Rowling OKs Legacy Boycott (Sort Of)
Deeply disappointed @jessiegender doesn't realise purethink is incompatible with owning ANYTHING connected with me, in ANY form. The truly righteous wouldn't just burn their books and movies but the local library, anything with an owl on it and their own pet dogs. #DoBetter 1/2 pic.twitter.com/LqANqab8Km
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 17, 2022
And as for this, I'm appalled. This individual actually advocates reading the books because "nobody needs to know". All fine and dandy until you get drunk and accidentally quote one, sonny. "I never did it in public" won't save you when the police see your Hufflepuff socks. 2/2 pic.twitter.com/QTQOTfpjtA
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 17, 2022
Yes, it’s hypocritical of me to enjoy it when The Presence takes down with acid sarcasm people whose opinions I think are beyond satire when I recoil at her attacks on people who I think are beneath her notice, famous, nobodies, and infamous. I stand by my position that JKR would be better off if she entered another Twelve Step program or abstinence corner for her social media issues. @JessieGender really isn’t worth the time of a writer of her quality, even to earn the high five laughs and cheers from those, myself included alas, who agree with her about a Hogwarts Legacy boycott (and about the comedy of transgressive fandom activists still with attachment issues about Harry Potter books and movies).
I am, however, in light of her stands against the Iranian mullahs and for women’s safe spaces, having to reconsider my belief that the world would be a better place, too, if she just focused on writing her novels. The Beira’s Place website describes her, in language Rowling either wrote or approved, as “author, campaigner, and philanthropist.” That “campaigner” sobriquet I think is new as an aspect of her public identity, almost certainly revealing how the world’s most famous author-philanthropist now understands her legacy.
I was delighted to learn yesterday that Rowling’s new novel is nine Parts in length and that she is working on Part Seven’s chapters. While I wish that Robert Galbraith’s down time was spent playing Minesweeper as she did back in the day rather than trolling twitter, the breaks she takes seem to be fostering rather than diminishing her creative flow.
I am left to wonder, though, especially in light of Ink Black Heart’s story and haunting epigraphs whether Rowling’s Heart health is fostered or diminished, lightened or darkened, with every foray she takes into rewards and punishment distribution on twitter. ‘Campaigning’ comes at a cost, one the Gryffindor Rowling seems determined to pay as an important voice of women in Iran, feminists in the UK, and children at risk everywhere.
I have no doubt she is equal to the financial and reputation losses, not to mention psychological challenges, such a posture has already brought her but worry she is relatively blind to the spiritual consequences of a life on the barricades behind the social media megaphone. Humility is the foundation of all self-transcendence and spiritual accomplishment and, while that virtue is not an antonym for “confidence,” the self-integrity necessary to speak up and speak out for the voiceless (except of course for the unborn), tweets like today’s brash take-downs are evidence only of a pride and self-importance that never age well, symptoms as they are of Heart disease.