YABookgate

[31 Black]

I can't imagine a topic I give a shit less about than what reddit thinks comprises "badly aged fantasy." Harry Potter clocked fairly high on the list and you know it has nothing to do with the quality of the writing.

I have a coworker who doesn't like Harry Potter because "goblins run the bank and goblins are based on Jews." Even if that was the case, it's probably been around so long that it's just ingrained in culture that goblins and gnomes are greedy little fuckers, just like orcs are brutes and dwarves are stubborn.

 

[Mola Ram]

I have a coworker who doesn't like Harry Potter because "goblins run the bank and goblins are based on Jews." Even if that was the case, it's probably been around so long that it's just ingrained in culture that goblins and gnomes are greedy little fuckers, just like orcs are brutes and dwarves are stubborn.

Yeah they've been banging that drum since before JKR became a TERFy shitlord. Same with the house-elves being Negroes who love they chains, yessuh we do.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

I have a coworker who doesn't like Harry Potter because "goblins run the bank and goblins are based on Jews."

Seems really petty to have that be the only reason to not like HP. Also there's no actual proof Rowling intended that based on their physical description in the first book, the look in the films was entirely fabricated by the costume designers.

Also hilariously enough, according to the Wizarding World (or it's just Gringotts itself), goblins running the banks is the safest way to protect your money. Doesn't sound Jewish to me.

 

[Mola Ram]

Seems really petty to have that be the only reason to not like HP. Also there's no actual proof Rowling intended that based on their physical description in the first book, the look in the films was entirely fabricated by the costume designers.

Also hilariously enough, according to the Wizarding World (or it's just Gringotts itself), goblins running the banks is the safest way to protect your money. Doesn't sound Jewish to me.

My favorite Jewish stereotype is how good they are with an axe.

 

[31 Black]

Yeah they've been banging that drum since before JKR became a TERFy shitlord. Same with the house-elves being Negroes who love they chains, yessuh we do.

Seems really petty to have that be the only reason to not like HP. Also there's no actual proof Rowling intended that based on their physical description in the first book, the look in the films was entirely fabricated by the costume designers.

There was also the typical bullshit of "generic naming" and offensive descriptions. Same shit my shitlib ex said as far back as 2019. Honestly, though, I'd never even think goblins are based on Jews without some "moral guardian" getting upset about it (just like orcs and monkeys being black coded)

 

[Mola Ram]

There was also the typical bullshit of "generic naming" and offensive descriptions.

They lose their shit over "Cho Chang" to this day.

(just like orcs and monkeys being black coded)

I have known about orcs since I started playing basic D&D with my brother and his friends at the age of 6-7 and it wasn't until I was in my late 30s I ever even heard of the notion they were "black-coded," and of course I heard it from a shitlib.

 

[TheMonkeyMan]

Orcs always came across to me as being vaguely based on both Germanic tribes during the Roman Empire and various Turkic and Mongol peoples from Central Asia.

 

[31 Black]

They lose their shit over "Cho Chang" to this day.

Bingo. Guarantee they would have thrown a shitfit if she had a name that was even partially British. Complaining for the sake of complaing.

To get the thread back on track after I so rudely derailed it, I'm wondering how long it will take for YA novels to return to being stories about teens without an overt political agenda. Creepy/fantastical sci-fi books like from William Sleator, apocalypse stories like Life As We Knew It, tales of struggle like Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey, adventures like Percy Jackson and Harry Potter, so on and so forth. When I pop into a bookstore to do Christmas shopping, all I see is rainbow covered and/or black power slop.

Or am I just MATI because, like all other enterainment, medicore and bad things are released in all eras but are forgotten, leaving only the best behind in top lists?

Spoiler: Unrelated Request

Also, if anyone could help me recall the name of a book I read in high school, I'd love you forever. It was about a guy who was infected by some parasite/disease that gave him vampire-like powers, and every even chapter gave historical information on vampires or facts about real life parasite organisms. It was a good read, but I cannot for the life of me remember its name.

ETA @Grayback was able to find it: Peeps
Thanks! I love you forever now.

 

[Grayback]

coworker who doesn't like Harry Potter because "goblins run the bank and goblins are based on Jews."

There was also the typical bullshit of "generic naming" and offensive descriptions.

Seems really petty to have that be the only reason to not like HP.

I do not believe that anyone actually had a problem with these elements, and then decided that they just couldn't be okay with Harry Potter anymore because of them being present in the story.
Instead, this is all just the shit that people say because they got the cultural message that they're supposed to hate J. K. Rowling now since she's a heckin' transphobe—and so now they're searching for any excuse that they can find to try to support their presupposition that Rowling is actually bad.

It's just presupposition + desperate post-hoc justification to try to make the pieces fit + dishonest disguises over how they present their reasoning. It's like the Hovind Theory, but for millennial shitlibs.

 

[Mola Ram]

Instead, this is all just the shit that people say because they got the cultural message that they're supposed to hate J. K. Rowling now since she's a heckin' transphobe—and so now they're searching for any excuse that they can find to try to support their presupposition that Rowling is actually bad.

No, they were definitely bitching about this before the trans insanity consumed everything. This is from all the way back in 2016:

https://ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com/2016/12/14/house-elves-racism-or-discussing-racism-but-not-really/

No idea if this broad was an influential HP blogger or not -- it's hard to tell nowadays, because so many of them have either legitimately outgrown HP or cast JKR into the outer darkness for blasphemy -- but I remember seeing these arguments circulating back then, and even earlier re: the goblins in their movie portrayal (apparently there's a six pointed star on the floor of Gringotts, which is simply a coincidence because the scene was filmed in an actual historic building that featured that symbol).

Back then, I think it was just regular old "I'm smarter than everyone else because I found something incredibly trivial to get into high dudgeon about" of the kind you saw when the younger HP crowd got to college and decided they had to prove they were much more intelligent than you even though their favorite literature was a children's book.

 

[Flexo]

My favorite Jewish stereotype is how good they are with an axe.

Ewoks were really jews?


I finally understand Star Wars!

I have known about orcs since I started playing basic D&D with my brother and his friends at the age of 6-7 and it wasn't until I was in my late 30s I ever even heard of the notion they were "black-coded," and of course I heard it from a shitlib.

I remember because it was 2003ish. The two towers had come out and there was a dead serious article written in a real publication about how all the orcs were missing was "a natural sense of rhythm."

My point is this shit is OLLLLLLLLLLLLDDD.....

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

and it wasn't until I was in my late 30s I ever even heard of the notion they were "black-coded," and of course I heard it from a shitlib.

I remember because it was 2003ish. The two towers had come out and there was a dead serious article written in a real publication about how all the orcs were missing was "a natural sense of rhythm."

My point is this shit is OLLLLLLLLLLLLDDD.....

It literally all goes back to Peter Jackson and his Lord Of The Rings adaptation. They saw most of the orcs were dark-skinned, or just straight coal black and that non of the good characters were even tan so they assumed orc = black african. They lack the mental awareness to imagine a world where something can be humanoid and have no connection to real world counterparts. Has everything to do with their belief everything is political because everything has to serve some real world purpose. Like how "the issue isn't the issue, the issue is the revolution", well everything that exists has to either further the cause, or be against the cause.

 

[NSA]

They lose their shit over "Cho Chang" to this day.

"Why Cho Chang is offensive"
(Article written by Dingaling Wang)

I have known about orcs since I started playing basic D&D with my brother and his friends at the age of 6-7 and it wasn't until I was in my late 30s I ever even heard of the notion they were "black-coded," and of course I heard it from a shitlib.

Blacks are Orc coded.

 

[Mola Ram]

My point is this shit is OLLLLLLLLLLLLDDD.....

It literally all goes back to Peter Jackson and his Lord Of The Rings adaptation.

I'd bet every shrunken head in Pankot's guest bedrooms that it goes back even before Jackson. JRRT has been the 900 pound gorilla of western fantasy since the 1960s and I'd be astonished if someone hadn't tarred him with the racism brush well before the movies. I don't recall if Moorcock's "Epic Pooh" attacks it from that angle, but I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Dragged Into Sunlight]

I'd bet every shrunken head in Pankot's guest bedrooms that it goes back even before Jackson. JRRT has been the 900 pound gorilla of western fantasy since the 1960s and I'd be astonished if someone hadn't tarred him with the racism brush well before the movies. I don't recall if Moorcock's "Epic Pooh" attacks it from that angle, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Moorcock is such a gigantic faggot that it makes his name deeply amusing.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

Moorcock is such a gigantic faggot that it makes his name deeply amusing.

He's a fascinating example of being able to have horrendous politics, and yet still be a good writer.

 

[JJLiautaud]

I don't recall if Moorcock's "Epic Pooh" attacks it from that angle, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I don't think so, however, I get so hopping mad when I read the Essay though my reading comprehension goes to shit.

 

[Mola Ram]

I don't think so, however, I get so hopping mad when I read the Essay though my reading comprehension goes to shit.

It's a classic in the genre of "puppy pissing on the big dog's leg for attention." Which is a shame, because Moorcock was a better writer than one who craves that kind of validation.

 

[stupid frog]

It's not Harry Potter, but will this slop be unpersoned if HP show up in Fortnite after all?

 

[Rezza]

Orcs always came across to me as being vaguely based on both Germanic tribes during the Roman Empire and various Turkic and Mongol peoples from Central Asia.

This is my view as well, I've always seen them as "Germanic Barbarian"
The idea of them being African never crossed my mind