JK Rowling's new book - A detective novel about a trans serial killer murdering women

Thaluikhain

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 16, 2010
18,575
3,532
118
The Hogwarts castle House Elves were really well taken care of and protected from abuse so they did't want to go anywhere else because like everyone who lived at the castle said " There is no place like Hogwarts" so they loved their home too and were willing to give their lives to defend it.
And they were explicitly non-human with a mindset which made them want to be slaves to their betters, because that was The Way Things Worked. Winky even had the stereotype of saying "is" instead of "am" or "are".

Putting aside other issues with Rowling, that there isn't great. Not saying we should burn her books because of it, or even that it was intentional, but that maybe the editor could have pointed out that there's an issue there.
 

lil devils x

🐐More Lego Goats Please!🐐
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
🐐USA🐐
Gender
♀
And they were explicitly non-human with a mindset which made them want to be slaves to their betters, because that was The Way Things Worked. Winky even had the stereotype of saying "is" instead of "am" or "are".

Putting aside other issues with Rowling, that there isn't great. Not saying we should burn her books because of it, or even that it was intentional, but that maybe the editor could have pointed out that there's an issue there.
Yea I really didn't like that the house elves were not allowed to wear clothes and had to wear other things instead either or the way that they were constantly ordered around and spoken down to. Though the history of the House Elves at Hogwarts in particular were they were pretty much rescued by Helga Hufflepuff and brought to Hogwarts for their protection so that they would never be abused again. So the Hogwarts House Elves refusing to be freed isn't necessarily represented of house elves in general, but rather they had a reason to want to stay where they were. Other house elves elsewhere may want to be freed, just as Dobby did.
 

Baffle

Elite Member
Oct 22, 2016
3,459
2,746
118
but that maybe the editor could have pointed out that there's an issue there.
May well have. I've been in that game, and all you can do it point stuff out; writers by and large do as they please (and some are affronted when you point things out). Saved someone applying soup to their anus once though (they meant soap).
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
May well have. I've been in that game, and all you can do it point stuff out; writers by and large do as they please (and some are affronted when you point things out). Saved someone applying soup to their anus once though (they meant soap).
I can't help but feel that more something successful authors do. It seems to me that the more an author sells books, the flabbier they tend to get. I suspect this is partly due to editors having more power and more aggressively trimming less successful or new authors.

I have also read an "author's version" of a famed fantasy novel, which is to say the version before the editor removed about 150 pages. All I can say is that author should buy that editor a massive and expensive gift hamper as thanks, and ensure the author's version is never republished.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CM156

lil devils x

🐐More Lego Goats Please!🐐
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
🐐USA🐐
Gender
♀
The Harry Potter Liberal is a well used trope by now. The kind of people who try to compare politics and politicians to HP.
So essentially this?



I mean some of these aren't wrong.. XD
Why did you guys make me have to look for these?I was blissfully unaware of this Wizzarding activism potterization going on before you guys brought it up. Now I am going to have nightmares about this:
( see post below)
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,025
5,794
118
Country
United Kingdom
May well have. I've been in that game, and all you can do it point stuff out; writers by and large do as they please (and some are affronted when you point things out). Saved someone applying soup to their anus once though (they meant soap).
I can't help but feel that more something successful authors do.
The soup thing?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Baffle

Thaluikhain

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 16, 2010
18,575
3,532
118
Eh, Trump as Voldemort (or really, Trump as any remotely interesting villain) just doesn't work, though. If he was fictional, nobody would believe him.

I flat out cannot accept Hermann von Strab (from 40k, ruler of Armageddon before Ghazghkull's first invasion) as a believable leader, and he's better than Trump, albeit perhaps marginally.
 

lil devils x

🐐More Lego Goats Please!🐐
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
🐐USA🐐
Gender
♀
Eh, Trump as Voldemort (or really, Trump as any remotely interesting villain) just doesn't work, though. If he was fictional, nobody would believe him.

I flat out cannot accept Hermann von Strab (from 40k, ruler of Armageddon before Ghazghkull's first invasion) as a believable leader, and he's better than Trump, albeit perhaps marginally.
Both Trump and Voldemort are arrogant, psychopathic narcissists who have no problem using anyone or anything to get what they want. OF course Voldemort is immensely more intelligent than Trump, but yet both are still stupid enough they can be beaten by a kid.
( Am I doing this potterization thing right now? XD)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hawki

Baffle

Elite Member
Oct 22, 2016
3,459
2,746
118
I have also read an "author's version" of a famed fantasy novel, which is to say the version before the editor removed about 150 pages. All I can say is that author should buy that editor a massive and expensive gift hamper as thanks, and ensure the author's version is never republished.
Was it in the Mistborn set? I read one of those once and there was an unedited preview of the beginning of the next book at the back. I can't believe the publisher put it out TBH - not even spellchecked.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
Was it in the Mistborn set? I read one of those once and there was an unedited preview of the beginning of the next book at the back. I can't believe the publisher put it out TBH - not even spellchecked.
Raymond E Feist's "Magician".
 

Terminal Blue

Elite Member
Legacy
Feb 18, 2010
3,906
1,774
118
Country
United Kingdom
Can't wait for millenials to make enough inroads into academia that we start seeing Pottersian Ethics courses.
Fortunately, milennials are never going to make it into academia.

Whatever is left of academia after COVID will be a nature preserve for a handful of increasingly elderly boomers who still inexplicably have tenure, and when they finally die I suspect most millennial will have simply given up rather than doing unpaid work for 10 years.

Unfortunately, the few insufferable pricks who do make it in will probably be the kind of people who would design a Pottersian Ethics course.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MrCalavera

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
Fortunately, milennials are never going to make it into academia.

Whatever is left of academia after COVID will be a nature preserve for a handful of increasingly elderly boomers who still inexplicably have tenure, and when they finally die I suspect most millennial will have simply given up rather than doing unpaid work for 10 years.
Tenure effectively no longer exists (at least in the UK), ended in the 1980s. Perhaps some tenure contracts from before then still have force, but only a few on the verge of retirement who didn't move job. Academics can get a permanent job with the same sorts of rights and conditions as any permanent job.

Also, it depends on the university. Some thrive on kicking out elderly (i.e. expensively high salary) academics and replacing them with enthusiastic early career academics, thus some courses and universities are already well stocked in millennial academics. I think it's partly that many of these are less prestigious institutions, and ambitious academics view those universities as beneath them.
 

Dwarvenhobble

Is on the Gin
May 26, 2020
5,912
646
118
All the conservatives who burned Harry Potter books back in the late-90s, early 2000s be like



Regardless of the merits, B is more entertaining

Say what you will about Rowling, but she put her money where her mouth is. Metaphorically.

Let's see if this turns into a "buy the book to own the libs" moment.
I don't even get it, do people just think she crapped this book out in a what less than a month just to spite people?
 

Gordon_4

The Big Engine
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
6,043
5,345
118
Australia
I don't even get it, do people just think she crapped this book out in a what less than a month just to spite people?
Spite is as good a motivator as any. I personally don't care because frankly if the nom de plume hadn't be rumbled as the author of the biggest book series in children's literature since Enid Blyton I don't think anyone would care much about yet another shitty detective series with cliche and stereotype villains.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: lil devils x