Hogwarts Legacy - Whimsical Wizardry

Silvanus

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No it's not cultural ignorance to point out other societies had gender roles and the concept of 3rd genders or other genders were created specifically in said cultures to identify people who didn't adhere to cultural norms.
Which isn't what you did. You just wrongly equated them to "tomboys and femboys" in an effort to invalidate them. Putting aside the fact that there's a lot more to it in a lot of cases than "cultural norms and gender roles"-- some traditional cultural conceptions are functionally very, very similar to what we would now term non-binary or trans.
 
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Gordon_4

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One might note that I also invoked Tom Cruise and Scientology as a contemporary example for the explicit purpose of addressing profits going indirectly to...let's be diplomatic and say questionable organizations. If you prefer, I could also invoke Orson Scott Card and homophobia, Chick fil-A and the same, Keanu Reeves and the "Shakespeare Authorship Question", Willie Nelson and drug abuse...If you don't like the Lovecraft example because he's dead, it's not like I'm not spoiled for choice with contemporary examples of varying severity. Lovecraft was just the easiest 1:1 example that came to mind because he was an easily recognizable bigot whose work created an IP that sprawled beyond his individual contributions, and even extended through third parties into games, creating a tangible parallel with the Harry Potter franchise and the third party created Hogwarts Legacy.

One might further note that I spent a good chunk of that post emphasizing and re-emphasizing that Lovecraft's contemptible views obviously bled into his work, with the point being that we still didn't judge people as worse simply for having consumed them, much less for consuming the works of less checkered individuals who didn't share those views but still contributed to the IP. My point was exactly what you say: that "one can one can like elements of his work whilst acknowledging there are some really awful things in it", and that liking elements of that work does not constitute putting yourself on the side of those awful things, and that in the case of Hogwarts Legacy we seem to be demanding the opposite perspective even though the really awful things we're objecting to are not even a part of it.
I know I’ll probably regret asking this but what is the Shakespeare authorship question and what does it have to do with Keanu Reeves?
 

Baffle

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I know I’ll probably regret asking this but what is the Shakespeare authorship question and what does it have to do with Keanu Reeves?
Apparently he doesn't believe Shakespeare wrote the books. I don't think that's a particularly evil or even unpleasant opinion though, so there might be more to it.
 

Drathnoxis

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I like that you talk about hate (and also violence and murder, which are the result) and imply that's not what Rowling is glorifying.
I didn't mention Rowling. Rowling likely had as much to do with Harry Potter on the GBA as Tolkien did with Shadows of Mordor.
 

BrawlMan

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Apparently he doesn't believe Shakespeare wrote the books. I don't think that's a particularly evil or even unpleasant opinion though, so there might be more to it.
Christ compared to everyone else that’s practically benign to the point of banal.
Even without Keanu Reeves, it has been rumored and speculated for years on end, that Shakespeare was just a makeup of different ghost writers. I personally don't know myself, nor do I care much about it. I did enjoy some Shakespeare stories in high school, but I for the most part don't care about his/their works. I always preferred Edgar Allan Poe over Shakespeare.
 
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Asita

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I know I’ll probably regret asking this but what is the Shakespeare authorship question and what does it have to do with Keanu Reeves?
Short version is that it traces to classist snobbery. The argument basically goes that because Shakespeare came from a poor (well, middle class) family, he couldn't possibly have been been the true author of the poems and plays attributed to him and that therefore the true author was likely a noble who let Shakespeare take the credit to shield their own identity and reputation. It can generously be described as 'fringe' and notably can only be dated back as far as the 19th century (Shakespeare having lived in the middle and end of the 16th) when Shakespeare started being lauded as one of the great playwrights of history. As so succinctly put by OSP in their video on the guy:

And that’s actually where some get hung up on his story: Because surely, our talented William couldn’t really have been some countryside plebeian. Only a gentleman of Refinement could possibly have written these masterpieces. So there’ve been theories that Shakespeare was just a pen-name for Edward de Vere or Sir Francis Bacon, or some secret guild of writers. But alas, Shakespeare was indeed a kid from Stratford who got a decent Grammar-School education and really enjoyed reading the classics. Perhaps the greatest Shakespeare Conspiracy of all, dare I say, a Shakespearacy, is that William could be smart without being rich.
 
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Drathnoxis

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I mean honestly, the morals of this feel pretty cut and dry to me. "Does this game actually promote the views that Rowling is criticized for?" As far as I've heard, the answer (at least for those views relevant to this discussion) is no, and Rowling wasn't even actively involved in its production, she just gets a cut of the profits because it exists in her IP. Its only [relevant] 'sin' is that it is set in her franchise. That's it. As such, criticizing the game for those views is misaimed, amounting to little more than guilt by association.

...Or really, guilt by association with a group whose founder has endorsed prejudicial views (views that the group does not endorse) outside of that group. ...You know, the exact same logic we rightly mock when Pro-Lifers try to poison the well by claiming that Planned Parenthood's founder was racist? Or when the usual suspects try to make claims about BLM's founders that they insist necessarily invalidate the entire movement? Or when creationists make allegations about Darwin as a person as if that would undermine evolutionary theory? We recognize that even if those criticisms were factually correct, they'd still be irrelevant because the transitive property does not work that way. Legacies often take on an independent existence that renders their creators all but incidental.

Never mind extending such accusations to those who play the game, which is no more solid than claiming anyone who watched Mickey's Christmas Carol is tacitly condoning antisemitism on the grounds that Walt Disney himself was antisemitic (veracity of that claim about Walt notwithstanding, we will assume it to be true here here for the sake of argument). The logic simply doesn't work and is only maintained through threading a line through several intermediaries with the functional equivalent of strings and thumbtacks while pretending for all practical purposes that those intermediaries don't exist.

I mean, let's be honest here, we have much better case for connecting Lovecraft's works to his racism and prejudices because the more you learn about the guy the more you understand how those prejudices bled into those works. Hell, when you learn about his disgust towards miscegenation, it becomes all too easy to infer that Shadow Over Innsmouth was practically a "Great Replacement" allegory. Even so, we draw a clear line between Lovecraft's prejudices and his writings, instead judging the latter on an individual basis rather than dubbing them irrevocably tainted simply because of their authorship.

And even when the stories are recognizably inspired by his prejudices, we still are able to appreciate them as stories despite that inspiration. Reading and even enjoying Innsmouth is not considered a tacit agreement with Lovecraft's flaws, even those that inspired the story. And this is a guy who literally waxed poetic (in a poem I shall not name) about how he saw black people as semi-humans filled with vice whose god-given purpose was to simply bridge the otherwise insurmountable gap between man and beast! The guy was a piece of work, especially in his early years.

But despite his appreciable failings, we certainly don't judge people for playing Call of Cthulhu as tacitly standing with that contemptible poem. The TTRPG is recognized as distinct from the poem. While Lovecraft's rather pronounced personality flaws are thoroughly worth criticizing, not even the stories he himself wrote are deemed racist purely by way of the transitive property. Any argument deeming one of those works racist is instead predicated on any racist elements contained within it, and even that is rarely - in itself - treated as making the work not worth reading.

Of course, it's even more of a stretch to try - as if it were a matter of course - to apply his flaws to the works of any writers who add to the mythos he started, much less to the readers who consume those stories. It's nothing short of absurd to claim that anyone who reads August Delerth's "The Return of Hastur" is tacitly condoning the views Lovecraft expressed in the aforementioned poem simply because "The Return of Hastur" is part of the Cthulhu Mythos, which was created Lovecraft, who wrote that poem as an expression of his racism. That simply does not follow.

But that is exactly the logic we seem to be insisting on here with regards to Hogwarts Legacy and Rowling: that because Hogwarts Legacy (analogous to the TTRPG, which obviously was made without Lovecraft's involvement) exists in the Harry Potter franchise (Cthulhu mythos) - which is owned by Rowling (Lovecraft) - playing the game is treated as condoning Rowling's personal political views.

For ease of example, let's focus on your example of the streamer playing it. We're taking an insanely reductionist view that anyone who consumes the game in any form should be defined by a component that - to the best of my knowledge - the streamer is not expressing or condoning (and in fact may be demonstrating opposition to), and is neither present in the game, nor the franchise it is a part of. That we need to go down the grapevine until we get to the original creator whom we reduce to that component we are objecting to because she expressed those views as personal political speech, and then treat that as an intrinsic and irrevocable component of everything that is so much as involved with materials connected to the things she created. It's specious logic at best that basically tries to pretend that a chain of indirect links through association are instead a single direct link (sometimes even as far as a causative one).

Even if we're trying to argue this through Rowling's personal finances going to organizations that share/champion those views and us adding to those finances by consuming (in any manner) anything she gets royalties on, that still hits the problem of trying to present a chain of indirect links as a single direct and clear link. That if you in any way touch Hogwarts Legacy, you are making it clear that you support those prejudicial agendas by supporting those groups purely because Rowling gets some money through the game by way of royalties and some of her money goes to those organizations.

One might as well be arguing that anyone who watches Top Gun Maverick should stop lying and just admit that they're really a Scientologist because Tom Cruise starred in it and he's a Scientologist, and that therefore anything short of you boycotting anything he gets money from means that you are indirectly financing that organization. It's the same logic.

And again, it's specious logic fully embraces the consumer-blaming variant of the "no such thing as ethical consumption" sentiment and exacerbates it with "six degrees of separation" logic, which means we can theoretically make a similar connection to practically anything by employing a similar number of links through different people and groups.

So my conclusion is very simple: If we have to go that far down the rabbit hole to justify the objection, the link is not substantive enough to be a tenable position and certainly isn't worth policing our companions over, much less burning bridges over. Treating this game as an extension of Rowling's views despite the views not only not being represented in it but Rowling not being involved in its production isn't taking a stand against Rowling's transphobia, nor is treating the act of playing the game like declaring allegiance to those views. It's just applying total war tactics to blood feud logic and declaring that poor Romeo having the surname Montague is reason enough to not only want him dead, but to declare anyone who so much as sells him groceries persona non grata.
Wow, finally decided to reveal your true colors, eh? And I used to think you were a good person.
 

Gordon_4

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Even without Keanu reeves, it has been rumored and speculated for years on end, that Shakespeare was just a makeup of different ghost writers. I personally don't know myself, nor do I care much about it. I did enjoy some Shakespeare stories in high school, but I for the most part don't care about his/their works. I always preferred Edgar Allan Poe over Shakespeare,
I never got a chance to study Poe in school; and while I’m no super fan I do like some Shakespeare - but being a stupid pleb they’re generally adaptations. Ken Brannagh’s “Much Ado About Nothing”, Baz Lurman’s “Romeo+Juliet” and even that weird modernist version of Coriolanus that had Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler.
 
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Buyetyen

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I never got a chance to study Poe in school; and while I’m super fan I do like some Shakespeare - but being a stupid pleb they’re generally adaptations. Ken Brannagh’s “Much Ado About Nothing”, Baz Lurman’s “Romeo+Juliet” and even that weird modernist version of Coriolanus that had Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler.
You should check out Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood sometime. It's MacBeth but set in feudal Japan.
 
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Drathnoxis

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I never got a chance to study Poe in school; and while I’m no super fan I do like some Shakespeare - but being a stupid pleb they’re generally adaptations. Ken Brannagh’s “Much Ado About Nothing”, Baz Lurman’s “Romeo+Juliet” and even that weird modernist version of Coriolanus that had Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler.
I'll let you in on a secret... You are allowed to read classical fiction even outside of school.

Just as long as you keep it quiet.
 

Asita

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You should check out Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood sometime. It's MacBeth but set in feudal Japan.
Butting in: Do you know where I might find that? I've heard about Kurasawa's works so much that I feel like it's a mark against my movie-watching chops to have never actually seen any of his films.
 
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Buyetyen

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Butting in: Do you know where I might find that? I've heard about Kurasawa's works so much that I feel like it's a mark against my movie-watching chops to have never actually seen any of his films.
It's in the Criterion Collection. For those unfamiliar, it's a film preservation group that distributes movies that are either works of high art, deeply influential in some way, or part of cult film culture. They also have a streaming service called the Criterion Channel. Throne of Blood is currently available for streaming. Good stuff.

In addition to Throne of Blood, I also recommend Ran, Yojimbo, Seven Samurai, Rashomon and The Bad Sleep Well.
 

Gordon_4

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Butting in: Do you know where I might find that? I've heard about Kurasawa's works so much that I feel like it's a mark against my movie-watching chops to have never actually seen any of his films.
Most reputable dvd retailers will stock Kurosawa’s famous movies; Throne of Blood, The Seven Samurai (that’s the BIG one), Yojimbo, Sanjuro and Rashamon.
 
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Gordon_4

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I'll let you in on a secret... You are allowed to read classical fiction even outside of school.

Just as long as you keep it quiet.
Despite my best efforts, and even rather enjoying the subject in school, classic literature tends to intimidate me because again I’m a bit of a filthy pleb and not very smart. A lot of the time subtext and symbolism are entirely lost on me and thus I find it hard to muster up the courage to tackle them. Christ I’ve only managed a few chapters of Dune and I got that two Christmases ago.
 
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Asita

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It's in the Criterion Collection. For those unfamiliar, it's a film preservation group that distributes movies that are either works of high art, deeply influential in some way, or part of cult film culture. They also have a streaming service called the Criterion Channel. Throne of Blood is currently available for streaming. Good stuff.

In addition to Throne of Blood, I also recommend Ran, Yojimbo, Seven Samurai, Rashomon and The Bad Sleep Well.
Most reputable dvd retailers will stock Kurosawa’s famous movies; Throne of Blood, The Seven Samurai (that’s the BIG one), Yojimbo, Sanjuro and Rashamon.
Much obliged :)
 

Absent

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Despite my best efforts, and even rather enjoying the subject in school, classic literature tends to intimidate me because again I’m a bit of a filthy pleb and not very smart. A lot of the time subtext and symbolism are entirely lost on me and thus I find it hard to muster up the courage to tackle them. Christ I’ve only managed a few chapters of Dune and I got that two Christmases ago.
It's a trap. Surprisingly often, stuff are classics because they're really cool. But school spoils them with the best intentions. The subtext and symbolism is usually perceived at some implicit level (it's what makes the beauty of the work, what makes it resonate), and analysis is only required to spell it out, to make it explicit, to pinpoint it and how it works. It's not required for enjoyment. But as school presents it as "a work", there's some image of tediousness that stays attached to it. Plus (worse) some sort of obligation, like you're "supposed" to know the classics. It really ruins the personal appropriation.

The number of lovely things that impressed me once I decided to check them out for myself, far enough from any school context ! From books to movies to songs to poetry. The tragic thing is that sometimes teachers have a real personal fondness for them and wish to share it, like friends would, but it's all spoiled by the institutional context (formal obligation, impending evaluation, etc).

It's often worth giving a chance to classics despite them being classics, as if they were novelties that you were just discovering by yourself. Which they were at some time. We have to travel back to before they were "school stuff". When they were just cool and new and (often) subversive, and at the very worst, already "cult".
 

TheMysteriousGX

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One might note that I also invoked Tom Cruise and Scientology as a contemporary example for the explicit purpose of addressing profits going indirectly to...let's be diplomatic and say questionable organizations. If you prefer, I could also invoke Orson Scott Card and homophobia, Chick fil-A and the same, Keanu Reeves and the "Shakespeare Authorship Question", Willie Nelson and drug abuse...If you don't like the Lovecraft example because he's dead, it's not like I'm not spoiled for choice with contemporary examples of varying severity. Lovecraft was just the easiest 1:1 example that came to mind because he was an easily recognizable bigot whose work created an IP that sprawled beyond his individual contributions, and even extended through third parties into games, creating a tangible parallel with the Harry Potter franchise and the third party created Hogwarts Legacy.
In literary circles, this does, in fact, happen with Orion Scott Card, and you'd know this if you'd paid attention to it. It was particularly a topic of discussion around the Ender's Game movie

This game does, in fact, promote the views of Joanne Rowling, namely that maintaining a eugenics based hierarchical society as being the good ending, the continuing examples of Blood Libel in her very specific interpretation of Goblins, and how despite living in a magical world with very powerful body altering magics, the trans woman still doesn't pass
One might further note that I spent a good chunk of that post emphasizing and re-emphasizing that Lovecraft's contemptible views obviously bled into his work, with the point being that we still didn't judge people as worse simply for having consumed them, much less for consuming the works of less checkered individuals who didn't share those views but still contributed to the IP. My point was exactly what you say: that "one can one can like elements of his work whilst acknowledging there are some really awful things in it", and that liking elements of that work does not constitute putting yourself on the side of those awful things, and that in the case of Hogwarts Legacy we seem to be demanding the opposite perspective even though the really awful things we're objecting to are not even a part of it.
We don't judge people for liking Harry Potter. We judge grown ass adults who've never read a different book for filtering their entire perception of society and politics through Harry Potter and doing the equivalent of *refusing* to acknowledge all of Lovecraft's many example of racism.
On top of continuing to give Joanne Rowling money to keep funding her clutch of misogynists, wankers, homophobes, abusers, and assorted other bigots.