Iāve been thinking a bit about Harry Potter again and specifically why it feels so different to me from other bad things Iāve enjoyed.
Iām trained in literary criticism, I personally study a lot of stuff from people with stupid opinions in my freetime, including opinions about people like me, I enjoy reading in general. What is it about Harry Potter that makes me just not want to come back to it?
I think itās kind of how it became a part of culture for a while. And at the time it wasnāt criticized as heavily as other things I witnessed, at least from my childās perspective. Poking holes in media has been a favorite pastime of mine for long time, including with Harry Potter, but the fundamental emotional core of the thing never quite felt flawed.
Yes Rowling put some stupid things in there but thatās to be expected from a white woman in Britain who has had most of her life being taken care of for her. At the end of the day, the intentions always felt solid even if the execution was less than perfect.
Then came the slow eroding of her reputation. I picked up on it before most people did. The moment she went āmask offā in 2020 I and many others were surprised that people saw it that way. Sheād been consorting with transphobes for years at that point. In online trans spaces sheād been a known radfem apologist for a long time.
But then she got worse. Like she started materially hurting people with her money. And thatās about when to me I really started to get sick when thinking about Harry Potter.
Itās like. Sheās not just a privately bigoted person who accidentally made a story about misfits finding a place that they belonged. Sheās taking the power that the marketing machine behind that series granted her to cause active harm right now.
Itās at about that point I no longer found myself with the ability to turn on my critical brain trained in the ways of lit analysis or my casual consumer brain just liking fun things even if theyāre bad. I just felt a pit in my stomach. I moved the family copies of the Harry Potter books from my room into the communal family bookshelf and then into my dadās room because I couldnāt stand looking at them anymore.
Itās not just that Rowling is an author with bad opinions. Iāve read plenty of those. Itās not just that the series isnāt what I thought it was. Thatās par for the course of most things you read as a child and revisit as an adult. Itās the combined power of her and her brand being everywhere and inescapable and her currently using the power that gives her for evil. Not only was the core of the series disingenuous but the series itself is currently actively causing people harm and normies just casually walk by it at Barnes and noble vaguely wondering if they should buy a mug for their cousin not knowing or not caring what that actually represents.
I can read dumb shit. I can handle my beloved childhood media being worse than I remember it. I can even handle my favorite authors turning out to be absolute garbage but the level of how all this happened with Harry Potter almost has no equivalent that I can think of because it is so big and so destructive and so intertwined with its author in the way that very few other things are.
The author cannot be dead with Harry Potter because she keeps coming back in to twist the knife. She has implanted herself into the series itself so firmly that trying to remove her from it make the entire thing implode on itself into something else entirely. And she uses that firm rooting that sheās established to materially harm people. People like me just one continent over. Iām sure sheād also interfere in other countries politics if she legally could.
Itās like. You canāt think critically through the full scope and ramifications of something when she hasnāt even stopped twisting that knife of hers. I can playfully stick my tongue out at shakespeares bad opinions because he isnāt alive right now spending his money on bad things. And even most authors alive now donāt have financial knives big enough to make much of a difference.
Rowling though? She can just throw a million dollars at something. Itās no wonder I canāt look at those books. My siblings are being threatened with them. Itās a lot easier to study a knife in a museum than one thatās currently being held to someoneās throat.
I donāt think I can be trusted to ever study this particular knife objectively ever again. Because Iāve seen what it can do. Iāve seen where itās pointed. I canāt really have rational academic thoughts while Iām watching that.
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