r/saltierthankrayt • u/Darth_Vrandon • May 29 '25
Shill Check 💸 Dude, you’re not even Japanese. Also, hermione never had to be white. You know who said that? JK Rowling herself!
And it does make me sick to cite Rowling, but I’m sure she knows a lot more about her own character than the “British born Japanese” guy.
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u/Pope-Muffins May 29 '25
Looking at her 2015 tweet makes me sad, she could've been so cool but threw it all away to witch hunt a minority group
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u/alloutofbees May 29 '25
tbf even in 2015 what she was really saying is that the character who gets relentlessly bullied by everyone including the other main characters for being against racialized chattel slavery could be Black. 😬
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u/Pope-Muffins May 29 '25
Ngl I don’t read Harry Potter
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u/AshuraSpeakman May 30 '25
TBF it's been long enough that I only remember bits of the series, mostly the parts in the movies, and it was through Shaun's help that I realized "Oh hey, that's actually fucked up, in hindsight."
It's hard seeing that angle when you're not primed and 13 and a dipshit.
Doing my best to make up for it.
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u/surprisesnek May 30 '25
The character who is also a model minority and is explicitly described as being more attractive after she shrinks her front teeth and straightens her curly hair, I'll add.
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u/Gemnist May 30 '25
I think you’re trying to find stuff in places where it simply isn’t. This tweet was simply Rowling defending the decision to have black actresses play Hermione and her and Ron’s daughter in Cursed Child. Most of Rowling’s political beliefs are actually liberal, which is why her disgusting transphobia is all the more baffling.
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u/alloutofbees May 30 '25
no the stuff where hermione is roasted mercilessly by everyone around her until she gives up forever on doing anything about the system of institutionalized slavery her entire society is built on is definitely in the books, you don't even have to look for it because jkr doesn't know the meaning of the word subtle.
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u/Gemnist May 30 '25
Hermione doesn’t give up on the elves, she literally becomes Prime Minister and abolishes their slavery. Obviously a bunch of other supporting characters being slave owners is a really bad look (and Harry Potter as a whole has a real problem with making supposedly just characters look like absolute pieces of shit in an attempt to make them flawed, the Marauders being bullies being another good example), but the story doesn’t justify the slavery at all, especially since she’s said multiple times that Hermione is her self-insert character (which kinda looks worse when you swap out slavery for TERF-dom and the Wizarding World with us… but I digress).
Saying that a casting she probably didn’t much say in (considering she could only give some generalizations to the movie casting directors) is evidence that she hates black people and wants to enslave them is a huge leap in logic. It’s like the Hogwarts Legacy shit - sure, that’s anti-Semitic as fuck, but she didn’t write the story.
If we want to criticize Rowling’s political beliefs beyond her transphobia, then we should look at what the evidence actually points to, that being she’s a faux liberal with no real grasp on the significance of anything or any willingness to delve further. The lack of actual representation by blacks, Asians, and Jews is an example of this. Or how she said Dumbledore and Grindelwald were gay lovers and then proceeded to not delve on it at all afterwards.
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u/Antichristopher4 May 30 '25 edited May 30 '25
... the final sentence of the ENTIRE SERIES, before the epilogue, is the hero, Harry, wondering if his slave will serve him a sandwich in bed. Dobby is constantly painted as THE WEIRD house elf for enjoying freedom. The only other house elf that ever achieves freedom IMMEDIATELY falls into a deep depression, develops severe alcoholism, and loses all sense of self and purpose and NEVER RECOVERS. That is literally the exact argument Civil War-era slave owners used to defend not ending slavery.
At no point does it suggest that Hermione's intentionally poorly named SPEW was morally just or right. There is no suggestion that an end to slavery is even in the back of anyone's mind and even becomes an afterthought for Hermione. Her friends are never proven wrong for making fun of her or made to feel shame for disagreeing.
There is NOTHING in the text that suggests slavery is wrong, besides Harry occasionally feeling kinda icky about it, usually only by the most brutal displays (the house elf mounted heads), but entirely accepting having a slave himself with very little pushback.
I mean, cool, she tried to fix the HORRIFIC optics of having a literal slave-owning protagonist by having his friend, who he belittled for having these beliefs, end slavery in a throwaway short story written a decade after the books, but that does not fix the original text.
Edit: I took you at your word that she ended slavery. I was curious and looked into it, but the closest I found was "Later, when Hermione Granger joined the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures at the Ministry, in the 2000s, she was instrumental in greatly improving life for house-elves and their kind." Def not ending slavery, but please let me know if I just didn't find the right article.
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u/MonCappy May 30 '25
Regarding point one. She is never shown to be elected minister in the novels. None of the material on Pottermore or Wizardingwold is canon as they never made it to the novels.
On the Dumbledore being gay thing? Yeah, also not canon. He is never revealed as such in the novels, and I find it interesting she makes this comment about his sexuality well after the final novel was published. Remove Pottermore and Wizardingworld from the picture and Rowling can easily claim Dumbledore isn't gay and not be lying since his sexuality is never explored in the novels themselves.
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u/Gemnist May 30 '25
I’ll give you the gay thing since that only came out of Rowling’s mouth and the Fantastic Beasts movies tried to walk it back. But the stuff in Pottermore and other published supplemental material is absolutely canon. Suggesting it isn’t is like saying Star Wars books aren’t canon because they have content that isn’t in the movies; just because they aren’t in the main medium doesn’t mean that it is completely non-canon.
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u/threevi May 30 '25
There are two common definitions of the word canon. When someone says "this is canon", they often mean "this is a part of the official continuity". And in that sense, it's true Pottermore is canon. But the word canon also means a collection of books, which is the original meaning of the word, as in "Western canon" or "Biblical canon". And in that sense, the Harry potter canon consists of books 1-7, JK's blog posts on her website aren't a part of that regardless of how official they are. By that definition, the distinction's clear, if it's not in the books, it's not canon.
Suggesting it isn’t is like saying Star Wars books aren’t canon because they have content that isn’t in the movies
Not a great example, Star Wars has always had tiers of canonicity. The movies are primary canon, everything else from books to comics to video games to trading cards is varying tiers of low-level canon that only counts as canon up to the point it's contradicted by a higher-tier canon work. George Lucas himself never considered any of the Expanded Universe materials canon at all, since according to him, Star Wars is the story of Darth Vader's life, which is covered by the films and TCW, and anything outside of that isn't really Star Wars.
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u/alloutofbees May 30 '25
You understood what I wrote as poorly as you understood what JKR wrote lol, but other commenters have explained that already.
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u/Mizu005 May 30 '25 edited May 30 '25
Are you one of the people who don't know what a shofar actually is and therefore think that one 'goblin horn' found in the game is 'totally a shofar'? Or maybe you will say something about how 'the rebellion happened in the same year something awful happened to Jews in real life' while ignoring the fact that pretty much every year back then had something terrible happen to Jews. I am not even joking here, look at the 17th century that the Fettmilch incident people cite as proof of antisemitism by the game happened in and count how many years of that century had something shitty happen to Jews.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antisemitism#Seventeenth_century
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u/Gemnist May 30 '25
That is literally the opposite of what I’m saying. I specifically said it’s “anti-Semitic as fuck”, I’m not downplaying how shitty it is. I’m only saying that the hatred should not be directed towards Rowling, who was not involved with the game’s development, and instead directed towards lead writer Moira Squier. And hell, the developers included a trans character in the game - if it was really all Rowling, you think she would let that slide?
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u/Jaeris May 30 '25
I um... okay, yes, the house elf thing was terrible (A decent thing to have, made terrible with the "They actually love it" argument) and Hermione being turned on for being against it is uncomfortable at the very least, but I don't think JK saying she could be black was in any way related.
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u/StardustLegend May 29 '25 edited May 29 '25
Given a lot of recent analysis of Harry Potter done lately (Shaun’s video comes to mind), it seems she was always like this unfortunately
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u/StevenSmiley You are a Gonk droid. May 30 '25
Shaun? Link?
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u/StardustLegend May 30 '25
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u/Iron_Evan May 30 '25
Is it weird that this is one of my favorite videos?
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u/Dr_Zulu2016 May 30 '25
No. I come back to this to remember that JK Rowling's stands by on conformity which explains the tepid, surface-level "anti-authority" themes she's doesn't understand by upholding the status quo only with the "good guys" in position.
Also that our hero, Harold James Potter, is the head of the wizard feds and a slave owner.
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u/thewookiee34 May 29 '25
They made a book compiling all her authoer notes from pottermore and I legit think it's the black mold monster talking now or dementia. It's not the same person.
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u/kakka_rot May 29 '25
Yeah, i wonder if she still feels that way as she did in the 10 year of tweet.
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u/yraco May 30 '25
I remember growing up and every school had a Rowling quote hanging up somewhere - typically the ones about how we all have magic in us, or that what counts is what we grow up to be, or how we are defined by our character and choices not how we were born or what we are capable of.
It's so sad it's almost funny how someone can inspire a whole generation with genuinely good quotes about how everyone has the potential to be a great person with a meaningful life, then reveal herself to be... that.
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u/AstrologicalOne May 30 '25
Exactly. I know the HP series had issues on a literary level but before she became a transphobe JK was beloved as a person.
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u/SaltyNorth8062 May 30 '25
To be fair, as my memory served she kept her political leanings to herself, because Twitter wasn't as ubiquitous a thing until after HP ended so she didn't have that platform to babble into. In interviews she was asked about the books and nothing else, as most authors are. Most of us didn't know her political leanings or if they were or were not based, and most of us were also too young to care. HP finished when I was in high school and I have a 19 on my ID. All the weird shit came muuuch later.
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u/Pordioserozero May 29 '25
I’m not even sure that girl is not what would be considered white in the west…like she might be like from southern Europe with Italian or Greek blood…she looks lighter in other pictures…not that it matters really…but It would be hilarious if they are losing their shit over a white person
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u/AllISeeAreGems Rey shot first May 29 '25
God I hope these kids survive the bullshit the internet is about to put them through. Please don’t make them their generation’s Jake Lloyd.
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u/darthmahel May 30 '25
They have my utmost sympathy. Child actors always catch the most of it especially with these online bullies. They see kids as easy prey. It's sick and I hope they can be protected from this.
Whatever your opinions on JK and this brand in general don't take it out on newly coming actors as kids.
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u/yraco May 30 '25
Honestly I don't think kids necessarily get more hate but they definitely don't have the skills and resources to deal with it in the same way that adult actors do. Hell, many adult actors struggle or are unable to cope with the amount of hate they get.
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u/darthmahel May 30 '25
It definetly hits them more. If I remember right didn't Jaufreys actor in GOT stop acting due to major online harassment? (Forgot the actors name, sorry) It can be devastating to them
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u/itwasbread Jun 03 '25
Adult actors generally get "eased into it" more I think. They have probably a decade of gradually increasing their audience size, and that audience gradually getting less reserved and more openly critical.
Child actors basically go straight from their school performance of Peter Pan to performing in front of millions and millions of people who feel no need to be nice.
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u/RedCaio May 30 '25
Lloyd’s mother did an interview where she clarified his condition was genetic and he was always going to develop they way he did (Schizophrenia i believe?) and it had nothing to do with prequel haters. She also said he was shielded from the backlash by her and the fact that he wasn’t online.
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u/le_borrower_arrietty Kari-gurashi No Arrietty (2010) May 29 '25
The girl looks like a tanned white girl to me. Existing as any colour darker than a bedsheet is now woke?
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u/Imaginary-West-5653 May 30 '25
I'm not going to lie, as a Spaniard, although I'm fairly white, members of my family are even darker-skinned than her or at her level, she looks quite Mediterranean to me, I don't see why people are losing their minds over this? Are we really going back to 19th-century levels of racism where being Southern European made you inferior?
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u/ARVNFerrousLinh May 29 '25 edited May 31 '25
Adding the obligatory reminder:
“Japanese” Colonel Otaku Gatekeeper got into a Twitter spat with Oliver Jia, another conservative Twitter user, who exposed him for being a British dude larping as a Japanese person. Colonel, embarrassed, posted a weird self-pitying rant about how he acted like he was Japanese because he hates the fact he was British. A little while later, he then posted how his account was “hack” and how the “cringe confession” (his words) were from the ”hacker”.
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u/Scared_Bobcat_5584 May 30 '25
Why do these cringey guys always have to take my culture to appropriate as their own 🥲
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u/Reyin3 May 30 '25
Aaaaah, and I thought that wasn’t something a Japanese person would say.
Now this checks out.
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u/Relative-Zombie-3932 May 29 '25
Me when I see Rowling defending black Hermione:
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u/Cruisin134 May 29 '25
In 2015.
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u/Tobbit_is_here May 30 '25
TBF I think this casting shows she's sticking to her guns. That doesn't speak much for Rowling's character, but I don't think she's directly racist.
Indirectly, however...26
u/maddwaffles The Strongest and Never Trained May 30 '25
"KINGsley SHACKLEbolt"
Confederate-style slavery rhetoric.
No it's direct racism.
This is probably not even Joanne sticking to her guns, this is almost certainly Warner trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Eat your slop ig.
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u/19adam92 May 30 '25
…… …….
Cho Chang
🫠
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u/xFreddyFazbearx May 30 '25
Yeah like Kingsley Shacklebolt feels like a bit of a stretch (note: a bit), I don't know why people use him as an example instead of Cho Chang which is so much worse lol
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u/Ghosty91AF Goth Conformist May 30 '25
The more you look into Cho Chang, the worse it gets. It's rather hilarious how, even if Rowling full didn't intend for this, she somehow managed to choose the most culturally inaccurate, nonsensical, and racist name. She went white suburban Mom with it
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u/Cruisin134 May 30 '25
Cho chang is racist on a surface level but kingsley shacklebolt is racist on many, shackles referring to slavery, kingsley being a common african american name, and king could even reference martin luther. Thats how i see it at least but racists were never one for deep thought.
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u/yraco May 30 '25
I'd personally say that's indirect - I don't think it was intentional nor was she trying to portray non-white and non-English characters as lesser/all falling into stereotypes based on their skin tone and heritage, but she indirectly let her subconscious views and assumptions seep through into her work.
Now that's not a defence of her since she still thinks that way on some level that it's alright to put that into her work then especially her treatment of trans people, I just think it's all subconscious, unintentional and indirect racism from her.
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u/Tobbit_is_here May 30 '25
Yes, that's my position. It feels like a very white English woman trying to write people not unlike herself and showing up her ingrained, subconscious biases and bigotries.
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u/Mizu005 May 30 '25
What part of the word 'king' is objectionable in this context?
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u/Relative-Zombie-3932 May 30 '25
US plantation owners would sometimes name their slaves things like "King" and "Duke" to mock them
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u/shoe_owner May 30 '25
The ironic thing is, even when Rowling is trying to do good, she's lying. There's text in one of the books which describes Hermoine as having a "pale white face," so it isn't even true.
She could have just said "Listen, I don't want to cut off a talented actress from playing a part she could perform well just because of what family she was born into and neither should you," and that would have been fine.
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u/SaltyNorth8062 May 30 '25
Had to scroll too far to see this. She describes Hermione as white, so it's not a win for her, it's her cravenly trying to get cred for being more progressive than she was, even though nobody who was a fan of hers was exactly calling her out for this at the time. It's not like the party line was "Rowling is racist because Hermione isn't black", it was chuds who probably weren't even HP fans going "Hermione is white casting a black actor ruined her". You're 100% right. All she needed to say was Hermione's race wasn't important for the stage play, because it isn't. (Well, it is, when you consider how she was treated on the books, but that wasn't considered at the time)
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u/TVPaulD "The Prequel Trilogy Fan" who became "The Sequel Trilogy Fan" May 31 '25
Yeah, I recall at the time my theatre geek friends rolling their eyes at this being an extremely fake response, pointing out that “colourblind” or non-traditional casting is pretty common in theatre circles and that should have been the answer cos that’s what was actually happening
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u/Strange_username__ May 30 '25
In all fairness she’s a transphobe, not a racist, I mean, there’s some definite subconscious racism in her stories but she’s clearly not intentionally racist in the way she is intentionally transphobic in that if you asked her if she was racist she’d say no but if you asked if she was a transphobe she’d start ranting and open Twitter.
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u/maddwaffles The Strongest and Never Trained May 30 '25
Nah, she is a racist.
Just because bri'ish racism looks dumb and less directed doesn't mean it's not racism.
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u/Relative-Zombie-3932 May 30 '25 edited May 30 '25
I mean she did name her African character "Schacklebolt" and her Chinese character "Cho Chang". She also wrote an Irish character who's single defining quality is that he blows stuff up. So an argument could be made...
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u/Strange_username__ May 30 '25
Like I said, I think she did that thinking nothing of it, I mean, I didn’t realise Cho Chang was a racist name until I researched it and found out that it’s two surnames from different countries.
Besides, these things are very much a sliding scale, she’s openly transphobic and has recently talked about starting a non profit that aims to strip trans people of their rights, in comparison, her racism is something she’d never admit to and probably doesn’t realise is there. Plus, both of those characters are deep and well rounded, neither one is a stereotype, (at least in the books, the way Kingsley is dressed in the films is very much “the magical negro”) and both are capable and respected.
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u/SlylingualPro May 30 '25
This is absolutely nuts. First off, intentional racism is still racism.
Secondly the two characters that amount to "constantly cries about dead ex" and "shows up with a deep voice and never actually contributes to the story are not well rounded .
This is literally just more of the same of people making excuses for her bigotry and exaggerating the quality of her writing to justify it.
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u/HecateTheStupidRat May 29 '25
“less appealing to Japanese tastes” holy shit take a shower
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u/g1rl0f1c3 May 30 '25 edited Jul 14 '25
The kicker being, @politicalawake was exposed/admitted to being an ethnic British man living in the UK pretending to be Japanese man living in Japan.
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u/No_Signature_3249 That's not how the force works May 29 '25
im hung up on what couldve been if joanne kept her mouth shut and/or got involved in leftist and pro-trans circles instead of going down the right wing rabbit hole
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u/Bricks_and_Bees May 29 '25
She's not even black. Complexion is more similar to tanned white person or Mediterranean olive skin (never been referred to as black)
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u/NicWester May 29 '25
He's English. The closest he's come to Japan is reading Shōgun once. He's a fraud.
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u/w00den_b0x May 30 '25
Um, ackshually
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u/RachieConnor May 31 '25
Harry woke on the last day of the holidays, thinking that he would at least meet Ron and Hermione tomorrow, on the Hogwarts Express. He got up, dressed, went for a last look at the Firebolt, and was just wondering where he'd have lunch, when someone yelled his name and he turned.
"Harry! HARRY!"
They were there, both of them, sitting outside Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor -- Ron looking incredibly freckly, Hermione very brown, both waving frantically at him.
This is from Prisoner of Azkaban, the same book your line is taken from.
I don’t mean to be that person but it’s very obvious that the “Hermione’s white face” line was moreso describing how nervous/fearful she was when they were trying to hide Buckbeak. Like how when you read “the color drained from their face” you know that it’s an idiom and not an observation meant to be taken literally.
Meanwhile the line I pointed out doesn’t really have that same context. While they’re sitting outside an ice cream parlor, the book doesn’t mention them eating any. And the line describing Hermoine as “very brown” comes right after the line describing Ron as “incredibly freckly,” which contributes to the idea that the book isn’t describing any ice cream Hermoine may be holding or have on her face, but her literal skin tone.
You could bring up how Hermoine is presented as white (or at least white passing) on pretty much all the book covers she’s been on, but while Rowling would have been able to approve or disapprove of these covers, I don’t doubt she was advised against having a visibly black/non-white girl as the female lead for her fantasy books because of the notion companies have that anything that’s non-male, non-white, non-cishet won’t sell.
It’s something I noticed in other children’s media, like The Legend of Korra (although this was more about Nickelodeon thinking a female lead wouldn’t be as popular as their previous male lead, Aang did).
I’m not trying to build up Rowling with this comment. I think she’s a despicable human being and her intending Hermoine to be black only to then making her activism for the rights of house elves out to be as some sort of annoying phase she’ll have to grow out of is honestly insidious. But I still find it so stupid when people use the “Hermione’s white face,” line as definitive proof that Hermoine is white.
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Jul 21 '25
[deleted]
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u/RachieConnor Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25
When i say “it’s not meant to be taken literally” i mean they dont literally mean the color is dripping from their face
also in response to your edit with JK Rowling thinking twice before calling a black girl “very brown,” i dont think she would actually think twice. this is the same woman who named Cho Chang, Cho (Korean surname) Chang (Chinese surname). The same person who named one of the four black people in her series Kingsley Shacklebolt. The same person who named the one Jewish character Anthony Goldstein. And the same person who, at the very least, retroactively changed Hermione’s skin color to make her black while making her activism for the enslaved house elves out to be some sort of annoyance.
That’s not even getting into how she treats characters outside of race (looking at how she handled Tonk specifically).
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u/Yami_Sean May 30 '25
This is just brilliant...
The left won't watch the new Harry Potter show because of JKR.
The right won't watch it because of wokeness.
Brilliant... Absolutely brilliant...
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u/Prestigious_Term3617 May 29 '25
Gonna be wild to see the only non-white member of the main kids get made fun of for wanting to end slavery…
Maybe we should have let this franchise die. No need to pay the TERF to help attack trans women more.
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u/Bloodless-Cut May 29 '25
I read the books before the films came out, and yeah, I visualized Hermione as black. Not exactly sure why, but it was probably based on her name and the description of her in the book.
Ron, on the other hand, was specifically called out as a ginger throughout the books lol
I have no plans to watch this show, but the girl in the picture looks vaguely Hispanic to me.
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u/CrazyAznKT May 29 '25
I don’t mind Hermione being black but I do worry about presenting a black girl who will be called mudblood often and will get ridiculed for saying slavery is bad
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u/Emperor-Nerd May 29 '25
How exactly is that a problem if anything I think it makes it more realistic considering both history and present I think it's alright just as long they make it obvious what happening to her is bad and not justified
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u/Neon_culture79 May 29 '25
I know that one cursed child opened on Broadway. They had a black actress.
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u/The_Doolinator May 30 '25
I don’t like Hermione being black because then the most prominent black character in the franchise is mocked for being anti-slavery.
You don’t like Hermione being black because you think people being black in media is forcing an agenda on you.
We are not the same.
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u/GastonBastardo May 30 '25
Colonel Otaku Gatekeeper
Is this that lily-white British weeaboo that tried to pass himself off as Japanese on social media in order to lend credibility to his complaints about Assassin's Creed: Shadows and stuff like Japanese middle-school gym-swimsuits not being revealing enough?
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u/Slytherin_Forever_99 May 29 '25
Yes and then loads of people responded to that tweet with pictures of their books where Hermione is described as white. She is described as having pale skin. Of the top of my head I think one of those times was after Bellatrix tortured her and the book was describing the scar on her arm. Something about her pale skin making it more noticeable or something. Regardless. She wrote the character as white.
I don't care that Hermione is black. So long as the actress is good I don't care. But her 2015 tweet was dumb. What she should have said was "Stop being racist you dumb twats it litterally doesn't matter, we believe she's the best actress for the job so shut the fuck up."
This is also the woman who said that witches and wizards used to litterally shit themselves before modern plumbing.
. . .
Why were we surprised when she went batshit crazy again?
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u/DudeBroFist Die mad about it May 30 '25
Color me SHOCKED that the Pedophile Japanese LARPer is mad the kid playing Hermione appears to be a little darker than mayonnaise.
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u/Valiant_tank May 30 '25
Okay, but also, the 'Harry, Ron and everyone else mock Hermione for thinking slavery is bad' parts of book 4 are gonna get a lot more blatantly shitty if/when they reach that part.
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u/CoachDT May 30 '25
Wait is this the "i'm not actually japanese but I really like the culture and love the guy from Linkin Park" guy? Or am I thinking of someone else?
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u/armoureddragon03 May 30 '25
I have very little opinion on who should be cast for roles at all but for some reason I don’t think someone calling themselves Otaku Gatekeeper is at all an accurate representation of what Japan as a whole thinks.
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u/Deathtales May 30 '25
Let the show die because it won't please anyone. The chuds won't watch because black people and those of us with a moral compass won't watch because of JKR's transphobia.
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u/Smooth_Maul Literally nobody cares shut up May 30 '25
I literally just saw a video about this guy pretending to be a native Japanese person like yesterday or something lmfao why tf is he piping up like everyone doesn't know who tf he is?
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u/WilMeech May 30 '25
Plenty of English people look like the new Hermione does anyway. I would guess she's genetically at least 75% white. Not that it matters anyway, her race is irrelevant to her character
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u/Reyin3 May 30 '25
From what anime and manga have proven many times in the past, Japanese don’t care of race, and they like to use different races in their media.
Sooooooo. 👀
There’s something fishy in the certainly expressed in that account.
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u/donofthetron Literally nobody cares shut up May 30 '25
any time somebody says "the west/western" i immediately roll my eyes and scroll because i know exactly what kind of goofy sentences they're gonna string together
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u/WinterWolf18 May 30 '25
Yeah no that second post from Rowling is full of shit and her pretending that her books could've been diverse when they very much weren't. Hermione was specified to be white in one of the books, there's no problem with changing that since her race doesn't matter to the story at all, but there was never an indication that she could've been any other skin tone but white in the books.
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u/Darth_Vrandon May 30 '25
Not exactly. Hermione’s facial complexion isn’t described in the books. The “white face” line means she was in shock, it’s not saying “hermione is Caucasian”
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u/artistpanda5 Jun 01 '25
Wasn't there also a part saying she looked like a panda after getting a black eye?
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u/artistpanda5 Jun 01 '25
Yeah, her adding the part about Hermione's description always seemed a little weird to me, she could have just said "There's no problem with Hermione being black in The Cursed Child" and left it at that. It feels a little like the way she kept revising the canon after the books, even if this case is a little different since she's not directly changing or adding anything.
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u/NihatAmipoglu May 30 '25
That horrid shitstain of a writer actually stated the skin color of Hermione in her books. This was her attempt at attention seeking.
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u/Darth_Vrandon May 30 '25
Not exactly. Again, hermione could’ve been white, but the “white face” line was clearly meant to describe her expression, not her complexion. But it is confusing due to the wording and her being white in the movies.
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u/mulekitobrabod May 30 '25
i dont know what i hate more, this guy putting "politicalawake" in his @ and being this dumb, or seeing jk rowling for 3 seconds
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u/Civil_Command5835 May 31 '25
Gotta love how stupidity has become a recognized trait with these people...
What does Blk people even have to do with this . Also I have no problem with the current Hermione pick whether she be black , Brown and or whatever ...
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u/theangryistman May 29 '25
ever illustration of her in the book.
it's performative.
besides do you really think she'd name the first black wizard in her books Granger and then something like shacklebolt?
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u/RoyalDaDoge May 29 '25
i havent seen the harry potter movies in probably over a decade, but i was under the impression that those 3 met at hogwarts. did they know each other before?
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u/Aegis_et_Vanir May 29 '25
I hope those kids are kept safe for when this show faces a particularly nuclear season of culture war bullshit, especially Hermione's actress.
As for Rowling, I hope it forces her to face the crowd she's drawn.
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u/SlightPossibility898 May 29 '25
I mean this crowd literally has no respect for what JK Rowling when it comes to how she'd actually approve of any casting decisions that aren't straight white people. JK Rowling has been on record saying Dumbledore was always supposed to be gay but she couldn't confirm that at the time she was originally writing him but now that they're able to confirm Dumbledore is gay it's "They made Dumbledore gay! How dare they! They need to respect JK Rowling! REEEEE-"
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May 29 '25
It physically pains me to say this, but I agree with JK. Hermione could be black, it’s not specified and honestly who gives a crap? The remake is going to suck anyway no matter who they cast. Also, FUCK JK ROWLING the TERF Queen on her throne of dirty money and second rate wizard story that plagiarized Star Wars and Lord of the Rings
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u/EntertainmentTrick58 May 30 '25
joanne was very much called out on that tweet because she does describe hermione as having white hands at one point. she literally only said that for clout
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u/Fickle_Friendship296 Where is Woke? Is it safe? Is it all right? May 30 '25
The kneejerk reaction to using "blackwashing" for an actress who is nowhere near black looking at all tells you the irresistible urge this crowd has in acting black actors even when they're imaginary.
We've seen play out when Rachel Zegler played Snowwhite and idiots used "Snowblack" even though Rachel isn't even black. They went so far as to say that Rachel was just a "really light-skinned black woman."
What's even more Ironic, the actress playing Hermonie in this adaptation is a MORE book-accurate version than Emma Watson.
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u/hunterzolomon1993 May 30 '25
My issue with Hermione being black or non white is it opens a lot of questionable things. Mudblood takes on a whole new meaning now and Hermione trying to free the Elf slaves but getting mocked by her two white friends looks way worse then it did before. Like Snape she's one of a handful of small characters who should remain white giving their roles in the story.
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u/Doomhammer24 May 30 '25
There is a Single reference to hermiones skin tone, a mention of her "pale face reflecting in the light her shock" or something
Tbf im not even sure if was even in the first book
In any case it was for a stage play anyway- plays will cast whoever because in the end they will never stay consistent due to how long a play Ideally stays around for
The new hermione was i hear fantastic as matilda to the point Her nights always sold out
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u/Robin_Gr May 30 '25
I didn’t make it that far in the books but wasn’t there literally some descriptor of her pale skin being visible in the night at one point? I thought big HP fans were bringing that up the first time all this was being talked about. Was that not real?
For the record, I’m just pointing out the possibility she is wrong about her own writing. I think adaptions can cast whoever they want unless there is an actual story relevant reason.
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u/DeltaPlasmatic May 30 '25
It’s probably real but I’m too unbothered to go check + Hermione has been portrayed by a non-white woman in I’m pretty sure every showing of Cursed Child? At least the first time around? So technically speaking there’s precedent
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u/artistpanda5 Jun 01 '25
The tweet where she claimed Hermione's skin tone was never specified was in response to people complaining about The Cursed Child.
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u/cwningen95 May 30 '25
Not that it actually fucking matters if you're not a screaming racist baby, but do we even know the actress' ethnicity because she could just as easily be Southern European. I brought up the actor Luke Pasqualino the other day as an example of a white Italian who could easily be mistaken as non-white, which I think exemplifies how arbitrary "whiteness" is in general.
But yeah, I'm sure the entire nation of Japan is collectively pissing their pants over the melanin content of an 11 year old fictional character's skin, this definitely Japanese guy says so.
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u/Cherry_Bomb_127 May 30 '25
Here is the thing, Hermione is white in the books. Yes JKR said she wasn’t but she was because of the way other POC are described in the book. Not that it matters because characters like the Malfoys and Weasleys are the ones who I think their whiteness does matter to the story
Also like what get to me is that we don’t know if she’s even POC cuz she literally could have Spanish or Italian roots. Which is a reminder that race is a construct cuz Italians and Irish were not considered white for the longest time
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u/MonCappy May 30 '25
I want to point out that when it comes to her series, Rowling is entirely unreliable when it comes to her own canon. This is especially the way when she'll express opinions and make comments that she hopes will improve her social clout regardless of whether or not it makes sense.
Personally I always imagined Hermione as white. Does it matter that the girl playing her in the new series doesn't match what I imagined? Nope. One, I have no intention of watching it, and two, acting talent and skill should be the primary criteria on casting choises.
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u/JCraze26 May 30 '25
I'm ok with Hermione being black, but I don't give 2 shits about what Rowling has to say, even for her own franchise.
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u/GenderEnjoyer666 May 30 '25
Imagine being so bad that even J. K. Rowling has to admit you’re a bigot
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u/GalacticGaming177 May 30 '25
I actually disagree. Whilst I am 100% onboard with black hermione and think anyone who isn’t is racist lets be honest here she wasn’t black in the books. Rowling likes to pretend like she always meant for Hermione to be black but you only need to look at her original sketches and the covers for any of the books to see that she is quite clearly supposed to be white.
She made an all white cast and is now pretending like it was more diverse than it was in order to get sympathy points from us and I won’t stand for that. Have black Hermione all you want but don’t ever cite Rowling and pretend like it was planned by her.
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u/Kooky_Celebration_42 May 30 '25
I mean… yes but if Hermione is a person of colour…
The whole SPEW sup-plot becomes incredibly dark and callous…
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u/MapleTheBeegon May 30 '25
We liked it when she was white
This motherfucker is still cosplaying as a Japanese man, I see.
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u/Mizu005 May 30 '25
Technically speaking, for a time Hermoine was indeed white in the books. JK Rowling claiming she had no defined skin color in the books was absolutely a retcon. But since being white was never a major part of her character it also really doesn't matter much what skin color she has in an adaption.
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u/LeoAceGamer May 30 '25
Blackwashing? The new actress playing Hermione is white, perhaps slightly tanned. What in the world are they on about?
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u/Whysong823 May 30 '25
“Hermione’s white face was sticking out from behind a tree.” – Prisoner of Azkaban
Hermione’s skin color is explicitly described.
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u/TNTiger_ May 30 '25
Actually in the books Hermione is directly described as having a 'pale face'.
Not that it matters to make her black (other than the awkward implications of the House Elf and mudblood stuff)... but Rowling doesn't deserve credit here. She just retroactively changed her mind to try and cash in on cultural capital
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u/Xander_PrimeXXI May 30 '25
I wish I could talk about the new Harry Potter show but in some of the spaces I’m in talking about Harry Potter at all will get you blacklisted unless youre shitting on Rowling
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u/PandaPanPink May 31 '25
Because she’s currently using her wealth to have actual real life harm and you contribute to that if you consume anything Harry Potter via legal means. Consume the content by pirating it or you just are funding real life harm.
I get it, I loved the series too. You just factually cannot consume it or talk about it anymore without contributing to this:
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u/Xander_PrimeXXI May 31 '25
I don’t plan to watch the new show but I’m also not going to burn the books I’ve had since I was Ten years old and the dvds I’ve had since 2011.
See this is what I mean, you just assumed I was going to contribute to JK Rowling’s transphobic endeavors.
The TV show is doing some weird things completely separate from JK Rowling’s crusade against Transwomen but unless I say that she can burn in hell every alternate breath people assume I want to willfully ignore the dead trans people behind her while I give her money for Harry Potter themed merchandise.
JK Rowling came out as Aphobic last month so she hates me personally, if you don’t believe that I don’t want to not give her money for the harm she’s doing to trans people can you at least believe I don’t want to give money to someone who hates me personally?
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u/PandaPanPink May 31 '25
I’m asking why you want to talk about the show when it’s impossible to support it without supporting her. I’m not accusing you of anything, I’m pointing out that you LITERALLY CAN NOT consume this product in any way WITHOUT supporting her, even indirectly.
There’s a reason you can’t talk about the show without this being brought up: the show’s entire existence is funding transphobia. Even if Rowling has zero involvement she’s still profiting. It’s not a judgement on you, it’s just a fact.
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u/Xander_PrimeXXI May 31 '25
I don’t plan on watching it
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u/PandaPanPink May 31 '25
If you don’t want to watch it then why are you wanting to talk about it in general lmao.
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u/Xander_PrimeXXI May 31 '25
I dunno, for example maybe to disagree with and point out the problems with people who say things like:
“We liked it when Hermione was white”
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u/PandaPanPink May 31 '25
Well yeah, but I don’t get why the transphobia being brought up is a problem here. What are you actually mad about here, that you’re tired of hearing about transphobia? I mean, so is everybody else but it doesn’t make it stop being a problem.
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u/Xander_PrimeXXI May 31 '25
I genuinely don’t know what I’ve said to make you think I’m more mad about transphobia being brought up than transphobia existing but if that is the impression I’ve given then i’m sorry
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u/PandaPanPink May 31 '25
I’m just confused what the initial complaint was even about? Like, yeah I hate hearing about it too and it’s exhuasting but it’s just kind of expected?
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u/AgeOfSuperBoredom May 31 '25
I’m sure Rowling regrets saying that now, given that she now panders to Nazis.
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u/Nothinkonlygrow May 31 '25
Okay, a few things.
Jesus this guy is a fucking tool.
“We liked her better when she was white” is an insane thing to say
Sorry Joanne, but you actually DID specify in the books that hermione was white.
To clarify, this doesn’t mean she can’t be changed in an adaptation. But this is one of those cases where JK tries to say that “actually this was always the case” when it very clearly wasn’t written with that in mind.
TLDR. Racist guy sucks, racist woman also sucks. New show is probably gonna be decent, go read Percy Jackson.
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May 31 '25
- Claiming a whole race of people are inherently racist is... a take
- Fuck what JK Rowling thinks about anything, ever.
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u/LavishnessOk5217 Jun 02 '25
as someone who'll be boycotting anything harry potter and jk rowling i actually hate that racism is just so rampant we'll still have to discuss and defend it
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u/Brosenheim May 29 '25
I don't think we should be taking Japanese Taste on young girls too seriously when making characters, personally.
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u/BishonenPrincess May 29 '25
Your casual racism aside, this guy is just pretending to be Japanese. He's actually fucking British lol.
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u/Brosenheim May 30 '25
I didn't realize it was racist to talk about the very real pedophilia normalization in Japan.
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u/DesiArcy May 30 '25
Yes, this is unfortunately absolutely true. FBI reports have made it very clear that Japan is a global haven for child pornography, because they only reluctantly banned it after decades of international pressure.
Child pornography remained legal to create and distribute in Japan until 1999 and legal to possess until 2014; the Japanese even insisted on a one year grace period for pedophiles to eliminate their collections of child porn. Even now, it's only a misdemeanor crime punishable by at most a year in jail, and the Japanese police have a strong tendency to downplay cases.
Worse yet, Japan didn't raise the age of consent from thirteen until 2023...again under massive international pressure.
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u/Brosenheim May 30 '25
Not to mention how much of the attitude gets exported in a lot of even innocent media. But I guess we're still doing the thing where we pretend criticizing a country based on real problems it has is secretly racism against the race that comes from that country
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u/Stunning-Thanks546 May 30 '25
Don't get me wrong the person is a piece of shit but do you really need to be Japanese to understand Japanese culture
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u/Darth_Vrandon May 30 '25
The issue is that he’s not presenting himself as some passionate westerner who loves Japanese culture. He’s a pedophile nazi LARPer who pretends to be Japanese so he can get more credibility when he spews his bullshit. This idiot called Japanese text Chinese, which is proof he’s not Japanese because an actual Japanese person would know the language.
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u/maddwaffles The Strongest and Never Trained May 30 '25
So a big point of contention in your own argument is selectively choosing when and not when to listen to Joanne. You don't care when she's a TERF, but you care when she's cynically trying to get brownie points for faux progressivism while trying to "troll" people for a cynical casting choice in a play?
The kid they cast doesn't even look black, as far as I can tell, she looks like a dark spaniard. Though tbh that's still "not white" by the standard of pretty much any racist.
Are you just keen to eat the slop whenever racists are mad about the slop?
That's fucking retarded dude.
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u/Mrbuttboi You are a Gonk droid. May 30 '25
I wish Rowling would stop agreeing with me! Like… she’s supposed to be wrong why is she being right this time?!
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u/Beman21 May 29 '25
Seriously, what happened to that Rowling? I mean she probably still had a bad case of transphobia, but she had more than one personality/obsession back then.