LGBTQ vs Realism

Why the hell not? Why is she immune to criticism?

3 Likes

It’s just a general rule of common courtesy. Don’t attack authors for their writing, unless it’s like a Nazi anthem. Even then, maybe focus more on the message than the person.

3 Likes

@everyone - Please keep things civil and respectful. I do not want to be prodded into closing this thread, even temporarily.

Please lets be civil to one and another.

Thank you :gift_heart: :heart_eyes:

3 Likes

It is ok to criticise her as a writer, It’s not wrong to say “J.K. Rowling hasn’t done a good representation of LGBT characters” or that the work might have a problematic message if you think so. But it is not ok to make assumptions about what the writer thinks based on their work.

I’m not saying that you are doing that, but I’ve seen it before and it was not pleasant.

2 Likes

By the time Rowling was aware of how underrepresented LGBT people are in media the bulk of her books were complete. The first four books, where the vast majority of friendly characters are introduced, were all introduced when dial up was still popular. By that point she definitely had an idea for what she wanted and planned for the characters of the remainder of the series.

Also to judge an author based on the revelations and morals of books released before the subject was as widely known and supported is absurd. I’m trans, but I’m not about to bite her head off for failing to introduce a transgender character. She supports us vocally and genuinely today, that’s more than enough for me.

11 Likes

My problem isn’t really with the lack of representation, as it is with what I feel to be a retcon of the character. People wrote about homosexuality before Harry Potter, and here it’s a big deal when it comes to Dumbledore. It would have been nice to actually experience it while reading the book, rather than from an interview afterwards. I understand why she didn’t go all Grey’s Anatomy when it comes to diversity, but if Dumbledore was always intended to be gay, she could have explored it.

1 Like

She really couldn’t have. Dumbledore was over 100 years old, which very clearly puts him out of the way of anything resembling a relationship. And Harry, being a white, male, pureblood, would never likely get it in his head to ever bring that subject up to Dumbledore (persecution or something of that nature.).

Ultimately, there is no easy way for her to have approached the subject while also remaining natural in her writing. Like I said, this story was built from the ground up differently. If she had written the books starting in '07 it might have gone significantly differently, but we just don’t know.

1 Like

Well, this is bad for my grandparents to hear…damn have to fill a divorce now. I’m kidding, but old people do have relationships, sexual and romantic and if I remember right wizards and witches have a higher life expectation than muggles, so Dumbledor wasn’t that old.

Harry was also as perceptive as a brick, so if somebody would have noticed a thing it would have been Ron or Hermione.

Yeah, and who’s fault was that? Rowling’s! See, gotcha here. (I see your point of Rowling not being able to include it because of the times, really, I just think Dumbledor’s age is not part of the reasons that limited her, just the way literature world was at that time, especially having in mind that it’s children’s books we talk about here - anybody remebering the ultra conservative religious groups flipping out over Harry Potter being so popular, because a story about wizards in their world promotes satanism? - and that she was a nobody before Harry Potter…she somehow needed to get published)

3 Likes

Sorry, didn’t explain that properly. More meant it in the sense of ‘he’s the only person within 50 years of his age who isn’t either evil or in Azkaban.’

1 Like

I wasn’t talking about old Dumbledore.

Okay, anyway, to get back on topic, I think that it really is important to provide some sense of realism, with bigotry.

Even in a universe where everyone is supposed to accept all sexualities and genders, that doesn’t mean everyone does. Today, we’re supposed to accept all races, within the United States, but that’s absolutely a joke (I don’t doubt that 400 years from now, we’ll be considered advanced compared to some countries, but to say we have racial equality is truly a joke). It adds so much to a plot to have conflict. That’s what storytelling is all about - conflict after conflict after conflict.

It doesn’t even necessarily need to happen to the main character or one of the main character’s friends. There could just be a group of people that are mentioned - perhaps the player character encounters, very briefly, some sort of Doomsdayer in a city, who claims that those who lay with members of their own gender are the reason for xyz, but everyone ignores him.

The thing is, what is believable to me is that every character has their own voice, their own thoughts. If everyone just had a blanketed acceptance of all things, it really would pull me out of the story. Everyone has an opinion, whether it be about reproductive rights, accepting humans as human (regardless of race, gender, sexuality, or religion), or the fact that women have pockets that are far too small. Come on, designers, phones are getting bigger; I need to be able to fit my friggin’ phone in my friggin’ pocket, because purses hurt my shoulders!

3 Likes

One of the reasons, apart from me simply liking the male form much more of why I also like men’s fashion way better is that women’s fashion is often silly, frilly and unpractical to the point of being practically unwearable. Of course for all of its supposed practicality I’m still baffled at why the knee-high boot has become mostly a women only fashion item, since boots or shoes that are waterproof and go higher than the calf are eminently practical in the modern, exceedingly wet and muddy Dutch winters too. Particularly for the more vertically challenged guys like me.

3 Likes

So true. Men that prefer to dress as women – drag queens – I just don’t understand it. I prefer dressing as manly as I can, because men’s pockets are bigger. I stole a pair of my brother’s pajama pants, and they have pockets in them! Big pockets! Women’s jim-jam pants don’t have pockets - at least not in any store I’ve ever seen - and women go out in public in their jim-jams just as much as men do. Disgrace! Dishonor! Omg, and when dresses have pockets? Actually heaven.

Get a compliment on a dress? Yeah, thanks, it has pockets in it! Watch all the women in the area swoon and rush over to fully examine the hidden pockets in the dress. This is actually a thing @idonotlikeusernames.

But the point I was getting at is that, in any universe, people are going to have differing opinions about everything. Examples in reality are the death penalty, assisted suicide, pockets, hairstyles, whether people whose opinions differ from yours deserve to exist peacefully, whether peanut butter and grape jelly is better than peanut butter with grape jam (it is not. Jam ftw).

It doesn’t make sense to me that everyone in a society would just accept things. I really liked how Heroes Rise had the argument between the MTF superhero (I’m sorry, her name always escaped me. I avoided scenes with her, because I’m just not a fan of the diva personality, but she was a complex character, which I loved) and, I want to say his name was…Bear?..as well as GG. The three of them got in this epic argument about LGBTQIA+ rights, and whether the MTF superhero was just a gay man hiding in a woman’s form or a heterosexual woman. It was a very interesting conversation, particularly to see within a society that supposedly doesn’t care about sexuality.

I feel that that brought a much needed dose of “realism” to me. I don’t think it’s necessarily realistic that LGBTQIA+ people always get brought down, but I do feel that it is realistic that people have opinions and that people are bigots, and that that is just human (or humanoid) nature. It doesn’t make sense to me that human nature would go completely out the door.

This isn’t The Giver.

6 Likes

Mine do :sunglasses:

I’ve wore dresses maybe four times in my life? So I can’t say I understand how you feel. (Jeans ftw :relieved:)

nod nod

Diva maybe? Black Magic perhaps? (BM is the one who siphoned power from bed ridden ppl.)

No and no. Diva is one of the “underdog” supporters, if you choose to be an underdog. Black Magic can be male or female. I’m talking about a different character. Show something or other. She and her husband/partner are a crime-fighting duo, and they’re part of the Populars in the second book of the series. She’s kind of a witch-with-a-b.

But that’s…really not the point of my comment. I’m really trying not to change the subject from the topic, but I’ll have to report to @moderators , if my comments keep ending up changing the flow of convo. Please redirect so we don’t get in trouble.

The point of my comment was that

1 Like

This topic is more or less been played it out and evolved to be general LGBTQ and Feminism issues, so I’m closing in and link back to another thread.