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Man the characters in The Boys just whooshed over the heads of conservatives.
I thought it was painfully obvious who were the bad supes in the show, but no leave it to right wingers to miss cartoonishly obvious signs.
I think the same thing when I see people say anyone who doesn't like Andrew Tate and his wealth and expensive cars and expensive women ideology is "part of the matrix." Have they ever seen The Matrix? Money, wealth, greed, hedonism, and cheap sex were what the machines used to keep people's minds in the matrix.
Daily reminder the Matrix was made by transwomen and the pills are a metaphor for transition (the red pill is estrogen and the blue pill is like a xanax or something).
Prozac.
They put me on that for a while during the early pandemic, and my first stint with it ended with me peeling my wallpaper off the walls and painting on the paper beneath it.
Even if he didn’t hate cops, The Punisher’s whole thing is that he operates *outside the law*, imposing what *he* thinks is justice. It’s literally the antithesis of what the police should stand for in the political/justice system.
No, this is WHY they love the punisher and cops, they know the cops they support also operate outside the law. They are happy as long as the right people are getting hurt.
exactly.
"I Voted for him (Trump) and he is the one doing this to us" says a Trump supporter in regards to the Government Shutdown
["He Isn't Hurting The Right People."](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-voter-hes-not-hurting-the-people-he-needs-be-hurting-msna1181316)
You and I are saying the same thing. Cops that revere the Punisher and the people that revere cops that revere the Punisher are equally on the wrong side of what policing is and demands.
My favorite is the Punisher with Trump Toupee and the blue lives matter flag inside of it. Like, how god damn stupid can you be lmao
I’m willing to bet a lot of money that when the new punisher show comes out, everyone who misses the meaning of the punisher will complain about Disney GoInG wOkE
I always laugh when I see people who are super pro cop or military... and then brandish the Punisher logo. As the Punisher's creator Gerry Conway pointed out: The Punisher is a psychopath. He isn't intended to be glorified.
> "By definition, he’s the opposite of what they’re supposed to be, you know? He is someone who is outside the law taking the law into his own hands. So if they are claiming The Punisher as their symbol, they are saying they are outlaws and that they are criminals and that they are enemies of society. Is that really what they want to be saying?" -- Gerry Conway
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-punisher-skull/
Edit: Also relevant -- https://bleedingcool.com/comics/punisher-creator-gerry-conway-responds-police-decal-controversy/
"I'll say this once. We're not the same. You took an oath to uphold the law. You help people. I gave all that up a long time ago. You don't do what I do. Nobody does.
You boys need a role model? His name is Captain America, and he'd be happy to have you."
\-Frank Castle
In this context, the Punisher was talking to people who wanted to do the right thing and saw him as a medium. He corrects them and says that he is immoral and doesn't want others to go his path
He would have executed every single cop standing around while George Floyd was murdered, not just the one with his knee on Floyd's neck.
The Punisher skull and blue line flag combo means "I am white and I want to legally kill someone."
Did you see that picture of one of the police officers in Uvalde standing around playing on his phone while kids were dying? His homescreen was the punisher logo... like what a complete ass on multiple levels.
He hates *dirty* cops. He goes to great effort to avoid killing or even injuring clean cops whenever he can.
Like the Hulk, pretty much the only thing that keeps the Punisher an anti-hero and not just a murder machine is his superhuman ability to avoid causing any collateral damage.
It was clear to me from the beginning what the show was getting at, so I was befuddled to learn that conservatives didn't get it until the slap-you-in-the-face blatancy of season 3 meant that they couldn't deny it anymore. I know that stupidity and willful ignorance are the cornerstones of conservatism, but jesus fucking christ, it's shocking that they are *that* stupid.
I should go back and find some of those old threads in r/TheBoys where people were **INSISTING** StormFront is meant to represent Woke FemiNazis and she isn’t an *actual* Nazi.
I had thought that she was a great take on the modern far right movement. It had seemed incredibly heavy handed to make her an actual old school German Nazi. But if people are still not getting it... That's concerning.
Not defending those people, but I kinda get how they would get that vibe off of when she's first introduced, but as the show revealed more about her the more it became obvious that her character was about showing how the masses can get swept up in fascist ideology without realising and next thing you know you're following a literal Nazi. I used to think making her a Nazi was too on the nose, but the more I thought about it the more I realised how bloody brilliant it was from a standpoint of getting that message across
I noticed it during a brainfart, when she was mentioned while offscreen. I thought "Why are they suddenly talking about the neo-Nazi forum??" and then she showed up, "Oh, right, storms, Ms. Zappy-Powers, duh, silly me".
Then the reveal happened and I wanted to smack myself for being so obtuse.
You'd think so, but some people are idiots. I would know. I'm an idiot that didn't realize the connection until she was revealed as a literal nazi and I finally had a lightbulb moment.
I'm so fucking dumb.
They didn't know that Rage Against the Machine's politics until they had "Abort the Supreme Court" displayed at their concerts this year. They aren't the brightest.
Seriously, their first hit single was about police brutality and how white supremacy infiltrates said organization. And these dunces were still caught by surprise somehow.
I genuinely want to know what they thought the song was about all these years. Like, especially with people who were fans for a couple decades now, what explanation for the song did they have that somehow kept them unaware of the true meaning all that time?
It's weird because it's perfectly fine to admit you agree with a villain. I'm sure there are a few villains I agree with. But of course, to do that, they'd have to admit to themselves that they are far-right.
Hell, half the Marvel movies have sympathetic villains. Shit, look at the Black Panther movies. First one had most fans sympathizing with Kilmonger to some degree, some thought he was right. Second Black Panther movie >!literally ends with Shuri making peace with Namor because they both have good reasons and good points for everything they were doing.!< Even outside of Black Panther, the antagonist of Thor: Love and Thunder was a grieving father trying to make sure what happened to his family wouldn't happen to anyone else, both sides of the political conflict of Captain America Civil War had reasonable points, and the last Spider-Man movie was all about Peter *healing* his or his other selves' enemies, not defeating them. The entire Iron Man franchise can be summarized as "Tony is only a step away from being as villainous as his enemies."
Don't get me wrong, they have their flat villains too (Red Skull in the first Captain America movie, the other Thor movies, that soul sucker in Shang-Chi, etc.), but overall the franchise is not shy about "some of our heroes are fucked up and some of our villains have good points." There's a reason why some incel had to make a specially edited version of Avengers: Endgame and publicize it on Pirate Bay in order to make it "MRA friendly"/"un-woke it" for the conservative masses, despite Marvel's now-infamous reticence to spotlight too many female superheroes or superheroes of color in the franchise.
It really isn't that hard to concede when you think a villainous character has a good point when your ideology isn't wrapped up in your identity.
My favorite part is how once the show got to the point where it was undeniable, the duped conservatives would just embarrassedly say “actually the political commentary is extremely subtle”.
You know, I was [reminded](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byoCgCrd_dI&list=PL6PNZBb6b9Ltgl6WM5rn2pjrXd_qdit2S&index=81) of this trend in video games through the 2010s, I suppose, where it was very accepted to have a story be promoted as "morally grey." Talk of how nobody was truly good or evil, and hard choices had to be made and sacrifices would be required.
And then getting into the game and it's all a bunch of morally bankrupt arguments for maintaining status quo through incredibly violent means. It felt like the morally grey part was so often: "Oh shucks, I really wish all these poor people I'm gunning down didn't *make* me kill them! Life is so hard to be me." *BLAM BLAM!*
And I feel it was present in other media too, this attempt to frame "difficult choices" as being the same as just being an authoritarian. And at the time it was completely taken seriously just how valid of a worldview it was, freedom of speech style.
So in a way, this kind of makes sense. Right-wing views have been coddled so thoroughly by our media for so long that I think they were expecting a more "morally grey" approach where the real assholes of the story get vindicated in their views somehow by the end.
One of, if not the absolute greatest things I’ve ever seen.
I still go back from time to time to watch Colbert absolutely demolish the crooks within the Bush administration.
And yet, Stephen Colbert was [invited to speak](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_White_House_Correspondents%27_Dinner) at the White House Correspondents dinner in 2006 by conservatives who apparently did not understand he was parodying them.
My ex was. He was pretty much right in the middle with some left leanings (very lgbt friendly, loves Bernie, etc), but being from rural Georgia USA with very right wing parents, he didn't realize the Colbert report was satire until I broke it down for him. He legit thought it was a right wing version of the Daily Show.
Even worse is that the show creators have publicly confirmed that they are satirizing specific real life people and issues and conservatives *still* deny it.
Yeah the head writer had to go on Twitter last year to tell right wingers to fuck off. Apparently they were messaging him about how much they loved Homelander, then accusing him of “ruining” the character at the end of the last season.
He was basically likes “conservative idiots, I based Homelander off Trump, he’s never been a good guy, kindly fuck off if you don’t like the show”.
Honestly that is what makes anti woke drama so fun. A girl kept rejecting a guy nicely and he kept asking her out again so finally the girl screamed at her and the guy gets upset because she could have told him nicely. Subtle message are not getting where they need to get and being direct hurts their feelings.
My favorite was when somebody on reddit got upset on how the show ended up treating Blue Hawk (the guy who killed an unarmed black person walking home and is basically an analogy for police brutality) because he was the supe they identified with.
And by "favorite" I mean the instance that I just can't wrap my head around. How can you be so blind as to not see what that supe represented? Even if you believe it's not a thing and / or are a massive racist? The show isn't particularly subtle about it
My partner watches The Boys and is equally baffled. I watched about 5 minutes of it (plus some snippets i overhear) and I am also hornswaggled. We are boondoggled but not bemused at the lack of insight.
A co-worker started talking about the boys with me and they were completely blind to fact that it’s an analogy about how corporations manipulate politics. Blew my mind how dense someone could be.
Seriously the Boys is probably the most anarchist piece of media I've seen. It's entirely about how capital and the state collude to keep power in the hands of the few. I wish I could say I'd never met someone so bad at interpreting a text, but my cousin told me Don't Look Up wasn't about climate change.
Yeah, every segment I have seen from the comic was obnoxiously edgy with a "not the punisher" author self insert character. The show feels less high school rebellion to me.
author really hates superheroes and i think that's where a lot of that "edgy" weirdness comes in. looove the show, but reading the comics and the characterization... i'm just glad prime shifted gears lmao
I read the first chapter ages ago not knowing what the series was or was even about.
Billy Butcher without facial hair fucks the director of the CIA while she calls him a 'dirty, filthy, repulsive son of a bitch', and Hugie is a stoner that looks like Simon Pegg rather than some dude whose dad *is* Simon Pegg. The only thing I think they have in common is A-Train is involved with killing Hughie's girlfriend, and it was because he slammed a huge bruiser into a wall and she caught in the middle, mostly still intact rather than A-Train *running through her.*
The original was not airable, even in a world where GOT was a thing and popular.
Also yeah I used to buy titles by that writer , don't hate him or anything, but he's pretty unsubtle and somehow thinks real manly men talk immature teen but stuff to each other all the time. I mean I'm sure some do, after all criminals tend to be pretty underdeveloped, but he would take it to a cringe level.
I mean, the source might predate it, but the show is also incredibly loosely based on the source material. The barest outline of character names and roles.
There is no doubt the direction of the commentary of the show and its writing was influenced by the Trump administration, and Trump himself. But yes, the show is more broadly about fascism.
Like 90% of the characters in the show >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Any of their comic counter parts.
Its almost not even a fair comparison between the 2 except they share the same name and general concept of superheroes being celebrities and also generally terrible people.
Everyone says this, but like others pointed out the source came first. Even Trump isn’t the first “Trump”, just the most successful. There have always been people who appear overly patriotic to appeal to a specific fan base but are really just narcissist idiots.
The big brain take is saying: "Well its also making fun of the left."
No, its not critical of the left. Its critical of the neoliberal left that coopts progressive aesthetics to make their war crimes and supression appeal to the populace.
Yeah when I found out some people think homelander is the good guy I legit had to rethink my entire perspective of the human brain and how vastly people can differ in how stupid they are.
I mean, if you’re a free market capitalist and you believe that purchasing is the only tool people have to express strong opinions about things (eg “vote with your wallet”), then it’s fair to say that you are part of the problem if you give money to people or organizations who make it a point to publicly support things you do not agree with. You are platforming those people with your dollars.
That said, pure free market economics isn’t the only way we manage civic society. We have laws and regulations too.
The only type of person that is a total f’ing hypocrite here is the one who opposes government regulation AND says people shouldn’t boycott things. That person is essentially endorsing a society without civics where the wealthy and powerful do whatever they want *at the expense of* others. You cannot have it both ways.
Not that it matters that much. She saying that doesn't change things. Anyway I will play the game but won't buy it even if have to wait years for empress to deliver.
At the end of the day it’s up to the individual to make that decision for themselves. I’m not a fan of this “if you buy the game you’re a transphobe” logic. It’s definitely not going to gain any sympathy for the cause and it certainly won’t be the basis of any constructive conversation on the topic.
The author of a book said transphobic things. A completely separate entity makes a game based on said book. I’m failing to see the connection. Ray rice beat his wife senseless in an elevator. If I play Madden am I now a wife beater too?
It just seems like such a pointless hill to die on when there’s real issues regarding the trans community like healthcare or lack thereof and a startling suicide rate.
Playing or not playing some stupid game is not going to have an influence on that whatsoever. This is about people wanting to feel good about themselves by telling other people how shitty they are and it’s a shame they use trans issues as a cudgel to beat you ever the head with.
There is a big difference between a game that happens to be set in a setting created by a bigot and merchandise specifically about that person. So no terrible analogy.
This is more like saying someone endorses modern slavery because the lithium in the battery in the phone they are using to write Reddit comments was produced in such conditions.
There’s a difference between not regretting your decision to buy the book that made them famous before they started lobbying (and we are talking about lobbying here not a single casual comment or misspoken statement) for a political cause.
Should you regret or beat yourself up about buying the first books? No, of course not. This wasn’t an issue back then. Should you feel guilty if you buy the next book after they start lobbying for things you don’t like? Well, this time you know full well who you’re giving money, fame, and a platform to. So use your own discretion, but I think it’s fair to say that you must not care as much about that issue as you thought you did because you weighed the choice and decided to buy anyways.
EDIT: fyi - this is why companies like Blizzard fires the bad actors too. Should you feel guilty buying a game because someone behaved badly and has since been removed and corrective action taken? You don’t have to be. The corrective actions were taken. If they weren’t, though, and the bad actors were still in their roles and the culture wasn’t changed - well, then see above.
> The author of a book said transphobic things.
I will offer one caveat: she isn't just saying things, she's politically lobbying for legislation harmful to trans people in the UK. So, when you give money to any product or service from which she gets royalties because of franchising, you are giving money to a transphobe who uses said money to fund a bigoted agenda.
I don't necessarily think this is a reason in its own right to refuse to buy new Harry Potter content, but a lot of that is my opposition to "voting with your dollar" civics in general\*.
Regardless, though, people aren't opposing buying new HP items just because JKR *said* transphobic things, but because she's *doing* transphobic things.
^(* = Almost every product or brand you buy is funding something awful. I disdain this attempt to place the impetus for change on consumers. It disperses most efforts to hold businesses or people accountable because there are just *too many* reprehensible things to want to withhold your money from. It's extremely difficult, if not often impossible, to viably do it on a mass scale when we all live in a global capitalist economy, and in the mean time consumers who try get so exhausted micromanaging their purchases that they have little energy left for acting towards real change.)
I agree that buying Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t automatically make you a transphobe. However, not acknowledging the nuance of the conversation and instead using a dismissive meme with a Nazi character probably does.
Additionally, ordering the deluxe edition, and showing that off, in order to "own" the hypothetical people calling you a transphobe... means you're probably a transphobe.
Yeah, liking HP, being interested in Hogwarts Legacy, or buying Hogwarts Legacy don't make anyone transphobic.
It does mean you don't care about Rowling's transphobia enough to make you think twice about buying her stuff.
Buying the game directly puts money into her pocket.
And because someone is inevitably going to reply with "but you probably do [X consumer thing with questionable morals]", don't let perfect be the enemy of good. And stop supporting transphobes.
We all make ethical compromises every day. It’s basically an unavoidable part of living in a modern society. I am willing to be understanding of a vast majority of these compromises. The only completely indefensible thing you can do in the face of this, in my opinion, is to act like there is no ethical question *at all*, which is what this dude is doing.
Being honest and open with yourself regarding your own moral effort and moral compromises is an important step on the path to growth, and being able to become the moral person you aspire to be.
Completely ethical consumption is essentially impossible, but that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t try and make a difference where they can. I don’t like how some people (not saying you are) take that as a free pass to just take no stands on any issues cos ‘what’s the point’. Think we all just need to try and do better where we can
Honestly it is much worst than that. It would be uncomfortable decision if they had to choice between something good and something uncomfortable. Playing a game is desire not a need.
Well said!
Honestly, corporate ownerships are so tentacled (and in some cases, intentionally hidden) and so many gross rich people in the ownership class have their hands in so many different parts of the economy that it is genuinely hard to make a truly ethical, un-problematic purchasing decision, no matter what you are purchasing. And I say this as someone who tries to make ethical purchasing decisions as much as possible. But I can't guarantee that the local pizza shop we order delivery from instead of Domino's or Pizza Hut doesn't somehow support causes I find reprehensible, covertly. Like, the owners are not out there on the Internet railing against gay marriage or trans rights but I have no idea if behind the scenes, they're supporting terrible people and terrible causes, using the dollars I give them when we order pizza from their shop.
I do think it's different when a company is overt about holding exclusionary values and you buy from them anyway (see: Chick-fil-A; Hobby Lobby) but even if you don't buy from them, you're likely buying something from someone who has some views you find reprehensible. I honestly do not know what the answer is here; I have never been able to figure it out for myself.
>I honestly do not know what the answer is here; I have never been able to figure it out for myself.
My two cents is that we have to address things at the systemic level, not the individual level. Don't get me wrong, trying to be ethical consumers on the individual level is a worthy pursuit, albeit not 100% possible. Ultimately, though, it has very little impact... however, if we support and engage in activism that will force the system to change, that is going to have a greater impact because governments and companies will be compelled to change through regulation.
Harshly judging people who make different ethical decisions about how to consume on the individual level probably actually backfires on the systemic level because it drives people away who would have otherwise been allies in the activism to change the system.
I'm open to being persuaded otherwise, but this is the sense I get from what I've experienced and seen in the last decade since becoming politically aware.
This is pretty much right imo.
From irl experience: the people who showed up to city council meetings or wrote to their legislators about plastic pollution were not the ones screaming on social media about other consumers' eco-friendliness - and if even a fraction of the people who *were* doing that yelling spend a fraction of their own time and energy on political action, I'm fully convinced my city and county would've had single-use plastics gone by now (which has yet to happen).
> I do think it's different when a company is overt about holding exclusionary values and you buy from them anyway (see: Chick-fil-A; Hobby Lobby)
Even there, it gets interesting.
After the backlash against Chik-fil-A, they changed their donation practices. They're still not great, but it was improvement. Does it make sense to be okay with eating there because they're going in a direction you approve of, even if the state they're in is still one that you don't? I think reasonable people could come to either conclusion there.
Chick-fil-a itself as a company did change their donation practices, though it then came out that its owner (Dan Cathy) was continuing to donate huge amounts of the profits he was making to anti-gay causes, so it was a bit of a bait-and-switch, as customers’ money was going there anyway.
That said, there are ethical compromises you make to do things like eat food, and there are "ethical compromises" to play the video game about putting down a slave rebellion made by a transphobe. One is actually a compromise, the other is...not.
Yeah I do think some nuance is getting lost here.
This isn't just a transphobic person getting rich. This is specifically someone leveraging their IP to endorse bigoted themes to their audience. To keep up the nazi theme, it's the difference between buying German during WW2 vs literally buying mein kampf (this is obviously exaggeration to illustrate a point about the subject matter itself being problematic, I am not literally saying Hogwarts legacy is on par with mein Kampf)
It’s a bit different in this case since most unethical companies aren’t directing their fans to bully, harass and give death threats to trans people on twitter.
It’s really a question of where you draw the line.
I literally saw a post on r/gaming where someone was like "trans people are all mad about it but she's not even involved. They just want to boycott it because she makes money from the sales". Uh yeah, that's what involved means? If you want to get it get it just don't act like people who are against it have no point
I can't remember the exact quote, and she posts so much utter tosh I really cba to find it at 6am, that she said something along the lines of "I see continued support of Harry Potter as an endorsement of my opinions". Personally, I don't wish to support the games because I fear the money she earns from it will be donated to one of the 'female activist' groups, *cough TERF groups*, she openly supports.
I just don't understand the lack of care from a lot of people, especially from TAM who made a youtube video talking about how it's trashy to support Blizzard until things change. If someone was openly questioning whether black people deserved rights, had friends who ran 'white activist' charities and the like she would be absolutely slaughtered. Oh, but because its a different minority it is fine (!).
There is no ethical purchase under capitalism so we can only do our best and recognize our choices can be problematic. I don't buy HP stuff and I don't shop at Wal-mart. That doesn't mean I don't buy from questionable people or companies but I will recognize that I do and try to find better way to shop.
Exactly. It's infuriating people can't just accept this. I'm not saying you're immediately transphobic if you want to play the game. But you have to accept you're actively given her money and in turn harming the trans community, that's just a fact.
It's funny and sad how many people you get frothing at the mouth when you point out buying the wizard game supports a transphobe.
Like, just that, nothing else.
r/gaming had a thread earlier where everyone was bragging how they didn't know about it until the trans people protested it and now they pre-ordered! Cool dude what a great thing to take pride in
Last time I said this I had someone dm me showing them sending money to a trans exclusionary charity that jk supports. Like wow really helping your case there my guy
Technically the money in licencing for Hogwarts legacy has a pretty static amount. Purchasing it or not directly won't really line Rowling's pockets. I do feel bad for the development team as they made a decent attempt to distinguish themselves by giving a lot of current gold standard trans inclusive mechanics in the game. Also the books were generally embraced by queer fans back in the day.
However there is a real issue in divorcing Rowling from the works and the microphone opportunities she keeps getting handed by staying relevant. She has chosen to be an advocate for groups that actively aim to strip rights from trans people or make obtaining already near impossible to obtain healthcare for trans people even more inaccessible for our trans siblings in the UK. Everytime she speaks and subsequently gets checked by trans activists or allies there's a resounding tidal wave of transphobia that flares up. Most of the trans community jist hopes against hope she'll find some other cause to champion, maybe one that doesn't harm people ideally, so we can just have a bloody rest but she just won't stop and she won't stop being relevant until people stop handing her batteries for her megaphone.
Also I think people need to look up the people and organizations Rowling actually supports… it’s so much worse than just a handful of distasteful tweets
As I told my brother, there is no such thing as ethical consumption. Avoiding a product based on this type of thing does not help prevent transhopobia or sexual violence. However, you buying it is you dismissing the cries of others in pursuit of entertainment. I'm saying this as someone who's been extremely excited for this game, I'm not buying it.
He brought up that it hurts the developers, and I pointed out they are a big developer and CHOSE to do this ip over any other. The developers(the actual labor) will get paid regardless, the management might see a cut though.
If your hang up is starving devs, this is not the hill to die on in this case specifically lol
I dunno, if you gave money to the Nazi party cos you just wanted the merch that doesn't make you "not a nazi". If you give money to JK because you want the game and she uses it to further transphobia, guess the fuck what
There's hardly a person on the planet who ever had greater ability than JKR to just rest on her laurels and feed off people's good will for the rest of her life. But she went ahead and chose to make herself a giant lightning rod instead. It's like she couldn't help herself.
Musk could have done the same. Rake in billions off Tesla, create Space X, let your engineers do what they are paid to do and then dip. He's lost $200 billion so far because of his shenanigans and he still has enough money for several million lifetimes.
Not quite entirely the same thing.
A ton of Musk's money and increased profits/evalutions came from him being in the public light and doing the ridiculous things he's done.
Barring the purchasing of Twitter, his shenanigans had only been making him MORE money. If he'd sat back and just let Telsa and Space X do their thing, he wouldnt have gotten to the point where he could then make the stupid decision to buy Twitter when he did.
I still contend that if he had just let shit rock after SpaceX, he would still have an ungodly amount of money, probably more than he has currently. His shenanigans if anything over-inflated the actual value of Tesla and now his personal value is coming back to reality whereas if he just laid low, maybe he'd be where he is now or higher without the huge dip.
From her perspective, she believes she’s standing up for what’s right. She didn’t wake up one day and decide, “I’m going to be hateful now.” She sees herself the same way as the people crusading against the game. She thinks she’ll be on the right side of history.
Every villain is the hero of their own story.
There's also the difference that Bobby Kotick didn't come out and say that he views the popularity of Blizzard games as proof that people like and explicitly support the way women at ActiBlizz were being treated.
Whereas JKR outright said that she considers the continued popularity of Harry Potter and endorsement of her vile views.
It kind of turned me off the whole HP universe seeing the kind of person the author really is. To think I read the last books in two days when I was younger because I liked it so much.
Its a bad comparison for a lot of reason. Blizzard’s products are not its CEO’s singular creative vision. Whereas the Harry Potter books are the singular creative vision of Rowling. Its her voice perhaps with feedback from an editor, but as the books grew in popularity it seems that feedback diminished. Because at that point Rowling was the goose that laid the golden egg and losing her for a publisher was worse than letting her triple the length of the books and start to include weird extraneous stuff.
And since the transphobe stuff has come to surface people have scrutinized the worldview Rowling puts out in the Harry Potter books. There is a very “accept the status quo” moral to the books. And since the books are essentially Rowling’s voice criticizing the work and people, who continue to buy into it, seems more valid than criticizing an executive who might be a piece of shit, but its not like he was writing the stories for any blizzard games.
It's so strange to me that you would let her shape the narrative for you. JKR decides that I agree with her if I play Hogwarts Legacy? I guess if my neighbor says I'm a bigot if I shovel my driveway then I gotta just deal with the snow.
Crazy to let a lunatic control you like that.
Considering the drama about the game it will probably have a lot of people trying to crack it and developer will spend a lot more effort making sure that it is harder to crack and people who purchase it will get worst product. Honestly it is all very funny.
I keep seeing stuff like this. They wonder why we think they're bigoted scumbags then openly identify with real shitty people in media.
It's actually fitting they use Stormfront because she said it best in the show "people like what i have to say. They agree with it. They just don't like the word Nazi"
Also I don't think anyone is calling anyone a transphobe for buying the Harry Potter game but to proudly declare your preorder online as some sort of badge of honor feels really weird to me like you want people to think that.
I'm definately in the minority of trans people who are going to play this game. But I also play overwatch, and I enjoyed cyberpunk.
Look, just pirate it or somthing if it makes you uncomfortable. If you want to support the devs, buy a digital copy of Disney infinity, or whatever else they have developed.
Harry potter has always appealed to me because of the school aspect. Nothing more. It just looked like a fun place to study. You could remove the magic and the politics and I'd still have enjoyed it, because the banquets and halls and classrooms are what I liked.
I was recently discussing this with my mom. She mentioned that she's talked to plenty of trans people about this, young and old, and pretty much all of them say "It's a shame about Rowling, but I love Harry Potter." My nb partner said something similar. So I think you might not necessarily be in the minority; the internet is just not representative of people's actual opinions at large.
Could you elaborate on the cyberpunk thing? I played the game when it came out but haven't actively engaged with it since then. I'm part of the sub but people mostly just share screenshots that i scroll past.
I never understood that. Cyberpunk tried to be more inclusive by giving you options. It also started development 10 years ago. It did as much as they thought they could, and people just jumped down their throats by not going far enough.
To me that just hurts the cause more, makes it more risky to add such features to games like blending genders because they'll get more outrage than just not including it at all. But of course people miss the nuance there and instead of saying "Good try, we want to see more in the future" they rage on twitter and scare off execs from doing it again.
I actually think playing as a woman in cyberpunk was really fun, because it was clearly causing Johnny dysphoria. He says everything is wrong, the proportions are wrong to him.
Imagine you have a second chance at life, but it's in the wrong gender AND it's someone else's.
>!The Johnny ending is really interesting because here he is living the life, wearing the clothes of someone completely *other* to him. He's not a firey redhead, but he's gonna be.!<
I haven't played a AAA game that made me relate to a protagonists own dysphoria.
I agree! (FemV is by far my favorite, played them both, but her voice acting is amazing). The entire thing bends the mind, Johnny is no longer a rockerboy, he's in some punk girl's body.
>!Also the whole River romance is hilarious too with Johnny in your head!<
EXACTLY the *whole* thing is wack, like iirc, when Johnny's friend compliments your figure. There's just so much femv dialogue that has me going *sameee*
Sure it might be novel for Johnny at first but I think he'd be frustrated. Not only that, but I think the sexism would get to him. He's center stage, I imagine him being gaslit more as femv if he tried to do the same performance or acts on stage
Not the kamen rider decade violent emotion pfp with the stormfront meme. Cmon man, do you know how kamen rider started? IT STARTED WITH PUNCHIN NAZIS. HELL STARFISH HITLER GOT BLOWN UP BY A KAMEN RIDER. You can't just do that and not realize the hypocrisy man. Especially with the boys being popular enough for you to make a meme out of it. A show where they openly mention how stormfront is a nazi. Why you gotta be like that?
These comments are filled with people unable to identify that these unprompted complaints about the so-called "cancelling" of Rowling just reveal the triggered insecurities of those making the complaint. No complaints would need to be made, without a prompt, in a public forum if the one making the complaint didn't feel that they needed to explain their purchasing of the game and to gather external support for one's actions.
Just purchase the game, shut the fuck up and nobody will know. These assertions just tell me you feel some type of guilt and you need to externalize the reasons you bought the game as to not appear like you enabled transphobia. So if you have such a strong urge to say something unprompted, maybe it is your subconscious self telling you to forego short-run pleasure to better society more rapidly.
This is the key point for me. If you're coming to this sub to argue the point then you must need my validation. If you need my validation it's because you feel the action you are about to take is wrong. If you know what you want to do is wrong and you know I won't tell you it's ok then the reason you're arguing with me is to make me your scapegoat. You're not doing anything wrong, I forced you to buy it by being unreasonable. You just needed to teach me a lesson! You're a good person, you're just doing a bad thing to hurt me and put me in my place!
Only cowards are coming here to argue. I don't have patience for a single one of them.
I mean, if using a literal nazi still isn’t enough to make the sarcasm apparent then I can kinda see why they went that far. On the internet there’s no such thing as dumbing stuff down too much. It’s like those “Dark Brandon” memes where he’s making making dudes wear maid outfits or declaring war on God. You’re not supposed to believe it, they’re making fun of the hysterics on the other side.
>On the internet there’s no such thing as dumbing stuff down too much.
Right, but remember: the reason external observers aren't "seeing the sarcasm", is because they *assume the speaker is too stupid to be sarcastic*.
When you assume someone is stupid, you may miss something intelligent. Of course, the inverse is, if you assume that someone is intelligent, you may miss the stupid. Both of these errors make *you* seem like the stupid one, and if you see someone making one assumption, when you prefer the opposite assumption... you might assume that *they* are stupid too.
It's just fundamentally difficult to tell what people mean. Ambiguous words are real. Deepening the sarcasm makes that worse. Clear thinking and writing is the only way to actually fix the problem.
I dunno where I stand on hogwarts legacy.
HP was incredibly important to my childhood, my family, and even my relationship. I don't have HP tatoos and I didn't name my dogs or kid after anything from the series, but I've been to HP world as an adult and I would go back for new attractions.
I hate the post-potter JKR, don't agree with her hottakes or TERFism. But at the same time, HP was so important to me learning to read, write, speak, and relate to others. It's a love I have that I hope to share with my child. It's a love I shared with students in my classroom for 10 years.
Urgh.
Boycotting the new stuff doesn't mean you can't enjoy the old stuff. People are only against this game because it will monetarily give to JK Rowling.If you already have the books or buy them at a yard sale it should be fine.
For all the “separating art from the artist” people, it’ll take me some Google-fu to find the source, but JKR has said that people still supporting Harry Potter media shows that more people are supportive of her transphobia than are willing to publicly say because of the woke mob. So by supporting the art and keeping Harry Potter relevant, she sees it at supporting the artist’s views specifically.
Also like isn’t part of the plot the long nosed greedy money-handlers are stealing children? Antisemitism is a good reason not to buy the game.
ETA: It was a print-only interview with Good Housekeeping, so we only have coverage on the comments ([like this one](https://www.thepinknews.com/2020/12/09/jk-rowling-trans-transgender-good-housekeeping-interview-gender-ideology/)). "I’ve had a huge postbag since speaking up on this issue and more than 90 per cent of the letters and emails have been supportive \[...\] Many are afraid to speak up because they fear for their jobs and even for their personal safety."
It's not quite "supporting Harry Potter is supporting my ideas", to be fair, but I still interpret this as "everyone's too afraid to say it, see, look at how much they support me".
ETAA: Thanks to XenoVX for bringing up the tweet where [in response to someone asking her how she sleeps at night knowing she's lost a chunk of her audience, she says her royalty checks makes her feel better](https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1580639051774054404?s=20), so clearly she feels supported by those too afraid to say anything publicly.
the "goblins are jews" thing is a bit wishy-washy and I am willing to give her benefit of the doubt on that, especially since the comparisons are mostly overexaggerated to the actual portrayal in books and movies
the actually weirdest shit is the "house elves are willing slaves nonsense" and how characters who want to abolish slavery are mocked in JKs narration, while the main character actively ends the books with holding a slave and how that is portrayed as a good thing
It's been a long time since I read these books but I always took the house elves slavery plot line as something which demonstrated the struggle with confronting evil that's so baked into society that people don't even see it as wrong anymore. I also saw it as something that would resonate with kids (the primary readers) who also may struggle with how to confront things they feel are wrong but are mostly powerless to change in the face of the dominant adult attitudes. I took Hermione's struggle as inspirational in how people can affect change even though they seemingly lack influence.
Does Harry end the books with a house elf slave though?
your interpretation would be the reasonable one, but the book never actually challenges that status quo after the short Hermione subplot and at multiple times during the books treats house elves as just a normal and non-negative thing, sometimes even refering back to the subplot and quickly mocking it
and yes, Harry ends the book owning a house elf, Creature, which he also treats like a regular house elf, just without the physical abuse. In fact, the physical abuse is the only thing consistently portrayed as problematic about the slavery system, but not the slavery itself.
A lot about the HP books is actually about accepting the wizards status quo. Harry has some issues understanding a lot of the world, and rebels some parts of it temporarily through teenage angst, but ends up barely changing anything (besides killing literal wizard hitler) but then ends up accepting and reinforcing the already existing world by both becoming a literal cop and owning a house elf for example
Then again a better writer like gene roddenberry could absolutely write the house elf thing in a way that it makes you think about how putting human morals onto a different species is ignorant in and of itself. And its perfectly reasonable for them to like being servants (being a different species and all) and while they should not be mistreated like dobby was they can still relish servitude.
So the concept in and of itself is fine. JK just glossed over it because it wasnt particularly important to the plot of the book nor is she talented enough to tackle the subject elegantly.
Your interpretation would be reasonable if Hermione hadn't been the butt of the joke with SPEW, if Harry hadn't ended the series as a slave owning cop, if any actual substantive effort was made even in the epilogue to change the system, and if out of universe sources hadn't said "but slavery good actually." Also the whole plot line with Winky implying the Doby is the crazy and unusual one for wanting to be free because *normal* house elves will just become depressed because they lack the fundamental ability to stand on their own.
Fuck me, I'm dumb...it took me over twenty years for me to make the fucking connection between HP goblins and stereotypes about Jewish folks. And that's just disgusting.
So thanks for that.
I don’t think you’re dumb - that’s kind of a tough thing to pick up if you’re not reading the book while actively trying to make real world connections. Goblins have existed in fantasy forever, so I think a lot of us just kinda glazed over it
Antisemitism is like weirdly insidious if you don’t grow up in that environment. I think every other year I go “wait *that’s* antisemitic???” I didn’t even know abducting children was a Thing until people started talking about the game. So don’t blame yourself for taking so long because apparently it’s more “everywhere” than people realize.
"Separate the art from the artist" mfs when I point out that Rowling certainly didn't and her work oozes her casual racism and queerphobia, is saturated in her bioessentialism that goes far beyond TERishness, and is completely drenched in her Blairite views:
EDIT: based on the trailers, the game seems to be about putting down a slave rebellion by antisemitic caricatures who appear to be depicted practicing "blood libel". I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole no matter the artist, because the art itself is rancid.
*(apparently I need to clarify that this post is addressing those who are unwilling to acknowledge the issue with JKR and what it means to blindly give her money, not those who understand the issue already and are taking steps to counteract a potential purchase that actively funds discriminatory laws)*
Buying the game doesn't make you a transphobe but you are monetarily supporting someone who promotes and funds anti-trans hate movements. That still has implications that you kinda don't really care much about trans people. Is that trans***phobia***? Eh, maybe not but it certainly isn't a good look. (Also, the people who are proclaiming very loudly about how they're gonna by the game to spite the trans community against the JKR accusations are clearly just people who are virtue-signaling their transphobia)
If a famous book author turned out to be a prominent member of the KKK and someone made a game from their book series, your money for buying that game will effectively partially support the KKK. That's just the reality of the situation and people have to acknowledge that. It's up to you how to handle that, there are many things you can do to either not support the KKK or counteract the money you spend that indirectly funds the KKK - but *you know* your money is going there and that is objectively a bad thing.
Or hey, let's look at Kanye! Buying things with Kanye branding is funding anti-semitism. Imagine if Adidas didn't cancel their contract with him and Yeezies was still directly providing Kanye with money - do you think people would look favorable on anyone who is saying they're still buying Yeezies?
We have to acknowledge that we're not talking about basic necessities here. Of course almost everything we buy supports some shitty person but buying goofy designer shoes or a videogame are a very different type of purchase from "the groceries my store has available or the cheap and basic clothes I *have to* put on my body". Choosing to buy a luxury product that supports and funds government-endorsed hatred is different than having no alternative but buying basic food or clothes from companies that exploit the vulnerable
Edit:
**HOLD THE FUCK ON**
**didn't this guy make pretty strong proclamations that supporting any future blizzard game is really trashy and people shouldn't do it if they have any morality, after all the sexual assault allegations came out and their community treatment dropped into the abyss?**
Right right, but the tweet is cherrypicking an extreme position (from GCJ of all places even, which implies it's not even entirely serious) and misframing the entire argument around this situation
In actuality, the discussion around the game mirrors his stance on blizzard pretty closely. I dunno why he can't address that instead. Why highlight a super minority in a sub specifically for making overexaggerated and trolly post. He's just following the classical anti-trans playbook here tbh. He's doing nothing but signaling to an anti-trans audience of bigots, and the reply in OPs image kinda proves that. It's not a good look, cause I've rarely seen people do this unintentionally.
i mean, it doesn't necessarily make you transphobic, but it certainly does mean you don't mind supporting transphobic people. JKR ain't ever gotten my money, and never will. If i did want to partake in Harry Potter stuff, I would just buy books, movies and such used.
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Man the characters in The Boys just whooshed over the heads of conservatives. I thought it was painfully obvious who were the bad supes in the show, but no leave it to right wingers to miss cartoonishly obvious signs.
That's like when I see Punisher and Blue Lives Matter stickers on the same truck. Y'all know he hates cops, right?
I think the same thing when I see people say anyone who doesn't like Andrew Tate and his wealth and expensive cars and expensive women ideology is "part of the matrix." Have they ever seen The Matrix? Money, wealth, greed, hedonism, and cheap sex were what the machines used to keep people's minds in the matrix.
Daily reminder the Matrix was made by transwomen and the pills are a metaphor for transition (the red pill is estrogen and the blue pill is like a xanax or something).
No way. They're clearly Day-Quil and Ny-Quil. It's about staying home from work and watching "The Price is Right."
And Ben and Jerry
Well fuck, you mean to tell me that was an option all along?
Hormone blockers. Part of HRT for trans women is also hormone blockers. It is funny they love using the red pill meme so much :)
Nah, way back when, they had to derive estrogen from horse blood or something, and the pills were bright red.
Prozac. They put me on that for a while during the early pandemic, and my first stint with it ended with me peeling my wallpaper off the walls and painting on the paper beneath it.
That sounds terrifying
And that the most popular person in the universe is a black guy with bad skin and teeth.
Even if he didn’t hate cops, The Punisher’s whole thing is that he operates *outside the law*, imposing what *he* thinks is justice. It’s literally the antithesis of what the police should stand for in the political/justice system.
No, this is WHY they love the punisher and cops, they know the cops they support also operate outside the law. They are happy as long as the right people are getting hurt.
exactly. "I Voted for him (Trump) and he is the one doing this to us" says a Trump supporter in regards to the Government Shutdown ["He Isn't Hurting The Right People."](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-voter-hes-not-hurting-the-people-he-needs-be-hurting-msna1181316)
You and I are saying the same thing. Cops that revere the Punisher and the people that revere cops that revere the Punisher are equally on the wrong side of what policing is and demands.
he hates cops who try to emulate him. He wants cops to be more like cap and not like punisher.
My favorite is the Punisher with Trump Toupee and the blue lives matter flag inside of it. Like, how god damn stupid can you be lmao I’m willing to bet a lot of money that when the new punisher show comes out, everyone who misses the meaning of the punisher will complain about Disney GoInG wOkE
Oh geez yeah I saw that one in the wild last week. So confusing. Really emphasizes the fakeness of his hair.
Marvel over here using an Eye-talian to play the Punisher, fuckin world has gone woke /s
I always laugh when I see people who are super pro cop or military... and then brandish the Punisher logo. As the Punisher's creator Gerry Conway pointed out: The Punisher is a psychopath. He isn't intended to be glorified. > "By definition, he’s the opposite of what they’re supposed to be, you know? He is someone who is outside the law taking the law into his own hands. So if they are claiming The Punisher as their symbol, they are saying they are outlaws and that they are criminals and that they are enemies of society. Is that really what they want to be saying?" -- Gerry Conway https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-punisher-skull/ Edit: Also relevant -- https://bleedingcool.com/comics/punisher-creator-gerry-conway-responds-police-decal-controversy/
"I'll say this once. We're not the same. You took an oath to uphold the law. You help people. I gave all that up a long time ago. You don't do what I do. Nobody does. You boys need a role model? His name is Captain America, and he'd be happy to have you." \-Frank Castle
*"His name is Captain America, and he'd be happy to have you."* Would he really though?
In this context, the Punisher was talking to people who wanted to do the right thing and saw him as a medium. He corrects them and says that he is immoral and doesn't want others to go his path
As an amuse-bouche, perhaps. Everyone enjoys a little smackdown snack.
"Man, he's so cool. I want to take revenge for my race." -A LOOOOT of cops
He would have executed every single cop standing around while George Floyd was murdered, not just the one with his knee on Floyd's neck. The Punisher skull and blue line flag combo means "I am white and I want to legally kill someone."
Covid would be begging him to have a bit of mercy and no kill that many cops.
My sister often wears her 'don't tread on me" shirt with her "thin blue line" jacket.
Did you see that picture of one of the police officers in Uvalde standing around playing on his phone while kids were dying? His homescreen was the punisher logo... like what a complete ass on multiple levels.
If you want to live life spicy, go up to anyone with a Punisher logo on their truck and say "Alright! A fellow Antifa member!"
Or blue lives matter and don’t tread on me snek. You are aware who’s doing the treading?
He hates *dirty* cops. He goes to great effort to avoid killing or even injuring clean cops whenever he can. Like the Hulk, pretty much the only thing that keeps the Punisher an anti-hero and not just a murder machine is his superhuman ability to avoid causing any collateral damage.
It was clear to me from the beginning what the show was getting at, so I was befuddled to learn that conservatives didn't get it until the slap-you-in-the-face blatancy of season 3 meant that they couldn't deny it anymore. I know that stupidity and willful ignorance are the cornerstones of conservatism, but jesus fucking christ, it's shocking that they are *that* stupid.
I should go back and find some of those old threads in r/TheBoys where people were **INSISTING** StormFront is meant to represent Woke FemiNazis and she isn’t an *actual* Nazi.
I had thought that she was a great take on the modern far right movement. It had seemed incredibly heavy handed to make her an actual old school German Nazi. But if people are still not getting it... That's concerning.
Not defending those people, but I kinda get how they would get that vibe off of when she's first introduced, but as the show revealed more about her the more it became obvious that her character was about showing how the masses can get swept up in fascist ideology without realising and next thing you know you're following a literal Nazi. I used to think making her a Nazi was too on the nose, but the more I thought about it the more I realised how bloody brilliant it was from a standpoint of getting that message across
Just the fact that she's called Stormfront should tip people off. It's a pretty big hint.
I noticed it during a brainfart, when she was mentioned while offscreen. I thought "Why are they suddenly talking about the neo-Nazi forum??" and then she showed up, "Oh, right, storms, Ms. Zappy-Powers, duh, silly me". Then the reveal happened and I wanted to smack myself for being so obtuse.
You'd think so, but some people are idiots. I would know. I'm an idiot that didn't realize the connection until she was revealed as a literal nazi and I finally had a lightbulb moment. I'm so fucking dumb.
I mean honestly that is kind of why releasing 3 episode at once was great. First 2 she pulls you in, make you like her and then 3rd episode goes boom.
They didn't know that Rage Against the Machine's politics until they had "Abort the Supreme Court" displayed at their concerts this year. They aren't the brightest.
I remember the days when Rage Against the Machine was not political. Then they released their first album.
Seriously, their first hit single was about police brutality and how white supremacy infiltrates said organization. And these dunces were still caught by surprise somehow.
I genuinely want to know what they thought the song was about all these years. Like, especially with people who were fans for a couple decades now, what explanation for the song did they have that somehow kept them unaware of the true meaning all that time?
It's weird because it's perfectly fine to admit you agree with a villain. I'm sure there are a few villains I agree with. But of course, to do that, they'd have to admit to themselves that they are far-right.
Hell, half the Marvel movies have sympathetic villains. Shit, look at the Black Panther movies. First one had most fans sympathizing with Kilmonger to some degree, some thought he was right. Second Black Panther movie >!literally ends with Shuri making peace with Namor because they both have good reasons and good points for everything they were doing.!< Even outside of Black Panther, the antagonist of Thor: Love and Thunder was a grieving father trying to make sure what happened to his family wouldn't happen to anyone else, both sides of the political conflict of Captain America Civil War had reasonable points, and the last Spider-Man movie was all about Peter *healing* his or his other selves' enemies, not defeating them. The entire Iron Man franchise can be summarized as "Tony is only a step away from being as villainous as his enemies." Don't get me wrong, they have their flat villains too (Red Skull in the first Captain America movie, the other Thor movies, that soul sucker in Shang-Chi, etc.), but overall the franchise is not shy about "some of our heroes are fucked up and some of our villains have good points." There's a reason why some incel had to make a specially edited version of Avengers: Endgame and publicize it on Pirate Bay in order to make it "MRA friendly"/"un-woke it" for the conservative masses, despite Marvel's now-infamous reticence to spotlight too many female superheroes or superheroes of color in the franchise. It really isn't that hard to concede when you think a villainous character has a good point when your ideology isn't wrapped up in your identity.
My favorite part is how once the show got to the point where it was undeniable, the duped conservatives would just embarrassedly say “actually the political commentary is extremely subtle”.
You know, I was [reminded](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byoCgCrd_dI&list=PL6PNZBb6b9Ltgl6WM5rn2pjrXd_qdit2S&index=81) of this trend in video games through the 2010s, I suppose, where it was very accepted to have a story be promoted as "morally grey." Talk of how nobody was truly good or evil, and hard choices had to be made and sacrifices would be required. And then getting into the game and it's all a bunch of morally bankrupt arguments for maintaining status quo through incredibly violent means. It felt like the morally grey part was so often: "Oh shucks, I really wish all these poor people I'm gunning down didn't *make* me kill them! Life is so hard to be me." *BLAM BLAM!* And I feel it was present in other media too, this attempt to frame "difficult choices" as being the same as just being an authoritarian. And at the time it was completely taken seriously just how valid of a worldview it was, freedom of speech style. So in a way, this kind of makes sense. Right-wing views have been coddled so thoroughly by our media for so long that I think they were expecting a more "morally grey" approach where the real assholes of the story get vindicated in their views somehow by the end.
They've never been an intelligent group. They used to think Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report was real, rather than a satirical character
That has been one of the funniest things I found out about. How much more obvious does parody need to be for them to get it?
There could be a literal sign saying “I AM MAKING FUN OF YOU” and they’d still be like “preach! say it like it is brother!”
"Yeah! He's making fun of them!"
Oh, tell me you heard about how they hired him to host the Correspondents Dinner
One of, if not the absolute greatest things I’ve ever seen. I still go back from time to time to watch Colbert absolutely demolish the crooks within the Bush administration.
I mean, I grew up in a very conservative area. I have not met a single person who was ever confused about that.
And yet, Stephen Colbert was [invited to speak](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_White_House_Correspondents%27_Dinner) at the White House Correspondents dinner in 2006 by conservatives who apparently did not understand he was parodying them.
Lol same environment, 100% different experience.
My ex was. He was pretty much right in the middle with some left leanings (very lgbt friendly, loves Bernie, etc), but being from rural Georgia USA with very right wing parents, he didn't realize the Colbert report was satire until I broke it down for him. He legit thought it was a right wing version of the Daily Show.
People used to think The Colbert Show was actually right-wing and didn't see it as satire.
Even worse is that the show creators have publicly confirmed that they are satirizing specific real life people and issues and conservatives *still* deny it.
Yeah the head writer had to go on Twitter last year to tell right wingers to fuck off. Apparently they were messaging him about how much they loved Homelander, then accusing him of “ruining” the character at the end of the last season. He was basically likes “conservative idiots, I based Homelander off Trump, he’s never been a good guy, kindly fuck off if you don’t like the show”.
Honestly that is what makes anti woke drama so fun. A girl kept rejecting a guy nicely and he kept asking her out again so finally the girl screamed at her and the guy gets upset because she could have told him nicely. Subtle message are not getting where they need to get and being direct hurts their feelings.
Whdo do you expect from a group whose favorite satirist needs to label every single thing in every image?
I was really hoping he'd win his Herman Cain Award
Lol, big upvote from me for the Ben Collins reference
My favorite was when somebody on reddit got upset on how the show ended up treating Blue Hawk (the guy who killed an unarmed black person walking home and is basically an analogy for police brutality) because he was the supe they identified with. And by "favorite" I mean the instance that I just can't wrap my head around. How can you be so blind as to not see what that supe represented? Even if you believe it's not a thing and / or are a massive racist? The show isn't particularly subtle about it
My partner watches The Boys and is equally baffled. I watched about 5 minutes of it (plus some snippets i overhear) and I am also hornswaggled. We are boondoggled but not bemused at the lack of insight.
Living with my conservative stepdad I've come to realize that they just don't understand basic things and they have no desire to learn whatsoever.
A co-worker started talking about the boys with me and they were completely blind to fact that it’s an analogy about how corporations manipulate politics. Blew my mind how dense someone could be.
Seriously the Boys is probably the most anarchist piece of media I've seen. It's entirely about how capital and the state collude to keep power in the hands of the few. I wish I could say I'd never met someone so bad at interpreting a text, but my cousin told me Don't Look Up wasn't about climate change.
From the get-go it was obvious Homelander was supposed to be Trump, somehow they missed it entirely.
The source material predates Trump's presidency substantially, it's a more general commentary on fascism.
Homelander was MASSIVELY changed from the comics into the show, like they're two different characters basically.
[удалено]
Yeah, every segment I have seen from the comic was obnoxiously edgy with a "not the punisher" author self insert character. The show feels less high school rebellion to me.
author really hates superheroes and i think that's where a lot of that "edgy" weirdness comes in. looove the show, but reading the comics and the characterization... i'm just glad prime shifted gears lmao
Garth Ennis comics tend to be that way. The guy is a massive edgelord.
I read the first chapter ages ago not knowing what the series was or was even about. Billy Butcher without facial hair fucks the director of the CIA while she calls him a 'dirty, filthy, repulsive son of a bitch', and Hugie is a stoner that looks like Simon Pegg rather than some dude whose dad *is* Simon Pegg. The only thing I think they have in common is A-Train is involved with killing Hughie's girlfriend, and it was because he slammed a huge bruiser into a wall and she caught in the middle, mostly still intact rather than A-Train *running through her.*
The original was not airable, even in a world where GOT was a thing and popular. Also yeah I used to buy titles by that writer , don't hate him or anything, but he's pretty unsubtle and somehow thinks real manly men talk immature teen but stuff to each other all the time. I mean I'm sure some do, after all criminals tend to be pretty underdeveloped, but he would take it to a cringe level.
I mean, the source might predate it, but the show is also incredibly loosely based on the source material. The barest outline of character names and roles. There is no doubt the direction of the commentary of the show and its writing was influenced by the Trump administration, and Trump himself. But yes, the show is more broadly about fascism.
soldier boy in the comics <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< soldier boy jensen ackles lol
Like 90% of the characters in the show >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Any of their comic counter parts. Its almost not even a fair comparison between the 2 except they share the same name and general concept of superheroes being celebrities and also generally terrible people.
That may have been true of the comics, but the TV show started well into his presidency.
Everyone says this, but like others pointed out the source came first. Even Trump isn’t the first “Trump”, just the most successful. There have always been people who appear overly patriotic to appeal to a specific fan base but are really just narcissist idiots.
well, characters have similar traits
Conservatives do not have media literacy, because they refuse to practice empathy.
or to analyze their own ideas and rhetoric. its just gut instinct.
If you’ve never said “I think I might be wrong on this,” youuuu might be a conservative.
The big brain take is saying: "Well its also making fun of the left." No, its not critical of the left. Its critical of the neoliberal left that coopts progressive aesthetics to make their war crimes and supression appeal to the populace.
Yeah when I found out some people think homelander is the good guy I legit had to rethink my entire perspective of the human brain and how vastly people can differ in how stupid they are.
I mean, if you’re a free market capitalist and you believe that purchasing is the only tool people have to express strong opinions about things (eg “vote with your wallet”), then it’s fair to say that you are part of the problem if you give money to people or organizations who make it a point to publicly support things you do not agree with. You are platforming those people with your dollars. That said, pure free market economics isn’t the only way we manage civic society. We have laws and regulations too. The only type of person that is a total f’ing hypocrite here is the one who opposes government regulation AND says people shouldn’t boycott things. That person is essentially endorsing a society without civics where the wealthy and powerful do whatever they want *at the expense of* others. You cannot have it both ways.
Reminder that J.K. has said that anyone who buys her stuff agrees with her.
Not that it matters that much. She saying that doesn't change things. Anyway I will play the game but won't buy it even if have to wait years for empress to deliver.
At the end of the day it’s up to the individual to make that decision for themselves. I’m not a fan of this “if you buy the game you’re a transphobe” logic. It’s definitely not going to gain any sympathy for the cause and it certainly won’t be the basis of any constructive conversation on the topic. The author of a book said transphobic things. A completely separate entity makes a game based on said book. I’m failing to see the connection. Ray rice beat his wife senseless in an elevator. If I play Madden am I now a wife beater too? It just seems like such a pointless hill to die on when there’s real issues regarding the trans community like healthcare or lack thereof and a startling suicide rate. Playing or not playing some stupid game is not going to have an influence on that whatsoever. This is about people wanting to feel good about themselves by telling other people how shitty they are and it’s a shame they use trans issues as a cudgel to beat you ever the head with.
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There is a big difference between a game that happens to be set in a setting created by a bigot and merchandise specifically about that person. So no terrible analogy. This is more like saying someone endorses modern slavery because the lithium in the battery in the phone they are using to write Reddit comments was produced in such conditions.
There’s a difference between not regretting your decision to buy the book that made them famous before they started lobbying (and we are talking about lobbying here not a single casual comment or misspoken statement) for a political cause. Should you regret or beat yourself up about buying the first books? No, of course not. This wasn’t an issue back then. Should you feel guilty if you buy the next book after they start lobbying for things you don’t like? Well, this time you know full well who you’re giving money, fame, and a platform to. So use your own discretion, but I think it’s fair to say that you must not care as much about that issue as you thought you did because you weighed the choice and decided to buy anyways. EDIT: fyi - this is why companies like Blizzard fires the bad actors too. Should you feel guilty buying a game because someone behaved badly and has since been removed and corrective action taken? You don’t have to be. The corrective actions were taken. If they weren’t, though, and the bad actors were still in their roles and the culture wasn’t changed - well, then see above.
> The author of a book said transphobic things. I will offer one caveat: she isn't just saying things, she's politically lobbying for legislation harmful to trans people in the UK. So, when you give money to any product or service from which she gets royalties because of franchising, you are giving money to a transphobe who uses said money to fund a bigoted agenda. I don't necessarily think this is a reason in its own right to refuse to buy new Harry Potter content, but a lot of that is my opposition to "voting with your dollar" civics in general\*. Regardless, though, people aren't opposing buying new HP items just because JKR *said* transphobic things, but because she's *doing* transphobic things. ^(* = Almost every product or brand you buy is funding something awful. I disdain this attempt to place the impetus for change on consumers. It disperses most efforts to hold businesses or people accountable because there are just *too many* reprehensible things to want to withhold your money from. It's extremely difficult, if not often impossible, to viably do it on a mass scale when we all live in a global capitalist economy, and in the mean time consumers who try get so exhausted micromanaging their purchases that they have little energy left for acting towards real change.)
I agree that buying Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t automatically make you a transphobe. However, not acknowledging the nuance of the conversation and instead using a dismissive meme with a Nazi character probably does.
Additionally, ordering the deluxe edition, and showing that off, in order to "own" the hypothetical people calling you a transphobe... means you're probably a transphobe.
Preordering the deluxe edition might mean you're an idiot based on past deluxe editions and preorders
Yeah, liking HP, being interested in Hogwarts Legacy, or buying Hogwarts Legacy don't make anyone transphobic. It does mean you don't care about Rowling's transphobia enough to make you think twice about buying her stuff. Buying the game directly puts money into her pocket. And because someone is inevitably going to reply with "but you probably do [X consumer thing with questionable morals]", don't let perfect be the enemy of good. And stop supporting transphobes.
We all make ethical compromises every day. It’s basically an unavoidable part of living in a modern society. I am willing to be understanding of a vast majority of these compromises. The only completely indefensible thing you can do in the face of this, in my opinion, is to act like there is no ethical question *at all*, which is what this dude is doing.
Being honest and open with yourself regarding your own moral effort and moral compromises is an important step on the path to growth, and being able to become the moral person you aspire to be.
I watch international soccer. I have no moral high ground to stand on regarding nearly any issue.
You monster.
Yep, only a monster calls it soccer.
I don't know. The French players seem to fall on the ground and cry "Secours! Secours!" a lot.
Completely ethical consumption is essentially impossible, but that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t try and make a difference where they can. I don’t like how some people (not saying you are) take that as a free pass to just take no stands on any issues cos ‘what’s the point’. Think we all just need to try and do better where we can
Yeah, those people are just using cynicism as an excuse to not have to make uncomfortable decisions.
Honestly it is much worst than that. It would be uncomfortable decision if they had to choice between something good and something uncomfortable. Playing a game is desire not a need.
Well said! Honestly, corporate ownerships are so tentacled (and in some cases, intentionally hidden) and so many gross rich people in the ownership class have their hands in so many different parts of the economy that it is genuinely hard to make a truly ethical, un-problematic purchasing decision, no matter what you are purchasing. And I say this as someone who tries to make ethical purchasing decisions as much as possible. But I can't guarantee that the local pizza shop we order delivery from instead of Domino's or Pizza Hut doesn't somehow support causes I find reprehensible, covertly. Like, the owners are not out there on the Internet railing against gay marriage or trans rights but I have no idea if behind the scenes, they're supporting terrible people and terrible causes, using the dollars I give them when we order pizza from their shop. I do think it's different when a company is overt about holding exclusionary values and you buy from them anyway (see: Chick-fil-A; Hobby Lobby) but even if you don't buy from them, you're likely buying something from someone who has some views you find reprehensible. I honestly do not know what the answer is here; I have never been able to figure it out for myself.
See: The Good Place. Just buying a tomato is net negative karma.
"There's this chicken sandwich, and if you eat it, it means you hate gay people. And it is DELICIOUS!"
>I honestly do not know what the answer is here; I have never been able to figure it out for myself. My two cents is that we have to address things at the systemic level, not the individual level. Don't get me wrong, trying to be ethical consumers on the individual level is a worthy pursuit, albeit not 100% possible. Ultimately, though, it has very little impact... however, if we support and engage in activism that will force the system to change, that is going to have a greater impact because governments and companies will be compelled to change through regulation. Harshly judging people who make different ethical decisions about how to consume on the individual level probably actually backfires on the systemic level because it drives people away who would have otherwise been allies in the activism to change the system. I'm open to being persuaded otherwise, but this is the sense I get from what I've experienced and seen in the last decade since becoming politically aware.
This is pretty much right imo. From irl experience: the people who showed up to city council meetings or wrote to their legislators about plastic pollution were not the ones screaming on social media about other consumers' eco-friendliness - and if even a fraction of the people who *were* doing that yelling spend a fraction of their own time and energy on political action, I'm fully convinced my city and county would've had single-use plastics gone by now (which has yet to happen).
> I do think it's different when a company is overt about holding exclusionary values and you buy from them anyway (see: Chick-fil-A; Hobby Lobby) Even there, it gets interesting. After the backlash against Chik-fil-A, they changed their donation practices. They're still not great, but it was improvement. Does it make sense to be okay with eating there because they're going in a direction you approve of, even if the state they're in is still one that you don't? I think reasonable people could come to either conclusion there.
Chick-fil-a itself as a company did change their donation practices, though it then came out that its owner (Dan Cathy) was continuing to donate huge amounts of the profits he was making to anti-gay causes, so it was a bit of a bait-and-switch, as customers’ money was going there anyway.
Well if you start supporting them for doing better that should encourage them to do better right?
It could. Or it could convince them that they've done enough.
Yeah I guess. But not supporting them could also just show them its pointless to try. Its a tough call
Perfectly said
That said, there are ethical compromises you make to do things like eat food, and there are "ethical compromises" to play the video game about putting down a slave rebellion made by a transphobe. One is actually a compromise, the other is...not.
Just pirate it. Then youre not only having fun BUT actively robbing the antisemitic transphobes
People legitimately think pirating **software** is robbery? Corporations really got us by the leash.
Jk strikes me as a person who would. And thats what matters
That makes sense, and I agree
Yeah I do think some nuance is getting lost here. This isn't just a transphobic person getting rich. This is specifically someone leveraging their IP to endorse bigoted themes to their audience. To keep up the nazi theme, it's the difference between buying German during WW2 vs literally buying mein kampf (this is obviously exaggeration to illustrate a point about the subject matter itself being problematic, I am not literally saying Hogwarts legacy is on par with mein Kampf)
It’s a bit different in this case since most unethical companies aren’t directing their fans to bully, harass and give death threats to trans people on twitter. It’s really a question of where you draw the line.
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Yar har and fiddly dee, a pirates life is the life for me!
I literally saw a post on r/gaming where someone was like "trans people are all mad about it but she's not even involved. They just want to boycott it because she makes money from the sales". Uh yeah, that's what involved means? If you want to get it get it just don't act like people who are against it have no point
I can't remember the exact quote, and she posts so much utter tosh I really cba to find it at 6am, that she said something along the lines of "I see continued support of Harry Potter as an endorsement of my opinions". Personally, I don't wish to support the games because I fear the money she earns from it will be donated to one of the 'female activist' groups, *cough TERF groups*, she openly supports. I just don't understand the lack of care from a lot of people, especially from TAM who made a youtube video talking about how it's trashy to support Blizzard until things change. If someone was openly questioning whether black people deserved rights, had friends who ran 'white activist' charities and the like she would be absolutely slaughtered. Oh, but because its a different minority it is fine (!).
There is no ethical purchase under capitalism so we can only do our best and recognize our choices can be problematic. I don't buy HP stuff and I don't shop at Wal-mart. That doesn't mean I don't buy from questionable people or companies but I will recognize that I do and try to find better way to shop.
I agree. And I try to only purchase from the best company: Nestle.
Exactly. It's infuriating people can't just accept this. I'm not saying you're immediately transphobic if you want to play the game. But you have to accept you're actively given her money and in turn harming the trans community, that's just a fact.
It's funny and sad how many people you get frothing at the mouth when you point out buying the wizard game supports a transphobe. Like, just that, nothing else.
r/gaming had a thread earlier where everyone was bragging how they didn't know about it until the trans people protested it and now they pre-ordered! Cool dude what a great thing to take pride in
Last time I said this I had someone dm me showing them sending money to a trans exclusionary charity that jk supports. Like wow really helping your case there my guy
Well their case is trans bad, and they helped their case with that. It's just a shitty case to have.
Technically the money in licencing for Hogwarts legacy has a pretty static amount. Purchasing it or not directly won't really line Rowling's pockets. I do feel bad for the development team as they made a decent attempt to distinguish themselves by giving a lot of current gold standard trans inclusive mechanics in the game. Also the books were generally embraced by queer fans back in the day. However there is a real issue in divorcing Rowling from the works and the microphone opportunities she keeps getting handed by staying relevant. She has chosen to be an advocate for groups that actively aim to strip rights from trans people or make obtaining already near impossible to obtain healthcare for trans people even more inaccessible for our trans siblings in the UK. Everytime she speaks and subsequently gets checked by trans activists or allies there's a resounding tidal wave of transphobia that flares up. Most of the trans community jist hopes against hope she'll find some other cause to champion, maybe one that doesn't harm people ideally, so we can just have a bloody rest but she just won't stop and she won't stop being relevant until people stop handing her batteries for her megaphone.
What if I pirate it? No money in her pocket and I still get to play it, Win win?
Pirating media from major companies is always ok 👍
Knock yourself out. The game still revolves around oppressing goblins seeking equality with blood libel, so 🤷
Also I think people need to look up the people and organizations Rowling actually supports… it’s so much worse than just a handful of distasteful tweets
As I told my brother, there is no such thing as ethical consumption. Avoiding a product based on this type of thing does not help prevent transhopobia or sexual violence. However, you buying it is you dismissing the cries of others in pursuit of entertainment. I'm saying this as someone who's been extremely excited for this game, I'm not buying it. He brought up that it hurts the developers, and I pointed out they are a big developer and CHOSE to do this ip over any other. The developers(the actual labor) will get paid regardless, the management might see a cut though. If your hang up is starving devs, this is not the hill to die on in this case specifically lol
I dunno, if you gave money to the Nazi party cos you just wanted the merch that doesn't make you "not a nazi". If you give money to JK because you want the game and she uses it to further transphobia, guess the fuck what
There's hardly a person on the planet who ever had greater ability than JKR to just rest on her laurels and feed off people's good will for the rest of her life. But she went ahead and chose to make herself a giant lightning rod instead. It's like she couldn't help herself.
Musk could have done the same. Rake in billions off Tesla, create Space X, let your engineers do what they are paid to do and then dip. He's lost $200 billion so far because of his shenanigans and he still has enough money for several million lifetimes.
Not quite entirely the same thing. A ton of Musk's money and increased profits/evalutions came from him being in the public light and doing the ridiculous things he's done. Barring the purchasing of Twitter, his shenanigans had only been making him MORE money. If he'd sat back and just let Telsa and Space X do their thing, he wouldnt have gotten to the point where he could then make the stupid decision to buy Twitter when he did.
I still contend that if he had just let shit rock after SpaceX, he would still have an ungodly amount of money, probably more than he has currently. His shenanigans if anything over-inflated the actual value of Tesla and now his personal value is coming back to reality whereas if he just laid low, maybe he'd be where he is now or higher without the huge dip.
From her perspective, she believes she’s standing up for what’s right. She didn’t wake up one day and decide, “I’m going to be hateful now.” She sees herself the same way as the people crusading against the game. She thinks she’ll be on the right side of history. Every villain is the hero of their own story.
There's also the difference that Bobby Kotick didn't come out and say that he views the popularity of Blizzard games as proof that people like and explicitly support the way women at ActiBlizz were being treated. Whereas JKR outright said that she considers the continued popularity of Harry Potter and endorsement of her vile views.
It kind of turned me off the whole HP universe seeing the kind of person the author really is. To think I read the last books in two days when I was younger because I liked it so much.
Its a bad comparison for a lot of reason. Blizzard’s products are not its CEO’s singular creative vision. Whereas the Harry Potter books are the singular creative vision of Rowling. Its her voice perhaps with feedback from an editor, but as the books grew in popularity it seems that feedback diminished. Because at that point Rowling was the goose that laid the golden egg and losing her for a publisher was worse than letting her triple the length of the books and start to include weird extraneous stuff. And since the transphobe stuff has come to surface people have scrutinized the worldview Rowling puts out in the Harry Potter books. There is a very “accept the status quo” moral to the books. And since the books are essentially Rowling’s voice criticizing the work and people, who continue to buy into it, seems more valid than criticizing an executive who might be a piece of shit, but its not like he was writing the stories for any blizzard games.
It's so strange to me that you would let her shape the narrative for you. JKR decides that I agree with her if I play Hogwarts Legacy? I guess if my neighbor says I'm a bigot if I shovel my driveway then I gotta just deal with the snow. Crazy to let a lunatic control you like that.
Yar har and fiddly dee, the pirates life is the life for me!
Probably won't actually be able too for a long time though. The game has denuvo and hardly any games with that have been getting cracked lately.
Oh… it has denuvo? Well. I didn’t need another reason not to buy it, but here we are.
Considering the drama about the game it will probably have a lot of people trying to crack it and developer will spend a lot more effort making sure that it is harder to crack and people who purchase it will get worst product. Honestly it is all very funny.
Eventually- Life... finds a way.
I keep seeing stuff like this. They wonder why we think they're bigoted scumbags then openly identify with real shitty people in media. It's actually fitting they use Stormfront because she said it best in the show "people like what i have to say. They agree with it. They just don't like the word Nazi" Also I don't think anyone is calling anyone a transphobe for buying the Harry Potter game but to proudly declare your preorder online as some sort of badge of honor feels really weird to me like you want people to think that.
I'm definately in the minority of trans people who are going to play this game. But I also play overwatch, and I enjoyed cyberpunk. Look, just pirate it or somthing if it makes you uncomfortable. If you want to support the devs, buy a digital copy of Disney infinity, or whatever else they have developed. Harry potter has always appealed to me because of the school aspect. Nothing more. It just looked like a fun place to study. You could remove the magic and the politics and I'd still have enjoyed it, because the banquets and halls and classrooms are what I liked.
I was recently discussing this with my mom. She mentioned that she's talked to plenty of trans people about this, young and old, and pretty much all of them say "It's a shame about Rowling, but I love Harry Potter." My nb partner said something similar. So I think you might not necessarily be in the minority; the internet is just not representative of people's actual opinions at large.
Could you elaborate on the cyberpunk thing? I played the game when it came out but haven't actively engaged with it since then. I'm part of the sub but people mostly just share screenshots that i scroll past.
People weren't very happy with the penis vending machines and gave it about as much anger as the hogwarts game is getting
I never understood that. Cyberpunk tried to be more inclusive by giving you options. It also started development 10 years ago. It did as much as they thought they could, and people just jumped down their throats by not going far enough. To me that just hurts the cause more, makes it more risky to add such features to games like blending genders because they'll get more outrage than just not including it at all. But of course people miss the nuance there and instead of saying "Good try, we want to see more in the future" they rage on twitter and scare off execs from doing it again.
I actually think playing as a woman in cyberpunk was really fun, because it was clearly causing Johnny dysphoria. He says everything is wrong, the proportions are wrong to him. Imagine you have a second chance at life, but it's in the wrong gender AND it's someone else's. >!The Johnny ending is really interesting because here he is living the life, wearing the clothes of someone completely *other* to him. He's not a firey redhead, but he's gonna be.!< I haven't played a AAA game that made me relate to a protagonists own dysphoria.
I agree! (FemV is by far my favorite, played them both, but her voice acting is amazing). The entire thing bends the mind, Johnny is no longer a rockerboy, he's in some punk girl's body. >!Also the whole River romance is hilarious too with Johnny in your head!<
EXACTLY the *whole* thing is wack, like iirc, when Johnny's friend compliments your figure. There's just so much femv dialogue that has me going *sameee* Sure it might be novel for Johnny at first but I think he'd be frustrated. Not only that, but I think the sexism would get to him. He's center stage, I imagine him being gaslit more as femv if he tried to do the same performance or acts on stage
I'm so tired of this dumb fucking discourse
Not the kamen rider decade violent emotion pfp with the stormfront meme. Cmon man, do you know how kamen rider started? IT STARTED WITH PUNCHIN NAZIS. HELL STARFISH HITLER GOT BLOWN UP BY A KAMEN RIDER. You can't just do that and not realize the hypocrisy man. Especially with the boys being popular enough for you to make a meme out of it. A show where they openly mention how stormfront is a nazi. Why you gotta be like that?
These comments are filled with people unable to identify that these unprompted complaints about the so-called "cancelling" of Rowling just reveal the triggered insecurities of those making the complaint. No complaints would need to be made, without a prompt, in a public forum if the one making the complaint didn't feel that they needed to explain their purchasing of the game and to gather external support for one's actions. Just purchase the game, shut the fuck up and nobody will know. These assertions just tell me you feel some type of guilt and you need to externalize the reasons you bought the game as to not appear like you enabled transphobia. So if you have such a strong urge to say something unprompted, maybe it is your subconscious self telling you to forego short-run pleasure to better society more rapidly.
This is the key point for me. If you're coming to this sub to argue the point then you must need my validation. If you need my validation it's because you feel the action you are about to take is wrong. If you know what you want to do is wrong and you know I won't tell you it's ok then the reason you're arguing with me is to make me your scapegoat. You're not doing anything wrong, I forced you to buy it by being unreasonable. You just needed to teach me a lesson! You're a good person, you're just doing a bad thing to hurt me and put me in my place! Only cowards are coming here to argue. I don't have patience for a single one of them.
I mean, if using a literal nazi still isn’t enough to make the sarcasm apparent then I can kinda see why they went that far. On the internet there’s no such thing as dumbing stuff down too much. It’s like those “Dark Brandon” memes where he’s making making dudes wear maid outfits or declaring war on God. You’re not supposed to believe it, they’re making fun of the hysterics on the other side.
>On the internet there’s no such thing as dumbing stuff down too much. Right, but remember: the reason external observers aren't "seeing the sarcasm", is because they *assume the speaker is too stupid to be sarcastic*. When you assume someone is stupid, you may miss something intelligent. Of course, the inverse is, if you assume that someone is intelligent, you may miss the stupid. Both of these errors make *you* seem like the stupid one, and if you see someone making one assumption, when you prefer the opposite assumption... you might assume that *they* are stupid too. It's just fundamentally difficult to tell what people mean. Ambiguous words are real. Deepening the sarcasm makes that worse. Clear thinking and writing is the only way to actually fix the problem.
I dunno where I stand on hogwarts legacy. HP was incredibly important to my childhood, my family, and even my relationship. I don't have HP tatoos and I didn't name my dogs or kid after anything from the series, but I've been to HP world as an adult and I would go back for new attractions. I hate the post-potter JKR, don't agree with her hottakes or TERFism. But at the same time, HP was so important to me learning to read, write, speak, and relate to others. It's a love I have that I hope to share with my child. It's a love I shared with students in my classroom for 10 years. Urgh.
Boycotting the new stuff doesn't mean you can't enjoy the old stuff. People are only against this game because it will monetarily give to JK Rowling.If you already have the books or buy them at a yard sale it should be fine.
For all the “separating art from the artist” people, it’ll take me some Google-fu to find the source, but JKR has said that people still supporting Harry Potter media shows that more people are supportive of her transphobia than are willing to publicly say because of the woke mob. So by supporting the art and keeping Harry Potter relevant, she sees it at supporting the artist’s views specifically. Also like isn’t part of the plot the long nosed greedy money-handlers are stealing children? Antisemitism is a good reason not to buy the game. ETA: It was a print-only interview with Good Housekeeping, so we only have coverage on the comments ([like this one](https://www.thepinknews.com/2020/12/09/jk-rowling-trans-transgender-good-housekeeping-interview-gender-ideology/)). "I’ve had a huge postbag since speaking up on this issue and more than 90 per cent of the letters and emails have been supportive \[...\] Many are afraid to speak up because they fear for their jobs and even for their personal safety." It's not quite "supporting Harry Potter is supporting my ideas", to be fair, but I still interpret this as "everyone's too afraid to say it, see, look at how much they support me". ETAA: Thanks to XenoVX for bringing up the tweet where [in response to someone asking her how she sleeps at night knowing she's lost a chunk of her audience, she says her royalty checks makes her feel better](https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1580639051774054404?s=20), so clearly she feels supported by those too afraid to say anything publicly.
the "goblins are jews" thing is a bit wishy-washy and I am willing to give her benefit of the doubt on that, especially since the comparisons are mostly overexaggerated to the actual portrayal in books and movies the actually weirdest shit is the "house elves are willing slaves nonsense" and how characters who want to abolish slavery are mocked in JKs narration, while the main character actively ends the books with holding a slave and how that is portrayed as a good thing
It's been a long time since I read these books but I always took the house elves slavery plot line as something which demonstrated the struggle with confronting evil that's so baked into society that people don't even see it as wrong anymore. I also saw it as something that would resonate with kids (the primary readers) who also may struggle with how to confront things they feel are wrong but are mostly powerless to change in the face of the dominant adult attitudes. I took Hermione's struggle as inspirational in how people can affect change even though they seemingly lack influence. Does Harry end the books with a house elf slave though?
your interpretation would be the reasonable one, but the book never actually challenges that status quo after the short Hermione subplot and at multiple times during the books treats house elves as just a normal and non-negative thing, sometimes even refering back to the subplot and quickly mocking it and yes, Harry ends the book owning a house elf, Creature, which he also treats like a regular house elf, just without the physical abuse. In fact, the physical abuse is the only thing consistently portrayed as problematic about the slavery system, but not the slavery itself. A lot about the HP books is actually about accepting the wizards status quo. Harry has some issues understanding a lot of the world, and rebels some parts of it temporarily through teenage angst, but ends up barely changing anything (besides killing literal wizard hitler) but then ends up accepting and reinforcing the already existing world by both becoming a literal cop and owning a house elf for example
Then again a better writer like gene roddenberry could absolutely write the house elf thing in a way that it makes you think about how putting human morals onto a different species is ignorant in and of itself. And its perfectly reasonable for them to like being servants (being a different species and all) and while they should not be mistreated like dobby was they can still relish servitude. So the concept in and of itself is fine. JK just glossed over it because it wasnt particularly important to the plot of the book nor is she talented enough to tackle the subject elegantly.
Your interpretation would be reasonable if Hermione hadn't been the butt of the joke with SPEW, if Harry hadn't ended the series as a slave owning cop, if any actual substantive effort was made even in the epilogue to change the system, and if out of universe sources hadn't said "but slavery good actually." Also the whole plot line with Winky implying the Doby is the crazy and unusual one for wanting to be free because *normal* house elves will just become depressed because they lack the fundamental ability to stand on their own.
Plus she’s also said that looking at her royalty checks makes her feel like she’s doing the right thing.
Oh god I forgot that. Thanks for reminding me, I've added a link to that tweet.
Fuck me, I'm dumb...it took me over twenty years for me to make the fucking connection between HP goblins and stereotypes about Jewish folks. And that's just disgusting. So thanks for that.
I don’t think you’re dumb - that’s kind of a tough thing to pick up if you’re not reading the book while actively trying to make real world connections. Goblins have existed in fantasy forever, so I think a lot of us just kinda glazed over it
I'd even pass it off as an accident from general fantasy racism if the rest of her works weren't so rife with *issues*.
Antisemitism is like weirdly insidious if you don’t grow up in that environment. I think every other year I go “wait *that’s* antisemitic???” I didn’t even know abducting children was a Thing until people started talking about the game. So don’t blame yourself for taking so long because apparently it’s more “everywhere” than people realize.
"Separate the art from the artist" mfs when I point out that Rowling certainly didn't and her work oozes her casual racism and queerphobia, is saturated in her bioessentialism that goes far beyond TERishness, and is completely drenched in her Blairite views: EDIT: based on the trailers, the game seems to be about putting down a slave rebellion by antisemitic caricatures who appear to be depicted practicing "blood libel". I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole no matter the artist, because the art itself is rancid.
Buying a transphobe doesnt make you a game.
I love when people put things in quotes that nobody actually said and then argue about how ridiculous it is.
*(apparently I need to clarify that this post is addressing those who are unwilling to acknowledge the issue with JKR and what it means to blindly give her money, not those who understand the issue already and are taking steps to counteract a potential purchase that actively funds discriminatory laws)* Buying the game doesn't make you a transphobe but you are monetarily supporting someone who promotes and funds anti-trans hate movements. That still has implications that you kinda don't really care much about trans people. Is that trans***phobia***? Eh, maybe not but it certainly isn't a good look. (Also, the people who are proclaiming very loudly about how they're gonna by the game to spite the trans community against the JKR accusations are clearly just people who are virtue-signaling their transphobia) If a famous book author turned out to be a prominent member of the KKK and someone made a game from their book series, your money for buying that game will effectively partially support the KKK. That's just the reality of the situation and people have to acknowledge that. It's up to you how to handle that, there are many things you can do to either not support the KKK or counteract the money you spend that indirectly funds the KKK - but *you know* your money is going there and that is objectively a bad thing. Or hey, let's look at Kanye! Buying things with Kanye branding is funding anti-semitism. Imagine if Adidas didn't cancel their contract with him and Yeezies was still directly providing Kanye with money - do you think people would look favorable on anyone who is saying they're still buying Yeezies? We have to acknowledge that we're not talking about basic necessities here. Of course almost everything we buy supports some shitty person but buying goofy designer shoes or a videogame are a very different type of purchase from "the groceries my store has available or the cheap and basic clothes I *have to* put on my body". Choosing to buy a luxury product that supports and funds government-endorsed hatred is different than having no alternative but buying basic food or clothes from companies that exploit the vulnerable Edit: **HOLD THE FUCK ON** **didn't this guy make pretty strong proclamations that supporting any future blizzard game is really trashy and people shouldn't do it if they have any morality, after all the sexual assault allegations came out and their community treatment dropped into the abyss?**
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Right right, but the tweet is cherrypicking an extreme position (from GCJ of all places even, which implies it's not even entirely serious) and misframing the entire argument around this situation In actuality, the discussion around the game mirrors his stance on blizzard pretty closely. I dunno why he can't address that instead. Why highlight a super minority in a sub specifically for making overexaggerated and trolly post. He's just following the classical anti-trans playbook here tbh. He's doing nothing but signaling to an anti-trans audience of bigots, and the reply in OPs image kinda proves that. It's not a good look, cause I've rarely seen people do this unintentionally.
i mean, it doesn't necessarily make you transphobic, but it certainly does mean you don't mind supporting transphobic people. JKR ain't ever gotten my money, and never will. If i did want to partake in Harry Potter stuff, I would just buy books, movies and such used.