I’m over 40.
I gave up Bill Cosby. I gave up Kevin Spacey. I gave up all of the 80s and 90s movies about toxic masculinity and misogyny. I gave up Aerosmith (maybe Steven Tyler hasn’t been canceled yet but COME ON have you heard the lyrics to any single one of his songs). I gave up Michael Richards (and Seinfeld too). I gave up Michael Jackson.
You can give up Harry Potter. It’s the right thing to do, it’s worth it, and it’s the adult decision. Grow up and check your allegiances. They’ll define you.
My parents moved a few months ago, and that meant I had to come over and decide what to do with some of the stuff I owned that was still at their house. I sorted things into “keep” and “throw away” piles.
One of the things I had to decide on was my Harry Potter books. My parents were surprised I put them in the “throw away” pile. It was hard for a moment, not because of what they were, but because I remember the day my dad came home and surprised me with books 2 and 3. I had read the first book for school, but the first 4 books had already been published by the time I got into it, so my friends were well ahead of me. I was so happy when my dad spontaneously did that. I hadn’t asked for the books, but he knew I wanted them and went out of his way to get them just to surprise me. I felt so loved.
As I held those same books in my hands, 25 years since first receiving them, I took in that loved feeling, but it was twinged with disgust for JK Rowling. Although it pained me, I knew I wouldn’t be reading them again. In my internal monologue, I told myself, "These books served their purpose long ago. It’s okay to let them go and move on."
So into the “throw away” pile they went. The only things worth keeping anymore are the memories and experiences that those books originally opened up to me, and those can’t be tossed out even if I wanted to. Putting the books into that pile felt like visiting a wake - the series is dead to me now, and with this final viewing, I could have closure over it and say finally goodbye.
I mean yeah, so long as you’re not actually giving money to the evil woman that wrote those books in any way, nobody’s stopping you from enjoying your old Harry Potter books and DVDs.
Heck, if you’re missing one you can buy it on eBay second hand, just so long as you’re not supporting the evil woman with a shiny new purchase, ya know? That woman doesn’t deserve a penny.
There’s a separate conversation you might want to have with yourself on whether your can separate the author from the work while you’re reading it, of course, and whether you’re comfortable doing so or not is a personal decision you’ll have to make for yourself.
While mostly yes, all of that affects others opinions of the books, which can increase her sales and fund her hate.
I’ll like HP again when she’s dead.
I’ve lost a lot of favorite musicians, that turned out to be either creepy abusers, or rabid zionists; I think HP fans can read another fucking book.
It might work better if you recommend them an alternative. “Don’t do this” is bad instruction. “You can do this instead” is better.
I’ve heard good things about Discworld, for one.
Much better and funnier than anything from that witch.
I get there are workarounds like piracy and buying second-hand, but also boycotting a book-series and some merch shouldn’t be that hard surely?
Yeah. There’s a lot of literature. Don’t have to marry this one. When Gaiman was found to be a creep, I gave up some of my favorites. And yet there is still more to fill the gap.
I was never into the Harry Potter IP. Can someone please summarize who was executed and who don’t allow who to watch some tv show?? I’m really out of the loop.
Afaik: The writer is very outspoken against trans people. And not in a “boomer still catching up” way but very intentionally so.
Here’s some material on it: https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk-rowling-transgender-comments-controversy
Perfection is the enemy of good.
Most consumerism is problematic and you can blame most people for something, just take your time and you will find something: Are you drinking milk? Are you eating meat? Do you drink beer or smoke cigarettes? Do you use Social Networks like Instagram, Facebook or TikTok? Do you buy stuff on Amazon? Do you use ChatGPT? Do you drive a car even though you could travel by foot, train, bus or bike? Do you watch soccer? Do you watch porn? Congratulations, you are probably supporting something shitty.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to change things. But offending people for doing some of these things never helped. It often just achieves the opposite. Try to encourage others, show them alternatives. Etc.
Perfection is the enemy of good.
Transphobia isn’t good.
Even if you do none of those it just keeps going. Coffee? Using too much plastic? Drinking 90% of soda brands?
I just like to think of it like “these things are bad, what good can I do rather than trying to cut out every bad thing?” If every HP fan supported the author by buying it, but then volunteered in a soup kitchen one time, they’ve done far more good than bad.
It’s rarely so cut and dry how the money you spend will be used to hurt people. And it’s also rare for such visible harm to be tied to something so unnecessary. You can move on from this 20 year old children’s book, I’m sure it’ll be okay.
I would say it’s fine to pirate Harry Potter media.
So if you are really that into it, just pirate it.
Way ahead of you. I remember when The Half Blood Prince came out, there were leaked photographs of the whole book online a few days early. There was a massive collaborative transcription of the low quality photos into an ebook. Fun times.
Better off, pirate it and donate the price of the media to the Trevor Project or something (can someone recommend a British trans charity in the replies, for example?)
I disagree.
Interacting with the new show, even through piracy, leads to more voices talking about it and making Rowling’s cash-cow culturally relevant. It also normalises the shit takes she pushes through her stories at children.
I don’t like Ben Shapiro, and wouldn’t pay a dime for his streaming service. But pirating Chip Chilla to show to my kids still gives him a say in how me and my family view the world.
Why does Rowling get a pass? Because I happened to read her racist, classist tripe when I was a kid?
Still helps to promote engagement. People can do what they want, but if you really want to make a stand on this, then completely ignoring it is the only way.
This and just act mature about it with a critical judgement.
Regardless what Rowling says the wizarding world, which is a mix of common mythology and has folklore huge queer potential. Its hard to find media that portrays something like it this well.
The series will have its flaws, the writer will make sure of that, but she will also be too shortsighted to recognise the extension and personal touched by everyone else involved that may not agree with her viewpoints.
I was considering playing hogwarts legacy a while back, I decided if I bought it I would donate double what I paid for the game to mermaids.
Whatever fraction of a share of the cost goes to Rowling and whatever fraction of that she uses to push her hateful agenda probably does less harm than mermaids does good.
Conceptually I view it as similar to putting sin taxes on things which are harmful to society but difficult to prohibit (alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food etc.)
I wound up not buying it because there are other games to play from better franchises and my HP nostalgia isn’t all that strong, but I think this is a reasonable approach.
I WAS that Harry Potter fan. The overly obsessed nerd who was waaaaaay to into it. But now I’m over it because fuck Rowling.
I don’t even plan to pirate the hp tv show. Fuck Jk Rowling so fucking hard. Fuck the piece of shit. Ugh
I was a huge fan back then and nowadays I’m like " This thread is how I learn, that there’s a new show announced?" - shows how much I care about that franchise today, lol.
Yup. I was a DIE HARD fan of hairy pothead until rowling showed her true colours. Now I won’t even watch HP or read the books, even if they’re pirated. She’s a bigoted POS and she can rot in hell.
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I am going to admit I enjoyed the series a lot 20 years ago, can’t say I’ve read ger stuff since the series ended and haven’t done anything to support her since the whole TERF thing came out and she started showing what sort of person she was. I recently picked up my old books to see if they held up and by god is it filled with bigoted stereotypes, Cho Chang (two last names) for the Chinese girl, Goblins being the obvious stereotype/alehory of Jews from a European who was “open minded” about Jews pre ww2 but still wanted to make sure that they deserved some of the bad shit that happened to them because they’re vicious even if unfair wizard laws were passed, the black auror being called Shackelbolt, the wezeleys being very much catholics for being poor with too many kids, the french being snobbish bafoons but classy, the Centaurs being either polytheists or gypsies, the list just goes on and Harry being the hero just gets rid of the head Nazi while leaving the institutions and culture in place, doesn’t even think about the slavery aspect except for Dobby, and he and Ron make fun of Hermione for her pushing for their freedom. I guess the reason why people enjoy the series is because the world feels somewhat real and magical because she put her imagination and bigotry into the story and never thought of trying to have the protagonists actually solve a major issue and will let it fester.
They are not even good, why is everyone crazy about these books?
They are easy to read and were some people’s introduction to fantasy/fiction (not everything is as dull as school assignments) and a set of shared experiences growing up.
Even when the books were written I found even the concept pretty stupid. “You need a wand to do magic” 🤷♂️ “We can teleport but you have to use a train to get to school” 🤦♂️ And the story is a ripoff of too many previous stories.
World building was shit. New stuff was being added in later books that, if it existed in early books, would have made the story so different.
Same fucking reason why Star Wars, Star Trek, Ghostbusters and many other old good media is still popular today. Nostalgia.
Childhood nostalgia I guess.
I am too old to have any for this series, but still even if I did, I don’t understand why you can’t drop it. I realise plenty of the things I liked in my childhood was commercialised nonsense, and I have no desire to keep revisiting it.
I agree. I wish I could understand.
Then I remember that stuff like Twilight makes it into best selling territory and I give up trying to understand.
I have the same one talk over and over with my wife. No other author gets that much slack from their fanbase.
“But its such great storytelling”
its not. Its mediocre and needs time travel to work.
its not. Its mediocre and needs time travel to work.
This mentality misses the point, IMO. Even if the Harry Potter books were written in such a way that made even the staunchest critic go, “Wow, these books rival the works of of J.R.R. Tolkien and Shakespeare,” that should have zero bearing on whether or not any given individual makes the decision to boycott an author’s work on idealistic grounds.
I like plenty of art that could be classified as schlock; not everything we enjoy has to be masterpiece theatre. I’ve boycotted all HP content ever since Rowling became a professional asshole, but I won’t pretend I didn’t enjoy the books and the films as a teenager.
Here’s a hard pill to swallow: shitty people can make good art. We can condemn bad people unequivocally without simultaneously needing their art to be bad. Michael Jackson was my favorite musician for many years, but hearing his music in 2026 always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But I won’t pretend that it wasn’t my jam and I certainly won’t suggest that the music was mediocre.
Edit: And although it goes without saying: this decision is always up to the individual. I have trans friends who don’t concern themselves with Rowlings’ sociopolitical views and continue to enjoy HP content. I don’t begrudge them for that; we all have different, if arbitrary, boundaries.
Orson Scott Card.
I bought Ender’s books before knowing what kind of shit is OSC. Now I wouldn’t download a free pdf of anything from him.
Its mediocre and needs time travel to work.
My Immortal, a masterpiece in coherent plot, needs time travel to work too. I fail to see the alleged problem here.
How dare you compare an established monument of contemporary literature to something like Harry Potter?
Time travel is mostly used as a deus ex machina to solve a problem a weiter has written themselves in. Like in HP, Therme ia time travel bit only for students or to learn more, not to erase attacks by Voldemort, because reasons. In other words, they could have stopped the death if Harrys parents, but did not want to, because reasons.
I get rhat if used well and as a consistent plot device, it can work. But in HP, its simply a one oft drama device. Its boring and lazy writing.
Edit, ah, I see
My Immortal is popularly regarded as one of the worst works of fan fiction ever written
This comment rivals My Immortal on grammar and spelling.
Its boring and lazy writing.
STOP FLEMIN DA STORY, PREPZ
It’s like the inverse of Liking Something Before It Was Cool. I never liked this problematic thing even when it was cool.
My kids and I read Harry Potter a lot. We love it and it’s been a good bonding experience.
We limit our consumption of Harry Potter though. We read the books, watch the old movies and occasionally (once a year) maybe, purchase a lego set.
I have explained to my kids that I would rather not support JK Rowling due to her stance on trans people and for the most part they are cool with things.
I am certainly still not helping but I believe my kids understand pretty well
I’ll shit on JK as much as anyone, but I gotta say, I know a lot of trans people who own Hogwarts Legacy on steam… Most aren’t huge HP fans or even read the books.
Who would own Howarts Legacy on Steam when Epic gave it away free for a whole week…
Because no one is going to play it on Epic, even if its free
This is more of a general answer and not specifically about Hogwarts Legacy:
I mean, if I want to play a game now I don’t wait for years for the possibility that it becomes free for a week (and the chance that I don’t miss the giveaway). And if I have a steam deck, I maybe still want to own it on steam.
Idiots.
