#queer coding in hp

[wisteria-lodge]

And now for a HP fandom question - do you have any thoughts on queercoding in the series and if JKR ever actually intended it, and then backtracked, or if it was always completely unintentional? I'm thinking specifically about Lupin and Tonks (as individuals, not as a ship) Inspired by your post about the intention vs how fans perceived Draco Malfoy. Thanks!

So the first thing I want to do is make a distinction between femme-coding and queer-coding. They're tropes with very similar histories, and a lot of works treat them as the same thing. But Harry Potter doesn’t, and I think we can chalk this one up to JK Rowling’s habit of grabbing aesthetics and visuals without really thinking through the history behind them. 

(Like - the goblins. She says she didn’t mean to write an antisemitic thing, and I actually do believe her. But did she use a lot of tropes and images with a long history of being tied to antisemitism? yes.)

So when I say “femme” I mean giving a male character traits stereotypically associated with femininity. Heightened sensitivity/emotionality, an interest in hair, clothes and being attractive, a love of lace/pink/frills, a dislike of violence and physical confrontation, and a preference for the soft power of manipulation, character assassination and poison - versus the hard power of direct confrontation and physical prowess. Are these things super stereotypical? Yes. But they’re ALSO traits you see all the time on male villains, especially ones that you don’t want to seem that threatening. Femme-coded villains show up a lot in children’s media, or as the Big Bad’s #2. They’re not meant to be heroic or sympathetic (since all these feminine traits are not desirable, especially for guys.) But they also aren’t scary, and you can pretty much always play them for comedy. 

For example: see almost every male Disney villain. And JKR was writing children’s literature in the 90s, so of course she’s pulling from the same zeitgeist as the Disney Renaissance. 

JKR loves herself a femme villain. The absolute gold standard is of course Lockhart - who wears pink, wants to start his own line of hair care products, is self-centered, vain, obsessed with popularity… but he sucks in a fight. His entire MO involves manipulating people into thinking he has these traditional masculine qualities when he just doesn’t. But there’s also fussy, prissy Percy wearing his prefect badge on his pajamas. Bitchy, emotional mean-girl poisoners Draco and Snape (especially early book Snape - which is Snape at his most villainous.) Draco, Percy and Snape are also unusual for being male characters who we see crying for reasons other than grief (apparently the only truly acceptable reason for masculine crying). 

Lucius Malfoy is an interesting case because he starts off quite masc. He’s threatening to curse people, the governors are scared of him, etc. But, as the books go on… and he gets less powerful… he also gets more femme. When we meet him in Book 5 he’s no longer threatening people, but bribing them, spreading rumors, and giving interviews to the Prophet casting Arthur Weasley in a negative light. He's also getting really into peacocks. In Book 2 he was a major threat, but as he gets recast as Voldemort’s #2 he becomes a more femme, soft-power villain. When he leads the attack on the Department of Mysteries, he absolutely bungles it, which defines his character (and relationship with Voldemort) for the rest of the series. And it makes sense that Lucius is given this kind of treatment! It’s a way of communicating that there's a new villain in town, a real villain. 

So, are any of these femme-coded villains additionally queer-coded? I’m actually going to say no. Queer-coding is (like it says on the tin) finding ways to imply that your character is specifically gay. Like maybe giving them a same-sex relationship that is written romantically, but not explicitly called out by the text. Or pairing up all of the characters except them. Maybe have other characters joke about them being gay, and use that as a way to talk about the subject with some plausible deniability. Or they could just play suggestively with a cigar, or a walking stick. There are different strategies.  

But Lockhart doesn't get any of that. Honestly, I think that if JKR actually thought of him as gay, she would have been a lot more wary about a scene where he keeps Harry alone with him in his office for way longer than he’s supposed to. And she might have skipped this joke: 

“Harry was hauled to the front of the class during their very next Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, this time acting a werewolf (...) “Nice loud howl, Harry — exactly — and then, if you’ll believe it, I pounced — like this — slammed him to the floor — thus — with one hand, I managed to hold him down — with my other, I put my wand to his throat (...) he let out a piteous moan — go on, Harry — higher than that — good —” 

Like. At least she would have picked a different word than “moan,” right? Which unfortunately has slightly sexual connotations. Especially if she wanted to keep Lockhart a buffoon, to properly set up the twist at the end. 

Slughorn also gets femme-coded in a similar way: he loves his candy, his parties, his smoking jackets, his lilac silk pajamas, his web of connections he can use to get stuff (Lucius style.) We are introduced to him squatting in specifically a “fussy old lady’s” house. He’s also unusually emotional, getting weepy at Aragog‘s funeral. But I don’t think we’re meant to read him as actually gay, or else his relationship with Tom Riddle might’ve read a little too close to Tom seducing/trying to seduce him. Which is a beat JKR does subtly play out with Hepzibah Smith, but idk. by that point at least Tom is a legal adult.

(As a side note - the Harry Potter series got so lucky that all of its adult characters are played by absolutely top-shelf actors who are aware of the connotations and history behind various symbols, and do consider these things in their performances. Kenneth Brannagh and Jim Broadbent are good enough to make sure there’s not even a hint of iffy subtext when they play Lockhart and Slughorn. Also, Emma Thompson took the potentially very problematic character of Trelawney and made her cute and sympathetic… and not Romani in the slightest.) 

Draco, Snape, and Percy all have a case of the not-gays. Percy has a girlfriend (we don’t really see her or anything, but we’re told she’s there.) Snape of course gets his whole thing with Lily, and Draco… after one too many beats where it’s clear that Pansy is into him, but he’s not into Pansy…  gets a scene where he’s talking to his buddies with his head in her lap. (JKR uses “no one‘s good enough for me” beats with Blaise, Draco and Sirius, and the idea there seems to be more that they have undeservedly high opinions of themselves, and less that they don’t like girls.)

But, I do agree that a lot of JKR's characters do come across as a little more queer than intended. It boils down, I think, to the general lack of any kind of romance in the Harry Potter books and JKR being generally bad at/uncomfortable with writing male attraction directed at women, BUT being perfectly happy writing attraction directed at pretty guys. And because of that… yeah, it can sometimes feel like maybe Harry has a thing for Cedric. Especially when Dudley goes on to tease him about Cedric being his boyfriend, which I believe is the only actual mention of gay people in the entire series.  

So is there any intentional queer-coding in the book? It’s really subtle, but yes. I think Dumbledore is queer-coded. He is unusually emotional/cries unusually often for a Rowling guy. He is also given a scene which emphasizes his “flamboyantly” cut plum-velvet suit, and his relationship with Grindelwald is implied to be romantic for one book and two movies before being actually confirmed in Fantastic Beasts 3. (With the line of dialogue “I was in love with you.” Big step up from “We were closer than brothers.” which is an odd thing to say about someone you are interested in romantically.) 

But you brought up Tonks and Lupin, two characters very commonly interpreted as queer. So let’s get into that. JKR has said that she considers Lupin’s lycanthropy to be a metaphor for stigmatized diseases like AIDS. And… as incredible as it is to say… I actually do not think that she made the jump from there to thinking that maybe the character suffering from AIDS should be gay.

Because the narrative places so much weight on Lupin being bitten young and then on maybe not being allowed to attend school, I’m pretty sure that he’s not intended to be queer so much as he’s meant to be Ryan White, the literal poster child for AIDS activism who got infected via blood transfusion when he was two. Tragic, absolutely. But not gay. Honestly, I hope JKR was thinking of ‘lycanthropy’ as a metaphor for stigmatized illness in the abstract and not as a comment on gay people specifically. Because otherwise, Greyback’s thing about biting children becomes a mash-up of two of the biggest homophobic boogeymen from the 80s: gay men infecting people with AIDS on purpose because… idk, they hate the world or something. And the influence of gay men somehow “turning” children gay. Both absolutely real, if ridiculous, moral panics.

On top of that, Remus and Sirius do get a pretty clear case of the not-gays early on (“He embraced Black like a brother.”) Buuuut Alfonso Cuarón did think through those implications for Movie 3, absolutely saw Lupin as gay, and directed David Thewlis to play him accordingly. No reports confirming or denying whether Alfonso Cuarón ships Wolfstar, but I think that if I’m an actor trying to make sense of Lupin’s motivations… and I know he didn’t show Dumbledore the Marauders’ Map and didn’t tell anyone Sirius was an animagus… and then I’m told my character is gay… well. Anyway, I think there are absolutely hints of Wolfstar in that performance. 

And there's Tonks. Tonks is introduced during a very spooky segment in Book 5: Harry has been going through it, been left alone at the Dursleys while having what sounds like a depressive episode. It’s dark, he hears intruders. It's a really good piece of writing. But JKR knows that it’s the good guys who are coming and thinks, okay. Let’s make that as clear as possible from the word go. And so the first thing Harry sees is Tonks' pink hair. And what kind of person has pink hair? A young adult. A punky young adult. And what power would a teenager think was cool? Well, the ability to change the color of their hair at will. That, by itself, would have worked perfectly fine for this character.

But then (for reasons best known to herself) JKR goes further. Even though Tonk’s hair changing color is easily 90% of the transformations we see and there is no plot reason her appearance needs to change more than that, we see her drastically change her age and body type. When you think about this power for more than five seconds, it becomes kind of OP. For worldbuilding reasons alone, my instinct would’ve been to tone it down a bit. 

But no, we have this counterculture character who seems interested in her career and not in a relationship, who can easily change anything about her body, and (if her ability works anything like Polyjuice) that means she should definitely be able to change her gender. Cool.

Then, in everyone’s least favorite romance, Tonks and Lupin are paired up. I have heard the argument that this was meant to walk back queer-coding, or to punish people who thought they were queer... but I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think JKR expected these two to be fan favorites, and then was kind of surprised when everyone wanted to hear about their continuing adventures. 

(There are a handful of characters who JKR clearly really enjoys - and really enjoys writing - that fandom honestly could not care less about. Mundungus Fletcher and Ludo Bagman spring to mind. But the reverse is also true. She had one story for Lupin and people wanted to see more. Tonks is probably supposed to be her comment on immature young adults: she is loud, in your face, causes mild destruction and is “a little annoying at times.” But the fans fell in love with her.) 

So JKR has these two fan favorite characters and nothing for them to do. A romance is something for them to do. JKR also has a kind of weird pattern where good people need to either have kids or take care of kids. It’s not good to be a woman who isn’t involved with taking care of children in some fashion: see Rita Skeeter, Dolores Umbridge, Bellatrix Lestrange. This is also (I think) why Harry names his kids specifically after Severus, Sirius, and Albus. Since they’re good men, JKR had to find a way to give them kids after the fact. 

So yeah. I think we were meant to read Tonks and Lupin having a kid as kind of a reward, or at least as proof of their intrinsic goodness. There also just isn’t another guy in the right age range to ship Tonks with. The only other option is Sirius. 

(Harry in the books and Lupin on Pottermore both suspect that Tonks/Sirius is a thing. Completely forgetting, I guess, that they're cousins.)

[joe-spookyy]

Dude tell me your thoughts about Daniel Cain + any headcannons??

hi what greatest ask i’ve ever received because all i ever have are thoughts about daniel cain. sorry this is gonna be an essay. um.

tldr - dan cain is a super fascinating character (especially when you read him as queer) and his high empathy makes it difficult for him to make the hard but necessary choices found often in the medical field, but easy for him to be manipulated by those he thinks can help him do the most Good. also he is not immune to herbert west. full post under cut and it’s pretty good you should read it.

ok first off he is literally JUST like me for real. but second. i really think he’s a fascinating character no matter how you read him. his empathy is Soooo high and it affects literally everything he does - sometimes for the worse cause he’s a doctor and honestly cannot afford to be getting this upset every time he loses a patient. but it’s part of him, which i think makes him a super interesting counterpart to herbert. he’s so distinctly Human and he cares so much about the people around him, and he’s a horrible doormat/people pleaser. this is, obviously, not at all like herbert. narrative foils oooooh. when i met bruce abbott he told me he thinks dan is a “spineless worm”, which may be technically true, but i think the way dan is so easily convinced to go along with herbert is because of this heavy empathy. he wants to do everything within his power to make things better, and what could really be better than conquering death? how much pain could he stop just with that?

because of that, i think it makes SO much sense that it was so easy for herbert to initially manipulate him into working together. plus i also think later on in the films his feelings for herbert get in the way of his judgement to. an incredible extent. herbert just has to ask and dan will immediately be at his every beck and call. hes like a dog. he wants out but he can’t stop coming back to herbert. i struggle to find any other way to explain why he’d still be living with herbert after the first movie - after all, herbert kind of did kill everything dan ever loved (girlfriend, cat, legitimate medical career). and i think these things affected him on a really deep level (which. yeah. obviously) but the way he acts in bride is so indicative of what that kind of trauma does to a person and it’s fascinating to me. he projects so hard on to gloria because of how guilty he felt for not being able to save meg. he shuts down in a lot of the more serious situations. sure, he did have his little going into shock moment in the first film, but it’s a reoccurring thing in bride. he doesn’t seem to have such a strong moral code anymore, but that empathy is still there - even though what he’s doing with herbert and their little bride project isn’t quite morally Right, all he really has left is herbert and he is dying for a way to get back to the normalcy that herbert has pulled away from him. and yet, he’s never able to really Leave. he can’t move out, he can’t stop helping herbert, he can’t really get meg back as much as he tries. but he’s too far down the rabbit hole to really care at this point. he just cares about getting what he loves back.

and sure. did he abandon herbert at the end of the first movie for meg? yeah. did he abandon herbert at the end of the second movie for francesca? also yes. did he rat herbert out to the authorities? yes (but that’s a character choice i simply cannot get behind he would not do that shit after everything he still does obviously love and care about herbert if he was gonna be a narc he would have done it after the first movie herbert didn’t even do all that much wrong in the second movie like come on he was just getting creative. whatever. anyways.) now, his choice to save meg in the first movie makes a lot of sense, in my opinion. he assumed herbert was dead (which. not a bad assumption tbh) and meg was his girl - it makes a lot more sense to save her than someone he hasn’t known for nearly as long. but when he chooses to escape with francesca and leave herbert behind, it’s a little bit jarring. he’s obviously gotten close with herbert. they still live together, they bicker like a married couple, and if we’re being honest he kind of follows herbert’s every command. again. like a dog. and plus! they just created life together in a quite homoerotic fashion!!! why in the world would dan fumble this?? well, i think i can explain it. herbert represents a lack of societal normalcy. think like doctor praetorius in the bride of frankenstein. herbert’s heavily queercoded, he actively defies god, he kills and he disrespects the dead and he’s terrible socially and he shoots up drugs (sorta) and he is all about medical malpractice. this is the opposite of what someone like dan SHOULD want. dan’s straight passing (or straight if you want to read him that way which i don’t recommend cause otherwise this analysis doesn’t make as much sense), kind and friendly, and wants a good, normal career in the medical field. and he loves his perfect girlfriend. meg (and later francesca) represent these “good” and “normal” things that dan wants and is expected to want. herbert, again, represents the opposite. so for dan to choose herbert and save him over either meg or francesca, he would be choosing to step away from the life he is “supposed” to live, the socially acceptable life. people are already suspicious of him and west as we see in the novelization of the first movie, and to save his visibly queer strange little “roommate” over the woman he’s supposed to love would have certain implications that would draw dan away from this life of normalcy that he wants so badly. but most importantly. herbert always comes back. he’s a part of dan that can’t be escaped.

well. that was a lot. headcanons. umm. i think you probably got a lot from the novel i just wrote but here’s more.

- i loveeee the dan starts smoking after meg dies hc

- i don’t believe he ratted on herbert. i think they’re still working together making freaky shit to this day. even as old men.

- i know i just said queer the whole time i was talking but he’s bisexual and you aren’t allowed to disagree with me. herbert’s gay though. emphasizes the differences between them - dan CAN choose that “normal” life but herbert can’t.

- i think he ends up needing glasses as he gets older. he wears em to read in the first movie and i think his vision declines.

- also he goes grey earlier than herbert imo cause of all the stress. herbert makes fun of him for this but herbert’s hairline is. ummmn. less powerful. so dan has ammo to fight back.

- i don’t think he’d ever be able to get a cat again after rufus. or really any pet. i don’t think he trusts himself not to damage everything he touches

- i think he’s a huge talking heads stan. you could argue this as canon because of the stop making sense poster above his bed, but i think he’s a super fan. and maybe i’m projecting. so what.

- no matter how many times herbert does it or offers it to him, he refuses to take any of the reagent.

uhh. yeah. sorry that this post is so long i hope it is sufficient to what you were looking for. thank you sincerely so much for asking this was the most fun i’ve ever had. bless up.

[madladmorty]

Can we reclaim Voldemort? Seriously, I wanna do that-

If you read the books, you can, amongst all the transphobia and antisemitism, find a lot of queer coding in Voldemort. Specifically trans/non binary and aromantic.

Look at that fucker, and then look me in the eye and tell me he would be a transphobe. If you can, I politely and respectfully ask you to fuck off because that is not the vibe at all.

The aromantic coding isn't even coding at this point. While, yes, Rowling got it quite wrong about where aromantisism comes from with Voldemort, (for a shockingly nice representation of it I recommend looking at Charlie Weasley), he is canonically aromantic. He doesn't understand love, it's a foreign concept to him. It doesn't make him evil, in fact my aro friends agree that they actually find him a little relatable in that way. Like, wtf is this thing that everyone is constantly talking about? I don't get it. It's weird.

As for trans/enby, bare with me here.

As a trans person myself, I can actually match up to the muggle raised wizard experience in general, but Voldemort has added stuff.

For starters, he always knew he was different, knew he wasn't like the rest but also realised that talking about it would result in a worse situation for himself. Very relatable. I remember when I was very young and finally realised that, no, girls don't all want pixie sticks. I don't why, but I felt that I had to shut up about it because some things are just better left unsaid.

I think the biggest trans/enby coding in Voldemort is the name change. Unfortunately, the way Voldemort's name is treated does somewhat reflect experiences of real trans and non binary people. No one calls Voldemort by the name he has chosen for himself, except the those who view him as a threat. In fact, Harry, egged on by Dumbledore who also does it, flat out deadnames him. To his face. Dumbledore even acknowledges that he uses a different name now but STILL calls him Tom just to seemingly assert dominance. Real mature, Dumbledore, real mature.

Then there is the fact that he has undergone drastic physical changes that people around him view as 'monstrous', 'unnatural' and 'deformed'. That ring any bells? As a trans guy it sure does for me, as Abigail Shrier in her infamous book Irreversible Damage claims that trans guys have a 'bulldozed female profile' and says over and over that we are mutilating ourselves and having our womanly features stripped from us as if we didn't choose this for ourselves.

So please, can we reclaim Voldemort? We can really expand him as a character, it's incredibly easy. I don't condone his wizard nazi views, but we can give this complex, multifaceted, nebulous being the respect and depth that he truly deserves. what do think?

[mage8]

There was a period of time where fanfics of fanfics were really common, especially on long WIPs with large followings. The fandom term for them was "cookies". Does anyone else remember this?

Here is a link to Mirror of Maybe's mailing list FAQ page. It mentions cookies, and talks about their different genres gen slash etc. so it's clear we're talking about fics.

Mirror of Maybe is abandoned HP WIP that had a really large following and it's own fansight with a cookie archive and mailing list.

Why don't we call them cookies anymore? Does anyone else remember this?

u ever read a fanfic so good that you want. fanfic of the fanfic

[runin-reads]

James/Lily vs James/Sirius: a case of accidental queer coding

Jily (James/Lily) is a pairing central to the HP universe in the sense that had they not been married, Harry Potter, the main character, would cease to exist and neither would his story as we know it. Yet we are left with only a few brief glimpses of their relationship in canon whilst other pairings are textually far more fleshed out– take Prongsfoot (James/Sirius), for example, who are frequently portrayed as The Duo, not just by those closest to them (Lupin) but by many others too such as McGonagall, Flitwick and so on. Harry himself could see how close they were during SWM in OOTP and this is someone who had a very limited time with Sirius and close to none with James. 

Queercoding is described as “the subtextual coding of a character in media as queer. Though such a character's sexual identity may not be explicitly confirmed within their respective work, a character might be coded as queer through the use of traits and stereotypes recognisable to the audience.” One character comes to mind when I think of “queercoding” and that’s Sirius Black. He’s estranged from his family, goes against the norms associated with his upbringing, there’s no mention of any ex-girlfriends and most notably he has intense love and devotion for his male best friend; James Potter.  At first glance, James had led an incredibly hetero-normative life by virtue of his wife and son, but through his relationship to Sirius there’s leeway to reach a queer reading of him as well. 

As recognised by countless characters and even Sirius himself, Prongsfoot come in a two-for-one deal:

“Do you remember who his best friend was?”  “Naturally,” said Madam Rosmerta, with a small laugh. “Never saw one without the other, did you? The number of times I had them in here — ooh, they used to make me laugh. Quite the double act, Sirius Black and James Potter!”  “Black and Potter. Ringleaders of their little gang. Both very bright, of course — exceptionally bright, in fact…”  “You’d have thought Black and Potter were brothers!” chimed in Professor Flitwick. “Inseparable!” 

The use of the word “brothers” in the above quote is one reason why fans don’t interpret Prongsfoot as queer-coded and/or romantic. However, it’s important to note that Sirius never referred to James as a brother, and there’s no canonical proof to suggest that Flitwick was close to James and Sirius– he was their teacher, not their friend or confidant. He isn’t calling them “brothers” either but rather he’s saying that word to express how strong their bond was. Hence why I believe an exclusively fraternal reading of their relationship doesn’t hold much weight. 

They are, however, established as each other’s closest friend and most trusted confidant. 

“Harry had the distinct impression that Sirius was the only one for whom James would have stopped showing off.” “Potter trusted Black beyond all his other friends. Nothing changed when they left school. Black was the best man when James married Lily. Then they named him godfather to Harry.  “I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as Secret-Keeper instead of me.”  “Lily and James only made you Secret-Keeper because I suggested it,” Black hissed

On multiple occasions James and Sirius were described as a unit– The Unit– within their friend group. Lupin said they were “the cleverest students in the school.” They were the “ringleaders” of the Marauders; always on the same page and in agreement with each other.

“Then, with identical fluid movements, they reached into their back pockets.” 

Even during their very first encounter, they quickly and effortlessly become a team. 

“Got a problem with that?”  “No,” said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy–” “Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” interjected Sirius.  James roared with laughter.

This excerpt from DH also neatly sums up the Marauders group dynamic:

“To Sirius’s right stood Pettigrew, more than a head shorter, plump and watery-eyed, flushed with pleasure at his inclusion in this coolest of gangs, with the much-admired rebels that James and Sirius had been. On James’s left was Lupin, even then a little shabby-looking, but he had the same air of delighted surprise at finding himself liked and included” 

Lily herself acknowledged Sirius’ importance in James’ life in her letter to Sirius, where she all but says that only he could lift James’ mood whilst the Potters’ were hiding from Voldemort’s forces. 

“James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell — also, Dumbledore’s still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions. If you could visit, it would cheer him up so much.” 

On the other hand, Jily is portrayed in a less compelling way for lack of better words. I spoke about this in my other meta but to summarise it briefly: Lily is James’ wife, the mother of his son and… that’s pretty much it. In the books they’re barely spoken about as a couple, unlike Prongsfoot who are always mentioned together as if they were a package deal– which they were, as recognised by practically everyone. That’s not to say Jily has zero textual backing, though it is far and few between.

“How come she married him?” Harry asked miserably. “She hated him!”  “Nah, she didn’t,” said Sirius.  “She started going out with him in seventh year,” said Lupin.  “Once James had deflated his head a bit,” said Sirius.  “And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it,” said Lupin. 

Conclusion

What we do know about James and Lily’s relationship is limited to the following: Lily disliked James because he and Snape were enemies, James developed feelings for her first, they began dating in seventh year once James had matured, they got married when they were nineteen to twenty years old, had a child together. The end. 

On the contrary, James and Sirius are constantly implied to be each other’s closest, most loyal friend; each other’s most trusted confidant. They are equals in every conceivable way. Both were popular, from wealthy backgrounds  and intelligent. Throughout the entire series Sirius’ only priority was Harry, James’ son. He went through unfathomable lengths to protect Harry: he was the first to escape Azkaban, he snuck into Hogwarts with all the dementors around and lived off rats during the GOF so he could be close to Harry, the last piece of James he had left. 

There’s also evidence to suggest Sirius was a narrative parallel to Snape. There are two adults in Harry’s life who sought to protect him due to their respective relationships with one of his parents. Snape was a double agent for Dumbeldore out of love for Lily; Sirius escaped Azkaban to protect Harry out of love for him, an extension of his love for James. 

All these factors are  why I believe that by not fleshing out Lily as a character and Jily as a couple, JKR accidentally queer-coded Prongsfoot. 

[starrylayle]

I don't think fanon marauders fans realise is that most of us (canon marauders fans) actually enjoy readings of a fem/androgynous/trans/gender-fuckery Sirius Black! I personally believe he is heavily queer-coded as a character and love seeing different interpretations and expressions of such in fics/fanart ~

We just don't like it when u characterise him as a tiny, dramatic whiny bitch. Save that for ur gilderoy lockhart moodboards babes xx

and yeah to all those ppl who say,, "just don't interact with that content!!!!" -- do u realise how many tags I've blocked and filtered out and i still see these oc-fied marauders everywhere?? even my non hp fans see some of that content -- it is impossible to avoid so thus i will complain.

if ur any type of content creater and. u depict sirius in the former pls just ignore me i am a hater but I love all artists. feel free to block me tho lol

[astridsbirdskulls]

So I'm sure a lot have people have seen or heard about jkr once again being an awful person. I was talking to my older sister, who was also the one I read the hp books with when I was little, and it's really awful to see the creator of a piece of media you like spread so much hate, and it's been hard for me to be comfortable liking hp at all recently (not that I would ever discourage anyone from finding enjoyment from it) which my sister reminded me is completely valid. So because of that conversation, I drew trans Remus and gender non-conforming Sirius (it's also crazy how someone so bigoted could write the most queer coded characters ever) anyway stay safe and trans rights are human rights <3

[keepmycandleburning]

And then the second thing I was going to post about last night was the idea of a writer 'punishing' their characters. You've seen it surely. Like the idea that Umbridge being attacked by centaurs was her punishment for being too girly (and furthermore that this is a statement from Rowling that unlikable women deserve to be raped and the reader is supposed to sympathize) (many examples this is common). This idea about HP is most typically about the author 'treating' women who don't properly conform to her standards a certain way: like Lavender Brown was attacked by Greyback as narrative punishment for being too feminine (This whole Twitter thread is a gold mine for unimaginable takes. I don't understand how SO many people believe that characters' actions are an expression of the writer's beliefs. It really makes me wonder if I am somehow wrong).

Can you 'punish' your fictional character? Is making something bad happen to an unlikable character punishing them? What if the POV character is glad the bad thing happened? What if the POV character is imperfect, or even straight up wrong? Can you treat a fictional character improperly? As with my post last night, the answer is technically yes, there can be problems with writing, but I just don't see it in these particular situations or in this type of fiction. For example some conservative Christian could write about a woman having premarital sex and then her life falls apart but then she saves herself by finding God and it's clearly meant to be a pretty straightforward message, and it lines up with the writer's irl beliefs, and they use to it to push their irl narrative, etc, and I'd say sure that character is being punished. Or conversely a writer can definitely punish an abusive character. So yeah you CAN punish a character. But how do you know when this is what's happening, and why do so many people apply this way more liberally than I do? What if someone were to think I was punishing one of my characters, and what if they thought it was for an immoral reason? What if I were to make a bad thing happen to one character, and someone thought I was saying 'I think this bad thing should happen to every real person who resembles this character'? Or on the other hand, must a writer punish their immoral characters?

This is extremely niche, but what about the criticisms of Rita Skeeter's appearance being masculine? Is this communicating that Rowling thinks masculine women are evil? If so, how do you know? Can you only queer-code 'good characters'? Surely not. So how would one avoid being interpreted that way? Making multiple varied characters w whatever trait definitely helps, but do you have to? How much do you have to proactively plan for people to misunderstand?

Does Harry having a certain thought mean that's Rowling's thought (Is Harry making fun of SPEW Rowling expressing her real belief? How do you know?)? Does Harry having a thought mean that's 'meant to be' the readers' thought? Are plot elements all Rowling's morals, and what she thinks is good and right? What about world-building elements, like how people will say that Rowling made all the women housewives (+ married young) because she's sexist? Why would an author simply designing their fictional world in a certain way mean they think it's good? Are they then obligated to have their narrative condemn the negative aspects of their world, or can the reader decide that for themselves upon observing it?

Overall I think most of these questions of mine come down to that 1. I think a story's narrative typically comes from its POV character, while other people seem to think a story's narrative comes from its writer's beliefs, and 2. that I think the reader can think for themselves and typically draw the intended conclusion, while other people criticize when the message isn't spelled out on the page (look at this lol. SURELY Azkaban was a commentary on the justice system. Why does the fact that Harry doesn't really sit there and ponder it that much mean the message can't come through clearly to the reader—surely it does!)

Feel free to actually answer these questions, not because I will follow any of the rules, I won't necessarily, but you know just to discuss the reasons why something is going to get interpreted in these ways

[whinlatter]

thoughts about wolfstar? you're now the one i go to for any hp related thoughts

omg this is VERY nice of you but i'm pure flop on marauders thoughts, they're all extremely half-baked, so best left to others. here my half-baked wolfstar thoughts offered sheepishly and apologetically!

the thing is - i quite like the idea of wolfstar. to be honest i was sort of imagining a sort of wistful wolfstar vibe to how i wrote lupin in orchards in the aftermath of sirius' death. but i think the wolfstar i like is quite a specific version of it that's increasingly hard to find in fic searches so i don't often go looking for it (which is pure laziness on my part). my interest in canon coherent characterisation limits me here - i think there's such a strong case for wolfstar as a pairing written in ways that attend to the very clear dynamics (and timelines) that canon makes plausible (including in AUs, where actually characterisation matters more, not less, than in 'canon compliant' fics, because it's the reader's only anchor). there is an intensity and an intimacy to what sirius and remus share in the marauders and the significance of a boyhood spent together in their adult lives, a literal physical proximity of them living together as adults post azkaban as two men who have such complex feels towards themselves and especially to their bodies, including an overlapping self loathing, and they're both characters that can very plausibly read as queer-coded in rich and interesting ways. and then, of course, there's an inherent narrative shape to both of their canon arcs (the tragedy, delicious). these are just some of the dynamics in a potential romantic relationship between the two of them that can make for really rich and interesting potential to work with in fic writing.

the trouble i find with a lot of wolfstar, less as a matter of principle than what actually gets written more often than not, is that the stuff i personally find rewarding and interesting as a writer/reader is work that bears some relationship with the canon text (even if - especially if - it's to pull it apart and expose its flaws and complexities). a queer reading of the relationship between sirius and remus in canon is absolutely plausible and can be deeply compelling, and, as queering HP as a text remains a powerful fuck you to its author whose reaction to the ship was errrr quite homophobic, still really important.

but. challenging the text means having some sense of the characterisation of the essence of these characters as rendered in the text, and canon is clear about certain aspects of sirius and remus' characterisations that limits my enthusiasm for a lot of wolfstar that has sprung up in recent years (especially in and around ATYD, which i'll say more about in a minute). the truth is that canon strongly suggests that sirius cares much less about remus than he ever does about james (dropping @saintsenara's excellent manifesto for why unrequited prongsfoot is canon, also the rec for one of the best fics i read last year that @ashesandhackles put me onto, empire builders by shecrows, a gorgeous complex funny angsty prongsfoot fic that's not not canon compliant timeline-wise). it's also clear that the marauders as a friendship group functioned as a group of three boys all working towards james potter as the de facto leader, each with their own complicated feelings and levels of loyalty and devotion to james that undoubtedly shaped, and limited, how the other three felt towards each other (especially after james' death). the kind of wolfstar lore that's sprung up in the last few years, especially from marauderstok, of roadman remus the romeo of gryffindor tower that young sirius is wildly and hopelessly in love with, and is desperate to reunite with after azkaban, is a version of wolfstar that's sort of compelling as an original story but, for my taste, bears too little relationship to their core canon characterisation to be really up my street. a wolfstar with really fucked up power dynamics that plays with sirius' idolisation of james and remus having to play second fiddle? delicious. or even unrequited/onesided wolfstar from remus to sirius - yum. but the rest, i struggle with. by the time they've left school, remus thinks sirius is the spy and sirius thinks remus is the spy. that is not giving soulmates, in my mind. but as with most of these things, i'm very open to being proved wrong.

(with that said, though, i think the subculture and lore that's built around wolfstar is really astonishing and often extremely compelling, i think ATYD is obviously a huge accomplishment and deserves its flowers for launching such a phenomenon, and there's masses of quality writing and art and general creative talent coming out of wolfstar spaces that it's hard not to be continually impressed by. also some of those tiktok edits absolutely slap. that remus-centric animated noah kahan one. unreal)

[wisteria-lodge]

When you say queer coding is specifically about implying someone is gay, is that a media studies definition, or is it because it's far more difficult to imply other romantic/sexual interest combinations? It occurred to me to ask because there are typical, perhaps more gay-alignment geared signals, but then there are also ongoing/emerging social signals which can be incorporated into media to ie. imply someone is bi (although this is usually done poorly because we live in a fairly monogamous promoting society and if a partnered person is also showing coded interest in someone else, this is typically taken to mean they're not into their current partner), or ace, or sapphic (since it seems more "queer coding" allegations does tend to fall onto men in media, possibly because men occupy a quite rigid version of "correct behavior" making it easier to write outside that prescription, possibly because there are simply more men available to observe in media)

This ask honestly does a really great job of breaking down the problem. Yes, in a media studies way, "queer-coding" is kind of an umbrella term for "gay coding," "femme coding" (applied to queer guys) and "masc coding" (applied to queer girls.) My argument about Harry Potter was that it does a lot of femme coding without getting into gay coding, and so that's why I had to split up the definition.

I agree that "bi coding" isn't nearly as much of a *thing,* and sadly bleeds over into communicating infidelity/promiscuity. "Ace coding" is *maybe* more of a thing? but I'm not sure how prevalent it is outside of slightly cold scientist types. There are definitely more queer-coded men in media, just because there are more men in media period. But there is certainly a history of queer-coded women: dressing/looking more masculine, association with yonic (instead of phallic) imagery, taking a little too much interest in the heroine. They're usually also villains, and generally framed as scarier than then the queer-coded male villains. Long history of queer-coded female *vampires,* for instance.

[thedrarrylibrarian]

Several people have been kind enough to let me publish their thoughts on fandom, community, and queerness to celebrate Pride in the Library. Today's piece comes from @wolfpants.

Dear readers, dreamers, and purveyors of the glittering, gilded aisles of the Drarry Library,

Fandom life began for me at age fifteen. We just got our first family computer, taking pride of place in the utility room between the boiler and my dad’s boxes of tools. I had recently come out as bisexual to my friends at school, who, props to them, had all taken it quite well despite the small town we grew up in (I was very lucky, they were great - everyone else though? Not so much). Still, even with supportive friends offline, I never felt like I could talk to them about what I really enjoyed: watching Buffy, reading Harry Potter and looking for queer subtext (I could never have convinced any of them that Harry’s story screams gay allegory–no matter what JKR has to say on the topic back then or now), scouring bookshops and libraries for any sort of queer content I could get my hands on, desperate as I was to read something that spoke to me, to read about love outside of the heteronormative landscape of the popular media. I wasn’t just tired of boy-meets-girl; I had never identified with it in the first place.

The year we got dial-up internet was the year I discovered Livejournal. The absolute joy I felt, stumbling upon an LJ community specifically dedicated to roleplaying Harry Potter characters in queer pairings. Discovering, beyond that, that people wrote stories about Harry and my other favourite queer-coded character of the series: Draco Malfoy. And then it was Wolfstar (specifically Sirius), then Drarry again, and somewhere along the way my lurking fell off and I stopped reading fic for a while when I moved to London and settled into my first job, my first real relationship, and sitting uncomfortably atop my bisexual identity and not really knowing where that shift happened and why. All the while, I was pursuing a writing career on the more journalistic side: writing for music and film outlets, doing a little bit of secret creative writing on the side, dipping in and out of HP RPGs but never really—connecting. In “real life”, my relationship with my ex was falling apart, and I felt very disconnected from the LGBTQIA+ community because, even though I knew I belonged, I never felt like I could be truly me with anyone—perhaps because I was, unknowingly, still discovering who I really was.

When the pandemic happened, it gave me the breathing space I needed to get to that point. It brought me back to fandom.

It started with reading The Popular Wolfstar Fic Everyone Was Reading, and reopening my ao3 account to re-read some old favourites from over the years. It then unrolled to, hey, I have some free time, why don’t I try writing my own Wolfstar fic for my oldest, dearest friend (who I met RPing on LJ at 15!), which then turned into: you should publish this, and see what happens.

So, I did. And I made a tumblr account, and I lurked for a while, shyly reblogging things and scrolling through author accounts I’d admired from a very young age, astonished and really fucking impressed that they were still in the game. I read their new fics, I was drawn back into Drarry, and from there I discovered what a wonderful community this is, not only for its immensely talented creatives, but for its values as a inclusive, equitable, supportive, uplifting, and joyful group of individuals who genuinely welcome everyone with open arms and love. That, in itself, has made it easy to reach out to like-minded folks here, to make life-long friends, to chat to people who have been through similar experiences in questioning their identities (it is truly thanks to this fandom and the many discussions I’ve had with people here that I’ve been able to realise my identity as a NB lesbian). To write! To share! To not be ashamed of my kinks and to discover fun, delicious rare pairs! To look at breathtaking art and read some of the best goddamn writing I’ve ever set eyes on!

I have spent thirty-seven years on this planet. A good chunk of that time has been spent questioning many parts, pieces, and niggly jiggly bits of my identity. Who am I? What am I? Is there anyone out there who is just like me?

After many years of searching in the dark, of asking these questions over and over, I can joyously say that the answer is: yes. And oh, how thankful I am for that, for all of you, because fandom has really been the community I can categorically point to and say: they did that for me, we did that for we, and I will do anything for you.

Happy pride.

Thank you, Wolf, for joining me in the Library. Your love and joy for fandom have left me feeling quite tender-hearted, in the best way. It's so so good to ask the question "Is there anyone out there who is just like me?" and find over and over that the answer chorusing back is "yes." Thank you for adding your yes to our chorus, and joining me for Pride in the Library.

If you want more @wolfpants be sure to check out their work on AO3! I can't help but recommend the fic that made me fall in love with her writing in the first place, Pages of You, which I've featured previously for Happy Hour. It's got Drarry and Wolfstar, and is one of my favorite comfort rereads.

🏳️‍🌈 Lots of Love and Happy Pride! 🏳️‍🌈

[impishtubist]

Was the authorial intent for Sirius to be portrayed as reckless in OOTP? Yes, but the author didn’t actually do a good job of it. This was saying one thing but showing another. Molly, for all she was acting from a place of loving Harry like a son, was treating Harry like the child he should’ve been and not as someone with a stake in the war. In a perfect world, Harry’s biggest concern at 15 would’ve been his exams. In canon, he’d just witnessed a death and was Voldemort’s biggest target. He deserved to know why, not be handled with kid gloves. I give Hermione more of a pass because she’s also a child and has no actual knowledge of psychology (nobody in HP seemingly does). She’s smart and all, but she’s 15 and way out of her depth, I doubt she was expecting this when Harry and Ron saved her from a troll. She’s interpreting Sirius’s actions from a lens of a child who’s stuck in the middle of a war that should’ve been dealt with by the previous generation and is just beginning to understand the scale of corruption in their world. She gets more of a pass on account of her age, but she’s wrong. Dumbledore gets no room whatsoever to judge Sirius, esp when he’d been dead less than an hour, bc he’s one of the main people that failed Sirius. He can vouch for actual confirmed Death Eater Snape, but he can’t check things out to see why Sirius did something so wildly out of character as betraying James? Sirius is having a real bad time in OOTP, stuck in a place of trauma that he had to legitimately flee as a teen, but he’s not being reckless. He’s trying to make the kids understand that this is a war and their parents want to protect them from that, he wants people to stop thinking ignorance will protect Harry when it never has, and he wants the kids to be able to protect them. Like, the DA was a decent chunk of why the kids survive DH, how are people saying Sirius was reckless to encourage it when that’s the only reason the kids could later defend themselves? Plus, Sirius was one of the best fighters in DOM, he was putting a fighter back in play by heading there. Every adult there were barely keeping the kids safe, they needed every single adult present at the DOM.

Oh, for sure the author did a bad job of it! She really wanted us all to hate Sirius (he was modeled after an ex of hers, after all) and that backfired terribly because she's actually a bad writer 😂 Just like she then tried to convince us that the two remaining queer-coded characters were actually straight.

[00queasy00]

9 Fandom Folks To Get To Know Better

Thanks for the tag @cealesti!! :3c

Three ships you like:

oh god this is hard okay okay uuhh the ones on my mind rn 1. tomarrymort / soulseeker (hp) - i find them so iconic, you know? their ideals, their parallels, their similarities, there seems to be new things to discover about them at every turn, just keep putting them in situations and watch them wreck havoc. the soulseeker fandom is filled with so much amazing amazing people so kind and creative, i feel like i have accidently stumbled upon the holy grail, the paradise that never ends <3 2. radiodust (hazbin hotel) - i ship them as literally the queer-coded villains that have nothing in common, yet they bond over being the meanest hottest couple in the hotel together and know the ideal make-up brands to go into territory battles in. theyre like two drama queens on different ends of the spectrums. i like them toxic, i like them dramatic af, i like them in pink and red hahaha XD 3. lawlight (death note) - tbh im fairly new into the ship, despite being a longterm death note fan :0 i was more into mellodramattic before lawlight era hit me recently lol. i love how people, pretty much, turn them into their personal anime yaoi dolls and force them to kiss lol.

First ship ever:

uuummmmm im thinking hetalia ??? XD uh England and America <3 i can never get over the angst. the sunshine gay and the grumpy gay dynamic.

Last song you heard:

La Vie en rose (alastor cover) by Paranoid DJ Please check out PARANOiD DJ's fan songs for hazbin / helluva, theyre so good!!! The Lucifer, Alastor, Stiker, and Verosika songs are my faves!

Currently reading:

Vicious Circle by Bakuko, cyberslut404, estnedo I barely started chapter 1, so no thoughts yet besides I am excited to check this story out !! The Emporer and The Star by wynnebat I am rereading this story <3 I enjoy it so much and the confusing and deadly feeling Harry is having with his Seer abilities.

Currently watching:

I am actually watching a few things rn, I jump around a lot depending what I am watching with who: -Gurren Lagann - my lovely partner never seen it! i had to change that! one of my fave fave core animes. -Toilet-bound Hanako-kun - a comfort show with gorgeous. gorgeous designs and a fun twist of traditional ghost folklore. -Heartstopper Season 2 - my wife loves the comic, so here we are. -Trolls Dreamworks Movies - watching with friends <3 the designs are so adorable and are very fun! i am always so blown away with how creative the team uses different craft textiles throughout the movies! the second and third movie are my fave <3 theyre like an hour and half long each! fairly short, but i HIGHLY RECOMMEND for a good time!! -Harry Potter Movies - watching with friends on saturdays <3

Currently consuming:

Water!! Stay hydrated folks!! <3

Currently craving:

to listen to magnus archive from the beginning again -- but rather wait for the whole story to be revealed first before restarting it again x_x

Tagging (no pressure!!): @raehb336, @i-dream-of-libraries, @liquidluckandstuff, @laserswordtraining, @chaos-bear, @theonceandfuturequeenoftarts, @tommarvoloriddlesdiary, @isalisewrites, @cloverwoodss, @kagariasuha @duplicitywrites @crowcrowcrowthing and whoever wants to join! if you havent been tagged and see this, I TAG YOU! come join its fun :3

[princess-of-the-corner]

Fascinating that you bring up Enji/Rei as the only relationship you've seen where x/y is canon but x/z VASTLY outnumbers them to a startling degree.

I can think of one off the top of my head. I am filthy filthy Marauders fandom trash, and consistently annoyed that I am Marauders trash because JKR SUCKS. But wolfstar (Sirius Black/Remus Lupin) is such a cornerstone of the HP fandom that it is basically responsible for the separation/subcategorization in Marauders vs. HP. It's actually fascinating how much of both fandoms is built on this one ship.

This is despite canonical Tonks/Lupin, which most people consider exceptionally stupid not just because of Wolfstar but also because both characters are overwhelmingly queer coded. Between those two factors, there are about 53,000 fics with wolfstar tagged on just ao3 and only 4,000 with tonks/lupin.

See Wolfstar is a weird opposite to me because of the context around it. Both Sirius and Remus were introduced in Prisoner of Azkaban, given a backstory of being friends in school and perceived betrayal and finally reuniting and were shipped immediately.

Tonks wasn't introduced until 4 years and two books later in Order of the Phoenix, and her affection for Remus wasn't shown until another book/2 years later in Half-Blood Prince, and throughout the last two books the romance is incredibly strained and seemingly one-sided at times before they die.

So here I get why there's more Wolfstar content, and also I know that Wolfstar fics either just have Remus/Tonks not happen because of it, or they just writ content from before Sirius's death.

Swinging back to Enji/Rei: one of the first things we know about Enji is that he has a wife and kids. And while that marriage is...... *gestures*, it's still a marriage that would need to be addressed no matter who you ship him with.

[ladycatryx]

In Defense of Harry Potter

If you or someone you love is a trans person in crisis: The Trevor Project‘s 24/7/365 Lifeline [US]: 866-488-7386 Trans Lifeline [US]: 877-565-8860 TrevorChat, (online instant messaging option) International Support: TrevorSpace

I minored in Gender Studies for both my Bachelor's and Master's. I have a bookshelf full of queer theory. I have several trans friends.

And I went to a Harry Potter themed party the other day.

Like many of my fellow 90s kids, I grew up reading Harry Potter. It was an era-defining feature of my adolescence, eagerly anticipating book releases and midnight movie theatre screenings. But unlike many of my peers, it is not merely a feature of my past. I still regularly read and write Harry Potter fanfiction. I have beautiful art books and unofficial compendiums chock-full of lore and behind-the-scenes details. I am a HP trivia wizard---or witch, as the case may be. I have so much investment into the lore and the world of Harry Potter, and I often find myself in Hogwarts and the surrounding Highlands in my dreams---even moreso now that Hogwarts Legacy has given us a first-person and 3D experience of the layout and landscape of the Wizarding World. So I relished the chance to don my Slytherin robes and get all dressed up in character. The pictures turned out great. But I couldn't post them on any of my social media. I have been told, in no uncertain terms, that anyone who continues to support or engage with the Harry Potter franchise is a TERF and a fascist. Full stop. To quote one of my friends, "I don't interact with Harry Potter media anymore. And frankly I treat any interest in it as a sign of transphobia for my own safety. So I really don't care to know much about the [Hogwarts Legacy] game aside from the disgusting blood libel it chose to use in it's narrative. It's a hard line for me as a trans person."

It's a controversial topic, to be sure. Now I absolutely hate cancel culture's tendency to drag something someone said 10 years ago into the spotlight and blow it out of proportion, even sometimes taking it out of its original context to spin it as a bad actor with bad intentions, and then to deny people the ability to apologize or acknowledge personal growth (see: what happened to Lindsay Ellis. Thanks, I hate it). But let's be clear: that's not the case here. JKR has only dug herself deeper into the hole, being belligerently and purposefully ignorant and cruel despite a PR team probably begging her to shut up, and despite an entire world of people who have attempted to teach her better. She has acted, and continues to act, in bad faith, even writing trans and queer-coded villains and serial killers into her latest books. This is not a person who has attempted to apologize and make right her wrongs when they've been pointed out. This is someone who has been given every opportunity to not be an awful person and instead has doubled down on her hurtful and hateful views.

So, now that we know JKR's true colors, clearly the entire world of Harry Potter is suspect, as is anyone who continues to enjoy it....right? Sure, maybe not everyone who still rocks their House Pride merch is a TERF, but, like the sandwich-eaters of Chick-fil-A who just need their chicken fix, they certainly can't be counted as allies....right?

I've struggled with this.

And maybe this entire blog post will be read as nothing more than a selfish person defending their right to enjoy a thing guilt-free in order to conveniently overlook or dismiss the harm they're doing by persisting in centering their nostalgia over the real-life danger JKR's views presents to trans people. You can be the judge of that, I suppose.

My impulse since all of this has been to lean into "death of the author," an argument that says, essentially, it is not authorial intent that matters for meaning, but the text itself that is authoritative. In theory, the text can speak for itself, and the way readers engage with it and interpret it can stand in isolation from whatever meaning was meant by the author. (For an excellent video on this subject, click here, and here for a JKR-specific one). But I'd like to expand on that here, because 1) as the links above point out, engaging with the work of a living author still empowers them and gives them a platform and 2) is usually just an emotional response to silo oneself from the guilt of consuming the content of a problematic creator. In other words, it's a cop-out.

But I'm a sociologist. I'm currently an ABD Ph.D. student. I specialize in theory, gender, religion, and culture---the latter is just an elaborate system of signs and symbols that we are embedded in and have to make meaning out of. And meaning-making is a messy business. Interpretation is a vital and integral part of meaning-making. Messages aren't just handed down from the heavens and absorbed---social actors are actively engaged in the process of receiving them. Sometimes there are interferences, misunderstandings, and mixed signals that scramble the meaning. Intent does not equal impact, and so the messages we receive and understand do not always correspond to the meaning that was meant. (Again, not saying JKR is misunderstood or that we're misreading her intentions here---she's pretty unequivocally awful. But I am saying that in a world where meaning is what we make it, a trash person can still produce something of value, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder.)

Sometimes reading a meaning other than that which was meant into something can have humorous consequences. Sometimes the results are disastrous. Sometimes it means that we humans, as pattern-seeking creatures, see the face of Jesus on a slice of toast, or a baby-shaped cloud in the sky the same week we find out a loved one is pregnant. I think the fact that we can make meaning where there is none and make beauty out of nothing is spectacular, miraculous. In this age of disenchantment, many people are looking for ways to reconnect and reenchant their lives, to create sacred rituals out of their mundane routines. We are meaning-seeking creatures, and with many people feeling burned by, disillusioned with, or distrustful of traditional religion, we are turning to nontraditional sources of wisdom and inspiration. For literal millions of people, the Harry Potter books have been one such source. And I think there is value to them still, despite what has come to light about their author.

In college, I was heavily involved in interfaith activism. I no longer identify as Christian, but I was raised Christian. And I started to feel the parallels from my own experience.

If a person has been hurt by a Christian, feels Christianity is toxic, identifies passages in the Bible that have been used to oppress or were the product of a time that was openly endorsing of slavery, homophobia, misogyny, etc...their experience is valid. They have a right to say "Hey, I was raised with this thing and at one point it meant a lot to me (or maybe not, maybe it was always forced) but it hurt me and I no longer feel comfortable there and I choose not to engage with Christianity anymore." They have a right to be wary if they hear someone is Christian and they don't know anything else about that person.

But no religion is a monolith. The Bible is not a monolith. For every passage that may be hurtful or harmful or be interpreted in bad faith to support a particular agenda, there are dozens more about love, kindness, and compassion. Religion has been the driving force behind so many wars and evils...but it has inspired countless good as well. The Bible has been wielded as a weapon to cause suffering as well as been looked to as a resource of hope and peace.

I'm not saying that cancelling someone for resonating deeply with the Harry Potter series and not wanting to give it up because of what it means to them is like asking someone to not be a Christian or to give up their faith so as not to offend others. Of course, the comparison seems flippant. Religion is religion! We give it special legal protections because of its literally sacred status. It concerns matters of ultimate importance. The other is...fiction.

But what is sacred is a social construction. I'm going to bracket here any discussion about the existence or nonexistence of deities, an afterlife, and etc. What does religion actually do for people? What does it mean in the lives of the faithful? It is a source of comfort. Of hope. Of inspiration. Of answers. It can be a moral guide, with lessons and instruction and a guide for how to live that others can model their own lives on.

Casper ter Kuile, cofounder of the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, (check out their values statement if you want to know where they stand---spoiler alert, they're as progressive as it gets) would not find the comparison ridiculous. In fact, ter Kuile (who is, by the way, a gay man) founded the project with a fellow student while at Harvard Divinity School. In his book The Power of Ritual (2020) he talks about how the HP books have been a source of solace and inspiration and sacred reflection for him---and not just for him, but for thousands. Millions.

"Millions of readers already treated the Potter books as sacred in their own way. Therapists and counselors report young people using Hogwarts as their psychological safe space to go to in times of struggle and pain. And it isn't simply a refuge from the world. The Harry Potter Alliance, founded in 2005, has mobilized thousands around the country to act on marriage equality, fair-trade chocolate, and other progressive issues, using the narratives and rituals from the books to motivate and shape winning campaigns. Just as social justice movements have reinterpreted biblical narratives like the Exodus story and quoted the psalms, so too the Harry Potter Alliance references characters and plotlines from the wizarding world to motivate readers into action" (2020:44-45).

The HP books have helped people (and kids) cope with the loss of loved ones, understand privilege, learn that adults, authority figures, and even the government that makes the laws can lie and be corrupted and may not always have one's best interests at heart. That what is legal is not necessarily right or just. That evil doesn't just look like pale, snake-faced men who attempt to murder babies---sometimes it's enough for people in power to do nothing, to care more about maintaining their own relative privilege, power, and comfort. That often bullies lash out because they too have been hurt, and that hate can be easier to speak than love when it's all that you know...but that in the end, it is our choices that matter, not our abilities or the circumstances of our birth. The books have powerful messages, and they have nuance.

Take, for example, Petunia Dursley. As ter Kuile points out, universally disliked. But:

"As Vanessa and I reread that first chapter, we saw a young woman, unsupported in motherhood, suddenly given a second infant to care for after the death of her sister. Imposed on by a world she has always envied and feared, with no explanation, she feels vulnerable to a society that can only spell danger. No doubt, Petunia is abusive to Harry. She neglects him in the most foundational years of his life. But this sacred reading illustrated that narratives of good and evil nearly always are more complex when we risk our hearts to explore a sacred reading. It not only gave me a new lens for understanding a character, but it challenged me to realize I'd let the polarizing news narratives construct simplistic binaries of innocence and guilt" (2020:49).

The books aren't perfect. Even the messages JKR wrote into the books aren't all good, even if many are. Many people despise Dumbledore despite the twinkle in his eye and his many wise sayings for the way he used Harry like a pawn, like a tool---keeping him in the dark and just getting him to survive long enough to get him to die at the right time. By putting him in danger year after year, putting responsibility on his shoulders that no child should ever have to bear. For thinking that there would ever be an acceptable reason to leave him in the care of abusers, blood or no, magical love ward or no. And I love fanfiction because this messiness is explored and unpacked.

And yet, in canon, this jock who married his high school girlfriend and became a cop named his son after that guy and the incel who lusted after his mom man who tormented him and his schoolmates for years (I do love Snape as a literary character though, speaking of nuance...) instead of, oh, Remus, Rubeus, Arthur...y'know, any of the other men that were actually decent father figures to him in his life.

And yes, there are some heinous things in the book, like giving the Asian character the name Cho Chang and the Black man the name Shacklebolt. The antisemitism of the way goblins are portrayed: big-nosed, greedy, and money-hungry. And don't get me started on the fucking shofar. It has become trendy to shit on the books and other related IP, even to the point of ridiculousness. (Case in point: the uproar over the inclusion of a trans character in Hogwarts Legacy. And not from TERFs, but from the progressive community. At first I didn't understand---performative allyship? Surely her inclusion, and the ability to make trans characters in the character create, is better than the alternative, right? Apparently, it's her name that's the issue: Sirona Ryan. I had to actually look up why people were mad because again, I didn't get it. Evidently, people took issue with the "Sir" and the "Ryan," arguing that two such masculine-sounding elements on a trans woman's name was the equivalent of naming her "Penis McMan." Yes, really. Guess we better tell Serena Williams she's canceled too for perpetuating the "Black women athletes are too muscular and masculinized" stereotype). Anyway, it's been a dogpile lately to point out the plot holes and the poor world-building. And I admit, fanfiction authors often wield some amazing transformative alchemy, building on some of the half-assed parts of the lore and magic system and turning it into something far superior to what is canon. Nevertheless, it is reductive and revisionist history to portray the books as something other than the international bestsellers that they are. They are not the most amazing, brilliant things ever written, and yes, there are series out there that deserve the fame and attention and accolades that the Harry Potter series got. But nor are the HP books terrible derivative drivel that suddenly everyone wants to portray them as. In reality, they're a mixed bag.

What they undeniably are is important to people.

People read sacred texts because:

"the thousands of years in which generations have engaged these texts is something we need to pay attention to; and that we can step into a continuous stream of conversation between the text and human beings that has lasted centuries" (The Power of Ritual 2020:38).

There are nuggets of wisdom and timeless truths to be found, even in fiction. There is nostalgia for those of us who literally grew up with these characters, being of a similar age to Harry, Ron, and Hermione as we first read the books. The HP series is fairly unique in being both culturally relevant---a pop culture touchstone (I can't recall ever attending themed midnight release parties at a bookstore for any other series)---and possessing of longevity. The HP generation is passing the books along to their kids now. It connects generations in a way not many other franchises do. Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are the only other ones that come to my mind at the moment.

JKR is a TERF (which is not a slur, incidentally). Unapologetic. An awful person, certainly.

But I've seen people call her evil.

We can debate the meaning of the term, certainly. Evil itself is not black and white---her own books taught me that. If someone is evil, can anything they produce contain some good? Or is it irreparably tainted? Can someone be evil and still donate millions of pounds to charities for the homeless and victims of domestic violence? Could an evil person be capable of writing such emotionally deep and nuanced characters?

I think we are all capable of great evil and great good. Again, I'm not advocating for forgiveness or redemption here---she's done nothing to earn such goodwill. I don't support her.

But I think there are ethical ways to continue to engage in and enjoy the franchise. Don't buy officially licensed merch---but the fan-made stuff on Etsy labeled "Red House" or "Magical School Badger House" I find fair game. Buy your copy of Hogwarts Legacy used, or borrow from a friend. (Personally, I'm pessimistic enough to think that there's nothing I personally can or can't do that will financially impact her in any meaningful way...throwing away all my HP merch and not buying the $7 Slytherin slipper socks at BoxLunch isn't going to make a dent. It's up to the major companies and corporations that have partnered with her in the past to license Harry Potter-themed merch to roll back their association, and for production studios and actors to refuse to associate with the franchise. That's what she'll notice and care about. But I digress.)

On a personal level, I find deep psychological satisfaction from identifying as a Slytherin. (I'm also that bitch who is way too into her MBTI archetype and knows her rising sign and other obscure details of her natal chart, so sue me.) Just the other day, I got into an argument with my partner, who accused me of employing leading questions to get information about his mental state and plans for the day---he prefers directness, I find subtlety to be much more polite. We speak different languages. That's not the point. The point is, he felt manipulated, and even though he knows me well enough to know it wasn't out of any malicious intent, it felt slimy to him. From my perspective, my approach comes from a history of emotional abuse from my father, who has Borderline Personality Disorder and a host of other mental illnesses I inherited (yay, trauma!) In other words, it's a survival tactic. (Self-preservation: also a Slytherin trait.) I had to learn to prioritize myself from a very young age to avoid being taken advantage of. To some, that may sound selfish. For me, it was survival. And the word "manipulation" gets a bad rap, but it literally means "to handle or control (a tool, mechanism, etc.), typically in a skillful manner." That isn't necessarily sinister or done with bad intentions. It's strategic. It's smart. It's what emotionally aware humans have evolved to do as social animals. We don't talk about manipulating tools as shady behavior. It's an asset, this ability.

Maybe that's my ambition speaking. But I wouldn't be where I am today---working hard to earn my Ph.D., having already earned a Master's Degree from a highly prestigious institution, having graduated summa cum laude with research honors at my previous university---without ambition. But I do understand that people distrust sly, slippery, cunning people. But Coyote is a culture hero, I don't abide by the maligning of snakes and serpents, and I'm a Prometheus/Lucifer apologist. People may not find their methods entirely honorable, but you can't argue with the results being for the greatest good. Those cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends. It all fits, and it's a label that allows me to understand myself and my motivations and priorities better.

If you've been hurt and betrayed by JKR and can no longer find solace in a world that was once a source of comfort for you, I grieve that with you. I understand, and I'm sorry. No one should be forced to engage with something they find tainted and harmful, and everyone must draw that line for themselves. But I think there are ethical ways to continue to enjoy and engage with a franchise that has been a source of joy and inspiration for so many, including those within the LGB+TGNC community. The text even lends itself to queer, subversive, progressive, and action-oriented readings, which is the sweetest form of reclaiming and empowerment, and which the queer community has a long history of---appropriating the hurtful and harmful and transforming it into something playful and prideful. Queer folx are the original alchemists.

It's an egregore now, especially the fanon version of the Wizarding World. It's the collective product of millions of people loving and investing in these characters and their world. It has taken on a life of its own, independent of its creator. And like Lucifer, like humankind, it can defy the will and designs of its master and break away. It's expanded beyond her. She may have built the framework of the house, but we grew up there. We furnished it. And we can return to move things around and play in it from time to time. Some of us never left. I won't give that up because I've been made to feel I have to.

Oh, and that Harry Potter themed party? It was held at a business that is an unofficial hub for the local queer community. A portion of the proceeds went to a local LGBTQ charity, and there were several trans people in attendance. And we all had a fabulous time.

[newtscamandersbf]

small rant on the scene of neville’s boggart and jkr in general lol

tbh sev and remus r my fav chars ijdk how to feel abt the whole boggart scene? like i dont think he shouldve humiliated sev that way, but we do need to remember that jkr is transphobic as shit unfortunately. i cant ever imagine remus as being bigoted or transphobic/queerphobic though? we still need to remember that this was the 90s, and reps/scenes such as these were common in 90s/2000s media and the years before that. this scene also very much feels like jkr simply projecting on her fav character because it very much goes against what we know of remus and sev; remus felt bad for sev, but couldnt bring himself to tell his friends to stop because he thought they would drop him. he tried to tell them to stop once, but they didn’t listen, and he never tried again. he never participated in the bullying, nor helped snape; just watched from the sidelines, as he didn’t want sev to think he was like his friends/found family but also didnt want them to think he was 'betraying' them or something.

i like to imagine many things in hp in my own version of canon, and that involves this scene; i prefer to have it be remus telling neville to imagine snape doing something very out-of-character for him, which would be funny. for example singing, or dancing, etc..

in my books (no pun intended), he only told neville to imagine severus wearing his grandma’s clothes as his 'riddikulus' because the way nev’s grandma dresses looks funny (at least from remus’ pov). and just imagining severus dressing in a way completely different from how he usually dresses is funny, not because he’s in drag. i wouldnt even rlly consider that drag? while it was likely jkr trying to make fun of drag queens i dont think that was remus’ intention (does that make sense?). i think he told him to imagine sev wearing his grandma’s clothes bc nev’s grandma admittedly dresses in a way that looks funny/weird on her as well, and imagining such a serious and all-black man such as severus wearing it would be funny because of how out-of-character that is. i might just be biased bc remus is one of my comfort characters, and i’m just delusional, but hey.

the whole boggart scene in general makes me uncomfortable as a trans and queer person, and because i view sev as trans-coded or at least queer-coded. but i also view remus as queer-coded (not only bc of the lycanthropy, it’s his general vibe and the fact jkr /neg wrote him in the same way that she writes the 'good' hp mothers, not to mention his interactions with sirius and the fact david thewlis and the director themselves thought he was gay, but the allegory of his lycanthropy being his queerness also makes sense in an uncomfortable way? because if you take remus being outed as a werewolf, then quitting his job as a teacher [one of the only jobs he was ever able to get because of who he is] since he knows the parents will view him as a danger to the children, it sounds like a reference to homophobia. a very bad and admittedly anti-queer accidental queer-coding, but still. anyways we’re getting side tracked), and i genuinely cannot bring myself to see him as bigoted or in any way discriminating. to me that whole scene was just jkr projecting, which i think she unfortunately does a lot.. ew..

either way. the scene made me uncomfortable because it brings me back to my middle school, but both remus and sev are my fav characters and both remus making fun of snape in that way and snape outing him as a werewolf were shitty things to do and i don’t know whose part i should take.

when in doubt lets just blame all the problems on jkr. i hate her. i hope she perishes. the rest of u have good day tho ily, let me know what u think lol