this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

For all her bigotry, I don't think Rowling is/was pro slavery. In the books that plot point is clearly meant as social critique against the imaginary wizarding society.

But after a while I guess the plot point got boring and it doesn't make sense for the world to change because of some random school girl's protest, so the whole thing was dropped.

Kinda like fridays for future. At first the reporting around it was like "Cool, the kids have something they getting political", then it got boring and then society got hateful against it and then everyone just ignored them and nothing was changed by it.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I didn't really interpret it that way. I took it as "look how annoying people who complain about social justice are".

I don't think she literally supports slavery but it was clearly an allegory for what she views as annoying activist types.

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Rowling said on multiple occasions that Hermione is her "idealized self-insert".

So I don't think she'd use her own self-insert to say "Look how stupid people like me are". Doesn't really make sense.

[–] SaraTonin@lemmy.world -1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

She also said that she was Black, so I’m not sure how trustworthy she is on the subject

[–] KombatWombat@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

IIRC she said she never specified Hermione's race, which is technically true. But at one point she did physically describe her to be fair skinned.

[–] SaraTonin@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

And as having pink cheeks

[–] bbboi@feddit.uk -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Hermione isn't a real person. An author can make their characters whatever they want at any time for any reason with no regard for established cannon. Writers do it all the time. They may be terrible writers, or even terrible people, but none the less they "own" the character.

Ditch the bitch and stop complaining about skin tone.

[–] SaraTonin@lemmy.world 0 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

What an odd response

Does the fact that a character isn’t real mean that we can’t point out when an author contradicts themselves? Even if she claimed that the contradiction doesn’t exist?

Does referring to someone in a thread about that person mean that you’re a fan of them?

Does mentioning where someone has contradicted themselves mean that you’re complaining about the thing that they contradicted themselves over?

Did you put any thought whatsoever into your post or was it just a knee-jerk response?

[–] bbboi@feddit.uk -1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

It's just weird to fixate on skin tone. There's plenty to criticize JK about, but that ain't it.

[–] SaraTonin@lemmy.world 0 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I didn’t focus on skin tone. I referenced where a public statement about the character by Rowling contradicted what’s in the books.

[–] bbboi@feddit.uk 1 points 4 hours ago

about skin tone as if it's weird that a character is played by somebody of the "wrong" race

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 2 points 2 days ago

It was prevailing thought at the time though too (~2000s), I remember my mates and I looking at activists with some measurable annoyance and disdain. I don't think her attitude was so far out of whack with the general vibe