My first dance was a Halloween costume party, where I danced for the first time with a boy I liked, given courage by a Hogwarts school robe and a “wand” made from a broken wicker chair tucked in the pocket. I was 12 and behind my classmates socially. Instead of slumber parties and playing video games, I threw myself into the world of Harry Potter, rereading my favorite books on loop, finding comfort in the dynamics of a friendship I could dream of, while my own were tenuous at best.
And yet, recently, after the author’s controversial behavior, I’ve found myself challenged for loving the books that shaped my formative years, by others and by myself as well.
What does it mean to love a piece of art? And should that art’s value and enjoyment be tethered to the human who created it?
This is an ongoing conversation, especially with cancel culture. We’ve realized the creators of our beloved art may be a bit problematic. For a lot of people, knowing this feels like a betrayal. None is so widely felt as the moral failings of Harry Potter creator JK Rowling.
JKR is absolutely in the wrong when it comes to her transphobia. She has gone on a transphobic rampage in recent years and has only doubled down on her troubling crusade. I fully support trans people and their right to gender-affirming care, to be identified by their preferred gender, and their right to feel safe and accepted as anyone else.
The Comfort Series
Studies have shown that rewatching comfort shows can decrease stress and give the viewer a sense of control by knowing what comes next. I think it’s safe to say rereading our favorite books does the same. Harry Potter was a comfort read for a lot of Millenials like me in our formative years, especially people who felt marginalized, like the LGBTQ community. Though the books are not explicitly inclusive toward gender-queer people, it carries the qualities of acceptance, community, and love, often toward singled out people or creatures of the wizarding world such as house elves or squibs.
Harry Potter is embedded in our culture, and has been for over 25 years. There is no great failing in someone who got a Harry Potter tattoo or enjoyed HP World in Orlando. Like many things that are popular, we don’t spend a lot of time wondering at the close-held beliefs of the creators. We simply loved a series of books.
The author is not the book
It is not the readers’ responsibility to know the author, nor is it their responsibility to make sure the author is an upstanding moral citizen to enjoy their books. We could make the same argument for hundreds of classics. Hemingway was a misogynistic womanizer. F. Scott Fitzgerald stole writing from his wife repeatedly. H.P. Lovecraft was extremely racist. Marion Zimmer Bradley condoned her husband molesting children, and possibly molested children herself. L. Frank Baum was racist and even wrote an op-ed encouraging genocide. Neil Gaiman has been credibly accused of rape multiple times.
We are taught to appreciate works from highly problematic authors, no matter their crimes. And it’s no wonder people are surprised when they learn about the author’s aggregious actions and/or attitudes. They are upheld as “good writers.” This isn’t to say we shouldn’t read these authors at all. This is to say that writers are flawed people too. Often, their flaws inform the writing in interesting ways that we can further learn from.
I don’t love Hemingway’s attitude toward women, but I do love his prose. And I highly enjoyed some of Gaiman’s work before the rape allegations came to light. I don’t know that I can personally pick up one of his books again without the nauseating truth hanging over my head. But I don’t plan to shame anyone for picking up his books. Reading his books does not endorse rape. Buying it? Maybe distantly. But again, not everyone is knowledgable about the authors of the books they pick up. And if they like them? That’s not for me to judge.
Are the books even that good?
Online chatter sometimes comes back to the question: Is Harry Potter even good? We do sometimes get caught up in our fandom bubbles, fall in love with characters who are not well developed, or storylines that are problematic (Remember Twilight?).
This should not have any bearing on whether a person can like a piece of art or not. Art is subjective, and while some of the aspects I am going to talk about have bearing on the likability of the books, they do not ultimately decide a book is good or bad.
Firstly, we have the argument that Harry Potter rips off other fantasy, namely Lord of The Rings. This is true. There are a lot of fantasy stories that overlap and take ideas from one another. Fantasy stories share tropes, symbols, settings, and the like because that’s what readers learn to expect from the genre. They like the Horcruxes that vaguely remind them of the One Ring. They like the plucky friends on an adventure through the forest. And they also like the somewhat problematic things that are passed down as well but are never actually addressed, consciously or otherwise.
Alex Raizman, on his website, talks about pervasive tropes concerning skin color, where the “good” guys are often light skinned with blue eyes, and the bad guys are usually more diverse. He writes, “Genre fiction relies entirely on writing about the inherently unreal… a lot of genre fiction draw on common touch stones when writing because it helps ground the reader.” Essentially, when you’re making up a world, it’s hard not to replicate familiar things from other stories and/or the real world. The reader needs these things to orient themselves.
But some things are unnecessarily offensive. Like the Jewish-coded goblins at the bank. Or the lazy depiction of other cultures (i.e. Cho Chang, Padma/Pavarti Patil). I’m sure there are other examples that I have not caught.
These problems are not unique to Harry Potter but are inbedded in fantasy literature of the decade. We need to speak up when we find a problematic touchstone. And until they are addressed, again and again, we won’t create better stories. I am not making excuses for JKR’s worldview, or how that may have leaked onto the page, but it should be noted that the world of Harry Potter was created in the same fashion as an avalanche of fantasy books. We should take these as completely different qualities than her transphobia.
This is how we get better
At the time, the Harry Potter books were normal and in the mainstream, problems and all. We have built off of these and other fantasy stories to create better stories that include more readers. And we have, thankfully, raised our standards by levels in the past two decades.
At the time when the books came out, there was not great representation for many minorities at all in children’s and teen fiction, nor for mainstream fantasy in general. It was not until early to mid-2010s that we started to see diverse representation take off. Readers called for more diverse voices, more representation, and the changing of derrogotory tropes.
Looking back, we can accept that Harry Potter is not perfect. No one piece of cultural iconography is impervious to the scrutiny of society, and few have been studied and scrutinized as closely as Harry Potter. Even before JKR’s meltdown, people wrote academic papers on the series. Used it as a cultural reference point. Made it a part of their social lives (I’m a Hufflepuff, btw).
It is our inability to sit with nuance that has caused social media users to turn on each other for the media they consume. It is a far step from finding meaning and enjoyment from the series and causing harm to trans people. If we all allowed the source of stories to dictate the meaning they give us, then we would have a difficult time finding anything worthwhile. Yes, there are so many non-problematic authors out there, but there is no way of truly knowing your favorite authors either.
Fandom can thrive without condoning JKR’s behavior
I would argue that Harry Potter does not solely belong to JKR. The franchise and fandom have a life of their own, from a trans character being included in Hogwarts Legacy, ‘Dramoine’ fan fiction, and even the 20th anniversary special, from which JKR was conspicuously absent. My alma mater still has a Quidditch team (rebranded Quad Ball).
Harry Potter is about a community of creators and fans. So many people have dedicated their time and energy on these projects who are supportive of trans rights, and publicly so. Notably, Daniel Radcliffe addressed fans, saying plainly that ‘trans people are people’ and (a quote I particularly love) “If you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life — then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred.”
All this is to say that trashing the books, not the author, shames the readers who love it. And that’s not what we should be doing. We should accept that we shouldn’t support JKR, and perhaps not buy Harry Potter merch if we can avoid it. But these stories are where some of us have hidden our hearts in our most vulnerable, traumatic years. We have invested in the actors of the series both on and off screen. We have seen ourselves in the heroes journey. We have found joy in the world of Harry Potter.
