Seriously.
The original books were great, but her insistence on shoving diversity in as an afterthought is bullshit. That's not how diversity in media works.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
JK Rowling's latest retcon draws criticism from fans
- Thread starter feyder
- Start date
The original books were great, but her insistence on shoving diversity in as an afterthought is bullshit. That's not how diversity in media works.
I'll start with the "positive": narrative wise, I see no big problem. It's not a retcon (and they're not intrinsecally bad, I think) and the backstory could potentially be cool (Nagini always seemed to be more than just a snake that Voldy befriended while lacking a body. Or, better said, I always felt like Rowling could have her have a unique background if she wanted). I still don't like it, though, as I feel this makes things feel smaller; not on the same level as the magical coincidences and relations found in other fictional works, but it's still a bit annoying. A film about Nagini herself, though? That'd have been cool.
Now, when it comes to the controversy seeing actress chosen for the role? I totally get it. I never thought much of it as a kid, but it's sad seeing how the only prominent non-white characters are Kingsley and a couple more, and even then, they don't have that much weight at all. Sure, Kingsley is important for the universe, but not so much for us readers.
I always feel Rowling says more than does when it comes to these issues tbh (not too familiar with other claims about her, as I haven't followed her that much recently, but they're very dissapointing). Like, there's a lack of commitment to proceed for the most part.
Now, when it comes to the controversy seeing actress chosen for the role? I totally get it. I never thought much of it as a kid, but it's sad seeing how the only prominent non-white characters are Kingsley and a couple more, and even then, they don't have that much weight at all. Sure, Kingsley is important for the universe, but not so much for us readers.
I always feel Rowling says more than does when it comes to these issues tbh (not too familiar with other claims about her, as I haven't followed her that much recently, but they're very dissapointing). Like, there's a lack of commitment to proceed for the most part.
So we should all bitch when something isn't diverse and then bitch again when the creator tries to correct that?
Correct
Correct if it's poorly done and the creator also happens to be a POS on twitter and whatnot
We don't know if it is poorly done. We've seen a one second shot from a two hour plus movie.
I know not to piss off Harry Potter fans. They are a fucking insane bunch.
I once said "I dont like Harry Potter" to a younger woman i worked with. She actually went mental asking why and i said "Its something i didnt grow up with and i found the first 2 movies to be annoying with a lacklusture script. I was also watching and reading other better shit"
She looked at me with genuine hate and i just burst out laughing. Safe to say she never came near me again. Thank fuck.
I once said "I dont like Harry Potter" to a younger woman i worked with. She actually went mental asking why and i said "Its something i didnt grow up with and i found the first 2 movies to be annoying with a lacklusture script. I was also watching and reading other better shit"
She looked at me with genuine hate and i just burst out laughing. Safe to say she never came near me again. Thank fuck.
It isn't, people don't understand the meaning of the word.
This is so true. She always looks (or looked) like a pretty liberal person when she posts on Twitter and then weird stuff like this happens. Really not sure if I would call her a full fledged racist, but all of this stuff begins to pile up.
The real answer is that its a work of fiction and there's no drama if magic has no limits.
The in universe reason is Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. The 5 things you can't create out of nothing are
- Food
- Money
- Knowledge- You cannot magically learn something or obtain information without effort, otherwise there would be little point in having a school in the first place.
- Love-As the story said, you can create infatuation, but not true love.
- Soul-You can create life (like spells that conjure birds), but you cannot transmute a soul to revive someone.
And I never got the sense that J.K wanted us to think the Weaslys were ever actually poor just middle class.We've seen how actual poor wizards live when we visited the Gaunts. Arthur has a pretty good ministry job they just have 7 kids so the budget is pretty tight. You have to remember that most of the "Weaslys are poor" comments come from the Malfoys who are jerks and Ron who is the most insecure person in the series.
Plus, I know "Harry should give the Weaslys some of his gold" is a running joke but seriously no adult would take that money from a kid.
Why is it OK now to tell creative people what they should and should not be creating with regards to social issues? As a creative person I am sad that so many people seem to think they have a right to dictate what other people should be creating. It's like creation by mass committee, which always ends with shit. Now obviously this excludes racist propaganda etc, but c'mon let's have some common sense about free speech and the creative process here guys.
I mean, I agree that her decision doesn't do any favours for Korean representation, but it's her goddamn story.
Not how it works? There are no rules to this! It's her story, she can do what she wants. Everyone else is free to write their own diverse stories and get them published.
I mean, I agree that her decision doesn't do any favours for Korean representation, but it's her goddamn story.
Not how it works? There are no rules to this! It's her story, she can do what she wants. Everyone else is free to write their own diverse stories and get them published.
User banned 3 days: Dismissive drive-by in a sensitive thread, complaining about outrage culture
Looks to me like internet ourage culture and not a real issue.
People are allowed to complain and even suggest ways in which media could be better. I don't think anyone here is actually seriously ordering JKR to write what they would like. This just feels like a giant strawman of what people are saying.
I remember a few notions of that the Weaslys cant afford new capes and school books. Heck, Ron has to deal with a broken magic wand for a whole school year which could have killed him and he could not buy a new one. And I think Harry thinks about exactly this when he read the daily prophet article about them winning the journey to eagypt.
Why would money, which is representative of value, be limited? Cash is essentially pieces of paper that humans give meaning to. How could that possibly be restricted in any way?
Man Harry Potter is so flimsy.
Prime example of fake news mixed in with fan fiction about a children's book
Wizards use precious metals not paper money. Its the same rules that govern alchemy. I'm sure a wizard could counterfeit all the human money they wanted to or better yet just take what they want but the Ministry is supposed to stop that.
I'd assume that, like in the real world, cash is marked so that you can't bullshit people with fakes.
More importantly, though, British wizards use coins made of, I assume, materials they couldn't replicate, like gold (hence, Flamel's importance beyond immortality). It's been a while since I last read anything HP-related, though, and I don't think they even talk about that explictly.
Yep. It saddens me because of that precisely. The retroactivity in her "progressiveness" ("Hermione could have been black all along!! ;)", "Dumbledore was actually gay") doesn't help either. They're cool, sure, because it's about representing the unvoiced/silenced, so it's about the way of going about it.
It's not like they haven't done this before with a white dude...
Are you being deliberately disingenuous or do you actually not understand the difference between a criminal disguising himself as a pet to avoid prosecution versus an innocent person being transformed into a pet against their will?
My primary issue is with Rowling's response which shows critical lack of research.
Am I wrong to be pissed about that? Why are we mixing up Indoisneaisn, Indians, Koreans and Chinese? Are all asians the same?
More like folks are more receptive towards Black issues than other minorities
Like for whatever reason, this stuff doesn't click.
Is she an innocent person? I didn't watch the first Fantastic Beasts.
Also these are fictional characters, so we haven't seen a twist where it turns out she was bad all along. Or treated like shit for so long, that she turns evil. Which is usually the typical origin for a villain.
She's a new character in this one and didn't appear in the first FB.
I would like some asian representation besides background fluff and one note cackling villains
But who knows? Maybe Nagini turns out to be a fan favorite, maybe she's the new internet waifu... lets wait and see
Isn't there a degree of cultural appropriation here? You're taking stuff from disparate peoples and mixing them.
Sooooo... How do we know she's completely innocent? Is this a Bowsette situation where there is fan art, and fan fiction created before we see the final product?
I've only watched the trailer, read the wiki entry and this thread. Has Nagini's character arc from the movie been leaked? I assume she's going to be a villain of some sort? What makes Neville killing her any different than Molly killing Bellatrix? Or are the implications of the curse that Nagini's human soul is in the sunken place crying for help while her head gets cut off?
I mean we'll see I guess but the actor playing her doesn't describe someone evil
Keep all that in mind next time you watch Neville heroically cut her head off.
I reject everything post the final chapter of Deathly Hallows in totality.
That includes the goofy ass epilogue.
I am not really sure. It sounds more like ignorance than actually mixing tbg. The Naga is an mythical figure in Indonesia and while it indeed originated in India, I wouldn't really blame JKR if the character was an Indonesian witch, played by an Indonesian actress. However then she starts getting confused. She jumps from Indonesian to Chinese because there is a large population of Chinese people in Indonesia. However the majority of them are not Hindu. And then she makes another jump by having a Chinese character played by a Korean. So yeah.... she jumped from India to Indonesia to China to Korea. And while the first two seem acceptable because both cultures share the Naga I am not really sure about those last two.
Still waiting for a movie to tell me more about how that big snake ended up in the death star trash can
She is kidnapped by Vodrans from her home planet and she wakes up on a space ship, sold to the Empire. Her name is Omi and she is a Dianoga. She is also Force sensitive.
And the worst part is that I am not even making this up.
Or maybe are sick of Asians being portrayed as one note villains or background fluff
I mean don't black folks get tired of seeing themselves as slaves & servants in movies? Same thing
And yeah I think it's pretty weird how wrong JK got the origin of it all
Koreans playing Chinese people and vice versa is of course not an exclusive issue to this...(though it's very much an issue that ought to be discussed) but then to seemingly just utterly get the origin wrong entirely is just kind weird. Like it shows a complete lack of actual respect for the culture and more just something to make her world more exotic. That's a problem
Then you add the issues with portrayals of Asian women in media and social culture. Incels, you know those who desire to litteraly own women, for example fetishize Asian women as the ideal type because of the racist belief that Asian women are pliable and submissive... so to create an Asian character whose entire fate is to be owned, controlled and ya know milked for Voldemort is something that ought to be discussed without dismissive whining about outrage culture and artistic freedom and free speech.
Koreans playing Chinese people and vice versa is of course not an exclusive issue to this...(though it's very much an issue that ought to be discussed) but then to seemingly just utterly get the origin wrong entirely is just kind weird. Like it shows a complete lack of actual respect for the culture and more just something to make her world more exotic. That's a problem
Then you add the issues with portrayals of Asian women in media and social culture. Incels, you know those who desire to litteraly own women, for example fetishize Asian women as the ideal type because of the racist belief that Asian women are pliable and submissive... so to create an Asian character whose entire fate is to be owned, controlled and ya know milked for Voldemort is something that ought to be discussed without dismissive whining about outrage culture and artistic freedom and free speech.
Not to mention it also adds some potential nonsense white savior interpretations to Neville
Exhibit A:
Exhibit A:
Basically the only way anyone can save the poor Asian is by slicing her head off. This is a world were a magical Hitler split his fucking soul in like baker's dozen pieces, but nah, got to put the Asian out of her misery. Its for the best.
No their ideal woman is a blonde white virgin, but they are too hard to find these days because Chad fucked them all. So they go for either under-aged white girls or submissive Asian girls.
I feel fucking gross typing that.
If Nagini was always supposed to be 'just a snake', can someone explain how she was able to pretend to be an elderly woman and attack Harry and Hermione in book 7 despite being miles away from Voldemort? Being a horcrux gave her superintelligence? Voldemort was able to mind control her from miles away?
I agree that the entire HP franchise is full of trainwrecks when it comes to stereotypes and representation, but this particular 'retcon' I don't understand why people are mad about. It may be unnecessary, but I don't feel like it's outside the realm of possibility or that it doesn't fit in with the story.
I agree that the entire HP franchise is full of trainwrecks when it comes to stereotypes and representation, but this particular 'retcon' I don't understand why people are mad about. It may be unnecessary, but I don't feel like it's outside the realm of possibility or that it doesn't fit in with the story.
Okay on a positive note we do have progress.
Black folks have Black Pather, Chinese and Korean folks have Crazy Rich & stuff like Searching
Oh and I remembered something funny, while in Europe, Indians are lumped in with Asians, Americans I believe consider Indians separate.
