The thrilling saga

(via beirarowling, accioron)

JK Rowling on Twitter today. 

Ratio’d.

The right side of history sure ain‘t a nice place.

What a fucking queen.

A compilation of fanfic authors dragging JK Rowling

I’m proud of you all

She said she hates us, but we don’t need her. We have each other.

Where'd she say she hated trans people, bro?

Why the fuck you lyin'?

Holy shit, the insecurity is RIPE with in these TRAs. Great for harvesting and baking in my pie. 😋

Saying " biological sex is real and same sex attraction is based on it" shatters the delusions of these folks that's why their minds translate it as a hate speech when it's just common sense but that's what happens when you are anti reality .

This is never going to happen to Neil Gaiman or to any of the other male authors/actors/movie directors/ etc etc who have raped and destroyed countless human lives.

Folkloric origins in Harry Potter (aka ‘How does the Harry Potter series deepen our understanding of magic?’ for @joannerowling )

(This post is not intended to impugn Jk Rowling’s originality, rather to praise the way she has weaved classic British myths into a coherent fantasy setting. It is part love letter to a series which has brought British folklore to life, and part mourning for the module I was supposed to do on this sort of thing. It also began as an attempted proper essay which I would eventually get round to doing, but it’s been lying in my drafts for a few months now so… I thought I might as well post it as it is. It also shows that I am still on tumblr just busy haha. I promise I’m not dead )

The magic of Harry Potter feels new. Through the bricks of an alleyway, through the barrier between two platforms, snapped into existence or waved away with a wand, the magic of Jk Rowling’s wizarding world is eccentric and exciting, but also familiar. I believe it is exactly this strange familiarity, rather than anything new, that the Harry Potter series deepens our understanding of magic through. 

The first glimpse of magic we have is through the owls: ‘None of them noticed a large tawny owl flutter past the window’. The language is simple and ordinary. It is a ‘tawny owl’, the most common British owl species. Its only descriptor is being ‘large’ which is unsurprising. What hints at the magic is that owls are nocturnal, and here is one shown in the middle of the day. Owls are familiar, but Rowling dislocates us from our usual understanding, and it is this dislocation that becomes the magic. 

It is also true that owls themselves have quite a long history of association with other worlds, mythology, and the supernatural. In an 1868 newspaper, it was suggested that ‘the wild legend of the banshee’ was ‘probably originated in the cry of the useless and harmless barn-owl’. Barn Owls especially have been linked to sightings of ghosts. The appearance of their reflective pale white in the gloom has been confused with various spirits. In their confusion with spirits and ghosts, it is possible to see them as messengers from the dead, a possible source for Rowling’s ‘owl post’. Owls also bring to mind the avian symbols associated with the Greek Goddess Athena. The Little Owl alongside her, thought to be the birth of our association between owls and intelligence (as a fun aside, owls are actually quite stupid), as well as her appearance in The Odyssey as a sea-eagle to name a few. Birds seem cemented culturally and mythologically as symbols between our world and another. Hedwig does in fact take on this function for Harry, as is noted in The Deathly Hallows: ‘the owl had been his companion, his one great link with the magical world whenever he had been forced to return to the Dursleys’. 

In less flashy associations, we can also think of messenger pigeons as an example of birds used to convey messages. I use this example to finish this point: the idea of owl post is novel, exciting, certainly magical, but not new. 

(gonna acknowledge that at this point I gave up on properly structuring this as an essay, behold some paragraphs on separate aspects of Harry Potter and their sources. Sorry I have actual essays to write haha <3) 

Rowling clutters her world with the objects and beings of local legends. There is no empty space. As an example- The Hand of Glory briefly appears in the books, but even this is an object from existing legend. Appearing first in Borgin and Burkes, it is later the possession of Draco Malfoy and aids him in his attempts to kill Dumbledore in HBP

Insert a candle and it gives light only to the holder! Best friend of thieves and plunderers!

With the power to open locks, make the user invisible, and prompt a drugged sleep, it would certainly be a good friend to thieves. Its powers for invisibility do make me wonder though, if there would be so many hp fans if Harry’d been using a decaying hand to escape detection in all his years at school!

Although the boggarts discussed in these pages are not shapeshifters, I do wonder if it is precisely their many forms in varying sources that prodded Rowling towards her interpretation. Skeletons wrapped in hoods, looming white cows, even a bonneted woman whose bonnet hides a headless body, the appearances seem distinctly and specifically terrifying to their original sources and yet they are classified under one name. Is it not their form that makes them boggarts, but the fear? And is it a similar thought process that Rowling had to create them in her books?

A weak point perhaps, but in this book’s section on green magic, it lists the magical properties of certain trees. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that so many tree types are familiar to us as the wood to make wands. I’m particularly interested in the information provided on Elder. The idea of it as ‘unlucky’ reminds me of the ‘bloody trail’ traced by the Elder Wand. Although the ‘death-stick’ is an innocuous alternate name, ‘the wand of destiny’ hints at the ‘unlucky’ fate tied to the wand which the tree is linked to. On the other hand, Elder also has some positive associations, said to ward away evil if planted in the garden. I suppose it perfectly encapsulates the whole messy ordeal of the Elder Wand. Such power, at such a price… 

It is pretty common knowledge that house elves derive from Brownies, but if not, here is a source describing some of their characteristics in folklore. What I want to draw attention to however, is the skill Rowling has in breathing life into quite basic creatures from stories. These ‘brownies’ are not just brought to life in the House Elves, but given agency. The different viewpoints offered by each of the house elves we are introduced to (rebellious but self-flagellating Dobby, loyal but haunted Kreacher, Winky who’s freedom from servitude leads her to alcoholism) help to realise the species as having true individual characters. Not just a bogeyman to scare children, or a fun tale for bedtime, but creatures with voices and social issues which can be related to our own world. 

Bonus info about Mandrakes that I didn’t have much to say about except- voila! 

In this small dissection of some of the possible folkloric sources for Rowling’s wizarding world, I hope to have shown how Rowling deepens our understanding of magic by bringing the old and often disregarded myths of local British folklore into the public consciousness. Although it would be an insult to the series to label it purely educational, I feel we should acknowledge the brilliance of utilising its school setting to also educate about this shady other world that has existed only in local folktales for so long. It has often been only locals who know these legends. However, in situating them not as the creatures of mostly unseen sources in village halls, but regional inhabitants of a living world that coexists with our own, our understanding of magic is expanded on by unveiling its local treasures. Rowling does not merely create, she looks back. Most important to note about these sources I think, is that they weren’t written to be stories, they are sources. Through local knowledge of plants, rituals and warnings, Rowling gives a glimpse, and helps share it, of the knowledge built up by the real ‘witches’ or ‘wise women’ of the past. Superstition maybe, but I think Rowling has enriched the fantasy genre by collecting and including these oft-discarded pieces of local legend.

(I also had a few sources about the name ‘padfoot’ which is the name for a grim-like creature who haunts churchyards, but is ultimately benevolent, and so mimics our view of Sirius as PoA progresses, but alas, I’m at uni now and my book on British mythology is at home :/ Please pester me to edit this when I’m home for Christmas! Also, kelpies, goblins, redcaps, etc! And since the book looks at folklore by area you can anon message me and I can find some of your local stories if you’re in the uk haha) 

"JKR isn't a feminist" she just donated 5k to a random woman's gofundme who is trying to escape a forced marriage in Pakistan but okay

love the way that jk rowling being labelled a terf means that my family has to have an argument about whether it’s morally acceptable to watch the childrens movie that we already own, but when my family paid $30 to watch the live action mulan despite me repeatedly telling them that disney knowingly collaborated with and paid the government of the province where the uighur genocide was and still is being carried out, that was acceptable. i’m so tired.

My sister is boycotting any HP related stuff while buying almost exclusively from Amazon.

David Tennant prevented JK Rowling appearing on Doctor Who.

Also absolutely laughable to think JK Rowling appearing would ‘top’ Kylie Minogue’s appearance.

Yeah this was around 15 years ago but still. Im goddamn glad given how Joanne turned out to be such a dumpsterfire person

JK Rowling turned out to be someone who saved countless women's lives through her charities. Neil Gaiman turned out to be a serial rapist of women. If anything, his actions are an excellent example of the necessity to exclude male-bodied people from women's safe spaces. So which one of these two people is the dumpsterfire person?

David Tennant had a lot to say about how gender critical feminists should shut up and stay in the kitchen. Please show me the time David showed any solidarity at all to the women who were raped by Neil Gaiman. I looked... there's nothing. He doesn't think rape is a problem. I guess those women should also have stayed quiet and in the kitchen, right?

These are your heroes, guys. Enjoy them. You guys deserve each other.