If this wasn’t having a real world negative effect on people, I would think it’s funny how all these people who hate Rowling over her opinions… are revealing themselves to be a whole lot uglier on the inside than she is. She has an opinion that they don’t share. Fair enough, but a lot of these people are brimming with hatred and trashing people’s lives over it.

“Witch Hunt” is a frighteningly accurate term, because they are passionately hunting innocent people. Seriously, if they get their way and everyone associated with it is canceled, who hurts the most? Rowling? No. If she never makes another cent, she is still going to be filthy rich forever. The people who actually worked on the game, and the streamers who just want to play a game and possibly supplement their income that way are the ones who are going to hurt.

I’m sure most of these bitter people think they are on some righteous crusade, but the only effect they can have is negative. They cannot make the world a better place this way. Not everything is worth hurting people.

Thank you for your well articulated thoughts, I agree.

It's like mob behaviour. A mob doesn't really know the details or what they really want, they just work each other up into a frenzy and damage things

Fuck these people. I was willing to be open minded about their POV, but this is straight up garbage.

The reason we don’t like JK or her products is bc she’s a hateful bigot. If you bought this game please ask yourself why you think it’s ok to support a bigot who supports the genocide of trans people.

It would have helped if that article had not bought in to the "antisemitic" bollocks. That's entirely made up out of nothing.

It’s not baseless, have you read the books? Because she makes the bankers Jewish stereotypes…

Why do you hate trans people?

Very true.

However, she was paid for the license to make this game well before she outted herself on Twitter and doesn't make money if it sells well or fails. The only people who have a financial state in the game are the designers, developers, and team at the game company. And their families.

By trying to hurt Rowling by boycotting this game you're doing literally nothing to her and just hurting innocent people, who often explicitly do not share or support her views.

I mean fuck Rowling and the creators of Legacy but this is dumb as hell. I do not get people who go out of their way to hate watch things, I barely have time to engage with content I enjoy let alone sit in a Twitch stream just to harass people. I swear to god the uproar over the game has done more to boost sales than the actual marketing.

Not trans people

Cancel culture people. Big difference

The objection is to her featuring goblins, which were commonly used in children's books in the period when she was writing (ultimately inspired by George Macdonald in the 19th century; he was rediscovered in the 1980s). Just google "goblin children's book" and see how many hits you get.

I think I know exactly which book was her main influence, as it was popular around Edinburgh a bit before she started writing the HP books - my wife got it for her kids. Nobody's ever accused that book of being antisemitic.

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I have yet to see someone talking about "cancel culture" who isn't racist, homophobic, transphobic, <insert various discrimination here>

Hooked nosed grubby little bankers who have a Star of David on the floor of their bank comes across a little too strong. /u/REXwarrior

Where did you get the Star of David from?

The rest of that description fits the way goblins are pictured in dozens of other childrens books.

Rowling is not exactly reticent about her opinions. If she hated Jews she'd have said so straight out.

Obvious troll is obvious.

What scares me is that this isn’t as obvious as it used to be. Some people are really like that. If you don’t hate something 100% as much as they do, they will call you all sorts of nasty names and declare you the enemy of their crusade.

In this case, all because you wanted to play a game.

That person straight up said they don’t have a problem with trans people. Their issue was with cancel culture. How liberally do you want to apply those labels? Because if you throw them around too much, they start to lose their power.

Have you seen Warhammer goblins and gnoblars? Their noses are like 2 feet long. Even if goblins did emerge from antisemitic stereotypes, assuming that fantasy writers have to be aware of this and that they are antisemites is ridiculous.

That's literally only in the movie, which she did not direct.

This is gonna turn some gamer nerds into TERFs lol

What did the devs do?

Well hello, nice to talk to you.

I judge each person I meet based on how they act and behave. Not how they look or who they love.

What I don't like is people canceling others who are not causing them any harm : for example people playing a hogwarts video game.

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Canceling isn’t a fucking thing. It’s called bad press and if the billionaire doesn’t like it’s not fucking sad

How many billionaire streamers are there?

I'll answer for you, smooth brain, there are none.

Unfortunately, jkr has real world power because how well her books did. She has also been almost always displayed in an "angelic" light by media. Which means everyone ignores that she is actively trying to hurt other people.

In case you are wondering, how she is wielding that power is awful. She's actively trying to make being trans in the UK illegal, this isn't hyperbole, read that manifesto she wrote. Every single positive trans legislation that's been considered she rallys against and puts her money towards hurting people. This is going on in Scotland right now, which by the way was only making the paperwork to transition legally have less bureaucratic nonsense and cost the government less.

Why should a children's author wield political power? Why should she have the right to negativity effect other people's lives? Her reach is negatively effecting far more people, yet I don't see you criticizing her at all. She makes the world worse.

How would you suggest these people make the world a better place? By just allowing their rights be steamrolled? It's very obvious to me that you've never had your right to exist be a subject of public debate.

And how much do I care if you support some vile shit and in your public facing job you face consequences? Good. Let them go work as a cpa or sell shoes

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Just because of this I intend to purchase the collectors edition now. Clearly these children never hears of the Striesand effect.

One of the best times to see a DDOS in action

Replace "Have they streamed THAT wizard game?" with "Have they visited THAT queer positive website?" Still comfortable with it?

They dared not to completely cave to the crybullies and cancel the game, which is obviously unforgivable.

Hmm I wonder if there’s a reason goblins are depicted that way in childrens books

>“Witch Hunt” is a frighteningly accurate term, because they are passionately hunting innocent people.

Have said before and will continue to say, these people act like Inquisitors because that's what they wish they were.

“Cancel culture” is a word losers made up to try and insult people who boycott bigots.

I was called all kinds of "ist" names because I didn't like the Star Wars sequels. I thought they were poorly written. But no, I must be a misogynistic racist man.

Cancel culture is the new McCarthy age. Unless causing harm on on others I say do what makes you happy and leave others alone

I don’t like any of Star Wars and no one called me a misogynistic racist. Are you sure you aren’t actually a misogynist racist transphobe, and that you’re not just trying to convince yourself you’re not?

I like every star wars movie that Disney doesn't have to do with, and one that they do

You not liking any voids your opinion on the new stuff in the minds of those that called those like me such names.

And yes, troll, I'm sure I'm not. And I'm sure you are a troll who I will ignore from here on out

Framing it as a mere difference of opinion makes light of the suffering of the people she is actively working to dehumanize. I don’t think opinions that dehumanize others are worthy of respect or consideration, and speaking out against them, even in an “uncivil” manner, is fully called for.

You’re*

As far as I can tell, no. Macdonald got them out of old German folklore. There are similar grotesque beings in traditions from all round the world and he would have known of others.

Just because something bad already existed doesn’t mean it isn’t bad to perpetuate it. Instead of letting Jewish stereotypes die out, the game devs are including them and thus sustaining them. The fact the stereotypes already existed isn’t an excuse. Gamers need to start playing good video games anyway, like the hidden indie gem “Otoko Cross: Pretty Boys Mahjong Solitaire”

> Rowling is not exactly reticent about her opinions. If she hated Jews she'd have said so straight out.

Probably not, though. Most people, even bigots, understand that expressing outright antisemitism is socially unacceptable. Clearly we aren't there with transphobia yet, because she can say what she says and still have people defend her "right to her opinion."

Many people don't understand trans issues, and therefore see them as up for debate rather than being a human rights issue. I don't necessarily blame them for being ignorant considering the vast amount misinformation out there, but it does give JKR a lot more leeway to be openly transphobic compared to being openly antisemitic, racist, sexist, etc.

(Please note that I'm not debating whether or not she is antisemitic, I haven't examined the claims or the evidence either way. I am simply offering a counterpoint to the specific part of your comment that I quoted.)

It isn't a Jewish stereotype. Goblins are folklore bugbears that turn up in places where Jews have never been. Look at the cast of a Balinese shadow puppet show.

No, but what's your point?

Dudes just denying the existence of stereotypes now, gamers have truly ran out of options

No one is going to become a TERF just because JK Rowling is one.

Her opinion sucks but it’s not going to influence people one way or another

Aren't all those people salaried, and therefore already got paid?

That's not true at all. Look at how well terfs in the uk have done by using her fame and money to normalize terf propaganda.

I haven't played a video game in 30 years, so you aren't talking about me. Or are you saying Daleks were Jewish?

What video game did you play 30 years ago?

Trans rights are human rights. That being said, this has fuck all to do with trans rights and I can't wait to play the game.

Daleks on a Mac Plus. There was a thing called Doom around the same time, I couldn't be bothered.

First ones I played were in 1974. I knew people who were developing the first text-based MRPGs on university weekend computer time and they had things like Asteroids consoles in their houses. I looked at that stuff, thought "I can see where this is going", and decided reading books, playing Go and playing the flute were more my thing.

And you haven’t played a video game since then? Impressive! I know it seems grim, that Hogwarts legacy is what gaming has become, but there are still decent games out there. An example is the hidden indie gem “Otoko Cross: Pretty Boys Mahjong Solitaire”

So you're ok with bullying so long as the right people are being bullied?

I don't equivocate bullying an innocent group of people based on their identity to bullying a group of people based on their words and actions. You can't just swap words around freely like that, because they aren't equivalent. Bigots and fascists deserved to be bullied. Their opinions are not worth hearing out, and they should be socially shunned. So in short, yes, bullying bullies is okay in my book.

Yes and no.

Most game companies like this pay bonuses based on reviews and sales, so the better the game does the better a bonus the team will get.

And game companies also need to pay off the development costs of making the game and pay back the investors who paid to create the game. After years of development, a AAA game like this will be millions in the red, and that needs to come from sales.
If the game doesn't sell well, the company will need to lay off staff or even declare bankruptcy to protect itself from its investors. Which means all those staff will suddenly be employed.

That's just the risk and the cost of doing business, though. No one should feel obligated to buy a product whose values they don't agree with so that the company who made it can get its investment back. Everyone involved in making the game is aware of the potential that it may flop going into it, and in fact that is statistically by far the more likely scenario.

I know it sucks to be dragged down by association, but we didn't know then what we know now and that is nobody's fault. I still think it is perfectly reasonable to boycott the game on principle alone, regardless of whose paycheck it may harm.

Also, I'm skeptical of the claim that the game devs get a bonus if the game does well, but JKR doesn't. Do we actually know either of those to be true? I don't think it matters either way, I just find it hard to believe.

Money dude, it's called money. And when you have more money, you'll have more speech. It has nothing to do with her being a children's writer.

What would you prefer??

/s

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Fair enough. My main issue is with the great big mob that’s attacking people who are not her. As I said, she’s rich. She’s gonna stay rich. The devs and streamers, for the most part, are not. They stand to lose a lot.

What you call "cancelling" is just "refusing to support, directly or indirectly, shit people". It does not and can not prevent anyone from talking or doing anything they want,it does not "cancel" anything. Harassment does those things but that's not what it is about here; also,harassment is illegal.

Are they, though? I suspect the vast majority are just people who like gaming or HP or earning a paycheck.

I would suggest they make the world a better place by focusing their efforts on the root, Rowling, instead of cancelling or stream-bombing people who are just playing this game, or trying to starve/cancel the people who worked on it. The Harry Potter brand is popular enough that it might take generations to fade away even if this game never existed. From what I’ve read, Rowling doesn’t even get royalties from the game’s sales, and was only paid for use of her IP. Whether this game died in development, sells poorly, or gets buried by the backlash, Rowling is fine. She’s not the one who stands to lose anything from this witch hunt, and I don’t believe for a second that playing the game is equal to agreeing with her.

TL,DR: I’m not concerned about Rowling’s wealth. I’m concerned about the normies who are gonna get burned, unjustly, over this controversy.

>No one should feel obligated to buy a product whose values they don't agree with so that the company who made it can get its investment back. Everyone involved in making the game is aware of the potential that it may flop going into it, and in fact that is statistically by far the more likely scenario.

True. But in this case, it's not the product whose values they don't agree with. The designers of the game seem to support trans rights and have even included a potential trans wizard in the game.

And I think they thought the game was a pretty safe bet when they were going in. When you start to produce a AAA video game based on the most beloved book series of the last twenty-five years having it "flop" doesn't seem likely. Not a lot of AAA games flop.

We're talking about people with mortgages and health insurance and kids going to school who's livelihood will be destroyed by this. And people are just shrugging them off as collateral damage to thumb their nose at a second richest author in the world who won't even notice the dip in her ridiculous net wealth.

>I know it sucks to be dragged down by association, but we didn't know then what we know now and that is nobody's fault.

Nobody's fault except the people declaring guilt by association.

>I still think it is perfectly reasonable to boycott the game on principle alone, regardless of whose paycheck it may harm.

Even though it has zero impact on the person you want to boycott, as they've already been paid, had no input on the game, and are unaffected by its success or failure?

Boycotting this to get back at Rowling is as effective and meaningful as boycotting Alan Wake II. She'll probably make more money just from the insurance on the billion she already has in the bank.

But, okay, boycott if you want.
That's fine. It really is.
But that's also not what's happing here. There's a LOT of harassment being directed at people who aren't boycotting, which isn't cool and just makes the anti-Rowling movement look bad. Getting mad at people because they're not joining in on two-minute hate.

>Also, I'm skeptical of the claim that the game devs get a bonus if the game does well, but JKR doesn't. Do we actually know either of those to be true? I don't think it matters either way, I just find it hard to believe.

Licenses tend to be paid in advance. That's how licenses work. You pay for the rights knowing the name will bring in more people and allow you to sell more copies than an unrelated IP allowing you to recoup the added expense of having to pay for the license.

If the license holder also got more money because the game was a success, that would defeat the purpose licensing IP.

Okay... she might get some royalties. But sales of Harry Potter grew in 2022. Philsopher's Stone was still the 2nd best selling children's book. So even if she gets a chunk of money from the game... it will be peanuts to what she's already making from continued book sales.

So it's killing a game studio and wrecking a bunch of lives and harassing a bunch of other video game players for literally no effect. For a game that Rowling cares so little about she couldn't even be bothered to hyper on her Twitter with a single retweet,

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No, wouldn't go so far. I'm sure many of the people buying the game simply just aren't that invested in the larger politics and just see it as any other game. Whether it is wrong to financially support someone who works to actively harm society is, I concede, a moral gray area. I'm not necessarily saying I agree with this site's intention, but I'm mostly indifferent to it personally.

I was moreso just arguing the larger point that just because bullying group X is wrong doesn't mean that group Y doesn't deserve that same treatment. Just because we know we shouldn't harass vulnerable or innocent groups doesn't mean we must extend that same kindness to bigots.

I am less concerned with any individual person's purchasing decision than I am of the words and actions of the figurehead spreading hateful speech in the first place, in this case Rowling herself. Going after the people who play the game isn't something I am personally interested in, but it doesn't mean I have to be outraged that other people do it.

I partially agree, but it depends on what you classify as an attack.

Doxxing, ad hominem, verbal abuse, etc, yes those are attacks.

Advocating for people to boycott the game, educating people on Rowling's attacks on trans rights or criticizing bad aspects of the franchise itself are not attacks. That is activism, and you are not entitled to be unbothered by activism in the public sphere because that would defeat the entire point. Not being able to earn money from something that people are actively protesting against is not a tragedy. This is not the only game out there that people can play or stream.

> We're talking about people with mortgages and health insurance and kids going to school who's livelihood will be destroyed by this.

Sorry, but not matter how you spin it, it was always a possibility the game would flop. Nothing is a safe bet. Therefore, guilting people who choose to boycott the game for ruining the livelihoods of the developers is just inherently silly to me. Highly anticipated games flop all the time. It's a shame, but even leaving politics aside for a second, no one is obligated to buy a product out of pity for its creators.

Especially since, as we've established, they have already been compensated for the work they have finished. All the sales figures affect is whether or not they get their bonuses and get to go on to create another game. But that was always going to be the case anyway. This is a normal process in the industry. Worst case scenario, they pack up and move on to the next project. No one is going to be permanently unemployed from this.

> But that's also not what's happing here. There's a LOT of harassment being directed at people who aren't boycotting, which isn't cool and just makes the anti-Rowling movement look bad. Getting mad at people because they're not joining in on two-minute hate.

I agree that attacking people over this is wrong, but let's clarify what an attack is.

Doxxing, ad hominem, verbal abuse, etc, yes those are attacks.

Advocating for people to boycott the game, educating people on Rowling's attacks on trans rights or criticizing bad aspects of the franchise itself are not attacks. That is activism, and you are not entitled to be unbothered by activism in the public sphere because that would defeat the entire point.

You can push back against the activism, criticize/critique it, choose to ignore it, etc. I think you raise some valid points, for example. But broadly categorizing it all as mere attacks and harassment sparked by two minute hate is reductive.

And my answer explained quite clearly that I wasn't talking exclusively about transphobic people. If you cared to read what I said you'd have understood that I was saying that the mere concept of "cancel culture" comes from spaces that are heavily associated with various forms of discrimination, and that the only ones believing that kind of cancel culture bullshit are the ones that are already convinced by the rest.

If you talk about cancel culture seriously, I will take you as seriously as if you start talking about Bill Gates making an evil vaccine to solve overpopulation, or about governments controlled by lizards disguised as humans.

So, although they may not have a problem with trans people, you believe that one of those other labels must apply to them, just because they mentioned cancel culture? Do I understand you now?

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Very true and there are actually laws in alot of countries that make these behavior and taking the law into your own hands illegal and for a good reason it's like this kind of thing didn't happen on the regular in the middle ages

>Sorry, but not matter how you spin it, it was always a possibility the game would flop. Nothing is a safe bet. Therefore, guilting people who choose to boycott the game for ruining the livelihoods of the developers is just inherently silly to me. Highly anticipated games flop all the time. It's a shame, but even leaving politics aside for a second, no one is obligated to buy a product out of pity for its creators.

Which is like arguing something isn't shoplifting to steal from a store because it could have burned down later that night.

The game was an exceedingly safe bet and highly unlikely to flop. The only way it would flop is if the reviews came out and they were terrible. But they're not: it's scoring 8s and 9s on reviews. It has an 86 on Metacritic.
There's no way it should realistically flop.

People are going to lose their jobs and maybe their homes and all you can say is "well, that's a shame."

>Especially since, as we've established, they have already been compensated for the work they have finished. All the sales figures affect is whether or not they get their bonuses and get to go on to create another game. But that was always going to be the case anyway. This is a normal process in the industry. Worst case scenario, they pack up and move on to the next project. No one is going to be permanently unemployed from this.

So your argument is "they were paid yesterday, so it doesn't matter if they're paid tomorrow"?
Is your argument that work shouldn't be guaranteed and people shouldn't feel safe in their jobs? People aren't entitled to work. If they lose their job, they should just go out and get a new one.

How very conservative capitalist of you...

>I agree that attacking people over this is wrong, but let's clarify what an attack is.

Doxxing, ad hominem, verbal abuse, etc, yes those are attacks.

Advocating for people to boycott the game, educating people on Rowling's attacks on trans rights or criticizing bad aspects of the franchise itself are not attacks. That is activism, and you are not entitled to be unbothered by activism in the public sphere because that would defeat the entire point.

Didja read the associated article?

Because they weren't just advocating people educate themselves when the reduced a Twitch streamer playing the game to tears.

The anti-Rowling brigade here is going to actively harm more people than Rowling herself. All to HURT her and make her feel bad by impacting her money... when she already has more than she will ever be able to realistically spend and probably doesn't even look at her month-to-month finances to even know she's taken a loss. She's probably barely even aware the game exists.

She's not going to "learn her lesson" from this and it only hurts people who otherwise agree with the issue of trans rights... so why?

>You can push back against the activism, criticize/critique it, choose to ignore it, etc. I think you raise some valid points, for example. But broadly categorizing it all as mere attacks and harassment sparked by two minute hate is reductive.

I generally refer to being on Twitter as a two-minute hate, because that's what it is. The platform is designed to make you angry and push you to lash out at people. Because the angrier you get, the more you engage. The more you engage, the more time you spend on the platform and the more ads to see. The more ads you see, the more money Twitter makes.
Twitter is incentivized to make people upset and angry and feed empty social outrage as people cancel random people or engage in rapid slacktivism.

And a great example is Rowling. Who was very much against intolerance for her life. She was an advocate for many social issues, especially women's health. Then she made some slightly TERF statements and was attacked and doubled down online. Now her Twitter feed is 2/3rd anti-Trans messages. She's basically been radicalized by Twitter. And the people attacking her haven't changed her mind or made things better, they've only made things WORSE.
Angrily engaging with Rowling online hasn't changed her mind. Calling her out as a TERF hasn't hurt her finances, as she's richer than ever and Harry Potter books are still phenomenal sellers. (All 7 are currently on Audible's most read books of the week and the series boxed set is the #1 children's fantasy book still, with individuals books being #8, #10-12.)

This boycott ONLY hurts the people who made the game.

I am genuinely not worried about the livelihoods of the people who made the game. Not because I don't care, but because I honestly and genuinely believe that they will be okay. If I really thought that they were at risk of losing their homes, then that might be different, but I really just don't see that happening.

Technology jobs aren't like other jobs; high turnover and frequent job changes are normal. These are not a vulnerable population of workers. Even if the studio collapses, they will not be out of work for long. That's not me being cold, it's just that this is legitimately a non-issue to me and people trying to make a huge deal out of it seem genuinely ridiculous to me.

Being called a conservative capitalist made me chuckle. I actually believe that the government should spend whatever it takes to eliminate destitute poverty. Nobody with the high-demand skills needed to work on a game like this is in any serious, immediate danger of living in poverty, though. And if they are, then the solution isn't to prop up the company that made the game by guilting people into not boycotting the game for activist reasons. The solution is to have a comprehensive social safety net to prevent people from falling into destitution from losing their jobs.

...but all of that is an entirely different and complex conversation, and entirely beside the point.

At the end of the day, nothing can convince me that individual people choosing not to buy a game that supports someone who dehumanizes trans people is morally equivalent to shoplifting or making game creators homeless. I'm sorry, but that is just an absurd equivalency to draw.

> I generally refer to being on Twitter as a two-minute hate, because that's what it is. The platform is designed to make you angry and push you to lash out at people. Because the angrier you get, the more you engage. The more you engage, the more time you spend on the platform and the more ads to see. The more ads you see, the more money Twitter makes.

> Twitter is incentivized to make people upset and angry and feed empty social outrage as people cancel random people or engage in rapid slacktivism.

I agree with your assessment. I don't know what is has to do with anything I've said, though.

I also think you're making Rowling out to be a lot more innocent than she is. Twitter manipulates and exploits our feelings, sure, but to act like Rowling has no agency in this process and just "had no choice" but to become an extreme bigot because angry people on the internet called her out on her bullshit just absolves her of all responsibility for her actions.

She has a huge platform that she could use to spread love and tolerance, but instead she uses it to spite people who rightfully (albeit maybe not always tactfully) hold her accountable for her words and deeds.

I don't feel sorry that people aren't universally celebrating her anymore. Just because it doesn't hurt her finances much doesn't mean it is meaningless. Publicly naming and shaming people who spread hate and say intolerable things helps to strip them of their power and influence. At the very least, she no longer has an underserved squeaky clean image in the public eye. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, but it matters to the people whose rights and dignity Rowling feels are negotiable.

"...then they came for me-and there was no one left to speak for me."-Martin Niemoller

Can you expand on what you mean by that?

I am aware of the context and the origin of the quote, I just don't see how it applies here.

>At the end of the day, nothing can convince me that individual people choosing not to buy a game that supports someone who dehumanizes trans people is morally equivalent to shoplifting or making game creators homeless. I'm sorry, but that is just an absurd equivalency to draw.

But the point I'm making is it doesn't support her. She's supported by a wealth of other revenue streams. She makes a few bucks every time someone reads or listens to one of her best selling books or watches one of her hit movies. And her new detective books continue to sell.

This game would be a tiny, tiny, tiny drop in the bucket that doesn't affect her but affects the people at the game studio who will need to find another job at a video game company... in England. That pays as well as a AAA studio.

>I also think you're making Rowling out to be a lot more innocent than she is. Twitter manipulates and exploits our feelings, sure, but to act like Rowling has no agency in this process and just "had no choice" but to become an extreme bigot because angry people on the internet called her out on her bullshit just absolves her of all responsibility for her actions.

She didn't have agency. No one chooses to be radicalized. She didn't sit down and make a rational decision. This is all primal, reactive lizard brain stuff. She was clearly victimized at some point in her life and this is triggering all those emotions of being attacks and hurt. Fight/ flight is kicking in and she'd going with the former.

Attacking her didn't work then. It's not going to work now. Doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results is... well, y'know.

>I don't feel sorry that people aren't universally celebrating her anymore. Just because it doesn't hurt her finances much doesn't mean it is meaningless. Publicly naming and shaming people who spread hate and say intolerable things helps to strip them of their power and influence. At the very least, she no longer has an underserved squeaky clean image in the public eye. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, but it matters to the people whose rights and dignity Rowling feels are negotiable.

And she's being stripped of her power and influence... how?

All this has done has made her double down AND given the TERF community a rallying figure to platform and praise.

I've lost all respect for her. I'm not buying any of her books again. (And I work in an elementary school library.) But I also care about the end results and the actual cause and what we're currently doing... isn't fucking working.

What we're doing now isn't working. It's making her more vocal. She's doing more with her money out of spite. And as she intensifies, so does the mob who are attacking and harming other people.

It's a vicious cycle. And you can win in a vicious cycle. We can't win by out hating her. We can't despise her into submission.
And even if the mob does somehow win and bully her into being silent... is that how we want to win? Emotional violence?

It's fairly self explanatory.

> She didn't have agency. No one chooses to be radicalized. She didn't sit down and make a rational decision. This is all primal, reactive lizard brain stuff. She was clearly victimized at some point in her life and this is triggering all those emotions of being attacks and hurt. Fight/ flight is kicking in and she'd going with the former.

If we afford Rowling that level of sympathy, then we must also extent it to the people hurt most by her words. And if we don't extend that same sympathy to them, then Rowling doesn't deserve it either. She can't have it both ways. Either everyone is responsible for their own words and deeds, or no one is.

If Rowling is justified in indulging her base instincts, then she should be prepared to accept the backlash from people doing the same. I think we could all do better, though. I'm all for compassion, let's just not put the onus entirely on one side.

> And she's being stripped of her power and influence... how?

Well...

> I've lost all respect for her. I'm not buying any of her books again. (And I work in an elementary school library.)

Seems to have worked with you and I, at least.

> What we're doing now isn't working. It's making her more vocal. She's doing more with her money out of spite. And as she intensifies, so does the mob who are attacking and harming other people.

> It's a vicious cycle. And you can win in a vicious cycle. We can't win by out hating her. We can't despise her into submission. And even if the mob does somehow win and bully her into being silent... is that how we want to win? Emotional violence?

Again, you make a lot of valid points! This is the discussion we should be having! We should be discussing how to effectively protest someone, not whether or not we should even be doing it at all.

We shouldn't be spending time defending someone who actively works against our common goals, regardless of the specifics of how she gets paid or whether or not she was involuntarily radicalized. We shouldn't be guilted into not boycotting a game to a prop up a fundamentally broken system, and we shouldn't equivocate the act of not buying a video game with destroying livelihoods.

I already stated a few comments back that I condemn the sort of attacks that actively hurt innocent bystanders, so you don't have to keep trying to convince me that that is a bad thing. I already agree with you there. I'm just saying don't conflate peaceful protest with aimless harassment.

By the way, I don't even personally care if someone plays Hogwarts Legacy, especially if they are simply ignorant or misinformed about he surrounding controversy. We all are victims of propaganda, and I am personally more concerned with going after the figureheads who influence a great number of people rather than chasing down their individual followers. I just don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with publicly boycotting the game and spreading the word about JKR's views.

If you're using it to say that we should hear bigots out and debate them civilly in the "marketplace of ideas," then I strongly disagree with you. We should not tolerate intolerance.

Your insinuation is that anything hooked-nose and money-grubbing is automatically targeted at Jews. That is Anti-Semitic as fuck. One second you’re complaining that people won’t “let stereotypes die” and in the next you’re complaining about people “denying the existence of stereotypes.” If anything, you are perpetuating them.

“By pointing out blatant racism, you are being racist!” Top tier gamer take

Goblins are obviously anti-semitic, in all instances. See, you said this, and you seem to think it's not funny.

I was hating Harry Potter before it was cool. That 5th book was so terrible I swore off the franchise from that point forward.