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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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This discussion is the kind of stuff I really don't care about. I read the book when I was a kid and I remember clearly feeling for the injustice of elves being slave, cheering when Dobby was freed and for Hermione and her movement (she started one, I believe). So I am not sure what's the point to discuss what the author "could have written" or what you think she meant you to feel when writing. These are both assumptions that I can't even relate to, so they fit perfectly into what I was talking about: starting from "she is racist" and then trying to find bits and pieces in the books that can be used to support the claim.
Assuming this is true in every case, which is debatable, none of the stuff mentioned is the thesis of the book. In fact, I answered to a comment that was claiming she was a white suprematist based on character names and stuff like this. On the other hand, a HUGE role in the story is taken by the opposition to the "pure blood" movement (embodied by the main villain), and basically every positive character is or supports mixed-bloods (in English they are called mud-bloods? Not sure). To me this in complete anthitesis with white suprematism, but I would use neither to try to infer what JKR views are on race/society.
My point is that in 7 books and thousands of pages you will find details that you can use to suggest her views are anything you want. The main plot of HP is generally a positive story, nothing that can be linked to racism, white suprematism etc. and so are the main characters. So why picking minor details or creative interpretations of the books instead of her actual words as JKR? Like yes, a transphobic, racist, whatever wrote a nice book series, possibly before becoming transphobia, racist etc.
You're misremembering how the slavery plot goes, for what it's worth. In Chamber of Secrets, yes, Dobby is meant to be a sympathetic figure who we're happy is freed. However, following her pattern of "returning to a plot point that got pushback two books ago to justify it", in Goblet we learn that Dobby is a little sicko for wanting freedom and payment, and Hermione's efforts with SPEW (btw that's slang for vomit in the UK} are consistently portrayed as misguided and naive.
I think it's incredibly silly to suggest that you can't make some judgements about an author based on literally a million words that they pulled directly out of their psyche. Another classic example is Joanne's portrayal of women. If a woman is evil, she's fat, mannish, and ugly. If a woman is good, she's motherly and, in the case of Hermione, Luna, and Ginny, not like other girls. Nobody is really saying she was a hateful bigot while writing those books, but the seeds were certainly there.
I will leave out interpretations of stuff in the book. You can interpret it in multiple ways, the author might have meant it in multiple ways, plus there are probably way more facts to keep into consideration that revolve around a character in the book that is pivotal for the whole plot.
You can make some judgements, of course. But there
The first comment in this chain, which is the reason why I am discussing at all...:
So, the nuance of the characterization of women, whatever that actually means in practice, sounds already more reasonable. Stuff like this quote are completely insane IMHO.
Fair enough, that person is definitely engaging in hyperbolic rhetoric, but I don't think their point is entirely wrong. This feels like a classic case of racism and bigotry being seen as all-or-nothing situations. Those character names are obviously not coming from a place of cultural sensitivity (it's been pointed out that Cho and Chang are both family names from entirely different cultures), and while you refuse to engage with the point, portraying slavery as anything other than abominable is just a terrible decision. I would not agree with the comment OP that Rowling has always been a white supremacist, but I would say that she is/was a rather thoughtless liberal, in the centrist definition of that word.
Fair enough.
Just for fun I opened LinkedIn, and I have found 2 pages of people called Cho Chang. This doesn't say anything, of course, and I know nothing about Asian names and cultures, but I still found it interesting.