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It’s always interesting whether people consider getting offended vs allowing offense as being a strong-man attribute depending on the situation. Like, he’s defending JK for being offended at other people living their lives, but people standing up for the oppressed makes them weak.
Maybe defending people is strong and getting offended by other people existing is weak.
It’s worth mentioning that article is from 2020, around the time she had started pivoting from TERF-lite to TERF-MAX. It was…reasonably possible to assume at the time, for someone who wasn’t paying close attention, that her opinions were still rooted in misguided concern rather than open bigotry.
She had only just posted her manifesto a few months earlier, according to Vox’s helpful timeline, which reads reasonably if you’re unaware of the multitude of false and misleading claims she parrots.
The core theme of Harry Potter is about the power of love; and yet now she is being an insufferable, bigoted bitch. Wasn’t she also for accepting refugees but then when right-wingers told her to allow refugees to stay in her house, she went silent?
She ruined her IP, I used to look at death eaters as fascists and the good guys as people who were kind, welcoming, wacky, they transfigured, they were free to be whatever they wanted without having to prove their purity, now I’m not sure what she thinks death eaters are…and have to look at all the hidden stereotypes in the book in a different light.
Not to shit on one of your favorite works of fiction but this is exactly why it’s a book for kids/teenagers. There are VERY FEW cases were the bad vs good is so black and white. Life is made up of shades of grey and as I’ve gotten older I’ve lost respect for writing that paints such a simple view of right and wrong. Without nuance either side can look at themselves as the good guy and the other as pure evil.
But that nuance exists in the books, there are family ties that cut across faction allegiances, double agents, traitors, misunderstood people, ambiguous characters. However, faction construction and ideology is very reminiscent of 20th century european history, so there is a grounded sense of black and white, unless you consider elitism, classism, racism and gratuitous violence to subjugate others as something that can be seen in a good light, somehow.
But that nuance exists in the books, there are family ties that cut across faction allegiances, double agents, traitors, misunderstood people, ambiguous characters
So there’s nuance in everything but the plot?
So there is a grounded sense of black and white, unless you consider elitism, classism, racism and gratuitous violence to subjugate others as something that can be seen in a good light, somehow.
Theres nothing grounded about magic Hitler. Hitler himself and the rise of nazi German had more nuance other than they were all just _pure evvviiiillll _. Works of fiction that have these black and white struggles between the knight in shining armor and the devil incarnate who wants to destroy the world lack depth. It’s easy to make yourself the good guys in Harry Potter when all you have to do is not be the devil. It’s like the old school Disney formula of pretty white and charming is good. Ugly, vaguely ethnic, and awkward is bad.
I’m not going out in cloaks and masks killing minorities so I can’t be the bad guy. Making it harder for them to vote is no big deal. The death eaters go around killing unwarranted. There’s no way they’re pro-life like me. Clearly they’d love abortions! The Trans community is trying to corrupt and covert our kids just like voldemort! It’s literally that easy
Looks like you feel stronger about this than I do, buddy. I’m not close enough to being a fan to reply to all that :D Yeah, I guess abortion is a moral grey area…I don’t remember if that was in the book, but it would certainly have added some depth to it.
Harry Potter is racist AF. Rowling named the black guy Kingsley Shacklebolt and the Asian girl Cho Chang. The books are pro-slavery too, and argue that if you free slaves they’ll turn to alcoholism. Rowling has always been a white supremacist.
There are a lot of layers of arbitrary interpretation here. Can’t we just stick to criticize opinions JKR actually expressed and is known to support, without having to make shit up? There are plenty of them anyway.
P.s. Even in the worst case scenario, not every book is a manifest for what the author thinks. People are able to write stories that do not reflect their worldviews.
What JK Rowling has actually expressed is that when a black woman wins a medal for boxing, she is obviously a male, regardless of genetics, anatomy, endocrinology, the law, or her own personal history. Rowling thinks black women are below womanhood, and are only granted it by the grace of “real women” such as herself. She’s a white supremacist.
It doesn’t bother me, it seems just a silly and far fetched way to retrofit opinions on her, using an invalid methodology (I.e., you don’t have to agree with every detail you write about in a fictional book - I don’t think the books are a good argument to show she thinks school should start at 11 and last 7 years, for example).
On a greater scale, IMHO it makes the arguments against her less compelling, as I can’t honestly take seriously an argument that is based on choosing a name for a character or something like this, or a person who unironically uses this argument.
So you believe that a writer can somehow completely remove their opinions, morals, and political leanings from their writing? I mean we literally go through books in high school English and pick a part their themes in relation to their lives, beliefs, etc.
But I’m sure Lovecraft kept his fear of foreigners and contempt for minorities out of his writings tho
No, I believe that not everything an author writes is a political manifesto for their ideas. I believe some is, and in fiction this could be a very variable amount. The chance of minor plot or character features being such a clear representation of the author’s views is even smaller, compared to general and major plot dynamics or characteristics of main characters. Your Lovecraft example I think is very fitting, as even I (who studied few of his works) know a bunch of short stories entirely focused on the issue of “others”. It’s way more reasonable to infer the views of the author when this is a recurring theme, core to some works etc.
BTW from a logical standpoint, the negation of “everything” is not “nothing”. Me saying that I don’t think every element in a book is a manifesto doesn’t mean no element is.
So you believe that a writer can somehow completely remove their opinions, morals, and political leanings from their writing?
I do believe that is possible and I can tell you why- Roald Dahl was an unapologetic bigot. He absolutely loathed Jews. Even the museum devoted to him talks about it quite openly. But he never put any hint of that into his children’s books. To the point that my (Jewish) father, who was aware of it and very sensitive to antisemitism, still bought me Roald Dahl books.
I’ve read a fair amount of his adult fiction and don’t remember any antisemitism there either.
I don’t think that is the case for Rowling, however. I think her books, from what I have seen, are pretty openly bigoted.
She invented a world with race based slavery and only addressed it by normalizing the slavery whenever an outside took issue with it. It would have been easy to have the Weasleys be opposed to House Elves, but they also wanted one and the reader is suppose to feel pity that our poor, loving, relatable family can’t have a house slave.
See, it’s little things like that, building up over time, while I quit half way though. Way too many “that was weird” moments for me.
People are able to write stories that do not reflect their worldviews.
Are you sure? Like, regardless of JK’s politics, where else is an author going to get ideas from? People are able to write characters that don’t reflect their world view, but the thesis of a story is going to reflect the writer’s beliefs and morals.
She invented a world with race based slavery and only addressed it by normalizing the slavery whenever an outside took issue with it. It would have been easy to have the Weasleys be opposed to House Elves, but they also wanted one and the reader is suppose to feel pity that our poor, loving, relatable family can’t have a house slave.
This discussion is the kind of stuff I really don’t care about. I read the book when I was a kid and I remember clearly feeling for the injustice of elves being slave, cheering when Dobby was freed and for Hermione and her movement (she started one, I believe). So I am not sure what’s the point to discuss what the author “could have written” or what you think she meant you to feel when writing. These are both assumptions that I can’t even relate to, so they fit perfectly into what I was talking about: starting from “she is racist” and then trying to find bits and pieces in the books that can be used to support the claim.
but the thesis of a story is going to reflect the writer’s beliefs and morals.
Assuming this is true in every case, which is debatable, none of the stuff mentioned is the thesis of the book. In fact, I answered to a comment that was claiming she was a white suprematist based on character names and stuff like this. On the other hand, a HUGE role in the story is taken by the opposition to the “pure blood” movement (embodied by the main villain), and basically every positive character is or supports mixed-bloods (in English they are called mud-bloods? Not sure). To me this in complete anthitesis with white suprematism, but I would use neither to try to infer what JKR views are on race/society.
My point is that in 7 books and thousands of pages you will find details that you can use to suggest her views are anything you want. The main plot of HP is generally a positive story, nothing that can be linked to racism, white suprematism etc. and so are the main characters. So why picking minor details or creative interpretations of the books instead of her actual words as JKR? Like yes, a transphobic, racist, whatever wrote a nice book series, possibly before becoming transphobia, racist etc.
You’re misremembering how the slavery plot goes, for what it’s worth. In Chamber of Secrets, yes, Dobby is meant to be a sympathetic figure who we’re happy is freed. However, following her pattern of “returning to a plot point that got pushback two books ago to justify it”, in Goblet we learn that Dobby is a little sicko for wanting freedom and payment, and Hermione’s efforts with SPEW (btw that’s slang for vomit in the UK} are consistently portrayed as misguided and naive.
I think it’s incredibly silly to suggest that you can’t make some judgements about an author based on literally a million words that they pulled directly out of their psyche. Another classic example is Joanne’s portrayal of women. If a woman is evil, she’s fat, mannish, and ugly. If a woman is good, she’s motherly and, in the case of Hermione, Luna, and Ginny, not like other girls. Nobody is really saying she was a hateful bigot while writing those books, but the seeds were certainly there.
I will leave out interpretations of stuff in the book. You can interpret it in multiple ways, the author might have meant it in multiple ways, plus there are probably way more facts to keep into consideration that revolve around a character in the book that is pivotal for the whole plot.
I think it’s incredibly silly to suggest that you can’t make some judgements about an author
You can make some judgements, of course. But there
Nobody is really saying she was a hateful bigot while writing those books
The first comment in this chain, which is the reason why I am discussing at all…:
Harry Potter is racist AF. Rowling named the black guy Kingsley Shacklebolt and the Asian girl Cho Chang. The books are pro-slavery too, and argue that if you free slaves they’ll turn to alcoholism. Rowling has always been a white supremacist.
So, the nuance of the characterization of women, whatever that actually means in practice, sounds already more reasonable. Stuff like this quote are completely insane IMHO.
Fair enough, that person is definitely engaging in hyperbolic rhetoric, but I don’t think their point is entirely wrong. This feels like a classic case of racism and bigotry being seen as all-or-nothing situations. Those character names are obviously not coming from a place of cultural sensitivity (it’s been pointed out that Cho and Chang are both family names from entirely different cultures), and while you refuse to engage with the point, portraying slavery as anything other than abominable is just a terrible decision. I would not agree with the comment OP that Rowling has always been a white supremacist, but I would say that she is/was a rather thoughtless liberal, in the centrist definition of that word.
it’s been pointed out that Cho and Chang are both family names from entirely different cultures
Just for fun I opened LinkedIn, and I have found 2 pages of people called Cho Chang. This doesn’t say anything, of course, and I know nothing about Asian names and cultures, but I still found it interesting.
Fucking seriously. Like I get that people have nostalgia for the children’s books they read when they were younger, but most of us moved on and grew out of it.
Adult Harry Potter fans are worse than Disney adults. It’s like they found a series of (again, children’s) books and decided they never had to read anything else.
I remember seeing a tweet of hers where she doubled down on this by linking to some right-wing blog that claimed Khelif has XY chromosomes. Not sure if she’s changed course ever since the lawsuit or if she decided to triple down.
Edit: Looks like she was still tweeting about Khelif 6 days ago, but hasn’t tweeted since.
These people never walk back their bullshit. When called out on it, they will double down. When proven wrong, they will change the topic. But they need to be seen as strong, and right. Admitting that you’re wrong or even apologising is neither - it’s weak, and it can create doubt. If they were wrong about this, then what else are they wrong about?
They radicalise their followers with lies and falsehoods, and they can only keep that up if they are not seen as being wrong about what they say. They spread their lies with confidence and zeal, and if reality disagrees, then reality is wrong.
I’ve learned how powerful the unelected bureaucracy is.
You fucking clown, you are the unelected bureaucracy. It was you (unelected) and the people you put in charge of the economy (unelected) who fucked everything up.
It’s also a little amusing that what brought her down was ultimately the markets doing their thing. Assets in the free market changing in price is not the work of some unelected bureaucracy, that’s capitalism.
Liz Truss was brought down by capitalism, and greedy investors being smarter than her at predicting the future. She just can’t say that, or perhaps refuses to believe it.
It would be a lot more beneficial to them to add an arbitration clause to all their movies. Watching the next avengers movie? You give up the rights to your first born.
Every state should be required to put abortion on the ballot this year. (if a direct vote hadn’t happened since the overturning of Roe.) States with trigger laws shouldn’t be allowed to implement decades old laws that were passed by a old and dying generation.
Leave it to the doctor and the one who is pregnant. No one is seeking to abort at 8.5 months unless there is a serious medical reason. So yeah leave it to the doctor and the one who is pregnant.
I mean I would, but I’m also a man that knows better than to be in that situation so I got sterilized. If someone wishes to abort at 8 and some or even 9 I have no ground to stand on when it comes to someones life that doesnt even involve me
Sometimes when it comes up I like to say we should allow abortion up to 20 months, just to anchor the conversation a little. Little door in the face bargaining.
Yeah, there’s not a single woman who put up with the aches, morning sickness, tiny bladder, mood swings, gas, swollen joints, and everything else that accompanies pregnancy, for nine months before deciding she really didn’t want to be pregnant.
The only reason women delay getting abortions is either something happens late in gestation that puts the life of the mother or the viability of the fetus as risk, or Republicans put up a bunch of arbitrary obstacles.
What you are not thinking of is that there are psychologically instable people who are not able to make a conscious decision for themselves for a certain time or who just follow through with impulsive decisions. Also there are people being forced to do things by others.
Having medical reasons for a late abortion is one thing (while still being allowed to have aan abortion withourt any reasons up to a certain point of time), being allowed to abort whenever you want without any restrictions just something totally different.
An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. The guy I’m answering to is demanding either abortion with no restrictions or no abortion at all. So it is first of all not about what is happening, but about what would be allowed to happen. Abortion with no restrictions would make this generally legal.
That is not the definition of an abortion otherwise a birth would be considered an abortion. An induced labor at 9 months would be a birth. We already have laws on the books to prosecute people who kill live individuals.
The reason there should not be restrictions is because we do not need law enforcement analyzing every fucking later term abortion. Only 1% are at or past 21 weeks and the majority of those are at 21 weeks. The ones that occur after are from women who do absolutely want a child but there are complications with the fetus or the mother’s health. These women should not have to fear being arrested because they are aborting a non viable fetus which they will likely spend thousands of dollars to do. And if you think that is an unlikely scenario where the police would make an arrest, I have some bad news for you: women have been arrested for miscarriages. Hell, one woman was arrested after being shot caused her to miscarry.
So how do you define an abortion if not as a termination of pregnancy? The reasons you gave in my eyes are rather reasons to reform the American police system. How would police even know of a miscarriage or an abortion? Most countries have duty of confidentiality for medical staff?
Also there is still a difference between restriction and prosecution and restrictions can be more or less restrictive. If there are medical complications an abortion shall always be allowed and if not in my opinion only up to a certain point into the pregnancy. Starting at somewhere around 23 weeks a fetus is able to survive outside of the womb, so besides medical reasons I’d set a cut somewhere there.
Wait are you not American? Have you been following what the conservatives in America have been doing?
They’ve taken any common sense rule and stretched it to the breaking point. And after Roe v. Wade was struck they’ve made abortion completely illegal in large swaths of America.
They have several ways to find out. They’ve mandated hospitals to report any they find out about with stiff penalties for not doing so. Doctors are liable for 99 year prison sentences for performing one. Anyone can inform the police if someone they know is suddenly not pregnant anymore. Anyone can sue a former pregnant woman and she cannot get her legal fees paid for even if she proves it was a miscarriage. This all includes penalties for getting an abortion out of state.
Before Roe v Wade was struck they passed law after law to make it as hard as possible to get an abortion before the 22 week cut off. Including waiting periods meant to artificially delay things and run out the clock and closing down places you could get an abortion until some states had only one or two clinics in the entire state. Then they also funded “pregnancy crisis centers”, whose entire purpose was to obfuscate the entire process.
So yeah some people want no legal restrictions because the conservatives have proven they can’t be trusted with them.
Yeah we get that. But working on the cause is going to take a bit longer. It requires some reforms that our system is set up to make really hard. For now treating the symptoms is about all we can do.
If you pay enough you find one and if it is not restricted in any way it is also legal. I’m not against abortions, but I think there need to be at least some regulations.
Sounds like a privatized healthcare problem. Most people getting abortions are not able to pay for expensive doctors anyway.
This was extremely rare during Roe and will continue to be extremely rare, that shit doesn’t happen unless it’s a risk of harm to the carrier. All that law would do is put women at risk.
Let the medical experts write the regulations, like they do for every other medical procedure.
Shit in the ninth month it’s not an abortion unless the fetus itself is nonviable. Otherwise it’s a C-Section birth. Nobody is killing the fetus unless it’s absolutely necessary or before viability.
That’s a C-section birth. There are not abortions in the ninth month unless the fetus has become nonviable, which is extremely rare. More common is Mom gets hurt and the fetus has to be born early. In which case it gets care as a premie baby and all the help the hospital can give it to live.
Again. Ninth month abortions do not happen. Anybody trying to get your vote or your money by telling you they happen is lying to you.
I am not even American and I guess I’m discussing on a rather ethical way and too far from the reality America is facing right now.
My only point was that if you’d allow abortions without any restrictions and simply define an abortion as a termination of pregnancy you’d also allow this.
I’d still rather vote for this than the abolition of abortion, just to be clear, but this would also be choosing one minor bad thing over the other.
I fucking wish every state could. Texas law makes it pretty much impossible to get abortion access on the ballot. Abbott and crew knew exactly what they were kicking off when they signed their “heartbeat bill” pre RvW reversal. They knew they were laying thw groundwork to turn women into brood mares.
Our ballot initiatives need to come from our legislature itself, and then the voters get to say “Yeah I like that”, or “Nah not about it”.
“For Texans to gain a direct say in changing these policies, the GOP-run Texas Legislature would need to pass a proposed constitutional amendment, which voters would then need to approve. (This yay-or-nay procedure is the only statewide policy-making power that regular Texans currently enjoy; voters weighed in on 14 such proposals from the Legislature Tuesday). One reason the Lege doesn’t want to give voters the initiative is fairly obvious: It would mean relinquishing some power—and giving interest groups a way to pass laws without lining elected officials’ pockets.”
The interesting thing about a possible Google break-up is that there’s only one part of the company that generates revenues.
YouTube, Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, Android, Chrome, Google Drive, etc. are all money losers. Many of them don’t even offer an option to pay for the service. And, those that do generate tiny revenues compared to the ads machine.
Android is a huge money loser, but it’s worth it because all the things Android’s required to have end up showing people Google ads. If Android were split off, what would happen? Would Samsung etc. have to pay a fee to license the OS? Since it’s an open source project, isn’t it more likely they’d fork the code and just roll their own distribution? Maybe Samsung just buys Android? If so, what happens to Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi, etc? Maybe all the Chinese firms band together and support a fork of Android?
With Chrome, Google can afford to spend hundreds of millions a year developing it and then give it away for free because it not only sends people to Google Search, but it also collects all kinds of data on people’s browsing habits that can be used to tailor the ads they’re shown. If it’s spun off then what, do they think that for the first time ever people are going to be willing go spend $79.99 and actually buy a browser? Or a $19.99 monthly browser subscription? Almost certainly not. Which means people would use a free browser. On non-Apple OSes every browser other than Firefox uses the Blink codebase, which is basically Chrome, and developed by engineers working for Google. If Chrome is split off into its own company, what will happen to Blink? The existing codebase is open, but what’s the business model for coders at the new Chrome Inc. to keep working on it? So… does Microsoft now start paying Chrome Inc. to keep working on Blink? Or do they bring the browser back in-house again and we see the return of Internet Explorer? As for Firefox, it spends hundreds of millions per year on developing software, mostly Firefox. But, 90% of that money comes from Google, and that’s almost certain to stop. So, they’ll need to find a new business model too.
This is so different from previous break-ups. When AT&T was broken up, all that really happened was that instead of paying AT&T for their phone service, people now started paying NYNEX or Bell Atlantic or US West. But, now you’re dealing with a company where virtually every service they offer is free, subsidized by the ads they show, which can only exist when that service harvests personal data to feed the ad machine.
My personal suspicion is that this is such new territory that the Justice Department is probably not going to try to break Google up. They’re probably going to forbid things like paying off Apple and Firefox. They may force Google to license key search engine data. They may put restrictions on the ad machine. Breaking it up would be like knocking over a domino without knowing what the chain reaction would be. Also, I personally hope that if they take the win and choose a simple remedy, it will allow them to set a precedent and move on to all the other monopolies.
YouTube, Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, Android, Chrome, Google Drive, etc. are all money losers.
Only if you view them in isolation. In fact, they are what enables Google’s advertising dominance, by providing detailed insight into people’s lives, thereby powering the targeted advertising of AdWords and making it as valuable as it is.
Android is a huge money loser
Have you forgotten about the Play Store?
With Chrome, Google can afford to spend hundreds of millions a year developing it and then give it away for free
We used web browsers just fine before Chrome existed, before even Google existed, and nobody was paying $79.99 for them. (In fact, Chrome was originally built upon one of the free engines.)
I would personally be glad to see Chrome disappear, since it is now starting to cause the same problems that Internet Explorer caused more than 20 years ago. Monoculture is bad in this realm. Yes, Google does seem to pour a lot of resources into their browser, but most of that is self-interest; very little of the results are actually needed for a useful, healthy web.
Breaking it up would be like knocking over a domino without knowing what the chain reaction would be.
The same fear could have applied to the Bell System. I’m not worried. :)
Consumers spent about $47b in revenue on the Play Store, of that Google keeps about 30% so that’s $14b. Google’s total revenue is $306 billion, so the Play Store generates only 5% of Google’s total revenue.
We don’t know how much Android costs Google. They have to develop the OS and maintain it, they have to develop all the android apps. They have to run the servers that handle the traffic from the apps, and so-on.
We used web browsers just fine before Chrome existed
Between 1999 when Netscape was acquired by AOL and when Chrome was launched in 2008, Internet Explorer absolutely dominated browser user share.
before even Google existed, and nobody was paying $79.99 for them
No, but Netscape had planned to start charging for their browser, until Microsoft drove them out of business by bundling IE for free with Windows, illegally leveraging their monopoly to drive the company out of business. Microsoft was willing to give away IE for free because they thought it was strategically important to control the Internet, and were willing to take a huge loss on the browser business to do that. They used the money from Office / Windows to subsidize their free browser, which was illegal.
Consumers spent about $47b in revenue on the Play Store,
The article you linked actually says, “Consumers spent $47 billion on Google Play apps and games in 2023.” Google’s 30% of that every year can easily fund something like Android. And that doesn’t even count the advertising revenue from free apps on the Play Store, nor the additional reach into people’s lives that it provides, which translates to even more income from their highly targeted advertising platform.
We don’t know how much Android costs Google.
And yet you insist that Android is a huge money loser.
Internet Explorer absolutely dominated browser user share.
And?
They used the money from Office / Windows to subsidize their free browser, which was illegal.
Sigh… I don’t know what point you’re trying to make with all these tangential comments. If it’s to support your notion of a hypothetical “domino effect” making a Google breakup dangerous, I don’t think you’ve succeeded.
You have a lot of details slightly wrong. The Play Store makes money. People already have forked Android.
As for where Google makes and loses money… Don’t assume that we actually know. Large corporations are very good at hiding and shifting revenue for a variety of practical reasons, especially including tax reduction (both legal and illegal).
As for the chain reaction, by your reasoning nothing could ever be done in public policy. We never know exactly how the future will play out. But we have to deal with the damage currently occurring, and address that in a reasonable way, now. That’s how government works. That’s how the law works. There’s no better option.
My stance comes down to either tipped workers are making enough to need to pay taxes or they aren’t. I see no reason to give a bartender a tax break yhat we wouldn’t give to a line cook or retail worker with the same take home pay.
Negative. Words change over time, sometimes naturally and sometimes by force. We’ve decided to make it non-gendered because actress is absolutely gendered. Isn’t language neat?
Which is funny, because while it should be non-gendered, the Academy Awards still has separate categories for “Best (Supporting) Actor” and “Best (Supporting) Actress”. And unlike other competitions, the skills required and level of success is not objectively different between the sexes, so the differing categories exist as a relic from America’s more misogynist past.
I imagine it could be more than a relic of the misogynistic past. It could also be in recognition of the misogynistic present, where women may not have all the same opportunities available to them as men in certain industries.
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