but it would have no penetration into the broader culture. randos on twitter would have no opinion beyond "i liked the books when i was a kid"
Or the movies where the directors were smart enough to disavow the weird stuff or give characters with racist names less screen time.
they still picked a bank with a star of david mosaic on the ground for the goblin bank set, but apart from that :bruh-moment: they toned down a lot of the racism, slavery apologia, fat shaming, lookism and general meanspiritedness of the books.
still have the star of david in the goblin bank, but other than that they improved stuff
edit: had to step away and @AcidSmiley said what i was going to
I'd say most successful and not best, because her books aren't very well-written. They are children's books of course and no one should expect flawless story structure and zero plot holes from those, but her whole project is one big problem and would have seen critique eventuallyregardlesss. There is SO MUCH else in there to critique, from wizards being pro slavery to Harry's unending obsession to become a cop even as the system fails him time and again to racist-ass naming conventions to...everything. So much of it is bad that I feel she was always destined to become what she is now and it's just the details of what she gets canceled for that would change.
For example, the whole 'wizards used to just shit on the floor and then magick away the evidence' thing, which she probably said in response to someone asking light-heartedly why old timey Hogwards has indoor plumbing, shows her making up the dumbest shit ever and pretend like she thought about it in advance. It's painfully obvious she is doing this . She could never admit that she just didn't think about these things while writing and for some reason she has to present herself as infallible, leading to garbage retcons and inane takes. Her meme status was always inevitable and thanks to the slavery angle alone she was always destined to be cancelled for something.
Man not even, he just wants to go to magic high school and not die to the evil wizard(s), the books literally do not even talk about what he wants to do with his life until the epilogue is like "oh and harry became a magic fed"
he mentions a couple times "maybe i'll be a cop" but it always comes across like he doesn't really know what he wants to do. and then he just goes ahead and becomes a cop
I distinctly remember him talking about wanting to be an Auror, or at least saying it when asked by random people. Been a while since I read these books tho and I ain't going back ever.