[ SECRET POST #7035 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #7035 ⌋

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


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04. [WARNING for discussion of ableism, racism]




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05. [WARNING for discussion of JKR/transphobia]




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06. [WARNING for discussion of JKR/transphobia]




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07. [WARNING for discussion of IRL murder/true crime]



















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1004.
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

[fscom]

05. [WARNING for discussion of JKR/transphobia]
https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/8eeb5e5eb57f.png

Transcript by OP

[fscom]

Why do some people here get so defensive over criticisms of Harry Potter and JK Rowling, I do not get it. It is way out of proportion to any other fandom, it seems.

I have to ask this as a secret, I could never put my username to the question.

[(Anonymous)]

Idk which fandomsecrets you frequent but diehard HP stans are definitely not the majority here. Quite on the contrary.

[iff_and_xor]

Are there other fandoms that get criticized as consistently and with such zeal (here on FS)?

Not saying that the criticism is unwarranted, just wondering if the defensiveness for this particular fandom is largely explained by the proportion of criticism leveled at that particular fandom.

But I’m sure there are other factors too.

[(Anonymous)]

Only one I can think of would be Taylor Swift?

[iff_and_xor]

Good call. And she definitely gets her defensive fans too.

[(Anonymous)]

That's true. Taylor Swift and Harry Potter are actually kind of similar to one another in that way. They're both generally enjoyable and have huge appeal to the masses, and are simultaneously overrated and overhated by different groups.

[(Anonymous)]

both have crazy delusional stans as well as crazy delusional haters

people who make their lives into being fans or haters

tons of millennials in both

wild. i had never made that connection before but there really is a similarity between these fandoms

[(Anonymous)]

Both involve worshiping a woman with more money than god

[(Anonymous)]

Are the criticisms warranted? Or is it just "Rowling's a transphobe, therefore (insert 50 sins found in the books that are obviously born of the gateway transphobia)"? Because I don't think anyone cares if you call her writing mid or say other stories are better. It's not like they're false statements.

I know the temptation to shit on something just because someone is an asshole. But people also say things that just flat-out ignore why something is popular in the first place.

[(Anonymous)]

It's more like "JK Rowling is a transphobe, so you should stop enjoying her books because they're mid and other stories are better."

That's just... a mess of unrelated statements. The quality of her writing shouldn't be tied to her transphobia. It's okay to enjoy mid books, and it's okay if books that are considered mid are near and dear to your heart. That doesn't automatically change because of the author's personal character and actions.

And there are so many decent people whose writing is mid, JK Rowling being blasted because her writing is mid and conflating it with her transphobia is unfair to them. Bottom line, people who want to criticize her for her transphobia should stick to that and not bring her writing quality into it, and people who want to criticize her writing quality should stick to that and not bring her transphobia into it. And also maybe chill because being a mid writer isn't a horrible sin.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, there are definitely plenty of warranted criticisms. Yes, some people lump the issues with the author in with the issues with the books. But there are plenty of places that unexamined biases show up in her writing that can be off-putting to anyone outside the white middle class. A lot of fatphobia. And if you don't care about the stuff about race, class, beauty standards, queerphobia, that's fine! I mean, not 'fine' in that people won't judge you, but like... it IS fine if you don't want to make that part of your judgment on a book!

Putting all those things aside, the books aren't as original as they were hyped up as being to American audiences, but they happened to be the ones that got the big buzz and marketing push and for kids who never read Young Wizards or The Worst Witch, they opened up a new world. They have some weaknesses that don't hold up on reread as an adult, the ending was roundly criticized even by big fans at the time. I do not think they are very good books though I was in the fandom back in the day and did enjoy them when I was young, I think they are certainly more entertaining than what I have read of the author's adult fiction, and I think that there were reasons for the popularity, not *all* of which were manufactured. Not everything that is/was popular is trash, but it's not all treasure, either.

Some people do get very defensive about the books being called mid. I think the bigger problem is the people who can accept criticisms of the books themselves, but because of what the fandom was for them, they are unable to step away now, and keep supporting something they fully acknowledge isn't that good because of what the fandom part meant to them.

[(Anonymous)]

Because it's tiring. You can't breathe a word about liking the series without at least one person going off on a rant about her and... yes, we know she's an awful person. We know. It doesn't need to be repeated again and again.

Of course people get defensive. It's the same thing that happens when Taylor Swift gets slammed on here because someone dared to enjoy her music.

If you've got legit gripes about the media, cool, a lot of people looove discussing world building/plot holes in HP. Tons of people love to talk about the lyrics and production of Taylor's music.

But if all your opinion ever is 'they suck and are bad how dare you enjoy them' well, yeah, people are going to be defensive. Why wouldn't they be?

[(Anonymous)]

Not sure what exactly you mean, but as a former HP fan, what doesn't bother me are conversations about the many issues with the books, as well as the general consensus that we should not allow her to profit from the series in any way

What does bother me:

- People claiming that no one ever really liked the series. (The books were impossible to escape. They've been translated into dozens of languages. There were college courses built around them. It's cool if you never read them, but many people did.)

- People claiming anyone who likes the books is illiterate and needs to read real books. (As though you can't like more than one thing.)

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, HP is not one of my favorite series but so many people want to act like it's an awful series with no redeeming value that we were all just pretending to like or was only liked by small children and people with no taste. A book doesn't reach HP levels of popularity if it doesn't have *some* kind of mass appeal. The books have issues obviously, but clearly something in them resonated with a lot of people and no amount of insistence that the only people who liked them must have never read any other book won't change that.

[(Anonymous)]

"People claiming anyone who likes the books is illiterate and needs to read real books" Like if for reading one book you have forbidden to read more books. Rec is good, but I don't take the rec seriously if reading Discworld or watching The Owl house means I'll forget my nostalgia for HP.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like most people have complex feelings and they want to express the good/fond feelings they still have. At least on FS it's anonymous and we know that it's a secret of sorts. And it's not really overly defensive, outside of a few outliers (but that's how it is for most things, not just JKR or fandom in general).

[(Anonymous)]

Because a lot of the criticisms are for problems that plague fiction the world over and have plagued it for as long as modern fiction has existed, yet people act like they're unique to Harry Potter, because they're addicted to finding new things that are wrong with HP and having new reasons to add to the JK Rowling is a horrible person list. It's immature and disingenuous, and has become very far removed from any real concern over JK Rowling's actions. If anything, it's a distraction from them. JK Rowling continues to influence anti-trans policies and sentiments, but let's talk about how *spins wheel* an unnamed character in Book 2 is ADHD coded with their one line of dialogue and how they're treated in an ableist manner by the text in the one following line of prose about them.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

Do I have fond memories with friends of waiting in line for midnight book and film releases? Yes. Did I have a blast at the film museum when I went to London in 2012? Also yes.

But people should come before profits and she's already stated that she takes support of her work as support of her views. Find another hobby.

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of the people who are going around finger-wagging at others to find another hobby would be doing it to you too, for admitting you have any fond memories of being a fan. And the thing is that a good number of those people were probably also big fans at the same time as you were, but they're pretending that they weren't.