Daniel Radcliffe doubles down

And he got an Emmy nomination last year. I don’t know where people are getting the idea that he’s all washed-up as an actor. Obviously he’s not making blockbusters anymore, but I don’t think anyone ever expected him to - everyone knew that the draw of the HP movies was the characters, not the actors.

I think they did a good enough job. The outstanding adult cast carry the kids, that's fair comment. I find the fillums are great fun, with the possible exception of 7A.

Radcliffe and Watson are so wooden that if they played alongside Pinocchio then he'd think he was the real boy.

Remember that scene from PoA? "He was their friend!" Can you even watch that scene without cracking up? Presumably that was the best take he managed!

Off topic, but he absolutely ruined the Harry Potter films, in my opinion. And this has absolutely nothing to do with how I feel about JKR, and his stance on that subject.

If you read and loved the Harry Potter books, you loved the main character because he was quick thinking, clever, witty, brilliant in some ways. Danial Radcliffe RUINED him. He just comes across like an absolute plank. He makes the films seem like Harry Potter is just some absolute lemon, around which lots of things happen supported by everyone else. I always think how they must have regretted casting him... as he got older his lack of acting talent must have become more and more apparant.

It's laughable really that this talentless man who owes all his wealth to this woman's brilliant mind (becuase who else would ever cast him as anything?) is disrespecting her.

Maybe he really is just a plank and doesn't even know what's going on.

Thanks for this, we must be a similar age and the eating disorders really tragically affected us, even young men. I know people who still have lasting physical damage, and we wasted so much time and brainpower.

@StainlessSteelMouse
@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g
Thank you both

It's an Irish expression. I suppose it would be "this is the one thing I find gobsmacking".

I would think it means the same as when my Mum (Scottish) says 'What takes me to town is ...' which means 'What really takes the biscuit for me is ...'.

@StainlessSteelMouse
"What takes me to the fair" - it's a good phrase. What does it mean, please?

I show this to anyone who tells me that jkr is transphobic, from my generation z colleagues to my teenage children. You can tell how captured they are by their responses.

My younger ds has many female friends who see this as a solution to their angst. Like the eating disorders that were a well-publicised feature of my generations childhood, there is an element of asserting self and control in the maelstrom of lived experience. One of his friends has a close relative with Klinefelters, which ,(if they know), should at least highlight the importance of testosterone to male body health . As parents we try to take a watching brief to avoid harm until the mental anguish is better understood. (We remember being teenagers)

That is the biggest issue for me as a parent. When my son dressed up as a princess and played with the girls at nursery I did not assume he was in the wrong body and try to change him.

I have many reasons in my own lived experience to be protective of the innocence and safety we should expect for children, I am immensely grateful to people who have worked so hard and put themselves at risk to highlight these issues.

Thank you, @AmaryllisNightAndDay . 💐

Anyway you can't prove a negative so the only reasonable reaction to someone saying "she promoted anti-trans violence" is "really? show me, where did she say that?" Though I wouldn't bother on Facebook or any social media, you're unlikely to get a sensible answer.

"All the things" is a bit of a tall order but this is a good start:

10 June 2020 J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues
https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/

I have seen FB posts applauding DR for his stance, and comments about JKR’s ‘vile’ statements on trans rights. I want to reply with the actual statements that she made, to prove that she is pro-woman, and has never promoted anti-trans violence etc - so I was wondering whether there is a single source somewhere, where I can find all the things she’s said on the subject?

Boo's and hisses. Parseltongue inclusive.

Imagine what they’d have said if she had put her in Slytherin.

Cho couldn't be in Gryffindor as we know all those characters and she was a 'from afar' first crush. Couldn't be Slytherin without calling into question the whole 'are Slytherins all bad' twist too early. So that left Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. I assume Ravenclaw was chosen because at this point everyone thinks the Hufflepuff are stupid stereotype is true as it's Cedric Diggory that breaks that. Also adds to Cedric's rivalry with Harry that she's not in his house so she picked Cedric on a more level playing field.

There's no reference at all to Cho's heritage in the books. She's just called Cho Chang...Korean names, I believe. Could it be that the people claiming she's a racist stereotype have assumed she's supposed to be of Chinese descent?

She was Scottish in the films anyway.

I was first alerted to gender woo when I saw a friend posting a pic on Facebook of Rowling being fired out of a Nerf gun, and had to look up what a TERF was. There was a feverish tone to his friends eagerly discussing the now "problematic" characters in HP, including the fact that Cho Chang is Chinese and in Ravenclaw. It made no sense to me at all.

I'd be ashamed to make some of those piss-poor posts up above. Like, what? "How do you even get on the internet?, levels of stupid.

"I'm going to make a username and go and tell the mumnset off, with my amazing brain thunks I am pasting from the dundernet... it's going to be GREAT." ffs pathetic, 0/10.

And the old flat-earth type excuse 'I don't have to show you my evidence, I'm just right and you should believe me' argument is out in force 🙄

Some cracking analysis on this thread 👏

Re the earlier scolders, I think it's interesting and betrays a very naive mindset how some people think that just because a book or film covers a certain theme eg there is a racist character, that means the book itself is racist. Or worse, that the writer actually holds those views. It is possible to write a character that holds views that you, as the writer, personally don't.

And thank goodness, otherwise all books would be very boring with similar, one dimensional characters!

It's lazy or disingenuous in the extreme to attempt to smear a writer based on what one of their characters thinks/ says/ does.

Making it somewhat ironic that he is the first character to recognise the battle is less black and white than Harry and the reader originally think, “Yes, but the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters,” said Sirius with a wry smile.

Dumbledore expands on it later, but Sirius is the first one I believe to introduce this concept.

I agree. I don’t warm to Sirius either, but I think that shows the excellence of the writing and the depth of character he’s been given. He’s portrayed as someone who is on the correct side of good v bad when it comes to fighting an evil ideology/Voldemort, and has a lot of love to give by trying to be a substitute parent to Harry. But has a lack of self awareness on his own individual actions and blindness to his own weak points like his recklessness. I hadn’t fully thought through that he’s probably still dealing with the legacy of his own abuse by his own family. His treatment of Kreacher and his own death is the outworking of all of that. And Dumbledores ultimate point that Sirius was a grown up that had the choice to act and treat people (including house elves) as he did. PP are bang on when they compared him with right on lefty men who are so convinced of their own correctness they are deaf and blind to other perspectives.

Damn, JKR is good.

Not having a goblin tradition in Ireland, I don't know much about that, but it's very likely old European folklore got mixed up with antisemitic stereotypes at some point. And if it's a subcurrent in folklore maybe hardly anyone notices.

What I do know is that so much of the nitpicking over "problematic tropes" is both silly and obviously motivated. What takes me to the fair is people who aren't Irish getting very annoyed about Seamus Finnigan, as if this is some absurd name that no Irish person would have. Most Irish readers were probably thinking "hang on, I know at least five Seamus Finnigans".