“The Hogwarts Express is departing from Platform 9 ¾…”
Every year on September 1, this announcement rings out over the PA System at London’s King's Cross Station. Every year, thousands around the globe — children and adults alike — celebrate the day as ‘Back to Hogwarts Day’. Such is the excitement and passion of the Harry Potter fandom. What began with one book over 25 years ago, has grown into a culture almost — with movies, theme parks, fan fiction, Lego sets and much more. First-generation Potterheads introduced the Wizarding World to their next generation, new generations found the world and thus the fandom keeps growing.
However, starting in 2020, some fans have distanced themselves from the Harry Potter universe, thanks to JK Rowling’s comments about the queer community. In June 2020, Rowling retweeted an opinion piece that discussed “people who menstruate,” and had an issue that the article didn’t use the word ‘women’. Since then, many of her views and tweets have come under fire for being transphobic, even causing some Harry Potter stars like Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Eddie Redmayne to speak out against the author.
Yet, it seems the magic lingers on. As the world celebrates Back to Hogwarts Day, few team My Kolkata Potterheads reflect on their relationship with the stories and how Rowling’s statements have or have not diminished their love for Harry Potter.
‘A series of naive, ill-informed tweets isn’t enough for me to give up on ‘Harry Potter’’
Do I think that JK Rowling is transphobic? No. But has Rowling been careless, even stubbornly ignorant, in airing her views? Yes. While Rowling champions the reality of biological sex (and rightly so), she doesn’t seem to acknowledge that sex is a spectrum, not a binary.
This is rather ironic. For at its core, a spectrum represents multiplicity and diversity — something I have always associated with Harry Potter. The Potterverse impressed on me that there’s no one truth in this world, that nobody is all good and nobody is all bad. It saddens me that Rowling has chosen to ignore an idea she helped Gen Z realise. But has it stopped me from consuming all things Potter? Absolutely not.
That’s not because I believe that the art must always be dissociated from the artist. There are cases where the depravity of an individual — either for what they have perpetrated (Harvey Weinstein, for instance) or been complicit in (think Alice Munro) — warrants serious reflection, before one proceeds to accept or reject their work. There comes a threshold where the consciousness that produces art and the conscience (or lack of one) that sustains depraved behaviour blend into one, where humanity morphs into monstrosity. For me, Rowling has never approached such a threshold.
A series of naive, ill-informed tweets isn’t enough for me to give up on Harry Potter. Although I might just do that if the Potter franchise goes the Marvel route and decides that no amount of content is ever enough. In the meantime, I hope the world can provide to Rowling what she has offered generously to the world through Harry Potter — the power of kindness and understanding.
— Priyam Marik
‘All the problems you can identify in the ‘Harry Potter’ stories, are also problems prevalent in the real world’
The art vs artist debate was the source of several heated arguments during my university years, and every single one of these debates, at some point, inevitably threw up the question of JK Rowling and Harry Potter. For indeed, can you really separate the Harry Potter franchise from the one who created it all? On the surface, the answer can be a simple, straightforward “No.” In fact, even if you set aside Rowling’s problematic views and look at the story through the lens of present-day socio-cultural discourse, there isn’t a lot that works in its favour. These aspects are easier to ignore as a child, but as they become increasingly glaring with time, one begins to find it increasingly difficult to separate the art from the artist.
But if you’ve grown up spending Christmas at the Weasley House (thank you for the sweaters, Mrs. Weasley!) and shopping from Diagon Alley at the start of every Back to Hogwarts season, then it becomes complicated (not to mention heartbreaking) to separate yourself from the story of the Boy who Lived. And the way I see it? You don’t have to.
Despite my impression of JK Rowling being significantly marred by her transphobic comments, which surfaced back in 2020, my experience of Harry Potter remains largely unchanged.
I prefer to look at it this way: All the problems that you can identify in the Harry Potter stories, are also problems that are very much prevalent in the real world. And granted, fiction is supposed to be an escape from reality — especially when it is fiction about magic itself — but in many ways, it is also perhaps the responsibility of fiction to hold up a mirror to society.
Will that take away from the magic of it all and lead to Harry Potter slowly skidding down the popularity scale? Only time will tell.
Until then, it is perhaps safe to say that those of us who grew up wandering the halls of Hogwarts will continue to have a Harry Potter marathon every winter, long after our hair has greyed. And even after a hundred re-watches, when someone asks us “After all this time?” the answer will be a firm, unshakeable “Always.”
— Upasya Bhowal
‘‘Harry Potter’ was one of the first stories that made me see the beauty of inclusivity’
There is no defence for J. K. Rowling’s queerphobia. It's heartbreaking. However, there's also no doubt that Harry Potter was one of the first stories that made me see the beauty of inclusivity. Be it Harry's disdain for receiving special treatment for being the ‘Boy Who Lived’, Hermione’s SPEW initiative for house elves’ rights, or the books’ symbolism of racism through the divide between pure bloods and muggleborns; the Potterverse always reinforced the desire for a more equal world within me.
Even now, whenever I sit down for a re-reading session, I’m transported back to when my six-year-old self first discovered the love for reading through the adventures in the Wizarding World, and found love to be its most magical element. I grew up
with its central characters, and there is a certain innocence preserved within the pages of every Harry Potter book.
Hence, despite disagreeing with its author over the years, I still find the happiest pieces of my childhood whenever I revisit a Hogwarts adventure.
— Vedant Karia
‘She might have created it but ‘Harry Potter’ and the Wizarding World is much bigger than JK Rowling’
As a child, reading about magic is always awe-inspiring. When that magical world is set in a land far removed from your own, you are unable to see the problems — until you grow up. For me, the Harry Potter books were a constant fixture while growing up. I met Harry in the books when I was 12, and then I grew up with the characters and their adventures.
While, as an adult, I could never go far away from the books and the movies — it would break my heart — the cracks in the magic started appearing when I saw the ‘inclusive-to-a-limit’ setting that was JK Rowling’s world of the books. In 2020, when she tweeted her uninformed, transphobic views, it could have been the nail in the coffin that drew me away from the Wizarding World entirely. I am glad it did not. Here’s the way I see it — she might have created it but Harry Potter and the Wizarding World is much bigger than J K Rowling.
What saved my much treasured bond with the Harry Potter series was an unlikely entity — fan fiction. Usually one to be very wary of things like fan fiction, the world of Harry Potter fan fiction opened my mind to what the Wizarding World was — the sum of its characters (and the beauty of magic, of course). The books gave us characters with endless possibilities. We leave behind Harry, Hermione and Ron when they are 17, getting only a little glimpse of their life later on. And in those years, and the ones after, in our minds they could have been whoever and whatever they wanted. A younger me enjoyed the adventures, and the power teenagers had to overthrow oppression. As an adult, I hoped they went to therapy after, that Luna was celebrated for her unique voice, that Draco tried to make amends, that maybe one of them realised they are queer and were accepted.
In the world of Harry Potter fan fiction, most stories begin with a disclaimer that the writer doesn’t condone Rowling, that the characters are hers, but the story is all about imagination. Through the writing of other Potterheads, I rediscovered my love for the world of Harry Potter, its magic and its characters and I rediscovered what the stories actually stood for, for me — love, friendship, standing up for what’s right, and magic!
— Rumela Basu
‘The joy and comfort that I found in the world of Hogwarts, the child-like glee that it gave me… have lost their charm’
Being a Potterhead for a significant part of my life has made those books a part and parcel of my life. I have memories of saving up pocket money to buy the books and watching the movies countless times because everything about the Potterverse had to be on my radar. However, JK Rowling’s comments on the trans community have left a bad taste in the mouth. A direct result of that, unfortunately, has been me not going back to Potterverse as often as I would. In this day and age, when stereotypes and stigmas need to be called out and shackles broken for a better tomorrow, transphobic comments from an author with a global reader base is shocking.
The joy and comfort that I found in the world of Hogwarts, the child-like glee that the books and movies gave me until recently, have lost their charm a great deal, thanks to Rowling. If I cannot point out the problem in the flawed discourse, then the problem lies in me, and I would consciously like to believe that is not the case.
So, if the situation brings me to a point of choosing between Potterverse and condemning queer and transphobia — I am happy to let go of a significant part of my growing up, for there is nothing more important than battling stereotypes. Especially in today's time. So, back to Hogwarts might not be for me as much, being true to my conscience — always.
— Pooja Mitra