Topic: Hogwarts Legacy

@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.

Are we really getting offended on behalf of goblins and giants, akin to the dumb campaign for people ”fighting” racism in DnD on their portrayal of orcs?

If you look at goblins and think ”Damn, that’s a Jew!” — that seems more like projection than anything else.

I personally don’t think HP as a franchise is very exciting or good, though this game is just a good game.

@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;

Thanks for keeping the conversation here civil and respectful

Just seconding what @Eel said, let's get back on topic now please

I don't think Hogwarts Legacy Switch 2 version is that great. Flying around, the draw distance for shrubs and stuff on the ground is suspiciously short, and there's more pop-in than expected. Frame rate seems to dip paning around standing just outside hogwarts school. At the moment, I don't think performance reviews are going to be that positive. I could be wrong. We'll see. I'm glad I only paid $15 for deluxe switch 2 edition.

Maybe a recent side by side can show me that it's better than I realize. Anyone else agree/disagree? (no wrong answers)

@WoomyNNYes how’s it when you play the og version on the switch 2? Any minimal improvements to load times and resolution?

@Eel Downloading switch version of HL now. I'll try it sometime today and report back.

Ok. Tested switch 1 version on switch 2: Load times are better - they may be half what they were? Frame rate is steady. I don't see a resolution bump or notice other other improvements.

@WoomyNNYes ah thanks for testing!

If load times and frame rate got a bit better then I think I may get away with playing that one for a little while longer.

I assume it’s also lighter in size?

@Eel
S2 hogwarts is 23GB
S1 hogwarts is 17GB
I'm assuming you know, there's a massive discount for switch 2 hogwarts for people that already own hogwarts on switch. If you log into nintendo site's game store(website version of eshop), the switch 2 version should be discounted like 75%-80%.

@WoomyNNYes I know about the update discount. Since I don’t expect it to go away any time soon, I feel like I can wait a bit.

This is currently free on epic games at the moment, in the UK at least. So if you also have a PC worth picking up. It's not really my type of game but will give it a go as sometimes games just click even if you don't expect to like them.