Approaching media created by problematic figures is always a messy prospect, but Legacy finds itself in a particularly complex place.
'Legacy' being the latest addition to the JK Rowling empire, a RPG based in the Hogwarts universe.
And we know what everyone a tiny minority of overly-vocal lunatics thinks about JK Rowling, don't we, Reader?
The people who made it really want you to know that the woman behind one of the most popular fantasy franchises on the planet had nothing to do with it.
Which is cowardly and ridiculous. They should be proudly announcing that it's part of her creation. No-one who loves the books will care. The frothing lunatics who have to lie about her to carry out their deranged campaign won't buy it anyway.
...Rowling has spent months leveraging her platform to ceaselessly espouse repeatedly debunked lies about the existence of transgender people.
Reader, she hasn't.
She has supported fellow bigots who she claims have been “canceled” for their beliefs when it comes to transgender rights and expressed fears that “any man who believes or feels he’s a woman” might be allowed to share a bathroom with “natal girls and women.”
Reader, she has. And good on her, because everything these 'bigots' warned about has happened.
She’s just released a book in her long-running Cormoran Strike crime series (written under the pen name Robert Galbraith) that perpetuates the stereotype that transwomen are men disguising themselves to prey on cisgender women.
Reader, she hasn't. Not is she 'Islamophobic', as the rest of the woke crowd seem to now want to level at her.
So the question around Hogwarts Legacy has not become “Can I get this on the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X,” but instead “Can I support the people who made this game despite its connections to a person whose views I believe are repugnant?”
If you don't buy it, what will happen? Nothing! Millions of gamers will go ahead because they love games, or they grew up with - and loved - the 'Harry Potter' universe. That's how insignificant your little tantrums are...
The books, your well-read copies that she built her power from, are in the past. You can still love them, love what they meant to you, and continue to do so while acknowledging Rowling’s actions in the present are abhorrent. But the Fantastic Beasts saga, merchandise, and now Hogwarts Legacy are the series’ future—one made in the shadow of the figure Rowling has become. No matter how you justify engaging with that, she will still profit. No matter how distant her reach.
Decrying someone who created a fictional world you used to love because her views on real life don't gel with yours is so utterly bonkers and childish that it beggars belief that these are supposed adults working for online publications.
What's even more surprising is the MSM's continued offering a platform to this vociferous but minuscule minority which possesses these unhinged views, when it is clearly apparent that 99.999% of us look upon them with a mixture of amusement, contempt, and even a degree of pity.
ReplyDeleteIf these stories are produced merely as cynical clickbait by the media, then they only have a limited effect since I, and others, stop visiting 'news' sites which are awash with such garbage.
You have to realise Julia that these people live in a fantasy world where women have dicks, men have fannys and there are fifty seven varieties of mental defective who cant decide if they're a boy or a girl! If you as a normal person should point this out, they seethe and whine and flop about on the floor and say how unfair it is. I have little time for JK's politics and her inserting queers into her books after the fact, but she is bang on about the trannies.
ReplyDeleteJK appears to be off the naughty step, BBC R2 has her presenting something this week, favourite book or tunes.
ReplyDelete"What's even more surprising is the MSM's continued offering a platform to this vociferous but minuscule minority..."
ReplyDeleteIt's really astonishing, the reach which they seem to have with the public sector and media, isn't it?
"I have little time for JK's politics and her inserting queers into her books after the fact, but she is bang on about the trannies."
That's my take too.
There's a certain schadenfreude at seeing someone who once ran with the woke hare so enthusiastically now being torn apart by the even more woke hounds. But she's bang on about the danger they represent...
"JK appears to be off the naughty step, BBC R2 has her presenting something this week..."
I did wonder about that. Maybe it was a case of her being booked long ago, and them not wanting to try to wriggle out of it?