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I remember this being super popular- rewriting Harry and Malfoy as queer (I think there might be some smut though)

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The Boy Who Loved - greenmegsnoham - Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling [Archive of Our Own]

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

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The Mysterious Ticking Noise- Potter Puppet Pals

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The Mysterious Ticking Noise- Potter Puppet Pals

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From Potter Puppet Pals- a YouTube channel dedicated to making puppet shows with the Harry Potter characters- this video was a childhood classic for many younger fans of the Harry Potter series. While this skit in particular was a more widely aged-appropriate one, some of the other Potter Puppet Pals’ puppet shows contain jokes better suited for slightly older age groups (likely adolescents). This popular HP fandom media is an interesting look into the impact of children’s literature on older age groups, who possess more of an ability to make fandom content than the younger target demographic of the original books.

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Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise

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Mischief Managed | Harry Potter Fan Film

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A video essay I watched a few years back. It's a somewhat sarcastic but detailed reading of Harry Potter as a product of capitalist franchises, the glamorisation of consumerism and essentialising wealth disparity through a magic system. Very interesting

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The Consumerist Dystopia of Harry Potter

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analysis of "potterheads" and the levels of its fandom 

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analysis of "potterheads" and the levels of its fandom 

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2019/12/19/jk-rowling-and-the-separation-of-the-art-from-the-artist/?sh=109680c7e0e0

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J. K. Rowling. (Photo by Rob Stothard/Getty Images)
2016 Getty Images

From her Twitter activity, J.K. Rowling has long been suspected of being a closet "TERF" (one who denies the rights of transgender people through a twisted interpretation of feminism), and today, she officially "came out."

For those out of the loop, Rowling is referring to Maya Forstater, a British researcher who lost her job at a thinktank after tweeting her opinion that transgender women cannot change their biological sex. In the employment tribunal that followed, Judge James Tayler, an employment judge, ruled that Forstater's views did "not have the protected characteristic of philosophical belief".

"I conclude from ... the totality of the evidence, that [Forstater] is absolutist in her view of sex and it is a core component of her belief that she will refer to a person by the sex she considered appropriate even if it violates their dignity and/or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. The approach is not worthy of respect in a democratic society."

Treating fellow human beings with dignity shouldn't be a controversial stance, but the "Ben Shapiro philosophy," of ignoring long-established facts in favor of religious fundamentalism and antiquated social norms, has become depressingly popular; I'm sure trans-exclusionary talking points will age just as well as all of those ridiculous arguments against gay marriage.

J.K. Rowling's stance comes as a major disappointment to progressive fans of Harry Potter, a story detailing the rise and fall of fascism in the wizarding world, of the oppressed finally triumphing over their oppressors.

Rowling's books, however, are very much a product of their time, and the times, they have changed.

In the years since, Rowling's story has been aggressively analyzed by a large, diverse and dedicated fan community, who have found the character of Harry Potter, in hindsight, to be not a passionate progressive demanding change, but merely a nice man who maintains the status quo, comfortable with the mass enslavement of house-elves, and subjugation of other intelligent magical creatures.

To be fair, the wizarding world was never designed to be scrutinized to such a degree; Rowling's world-building isn't nearly as elaborate as J.R.R. Tolkien's, and her attempts to flesh out her universe, post- Harry Potter, has been widely mocked.

These days, Rowling is often criticized for retconning diversity into her story.

Or simply for providing weird, unwanted details that make the wizarding world seem less ... magical.

It's extremely disappointing that Rowling is now using her platform to spew trans-exclusionary talking points, but perhaps we should stop caring what our favorite artists think, or expect them to keep up with the ever-changing times, especially after they become wildly successful, insulated from economic hardship.

Perhaps the problem is that Harry Potter feels like the last story that resonated across the entire world, across different age groups, while still saying something reasonably profound and inspiring. Recent stories with comparable levels of popularity would likely be the Marvel and Star Wars movies, which are so keen to please everyone that they barely say anything at all.

I'm a firm believer in separating the art from the artist, and I still think J.K. Rowling's stories are of great value; whimsical, nostalgic tales of a British boarding school system that never existed, ice-cold baths and savage beatings replaced with chocolate frogs and sexless love potions.

They're great fun, whether one is over-analyzing their problematic elements or simply accepting the stories for what they are - escapist fantasies, a touch of magic in a drab, dreary world.

Although, perhaps J.K. Rowling herself should reread her stories with a more critical eye, particularly the first book, in which Harry first enters Hogwarts. When Harry places the Sorting Hat on his head, its initial reaction is to place Harry in House Slytherin, the house for naughty people. After Harry strongly objects to the designation, the Sorting Hat reluctantly complies, placing him in Gryffindor instead.

The Sorting Hat's certainty haunts Harry for the rest of the book, the boy believing himself to be some kind of imposter, a Gryffindor in name only. Until, Dumbledore reassures him that the Sorting Hat's analysis was secondary to Harry's gut feeling and sense of identity.

I'm sure there's a metaphor in there, somewhere.

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J.K. Rowling, And The Separation Of The Art From The Artist

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From her Twitter activity, J.K. Rowling has long been suspected of being a closet "TERF" (one who denies the rights of transgender people through a twisted interpretation of feminism), and today, she officially "came out."

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https://www.projectcasting.com/blog/news/harry-potters-history-of-recasting-characters-races/

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Did you know Harry Potter's "Lavender Brown" character was first black but later recast to white?

Recently J.K Rowling revealed her support of casting a black actor to play Hermione in the upcoming Harry Potter stage play and while this sparked controversy for Harry Potter franchise. But, this is not the first Harry Potter casting directors changed the race of the movie's character.

In the movie version of Harry Potter, Lavender Brown was initially black but, was later changed to a white actress in order to play Ron Weasley's girlfriend. Here's how Harry Potter describes Lavender Brown:

" At first, Lavender had been very annoyed that nobody had thought to tell her that Ron was in the hospital wing — "I mean, I am his girlfriend!" — but unfortunately she had now decided to forgive Harry this lapse of memory and was keen to have lots of in-depth chats with him about Ron's feelings, a most uncomfortable experience that Harry would have happily forgone."—Harry Potter's description of Lavender.

According to the book franchise, Lavender Brown was a pure-blood witch, that started her career the same year as Harry Potter. In the movie version, Lavender Brown was initially played by Kathleen Cauley in the second film, and then in a non-speaking role by Jennifer Smith in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. While she did not have any lines and was never mentioned by name, she appeared in several scenes. However, she was played by Jessie Cave in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and Part 2.

But, many fans have speculated as to why Lavender Brown's actress was changed for Half Blood Prince. HarryPotter.Wikia attempts to explains why casting directors decided to change the race for the character:

Many fans speculate as to why Lavender Brown's actress was changed for Half Blood Prince, but the reasoning is quite simple. Before Half Blood Prince, Lavender Brown played no major role, she was portrayed by two separate actresses in the second and third film and was a background character.

Background characters have no specific casting, which is why multiple people can portray them. Usually they are given character names just to keep order on a film set. Lavender Brown, as a major character role, was not cast until the sixth film.

The filmmakers had no way of knowing she would play such a role when they assigned her name to the background actresses from previous films, which is why her actress changed in the sixth film.

Casting a white actress in a role that had previously been played by black actresses, sparked controversy with many people bashing the franchise for white-washing the cast. Tumblr account Tumblr Is Weird broke down their feelings against Harry Potter for changing the race of the character.

Now don't get me wrong. She did a wonderful job as Lavender. But, in the interest of continuity, why did she become white. And it begs to ask: what hell would have been raised if they had cast a black actress as Lavender in the Half Blood Prince? They wanted to have an audience who could identify with Lavender as a British girl who was in love for the first time and head over heals, but it couldn't be a black girl, because no one would identify with her enough. So they white washed the character, and tried to erase the roles of Jennifer Smith and Kathleen Cauley (try to look up pictures of them in relation to Lavender Brown, next to difficult, now look up Jessie Cave. Everywhere.)

What do you think? Share with us your thoughts in the comments below!

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Harry Potter's History of Recasting and Changing Characters' Races | Project Casting

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Recently J.K Rowling revealed her support of casting a black actor to play Hermione in the upcoming Harry Potter stage play and while this sparked controversy for Harry Potter franchise. But, this is not the first Harry Potter casting directors changed the race of the movie's character.

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It is, perhaps, the most important question that a young (or not so young) millennial can ask - "What is my Hogwarts house?"

But we all contain multitudes, and it can feel like one single house doesn't encapsulate your whole personality, so here's a quiz that's a little more specific...

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There's nothing hidden in your head this sorting quiz can't see.

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Fans of a Famous 'Harry Potter' Fan Fiction Think Taylor Swift is the Author

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Fans of a Famous 'Harry Potter' Fan Fiction Think Taylor Swift is the Author

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https://www.distractify.com/p/atyd-taylor-swift

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Tiktoker discussing harry potter's plot holes & explanations for how certains thing could have happen / functionned in the books that were never explained.

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Tiktoker discussing harry potter's plot holes & explanations for how certains thing could have happen / functionned in the books that were never explained.

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https://www.tiktok.com/@marshflower?_t=8XLn15hACM2&_r=1

Specific example: Wizards don't inherently need wands. Very interesting comment section on how wands were a result of colonialism and a way to track people in the wizarding world.
https://www.tiktok.com/@marshflower/video/7153533991637978414?_r=1&_t=8XLn15hACM2&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

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L (@marshflower) TikTok | Watch L's Newest TikTok Videos

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L (@marshflower) on TikTok | 1.8M Likes. 40.5K Followers. If you find the plot, tell them to call me back... 🎨 📚 🧪 🎥🏳️‍🌈

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Harry Potter fan edits on tik Tok and 'Dracotok'

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Harry Potter fan edits on tik Tok and 'Dracotok'

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7sgrnLnBPM

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the best draco malfoy tiktoks for your imagination ;)

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Being a fan of the book but not of the author

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Being a fan of the book but not of the author

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https://www.quora.com/Can-I-still-be-a-Harry-Potter-fan-even-if-I-don-t-agree-with-JK-Rowling-s-transphobic-views

https://www.buzzfeed.com/daily/harry-potter-jk-rowling-terf

https://weirdzeal.com/2020/06/15/not-supporting-jkr/

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Can I still be a Harry Potter fan even if I don't agree with JK Rowling's transphobic views?

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Answer (1 of 16): Absolutely. I doubt anyone rational will criticise you for liking the series despite having strong disagreements with the philosophy and views of its author. Looking at what's there in the series without taking what JKR says into account there isn't even a mention of a confirm...

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐲 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝 (Harry Potter x Reader) - ScribblingQuills - Wattpad

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☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙ (Harry Potter x Fem! Reader) ❝ 𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬, 𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐡𝐞'𝐝 𝐛𝐞�...

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Drapple - A Broken Boy - Drappleisbae - Wattpad

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A very complex and slightly realistic story about a boy named Draco Malfoy falling in love with an apple.

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Harry Potter drew marginalized groups in with themes of overcoming corrupt power systems and fighting against hate. For J. K Rowling to have revealed herself as a radical T.E.R.F seems to go against what she has built.

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At this point, " Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling's transphobia is widely known, so vehemently has she used her international notoriety to spew hateful views against the most vulnerable segment of the LGBTQ+ community. Fans of her popular books and films have been blindsided, shocked, and left scratching their heads as to why the author of a seemingly positive fantasy tale about acceptance of differences would become so radicalized against a single marginalized group.

But Daniel Radcliffe, who rose to international fame playing "the boy who lived" onscreen, is most concerned about the young trans fans who have felt betrayed and hurt deeply by Rowling's dangerous comments.

"The reason I was felt very, very much as though I needed to say something when I did was because, particularly since finishing 'Potter,' I've met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter on that. And so seeing them hurt on that day I was like, I wanted them to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way. And that was really important," Radcliffe told IndieWire during a recent interview.

Radcliffe is referring to an open letter he penned in June of 2020, which clearly and definitively stated his unwavering support for transgender people. "It's clear that we need to do more to support transgender and nonbinary people, not invalidate their identities, and not cause further harm," he wrote at the time. The letter was published on website of The Trevor Project, an organization that runs the world's largest suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ+ youth. Radcliffe has been an outspoken supporter of The Trevor Project since 2010.

"It was really important as I've worked with the Trevor Project for more than 10 years, and so I don't think I would've been able to look myself in the mirror had I not said anything," he told IndieWire. "But it's not mine to guess what's going on in someone else's head."

Radcliffe can next be seen taking a wacky comedic turn in "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story," where he plays the parody singer in a zany and loosely interpreted faux biopic. The film premieres on The Roku Channel on Friday, November 4, and more from Radcliffe's interview with IndieWire is to follow.

Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.

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Daniel Radcliffe: J.K. Rowling Does Not Speak for 'Everybody in the Franchise'

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At this point, " Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling's transphobia is widely known, so vehemently has she used her international notoriety to spew hateful views against the most vulnerable segment of the LGBTQ+ community.

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'Harry Potter' Becomes More Inclusive Thanks To LGBTQ+ TikTok Users

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'Harry Potter' Becomes More Inclusive Thanks To LGBTQ+ TikTok Users

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Harry Potter fans on TikTok have taken LGBTQ+ representation into their own hands, and they have been taking the platform by storm.

The LGBTQ+ community has had a rather complicated relationship with the Harry Potter franchise for some time now. But while some might take that as an indication that they should move on to something more welcoming, some young fans have apparently interpreted it as a challenge.

All across the video social platform TikTok, users are coming out in force to "reclaim" the Harry Potter series for the LGBTQ+ community. From cosplay videos to duets and even complete rewrites of scenes from the books, fans who refuse to separate their values from the stories they love have taken to the platform to celebrate themselves and what Harry Potter really means to them. The hope is that these videos will reach younger, more impressionable fans and help them realize that creations can grow to become more than what their creator might have originally intended. Popular culture can influence LGBTQ+ representation in unexpected ways.

RELATED: LGBTQ History Through The Eyes Of The Simpsons

This push comes as a direct response to many statements and insinuations Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has made over the years, most notably her openly anti-trans stance, which she has repeated in many forms. Her assertion that trans women aren't "actual" women broke the hearts of trans and non-binary Harry Potter fans around the world, as well as non-trans allies who support their trans friends and family. While some have decided to swear off the series in retaliation, others have taken a decidedly more proactive approach.

For instance, some of this effort has branched off from a TikTok trend known as #DracoTok, which essentially encompasses content related to the character Draco Malfoy, played by Tom Felton. Many users, like 21-year-old Marthe Woertman, used that as a jumping-off point to address issues the original Harry Potter stories lacked, such as LGBTQ+ themes. "There's zero queer representation in the movies so that queer creators were like we're gonna make it ourselves then, and that's what I found fun," she explained when speaking with Gay Times.

Creators like Woertman have contributed to the trend by making videos depicting scenarios they feel could have, or even should have, been included in the Harry Potter movies and books. Once #DracoTok gained its own level of notoriety (thanks in part to Felton himself taking notice and even participating), the LGBTQ+-focused content began to take off as well, giving young users an outlet to air their frustrations with Rowling's harmful statements while creating their own forms of modern artwork. Not only that, but younger users who see these videos get to see Harry Potter for the first time through a more inclusive lens, and that seems to be the ultimate goal for many in this particular community.

Rowling may have dealt a blow to the inclusivity of Harry Potter with her reiterating sentiments, but these fans are proving that creations can outgrow their creators. While some may get a bad taste in their mouth at the idea of continuing to give the series exposure while knowing what they now know, the prevailing attitude seems to be that reclaiming it for all will do more good. It's like when the purebloods try to exclude muggle-borns. If they had gotten their way, the Wizarding World would have never been introduced to Hermione.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is now available on Amazon Prime Video.

MORE: Cameos Chris Evans Could Make In Future MCU Projects

Source: Gay Times

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'Harry Potter' Becomes More Inclusive Thanks To LGBTQ+ TikTok Users

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Harry Potter fans on TikTok have taken LGBTQ+ representation into their own hands, and they have been taking the platform by storm. The LGBTQ+ community has had a rather complicated relationship with the Harry Potter franchise for some time now.

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'Harry Potter Series Makes a Mess of its Commentary on Racism'

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'Harry Potter Series Makes a Mess of its Commentary on Racism'

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https://www.themarysue.com/race-in-harry-potter-is-messy/

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ScreenPrism is doing a series about the symbolism of the four Hogwarts Houses, and being a proud Slytherin (Ravenclaw rising), I was looking forward to their analysis and, as expected, Slytherin being the "racist house" came up. Talking about racism in Harry Potter is always ... complicated, because it's a series that was built upon the good intentions of wanting to say something important about race, racism, classism, etc., but failing in how that was implemented-especially when it comes to really addressing what we're saying when we call Death Eaters and pureblood-minded wizards "racist."

So here are some things I feel need to be established when talking about race and ethnicity in Harry Potter: One, the books are not as inclusive as they should be for a book series that takes place in a U.K. magic school. Two, J.K. Rowling's attempts to retroactively make the books more inclusive after the fact don't help. Three, we should not read blood purity in the Harry Potter context as inherently the same as racism in our modern world, because they are not the same. Four, if you want to build a narrative about fighting prejudice, maybe don't make all the major players in the story white.
Lack of inclusion
In the original Harry Potter books, the named and noted characters of color are: Cho Chang, Dean Thomas, Blaise Zabini, Lee Jordan, Angelica Johnson, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and the twins Parvati and Padma Patil. The only (implied) Jewish character is Anthony Goldstein.

None of these characters are part of what J.K. Rowling calls the "big seven," the characters whose journeys are key to the series, who are: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, and Draco Malfoy.

None of the characters of color in the series really have any semblance of cultural markers other than their names, and sometimes their hair being mentioned to either be in braids or dreadlocks. I mean, Cho Chang could be either someone of Korean or Chinese ancestry, or even both. While the United Kingdom is not as diverse as the United States, it still has a substantial Asian and Black British population, so for there to only be eight book-canon non-white named characters, out of a cast of hundreds, is truly unimpressive.

As a result, the"half-blood" and Muggle-born characters who get most of the "wizard racist" comments end up being white characters, like Hermione, and are attacked by, mostly, other white characters, like Draco Malfoy. It also creates huge backlash when characters like Blaise Zabini appear, both pureblood and Slytherin, because these binaries about the wizarding world based are based on issues in our world that have never actually been dealt with in the text, because the story doesn't focus on actual marginalized characters.

When Cursed Child was announced and Noma Dumezweni, a black actress, was cast as Hermione, J.K. Rowling came out and said that Hermione could be anyone of any race.

Well, no, she couldn't.

I don't mean this in the fan-art, fan theory sense, where you could say that Hermione is not described explicitly as white because of such-and-such in the books. I'm talking about in canon, Hermione is not written to be a person of color, because if she were, then suddenly, we'd have to have a real discussion about actual racism and not just made up allegories regarding goblins and elves.

If Hermione were a non-white child from a non-magical family thrust into a world in which she has to deal with a whole new world of prejudice, that would show up in the way that character was constructed. Being called a "Mudblood" wouldn't be an insult she would just brush off, because it would be yet another racial slur that would impact her life, having grown up in a minority in one white space and then be transferred into another that has a whole new set of discriminatory ideology.

Also, there is absolutely no way a woman of color would have come up with S.P.E.W., especially not in the way that book Hermione does it. Racism in the real world would suddenly need to be addressed, if only to make a clear juxtaposition between the muggle and wizard communities.

The same goes for J.K. Rowling saying that of course there are Jewish wizards in Hogwarts, while having none of them dealing with wizard Hitler or referencing any Jewish holidays, even though we celebrate Christmas every year in these books.

You can't say that your series includes oppressed and marginalized people, but then erase all of that history and context in a series that is explicitly taking from Ku Klux Klan, Nazi, and white supremacist language when crafting the antagonist. It's not only lazy, but it ignores that Harry Potter takes place parallel to our world, which means ...

One of the things people used to ask me was how could I be a Slytherin or like Slytherin even though they're bigots and racists. Shouldn't I find that offensive? To which I say ... there are black Slytherin and black purebloods in the Harry Potter universe.

Whenever we get into the "this is a metaphor for slavery/racism" territory, it's always important to point out that when marginalized people actually exist in the story, we shouldn't need metaphors for it. Slavery exists in the Harry Potter world. Racism against non-white people exists in the Harry Potter world, maybe not among wizards, but it does around muggles, and if you are going to discuss fanaticism and intolerance, maybe start there?

Not to mention the whole "pureblood equals white" narrative assumes that the entire Wizarding World revolves around white European wizards.

When my friend made me watch Fantastic Beasts with her, one of the things that sprung out to me was that the American wizarding world is hella segregated when it comes to wizards and No-Maj's (Muggles), and there is a black female president of the Magical Congress in Seraphina Picquery. But the movie takes place in 1926, which means Jim Crow is still a thing, and according to the wiki for Picquery, her character is from Savannah, Georgia.

Is there a black wizard version of the NAACP? Do non-white wizards just allow their "No-Maj" counterparts to be oppressed? The Goldstein sisters are coded as Jewish. Do they do anything during WWII? There is a female president, but women in America literally just gained the right to vote six years prior. Were witches involved in suffrage?

As soon as you expand the Harry Potter universe, these questions get asked, and it turns into a mess, because if magical people can be born from non-magical Muggles, then that means that a random oppressed person could have just been born with magic. Even if they didn't become a trained witch or wizard, we know from the story of Ariana Dumbledore that magical kids can't control their magic, and it can result in violence against them. Or as Fantastic Beasts explains, they could become an Obscurial.

But okay, let's say that goblins and house elves are supposed to be our POC/oppression avatars. Then why don't we ever see more of them in an active role? Most of the characters who are part magical creature are joked about, like Hagrid, and our house elf representation is made up of Dobby, Winky, and Kreacher. Dobby, who causes problems for Harry, gets freed and then basically helps Harry in the most incompetent way possible then dies saving his human friends. Winky, who is scapegoated by her owner and becomes a drunk because she can't handle freedom. Then there is Kreacher, who ... gets revenge on his abusive master by setting him up to die. You know what? We claim Kreacher.

Not to mention that Muggle-born and half-blood wizards also participate in the oppression of magical creatures ... sooooo?

Racism metaphors are meaningless without context

During the 2016 election, I remember reading a bunch of articles about a " study" that claimed that Harry Potter readers were less likely to vote for Donald Trump. I also remember the loud cackle I gave reading that.

Clearly, the study missed out on all the people who claimed that there was no way Blaise Zabini could be black because he was supposed to be "attractive," or the people who came for Angelina Johnson for marrying George after Fred died, or like the racists who have fits every time people make POC Harry Potter fan art. It just gave people waaayyyy too much credit.

Yes, Lord Voldemort is clearly modeled after Hitler, but he is also a character whose sociopathic behavior is due to the fact he was conceived while his father was under the influence of a love potion, and therefore, he cannot love. And that's not a fan theory, J.K. Rowling said that. ( EDIT: For clarity, yes Rowling does see this more metaphorically than literally, but for me it says a lot about how Rowling created the character and this idea that all racists/bigots need is love).

Just because Draco Malfoy and the Malfoy families are unfriendly blonde hotties doesn't mean they can just be shorthand for Aryans because they are ancient pureblood family-not when the Lestranges are also an ancient pureblood family and Leta Lestrange will be played by Black-Jewish actress Zoe Kravitz in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

I appreciate what Rowling was trying to do with the story and with Voldemort and the Death Eaters. However, when you're trying to create a story about racial inclusion and you can't be bothered to make any of the "big 7" POC or ethnic minorities, then your message is only half-baked.

Also, let's talk about the context in which blood purity exists, since when we talk about race and racism in the real world, we talk about the historical context in which those ideas develop. So how does that apply in the Wizarding world? According to information from the text and secondary sources in the ancient times, wizards were hunted by Muggles, which forced wizards to go "underground" and separate themselves from the Muggle world. They were tired of living in fear of Muggles because, despite their magic, they were still a minority group, and being forced to suppress their magic in order to "pass" led to physical and emotional trauma that could potentially turn them into Obsurials.

So when Salazar Slytherin was against letting Muggle-born students into Hogwarts, the context of it goes as such: Muggles oppressed us. We were forced to separate ourselves from them to survive. We created this school in order to ensure that our culture and way of life sustains itself, and now you want to let these children with Muggle parents into this school, which could potentially expose us to the very people who used to emotionally and physically traumatize us.

... that is not racism.

What came out of it, the stuff that Voldemort spews, is self-hatred and turns into prejudice, but the stuff it is rooted in is self-preservation of a minority in a world that actively oppressed them.

What I find so funny about even writing this is that it proves, furthermore, why these world-building scenarios don't work when trying to talk about racism, because racism doesn't exist in a vacuum. It exists within culture, history, and social issues, and you can't just take our world, put pretend bigotry on top of it, and actually think it holds up to even the most basic breakdown of how racism actually works.

When I think of ways in which half-blood and Muggle-born wizards are discriminated against, beyond the views of extremists, the story doesn't show much of that. It's like, beyond Death Eaters, everyone else is cool, which is, again, not how discrimination works-especially if this is framed as centuries-old discrimination.

And for those of us who are non-white members of the Slytherin House, it is important to remember that ambition, a drive to be the best, cunning, and let's be real, snobbery are not traits that only belong to white people. Bad and Boujee is the Slytherin mantra.

When muggles try and talk to Slytherins #BlackHogwarts pic.twitter.com/j8JE3OEV4D

- Shayde Sinclair (@shayde_sinclair) January 12, 2018

(image: Warner Bros/Screenshot/Edited together by author)
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Harry Potter Series Makes a Mess of Its Commentary on Racism | The Mary Sue

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ScreenPrism is doing a series about the symbolism of the four Hogwarts Houses, and being a proud Slytherin (Ravenclaw rising), I was looking forward to their analysis and, as expected, Slytherin being the "racist house" came up. Talking about racism in Harry Potter is always ...

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'How the Fandom is reclaiming Potter for themselves'

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'How the Fandom is reclaiming Potter for themselves'

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This is another article (similar to the discussion of Syed's artwork) which discusses how Potter fans are reclaiming ownership of the texts following the controversy around JK Rowling's comments which were harmful to the LGBTQIA+ community. It highlights the difficulty of separating the artist from the artwork

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20 Years of 'Harry Potter': How The Fandom Is Reclaiming Potter For Themselves - Nerds and Beyond

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Contributors: Jules, Kaity A note: Aside from the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, this week marks Transgender Awareness Week in both the United States and the United Kingdom. If you are interested in supporting the trans community or need resources yourself, you can find them for the US here and the...

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'We all visualise something [in literature] but it doesn't mean we all visualise the same thing... everyone is looking to identify themselves in fiction'

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'We all visualise something [in literature] but it doesn't mean we all visualise the same thing... everyone is looking to identify themselves in fiction'

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This is a BBC article which was written in response to a piece of artwork that was produced by Anoosha Syed of the 'golden trio' in Harry Potter. She received a severe amount of backlash and racist comments for drawing Hermione and Harry as having darker skin tones, which is how she imagined the characters. This emphasises how passionate readers are about fictitious characters because they imagine themselves into fantastical texts by relating to these characters, and in their re-imagining they take ownership of the narrative, which leads back to the argument of whether the author or reader has ownership of a text after publication and the idea of 'The Death of the Author'.
This Youtube clip (which I have quoted from above as the title of this Padlet) does a close reading of Hermione's skin colour in the Harry Potter books and sums up this idea of readers writing themselves into texts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEG7Bj3_M8I

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Anoosha Syed got a strong reaction when she posted her illustration of the character online.

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Contasting Reactions to Hermione as Black

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Contasting Reactions to Hermione as Black

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Here is Emma Watson reacting to Hermione as Black: https://youtu.be/Y7p8rMPmm6w
You can see her admiration and love for the character and how race isn't an issue, it comes from a deeper relation to the character.

Below is a link from a debate on a thread of tumblr within the fandom. it is clear that they all care deeply for the character however it is filtered through potential racist attitudes and the approach is skewed. The clear difference between these two threads is astounding and lets insight into approaches for nostalgia and care within the character.
https://at.tumblr.com/takashi0/i-cant-stand-when-people-make-hermione-a-poc-im/dw27hxncpc12

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Emma Watson Burst Into Tears When She First Saw Hermione In 'Cursed Child' | Entertainment Weekly

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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alannabennett/seeing-a-black-hermione-in-2018

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A few days before Christmas 2015 I was lolling around my brother's guest bedroom, absentmindedly scrolling through my Twitter mentions, when my entire decade was made. A person I didn't know, with the handle @jewseal, had tweeted at me in all-caps urgency, asking if I'd seen the casting of the upcoming play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I hadn't. So I googled it. And then I immediately burst into wracking sobs.

What I saw was pretty straightforward, really: It was Noma Dumezweni, sandwiched between Jamie Parker and Paul Thornley. The three of them were set to play the trio of friends who had been at the center of the Harry Potter series. Parker would be Harry; Thornley would be Ron Weasley. Dumezweni, a celebrated theater actor, would be playing Hermione Granger. It was a simple sight that was sprawling in its implications. After all, Dumezweni is black, and it was that fact that seized my heart up and made me lose control of my tear ducts in the middle of what had been a perfectly calm afternoon. In one casting move, they'd officially changed Hermione forever. It's a moment that has become deeply etched into me, a tattoo on the arc of my life.

That Hermione had already been brought to life as a woman of color via pen, paint, and pixels only contributed to the surreality of that day. The ranks of fans imagining her this way had been growing for years. All over my Tumblr timeline were versions of Hermione with brown skin, her race most often black. It was happening with Harry Potter himself, too - he was being visualized with increasing frequency as black or South Asian. These interpretations of the characters cropped up in fan fiction, Tumblr text posts, GIF sets, and most arrestingly, in art.

Fan artists like Batcii, Sadyna, Natello, Dellbelle39, and so many more built dreams of what these characters could be into their own reality. It was an ecosystem constructed and nurtured by fandom itself. J.K. Rowling tweeted after Dumezweni's casting that "white skin was never specified" in her original writing of Hermione - but that didn't change that eight blockbuster films and piles of official material from the books' publishers still actively led millions of people to believe that Hermione was solidly white. Because of that, Harry Potter fans were used to manifesting their own representations from a series that had always presented very white and very straight.

I personally wrote about this phenomenon in February 2015, as part of an edit test for a staff writer position with the now-defunct BuzzFeed Geeky. The piece tumbled right out of me, a late-night fever dream and an exercise in putting words to something I'd been thinking about for years but had never really talked about out loud. I was 23, living in Portland, Oregon, and trying to make my way to New York, hopeful this piece that no one would likely read would land me a job that could get me there. Hopeful that, if it didn't, at least it would help me get something off my chest.

But much as I'd pined for her existence, I'd never actually thought I'd see a black Hermione in my lifetime.

Rereading it now, it's clear that I was in the middle of unlearning some of the lessons of whiteness I'd grown up surrounded by. "I'd dress up in Hogwarts uniforms for Halloween but avoid going overtly as Hermione because I knew I could never get my hair like Emma Watson's," I wrote then. "My hair was a whole different kind of frizzy. I loved [Hermione] so much, but it took me a long time to accept that I could never be her."

Tumblr, though, was a powerful thing. Fans there were on the same journey as me, challenging the default of whiteness we had been taught to accept without question. On my Tumblr dashboard, Hermione already looked like me. Drawing her as a woman of color was an act of resistance - of, as I put it back then, "reclaiming her allegory at its roots." Many of the fan artists who made her that way never thought their missives into the spirited void of internet fandom would ever touch canon. I personally was thrilled enough when, in the days after my piece started picking up steam online, J.K. Rowling liked a series of tweets that inquired about the possibility of a black Hermione.

But much as I'd pined for her existence, I'd never actually thought I'd see a black Hermione in my lifetime. I'd resigned myself to the canon being immovable - to it not particularly caring if there were space for people who looked like me. Fandom, after all, is its own worthy world. And fandom had already created a black Hermione, and I had already called her my own.

That was 11 months before Dumezweni's role in Cursed Child was announced. Seeing Noma in that cast picture flipped some kind of switch in me. She was real. Tangible. Undeniable. As the author tweeted shortly after the announcement, "Rowling loves black Hermione ." It felt like validation, like a positive feedback loop, like someone in power was actually listening for once. It was a complicated feeling. It came with the knowledge that a move like this is both a massive, impactful gesture and one that only goes so far. In that moment, looking at that picture, it felt like everything. It was a major step forward. But how far would it reach? How much could it heal of the pain of not being seen - not just in Harry Potter but in so much mainstream media and art?

When I find myself contemplating the ins and outs of fandom I often think back to something the media scholar Henry Jenkins told the New York Times in 1997. "Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations," he said, "instead of owned by the folk."

The relationship between fandom and the object of its initial devotion - a book series, a film, a television show, a celebrity, or the amalgamation of all of the above - has always added up to more than the sum of its parts. Fans carry a reputation as obsessive peons, but fandom is actually a place of rampant creation. Latching on to some piece of inspiration, people enmeshed in fandom write novel-length stories, create stunning works of visual art, and write enough music to classify whole new genres. On a smaller scale, they spit out drabbles, text posts, GIF sets, headcanons, and so many more tidbits. They have the power to alternately amuse, disrupt, and genuinely alter the way you see that original text. Regardless of whether any official Star Trek installment ever actually gets Kirk and Spock together, the fan community that formed around their pairing has spanned over half a century. It carries its own cultural weight, its own worth, its own reality.

The vast majority of the time, fandom's riffs and the "canon" of an official text are kept separate. Authors, showrunners, and actors routinely reject the notion that ideas nurtured in fan communities could ever come to fruition. Audiences reading Star Wars' Finn and Poe as romantically interested in each other turned into mainstream news, but it's often treated like a far-fetched idea that fans should never expect to actually happen. Still, the relationship between fandom and the media they consume has been growing more and more linked over the years. The CW show Supernatural is in a constant give-and-take with fans. It reached the point years ago where its fandom became an active meta character on the show, conventions and fanfic included. Yet the series still skirts one of the community's biggest convictions: that several of the show's central relationships read like the characters are romantically in love with each other. The series winks in acknowledgment of those conversations - but any thought that they'd actually give those characters queer storylines has historically been treated as ludicrous.

Fandom and media are in a symbiotic relationship, one side constantly helping or hurting the other - though not always in equal measure. When the live-action Ghost in the Shell caught heat for casting a white woman (Scarlett Johansson) in the lead role, those conversations started in fandom. When the movie bombed at the box office, the studio blamed that fan-led controversy for the failure.

On the flip side, though, there are instances of inter-dimensional payoff. On Season 4 of Jane the Virgin, for example, the writers gave the character Petra (Yael Grobglas) a queer awakening and a relationship with a woman named Jane (Rosario Dawson). It was a direct reference to years of the Jane the Virgin fandom reading Petra as a queer woman with a romantic connection with Jane Villanueva (Gina Rodriguez). Elsewhere, the decision to cast a woman (Jodie Whittaker) as the 13th Doctor on Doctor Who was the result of a variety of environmental factors. But it also took place after years of fans actively pushing the show's producers to consider a woman Doctor -and after years of former showrunner Steven Moffat evading the topic, sometimes with warped reasoning.

But cases of payoff are still rare, which means that a black Hermione stands out, even two and a half years later. That she exists at all still feels like an anomaly - a symbol of what the relationship between fandom and "canon" can be at its very best. Fan communities thought her up, then an official Harry Potter production brought her to life, introducing the idea of her to the audience of millions of people who pay attention to big Harry Potter news. It was a major milestone in the battle for more representation in mainstream entertainment.

It's hard to find a more overexposed property than Harry Potter. It packs a punch, then, to expand the identity of one of its most iconic characters. Assuming the Potter franchise continues into eternity - and, by all accounts, that's the plan - future generations won't be able to deny that there is plenty of room to cast Hermione as a woman of color. Maybe they'll even do it for other characters. Maybe one day a man of color will be cast as Harry. Maybe one day kids will grow up assuming that's the way these characters have always been.

There are a lot of maybes out there. But those feel better than the belief that nothing would ever happen. A black woman as Hermione remains a symbol of pure possibility. If Hermione can be black not only in our hearts but in an official production, what other borders can we expand? What else can we, collectively, make room for?

A lot has happened in the world of Harry Potter fandom since 2015. The first Fantastic Beasts film came out, bringing with it lots of discussion of diversity in the Harry Potter franchise. Though the sequel, Crimes of Grindelwald, includes more people of color - including Jessica Williams, Zoë Kravitz, and Claudia Kim - the first movie was starkly white. It also came with more writing from Rowling on North American wizarding history. When Pottermore published Rowling's piece on Native American wizards, readers accused her of cultural appropriation. "You can't just claim and take a living tradition of a marginalised people," Adrienne Keene, a Cherokee activist and writer, said on Twitter. "That's straight up colonialism/appropriation."

In other words, representation in Harry Potter remains hit or miss. One giant leap doesn't wipe out all the rest. And there are other controversies taking center stage in Harry Potter fandom in 2018 - like Warner Bros.' and Rowling's decision to stand by their casting of Johnny Depp after his ex-wife Amber Heard accused him of domestic abuse. (Heard and Depp released a statement in August 2016 saying that "neither party has made false accusations for financial gain. There was never an intent of physical or emotional harm.") There's also a question over whether Albus Dumbledore's gayness will be made evident in the upcoming Crimes of Grindelwald. The film's director, David Yates, told Entertainment Weekly that Dumbledore's sexuality wouldn't be "explicitly" referenced in the movie. When fans were upset, Rowling responded that the public has yet to see the film, and with a reminder that there will be three more Fantastic Beasts movies after Grindelwald.

In the midst of all that, conversations around Hermione can feel like they're in the rearview mirror. But watching Cursed Child on Broadway was a reminder of what it could feel like when the conversation between fandom and author is at its most fruitful, and of how good it can feel when we succeed in pushing each other forward.

I tried desperately to get to London to see Cursed Child the first time around, but the money didn't come together. Then the production came to Broadway. Tickets were acquired. And as the day approached, it felt more and more like a nonreligious pilgrimage.

Dumezweni won her second Olivier Award in 2017 for her performance as Hermione. It's easy to see why: She's masterful in the role. She embodies Hermione and makes her her own. It felt like a privilege to be able to witness it. A lot of seeing Cursed Child up close dazzled me, but it was the fact of seeing her that's wrapped itself around my brain.

In Cursed Child, Hermione is in her late thirties. She's the Minister of Magic, running the UK wizarding world while her husband, Ron, takes on the role of primary caretaker to their two kids. She's bossy as ever - she's literally the boss. She's brilliant as ever, too. And her hair, always discussed in the books as bushy and frizzy, is worn out and natural in what looks like a beautiful, kinky wash-and-go.

The actors who play the members of the trio all do a remarkable job of conjuring up the legacy attached to their characters. They make you feel like you really are watching an extension of their stories. I didn't expect to be as bowled over as I was to see Harry in front of me again, tied up in the sheer responsibility of being who he is. Or Ron, running a joke shop and clearly trying to fill a hole left by the death of his brother Fred. I did expect to be overwhelmed by Hermione - and I was. It's a singular experience. There's nothing quite like seeing a dream of yours literally brought to life in front of you.

Millions of other fans are still waiting to see her. Theater is a beautiful medium, but one of its biggest downsides is a lack of accessibility when it comes to stories the masses could benefit from. Though the script of the play is available, there's no way to fully soak up what Cursed Child has to offer if you can't get to New York or London - or can't afford tickets. And as I recently discovered, most of Cursed Child's glories - from a stunning production to nuanced performances, to the physical reality of this version of Hermione - live and die in actually seeing it. Reading the script doesn't capture one-tenth of what it's like to see these actors bring these characters to life. I have no doubt that the show will tour eventually; I also know I'm impatient for the rest of the world to get to see what I saw.

Dumezweni's embodiment of the role showed me what it could feel like when we move collectively forward.

Hermione Granger is a character I will always be grateful for, no matter what befalls the Harry Potter fandom. She's indelible in me. That's the case for a lot of us. When I was a child she taught me what it looked like to stand strong in your convictions, and to let your passions guide you even when they're uncool or get you labeled "difficult." I was able to see the racism around my own life more clearly through the prejudice she endured because of her world's blood politics. As I wrote in that 2015 essay: "In middle school, when I was confronting that there were people out there who'd call me 'nigger,' I thought back to Hermione being called 'mudblood' and harassed by teacher and students alike." Harry Potter wasn't the be-all, end-all of my education on those matters. But it was a balm.

There's no solid proof that Rowling and the producers of Cursed Child took their cue from fandom when they cast Dumezweni as Hermione. But I don't think that's the point. Harry Potter and its fandom are in constant conversation with each other, two species of trees with interlocking root systems. One pushes the other, the other either bristles or makes room. Fandom's Hermione exists in tandem with Cursed Child 's, each living in their own distinct reality and with their own priorities, each worthy in their own right but connected forever. Sometimes they even feel like the same being. But at the end of the day, they're only two small parts of a bigger picture.

Hermione taught me something as an adult too. Dumezweni's embodiment of the role showed me what it could feel like when we move collectively forward. What it can look like when space is made at the table. But even before she took the stage, the way that fandom saw Hermione had freed something inside of me. It confirmed that my communities and I can make our own way when we need to - or even just when we feel like it. There's a beautiful, subversive power in that. We don't need anyone's permission to make our art reflect us. We are perfectly equipped to build worlds in which we can thrive. ●

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Seeing A Black Hermione Still Feels Like A Bright Spot In A Torn-Up World

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A few days before Christmas 2015 I was lolling around my brother's guest bedroom, absentmindedly scrolling through my Twitter mentions, when my entire decade was made. A person I didn't know, with the handle @jewseal, had tweeted at me in all-caps urgency, asking if I'd seen the casting of the upcoming play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

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Lifetime biopic of J. K. Rowling's Life, Magic Beyond Words: The J.K. Rowling Story

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Lifetime biopic of J. K. Rowling's Life, Magic Beyond Words: The J.K. Rowling Story

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Watch the clip here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipE7Ig8Sa64