Well this aged like milk.

[u/waiha]

Stumbled upon this while clearing out the attic.

She visited my primary school in Edinburgh shortly after releasing TPS. The girl in front of me (my friend and train-to-school comrade) was Southeast Asian and has an incredibly elaborate sounding name. When Joanne screwed up her face when my friend gave her her name for the signature, I laughed. This is how she decided to sign my copy.

I was laughing at you, JK.

EDIT: It’s on EBay.

[u/pruneforce17 → u/[deleted]]

which she surely had some creative control over no? like the one trans video game character being named Sirona Ryan?

[u/LunaLilithLoveswood → u/pruneforce17]

I feel like the understandable and well deserved hatred of JKR has unfortunately clouded some people's judgement to the point where they are now incapable of rational thought regarding anything involving Harry Potter.

[u/Particular-Ad1523 → u/LunaLilithLoveswood]

I mean seriously. This is why I hate Reddit. I have no problem with them disliking JKR (I do too), but this revisionist history against the books is so dishonest and bad-faithed. It's so annoying as a HP fan. I'm convinced a good chunk of them haven't even read the books themselves and are only jumping on the HP hate bandwagon and copying these stupid arguments.

[u/LunaLilithLoveswood → u/Particular-Ad1523]

Especially since there is good criticism to be done in regards to the message of the books. Like how Snape gets redeemed after abusing children for 6 Books and generally how much child abuse is downplayed and therefore normalized in these books. Or the fact that love potions are just date rape drugs.

But do you read discussions about that? No it's always mimimi Cho Chang and Kinglsey Shacklebolt, House Elves and Goblins. All the Stuff that suddenly became problematic when Rowling went TERF but didn't bother people before.

[u/racalavaca → u/LunaLilithLoveswood]

Oh it's bothered people forever... You don't need to rank issues, mate, just because you have a problem with certain things doesn't make other problems less valid. And there are more than just those as well

[u/LunaLilithLoveswood → u/racalavaca]

Some of those issues just aren't issues. Like comparing House Elves to real life Slavery. A fair point when you believe Song of the South with it's happy slaves to be an accurate depiction of slavery otherwise those a disingenuous argument about a fictional race that does really love working and serving more than anything.

The Goblins are treated as if JKR invented them, she didn't Goblins existed in fiction before. And most importantly, Goblins are not Jews but rather well... Goblins

Cho Chang is not a real female Asian name in that combination. That's ignorant but not racist.

And Kingsley is called Shacklebolt cause he's a cop. That's nominative determinism and lazy writing but also not racist.

And I've never heard anybody complain about any of those famous four of disingenuous HP criticisms before she turned out to be a TERF.

[u/racalavaca → u/LunaLilithLoveswood]

a fictional race that does really love working and serving more than anything.

Oh come off it, mate... That's just not how it works and you know it. You can't just completely divest your work of fiction from any collective cultural beliefs or events in real life without any effort to explain or investigate why and expect people to just take it at face value! It's horrendous writing at the very least.

Cho Chang is not a real female Asian name in that combination. That's ignorant but not racist.

You're splitting hairs, what is ignorance about a race if not racism? 😂

I've never heard anybody complain about any of those famous four of disingenuous HP criticisms before she turned out to be a TERF.

Oh, well if you never heard it then it must certainly not have happened, I apologise.

[u/LunaLilithLoveswood → u/racalavaca]

Maybe it's horrendous writing but it has nothing to do with real life slavery. Of course there are parallels and of course we can discuss how this magical slavery is presented and stuff. Problem is it's always presented as if she is defending real life slavery with the inclusion of this fictional race which is a disingenuous take.

And intent matters. It's not a big deal if she gave her that name out of ignorance it would be if she did it because of racism. Lang Lang exists and that's certainly a name I'd think was racist if I didn't know better. So it makes sense for Cho Chang to be the opposite. A name that sounds like a normal Asian girl name unless you know better.

The problem is that JKRs Heel turn is retroactively pressed into the HP Books whether it fits or not, just to make out she's always been like this even though, unfortunately, people change.

[u/racalavaca → u/LunaLilithLoveswood]

You're acting as if she (and her publishers) never had a chance to do any amount of research, poor things, they were too busy stealing and poorly adapting other people's ideas, I guess 🤷🏼‍♂️

Words have meaning, books have meaning. Writers have a responsibility to think about these things, and when they don't, they open themselves to valid criticism for their shoddy work... It's far from being some sort of witch hunt and not like she's not profited immensely and continues to profit from it, mate.

[u/racalavaca → u/[deleted]]

I definitely think the sirona thing is far fetched, but to be fair she is pretty close to an evil villain at this point with how entrenched she is and just how much she does about it

[u/Boring_Intern_6394 → u/pruneforce17]

She had them only use British and Irish actors in the film series as part of the contract. She didn’t have any creative control over the plot adaptations of the films

[u/mightylordredbeard → u/pruneforce17]

She had zero creative control or involvement in the video game and the devs decided to put a trans character in to show their support of trans people and that their views aren’t aligned with hers. It’s like you people are fishing super hard for something to be mad about and trying to create new issues lol

[u/Thrownaway5000506 → u/pruneforce17]

What a reach lol

[u/Flat-Echidna191 → u/pruneforce17]

I doubt she was involved in the development of Hogwarts Legacy.

[u/hamburgergerald → u/pruneforce17]

Rowling had nothing to do with the video game.