Would people still hate J.K. Rowling if she wasn't a TERF?

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Granted, I was describing my perception earlier

It's there a literature emergency in the house?

What's the topic?

Getting back to JK Rowling

The story of Harry, Hermoine and Ron is one where the three go through struggles from their early child. Through their struggles they become great wizards and witches. The underlying theme put forward by Rowling is that determination and perseverance against the odds wins the day.

The story resonates because in western culture life has become relatively easy so we want to share the experiences of struggle that our trio go through (the ups and downs). Like any good drama.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0uMAxXAwxUHKylHx9uSoJ1?si=ZVgaMbv8TSSt3TqmejYtHw

The witch trials of JK Rowling.

Never knew K was completely made up

I've never read or seen Harry Potter, or Games of Thones for that matter (although ironically I bought that box set for my son for Christmas). I'm not sure how this devolved into a debate on post-colonialism in world literature or Japanese authors, or the reading choices of TP's brother.

Could someone please tell me what the consensus is on Rowling?

I'm not even sure why people think she's a TERF (since I couldn't care less, quite frankly), but I'm curious to know how her reputation has changed. I knew her as a famous author who had theme parks made after her franchise. Everyone was insane about HP for some time. Has that all stopped now, and people suddenly noticed they don't like her books?

Before the TERF stuff, JK Rowling was criticised for alleged lack of original content in the Harry Potter stories. She has been the target of accusations over plagiarism but these have (so far) been unsuccessful.

She's made plenty of transphobic statements herself. Mostly on Twitter, I think. Idk, it seems she's made it clear that she doesn't support the trans and nonbinary community.

When the last HP game came out, people were being cyberbullied for buying it. (Which I don't agree with even if I don't side with Rowling. Like, I think there are better uses of activism than making people want to kill themselves for playing a damn video game.)

She still has fans, for sure. I see people with HP merch all the time. Mostly the people who hate her are trans or trans allies.

I don't hate her, but she is doing harm with her platform. I just think nuance is a thing.

So are you saying people would still hate her if not for the TERF stuff?

Sorry, I'm not sure if the thread title is asking members' personal opinions about her, or if it's asking if we think other people would continue to hate her?

Even though I have zero interest in Harry Potter, I was quite taken by her success as a rags-to-riches woman contemporary author and I cheered her on for that reason. My son read HP out loud to his class in Kindergarten (1998) which was quite a feat for him at four years old but he was gifted and very much into all her books. I guess you could say I followed her success tangentially by buying the books and merch even though I had no interest in it myself.

Then I heard of her falling from grace and everyone hates her? How did her fans not notice if there was TERF content in the books when they were selling by the millions? What brought it all to light, and quite frankly, why does it matter?

I have nothing against trans and that isn't my point, but she wouldn't be the only author in history to have questionable or even reprehensible personal politics.

Plagiarism of whom?

Thank you for explaining this.

Are you saying that it was her personal TERF comments which caused a problem, rather than content in her books?
Are people finding TERF material in the text?

Isn't there a whole HP theme park now, at Disney?
Is that still popular?

So far as I know, her books don't have transphobia in them. It's just many statements she has made in the last two or three years.
I'm assuming it is still popular. I think most of the public doesn't know or perhaps just doesn't care about her transphobic statements. It's primarily those of us in the LGBTQ community who speak against it.

Even then, I am not in favor of the cyberbullying by those in my community. And my statements against this have gotten more than a little ire thrown my way. But I march to the beat of my own drum

Interesting. Thanks.

Do they hold all authors throughout world history to the same standard, or just her?

They tend to feel that authors of the past are not threats in the present, whereas authors in the present tend to be. Also because she has such a large following.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_dis ... ter_series

Despite the negative press, she (Rowling) has some really admirable qualities.

She is tenacious and determined given the manuscript for the Philosopher's was rejected by around 12 publishers. Among the reasons given included that young boys might be less likely to read a book penned by a woman and that she should use initials instead. With a lonely “J” at her disposal, Rowling created a middle name for herself, Kathleen, after her grandmother.

She added a "j" to her name and she hit success with Bloomsbury and the rest is history. Needless to say the other publishing houses were kicking themselves.

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