No one gives a fuck about offending Native Americans. Period. They are 100% safe to never acknowledge this and still make billions. We have a football team called the Redskins here for chrissakes.
Fantastic Beasts and Magic in North America (POTTER MEGA THREAD!)
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I'm sorry, but how exactly is a children's book supposed to give a respectful view of genocide?
No one's asking for that. They're just pointing out that JK Rowling is participating in the same level of erasure as often is done when Native American stuff is added to a fiction.
Which is why I keep saying, I don't see why anyone thought she'd do any differently. She's not an anthropologist, she's not culturally learned or diverse. She's a children's book author. There are people I expect better from--she isn't one of them. I never assumed it was in her capacity to be respectful to Native American beliefs or to understand how complex or diverse they are. For fuck's sake, there is ONE wizarding school for all the provinces of Canada, all the states of the U.S., and every island of the Caribbean. All those places--one school. This is not written by a worldly person.
Hold on, I haven't actually read all of the new stuff yet, but are we sure there's only one? Up until GoF, there seemed to be only one school for all of Europe, too. And as far as we know, there are exactly 2 - and one in Russia. Assuming another one in China and possibly one in the Middle East or so, the implication is there are, what, max 10 Wizarding schools in the whole world. I'd've assumed at least two, maybe three, in the Americas, but it's not that much of a stretch. You can't say Canada or the Caribbean are all that densely populated compared to, oh, all of Central Europe, that get none.
Ones that's we know about for sure...
Known wizarding schools
ImageWizarding SchoolLocationRange
Beauxbatons Academy of Magic
Pyrenees, France[9]
France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain[9]
Castelobruxo
Amazon rainforest, Brazil[4]
All over South America[4]
Durmstrang Institute
Scandinavia; northernmost reaches of either Norway
or Sweden[10][11][12]
Willing to accept international students,[8] but presumably mainly northern Europe
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Highlands, Scotland[13]
Scotland, England, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales[5][6]
Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Mount Greylock, United States of America[14]
All over North America[14]
Koldovstoretz
Russia
Russia[15]
Mahoutokoro School of Magic
Minami Iwo Jima, Japan[7]
Japan[7]
Uagadou School of Magic
Mountains of the Moon, Uganda[3][2]
All over Africa[3][2]
There may be others, but they have never been revealed. Regardless, this leaves China, Korea, India, and others without local schools.
I feel like I'm missing something with the above parts ... if I'm reading correctly, one school for all the many nations of Africa, and yet several in a Texas radius for Europe? And then China, a billion people. India, another billion people.Ones that's we know about for sure...
Known wizarding schools
ImageWizarding SchoolLocationRange
Beauxbatons Academy of Magic
Pyrenees, France[9]
France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain[9]
Castelobruxo
Amazon rainforest, Brazil[4]
All over South America[4]
Durmstrang Institute
Scandinavia; northernmost reaches of either Norway
or Sweden[10][11][12]
Willing to accept international students,[8] but presumably mainly northern Europe
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Highlands, Scotland[13]
Scotland, England, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales[5][6]
Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Mount Greylock, United States of America[14]
All over North America[14]
Koldovstoretz
Russia
Russia[15]
Mahoutokoro School of Magic
Minami Iwo Jima, Japan[7]
Japan[7]
Uagadou School of Magic
Mountains of the Moon, Uganda[3][2]
All over Africa[3][2]
There may be others, but they have never been revealed. Regardless, this leaves China, Korea, India, and others without local schools.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. JK Rowling has little concept of the world at large, or the largeness of the world.
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Well, if she wanted to, she could just say the reason for all of that is magic.
From the article Charlie posted, I don't think there is any possible way jkr could have possibly made them happy.
Her works are fantasy. Period. Take some aspect of the world, change one thing, and then see what the world would have been if that one thing were true.
This is the essence of fantasy.
The writer of that article wants instead an historically accurate fiction about their people.
The two can't be done, and furthermore if she had not included them this would also have offended them.
So the only possible solution would be to disallow anyone to write anything about any culture, people, or ethnicity that isn't historically accurate.
Which is, sadly, what a lot of people want.
Her works are fantasy. Period. Take some aspect of the world, change one thing, and then see what the world would have been if that one thing were true.
This is the essence of fantasy.
The writer of that article wants instead an historically accurate fiction about their people.
The two can't be done, and furthermore if she had not included them this would also have offended them.
So the only possible solution would be to disallow anyone to write anything about any culture, people, or ethnicity that isn't historically accurate.
Which is, sadly, what a lot of people want.
Really, I'd say it's what a very small, very vocal group of people want. The internet, especially facebook, allows a small loud group of people to get their specific message out, and others to jump on the bandwagon to up the noise to substance ratio. Lots of people join the crowd calling for something when they haven't really thought about any of it at all. Sometimes it can be a good thing, much of the time it's just a distraction from things that could really make differences.
you think the girl that wrote what i posted is an 'idiot with a megaphone' ?
The problem is taking their beliefs and saying "it's wizards."
As Bubble suggested, they would've have a leg to stand on if for instance JK Rowling wrote in Jesus as a wizard who defied the law and showed magic to muggles, but I'm guessing that would get reported in the news and there'd be a sizable backlash, especially from parents who already think Harry Potter is the devil. A Wrinkle in Time did something similar and I think that's banned from some schools.
You are repeating points that have already been made. I understand why the author of the article is upset, and I hope she finds another author who can be what JKR used to be for her, since that appears to be very important to her. It's hard when you base so much of your happiness and joy on one person, and then they do something which you find very difficult to bear. It is sad she has to go through this process.
I can't help her. JKR can't help her. She's going to have to either set aside those works of art that she can't handle, or she's going to have to resolve the dissonance that she feels if she wants to enjoy these works of fiction.
I don't understand why we are so focused on people who have difficulty with these works. We will always be able to find offense and opposition for anything and everything if we look hard enough, and moral absolutism - the idea that if one thing is wrong we should throw everything related out - isn't the way to appreciate art. We will always be able to find an issue with a piece of art, it's artist, curator, or museum, and of we decide to throw something away then we lose the opportunity to experience the good things about it.
So she hates it. That's too bad. I'm hopeful that it will be enjoyable for me.
I can't help her. JKR can't help her. She's going to have to either set aside those works of art that she can't handle, or she's going to have to resolve the dissonance that she feels if she wants to enjoy these works of fiction.
I don't understand why we are so focused on people who have difficulty with these works. We will always be able to find offense and opposition for anything and everything if we look hard enough, and moral absolutism - the idea that if one thing is wrong we should throw everything related out - isn't the way to appreciate art. We will always be able to find an issue with a piece of art, it's artist, curator, or museum, and of we decide to throw something away then we lose the opportunity to experience the good things about it.
So she hates it. That's too bad. I'm hopeful that it will be enjoyable for me.
alright then
She does seem to have the impression that JK made up creatures for HP instead of just adapting existing ones from english (and other european) folklore.
But that's the thing, that letter charlie posted doesn't leave much room for JK to be able to include native americans and skirt the issue.
And, as a chidren's book, it's pretty much impossible for her not to.
Now maybe she could add some small references of the native wizards wanting to help their brethren against the colonists (could even tie it in with the Ghost Dance movement), and that being at odds with the wizarding worlds secrecy thing... but you know that wouldn't be enough.
Well she hates the timeline posted on the site. Maybe the book will be better with it's native characters... JK was always better at that part. \
Well she could always fix that by saying those schools are all based on the european model of witchcraft and wizardy (exported because colonialism, after all, it's not like the magical bureaucracy wasn't presented as bigoted), and all those regions have their own wand-less traditions, that get taught in different ways. Hell, she could even make a point that the NA school tried to integrate but sucked at it, and that's why it has those native elements while not being very accurate etc.
Why?
Really the key would be not homogenizing the different cultures and such. But like I've said, I don't think JK Rowling is even aware that these were different nations, different cultures, different languages. It's not something in her knowledge, so how would she even include it? It's beyond her.
I'd also argue that considering the content of the later Harry Potter books, the target audience gets a little skewed.
That's actually a good way to make it work, explaining outside-fiction failings using the fiction itself. I feel like Rowling has tweeted explanations like that regarding the Hogwarts faculty and the Ministry of Magic before.
My takeaway from your post is that because it affects her, but doesn't affect us, it isn't worth discussing? Because no one's here against their will.
Except me. This is my gift. My curse.
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Many Waters (part of the series) is essentially about the days leading up to the Great Flood, features both normal and fallen angels, and is (while a fine book) INCREDIBLY fucked up for a kid's book. Like, it wants to be 5th-6th grade book but content makes it feel more like something you'd never touch to high school sometimes.
It isn't being discussed. It's the same few points being made over and over again, like a bludgeon. Re-read the entire thread. It is no longer about the work, and it's not being discussed by people who want to talk about the work. It's now about the people who are offended by the work.
I know there are members on this board that are very excited about it, but they dare not go into threads like this because of these hateful side "discussions". I wish we could have two threads, but the reality is that the discussion about the hate would die off by itself - it only survives because people who want to enjoy the work feel like they have to defend it in a thread where they want to discuss their enjoyment of it.
So I'll leave you all to your intellectual masturbation, and perhaps I'll look elsewhere to share my enjoyment of it.
Have fun going around in circles.
I'll make my own Harry Potter thread. With blackjack. And hookers. In fact, forget Harry Potter!
There's a discussion being had, but it's not discussing what you want to discuss. A situation was brought up that relates to the work, and that is what's being discussed. No, not the work itself, but it relates to it.
You're not discussing your enjoyment of it here either. You know what's more productive than telling people to stop doing something? Redirecting the activity. You could post about the work itself. It's not like I've never been there. Remember a bunch of you guys assing it up in the Captain America: Civil War thread? I was all over the work itself, but that didn't stop thread derailment. You could just as easily post stuff about the movie or the new books or even Harry Potter in general since it's become the catch-all thread for this stuff--which is why this discussion is here instead of its own thread, it's a megathread--but instead you got into this with the rest of us.
jesus steinman you need a safe space? are we triggering you with conversations not centered on white christianity?
And i'd argue that y'all needs to stop thinking any sort of darkness in a story = not a children's book. I mean the 1st one had an evil face on the back of someone head.
And the sixth had a guy chew off another guy's face.
Harry Potter contains a lot of heavy stuff. Murder, dismemberment, disfigurement, torture, racism, genocide. It includes things typically considered not kid friendly, such as alcohol and tobacco use, as well as depicting adults as flawed human beings. I think the reason it succeeds so well as a children's book (and why adults as well enjoy it) is because it doesn't treat kids as people that are stupid and need to be shielded.
Emphasis mine.
So if the series already addresses genocide, why is it now
??
Because it doesn't actually do those things. Sure, it hints at them, but it's not a very in depth look at the issues.
I mean Grindelwald was behind Hitler according to the books timeline, right. Do you think it contained a respectful view of the suffering of the jews, gays, gypsies, slavs etc? Of course not, she just glossed over them.
And that sort of glossing over is what that blog Charlie posted was complaining about.
Exactly, a children's book doesn't need to completely eliminate those things. But it also doesnt deal with them the same way an adult work should.
There's a difference between talking about a - fictional - genocide on a fictional race or fictional races being mistreated (giants are pretty much heading for extinction, centaurs have been relegated to small enclaves/reserves, house elves are an enslaved species, other species are clearly named "lesser" species, not to mention the obvious and easy race issue approach to Muggles/Wizards), and talking about the real issues real people went through. One can be a stand-in for the other, an analogue - most aren't exactly hard to draw - and people will protest a bit that some things are glossed over, simplified, etc, and the response can be "yes, but this is about Muggles, and it tries to paint a picture of good vs evil, it's not a social commentary or a cultural critique". Once you talk about the actual people/cultures/whatever, it's a much easier and bigger target, and some people can't quite handle too many simplifications, commentary or critique. I've heard and seen people say that HP's portrayal of WWII - the first coming of Voldemort and its ramifications for Muggles - lessens and makes less meaningful the sacrifices made by our - Muggle - war veterans. It hasn't reached the same level, though.
TIL, Harry Potter was over 40 when he found out about Hogwarts.
Voldy's 1st coming was the Thatcher Years, not WW2 (that was Dumbledore's "happy friend").