bluefall-returns:

ladyloveandjustice:

It’s weird to be so disappointed in J.K. Rowling.

I say this because I don’t think I could have imagined it at a young age. Harry Potter will always be important to be because it’s what got me through tough times in my childhood. I can go as far to say as it helped stave off thoughts of suicide and hurting myself through middle school. It was the thing I turned to when everything in my life seemed inescapably awful- I was scared and unhappy at home, I was friendless and bullied at school (actually my obsession with Harry Potter ended up being one of the things I was bullied about eventually but it’s kind of a cycle there), it was my only escape.

J.K. Rowling is largely what inspired me to become a writer. I believe I was considering it before I got into Harry Potter, but that’s what really cemented it. I wanted to make someone happy the way these books made me happy, I wanted to transport them into my narrative and have it matter to them the way this mattered to me. Learning J.K. Rowling’s story made me feel like I could do it, I could be successful, that I could follow my passion. When my sixth grade teacher said women weren’t good at writing fantasy, I was able to tell him he was wrong because look at her! Look at what she did! I really decided to be a writer after reading Harry Potter at age nine and I’ve followed that dream doggedly since. 

As I grew, I became able to view the books more objectively and acknowledge their flaws, but they’ll always matter to me in a deep intense way. It was my first fandom, the first thing I wrote fic for, the reason I even started participating in internet stuff (and people on HP communities like ThinkPotter were also what helped me get through those times- I recently found a scrapbook I made when I was thirteen and there is several pages devoted to chatlogs from these people giving me encouragement that I sorely needed, and Harry Potter memorabilia). 

So it’s strange to find myself looking at her and feeling sad..Seeing her being so wrong-headed and appropriative of Native American culture, seeing her being so lazy and sloppy in various things, the possibility the Cursed Child is actually that bad- it’s more than being knocked down from a pedestal because that naturally happened when I grew up, now it’s two parts of myself at war, one that will always see her as an inspiration because it was her example that helped me do what I’m doing, and one that wants to turn away, disonnect and sees her as an example of what not to do. 

Growing up is weird and having idols is weird. As JKR digs herself deeper, I just wish she would stop, something I could never have imagined asking her to do as a child. If the Cursed Child spoilers are accurate, I’ll have to treat it as entirely disconnected from the books I love and since I’m usually not a “death of the author” person it will be odd. Seeing the mess she’s making with Fantastic Beasts is just a very odd thing where I have to balance the fact that this is wrong and bad with the innate pull towards all things Harry Potter because of everything.

There’s a lot of mixed up feelings and it’s hard to really define them. But it is probably a good thing, I guess, to learn to reconcile these things and acknowledge the wrong and hurt coming from a source that once healed me,.

I was chatting with my wife the other day about fandom’s fascination with sorting every character in the universe into Hogwarts houses, and she commented that it’s only to be expected. It’s a shared reference point across most of Western culture, after all. In fact, she said, it’s basically this generation ’s Star Wars in terms of cultural saturation and formative childhood experience.

If so, I suppose it’s only natural that eventually JK would pull a Lucas and bork it all up.