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[–]chandra 25 insightful - 1 fun25 insightful - 0 fun26 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Well (from what I recall reading on this) the main designer came out as trans and the dev team is like 40% trans, so this is less cynical corporate marketing and more 'trans designers make trans character,' which you can hardly complain about.

[–]EveSerpent 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Transing any kind of history/character is wrong and should always be called out.

[–]marmorsymphata 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

I mean the character was explicitly based on the designer.

If I made a popular piece of media based on my struggles and then got diagnosed with my OCD later, it would be perfectly reasonable for me to say, "Yeah that self insert acts like x y and z because she has OCD".

[–]FediNetizen 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

Yeah, that's way more reasonable. Honestly, when Rowling retconned Dumbledore to be gay that was more obnoxious because nothing in the books indicated that and it appeared to be mostly a grab for woke points. Being trans and making a character based on you also trans is fine.

[–]zephyranthes 11 insightful - 5 fun11 insightful - 4 fun12 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

What? She didn't retcon anything.

The books are writter from Harry Potter's point of view and were often criticized for that as, having decided on it, Rowling couldn't cover events Harry had no business witnessing, had to come up with contrived excuses for him witnessing what she wanted to depict, and couldn't play off the hero's limited perspective against the reader's broader knowledge and thus lost on tension and dramatic irony - important in children's literature. (Thus Harry ended up being somewhat more of an brickheaded asshole than he could have been.)

Dumbledore's orientation was nowhere in the books because schoolchildren don't think about their teachers' sexual orientation. Hell, schoochildren are often shocked when they see a teacher outside of school. And really, a British boarding school without gay teachers? Honestly IRL sorcery would be more believable.

On the other hand, these creeps are shoehorning their gross fetishism into an existing game. Parents may have vetted the game (rated E) which was supposedly about a girl overcoming self-doubt or something, and bought it for their children. Then an update comes out in which surprise, it's eckshually about a (presumably sexually abused) boy who wants to cut off his dick.

edit: just saw the programmer, Matt Thorson, renamed himself "Maddy". So it's not any character, it's the embodiment of his sadness over not having been groomed as a child. I feel sick already, thank you.

[–][deleted] 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Dumbledore being gay isn't necessarily a retcon. I thought so at first too but you see that he is an older wizard who could have been a desirable bachelor but had no interest in marriage. He seems irrationally enamored with Grindelwald in a way that could blind him to Grindelwald's flaws. I interpret this as some kind of infatuation or unrequited feeling that Grindelwald knew about and took advantage of. In comparison to everything else, it's the most plausible one. The way she like announced it was super obnoxious though and it wasn't something hinted at well, so perhaps only thought of while writing book 7.

Meanwhile, black hermione and everything else including a gross tweet about group masturbation in Hufflepuff? Yeah, those are retcons purely for woke points. I admire that Rowling is sticking by her guns now but I hope she acknowledges that she was participating in this stuff and helped create the monster that's now eating her.

[–]FediNetizen 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Wait, did she seriously come out and say Hermione was black?

[–]chandra 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

A black actor was cast as Hermione in Cursed Child and, in defence against the critics of this move, she tweeted that the books never explicitly mention Hermione's race or skin color, so she could actually be read as black (or, presumably, any other color/race).

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The situation has been explained, but "she was never explicitly written as white in the books" is dumb and condescending. It was never intended that way and we all know it. Look IDGAF about the crappy play or if she wants to have her be portrayed as black from now on, but the people saying "bro... she's white on every cover and chapter header" aren't white supremacists. Kind of how if you say woman instead of menstruating person, you're not a transphobe who wants transpeople to kill themselves. The articles where she responded to the "haters" are dripping with smugness. "Haha, if you reacted to my tweet with anything other than "wow so stunning and brave" you're a racist!" It's the exact same shit happening to her now.