• Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    JKR is a uniquely self-aware monster. Her fame and fortune were built on a franchise in which its own villains are just caricatures of JKR’s traits.

    Most people who promote evil do it through an elaborate mental gymnastics routine to try to rationalize their awful behavior. Not JKR - she called herself out by personifying her own traits specifically as the ‘bad guys’. No effort to rationalize their fictional behavior or explain why wizard-Hitler is actually misunderstood but raises some good points in the interests of wizard-1930s-Germany. Nope. Just a very clear copy and paste of her own values onto the HP lore, and a very clear label within that lore that those values are evil and something anyone with a shed of good in them should actively fight against to their dying breath.

    I can’t think of a single other person that is both that level of self aware and still absolutely evil.

    • gbzm@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      This just dawned on me not long ago. Like how does someone write the character of Lucius Malfoy and then go “what if I used my tremendous wealth and influence to lobby ceaselessly against people who transitioned into my category from the more dominant one, and who already tend to be discriminated against violently as a result? I could maybe use a theatrical rhetoric of victimization to distract from my very shady alliances.”

      Like wtf lady you know that makes you the bad guy you literally wrote a series of books explaining it to children.

    • QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      What I love is how the “Most Evil Wizards in History” seem to not actually do anything wrong.

      Salazar Slytherin’s crime - Being Irish at a time Britain didn’t get along with Ireland

      The crime of Grindelwald - Not wanting the Nazis to come to power

  • Luke@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    2 months ago

    This quote doesn’t even make any sense. Apathy is not the opposite of empathy.

      • QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 month ago

        You have to remember. This is a woman who argued in her book series for literal children that opposing slavery makes you a crazy person.

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 month ago

          The inconsistent part was when there was a whole subplot about Dobby wanting freedom and the reader sympathizing with that character. Then later, JK writing that Dobby was a weirdo for wanting that.

          Shaun’s comment that JK keeps threatening to make the story interesting was such a good stinger.

    • JimVanDeventer@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      2 months ago

      Yes, I would also put antipathy in opposition, but maybe I am just a better writer.

      Edit: it really is just a wish.com variant of the MLK Jr. quote about the words of our enemies — something, something — not as bad as the silence of our friends.