The most famous forms of Holocaust denial and revisionism tend to focus on Jews, casting doubt, for example, on how many were exterminated in the camps. But denying the impact the Nazis had on the other groups they targeted, including queer and trans people, disabled people and Romani people, is still Holocaust denial. Maybe someone should tell J.K. Rowling.
Once I found out that Harry Potter glorified the British class system by having it take place at an elite private school where people less privileged than them are looked down upon and even called names I was already turned off… but once I got to the obviously antisemitic goblins, I was done.
I wish it wasn’t so damn popular.
Edit: I realize this article isn’t about antisemitism. This is just another example of Rowling’s bigotry.
I don’t care about HP, but it’s just a standard fairy tale. I read the books to my kids. Stories about knights, kings, princesses, super heroes…pretty much any story in which a normal person can fantasize about being someone who has much more power than they do, have been the stock-in-trade for story-tellers forever. Harry Potter lives a terrible life with his abusive relatives until he gets whisked off to a fancy private school where, it turns out, he is pretty special. Does it glorify the British class system? Sure, in some ways. But, it also undermines it insofar as Harry’s friends are mostly from the lower classes, and the villains are mostly “old money” and those who are obsessed with genetic purity. Also, the entrenched authorities like the Ministry of Magic are shown in a rather poor light, with their dementors, cruel bureaucrats, and insanity-inducing prisons. Hermione is meant to symbolize someone who got to Hogwart’s based on ability, not birth or connections. So, the story is at least partially about the transformation of the old structures of power from being based on money and birth to being based on ability. It shows British power structures in transition, I would say. What do you think?
That may very well be so. I did not get that impression from the first book, but, as I said, it was the only book I read and maybe it was clarified in the sequels.
By the way, my father was a similarly privileged to go to a prestigious British school on scholarship despite coming from a poor background and had nothing but bad things to say about it, so that does color my judgment a little.
That explains it. Each book gets progressively darker. The first book was written for 11 year olds, if I recall correctly. It doesn’t really get into politics. The subsequent books expose the corruption of the class system and the horrifying complicity of the bureaucracy.
And at the end the main characters shut up and perpetuate the system
I love liberals
I don’t understand why you are criticizing liberals here. Would you prefer illiberalism? Or are you an armchair revolutionary?
End of history looking ass thinking the only two political positions are lukewarm defense of the current system and nazis
What? That isn’t even a sentence.
I’m sorry I just ran out of crayons and won’t be able to explain it to you :(
Do the books glorify that, though? I seem to remember that only the blatantly evil characters thought like that.
Granted, the last 3 Harry Potter books I read were all Methods of Rationality, so perhaps my understanding of canon is too good.
I admit it’s been a long time and I only read the first book, but I seem to remember everyone used the term “muggles.”
Like @mellowwheat said, the main character is a “half-blood” and the chosen one; one of the friends is “muggle-born” yet one of the most powerful magic users in recent memory; and the other friend is a “full blood” wizard who still kinda sucks.
Even the core three characters are supposed to be allegorical for “racism doesn’t mean shit.” I honestly don’t know how JK went from writing fiction that could be interpreted as pro-trans (at least from the standpoint of the movies), into doubling down on bigotry. I guess it was Twitter after all.
I guess, but the impression I got from the book I read was that those terms weren’t considered offensive enough for even the good characters to stop using them. Maybe I’m misremembering or maybe that gets addressed in a future book?
Tbh I’ve only watched the movies so I can’t say for the books, but the movies definitely gave me that vibe. Well, any of them after the first one. And from what I remember, the main “good guys” only use the “no-no human words” a few times at the beginning of the series, whereas they’re mostly used by the bad guys throughout the whole thing.
In that case, it’s hard to know whether that is Rowling and I have a poor memory about this or that the movie’s screenwriter made revisions on that front. I think either is a possibility at this point. I’d love someone else to chime in who is more familiar with the books.
I think thats the script writers, if memory serves right muggle is pretty inoffensive in the books partly cause the bad guys have their own term “mud blood” for those who are born to non magical parents. Honestly I think at worst its comparable to how people said “negro” in a non racist way back during and before the civil rights era here in the US. But I legit dont know if Rowling meant for those undertones, im not familiar enough with British civil rights history.
Also Rowling may have been aluding to that for all I know cause the wizarding world is pretty explicitly backwards, serisouly they cut themselves off from the rest of the world sometime in the 1800. One of the secondary protagonists dad is a magical ATF agent who tracks down enchanted mundane artifacts that re-enter the non magical world.
Muggle isn’t considered offensive within the world, it’s just the British term for a non-magical person. Wizard/witch for those with magic, muggle for those without (in America we call them No-Maj, which is fucking awful)
Some of the bad characters will say it in a sneering or mean-spirited way, but they often don’t use it at all and go instead for subtler terms like “those lesser than us” or “the filth” and similar
The only term in the series that’s considered “offensive” is mudblood, which is basically a mixed race slur (it’s a wizard/witch born to one or both muggle parents), and it’s very much addressed as not OK to be said and why it shouldn’t be said and how much it can hurt people (from Rowlings fave character, no less!)
It’s insane to me that the person who wrote that into book 2 went on to be a fucking TERF
It’s “the British term” because Rowling made it up.
The main character is “half-blood” and his main sidekick is “muggle” herself, so I’d wager not so glorified. Of course, there’s an undercurrent of racism there, because the bloodlines really really matter. But this is fantasy fiction so I don’t how much of a sin it is. Bloodlines mattered in Tolkien too.
I’m not sure if that last sentence is against or for my argument.
Hogwarts is not elite. Anyone can enrol if they have magical ability. It’s addressed in a later book that attendance is not mandatory but nearly every witch and wizard in Britain is educated there. It’s just a school that doesn’t even have an admittance exam.
That’s exactly what makes it elite. There’s automatically a class system.
A genetics-based one, no less
I’m sorry I don’t understand what you mean, do you want non magical people to attend a magical school?
The fact that magic is only for some, that’s the elitist part. There are some people that are inherently better than others
They could just fail every class for 8 years and be passed to the next anyway.
No different then public school system st the end of the day.
I’m sorry I don’t understand what you mean, do you want non magical people to attend a magical school?
That’s the thing that makes everyone defending this shit so sus. Harry Potter has so. many. layers. of terrible shit in it. Maybe people didn’t realize it when they were reading the books as a child because they were young and naive, but as an adult you should be able to recognize shit like the only Asian character being named “Cho Chang” and realize you’re reading an awful book written by an awful person. The fact that people know about Rowlings bigotry and still read HP to their kids blows my mind. If we all just agreed she was a shitty person and stopped passing her garbage writing along, she’d be forgotten in a generation.
There’s a city in China called Chongqing, I’m guessing that’s racist too?
If you’re grasping at straws trying to defend a well known bigot who is publicly proud of her bigotry, it’s time to re-evaluate your life.
I think it’ll be alright.
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Why did you decide to insult me? Did I insult you? Did I make a personal attack?
And I guess I’m not part of “all you guys” because I always thought that about the Ferengi.
Also, what did I want to remove and from where? Please show where I said I wanted to remove something.
As far as the goblins not being antisemitic-
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/j-k-rowling-s-harry-potter-goblins-echo-jewish-caricatures-ncna1287043
https://www.popdust.com/gringotts-warner-bros-2627451691.html
Not just her books, even the games based on them-
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/hogwarts-legacy-antisemitism-goblins-horn/
Did she do it intending to be antisemitic? I don’t know, but it hardly matters.
Maybe I have the intelligence of a brick, but at least I don’t tell lies about people like you did about me.
You’ve made a personal attack against the author of one book I consider not terribly bad.
Somebody wrote an article and I’m supposed to assume that person is right and I’m wrong?
I’ll quote the title seen even in the link you provided - “HP goblins echo Jewish caricatures”. Have you considered even once that Jewish caricatures too did echo something aesthetically familiar? Or that the folklore I’m talking about grew intertwined with antisemitic beliefs?
Medieval-style fairy-tales always touch this subject.
And then this
and this
form a syllogism.
Yes, it definitely matters, because to get rid of each and every antisemitic or similar (“middleman minority” etc) stereotype manifesting itself unintentionally you’d simply have to burn European-cultured countries with nukes and start from scratch.
Also I’m Jewish.
Sorry… you’re insulting me because I besmirched J. K. Rowling’s honor? Are you her great protector?
And I don’t care if you’re Jewish.
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Now you’re lying about not insulting me:
Stating a fact is not an insult
I see, so bricks have the intelligence to be able to read and write. Fact.
No it doesn’t. Anyone can claim to be anything they want on the Internet.
Including my opinion weighing more.
That’s what you’re claiming. Not what you’re claiming to be. Christ, you even suck at trolling.
Why does your opinion weigh more?
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Imagine going this far out on a limb over a series of children’s books.
Nah, that’s not the reason. I just really don’t like people partaking in collective condemnation. They are worthless cowards.
There’s a Star of David in the middle of the floor of the “Goblin Bank”
illuminati confirmed
It was filmed in a real building built when the association between this symbol and Judaism wasn’t yet a thing. So it’s not a Star of David.
I hope (not really) you are aware that it’s not historically a Jewish symbol, it’s been used as widely as, eh, a few other famous ornaments, and relatively recently became a symbol of secular Jewish identity and Zionism, and then Judaism too.
Nope