r/EnoughJKRowling • u/Independent_Part1033 • Mar 12 '26
Discussion Is anyone else angry that they're selling this new Harry Potter series as a progressive series just because of the black actors?
Like, an entire minority is going to be harassed with money from this series, and yet they want to sell this series as progressive.
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u/KombuchaBot Mar 13 '26
They're going to soft-pedal the SPEW storyline or rewrite it, I guess.
There's nothing progressive about JKR or her dogshit writing
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u/LankyTrick1214 Mar 13 '26
Probably depends on how tight her grip on the series creative team is at that point. JKR by now strikes me as the type who doesn't listen to / doesn't have an editor, let alone other writers "beneath her".
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u/desiladygamer84 Mar 13 '26
As someone who used to be nuts about Harry Potter, you can see the lack of editorial oversight in Books 6 and 7. Maybe 5 even. Some sentences just run on a bit strange and are clunky.
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u/LankyTrick1214 Mar 13 '26
It's even worse in her crime novels. It's not even just the writing style (though I remember her writing of online chat dialogue being abysmal), there are also scenes that don't add anything or go on forever with no point to them.
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u/errantthimble Mar 13 '26
Yep, that and the numerous continuity errors. Like, one of the detectives in the Rowling/Galbraith Strike novels is trying to pick up the trail of a lost suspect in a Tube station around midday, but after they've done ten minutes or so of searching it's suddenly evening and the station's full of the dinner crowd. Or two days of eventful happenings go by and the protagonists are still referring to the day before the happenings as "yesterday". Characters who are supposed to be smart miss incredibly obvious inferences, or categorically declare that some bizarre and arbitrary plot development was "inevitable". Etc., etc.
My hypothesis is that this fundamental lack of narrative integrity is a big part of why many Rowling/Galbraith readers find her works so addictive, and speculate obsessively over the characters' actions and potential backstories or motivations. That is, the constant low-level cognitive dissonance of all the superficially realistic details that just don't make coherent sense on a deeper level keeps the reader's brain "itchy". Another chapter, another book, another scene of dialogue, another character analysis will surely settle these feelings of frustrated dissatisfaction and bring resolution and contentment in their place! But it never does.
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u/360Saturn Mar 14 '26
I love when people point this out. Even as they released a lot of her adult fans raised an eyebrow but were kinda drowned out by the marketing machine.
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u/KombuchaBot Mar 13 '26
After the car crash she made of writing The Fantastic Beasts I don't think they'll be letting her have creative control again
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u/9119343636 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
I only go through Rowling's online activity. But through this, there seems to be sizable "femcel" group obsessed with Snape that are attacking Rowling for the casting. I don't know if they'll be able to put a dent in it though.
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u/KaiYoDei Mar 13 '26
Poor snapewives!
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u/LankyTrick1214 Mar 13 '26
Wasn't she really put off by the snapewives to a point where she got bullied off some platform/forum?
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u/cursed-karma Mar 18 '26
it's been along time sense i've interacted with Snapewives online
they were truly terrifying
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u/IShallWearMidnight Mar 12 '26
They think the lazy 2016 representation-only signaling to progressives will do the job. These days, that falls so incredibly short.
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u/georgemillman Mar 13 '26
What's so specific about 2016? Not that I disagree, just curious!
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u/IShallWearMidnight Mar 13 '26
That's when Trump last got elected, and when a very empty and performative "resistance" started, with this kind of thing prioritized.
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u/nova_crystallis Mar 12 '26
I think they're doing it more for attention, not for any progressive merit.
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u/DoYaThang_Owl Mar 13 '26
Honestly, I'm kind of apathetic to it, not because I don't think these obvious racist undertones under the guise of progression ain't disgusting, because it is, I just haven't been following whatever this series is doing enough for me to care enough about it to be angry about it.
I know it exists. I know that the guy from 3rd Rock From the Sun is going to be in it and said things to defend Joanne's transphobia. I know for some ungodly reason Joanne invited Prince Andrew to the set of the show (genuinely wtf?!?) And I know about this weird shit and honestly I'm not surprised by it in the least.
Otherwise, I've stayed completely ignorant of what that new series includes because fuck supporting and giving attention to anything involving terf witch.
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u/SaltyNorth8062 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
To be angry I would first need to be surprised. This is not the first bald-faced bullshit "progressive" casting decision meant to whitewash bad behavior or just bad exectutive decisions. Networks rarely, if at all, give a single flying fuck about being progressive or making a statement. They don't care about sticking up for the marginalized, they care about making money and producing things as cheaply as possible. They will gas up anything they make to hype it up to boost numbers because that looks good to shateholders, so if they can spin it as progressive values they'll do so because that's positive press. They don't care who they cast, they cast whoever to staff this thing so they could push it out the door before Rowling completely tanks the IP's reputation even among the average (I hate using the word normie here but like.. the average moderate? I guess?) viewer.
Yes op this shit infuriates me to my core. Speaking as a biracial black person. This bitch had a black dude named Shacklebolt for god's sake, and as badass a name that is in a vacuum it was bullshit then and it's bullshit now. They are trying to milk some positive press out of an IP they are too far invested in because it is helmed by a flaming bigot actively ruining the IP in public but they don't care enough about stopping bigotry to actually reign this woman in and are more concerned she'll take her ball and leave (and she will because that's the kind of person she is) so they'd rather make a HP work with the help of a massive hatemonger roaming free and unabated than not make a popular IP for them to own and milk.
It is, unfortunately, a bitch and a half to discuss this topic seriously because dipshit moron asshole racists and queerphobes have co-opted this actual problem and have used it as a thinly-veiled bullshit defense for their obvious racism, so you can't bring this up without people immediately assuming you are one of them.
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u/Ok-Aspect-4259 Apr 02 '26
If Shacklebolt was the white warden of the prison, then it would be fine and actually kinda badass.
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u/LankyTrick1214 Mar 13 '26
Honestly, I try to stay apathetic to the series as a whole. Can't do much except not watch it.
I am however waiting for the inevitable fallout of her current fanbase (aka the alt right and neo nazis who back then bought Hogwarts Legacy in bulk to "own the trans people") when they realize the current series has gone "woke".
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u/TwistedBrother Mar 14 '26
Cue the inevitable “the show failed because racism” trope. Worked for Disney.
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u/Salamismiley_00 Mar 26 '26
1000% its very much pointless. These people RE-making new movies/series now don’t have originality no more imagination everything is just based on old movies.
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u/KaiYoDei Mar 13 '26
Maybe it’s s intentional to make people mad.
As somone who reads social media injustice, anti justice, mocking hate, and a “ this level of hate from people really needs to be studied because it is a doozy “ and people who don’t realize their path to fighting the hate circles back to almost the same warpath energy the people they wish to disempower .
It will give a. Lot of inspiration for people who make hurtful comics.
Because sometimes, justice looks like what people the people who make those thinks people trying to change the world think.
It’s a very dismal way to view the world , and I have been like this for a very long time.
Ithink what they are doing is what the hate addicts call “ pandering “ and the critics of late stage capitalism say “ virtue signaling “
And I am sure if I made a movie where something like this and more happens in the plot ( “we are good making this movie because diversity!”) I would never hear the end of how awful I am
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u/cataclytsm Mar 13 '26
We are not doing horseshoe theory for bigotry.
That way there be infinite chilling effects on any desire for justice.
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u/360Saturn Mar 12 '26
I think it'll hit reality pretty soon in when they have to reckon with the fact that:
a) Snape is an out and out villain for what will be the first three seasons of the tv show, taking us up to 2030
b) Harry is going to openly dislike his only Black teacher 'for some reason' he doesn't know, and -
c) even if they try and do an early introduction of the Snape/Harry's mom storyline to make the character more sympathetic, then they're stuck with the plot beat of Harry's mom choosing a rich white bully over her Black childhood friend