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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   8401 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026

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The US Department of Education just posted Malfoid slop:
"There's Magic in Learning"

https://x.com/usedgov/status/2115069815505203483

Or rather, there is Magic in Yearning, Make Romance Great Again, am I right? …

Two weeks ago @KingOfTheBailey had an excellent post about the trend:

https://www.themotte.org/post/3960/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/486219

The result has been a lot of chaotic glee that Harry Potter is up for recapture and reinterpretation. … The chuds are rediscovering fanfiction from first principles, using it to poke sticks in eyes or roll back some of the idiocy of the past few years, and they're doing a lot of it with AI. … It is extremely interesting to me that there seems to be very little goonbait in the Malfoid stuff I've seen,

I want to note three things two weeks later:

  1. The lack of explicit sex seems to hold
  2. I don't see explicitly an agenda pushed (the US government co-opting the meme and make it unpalatable for leftist demographics could change that), instead I see a collaborative goal to change as few things in the canon as possible and the pieces just kind of fall neatly into place. It is a male-brained analysis of a system (the HP canon) and what little screw to exchange in a running motor; for example if the plot point is still happening that Harry Potter is badly hurting Dracina with the Sectumsempra curse (plus the question if she keeps scars from that) is argued about emotional impact and character motivation, but not from making a larger point in the gender war.

Original:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=L5g-17uLO90

AI Anime versions:
Kind of sloppy but neat:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=g6jjXAASi_Q
Better animated, but very Korean:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4mkZ8jEYySo

  1. It is very visual. My stereotype is that teenage nerd girls write/read tons of fanfiction (literature), but teenage nerd boys watch lots of anime, so that makes sense? Beside written scenes there is a pipeline of (Asian) illustrations -> (Asian/Western) AI cinematics

For example this illustration of Dracina casting a peacock as patronum is striking:

https://x.com/CaboVT/status/2106491934818853274

And was then canonized in this AI Battle of Hogwarts scene:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y6tAajsc9PY

And then discussed how a (male) peacock can sort of make sense as a representation of Harry for Dracina.

Then there was first an illustration of Harry/Dracina fighting Voldemort together with the same wand:

https://x.com/Aurondarklord/status/2106975585507418609

My favorite thing about Malfoid is watching the internet collectively decide on, and then stick to, the canon of her alternate universe. Like at this point EVERYONE agrees that this "both of them holding one wand" visual is how they kill Voldemort. EVERY version of the final battle in her timeline uses it. It's a genuinely heartwarming exercise in organic, viral cooperation.

Which sparked this AI scene:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VgfNf79t3oo

I don't care it's AI, this shit is like finding diamonds in a coal mine.

What I love about this trend is that regardless of which path the story takes, the fandom unilaterally agrees that the final battle ends with Potter and Malfoid holding the wand together.

I don't care how cheesy or juvenile or klischee it is; narratively it just makes sense: Draco is the rightful owner of the Elder Wand, we have the redemption arc of Slytherin and Voldemort is defeated (again) by the power of love. Could this not be done with a male Draco? Why not a good old fashioned friendship? One argument I read was that women often see rivalry as sexual dominance (e.g. the gay romance in Heated Rivalry) and so Rowling couldn't work out an honorable defeat/submission of Draco to Harry. So a Harrys + Dracos male friendship would actually need a more extensive rewrite than a female tsundere Dracina being in love.

Anyway, now that the US government involved (Hello fellow kids!), doesn't that mean the ship is sailed and the trend run its course into being old and uncool?

Not necessary, I want to officially register my prediction that with the start of the HBO series (December 25, 2026 (Christmas Day)) AI is good enough (or will be good enough in coming years) to replace Draco scenes with reimagined Dracina scenes. There will be alternative Malfoid-episodes which can be torrented.

Okay, I find this genuinely dispiriting.

Part of what was appealing about the whole Malfoid trend was the explosion of creativity in fan art (i.e. real fan art, drawn by actual humans), and fan fiction. There's a whole online fan artist space that likes to jump on trends, they jumped on this one, and they produced a lot of really sweet material. Moreover, though arguably some of it was politically inflected, for the most part it was apolitical. Cute girl, everyman hero, they get together. It was fun. I'm in favour of romance stories for boys.

It's frustrating for a bunch of highly politicised jackals to jump on that and try to appropriate it, especially when they're doing so with low-effort AI garbage.

Even just in-character, presumably part of the appeal of the Malfoy character and family is that they're meant to be aristocratic and traditional - hearkening back to an older, better way of doing things. They're also meant to be elitist; they have high standards, and so part of the story is the everyman studying and measuring up. Every part of this premise seems like it should cut again populist botslop.

I realise I have no power to accomplish this, but what's in my heart is an offended, "Get this rubbish off the internet. Now."

Agreed. The fun from Malfoid IMHO came from seeing repressed creativity burst forth, and highlighting a male romantic angle that has been underappreciated in recent years. Government agencies trying to ride everyman trends is just cringe.

I mean, fundamentally it's just Dramione for men, isn't it?

It reminds me a bit of a comment (a tweet, I think? or maybe Tumblr?) I saw once describing a gender-flipped Twilight, where an everyman, maybe slightly schlubby, self-insert protagonist meets a hot goth vampire chick who is inexplicably into him and fights a similarly hot wild werewolf chick for his affections, and male replies going, "Oh my gosh. I get it now."

Malfoid feels like that but for Dramione or Zutara or any of the other famous 'bad boy' ships with screaming female fandoms.

I don't agree, because Malfoid requires two character journeys before they can become a couple: Harry has to complete his hero's journey and become someone competent (and not just doing it for female attention) and Malfoid has to have her prejudices break down because they are increasingly incompatible with her growing respect and affection towards Harry as he grows.

Whereas in the case of Dramione or Zutara, Hermione and Katara are already great, and it's only the bad boy who needs to reform? That's a fair comment. That's also one of the issues I have with something like Twilight - minimal character growth is required.

In general what I want from a romance story is for both characters to have an arc, where they grow and change in order to fit together better. In that light I think I'll agree that Malfoid has more potential than these comparisons.

I suppose that's also part of its appeal. It sketches out an alternative character arc for Harry, and since the default, canon arc for Harry is disappointing in several ways (in particular, yes, he never seems to take the initiative or truly grow up), there's a real need for an alternative.

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