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Original poster

Who did JK Rowling become?

103 replies

BraveBananaBadge · 23/12/2020 07:59

A long read in New York magazine about what made JKR such a meanie. Surprisingly in-depth and not quite so much about the feelz, but you know a man would never, ever get this treatment.

I was pleasantly surprised by the comments section, especially for an American publication. Plenty of people seeing it for what it is and asking logical questions (read it last night, so hope they’re still there...)

www.thecut.com/article/who-did-j-k-rowling-become.html?fbclid=IwAR1PB4xuZKKgJHZA5jqQng-oaukuWPhLGcx5uindUO6aL4EiSI3fUc4iiCA

OP posts:
Original poster
BraveBananaBadge · 23/12/2020 08:19

It goes some way to explaining that strange sense of entitlement over Harry Potter (which I’m too old to understand), but there’s certainly a sense that her protecting her IP is somehow a... problem?

As someone in the comments put it, no-one would ask the same of Steve Jobs (for example).

OP posts:
Ereshkigalangcleg · 23/12/2020 08:13

In Rowling’s world, for example, gender was an essential, immutable fact, and it had been that way from her first flicker of inspiration. “From the word go, it was a boy,” she has said of imagining her protagonist. “I never thought, Oh, maybe it’s a girl. Never once. It was always a boy.” Yet Rowling also invented the character Nymphadora Tonks (known as Tonks) a “Metamorphmagus” able to change shape at will. Klink remembers writing “the queerest fanfic I’ve ever written” about Tonks turning into a man. Since then, Klink has come out as nonbinary. “I loved Tonks and for a lot of other people who are nonbinary, Tonks was a big deal,” they told me. But “when you look back on Tonks, Tonks never changes into a guy. Tonks never changes into anything but different kinds of girl.”

This is so ridiculous I don't have any words.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 23/12/2020 08:12

She absolutely believes that she is right, that she’s on a mission, and that history will eventually bear her out,” Anelli told me. “She thinks she’s doing good work right now.”

She's right.

“Are you in a place now where you can accept that you will always be rich?” she asked.
“No,” said Rowling. “Are you?”
Winfrey said she was (“Kinda. Getting there”). Perhaps Rowling’s immediate reply had been British self-effacement, but it also suggested a certain alienation from the circumstances she had attained.

It feels like this sly person is insinuating that JKR isn't grateful enough.