for the last time y’all cannot “miku made this” harry potter. you cannot separate harry potter from jkr and her bigotry because the text itself is FULL of it. a short list of the bullshit that’s in hp that y’all cannot pretend doesn’t exist within the actual text:
-the goblins who run the banks, which are obvious antisemitic caricatures
-rita skeeter, a transmisogynistic caricature (the books often reference her “masculine features” and she’s portrayed as being predatory and spying on children)
-boys being unable to enter the girls dormitories (innocuous on its own but becomes very sinister when you know her beliefs)
-the fact that there’s maybe 5 canonically black characters in the books (hell i can only think of 3 off the top of my head)
-the house elves just LOVE being slaves and when hermione tries to free them shes viewed as being “weird” and over the top about it
-the horrific treatment of cho chang, who is (to my knowledge) the only canonically east asian character
-the fact that there’s a “pureblood supremacist” house in hogwarts and everyone is just fine with that
-likening lycanthropy to AIDS is troubling on its own but especially considering fenrir greyback’s big goal was to “spread it” is… oof
-the whole WOG gay dumbledore fiasco gets even worse when we remember that he was apparently in love with a fascist. also the fact that she said he “turned asexual” afterwards which is not how asexuality works
-the fact that hermione was 14 and viktor krum was 18 when he took her to whatever that fuckin dance was called and this is just seen as totally fine and not weird at all
and there’s SO much more, this is just all i can remember off the top of my head. like… y’all can’t pretend these flaws in the books don’t exist. the movies are just as bad and in some respects even worse, especially considering the lack of characters of color. you CANNOT ignore this shit when you’re reading or watching harry potter. and this isn’t even getting into the fantastic beasts series and the mess of stuff that comes with that.
jk rowling has BEEN a racist antisemitic transphobic bigot. we KNEW this.
y’all are allowed to like harry potter. nobody’s gonna stop you. i understand that for some people it’s very meaningful to them and i get that. but you have GOT to be critical of it. you can’t just pretend jkr’s voice isn’t there. it is, and it’s a big part of the story. you can like problematic media (theres some problematic media that i enjoy critically) but it’s irresponsible to consume it uncritically and without examining it through that lens.
