Topic: Hogwarts Legacy

@Polvasti It's an interesting question. As someone in the US, it's effectively impossible to buy anything without some of the money going to anti-trans or anti-LGBT causes. Walmart (one of the very few places which sell Switch 2 in the US) has one of the owners donating to anti-LGBT and another (his brother) donating to pro-LGBT. Similarly, the company which owns Hogwarts Legacy has a reasonably progressive record. Rowling herself has of course been accused as an evil source of liberal values from the right and as an evil source of conservative values from the left... which is an interesting thing to achieve.

As FishyS mentions, it would be hard to do a lot of anything if we spent all day worried about the people on the end of the funnel.

So let’s try to keep the thread focused on the game itself, lest it grow moldy.

I don't think it's that weird, since most people's political views aren't always consistently liberal or consistently conservative. I'm sure Rowling has many liberal opinions, but when it comes to trans people, she has for years used her public platform to spread misinformation and fear towards them, and has now chosen to use her considerable wealth as well to support the anti-trans agenda.

But I get it that this is veering off from discussing the actual game, so I won't continue on the subject. Like I said, it's everyone's personal choice what to spend their money on.

@Filthy Yet not all gaming companies are making a legal fund to help eradicate rights for trans women, now are they? Nor are they billionaires. Buying a Nintendo game isn't going to fund a genuine hatecrime fund.

Ignoring JK for a moment I hate this type of lazy argument every time I see it regurgitated on the internet debates. It basically boils down to why bother trying to do anything at all ever, eliminates personal choice and deflects to whataboutisms taking away from the discussion of what is being said.

It's okay to expect better and trying to make things better is good.

It reminds me of this meme.

Not every company and every IP owner uses their money the same way, though. For example, when I buy an indie game from Supergiant or Humble Games, I don't think any of the money will go to fund wars or anti-LGTBQ hatred or anything like that.

Sure, it's okay to say you don't believe in boycotting in general, but it's disingenuous to say that boycotting is worthless because all company and all IP owners are equally bad. There are many cases in history where boycotting has genuinely changed some of the most awful practices carried out by companies/nations/individuals/etc.

Even if it doesn't go straight into her fund, it can still be a question of personal ethics. I myself don't really want to give a single penny to a person who thinks it's okay to start and fund such an anti-trans organisation. And if enough people come out and say this out loud, it could put enough pressure on Warner Bros. to stop them giving money to this person, some of which is most definitely going to said fund.

Of course I know Warner Bros. most likely doesn't care enough about trans people to do anything like that, but if you never try to do anything to make things change, then they will never change.

@Filthy Bruv not following you here, you don't think royalties of Harry Potter go to JK? You don't think she's not spending for wealth on it? What kind of proof are you after?

JK needs to be cancelled because of how awful Harry Potter is. It taught an entire generation of children to read the most basic writing imaginable but never allowed them to move on to reading good books so they turn into adults that say cringe like "the sorting hat put me into hufflepuff and that's my personality lol" on their dating profile.

It's the classic "how do you separate the art from the artist" bit, everyone has their own line. It's like with Kanye's music, I like a lot of his stuff especially his older stuff. If Power or something comes on in a playlist I'm, honestly, probably not skipping it. But I'm not going to specifically put it in a playlist, I'm not going out of my way to listen to it, I'm not advertising my listening of it, I don't think I'd go out and buy any of his stuff and if I had his name on any of my shirts I'd not only not wear them in public but I wouldn't have them anymore

Harry Potter isn't quite to that level, in my view, the works are bigger than just JK. Also I queued up for those books on day 1, I went to midnight screenings of those movies. I get why some would want to effectively burn the whole place down because of JK and I'm partly there with that view. But at the same time, that series was a big deal culturally to a lot of people

I still have all of the movies on BluRay, I still have copies on my NAS, my sister has the books. I'll still watch the movies on occasion but I'm probably not going to dive into the books again. I'm certainly not getting rid of any of the stuff I have. And I did buy Hogwarts Legacy.... when it went on sale....

..... but that's about my limit

It’s not speculation, she openly talks about it and has done for years. Literally read the article already posted which includes quotes from her on spending money to remove trans rights.

If it helps pretend the article is a new Potter book, “Harry Potter & The Bored Karen”.

Again, let’s please let this thread be about the game itself.

Anyone wanting to speak about the author of the Harry Potter books and her opinions can find places to do so.

@skywake The issue is that you can't really separate Harry Potter from JK Rowling, given how the world-building of those books take from her personal views and warped beliefs. Things like the Goblins being Jewish caricature stereotypes, Africa only having one single wizarding school for the entire continent's population (colonialist mindset that Africa is one country). The names of characters basically boiling down to racist stereotyping as well. There's a lot of ideology centered around "pure-bloods" that the protagonists never challenge nor break, and Harry ends up becoming a perpetrator of that cycle by getting a career as what's effectively a magical police. The story ends with nothing really being changed by the character's actions, and nothing stopping another Voldemort from coming along in the future. There's also the whole subplot where Hermione tries to free slaves who don't wish to be freed.

A lot of the love for the series is mostly just nostalgia at this point. People growing up with the story and the vibes of the world itself. It's art otherwise devoid of substance, with many better wizarding school media being out there. I used to like Harry Potter when I was a kid, but I divorced myself from it over the years after seeing how it basically acted as nothing more than a mouthpiece into Rowling's views, with nothing really compelling existing outside of the vibe of the world. It just falls apart at the seams the more that it gets picked apart and analyzed.

Edit: I didn't see Eel's comment, so this is probably the last I'll say about this.

@VoidofLight Voldemort was created from 2 things a powerful magical bloodline and being conceived under the influence of a strong love potion. That is why he was pure evil. He was completely devoid of love as his mother trapped a person that did not want her. He was not like that because of society or stuff like that.

Unfortunately, none of that was in the movies.

With all the plot holes and stuff, I still am a huge fan of the wizarding world.

The biggest crime is WB NOT putting the whole game on any physical media!!!

@Zuljaras
Yeah, I wasn't going to reply to @VoidofLight in respect of the previous comments. But the idea that the "pure-blood" bit some characters in the world push is never challenged is a very odd reading. Especially given that one of the protagonists is Muggle born and someone valuing "pure blood" is basically just shorthand for them being evil. And also the inverse, people showing interest in Muggles is almost universally a shorthand for them being good

I think the main issue I have with these kinds of responses to art and artists is that people tend to throw out the whole thing. It's either all good or all bad, there's no space for nuance. Perhaps it's possible for JK to be garbage while the universe she built is not. Just like it's possible for The Beatles discography to still be fantastic even though the lyrics to "I saw her standing there" are.... questionable

@skywake In most cases I can separate art from artist- but in the case of Harry Potter I can't. Most of the "World building" is paper thin, and is made from the perspective a bigoted woman with bigoted beliefs. The story is full of multiple instances of stereotyping and outright bigotry built upon the world. Her stance in interviews is that "human nature is human nature," and that meaningful change can't outright be made.

While one of the protagonists is a muggle, that doesn't excuse the multiple instances of characters being born into wizarding families without the ability to use magic at all- and how the story effectively treats those characters. How the protagonists still look down upon certain people from certain walks of life, and how the ending symbolizes a retainment of the status quo in society that breeds inequality in the first place.

The way she writes Goblins is to portray a penny pinching stereotype associated with the Jewish people- especially given the goblin's long hooked noses. The Giants aren't handled very well either. The House Elves and the subplot surrounding them not wanting to be freed is genuinely disgusting imo. There's just a lot ingrained into the world building that makes the story fall apart at its seams and makes it hard to remove the person who made it from the work itself.

@Filthy I personally still like HP and we often listen to the audio books around bed time but … the Goblins thing is the one that I always found very troubling. Because it is not projection if a race in a book/movie is portrayed exactly like the Nazis stereotyped the Jews in the Third Reich: they look like the caricatures they produced for propaganda purposes (greasy, hooked nose, empty (black) eyes), they are greedy for treasure and will cross you when push comes to shove, they do all the banking and control the flow of money, they work emotionally and ethically different to "humans" = sub human. That is very specific and far off from how Goblins, Orcs and the like are portrayed in other fantasy works like Lord of the Rings or DnD. So it's not like "If you look at goblins and think ”Damn, that’s a Jew!".

While it's stupid to think all depictions of evil/corrupted fantasy races are influenced by real-life racist stereotypes, it's also naive to think none of them are. These kind of stereotypes are so ingrained in Western culture some creators can use them in their depiction of fantasy creatures without even consciously realising they're appropriating racist imagery.

The switch version got a rather large update.

(It’s possible it’s it may not be new though, I found it because I ran update checks on all my games just now, but the size made me curious about it)

Agreed. JK is such a hack she didn't even realise how racist she is.

Anyway my favourite thing from Harry Potter;