this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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Maybe they'll learn something. Despite the authors current opinions, the books messages are about tolerance.
With the Gringotts bankers being grotesque antisemitic stereotypes, the only black character being named Shacklebolt, and the only character who's against slavery being laughed at by everyone else and then dropping the subject forever, sure!
Knowing all that along with how much of a bigot she is IRL, it requires a HIGH bullshit tolerance to be able to stomach it all.
That's what you meant by tolerance, right?
Two Indians named Patel. Black kid named brown. You'll never guess the heritage of Seamus Finnegan. She just has stereotypes and nothing else.
Related:
I think that's only in the movies.
I don't get Your point. Your last name usually reflects where Your family comes from. I'm Polish, and half of the people I ever knew had last names ending in "ski".
I will name a character pierogi polanski in your honor.
I don't agree. The only thing about goblins is that they are bankers. If you hear bankers, and think Jews, that may be that You are stereotyping. Shacklebolt and Cho Chang I consider just poorly though through names. As for the elves being slaves, that has depth. It's not just, elves want to be slaves so we keep them as slaves. The characters in the books ask them, if they like what they are doing. They like it, they talk about it, we see the point of view of elves. It may be my childhood innocence talking, but I never took it as malicious writing. Maybe unconscious stereotyping. But it was the 90s, she didn't know better. But all in all now she is a shit human being and I despise her views.
That's categorically NOT true.
Or maybe the fact that you see figures modeled after a Nazi stereotype of Jewish people and think "just bankers" is a You ignoring the obvious to defend the indefensible thing.
Nobody forced her to give them racist names. That she did so anyway is lazy stereotyping at best, intentional racist belittling at worst.
Here we go with the slavery apologia..
Just because they've been institutionalized to think that slavery is the only way of life for them doesn't make it ok.
She could easily NOT have had slaves in a world where everything they're forced to do can be accomplished with magic. But no, she CHOSE for there to be slaves and then endorse slavery by making the slaves "want it"
Definitely you missing it at first, yes. Which is understandable for a child. You should know better than to defend it now, though.
That's bullshit. She had full control of an entire magical world and CHOSE to inject unchallenged and lampshaded bigotry into it.
Whether the 1990s or the fucking 1890s, it's her job to know better and do better.
Thanks for the comments, Man. I appreciate the fact, that You want to talk about it. If You let me, I Will respond later, as now I'm after a night shift and drunk. Would You be willing to tell me Your age? I think that is an important thing in analysing HP and the authors views. I was born in 87,but I'm polish, so the books got to me a little bit later than most st of the world.
Sure, enjoy your night lol
I'm 41 but didn't read them as they came out but rather well into my twenties.
Embarrassingly, I missed a lot of the more problematic stuff back then in spite of not being a child, but I thought harder about it later when learning from others spelling it out for me heh
And also. Pleas explain me, how are Rowlngs goblins a Jewish stereotype, but Tolkiens dwarves aren't? And what about the Doppler in The Witcher?
So you're saying that 3 wrongs make a right?
For all his brilliance, Tolkien was a first half of the 20th century devout Catholic, so yeah, he was also a bigot. See also the "dark-skinned savages" from the south with the oliphants.
As for The Witcher, same thing: the author is from Poland, the most Catholic country in the world and one of the whitest so yeah, it's predictable that he'd be kinda bigoted too. Not justified at all, though, just to be clear.
Rowling, on the other hand, doesn't even have the flimsy non-excuse of growing up in a time and place where bigotry is still normalized. She's just a bigot for no other reason than her own ignorance and prejudices.
Maybe, but I'm not holding my breath.
The one who originally had the HP books came out a few years ago and her mother disowned her.
Her dad doesn't seem to care as long as she's happy, but he is standing by his wife's shitty decision. I can only hope he's trying to talk sense into her behind the scenes instead of being totally hands-off.
when a character starts being an abolitionist about literal slavery, it becomes a running joke. the goblins are antisemitic stereotypes, up to and including being bankers, and all the characters who aren't white are named in ways that would have been considered 'kinda racist' a century earlier.