[ SECRET POST #4293 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4293 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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05. [SPOILERS for Castle Rock]



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06. [SPOILERS for Deadpool 2]



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07. [WARNING for discussion of rape/assault]

[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #614.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[ladysugarquill]

people keep forgetting Jo started writing them in the late 80s/early 90s. The HP books are heavily political - for the stuff that was important for Jo when she was working in Amnesty International in the 80s! That's why there's so much about totalitarian governments and people whose entire families are killed for speaking up against them, useless bureaucracies, people disappearing, political murders, torture and illegal imprisonment, a metaphor for stigmatizing illnesses like AIDS, veterans without access to mental health services, etc.

Not to mention Scholastic was banning LGBT characters in children's books as far as the mid 2000s (just ask KA Applegate). Even Rick Riordan's lauded Canon Gay Kid was a retcon that happened *after 8 books*, in fucking 2013.

So yeah, don't blame people for not having a fucking time machine.

[(Anonymous)]

Scholastic wasn't the only publisher, and yes, there were more inclusive middle grade and young adult works published well before Philosopher's Stone in 1997. Deathly Hallows, the book that gets the most wank about how we should just read between the lines already, came three years after the Domestic Partnership Act in the U.K..

[(Anonymous)]

She didn't write Half Blood Prince or Deathly Hallows in the early 90s. She wrote them in the 2000s. At a point when she was already one of, if not the, most powerful, most popular, richest writers on earth.

I have an extremely hard time believing that she couldn't have had a line in DH or HBP about Dumbledore being gay - or at least some kind of direct reference - if she wanted to. She didn't want to, that's the choice she made.

[(Anonymous)]

In the 2000's the "woke" and "SJW" craze wasn't as massive as it is today. Nobody was criticizing her for lack of diversity or whatever. At least not to the extent fucking everything is criticized with these days.

It also depends if you believe she always meant Dumbledore to be gay or if it was only tacked on to appeal to aforementioned SJW's long after the books were finished. I honestly don't think she originally wrote Dumbledore gay or Hermione black, but she tried to gain some brownie points by pretending that she intended that without ever actually committing to it.

[(Anonymous)]

As a gay: no, Dumbledore was definitely fuckin' gay. The way he talked about things RE: his ex was how I'd have written around a gay character as a gay person.

[ayebydan]

this. I am genuinely baffled at how anyone ever read Dumbles as straight and that was before JK confirmed he was gay. She used a lot of stereotypes to aid her but she dropped a lot of hints along the way.

[(Anonymous)]

Such as...?

No, I'm legit curious because not one hint crept into any of the books except the last one, and I've read them pretty closely.

[(Anonymous)]

I believe that Dumbledore was meant to be gay. But writing him using Hayes-era tropes and coding during a decade when many of her peers in SFF and middle-grade fiction were taking risks to write gay characters openly doesn't give her any credit either. It really baffles me how "Jo" apologists keep giving cookies for compliance with industry censorship. Especially now that it's happening all over again with the Fantastic Beasts franchise.

[(Anonymous)]

This. So odd that people talk as though Rowling had zero clout after the modest success of her first book, haha.

[(Anonymous)]

I always find people calling her 'Jo' to be creepily overinvested in the author as this godlike figure of worship (maybe it's the 'I stand with Jo' 'Jo's Army!' stuff).

You didn't disappoint.

[(Anonymous)]

Please look upthread for the comments about how Scholastic is one publishing company out of many, and about challenging it'd be to exercise creative control over a bestselling, wealthy author of the world's most popular ongoing series. And if, as you seem to imply, "Jo" was so on fire about supporting just causes and using them in her work, stopping her from writing gay characters would've been impossible for her publishing company.

Mind you, I don't think she's a bad person for not including more diversity or LBGQT characters in Harry Potter. I don't even think it's a huge moral failing in her work or her personal life. But this excuse of "... but Scholaaaaastic!" is a very, very flimsy one.