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A lot of people are ragging on the 'cable diverted to avoid Dobby's grave after Harry Potter fans raise a stink' thing and while I also love ragging on Harry Potter fans being weird, in this case it looks like the story was completely made up.
tl;dr: There's no evidence the interview that this was mentioned in even exists, no evidence the route of the cable has ever changed, and the whole story seems to originate from one dude's podcast.
The story also broke into mainstream via the Daily Mail, who are ... rarely if ever honest or accurate.
Well, the Telegraph's already leveraged it in an op-ed to defend her transphobia. The new tv series is making the series ultra-relevant, and outrage gets ad clicks. It's not about the cable, it's about finding a way to get harry potter into your story so you can a.) make money b.) be transphobic or c.) both.
Just remember when you see new potter material: it's more than likely both grift and transphobia.
some meandering context required for this question, for which i apologise. I’m also sorry if this is just an inappropriate question. ss/anon if u can.
I (Asian) grew up upper class in Hong Kong, an incredibly international city, which meant that much emphasis was placed in my education on English and global affairs. I consume(d) more English than Cantonese content, most of which was American. Despite that, my social circle was still overwhelmingly asian.
Which meant that i gained a passing theoretical knowledge of anti-black, anti-indigenous raciam in america. I also internalised some anti black racism in the American form presumably from the American movies/tv shows i was consuming, which i had to work on
All that to ask: what is anti semitism like today/can you explain anti semitism? From my perspective, it makes no sense. It doesn’t come across strongly in media, or I would’ve picked it up. Jews are also mostly White? ethnically indistinguishable? Look the same is what im trying to say. Religious stereotypes cant be it given how secular america/the world is, and the factually true ones (lawyers etc) are positive. jews also seem fairly assimliated.
Hm. Ok. So let's start on the basics. Jews are a global ethnoreligious minority. There about about 15 million of us left on the planet, at .2% of the global population. About half of us live in Israel, which means that diasporic Jews kind of have to care about what's going on over there. but don't tell any DSA babies; this type of information makes them projectile vomit while spewing excerpts from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the original Russian and shotgunning beer with Rama Duwaji.
Archaeological, textual, and genetic studies indicate that this ethno-religious group originated in the Central Judean hill country, near present day Jerusalem. Over centuries those early Israelite tribes merged with surrounding Canaanite groups, and slowly developed hegemony over the Southern Levant, as well as--by the 6th century BCE--a form of monotheism.
Now the Levant is a very valuable piece of land as it connects Western Asia to Europe and Northern Africa via the Med, so empires have always wanted it; the Egyptian and Hittite Empires were fighting over it before the Israelites rose as a distinctive group, and the cosmological documents of the Jewish people demonstrate successive empires attempting to capture that piece of land. But when empires do that, they're not like, super enthusiastic about letting the indigenous populations stay, so boom diaspora. this would happen multiple times before Joshua of Nazareth rolled up to yell at the temple Boomers.
So, diaspora. We diasporad out to surrounding empires. Now, ancient governments are a lot like modern governments, in that conformity of ideology and belief are important to maintain official control of the populace. Jews got this memo pretty earlier and many of us preferred not to die, so we assimilated as a means of survival, while maintaining our ethno-religious identity. but, that's never enough. because while maintaining our religion, its laws, its Textual Stuff, we're still believing differently than the majority. Not only that, but we're believing differently in concert with one another over political lines.
So now we're challenging to authority, and untrustworthy. those dynamics showed up VERY early in the game. you know the Purim holiday? That holiday is about a piece of historical fiction written Before Christ about how our insistence in maintaining our culture and beliefs in diaspora WHILE assimilating threatens those in power. and then those in power decide to do a genocide, and sometimes don't if we're hot enough.
the enduring ties between far flung diasporic communities, and our insistence upon maintaining our ethnoreligious beliefs, practices, and culture is a threat to any government which relies on ideological homogeneity. which, most governments still do. but, when a ruler says that they are descended from gods, or are a god, or were appointed by god/the grace thereof, or are protected by god, or whatever, our desire to keep doing our own thing is dangerous and unholy. and we keep existing beyond and across political borders while doing it.
this makes some people jumpy. including yourself. but we keep doing it: assimilating, while maintaining our shit and transnational cultural ties. that makes people jumpier. because after all the millennia of expulsions and ethnic cleansings and genocides and lynch mobs shouldn't we have stopped by now? but we haven't, so that must mean we cant be trusted? or maybe we made a pact with satan?
there's your anthropological response. i haven't had my breakfast or caffeine yet and my period just rolled up two weeks fucking early and i have a million things on my to do list and my insurance has decided that my chronic migraines aren't bad enough to keep supplying me with goddamn nurtec, so it's a bit less polished and edited multiple times than my usual responses of this nature.
Belonged to Liane de Pougy, a courtesan. possibly a gift from her lover, actress and writer Natalie Clifford Barney
(Reminder that anklets would not fit over the generally high-top boots back then, or even stockings with low evening pumps, and would seldom be visible under long skirts anyway. So this gift has an erotic component inherently- it only works, given late Belle Epoque clothing, if worn when nude or scantily clad)
just a friendly new year’s eve reminder that if you accepted a challenge from a green knight this time last year you’re due tomorrow at the green chapel to get beheaded. time to get a move on
August 12: You are a nun working at a hospital in Budapest. For the last six weeks, an Englishman with brain fever has been in your care, and he's finally coherent enough to dictate a letter to his fiancée. He's still in a bad way, and no one's sure what happened to him. Where's your head at?
I want to find whoever did this to my good friend Jonathan and fight them irl.
I'm praying for him.
I'm praying for ME. I'm tired.
I'm just relieved he's coherent now.
I'm worried, this whole thing has mega supernatural vibes.
I'm not scared, I have the power of Christ and anime on my side.
I'm not scared, I'm a minor character.
Honestly this is the most excitement we've had in years.
Same as the above, but negative, I didn't become a nun for excitement.
Does anyone ask librarians for book recs anymore? I really want to do reader advisory but I imagine these days people just google their favorite genre.
"We English don't like fellow with dark skin admiring our girls!"
That's way more directly than I thought they'd address it, especially given how sympathetic this version of Nevil is, but I wonder if Drood has had his eyesight checked.
I don't know whether Nevil Landless having had people whipped to death back in India is supposed to be true or just one of the many rumors floating about how dangerous he is. I guess that puts me in the same position as Crisparkle, giving him the benefit of the doubt about being a murderer or not.
I understand why the great-Victorian-literature-whitewashing-debate centres around Heathcliff, but can we talk about this for a second?
Scene context:
“I said that in the part of the world I come from, you would be called to account for it.”
“Only there?” cries Edwin Drood, with a contemptuous laugh. “A long way off, I believe? Yes; I see! That part of the world is at a safe distance.”
“Say here, then,” rejoins the other, rising in a fury. “Say anywhere! Your vanity is intolerable, your conceit is beyond endurance; you talk as if you were some rare and precious prize, instead of a common boaster. You are a common fellow, and a common boaster.”
“Pooh, pooh,” says Edwin Drood, equally furious, but more collected; “how should you know? You may know a black common fellow, or a black common boaster, when you see him (and no doubt you have a large acquaintance that way); but you are no judge of white men.”
This insulting allusion to his dark skin infuriates Neville to that violent degree, that he flings the dregs of his wine at Edwin Drood, and is in the act of flinging the goblet after it, when his arm is caught in the nick of time by Jasper.
- Chapter VIII: Daggers Drawn - The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
"This insulting allusion to his dark skin" is such a key line of narration - Dickens makes it clear that Edwin isn't just trying to say something like 'you [a white man] have grown up in a place where there are more non-white people than white people and I'm not convinced of your ability to form judgements in England which is a new cultural context for you'; Dickens's narration makes it clear that Edwin's speech is explicitly an "insulting allusion" to the fact that Neville has "dark skin". You would therefore think that any illustration of the scene ought to show Neville's skin as somewhat darker than Edwin's and Jasper's. Harold Piffard, however, did not seem to think so.
For comparison, here's Samuel Luke Fildes's illustration of (a little bit earlier in) the same scene:
We can see that Neville's skin (right) is shaded differently to Edwin's (seated), and differently to the shadows on Jasper's face (centre).
Fildes was the original illustrator during the serialisation of the novel in 1870 (or half-a-novel; Dickens died in the middle of writing it). We know that Fildes had meetings with Dickens about the illustrations; his work visualising the characters should therefore be considered as authoritative over Piffard's illustrations.
Here are some other Filde illustrations of Neville, also featuring Neville's twin sister Helena, and at least one white British character for comparison:
Again, I think we can see a distinctive difference between the shading on Neville's and Helena's faces and the faces of everyone else, even when those faces are in shadow. (Just a quick note on hands: the image on the left is an evening party, and on the right is outdoors on a winter's day, so presumably everyone's wearing gloves in both images which is why hands are sometimes shaded so differently to faces especially for Helena in the left image.)
I could also go into more detail about other things in Dickens's text which indicate that Neville and Helena are not fully-white-British (though no doubt they do have some white British heritage), but I would probably miss some things without first having a reread. I just saw that Piffard illustration for the first time this morning and was gobsmacked by it, considering it's meant to depict a man who has just within the last few seconds received an insult on the basis of his "dark skin"...
I think there should be a production of the Edwin Drood musical that's all female, including in-universe as an all female music hall with the men done as trouser roles. Historically dubious but fun.
Rather than being the only one in a trouser role, "Edwin Drood", being a primadonna who is not part of the usual company, is not getting into the spirit of a trouser role. Her Edwin Drood has cleavage and a curly updo.
"Sapsea's actress was hurt in a fight for her honor. Apparently the gentleman wished her to keep it."
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