Harry Potter fansites distance themselves from JK Rowling

[eyebrowshame]

I'm wondering why, if they feel so strongly about this, that they don't just close down the sites? Oh, would it be because they make shed loads of money on the back of her work, perhaps?

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/03/harry-potter-fan-sites-distance-themselves-from-jk-rowling-over-transgender-rights

So pleased about Emerson coming out in support of JKR. He was 12 when he started Muggle net!

They can have a site where people talk about the books. The issue is where people try and make money out of fan fiction or the Harry Potter world. They can’t do that because she has copyright. She has allowed them to in the past but I wonder if that will change. Especially as Warner Brothers are involved.

9yo DD and I had a great chat the other day about the differences between Hermione & Percy.

They are both rule-followers, but Hermione has the critical facility and humanity to break them when the rules clash with her principles.

It really made DD think.

The people running these fan-sites are not thinkers, are they?

The founder of mugglenet has come out in support of jkr

Funny, not a rape or death threat on that twitter thread and most of comments agree with him.

I've recently had to unfriend a couple of people over this issue. One in particular is an autistic woman in her late 40s who lives for Harry Potter fandom. She's done out her whole house in a Hogwarts theme, identifies as a Hufflepuff , reposts weird "headcanon" stuff from Tumblr at least 15 times per day etc. She is also very firmly on the TWAW side.

Her choices are to either dissociate herself from an identity that she's spent the last 20 years or so immersed in, not to mention having to redecorate, or denounce JKR and pretend that her creation somehow has nothing to do with her. The latter option requires a lot more cognitive dissonance than I suspect she's capable of, but that's the route she's gone down anyway. I was really sad that it came to a parting of the ways, but I wasn't able to continue seeing the daily stream of anti-terf stuff from her, and she isn't really someone you can argue nuance with, so that was what happened.

It's beyond me how people this intolerant can't see the irony in their calling other people bigots.

I agree Eoin I’ve never seen people so closed-minded in all my life. What happened to liberality. One of the tenets of liberalism is supposed to be free speech! I love the Little House in the Prairie books, I appreciate a lot of it is outdated and if written today would be considered wildly racist towards native Americans. I abhor racism but I’m not going to pretend Laura Ingalls never existed and try and get her erased from her own body of work just because I disagree with her view point.

Obviously it’s much more recent but people picking Harry Potter apart now that they’ve found out JK is a horrible bigot don’t seem to realise the first one was written 30 years ago. Of course it’s not going to stand up to today’s levels of wokeness but at the time it was considered very progressive!

The people who are still going to read them and be fans of the work but want to erase JKR from her own creation are even worse.

I'm getting flashbacks to my teenage years following mugglenet for countdown clock of when books would be released.

Leaky cauldron had loads of problems with cliques, it was always the poor man's mugglenet.

Well done Emerson.

I was quite the Harry Potter fan, back in the day, and used to be all over fan sites. What's interesting is that you could see the roots of modern day wokery in some of those intense conversations, fervently criticising JKR for stuff like American witch schools or not having gay characters.

I also remember how angry everyone was when Book 5 came out, because it disproved some pet theories. Very strange. It was as though fans didn't really fully understand the concept of authorship.

@orangejuggling was book 5 when Heir of gryffindor went up in smoke.

orange same, I still am a big HP fan but I remember being on those sites back in the day and that big interview JK did with them when she flew them out to Scotland. She really went out of her way to be generous to them so I‘m really happy Emerson’s turned out not to be a dick at least.

There would be nothing wrong of course with disagreeing with JKR but why does it have to be done with so little compassion? To label her a bigot and say they’re removing her name and pictures from the site and are basically going to pretend HP is nothing to do with her is just petty and ungrateful. They could’ve released statements in the same vein as Evanna Lynch saying we don’t agree on this particular issue and here is our stance but we condemn abuse and bullying and we still respect her for her humanitarian work and know her to be a kind and generous person etc.

Are these fan sites U.K. or US based?

I think very few people in the US have made an effort to understand the nuances of this issue because of the religious right and Trump. If you read the Washington Post or NY Times, there is no Hadley Freeman or Suzanne Moore or Janice Turner.

U.S and you’re right the polarisation there has always been bad but right now it is off the chain. No one wants to be seen to be saying the wrong thing.

People in underpants in their (parents') bedrooms or whatever the quote was.
I feel sad for JK R if she supported them but fansites are pretty weird, they seem to think it's their product, not the actual writer's. Just think of Star Wars fans for a start.
The only sad, but unsurprising, thing here is that most people wouldn't know or give a stuff about it save for the BBC and Guardian giving this publicity. Drip..drip..drip.

[quote merrymouse]This article on fandoms is quite enlightening. 'Harmonians' were/(are?) 'shippers' for a relationship between Hermione and Ron.

"So they turned their ire on her. Harmonians began to openly insult Rowling, calling into question her talent as a writer, denigrating her for being divorced, and even insulting her personal appearance. One post even indulges in some pearl clutching, wondering if the “moral” of Ron/Hermione is really one she wants to pass down to her daughters."

www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-fall-of-fandom-etiquette-and-the-rise-of-the-ship-war[/quote]
I have some series and thins I really enjoy, but there is something very weird about all of this.