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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Muggle net stops being sexist and anti-JKR

34 replies

fromorbit · 25/08/2026 09:22

One of the oldest Harry Potter sites went crazy in 2020 and went all out against Harry's creator JR Rowling because she said she thought women were a thing.

Now the site owners have dismissed the sexists. In 2025 the entire staff was let go, and the archive dating back to 1999 was deleted in April 2026 after a law suit from former staff.

Details:
MuggleNet Drops Staff, Gets Sued, Disapparates, Reappears Brand New

https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/mugglenet-drops-staff-gets-sued-disapparates-reappears-brand-new/

This is going to be about the huge surge of Potter interest which will occur after the TV series drops in December.

Going to be a lot more reverse ferreting in the coming year I suspect. Obviously profit is part of it, but also a cultural shift. The genderists are losing ground everywhere. The fact they couldn't cancel Harry Potter is part of it, but they also couldn't cancel reality.

MuggleNet Drops Staff, Gets Sued, Disapparates, Reappears Brand New

https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/mugglenet-drops-staff-gets-sued-disapparates-reappears-brand-new/

OP posts:
ItsCoolForCats · 25/08/2026 17:57

AnotherEmma · 25/08/2026 17:41

Agree! Have you listened to the audible recordings of the books? He played Lockhart for those and he is fantastic!

No, I haven't. Thanks for the recommendation. I'm currently reading the fifth book with my youngest, but we might listen to the audio books in the future. JKR's cancellation is going well 🤣 I do think that it is the inability to cancel her that has provoked such vile, and frankly unhinged, attacks on her.

AstonCanKissMyArse · 25/08/2026 18:22

ItsCoolForCats · 25/08/2026 17:57

No, I haven't. Thanks for the recommendation. I'm currently reading the fifth book with my youngest, but we might listen to the audio books in the future. JKR's cancellation is going well 🤣 I do think that it is the inability to cancel her that has provoked such vile, and frankly unhinged, attacks on her.

Yep. Can't have women speaking their minds, can we? Tut tut.

AstonCanKissMyArse · 25/08/2026 18:41

UtopiaPlanitia · 25/08/2026 16:35

Speaking of JKR, I came across this article in UnHerd which seems to be arguing that JKR is a noble woman for standing up for her beliefs AND that the morality she wrote in the HP books is what gave her fans the inspiration to try and cancel her. The argument makes no sense to me but I thought others might like to read it.

https://unherd.com/2026/08/jk-rowling-is-reaping-the-potter-whirlwind/

http://archive.today/IEczq

'It has become depressingly fashionable to distance oneself from the supposedly heinous views of Harry Potter’s creator. Rowling’s advocacy for women and children in the gender debate, at great personal cost to herself, has awakened all the fury and poisonous misogyny of those living in their own fantasy worlds. Hundreds of scribblers and social-media screamers have been keen, over the years, to highlight the “irony” of the offence emanating from one of the figures in British life most celebrated for promoting warm and fuzzy values. How can this woman going to bat for single-sex spaces on X be the same dreamweaver of our childhoods — the creator of a world in which the oppressed triumphed? The implication is of a national treasure turned witch — a fallen angel. And, for many, it’s personal: some of the biggest evangelists for the cult of gender were once the biggest fans of Harry Potter.

The pipeline here should be self-evident. Many of the most vocal apostles for “trans resistance” are part of an arrested cohort: their generation festers in fandoms, hoards Funko Pops, indulges in parasocial relationships with celebrities and fictional characters. They assimilate the moral frameworks of imagined worlds and bluntly apply them to complex grown-up politics. Gender evangelism being a distinctly dweeby movement is not incidental: it directly relates to the baked-in credulousness, magical thinking and outsiderdom which has come to define their generation.

Nor is it incidental that these themes are the very foundations of the Harry Potter novels.

...The force — the creed, the author — which shaped our values also handed us the tools to dismantle them. Harry Potter’s Christian skeleton (intentional or otherwise) put the novel’s author on a familiar track: it seems inevitable now that she’d be ridiculed by those who were raised in the cosy, tolerant atmosphere which both Christianity and Rowling, in their own ways, ushered into being. '

Tbar is an odd article.

Id say JKR has been a victim of some common traits in current society - magical thinking, childish belief in goodies and baddies, misguided sidding with the 'underdog' (be kind!).

She didn't cause these phenomena just because she references them in her children's stories!

tokennamechange · 25/08/2026 20:46

ItsCoolForCats · 25/08/2026 17:25

Sorry, not relevant to the thread, but I'm pleased Kit Harrington will be playing Lockhart 😍 Even though Lockhart is a dafty.

agree, loved his version in the audiobook. tbh I thought it was a bit weird that NH was first choice over him given he'd already done it, I would have thought they were similar in terms of profile etc.

I was going to say that both KH/NH would make a lot more sense as a heart throb for teenage girls than Kenneth B - as charming as he was in the role he seemed far too old - it would make sense that Molly fancied him but not Hermione. But then when I checked he would have been exactly the same age when he filmed CoS as KH is now!

I do feel a bit sorry for NH though, got all the backlash from the vocal minority and then didn't even get the role!

AnotherEmma · 25/08/2026 21:54

ItsCoolForCats · 25/08/2026 17:57

No, I haven't. Thanks for the recommendation. I'm currently reading the fifth book with my youngest, but we might listen to the audio books in the future. JKR's cancellation is going well 🤣 I do think that it is the inability to cancel her that has provoked such vile, and frankly unhinged, attacks on her.

You're in for a real treat! I thought the Audible production was fantastic; it really brought the books to life. Definitely listen to them together!

fromorbit · 26/08/2026 06:51

UtopiaPlanitia · 25/08/2026 16:35

Speaking of JKR, I came across this article in UnHerd which seems to be arguing that JKR is a noble woman for standing up for her beliefs AND that the morality she wrote in the HP books is what gave her fans the inspiration to try and cancel her. The argument makes no sense to me but I thought others might like to read it.

https://unherd.com/2026/08/jk-rowling-is-reaping-the-potter-whirlwind/

http://archive.today/IEczq

'It has become depressingly fashionable to distance oneself from the supposedly heinous views of Harry Potter’s creator. Rowling’s advocacy for women and children in the gender debate, at great personal cost to herself, has awakened all the fury and poisonous misogyny of those living in their own fantasy worlds. Hundreds of scribblers and social-media screamers have been keen, over the years, to highlight the “irony” of the offence emanating from one of the figures in British life most celebrated for promoting warm and fuzzy values. How can this woman going to bat for single-sex spaces on X be the same dreamweaver of our childhoods — the creator of a world in which the oppressed triumphed? The implication is of a national treasure turned witch — a fallen angel. And, for many, it’s personal: some of the biggest evangelists for the cult of gender were once the biggest fans of Harry Potter.

The pipeline here should be self-evident. Many of the most vocal apostles for “trans resistance” are part of an arrested cohort: their generation festers in fandoms, hoards Funko Pops, indulges in parasocial relationships with celebrities and fictional characters. They assimilate the moral frameworks of imagined worlds and bluntly apply them to complex grown-up politics. Gender evangelism being a distinctly dweeby movement is not incidental: it directly relates to the baked-in credulousness, magical thinking and outsiderdom which has come to define their generation.

Nor is it incidental that these themes are the very foundations of the Harry Potter novels.

...The force — the creed, the author — which shaped our values also handed us the tools to dismantle them. Harry Potter’s Christian skeleton (intentional or otherwise) put the novel’s author on a familiar track: it seems inevitable now that she’d be ridiculed by those who were raised in the cosy, tolerant atmosphere which both Christianity and Rowling, in their own ways, ushered into being. '

The author is right leaning.

So she is doing a wider critique of the adults acting as children and the "woke" left and its intolerance I think. As the ur text for millennials she thinks that HP has a hand in shaping the forces which attacked Rowling. There is something in that, but there is much more.

Simplistic politics are at the heart of this, but that is true of both right and left. The wider shift in society which led to political polarisation is beyond JKRs influence.

HP are very traditional liberal books reflecting JKRs politics. Yet they are about good and evil - something pretty universal. That is why they succeed in every country in the world. Kids who read them can grow up in different ways.

Yes the fandom getting a powerline through Dobbys grave shifted is kind of ridiculous. However if there was a shrine to a football, or rock star on a beach the same thing might have happened. It is a testimony to the power of popular outrage not something unique to HP.

The books are pretty black and white sure, but all great children's literature has complexities in it. Harry is a flawed hero. One of the villains has a redemption arc. It portrays a hostile media aiding a coverup of the truth and using cruelty to do so. The government is corrupt but also a force for good.

The Metro journalists we are just talking about in their absolute certainty in using their power to condemn JKR remind you of anyone in the books?

I think it is an interesting article to be sure. The thing is JKR's stance has always been that anyone who really understands the books would not be surprised at her position. She is right of course.

Just think about it the whole thing reads like a HP novel. A group of crazy dark wizards doing weird magic experiments on unhappy kids with support from sections of the government, wealthy elites and a media coverup. The heroes a bunch of persecuted witches who against all the odds manage to get the truth out while juggling family responsibilities.

Though ironically the plotline is way closer to another children's book series whose author failed to step up when JKR did - Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials. Very keen to criticise the church, not so keen when it it is crazy medics and academics warping kids lives.

OP posts:
RoseField1 · 26/08/2026 06:52

My 2006 self is delighted to hear this.

InSlovakiaTheCapitalOfCourseIsBratislava · 27/08/2026 08:56

My phone is having a strop, but I’m fairly certain Mugglenet in all its glory, pompous or otherwise, is ensconced in the way back machine

weegielass01 · Yesterday 09:35

The only thing that p*ssed me off about the films is that they didn't have Peeves, and I don't think the series will either.
It was meant to be Rik Mayal I think, I could just imagine him doing it Fred style.
Maybe Ricky Gervais could have done a version of Peeves.

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