One Nice Thing
Nobody in my real life talks about it, nobody in my social media feed talks about it, it's--as it should be--a non-thing. Even among people I knew who used to like Harry Potter--even among people who now have hastily-covered-up Harry Potter tattoos--even from trans friends who once were deeply invested in the franchise.
But then--because I have to check on the worst people in games all the time for legal reasons--I found out there was one.
I wouldn't have thought much of it except--they are all talking about it all the time. Hundreds of them.
Congratulating each other for realizing Harry Potter is bad is now their personality in the same way complaining about official D&D's whole Open Game License fuck-up was their whole personality last week and complaining about me was their whole personality in 2019.
And the same way liking Harry Potter was their personality before that.
Lots of media is made by terrible transphobic people--but they're especially mad about Harry Potter because they fucking loved Harry Potter.
The Soft Smack
Anybody might like any thing for any stupid reason, but before JK Rowling revealed herself to be not just boring but also evil, Harry was frequently recruited by harassers in RPG circles to make a point about how bad it was to like cool, metal things like Warhammer or Jack Vance.
Harry was not like all the terrible nasty media that Old Schoolers liked a lot where push frequently came to shove and shove came to blood and blood came to axes and fire and people sometimes fuck or think, Harry was accessible, Harry was unproblematic, Harry was diverse, Harry wore sweaters, when people died it was emotional and earned because character development, Harry was Young Adult friendly and Dumbledore was gay and the only time anything was sexy it was in fanfic written by tumblr people, and Harry was, above all, soft.
Harry was a symbol for nightmare nerds of all that was wholesome and undifficult.
One RPGnet mod used to tag "10 points to Gryfindor!" when backslapping friends for outstanding feats of online harassment. Former-Pathfinder-employee-turned-professional-Karen Jessica Price once wrote about how since "spirit animal" was so problematic, we should all just say "Patronus" instead.
Which is so cringey that a joke newspaper that probably never heard of her repeated it years later as satire.
1. Good people liked wholesome media where wholesome things happened and that could be shared with the children they would eventually have or already had
2. And this was somehow not a facemeltingly reactionary concerned-parent take but in fact a bold and progressive stance in These Troubled Times
The Failed Test
Just as the theory about morally improving games has been tested and disproved so has this one. They were proven wrong. Rowling's trash and so are zillions of her most devoted fans.
It's hard admit the club you were hitting people over the head with for 20 years is made of human shit.
So instead of apologizing to the people they attacked and talking up something actually cool like Adventure Time, they are rebranding as people so angry about a video-game no well-informed grown-up cares about that they have to tell everyone it exists.
I lay odds this exact thing will happen again with Steven Universe in the next 10 years and, again, no-one will learn a single lesson from it.
The Price of Painkillers
My ex- used to listen to the audiobooks and movies to go to sleep, so I know the story much better than most things I don't like.
Aside from the issue of just how every generation is going to need some relatively long and relatively literary fantasy novel readable by children written in a version of the english language they'll recognize as of-their-own-time, the only distinguishing thing about Harry Potter is its unusually full-throated embrace of the aesthetics of comfort.
Squashy armchairs, butterbeer, kids living in castles, bumbling idiot villains, shapeless outfits, plots so casual characters forget them because they keep going to class, authority figures who are not only good and wise and all-powerful yet non-threatening because old and gay they also respect you personally and say it a lot, domesticated goblins, wands instead of any more interesting or scary weapon, reading presented as the be-all end-all of fighting evil, and all this even as the stakes rise to death and genocide. All in prose so bloodless it made Peter Rabbit look like Les Chants de Maldoror.
It's as if the whole of Lord of the Rings took place in Hobbiton. The British genius for coziness-uber-alles given full vent over stressful social concerns like how to dress for a date or feed yourself--or anyone else.
If you dreamed you'd leave your shitty family and go to school and there discover you're really good at everything that matters with no work and have everyone decide you are an awesome celebrity because of your trauma and then successfully fight for what's right by pointing your finger at people and saying words while wearing glasses, Harry Potter is the power fantasy for you.
It was meant to be, by its author, a monstrous, thoughtless person who thinks she's being socially progressive by avoiding any invitation to engage her victims.
Again: there's nothing wrong with liking that story or any other--but wielding it should have always been suspicious. It's not a coincidence that all the people who did that as adults to other adults later turned out to be yes, actually, really bad at real-word problems and being adults.
It should be no surprise that, like Rowling, these people thought of "This conversation makes me uncomfortable" as a reason to leave it.
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19 comments:
@knubberub
That's a really good point about the emotions thing.
Harry knows right from wrong because he feels it in his scar. Fuck evidence.
The whole school houses division is also part of defining yourself into a category opposed to everyone else, and finding comfort with your tribe.
I wonder if Warner Brothers has seriously considered trying to buy out J.K. Rowling of the Wizarding World IP. Similar to what happened with Minecraft, Markus Persson and Microsoft. (Although in that case he revealed his true self AFTER the sale and they just quietly removed his associations with the game.)
Harry Potter = Nerds = Storygames = People Who Don't Answer Questions = Zak's Abusers
yes.
I always sort of saw the houses thing as a reinforcement of the UK's Class System.
"Oh, you're in Hufflepuff, well done pleb, that's it now, you're not noble enough to be in Gryffindor"
Once you're in the "right" strata, then that's it, it's immutable. It conditions kids to "know their place" and never try to deviate from it because the hat is always right.
I'd seen stuff in the /RPG thing on reddit where it's impossible for people to imagine running an RPG character who wasn't defined by some sort of trauma. The mindset that they seem to have gotten entrenched in totally explains how they prject themselves online.
I often wonder how they function in "real life" as it were, how do they deal with professional disagreements at work? Do they set out to cancel their boss if they're told their work isn't up to scratch?
Baffling.
While I never was a big fan of Rowling and always hated Potter books/films for obvious reasons, there are two things about her that seem important to me: she was massively attacked for writing a book where the main villain is a crossdresser, with the main idea of the book being "you cannot trust a man in a woman's clothes". Which she nevered did, the main villain in the book is an old woman who pretends to be nice and kind and I don't know what the main idea is, it was too long and boring, but crossdressing is barely mentioned.
And she was addressed by Vladimir Putin, personally, in an attempt to win over some rightwing hearts and minds, and told him to fuck off. Which is something that people like Olivia Hill seem to be unable to do, in a similar situation.
Seems a good example of how even people who do cause a lot of harm can have some standards, and can be attacked by non-factchecking crowds.
@KingDaveTheBest Or perhaps the house system in Harry Potter is based on the house system in British public schools.
@James inevitably yes, but no effort was taken at any point to challenge the system or reflect on how absurd it is, hence my feeling that it reinforces it!
Loads of schools in the UK have “house systems” but they’re normally just used to divide up the school for internal sporting events etc but they rarely determine later professions (like Gryffindor types working as professional monster hunters etc).
The system is pretty entrenched/internalised here so there may be other things I’m missing.
@James
@KingDaveTheBest
Honestly the whole House thing seems pretty thin compared to what Becami is talking about.
Good point.
Sorry for derailing.
@anonymous
Sorry, no anonymous comments allowed.
@anonymous
Sorry, no anonymous comments allowed
@KingDaveTheBest
As someone who read the books 1-2 times a year for about 10 years - I can say with certainty that the system of sorting was challenged constantly - and a lot of important characters challenge it quite often. Hermione and Dumbledore especially.
The main issue is - They Don't Really Do Anything About It -
So yeah - it is one of the terrible parts of the books, especially as an entire house is just bad/a foil - and important characters are from other houses, but there is really only one important "good" character in the long run who is from another house - Luna.
So the houses being an important part is just secondary symptoms of the underlying stuff.
Other symptoms:
The room of requirement
Somehow a thing that gives you whatever you "want/need" being used as a serious plot point for several integral events - and you have to really have need of it - instead of just doing it, you can just have strong desires and get stuff done.
The Mirror of Erised
Shows you desires, the deepest desires - and this is how a bad guy is stopped - because their desires matter - not their actions.
Patronuses
A creature that eats emotions and makes you feel bad - and a spell that takes good memories and lets you use them as a shield.
The Deluminator
And I guess the taboo, names and pseudonyms, nonverbal magic, all stuff that is wishy-washy and basically just a way to give words and things more meaning if you care about them. Stuff like cruciatus and avada kedavra only working if you want it bad enough - spells being stronger when you are emotional - the fidelius charm, the love being a shield, etc.
Every Friggin Holiday
Putting emotional weight on special days and using that to really lean into a culture of comfort - which Zak mentions - this idea of familiarity that is bred by a systematic general tolerance/insistence for everyone to celebrate holidays - two of which are Christian, and all four of which are extremely white - Namely Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's Day, Easter - all of which are integral in several books.
The constant juxtaposition of extremely important things and daily stuff
There will be like, murder threats or people dying, visions of dark wizards and blah blah blah - but still worrying about day to day things and giving them the same amount of importance - quite often Rowling takes these day to day concerns and they are actually a part of some really big thing by the end of each book - which is how a lot of drama club people treat things. Zak one time talked about them having a lot of concern about big things, but not actually going out and doing stuff - when they do, they frame little stuff as a big deal. I think he said something along the lines of "they went to seven-eleven and got some cheetos and it was a great injustice."
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Isolation from all peers
Harry is very often singled out and nobody believes them except a couple of people who are often outcasts or just such good people and all of them are vindicated all the time when everyone realizes they are right. If this doesn't sound like exactly what a drama club member dreams of, I do not know what would.
Ugly people being bad
The way characters are described is often pretty awful - there is a lot of bias where good characters that are ugly are described in a way that minimizes their appearance being bad - while bad characters are maximized - snape and hagrid being good examples, and who are contrasted directly - this is a super insidious thing that paints people in a bad way.
This is why I often hat cutesy art that makes everyone look "pretty".
I want black and white photos of stubble and acne - I want people with sweat and dirt and scars - but drama club people want fluffy little anime tiny pink maid stuff - both of which are fine - but a constant emphasis on appearance and trying to control it so heavily in a way that gives deference to pretty people seems in poor taste.
There is that constant thing where people are like "In the OSR you have to be a dirt farmer at the start - and I don't want that"
But there is a lot of benefit to thinking about being more than a good character who looks pretty and has a bunch of powers - and demeaning people, like me, who want to play ugly and evil and weird characters or games because they don't want to is really stupid.
Basically what I am saying is that they claim inclusivity - but are not.
There is also the stuff where they attach mechanical things that allow for things like gender and whatever - like they systemize all the aspects of makin' a character - instead of, y'know, just making it up.
Breaking rules all the time because it is so important
There is a continual thing where someone "knows" stuff and nobody believes them so they have to fight back and do things themselves, and are breaking rules but rationalize it because it is in service of some great thing - some of the time it is not really that important to anybody but them, but it is ok, they are a "good" character.
The different houses do not really get described super well - like in the sense of who goes where - in general the infrastructure of the whole wizarding world is not well fleshed out or considered - it is very much a microcosm - most everything happens at the school.
In some ways - it appears to me that Rowling is doing the opposite of making the houses be a analogue for social strata - because she paints the slytherin as being the kind of people that care about that sort of thing - the houses are more about intention.
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Griffindor are brave and unthinking - they take rash action for a noble cause - but that leads to a lot of harm potentially happening because they do not think things out.
You can clearly see this because Harry and Ron are continually being rash - but in the end, the desire to do the good thing somehow supersedes all the dangerous and foolhardy things they do.
Hufflepuff just do the work and try to do their best - even if everyone thinks they are a bit shit - their intention is to do a good job, and that's all that matters - not the actual quality of their work or the results of their actions.
Ravenclaw are all about thinking about stuff - and because of that they are pretty much never talked about - they do not fit in with what Rowling feels or thinks about what is magical - they are the most likely to actually think things through and then act - instead of feeling a way and then using that to fuel magic. Because of that - there is basically 1 character from Ravenclaw - and she is by far my favorite.
Slytherin is all about bad intentions - so they have bad emotions that govern their actions - and that overrides any actions they take that are good. Ambition and being skilled or talented are not bad - but Rowling casts a bad light on these by acting like the emotional reasons why people who are ambitious, talented, or skilled do what they do somehow make the results terrible - which in some cases may be true - but skilled people doing stuff because they want recognition is not bad. She also ties racism directly to them, so that colors things very heavily.
As for trauma - it can be extremely rewarding or cathartic to take one's trauma and talk about it - obsess over it - etc.
I say this as someone who has stuff I would love to talk and talk and talk about - but I am trying very hard to stay on a level ground and realize that it is not as simple as that.
It is not bad to make characters and stories about trauma, even one's own.
The issue is when they are using games and game spaces as the primary or only way to try and address that trauma.
Making a bunch of slapdash rules to try and work through trauma is not a good idea.
Making a bunch of characters with your trauma is not a good way to address it.
Taking your trauma and making products out of it is not at all a good way to address it.
Interfacing with people who flock to your trauma and see kinship with you because they have similar trauma is not healthy - and not sustainable.
It is scary to get actual help or actually work through or on trauma - so it is clearly a thing that is an issue - and as someone with a bunch of unresolved things - I can totally see how it happens and how it is tempting.
If you look at some of my VaM spells - you can see this pretty clearly - it can color things.
The issue is not that it is just influencing things - it is being used as a therapy - and then that becomes an issue when it affects others or people do not adhere to reasonable things because they are operating in a completely different set of rules.
The drama club probably, for the most part - do not act like that in the "real world".
Here's the crazy thing - The Internet Is A Integral Part Of The Real World.
But they see it as some separate reality where they can do stuff with no consequences (or so they think) and they can find the very small subsection of people who want what they want, think how they think, and act how they act - These people dip into spaces because they can choose their name, what they say and where, who they say it to - ETC
But then they are confused when they say public things - actionable things - because they believe themselves to be in a little bubble and not affecting others - or if they are affecting others, they think what they are doing is right, and so it is justified.
Bless you and your limited knowledge of the new Harry Potter game, Zak. On tumblr people can't stop talking about it. I suppose some of them are young enough to have just discovered the idea that a video game can be problematic. I sometimes forget that I am crypt keeper level ancient in that space.
BTW I never read Harry Potter, despite many people urging me to do so, because I got some sort of Spidey-sense like tingling from it. It was the same intuition that told me to steer clear of Firefly (and Joss Whedon in general) after watching one episode.
I, too, have been steering clear of Firefly and Joss Whedon in general, because I model my life on Jeff Rients and wait, no, I don't, that would be stupid. It's just that I get annoyed when people go "You MUST watch this, you WILL love it". I don't want to fall in love with their thing, I'm already in a healthy relationship with an obscure 90's cartoon about Universal monsters.
The closest thing to "being clobbered with a Potter book for liking metal stuff" was back at school, when some of the teachers said "Why couldn't he write about some real hero, like Martin Eden?" (I wrote about Raistlin Majere. My descent into D&D had just begun)
Firefly was just so drab looking.
"It's a western!"
Yeah well so is Django Unchained (and Star Wars) but it isn't monochromatic.
Not having a "Oh, I can see why that might not be your thing" reflex even after you explain 3 or 4 times is not a good sign.
To me, the Expanse is a far better series than Firefly could ever hope to be.
BUT... that's just how I feel. I'm not going to insist people watch it. I'll advocate the virtues once (incredible worldbuilding, layered characters and writing, the only sci-fi series to truly attempt to replicate actual conditions in outer space such as no lightspeed, no anti-grav plates just acceleration and spinning large bodies to create centrifugal gravity, having high-G maneuvers be literally dangerous to your health, etc.) but you don't have to watch it.
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