To those who who say that voting with your wallet doesn't matter because Rowling has too much money for it to matter. In principle, I agree, however Rowling uses the popularity of Harry Potter and...
To those who who say that voting with your wallet doesn't matter because Rowling has too much money for it to matter.
In principle, I agree, however Rowling uses the popularity of Harry Potter and her income specifically as a justification that people agree with her views. Even pirating the game doesn't solve this problem as it still makes the game popular.
To those that just have to play this game. It's interesting how highly you value your entertainment against other's human rights.
And to those who say "my trans friend says it's ok", we a. aren't a hivemind and b. if you're such an avid Harry Potter fan, something tells me your trans friend isn't comfortable telling you what they really think.
If you buy this game (particularly if you're cis), at least own that you're a bigot or at the very least that you just don't care about trans people.
It's also pretty funny that the steam store page briefly had "transphobic" as one of the top tags, until the tags got nuked presumably by Valve. (highly recommend staying away from the steam community forums too, very toxic)
I get that people want to use their spending to try to avoid money going to her, but basically everything you buy is funding corporations engaging in horrible acts. Every time you buy a phone or...
I get that people want to use their spending to try to avoid money going to her, but basically everything you buy is funding corporations engaging in horrible acts. Every time you buy a phone or laptop you are funding child slavery, sweatshop assembly companies, funding corrupt governments and dictatorships, etc. Buying a game which funds someone who writes bad tweets just doesn't even rank on the evil scale compared to most purchases we make.
It's just one is behind closed doors. We don't see the extreme suffering caused by the purchase of our phone or shoes while we see tweets. I realize this comes close to "You criticize society yet you live in it" but I don't hold anything against others who chose to abstain from purchases, that's their right. But personally I'll be focusing any kind of effort on things which have more impact.
Most people can't survive in the modern world without owning a phone, computer, or shoes... so it's not like boycotting those is really much of an option. However you can live without playing...
Most people can't survive in the modern world without owning a phone, computer, or shoes... so it's not like boycotting those is really much of an option. However you can live without playing Hogwarts Legacy.
I don't blame anyone for owning a phone, you need one. But you don't need to buy a new one every 2 years like many do. So many phones siting in draws which still function. I don't even blame...
I don't blame anyone for owning a phone, you need one. But you don't need to buy a new one every 2 years like many do. So many phones siting in draws which still function. I don't even blame people for doing that because it's hard to avoid all bad consumption.
I doubt you'd have many products at all left to buy if you had to ensure that every rights owner and employee profiting had opinions which aligned with yours. Even for this one game I think all the people who worked on it for so long deserve recognition for the seemingly excellent job they have done. I think it would be a net positive for this game to succeed and all those people be validated.
It seems like a similar argument could be made for non-necessities too, though? How much do you know of the political opinions of the creators of every book or movie or video game you buy? Or the...
It seems like a similar argument could be made for non-necessities too, though? How much do you know of the political opinions of the creators of every book or movie or video game you buy? Or the people in every restaurant you've eaten at? What do you know about the lives of whoever you've tipped?
Doing that level of vetting for strangers would be exhausting and privacy-invading, so mostly we don't do it. It's just the famous connections we know about.
Also, some transactions can have very slight effects on hundreds of people. (Consider movie credits.) I don't know how we could tell whether the very slight effects of our actions on a few famous people outweigh the very slight effects on many non-famous people.
It's practical to assume that such effects are so low that they're individually ignorable, even though they do add up.
The biggest effect is probably the symbolism of buying the game on your own state of mind; if it feels icky don't do it.
You can't know everything. Nobody has perfect knowledge, and nobody is seriously expecting everyone to research every single creator and their views before making a purchase. But if you have been...
You can't know everything. Nobody has perfect knowledge, and nobody is seriously expecting everyone to research every single creator and their views before making a purchase. But if you have been informed of a creator being a bigot, and yet you still make the choice to buy their products, then ignorance is no longer an excuse and you will likely be judged accordingly.
As for weighing the pros and cons of buying a product that is headed by a bigot, but that multiple people worked on, that's up to you. But in the case if JK, I think it's worth considering the sheer impact she and her views have. She is the world's most prominent and notorious TERF at this point, has immense influence in the UK and abroad, and a platform that reaches millions where she actively spreads misinformation and encourages hate.
Huh. I pretty much just hear about her from her enemies. I've never seen a Harry Potter fan that cared about the TERF stuff in anything but a negative way. I guess I'm just sheltered?
Huh. I pretty much just hear about her from her enemies. I've never seen a Harry Potter fan that cared about the TERF stuff in anything but a negative way.
I suspect most Harry Potter fans are supportive of trans rights, thankfully, but that's not who JK caters to much these days on twitter, her blog, or elsewhere in the public sphere. And while it's...
I suspect most Harry Potter fans are supportive of trans rights, thankfully, but that's not who JK caters to much these days on twitter, her blog, or elsewhere in the public sphere. And while it's true that the majority of people who speak out publicly regarding JK are usually doing so to express opposition to her views, there are unfortunately still quite a significant amount of people who support her views, and are attempting to help her and her ilk spread them further. If you spend any time following her activities on twitter, check any threads on reddit related to JK or even any transgender issues, or regularly read any Conservative friendly newspapers in the UK or US, you will see just how many there unfortunately are. So yeah, I think you are just a bit sheltered.
I find that view callous. I've purchased the game. I'm not a bigot. The game was made by a team of over 100 developers, not one person. The team has been very supportive of LGBT efforts, and they...
I find that view callous. I've purchased the game. I'm not a bigot. The game was made by a team of over 100 developers, not one person. The team has been very supportive of LGBT efforts, and they even allow you to create a transgender character to play as.
I have no plans to buy any of JK's books. I don't follow her on Twitter. I don't defend her in conversation. But I'm not taking this absolutist view that any media that she's ever blessed is now somehow tainted. It's not a hateful game, and playing it doesn't make me a hateful person.
It's not about you. KittyCat's comment obviously comes from a place of hurt, something that's worth recognizing. It's an unrefined point of view, but one well worth empathizing with. If you've...
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It's not about you.
KittyCat's comment obviously comes from a place of hurt, something that's worth recognizing. It's an unrefined point of view, but one well worth empathizing with. If you've never experienced alienation based on something in you that you cannot change, I'd suggest finding a way to. When your very being is challenged as false or wrong, it changes the way you look at things on a fundamental level.
Saying Rowling's blessing amounts to nothing is like saying you'd vote for someone Joe Rogan has supported. For a lot of people, it's an automatic disqualifier, because it would otherwise betray a set of values that go against one's judgement. Siding along either of those is worth a serious consideration – not because it's you who comes under fire, but because it's others who might.
Let me put it bluntly: nobody gives a fuck about you. When a conversation like that starts, it's usually about the people who might suffer from its results. You don't have to cite kooky "research" and claim God is against FtM to shift the conversation ever so slightly against trans folks: all you have to do is tacitly approve of someone whose voice is heard by millions who just happens to have clear and definite anti-trans views.
It may very well be that the entire dev team is very pro-trans and pro-LGBT in general. What smells funny to me here is that they haven't said a word about Rowling's views – because, of course, that would rob them of the opportunity to make the game. As the owner of the IP, Rowling has control over who gets to do what with her world, characters, and stories – and that just happens to make her a direct beneficiary of any commercial endeavor tied to said world, characters, and stories. The money that went to her head in the first place will now be flowing further into her purse – and, inevitably, fuel her hatred of a particular sort of humanity even further.
What matters here is context. If I buy the game, I am not a bigot, but it does not help that I'm tacitly supporting something that benefit a massive motherfuckin' bigot with a platform elsewhere. If you do it, you may not be a bigot either. Even if KittyCat does it, they are probably not a bigot. But at the same time, it's not any single person's views that shape society: it's all of us, collectively, deciding what's right and what's not. In the context of "this bitch gets to tout her wallet at us as a way to assert her righteousness", whoever makes her wallet thicker, makes her feel that much more secure in her views.
The good news is: you get to choose what to do next.
I had people calling me a zealot when I stopped eating Chik Fil-A. For me, the equation was simple: why give money to people who will then turn around and use it to attempt to harm me with it? The...
I had people calling me a zealot when I stopped eating Chik Fil-A. For me, the equation was simple: why give money to people who will then turn around and use it to attempt to harm me with it? The same principle is in play here. Rowling is to TERFs what Trump is to MAGA, and anything that enriches her enriches that movement.
Nothing is forcing you (all uses of "you" in this paragraph are general and directed toward no specific person) to do anything in particular with that information, your spending habits are your own. But you also cannot be ignorant that supporting her supports that. It doesn't make you a hateful person, but it does support hateful people. What you choose to do with that knowledge (including the possibility of nothing of all, of course) is your call. But even deciding to do nothing is still deciding.
Why do we need to concede this point to her? It's a dumb, illogical argument. This game succeeding or failing is not going to stop JK Rowling from posting on Twitter or make her any less smug. In...
In the context of "this bitch gets to tout her wallet at us as a way to assert her righteousness", whoever makes her wallet thicker, makes her feel that much more secure in her views.
Why do we need to concede this point to her? It's a dumb, illogical argument. This game succeeding or failing is not going to stop JK Rowling from posting on Twitter or make her any less smug. In my opinion buying a game is not a tacit endorsement of someone collecting royalties from said game.
Sure, this game succeeding or failing will not change the tides. Much like this model of Tesla performing well or poorly on the market will not affect Elon Musk's ego issues. But if you stop...
Sure, this game succeeding or failing will not change the tides.
Much like this model of Tesla performing well or poorly on the market will not affect Elon Musk's ego issues.
But if you stop dealing with Teslas entirely, and if you get your buddies to do it, and if they do the same...
Even if JK Rowling never got another cent from anyone she has enough money to not care. Someone purchasing this game is effectively granting her exactly zero utility.
Even if JK Rowling never got another cent from anyone she has enough money to not care.
Someone purchasing this game is effectively granting her exactly zero utility.
"It's okay to give money to a bigot, which she will use to do bigotry, in exchange for a mid video game, because she already has a lot of money" is pretty close to the worst argument I have ever...
"It's okay to give money to a bigot, which she will use to do bigotry, in exchange for a mid video game, because she already has a lot of money" is pretty close to the worst argument I have ever heard.
Uh, not a great analogy. Tesla selling more electric cars is good from a climate change perspective, and if they failed then it would probably be as part of a broader market downturn for other...
Uh, not a great analogy. Tesla selling more electric cars is good from a climate change perspective, and if they failed then it would probably be as part of a broader market downturn for other electric car manufacturers.
I personally wouldn't buy a Tesla due to quality and customer support concerns (don't want to be dependent on a high-drama company), but I do hope they succeed despite Musk's antics. It's important that other people like to buy electric cars, and not just liberals either.
Similarly, I can't bring myself to root against SpaceX. We found out this year that Starlink is kind of important.
So, I guess maybe there is a broader point here? People have multiple effects on the world and you can like the good things while not liking the bad things.
You could simply pirate and then not tell anyone about it. Guilt-tripping people out of a purchase effectively puts you in the position of the vegan screaming "meat is murder" at the steakhouse. I...
Even pirating the game doesn't solve this problem as it still makes the game popular
You could simply pirate and then not tell anyone about it.
Guilt-tripping people out of a purchase effectively puts you in the position of the vegan screaming "meat is murder" at the steakhouse. I mean you may be right, but you're not convincing anyone and are possibly generating a lot of unwanted hostility and polarization. It's a terrible strategy.
I'm not buying this game because I don't care about Harry Potter all that much, but doing so would definitely not turn me into an actual bigot. Saying things like that creates unproductive division.
I will definitely be purchasing a WoW subscription in the next few weeks, will that make me an abuser by default? WoW is incredibly important to me and my life history. I cherish it so strongly that I can't go without it.
Will that mean I should then be treated as an enemy? And what would that accomplish? People are complicated and weak. Accepting that is not only useful, it's just the truth.
Is there actually any controversy over this game in a meaningful way? Outside portions of the internet most people I've talked to don't care about the issues brought up. As for the issues...
Is there actually any controversy over this game in a meaningful way? Outside portions of the internet most people I've talked to don't care about the issues brought up. As for the issues themselves I think most comments here are exaggerating the effect of Rowling getting fuel from any commercial success from the game. Not to say it won't do anything, but if you buy this game and treat trans people well and advocate for their acceptance when given the opportunity. Then you'll still be a net benefit to the world.
Though you should realize some people will be mad at you if they've chosen this specific item as something to care about.
Her tweet seems disingenuous to me and moreso just trolling by emphasizing she has money. I 100% believe if the the royalty checks stopped coming she wouldn't change for the better.
Her tweet seems disingenuous to me and moreso just trolling by emphasizing she has money. I 100% believe if the the royalty checks stopped coming she wouldn't change for the better.
No, she would get much worse. When you're so far up your own ass about being right in hating someone, the withdrawal (from the waning approval) will be brutal. Such is the nature of habitual...
No, she would get much worse.
When you're so far up your own ass about being right in hating someone, the withdrawal (from the waning approval) will be brutal.
Such is the nature of habitual usage: at someone point, you have to come down. Attention and affection is a hell of a drug.
In some ways, whether to come down gradually or go cold-turkey is up to the person, but the environment plays a large role in leading them to making the decision. If suddenly you lose the grounds you base your ego on, you'll find yourself between two choices: reconsider your position, or double-down.
At this point, there's nothing any of us can do: this one decision is up the person to make.
Getting to that point is the goal of boycotting things.
I find Rowling's transphobia and the idea of supporting her financially repulsive. I also find some of the hateful rhetoric being spouted towards the devs and people who still want to buy the game...
I find Rowling's transphobia and the idea of supporting her financially repulsive.
I also find some of the hateful rhetoric being spouted towards the devs and people who still want to buy the game even though they disagree with her to be counter-productive.
I don't think this issue is purely black and white. This game is being made in my back yard. I know some people who are even working on it. They despise Rowling's TERF nonsense as much as any of us. This game flopping is more likely to hurt them than it will her.
I'm not here to tell people what to do. People should do what they think is right. I believe this discussion deserves more nuance and empathy than spaces like Twitter and /r/gamingcirclejerk are seemingly capable of.
I mean, unless they own the studio, no, the game flopping will not hurt them. It'll hurt the studio's owners, who might choose to retaliate against their employees, which would be some grade A...
I mean, unless they own the studio, no, the game flopping will not hurt them. It'll hurt the studio's owners, who might choose to retaliate against their employees, which would be some grade A bullshit on their part.
I think that is a very cynical view. If a company can't make money and has to take on debt to pay its employees, then its days are numbered if they can't turn that around. That isn't retaliation,...
I think that is a very cynical view. If a company can't make money and has to take on debt to pay its employees, then its days are numbered if they can't turn that around. That isn't retaliation, that is just how things work. And it's not really what I was implying.
I mean, sure, but you're inventing a hell of a story here. Boycotting this game is not likely to cause the studio to close. If it is, that's a case of poor business planning; they knew that JKR...
I mean, sure, but you're inventing a hell of a story here. Boycotting this game is not likely to cause the studio to close. If it is, that's a case of poor business planning; they knew that JKR was a bigot when they took the job. The risk of a boycott should have been baked into their financial calculations.
I don't think I said that would happen. Job termination is one possible bad outcome, that you brought up, but lots of studios earn and pay out bonuses based on product performance. Having a dud on...
Boycotting this game is not likely to cause the studio to close.
I don't think I said that would happen. Job termination is one possible bad outcome, that you brought up, but lots of studios earn and pay out bonuses based on product performance. Having a dud on your resume can hurt your job opportunities. There are lots of ways that this can have a negative impact on individuals.
If it is, that's a case of poor business planning; they knew that JKR was a bigot when they took the job.
I don't think this is the case, the game has been in development for several years. The first leaked footage showed up around the time Rowling started gaining notoriety for her transphobic opinions.
TL;DR, for those of you who, like me, found the first few paragraphs wanting: the controversies attached to the game are basically continuations of the controversies attached to the books and...
TL;DR, for those of you who, like me, found the first few paragraphs wanting: the controversies attached to the game are basically continuations of the controversies attached to the books and their author. Anti-Semitism and transphobia are the two listed; without the help of supplementary sources, I wouldn't know if there are any more. Burying the lede is the name of the game here.
The "battleground" in question is support for Rowling and/or transphobia vs. standing up to a rich bigot by not buying a game that would make the bigot even richer.
I like this review of Chappele's 'The Closer'. (I promise its relevant). The Internet outrage machine wants everything to be cleanly divided. With us/against us. But life (and people) are not like...
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I like this review of Chappele's 'The Closer'. (I promise its relevant).
And there’s the Rorschach test. Are Dave Chappelle’s jokes offensive, or are they funny? They’re both. Is he attacking a marginalized community, or a cabal of sadistic scolds? Both. People can be both. Chappelle is entirely right to indict would-be censors for their wild inconsistencies and their capricious attitude to offense. As a comedian, he is thrown against the bars of this illogical prison every day. Why are Caitlyn Jenner jokes more obvious grounds for cancellation than ones about white bitches getting tear-gassed? When is Dave Chappelle a Black comedian and when is he a rich comedian? Sometimes the ink blot won’t resolve into a neat outline. It remains, like life, a mess.
The Internet outrage machine wants everything to be cleanly divided. With us/against us. But life (and people) are not like that. In the end, I feel its fair to say for oneself that a person's works are tainted for them. But to automatically have everyone who doesn't feel that way labeled a bigot is that sort of internet outrage that is unhelpful.
What of the people who read Harry Potter at a critical juncture in their life, and it kept them from killing themselves? Are those people bigots for wanting to remain close to something that got them through a rough patch?
I can say I don't want billionaires to exist while still acknowledging their charities are doing some good.
At what point is Star Wars more than George Lucas? The free software movement more than Richard Stallman?
A more healthy approach might be evaluating copyright so that creators don't have to taint their works in perpetuity with a monopoly over it.
I'm morally opposed to Disney, but it'd be a pretty shitty life for my kids if I denied them access to anything Disney touches.
I'm not much of a Jesus man, but I think the internet would do well to remember:
John 8:7
When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’
I'd like to point out the author of that article, Helen Lewis is a transphobe. She claims otherwise. But she holds transphobic beliefs such as an opposition to self-id on the grounds that trans...
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I'd like to point out the author of that article, Helen Lewis is a transphobe. She claims otherwise. But she holds transphobic beliefs such as an opposition to self-id on the grounds that trans women are a threat to cis women. it's amazing I could predict she would be a transphobe before looking her up. Such is being trans on the internet.
I don't particularly appreciate being called part of a "cabal of sadistic scolds" either oh maybe that's why I knew she'd be transphobic. And I find Chapelle's jokes about trans people purely offensive. Nobody is mad at him for making fun of Caitlyn Jenner either (she sucks). People are upset because he encourages hate towards and mocks transgender people. Please don't start on the whole Daphne thing.
But to automatically have everyone who doesn't feel that way labeled a bigot is that sort of internet outrage that is unhelpful.
If people are aware of a celebrities / companies actions and then choose to support that company / person anyway, particularly in cases like entertainment where it isn't essential and where there are plenty of alternative options available. Then yes, I think it does reflect on that person.
What of the people who read Harry Potter at a critical juncture in their life, and it kept them from killing themselves? Are those people bigots for wanting to remain close to something that got them through a rough patch?
They can privately enjoy their media if they wish. I draw the line where people continue to support JK even when being aware of her views (and I'd like to point out that the example you give is almost certainly not the case for the vast majority of Harry Potter fans. I read it as a kid, I liked it, once I learned that the author was a hateful piece of shit it was pretty easy for me to renounce it.)
E: to the exemplary commenter: yeah, I know. Thanks. This isn't the first time that has happened either.
I really don't want to dig into this, as its really not my place, but I will say that this is hardly a minority viewpoint. While I find the underlying comments after the main post toxic, I have...
But she holds transphobic beliefs such as an opposition to self-id on the grounds that trans women are a threat to cis women
I really don't want to dig into this, as its really not my place, but I will say that this is hardly a minority viewpoint. While I find the underlying comments after the main post toxic, I have heard echos of this particular unpopular opinion from many different women in my life, crossing many different thresholds of age, conservative/liberal, cis/queer, and internet/offline.
A large portion of the internet discussion of trans rights is dismissive of cis women. And that is a problem the same way the LGBTQ community dismisses a lot of bisexuality.
The trans rights discussion was a lot less toxic, especially towards women, before 2010ish. And that bothers me, even as a cis man.
i completely disagree that it's not a minority viewpoint. (in fact that reddit post you link is an UNPOPULAR opinion. Does that not make it a minority viewpoint or am I missing something here)...
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i completely disagree that it's not a minority viewpoint. (in fact that reddit post you link is an UNPOPULAR opinion. Does that not make it a minority viewpoint or am I missing something here)
That post completely misrepresents the trans community and to be blatant is just straight up hateful. Literally no trans people (at least certainly not enough to represent the trans community) ask for any of what that post details. Nobody is saying that you can't say woman, that you can't say breast feeding. Sure as hell no doctors are saying "I can't call you a mother, anymore. I can't call you a woman, anymore. You are simply a vagina-haver". Trans people are asking that you use the terms that best suit the person you are referring to. That means not calling trans men mothers. That means using the term chest feeding when referring to a trans man if he feels more comfortable using that term.
Take for example a charity making an announcement regarding cervical cancer screening. The phrase "women over age 25 should consider cervical cancer screening" isn't just exclusionary, it's medically wrong. Some women don't have a cervix (whether they are trans or had it removed or never had one to begin with) and some people who are not women do have a cervix. Modifying the phrase to say "women and those with a cervix over age 25 should consider cervical cancer screening" is more inclusive, more medically accurate and does not "erase" women in any way. It can be inferred from that phrase that the true target of the message is those with a cervix, and that therefore it doesn't apply if you don't have one.
In fact plenty surveys show that men are more opposed to transgender rights than women. But it's always women's rights that trans people supposedly threaten. It doesn't add up.
A large portion of the internet discussion of trans rights is dismissive of cis women
I don't believe this is the case at all. It's dismissive of transphobes sure. But that's regardless of their gender.
And you're right, mostly. Here's the thing: I don't read that subreddit, don't know its history. Thank the degredation of search engines. I agree it's not even particularily well-worded. But I've...
It is a disgusting hate-subreddit adjacent community and it speaks volumes about the people that visit there or would use the views of that subreddit to back up their gross opinions.
And you're right, mostly. Here's the thing: I don't read that subreddit, don't know its history. Thank the degredation of search engines. I agree it's not even particularily well-worded. But I've heard various bits and peices of that said in many different forms across a wide cross-section of women.
You know how "mansplaining" was a very popular phrase for a long time? I feel like many women are being "transplained" femininity and the struggles they've had by trans women. They're feeling marginalized. And while their response may not be ideal, or even correctly interpreting situation, it's certainly triggering feelings in a way that fosters resentment and not inclusion.
I am a cis lesbian woman and could not disagree with that viewpoint more. Some women in my family have been taken in by this rhetoric, though, so I have seen it in the wild. To me, who was very...
I am a cis lesbian woman and could not disagree with that viewpoint more.
Some women in my family have been taken in by this rhetoric, though, so I have seen it in the wild. To me, who was very online during the lead up to gay marriage being legalized in my country, it comes off with the same energy as the idea that allowing gay people to claim marriage would somehow encroach on the rights of straight people getting married.
I fully see it an attempt to justify prioritizing the feelings of a majority group over the actual lived experiences of a minority group. Trans women as a group do not want to eradicate or own femininity any more than gay people as a group wanted to corrupt the institution of marriage. They simply want to be included.
EDIT: And to say that their inclusion somehow degrades the thing that they want to be included in is, as I hope you can imagine, pretty upsetting to hear if you are a member of that group.
For what it’s worth (I’m a man) I’ve never heard any woman say anything negative like that about trans women. And I’ve never heard (or even heard of) any trans person “transplaining”. I pretty...
For what it’s worth (I’m a man) I’ve never heard any woman say anything negative like that about trans women. And I’ve never heard (or even heard of) any trans person “transplaining”. I pretty much just hear trans people talk about how someone wouldn’t let them just exist peacefully.
Edit: I wonder how much support TERFs think they have online is actually from anonymous men being divisive.
And separately, and I really want to stress this: People who don't spend their entire lives online don't know Helen Lewis's backstory. Or Daphne's. Or Chappelle's. Or JK's. These things live in...
And separately, and I really want to stress this:
People who don't spend their entire lives online don't know Helen Lewis's backstory. Or Daphne's. Or Chappelle's. Or JK's. These things live in isolation, and are taken at face value. If the extent you know about JK is that she wrote Harry Potter and you love Harry Potter, guess what? Her politics don't matter, and no internet stranger is going to change that tangibly.
And I find Chapelle's jokes about trans people purely offensive. Nobody is mad at him for making fun of Caitlyn Jenner either (she sucks).
I don't particularly appreciate being called part of a "cabal of sadistic scolds" And I find Chapelle's jokes about trans people purely offensive. Nobody is mad at him for making fun of Caitlyn Jenner either (she sucks). People are upset because he encourages hate towards and mocks transgender people. Please don't start on the whole Daphne thing.
Does the broader point change if you change the words to be nicer? I don't think it does. It might reduce that outrage reflex...but then....that's also part of the point. How do you feel about his "white bitches getting teargassed?" Because that's part of the point as well.
Your memory must be shorter than mine, because because I do remember the internet outrage machine screaming for his head for Caitlyn jokes.
Or alternatively, you are a trans person who finds themselves constantly needing to defend their existence like what I have the joy of doing right now . I don't get the choice of not knowing about...
People who don't spend their entire lives online don't know Helen Lewis's backstory. Or Daphne's. Or Chappelle's. Or JK's. These things live in isolation, and are taken at face value.
Or alternatively, you are a trans person who finds themselves constantly needing to defend their existence like what I have the joy of doing right now . I don't get the choice of not knowing about these things.
If the extent you know about JK is that she wrote Harry Potter and you love Harry Potter, guess what? Her politics don't matter,
Then you have privilege and don't care (or can choose not to care) about the effects JK has on a vulnerable minority
and no internet stranger is going to change that tangibly.
well once someone has been educated as to JK's views we loop back to my earlier point.
Does the broader point change if you change the words to be nicer? I don't think it does. It might reduce that outrage reflex...but then....that's also part of the point.
How do you nicely call me part of a "cabal of sadistic scolds"? I'm not sure what the point could be other than to insult trans people.
How do you feel about his "white bitches getting teargassed?" Because that's part of the point as well.
tbh I don't watch Dave Chapelle (shocker). So I don't know what this is referring to. But "white bitches" aren't nearly as vulnerable of a minority as trans people. Same with the Caitlyn thing. I generally stay away for my mental health (but I do know that Caitlyn is a support of Chapelle so she's probably not too upset).
It is a very good point. And it's not easy to cleanly separate. And that is also the point. I hate everything Facebook does in isolation of Zuckerberg. The fact he is easy to hate makes it easier....
It is a very good point. And it's not easy to cleanly separate. And that is also the point.
I hate everything Facebook does in isolation of Zuckerberg. The fact he is easy to hate makes it easier.
I hate Elon Musk to the point Tesla is tainted for me, even if he's not running it. Well also the immense safety and labor problems.
Dilbert is more than Scott Adams to me. I relate to that office life frustration and it gives me some relief to read it, especially the older stuff. And that's OK to me.
There are plenty of small business's whose products I love I won't support because of the owner's continued vocal support of Trump. But I also don't immediately label people who don't bigots.
As for the opinion: Vote with your wallet. It's that fucking simple. And if you do buy the game, at least have the decency to own that action. Don't weasel out of it by saying "it's a Harry Potter...
As for the opinion:
Vote with your wallet. It's that fucking simple.
And if you do buy the game, at least have the decency to own that action. Don't weasel out of it by saying "it's a Harry Potter game, how can I not?" or some other excuse.
I think the game's neat. It's a different take on the story than the films, and that already is worth a curious look. If Rowling and her stupid-ass views would fuck right off, I'd consider buying it.
Even if Rowling wasn't a mangy arsepiece, WB being the publisher makes this one easy - I remember what the predatory trash did to Shadow of War. And their Arkham series shenanigans. And probably...
Even if Rowling wasn't a mangy arsepiece, WB being the publisher makes this one easy - I remember what the predatory trash did to Shadow of War. And their Arkham series shenanigans. And probably more that I'm forgetting.
The older you get, the easier it is not to engage with these timewasters.
To those who who say that voting with your wallet doesn't matter because Rowling has too much money for it to matter.
In principle, I agree, however Rowling uses the popularity of Harry Potter and her income specifically as a justification that people agree with her views. Even pirating the game doesn't solve this problem as it still makes the game popular.
To those that just have to play this game. It's interesting how highly you value your entertainment against other's human rights.
And to those who say "my trans friend says it's ok", we a. aren't a hivemind and b. if you're such an avid Harry Potter fan, something tells me your trans friend isn't comfortable telling you what they really think.
If you buy this game (particularly if you're cis), at least own that you're a bigot or at the very least that you just don't care about trans people.
It's also pretty funny that the steam store page briefly had "transphobic" as one of the top tags, until the tags got nuked presumably by Valve. (highly recommend staying away from the steam community forums too, very toxic)
I get that people want to use their spending to try to avoid money going to her, but basically everything you buy is funding corporations engaging in horrible acts. Every time you buy a phone or laptop you are funding child slavery, sweatshop assembly companies, funding corrupt governments and dictatorships, etc. Buying a game which funds someone who writes bad tweets just doesn't even rank on the evil scale compared to most purchases we make.
It's just one is behind closed doors. We don't see the extreme suffering caused by the purchase of our phone or shoes while we see tweets. I realize this comes close to "You criticize society yet you live in it" but I don't hold anything against others who chose to abstain from purchases, that's their right. But personally I'll be focusing any kind of effort on things which have more impact.
Most people can't survive in the modern world without owning a phone, computer, or shoes... so it's not like boycotting those is really much of an option. However you can live without playing Hogwarts Legacy.
I don't blame anyone for owning a phone, you need one. But you don't need to buy a new one every 2 years like many do. So many phones siting in draws which still function. I don't even blame people for doing that because it's hard to avoid all bad consumption.
I doubt you'd have many products at all left to buy if you had to ensure that every rights owner and employee profiting had opinions which aligned with yours. Even for this one game I think all the people who worked on it for so long deserve recognition for the seemingly excellent job they have done. I think it would be a net positive for this game to succeed and all those people be validated.
It seems like a similar argument could be made for non-necessities too, though? How much do you know of the political opinions of the creators of every book or movie or video game you buy? Or the people in every restaurant you've eaten at? What do you know about the lives of whoever you've tipped?
Doing that level of vetting for strangers would be exhausting and privacy-invading, so mostly we don't do it. It's just the famous connections we know about.
Also, some transactions can have very slight effects on hundreds of people. (Consider movie credits.) I don't know how we could tell whether the very slight effects of our actions on a few famous people outweigh the very slight effects on many non-famous people.
It's practical to assume that such effects are so low that they're individually ignorable, even though they do add up.
The biggest effect is probably the symbolism of buying the game on your own state of mind; if it feels icky don't do it.
You can't know everything. Nobody has perfect knowledge, and nobody is seriously expecting everyone to research every single creator and their views before making a purchase. But if you have been informed of a creator being a bigot, and yet you still make the choice to buy their products, then ignorance is no longer an excuse and you will likely be judged accordingly.
As for weighing the pros and cons of buying a product that is headed by a bigot, but that multiple people worked on, that's up to you. But in the case if JK, I think it's worth considering the sheer impact she and her views have. She is the world's most prominent and notorious TERF at this point, has immense influence in the UK and abroad, and a platform that reaches millions where she actively spreads misinformation and encourages hate.
Huh. I pretty much just hear about her from her enemies. I've never seen a Harry Potter fan that cared about the TERF stuff in anything but a negative way.
I guess I'm just sheltered?
I suspect most Harry Potter fans are supportive of trans rights, thankfully, but that's not who JK caters to much these days on twitter, her blog, or elsewhere in the public sphere. And while it's true that the majority of people who speak out publicly regarding JK are usually doing so to express opposition to her views, there are unfortunately still quite a significant amount of people who support her views, and are attempting to help her and her ilk spread them further. If you spend any time following her activities on twitter, check any threads on reddit related to JK or even any transgender issues, or regularly read any Conservative friendly newspapers in the UK or US, you will see just how many there unfortunately are. So yeah, I think you are just a bit sheltered.
I find that view callous. I've purchased the game. I'm not a bigot. The game was made by a team of over 100 developers, not one person. The team has been very supportive of LGBT efforts, and they even allow you to create a transgender character to play as.
I have no plans to buy any of JK's books. I don't follow her on Twitter. I don't defend her in conversation. But I'm not taking this absolutist view that any media that she's ever blessed is now somehow tainted. It's not a hateful game, and playing it doesn't make me a hateful person.
It's not about you.
KittyCat's comment obviously comes from a place of hurt, something that's worth recognizing. It's an unrefined point of view, but one well worth empathizing with. If you've never experienced alienation based on something in you that you cannot change, I'd suggest finding a way to. When your very being is challenged as false or wrong, it changes the way you look at things on a fundamental level.
Saying Rowling's blessing amounts to nothing is like saying you'd vote for someone Joe Rogan has supported. For a lot of people, it's an automatic disqualifier, because it would otherwise betray a set of values that go against one's judgement. Siding along either of those is worth a serious consideration – not because it's you who comes under fire, but because it's others who might.
Let me put it bluntly: nobody gives a fuck about you. When a conversation like that starts, it's usually about the people who might suffer from its results. You don't have to cite kooky "research" and claim God is against FtM to shift the conversation ever so slightly against trans folks: all you have to do is tacitly approve of someone whose voice is heard by millions who just happens to have clear and definite anti-trans views.
It may very well be that the entire dev team is very pro-trans and pro-LGBT in general. What smells funny to me here is that they haven't said a word about Rowling's views – because, of course, that would rob them of the opportunity to make the game. As the owner of the IP, Rowling has control over who gets to do what with her world, characters, and stories – and that just happens to make her a direct beneficiary of any commercial endeavor tied to said world, characters, and stories. The money that went to her head in the first place will now be flowing further into her purse – and, inevitably, fuel her hatred of a particular sort of humanity even further.
What matters here is context. If I buy the game, I am not a bigot, but it does not help that I'm tacitly supporting something that benefit a massive motherfuckin' bigot with a platform elsewhere. If you do it, you may not be a bigot either. Even if KittyCat does it, they are probably not a bigot. But at the same time, it's not any single person's views that shape society: it's all of us, collectively, deciding what's right and what's not. In the context of "this bitch gets to tout her wallet at us as a way to assert her righteousness", whoever makes her wallet thicker, makes her feel that much more secure in her views.
The good news is: you get to choose what to do next.
I had people calling me a zealot when I stopped eating Chik Fil-A. For me, the equation was simple: why give money to people who will then turn around and use it to attempt to harm me with it? The same principle is in play here. Rowling is to TERFs what Trump is to MAGA, and anything that enriches her enriches that movement.
Nothing is forcing you (all uses of "you" in this paragraph are general and directed toward no specific person) to do anything in particular with that information, your spending habits are your own. But you also cannot be ignorant that supporting her supports that. It doesn't make you a hateful person, but it does support hateful people. What you choose to do with that knowledge (including the possibility of nothing of all, of course) is your call. But even deciding to do nothing is still deciding.
Why do we need to concede this point to her? It's a dumb, illogical argument. This game succeeding or failing is not going to stop JK Rowling from posting on Twitter or make her any less smug. In my opinion buying a game is not a tacit endorsement of someone collecting royalties from said game.
Sure, this game succeeding or failing will not change the tides.
Much like this model of Tesla performing well or poorly on the market will not affect Elon Musk's ego issues.
But if you stop dealing with Teslas entirely, and if you get your buddies to do it, and if they do the same...
Do you see where I'm going with this?
Even if JK Rowling never got another cent from anyone she has enough money to not care.
Someone purchasing this game is effectively granting her exactly zero utility.
Yes, because famously, money is an infinite resource, and there are no ongoing costs to an extravagant lifestyle of the rich and famous.
"It's okay to give money to a bigot, which she will use to do bigotry, in exchange for a mid video game, because she already has a lot of money" is pretty close to the worst argument I have ever heard.
Uh, not a great analogy. Tesla selling more electric cars is good from a climate change perspective, and if they failed then it would probably be as part of a broader market downturn for other electric car manufacturers.
I personally wouldn't buy a Tesla due to quality and customer support concerns (don't want to be dependent on a high-drama company), but I do hope they succeed despite Musk's antics. It's important that other people like to buy electric cars, and not just liberals either.
Similarly, I can't bring myself to root against SpaceX. We found out this year that Starlink is kind of important.
So, I guess maybe there is a broader point here? People have multiple effects on the world and you can like the good things while not liking the bad things.
You could simply pirate and then not tell anyone about it.
Guilt-tripping people out of a purchase effectively puts you in the position of the vegan screaming "meat is murder" at the steakhouse. I mean you may be right, but you're not convincing anyone and are possibly generating a lot of unwanted hostility and polarization. It's a terrible strategy.
I'm not buying this game because I don't care about Harry Potter all that much, but doing so would definitely not turn me into an actual bigot. Saying things like that creates unproductive division.
I will definitely be purchasing a WoW subscription in the next few weeks, will that make me an abuser by default? WoW is incredibly important to me and my life history. I cherish it so strongly that I can't go without it.
Will that mean I should then be treated as an enemy? And what would that accomplish? People are complicated and weak. Accepting that is not only useful, it's just the truth.
Is there actually any controversy over this game in a meaningful way? Outside portions of the internet most people I've talked to don't care about the issues brought up. As for the issues themselves I think most comments here are exaggerating the effect of Rowling getting fuel from any commercial success from the game. Not to say it won't do anything, but if you buy this game and treat trans people well and advocate for their acceptance when given the opportunity. Then you'll still be a net benefit to the world.
Though you should realize some people will be mad at you if they've chosen this specific item as something to care about.
Her tweet seems disingenuous to me and moreso just trolling by emphasizing she has money. I 100% believe if the the royalty checks stopped coming she wouldn't change for the better.
No, she would get much worse.
When you're so far up your own ass about being right in hating someone, the withdrawal (from the waning approval) will be brutal.
Such is the nature of habitual usage: at someone point, you have to come down. Attention and affection is a hell of a drug.
In some ways, whether to come down gradually or go cold-turkey is up to the person, but the environment plays a large role in leading them to making the decision. If suddenly you lose the grounds you base your ego on, you'll find yourself between two choices: reconsider your position, or double-down.
At this point, there's nothing any of us can do: this one decision is up the person to make.
Getting to that point is the goal of boycotting things.
Not too much to add here except I'm sad that JK had to go and die on this hill. I love Harry Potter and would love to explore a game like this.
I find Rowling's transphobia and the idea of supporting her financially repulsive.
I also find some of the hateful rhetoric being spouted towards the devs and people who still want to buy the game even though they disagree with her to be counter-productive.
I don't think this issue is purely black and white. This game is being made in my back yard. I know some people who are even working on it. They despise Rowling's TERF nonsense as much as any of us. This game flopping is more likely to hurt them than it will her.
I'm not here to tell people what to do. People should do what they think is right. I believe this discussion deserves more nuance and empathy than spaces like Twitter and /r/gamingcirclejerk are seemingly capable of.
I mean, unless they own the studio, no, the game flopping will not hurt them. It'll hurt the studio's owners, who might choose to retaliate against their employees, which would be some grade A bullshit on their part.
I think that is a very cynical view. If a company can't make money and has to take on debt to pay its employees, then its days are numbered if they can't turn that around. That isn't retaliation, that is just how things work. And it's not really what I was implying.
I mean, sure, but you're inventing a hell of a story here. Boycotting this game is not likely to cause the studio to close. If it is, that's a case of poor business planning; they knew that JKR was a bigot when they took the job. The risk of a boycott should have been baked into their financial calculations.
I don't think I said that would happen. Job termination is one possible bad outcome, that you brought up, but lots of studios earn and pay out bonuses based on product performance. Having a dud on your resume can hurt your job opportunities. There are lots of ways that this can have a negative impact on individuals.
I don't think this is the case, the game has been in development for several years. The first leaked footage showed up around the time Rowling started gaining notoriety for her transphobic opinions.
It's also making possible a narrative of "if a game isn't good, you should buy it anyway, otherwise their unemployment is on your head!"
TL;DR, for those of you who, like me, found the first few paragraphs wanting: the controversies attached to the game are basically continuations of the controversies attached to the books and their author. Anti-Semitism and transphobia are the two listed; without the help of supplementary sources, I wouldn't know if there are any more. Burying the lede is the name of the game here.
The "battleground" in question is support for Rowling and/or transphobia vs. standing up to a rich bigot by not buying a game that would make the bigot even richer.
I like this review of Chappele's 'The Closer'. (I promise its relevant).
The Internet outrage machine wants everything to be cleanly divided. With us/against us. But life (and people) are not like that. In the end, I feel its fair to say for oneself that a person's works are tainted for them. But to automatically have everyone who doesn't feel that way labeled a bigot is that sort of internet outrage that is unhelpful.
What of the people who read Harry Potter at a critical juncture in their life, and it kept them from killing themselves? Are those people bigots for wanting to remain close to something that got them through a rough patch?
I can say I don't want billionaires to exist while still acknowledging their charities are doing some good.
At what point is Star Wars more than George Lucas? The free software movement more than Richard Stallman?
A more healthy approach might be evaluating copyright so that creators don't have to taint their works in perpetuity with a monopoly over it.
I'm morally opposed to Disney, but it'd be a pretty shitty life for my kids if I denied them access to anything Disney touches.
I'm not much of a Jesus man, but I think the internet would do well to remember:
I'd like to point out the author of that article, Helen Lewis is a transphobe. She claims otherwise. But she holds transphobic beliefs such as an opposition to self-id on the grounds that trans women are a threat to cis women. it's amazing I could predict she would be a transphobe before looking her up. Such is being trans on the internet.
I don't particularly appreciate being called part of a "cabal of sadistic scolds" either oh maybe that's why I knew she'd be transphobic. And I find Chapelle's jokes about trans people purely offensive. Nobody is mad at him for making fun of Caitlyn Jenner either (she sucks). People are upset because he encourages hate towards and mocks transgender people. Please don't start on the whole Daphne thing.
If people are aware of a celebrities / companies actions and then choose to support that company / person anyway, particularly in cases like entertainment where it isn't essential and where there are plenty of alternative options available. Then yes, I think it does reflect on that person.
They can privately enjoy their media if they wish. I draw the line where people continue to support JK even when being aware of her views (and I'd like to point out that the example you give is almost certainly not the case for the vast majority of Harry Potter fans. I read it as a kid, I liked it, once I learned that the author was a hateful piece of shit it was pretty easy for me to renounce it.)
E: to the exemplary commenter: yeah, I know. Thanks. This isn't the first time that has happened either.
I really don't want to dig into this, as its really not my place, but I will say that this is hardly a minority viewpoint. While I find the underlying comments after the main post toxic, I have heard echos of this particular unpopular opinion from many different women in my life, crossing many different thresholds of age, conservative/liberal, cis/queer, and internet/offline.
A large portion of the internet discussion of trans rights is dismissive of cis women. And that is a problem the same way the LGBTQ community dismisses a lot of bisexuality.
The trans rights discussion was a lot less toxic, especially towards women, before 2010ish. And that bothers me, even as a cis man.
i completely disagree that it's not a minority viewpoint. (in fact that reddit post you link is an UNPOPULAR opinion. Does that not make it a minority viewpoint or am I missing something here)
That post completely misrepresents the trans community and to be blatant is just straight up hateful. Literally no trans people (at least certainly not enough to represent the trans community) ask for any of what that post details. Nobody is saying that you can't say woman, that you can't say breast feeding. Sure as hell no doctors are saying "I can't call you a mother, anymore. I can't call you a woman, anymore. You are simply a vagina-haver". Trans people are asking that you use the terms that best suit the person you are referring to. That means not calling trans men mothers. That means using the term chest feeding when referring to a trans man if he feels more comfortable using that term.
Take for example a charity making an announcement regarding cervical cancer screening. The phrase "women over age 25 should consider cervical cancer screening" isn't just exclusionary, it's medically wrong. Some women don't have a cervix (whether they are trans or had it removed or never had one to begin with) and some people who are not women do have a cervix. Modifying the phrase to say "women and those with a cervix over age 25 should consider cervical cancer screening" is more inclusive, more medically accurate and does not "erase" women in any way. It can be inferred from that phrase that the true target of the message is those with a cervix, and that therefore it doesn't apply if you don't have one.
In fact plenty surveys show that men are more opposed to transgender rights than women. But it's always women's rights that trans people supposedly threaten. It doesn't add up.
I don't believe this is the case at all. It's dismissive of transphobes sure. But that's regardless of their gender.
And you're right, mostly. Here's the thing: I don't read that subreddit, don't know its history. Thank the degredation of search engines. I agree it's not even particularily well-worded. But I've heard various bits and peices of that said in many different forms across a wide cross-section of women.
You know how "mansplaining" was a very popular phrase for a long time? I feel like many women are being "transplained" femininity and the struggles they've had by trans women. They're feeling marginalized. And while their response may not be ideal, or even correctly interpreting situation, it's certainly triggering feelings in a way that fosters resentment and not inclusion.
I am a cis lesbian woman and could not disagree with that viewpoint more.
Some women in my family have been taken in by this rhetoric, though, so I have seen it in the wild. To me, who was very online during the lead up to gay marriage being legalized in my country, it comes off with the same energy as the idea that allowing gay people to claim marriage would somehow encroach on the rights of straight people getting married.
I fully see it an attempt to justify prioritizing the feelings of a majority group over the actual lived experiences of a minority group. Trans women as a group do not want to eradicate or own femininity any more than gay people as a group wanted to corrupt the institution of marriage. They simply want to be included.
EDIT: And to say that their inclusion somehow degrades the thing that they want to be included in is, as I hope you can imagine, pretty upsetting to hear if you are a member of that group.
I don't even know where to start with this one. I'm going to stop talking to you now for the sake of my mental health. Please go educate yourself.
For what it’s worth (I’m a man) I’ve never heard any woman say anything negative like that about trans women. And I’ve never heard (or even heard of) any trans person “transplaining”. I pretty much just hear trans people talk about how someone wouldn’t let them just exist peacefully.
Edit: I wonder how much support TERFs think they have online is actually from anonymous men being divisive.
And separately, and I really want to stress this:
People who don't spend their entire lives online don't know Helen Lewis's backstory. Or Daphne's. Or Chappelle's. Or JK's. These things live in isolation, and are taken at face value. If the extent you know about JK is that she wrote Harry Potter and you love Harry Potter, guess what? Her politics don't matter, and no internet stranger is going to change that tangibly.
Does the broader point change if you change the words to be nicer? I don't think it does. It might reduce that outrage reflex...but then....that's also part of the point. How do you feel about his "white bitches getting teargassed?" Because that's part of the point as well.
Your memory must be shorter than mine, because because I do remember the internet outrage machine screaming for his head for Caitlyn jokes.
Or alternatively, you are a trans person who finds themselves constantly needing to defend their existence like what I have the joy of doing right now . I don't get the choice of not knowing about these things.
Then you have privilege and don't care (or can choose not to care) about the effects JK has on a vulnerable minority
well once someone has been educated as to JK's views we loop back to my earlier point.
How do you nicely call me part of a "cabal of sadistic scolds"? I'm not sure what the point could be other than to insult trans people.
tbh I don't watch Dave Chapelle (shocker). So I don't know what this is referring to. But "white bitches" aren't nearly as vulnerable of a minority as trans people. Same with the Caitlyn thing. I generally stay away for my mental health (but I do know that Caitlyn is a support of Chapelle so she's probably not too upset).
Conversely, at what point is Tesla more than Elon Musk? Meta more than Mark Zuckerberg? Dilbert more than Scott Adams?
It is a very good point. And it's not easy to cleanly separate. And that is also the point.
I hate everything Facebook does in isolation of Zuckerberg. The fact he is easy to hate makes it easier.
I hate Elon Musk to the point Tesla is tainted for me, even if he's not running it. Well also the immense safety and labor problems.
Dilbert is more than Scott Adams to me. I relate to that office life frustration and it gives me some relief to read it, especially the older stuff. And that's OK to me.
There are plenty of small business's whose products I love I won't support because of the owner's continued vocal support of Trump. But I also don't immediately label people who don't bigots.
As for the opinion:
Vote with your wallet. It's that fucking simple.
And if you do buy the game, at least have the decency to own that action. Don't weasel out of it by saying "it's a Harry Potter game, how can I not?" or some other excuse.
I think the game's neat. It's a different take on the story than the films, and that already is worth a curious look. If Rowling and her stupid-ass views would fuck right off, I'd consider buying it.
Even if Rowling wasn't a mangy arsepiece, WB being the publisher makes this one easy - I remember what the predatory trash did to Shadow of War. And their Arkham series shenanigans. And probably more that I'm forgetting.
The older you get, the easier it is not to engage with these timewasters.
I found this video from a Tildes post last year. I'm adding it to this thread for insight into Rowling's writing.