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TERF WARS
Hogwarts legacy, a high budget Harry Potter video game releases in a few weeks, and discussion around it has quickly evolved into another highly charged political issue for many within the gaming sphere.
As background, Harry Potter was created by J.K. Rowling, who in the last number of years has gotten a vitriolic amount of criticism by hard coded members of the blue tribe. Rowling is what is referred to in leftist spheres as a “TERF,” a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In other words, she is a traditional third wave feminist, but does not acknowledge trans women as being equally legitimate as biological females. Criticism of Rowling began in 2020 when she exposed criticism of certain linguistic tendencies that she had progressively seen engross within her social circles. An article was posted on Devex with the headline…
Rowling took to twitter to attempt to point out some of the inconsistencies in reasoning that she believed these social beliefs couldn’t reconcile with established feminist/progressive worldviews. She began by explaining that ‘people who menstruate,’ used to simply just be called women. And after receiving a bit of criticism herself she extrapolated on the details of her argument.
After the obvious storm of vile that came as a response to this, she then went further in extrapolating her views in an entire blogpost that went into fairly meticulous detail around the entire trans issue as well as major problems that she sees may come as a result of it. I highly encourage you to read it, if not for the argumentative qualities than simply because of the sheer balls of the entire debacle, It wouldn’t be out of place if it was placed on this very culture thread.
https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/
Instead of being silenced or somehow intimidated by threats from these cultural forces, she points out that this is primarily one of the motivators of her immediate dislike of the community in general, including their constant use of hyperbole and slurs. The bitter criticism she received did not in any way overwhelm her, but instead made her far more resolute and ingrained to her worldview. She had become more fervently anti-trans since then, to points which are often hilarious. One may lose sight of the grievances often expressed by the left towards public figures, simply due to the sheer amount of it that is consistently thrown into public discourse. But it is important to point out that J.K. Rowling is a legitimate opponent of transgender ideology. Her most recent books have delved into themes that are consistently similar to the themes she has espoused. One book is literally about a detective trying to solve the case of a male serial killer who dresses up as a women in order to fool and kill biological women. Rowling gives extremely large donations to many charities who are their ideological enemies, as well as essentially banning transgender people from using any of her own charities that help victims of female abuse.
Before delving into the responses to this and the subsequent reactions, it is important to give context to what J.K. Rowling encapsulated during the prime years of her Harry Potter authorship. While harry potter is just popular in general, Blue Tribers LOVE Harry Potter, and at one time they >LOVED J.K. Rowling. Rowling’s influence in the early to mid naughts and 2010s cannot be overstated. In fact in many circumstances and social circles people began to read her novels because of her political affiliations, to support those who seemed to have blue coded interests in mind. Harry Potter had become synonymous with feminism and leftism in general, and as a result also became trumpeted by many in the early transgender movement. It isn’t simply because of her opposition to these ideas that she receives the amount of backlash that she does, but because of who she is. She at one point was one of the most influential feminists in the world and was a huge contributor to the cultural power that allowed it to influence so much of society, even in places like academia.
The responses to this given that context is frankly hilarious. It has been quite a long time since the progressive cultural zeitgeist has had such institutional opponent, particularly one that had for so long been such an icon of their movement. It is like if Luke Skywalker had joined the empire at the end of ESB.
This debate is continually devolving as it nears its release, and discussion about the game has been banned on multiple websites for its divisiveness.
https://www.ign.com/articles/hogwarts-legacy-discussion-banned-from-resetera-forum-site-over-jk-rowling-controversy
It had led to an incredible amount of confusion towards that side of political isle, as regular attacks they are so used to employing, that are usually widely successful, seemingly have no effect on Rowling in the slightest. All they can resort to leading up to the release has been reputation destruction and hostility to those who plan on buying it. The most popular tactic used is guilt by association, who claim that if one buys Hogwarts Legacy, they are therefore inherently transphobic. Another important distinction you may notice is the difficulty many are having with disassociating themselves from what was probably their favorite intellectual property. There seems to be a desire to remove Rowling, but still somehow retain possession of the franchise itself, something that is frankly impossible. Take this for example, where fans removed Rowling’s name from her books before reselling them.
https://nypost.com/2023/01/13/reseller-removes-j-k-rowlings-name-from-harry-potter-books/]
Of course, everyone knows this is impossible. Rowling was wise enough to retain full possession of her intellectual work, and anything, and I mean anything relating to Harry Potter must be directly approved by her and she receives a good sum of the profits as well. Amusement parks, toys, video games, streaming sales, everything. Rowling is Harry Potter. Many now are used to franchises they once enjoyed being influenced in one way or another by these cultural elements in their favor, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the rings, etc. It is highly ironic that a property is receiving so much backlash not for expressing any pro-red views, but simply because the creator does not agree with one of the fundamental viewpoints that have become synonymous with the left.
On the right, this has had an equally hilarious reaction. While certainly not as fervent or significant of a response, many have taken to supporting Rowling and expressing a desire to purchase Hogwarts Legacy as a form of protest. This includes everyone from Neo-cons to White nationalists.
It seems as if hardcoded Blue Tribe members are learning certain facts about modern cultural society that red tribe members have slowly learned throughout the decade or so. Cancel culture does not work on legitimate financial elites. It does not matter to what ends you try to smear Rowling with, she is and will always remain extravagantly wealthy and beyond any real financial or cultural danger. It is my guess that Hogwarts Legacy will sell extraordinarily well, for it looks to be a genuinely good video game, to the point where even those who are not familiar with Harry Potter may be attracted simply due to its quality. It is already the most pre-ordered game on Steam at the moment has no sign of slowing down. I suppose now that I am not making any particular argument in any way, but It is interesting to see a political force that is usually so successful seemingly work overtime for years on one particular target and see nothing but a proverbial scream into the wind.
This general situation is actually why I'm very consciously a fan of knock-offs. I'm a huge believer in libre/open culture, and I think modern copyright laws are a travesty across the board.
Give me the Evil Galactic Authority, where the noble but persecuted Star Paladins use laser-swords to fight off the evil Inquisitors. Give me a villain in a YA novel with an arc suspiciously similar to Zuko from AtLA. Give me Invincible's Omni-man and knock-off Justice League. Give me copy cats and follow the leaders, and fan fiction.
I hate that Disney and a few other companies own so much of our culture, and take a century to give us the scraps off their table. Human creativity is usually more like that of Shakespeare, who mostly retold well-known stories, or Sir Thomas Mallory, who codified an existing story tradition. Our cultures emphasis on pointless originality and innovation in storytelling is a disease, just as surely as the fact that only a small number of franchises dominate the box office is.
I don't really care much about the object-level question of Rowling's Wizarding World. But if people can find the non-copyrightable part of her work, and can retain the soul of Harry Potter in the derivative works, I wish them luck. More cultural elements should be like Romero zombies or Slender Man - not really belonging to anyone, and being used and reused to tell interesting stories, or just retelling old common places with a new twist.
Seriously! I strongly suspect that copyright law significantly hinders our culture. If ownership expired after, say, 10 years rather than our current (100?), not only would we have many great retellings, but also I don't think that the original properties would be nearly as powerful.
Like, if anyone can write about the Empire, lightsabers, etc., then maybe the cultural fad burns itself out more quickly, and its best components are more quickly turned into tropes commonly used in many different stories.
This seems to me like we're far past the point of copyright-life-extension singularity. Examining past trends, it seems like almost a certainty that before the next 100 years is up copyright will have been extended by at least another 100 if not a factor of 10. This is especially exacerbated by the fact that to some extent copyright is based on years since the death of the creator, and surely human lifespan will soon start benefiting as we approach a medical singularity (especially considering rich and successful creators will have access to many of these benefits earlier than the average person) Thus excepting for the prospect that copyright law reform might one day place, (unlikely) most works currently under copyright will probably never enter public domain (unless all possible inheritors of the copyright are somehow killed/destroyed).
For whatever reason, as of 2019, works are actually falling out of copyright in the United States. Maybe Disney is less powerful somehow? Or maybe copyright is long enough for them and they don't see the point anymore? Or maybe they missed the 20 year calendar reminder they set in 1998 and forgot and will get right on extending copyright soon.
Interesting. I hope the trend continues.
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