#(another quote is the character 'feels like the harry potter of transphobic hate crimes' because of a forehead scar lol)

[maslows-pyramid-scheme]

I’m reading Tell Me I’m Worthless by trans author Alison Rumfitt and, while I knew it would be bad, I didn’t realise it would be one of the most disgusting books I’ve ever read. It’s not ‘transgressive horror;’ it’s just sexualised gore.

(Example under the cut)

Here’s a passage from the book, where husband Edmund punishes too-young wife Emily for her curiosity (women keep disappearing in his study and she wants to know why) (he ties her up in the middle of the room and leaves):

Emily was frightened. The most frightened she had ever felt. She opened up her eyes again, and began to try to scream, but the gag was tied too tight around her mouth to even breathe properly, let alone cry for help. Her eyes registered something undenable. It blotted out the light that shone down hot from above her, it cast a shadow across her face. Was it Edmund? It was dark and faceless and red, the red of it dripping all around her, lling up her eyes and her mouth, investigating between her legs, pushing into her, waves of red owing up inside her cunt like cum, but so much more cum than could ever have been produced by a man, ballooning her useless womb until it was ready to burst inside of her. Red tore the fabric of the gag and slid down her throat, into her lungs and her stomach. Albion reached inside her, all around her, nestled against her, gnashed its teeth and ripped at her esh. You’re useless, you’re useless, you’re fucking useless, it screamed close in her ears, so she could feel its hot breath against her skin. This was what happened. That was what it felt like.

They found Emily’s body a week later beneath one of the pine trees near the house. Her womb and vagina had been surgically removed, although where the organs had gone was not clear.

I’d like to say it’s the only graphic description of a woman being ‘punished’ for something, but... it’s not. In one scene, a ‘lesbian terf’ rapes and chokes another woman with a strap-on (which makes her realise she’s actually trans too!); in another scene, the ‘lesbian terf’ is molested by a gender critical woman in a pub bathroom after a gender critical rally.

[duhragonball]

All right, let me put this under a cut, because this doesn’t come up often, but I think I’d like a single post I can refer people to when this topic gets brought up.

Short version: I read all seven books and hated them, and now the author is an unapologetic transphobe, which is something I have no patience for.  In recent years, critics have begun to connect the author’s neoliberal politics with a lot of the flaws in the writing, and this video by Shaun is a pretty good exploration of what was so frustrating about the books and the characters.  

Long version: I “liveblogged” all seven Harry Potter novels between 2005 and 2012.  I use the quote marks because back in those days I’m not sure “liveblog” was a term, but I certainly hadn’t heard of it.  I called it a “review”, but I basically would read each chapter and recap the whole thing with my smartass commentary.  In hindsight, this was probably more like me trying to do Nostalgia Critic’s bit in prose format, but I wasn’t very familiar with him at the time either. 

Soon afterward, I moved my online presence to tumblr, which was sort of a fresh start for me.  It sounds like I’m implying there was some sort of bad experience that came out of the whole thing, but there wasn’t.  I was proud of the work I did at the time, and while I’m not sure if it holds up in the 2020′s, I got a lot of satisfaction out of finishing a multiyear project like that.  But by the end, I was ready to move on, and so I have moved on, which is why I don’t speak of it much in this space. 

The point I’m making here is that I read all the books and I examined them pretty thoroughly, and my conclusion was that they all sucked.  Yes, even your favorite one.  No, it didn’t start out good and jump the shark later on.  They all sucked.  That’s what I had against Harry Potter.

I say “had”, because even though I’ve moved on to other pursuits, J.K. Rowling continues to maintain a public presence, selling her video games and spin-off movies and so on.  She’s also gone full-on TERF, spouting transphobic rhetoric and using her platform as a billionaire best-seller to bully people who are much less fortunate than herself. 

I’ll embed that video I linked to up top.

I think Shaun does a really excellent job explaining just what bugged me so much about the Harry Potter books.  I found the main characters extremely unlikeable, and I could never quite put my finger on the reason.  And the villains were pretty weak too, despite all their terrible crimes and talk of conquest.  Superficially, the whole thing feels like a classic good vs. evil struggle, with good wizards fighting bad wizards, kind of like how the Transformers are about good alien robots fighting a war against bad alien robots.  But it never seemed to work in the Harry Potter books.

Shaun explains why: Despite the “good versus evil” premise, a lot of the good guys just act like thoughtless, selfish pricks sometimes, and it’s justified because they’re on the good guy team.  Sometimes a character will do something terrible to another character, and it’s deemed acceptable because they’re nominally a “good guy”, and the person they’re being a jerk to is a “bad guy”, so they’re fair game.  It’s less about “good vs. evil” and more about “us vs. them”.  

Shaun doesn’t spent a lot of time getting into Rowling’s transphobia, but he does talk about a lot of the other problematic stuff in the books, like the lack of thought she put into Cho Chang’s name.  He also points out the hypocrisy in having all the other characters act irritated with Hermione’s anti-slavery campaign.  The whole thing with the house elves was half-baked from the start, and Rowling kept stumbling through each book trying to correct course, ultimately settling on having one character stand up for the Right Thing, only to have all the other characters ignore or dismiss her concerns.  Harry himself seems to have no particular opinion on house-elf slavery, which sums up the character very succinctly.   He’s the protagonist and the viewpoint character, but he doesn’t stand for anything in particular.

Now that I think about it, I suppose this was why I kept working anime characters and Transformers and professional wrestlers into my liveblog of the books.  At the time, I would have told you I was just doing it to keep myself entertained as I trudged through the series, but in hindsight, I think I was just starved for characters who actually believed in something bigger than themselves.   Harry can barely be arsed to do his own homework, meanwhile, I’ve known what passions fuel Omega Supreme since I was nine years old. 

“Diction: Straighforward.  Personality: Complex. (*snif*)”

I don’t know what sort of person you are, @endmylife69​ . You strike me as a reply guy, contrarian for its own sake.  I see feminist and antifeminist posts in your likes, and one of the three posts on your blog is about how much you hate Chi-Chi, so I don’t know why you even show up to my blog, where I think Chi-Chi is awesome.  The point is if your agenda here is to sea-lion me into “proving” that Rowling is a TERF and that TERFs are bad, I’m not interested in playing that game.  There’s plenty of critics out there who will walk you through that discussion step by step.  You asked what my problem is with her, and I’m telling you.

There are fans of hers who have to struggle with the moral implications of liking her work while distancing themselves from her hateful beliefs.  I respect the fans who have to figure that out.  I don’t respect the fans who just pretend like the dilemma doesn’t exist, because they care more about playing that new Hogwarts vidya game than anything else. 

For my own part, I can’t relate to the fans’ dilemma, because I always thought Rowling’s book series sucked shit.  What’s frustrating for me is that I spent about seven years roasting her books on the internet, and the whole time I was going “Ha ha these books suck shit!”, and it all just feels so dated now, because she’s going to go down in history as this rich, hateful bigot.  Her lousy writing is going to be a footnote to her career.  It’s like writing an “epic takedown” of Mel Gibson movies without ever getting into all the antisemitic stuff he’s done.  In retrospect, I feel kind of disgusted for engaging with her work at all, even to insult it. 

I’m sick of talking about Harry Potter, so let me make this about Chi-Chi, since that seems to be the only thing I know you have strong opinions about.  Part of the reason I like Chi-Chi so much is because she’s basically right.  She objects to a lot of the things that happen in Dragon Ball, which makes her seem like a killjoy, but her motives are sensible and important.  She grounds the other characters, keeping them with one foot in the real world. 

This is because Chi-Chi understands that there’s more to life than fighting gonzo anime battles.  Yes, she lives in a world where laser karate is real and quite prevalent.  Yes, her sons are insanely powerful warriors who are sometimes the only thing standing in the way of world annihilation.  But at the same time? Gohan and Goten really do need to study and get good jobs.  Protecting the world is important, but so is family, and home life, and the work you do.  Also, maybe it’s important to stop breaking the furniture all the time.  Its expensive, dammit. 

These are messages that a lot of DB fans don’t care for, because they tuned in for gonzo anime battles, and this loud woman is scolding everyone for wanting that.  But the point of the character is that there’s a bigger world in the lore.  There’s places to live and people to meet and things to do besides fighting Frieza all the time, and she wants her loved ones to thrive in that world, which is why she keeps reminding them of it. 

And that’s a metaphor for our own world, where there’s more to our own lives than the shows we watch and the books we read, and the internet arguments we get into.  We each have to ask ourselves what we stand for, what we’re trying to be on this planet.  My problem with the Harry Potter franchise is that it doesn’t seem to stand for much of anything.  The characters only seem to care about stopping big league threats, but have no interest in reforming their broken society.  The protagonist spends much of his time just passively experiencing the story like he’s sitting in a theme park ride.  The author only seems to feel strongly about punching down, attacking trans people and surrounding herself with anyone willing to congratulate her for this despicable attitude.  Her supporters only seem to care about being on her side, no matter how morally bankrupt it is. 

Like, okay, that video game came out a few months ago, and I saw people on Twitter trying to angrily justify their decision to buy it, even though a lot of people have pointed out that it directly supports a woman who uses her wealth to justify her bigotry platform.  They’d go “It’s just a game!” and someone made a really snotty TikTok about it or something, and I’m like “Who are you trying to convince, me or yourself?”  If it was just a game, then they’d just play it and not say anything.  But they know it’s not just about the game, and that’s why they’re so defensive about it.  They want to be on both sides of this thing, and that doesn’t surprise me much, since their favorite book series taught them that they can be a real selfish dickbag and still be a good guy as long as you oppose the main villain. 

Chi-Chi would see right through that.  It’s not enough to just oppose the final boss.  It’s the life you live before and after those kinds of battles that defines you as a person. 

Anyway, Harry Potter sucks rotten eggs, and the author is a giant toolshed.  Also, that funeral they did for the giant spider was a fucking ordeal to read.  0/10 would not recommend. 

[martian-martian-martian]

I usually don't say this because I feel like every piece of activism has its place if it has good intentions but, genuinely- I feel like the time spent trying to cult-style deprogram people who liked Harry Potter as a child is a waste of time and emotional energy for literally everyone.

Some genuinely good ideas that I've seen:

Don't pay for Harry Potter merchandise or content. Pirate it if you want.

Don't post about it on social media as it just adds flames to JKR's delusions of grandeur. Don't put your house in your bio. Don't quote it or make references online.

Fan content is free publicity so it's sort of in poor taste.

And for the love of fuck don't go to that stupid universal studios park.

If you're going to read it, read it as critically as you would Lovecraft or any other piece of literature that is inherently problematic: i.e. with critical thinking skills and awareness.

But ruthlessly attacking people who show any indication of liking or having liked harry potter, including trans people, is just terminally online bullshit.

All this "read Carry On/Watch This Anime Instead uwu!" shit is well-meaning and like, I get it. But the fact is, no piece of media will ever be a direct replacement for another piece of media. And that shouldn't be the goal. The new weird era going on of literature that makes everything about 'what tropes do you like' or' what kind of ships do you like' in, like, real books is so weird to me. Like I've never encountered in any other generation the concept where you would go into a bookstore and go

'I'd like a slow burn abo-adjacent with witches and coming of age and if theres not this many gay characters of these exact heights its a failure'

People would think you were fucking insane. There's nothing wrong with preferences but I feel like theres this nutty idea that fiction can have no ambiguity, no surprises, and must be predictable and flawless in every way to be enjoyed, to the point of tokenism (in my humble opinion)

Yall were raised on on-demand fanfiction style works, you realize that most people don't read books like that right?

I digress, the point here is:

Recommendations work for some people, but definitely not a thing for everyone.

You straight-up can't control whether on not someone enjoys something, for better or for worse. You can only somewhat control how they react to it.

We need to work on Harry Potter free environments and internet spaces so trans people and people of color don't have to deal with all the discomforting bullshit.

Making 'Harry Potter Free' people without some Men In Black neuralizer device is just... not gonna happen.

The point is cultural irrelevancy. To the best of my knowledge.

As long as we either love or stigmatize Harry Potter that's free publicity either way. I see what y'all are trying to do and I'm here for it, but giving it a RESURGENCE as the 'book series everyone loves to hate' is just gonna get TERFs on their victim complex more than ever.

Giving money to JKR is ACTIVELY transphobic. Period.

Posting about Harry Potter is simply being part of the problem.

Being an OUTSPOKEN fan of Harry Potter right now, currently, is ostracizing and in poor taste and maybe a little cringe.

Having read Harry Potter and enjoying it when you read it and having fond memories of that hurts literally nobody. Zero people. Thought crimes do not exist.

Just my two cents.

If you buy a Harry Potter Halloween costume this year I'll hit your head with a shovel.