Not tagging this spoiler cause fuck TERFs, don’t buy the game, uphold TC69 Thought etc. Have gotten this all from the above article and reviews that support it.
Yep, anti-semitic, slave-owning, Protocols of Zion plagiarising, let’s join the anti-goblin pogrom game.
Yes the MacGuffin unambiguously belongs to the Goblins, who have a labour theory of ownership. No you can’t join the Goblins. Yes you kill a bunch of them. Yes, there is a fucking quisling that’s seen as good actually. Yes, every teacher thinks fighting the goblins is a good thing, despite a few token missions that apparently show how oppressed they are.
No, you never critique that this and every other aspect of the wizard world might be a bad thing.
I am once again calling for the House Elves to rise up, slit every slaver-wizard throat in Hogwarts, and place their heads on pikes outside the entrance as a warning to the others.
Don’t. Buy. The TERF. Game.
There’s something deeply funny about how a giant media property has become toxic sludge because the creator couldn’t stop being a massively vocal bigot
Warner Brothers must be pissed :michael-laugh:
Imagine if George Lucas started tweeting racial crime statistics and if he made that the entirety of his public persona
I have a thesis on alienation and atomisation where in the anglosphere, especially in America, collective action is no longer conceivable to most people, and suggesting it is makes them confused, panicked that they didn’t think of it, and ultimately angry, because their entire conception of morality is that a bad/good individual act is what makes you a good/bad person, rather than engaging in a collectively good program of actions with others. It can be only sublimated by suggesting that collective action is just forcing them to do a thing, which is bad, and that the thing they want to do is good. actually, so asking them to do it is double bad.
That’s why you get absurd statements like “Don’t bring politics into this election”, politics implies they can, and therefore must, act as a group and sacrifice.
Part of it is that nobody wants to be reminded of politics because it tears down the walls of cope they’ve built up to obfuscate the fact that they have zero political agency.
I don’t think this is the end of it. Don’t look at this game in a vacuum by itself but the franchise and brand as a whole on a timeline.
The libs had already decided that they wanted this treat. They were not going to give it up because of a controversy kicked up after they were already hyped. Once the novelty of the game has worn off they will however come round to critiques of the game, and even repeat them. They will carry those critiques into the future of the franchise.
I think serious damage has been done. It will be viewed as “problematic” in future.
I think serious damage has been done. It will be viewed as “problematic” in future.
So? Many games, celebrities, sports and entertainment pieces are, yet they still top all the charts.
Dave Chappelle just won a Grammy, Top Gun Maverick was the best movie last year despite being funded by literal blood money with regards to the US military, the FIFA world cup in Qatar last year broke viewership records and is going to the USA in 2026.
All we’re going do about thinking about stuff like this, is make us sad.
Yeah, it’s still a bad look for your wholesome chungus nostalgic all ages wizard franchise.
I must assume Rowling’s contracts are iron clad, with this much bad press WB, etc would have publically distanced themselves already
Idk, the fantastic beasts movies bombed, each worse than the last, and I think JKR’s vocal toxicity was a big part of why. Both in that it made people want to stay away on principle and also that she made the movies bad
Nah it will sell well, games in general don’t have this problem. Call of duty still tops the charts every year even though half the games campaigns are a “let’s relive the Iraq or Afghanistan wars” racism stimulators and it’s online lobbies are so toxic and memed to the point that people like T Pain can get racially abused while playing COD on steam and it has no effect on it’s popularity, or getting A list celebrity endorsements and skins from POC celebs, like the Neymar and Hamilton skins.
Lucas was also faaaar less influential in Star Wars than Rowling was in Potter. George was maybe the lead creator but he had teams of writers, editors, directors, actors, etc. that were all involved. Rowling was the sole writer of all 7 books. She’s much more synonymous with her work than Lucas is.
Ranrok is looking to reclaim them for Goblinkind, backed up by the notion that goblins own the items they make, as opposed to the person they make it for.
I can’t believe they directly made the villain a communist.
From a glance, you know the game isn’t even going to be the self-insert fan fic they want it to be.
It’s pathetic. You’re not stopping an actual evil, your character has no interaction with the characters you grew up with, and the characters you do meet, including your avatar, have no impact on the canon of the setting. The worldbuilding of HP is dog shit, and I wish people weren’t such little piggies for their focus-group approved slop.
I think in a vaccum it is ok to go in this direction otherwise you end up like Star Wars where every single game has a reference or direct interaction with Darth Vader, Yoda etc. You want to build a world not just a “world” that is realy just the same timeframe with the same characters over and over.
But I only say this because media into game adaptations are almost destined to suck because of this problem and executives designing by comittee.
“Oh you must have shit main character everyone loves for at least X% of the screen time otherwise marketing says it wont sell with [insert focus group taken from their ass here].”
every single game has a reference or direct interaction with Darth Vader, Yoda etc. You want to build a world not just a “world” that is realy just the same timeframe with the same characters over and over.
You can use major original characters as touchstone or include them in cameos.
The final fight in Jedi: Fallen Order just being a run-away from Darth Vader was a good way to wrap it up. Same with the final scene from Rogue One. Having a bunch of the Rogue One story take place on Jedha, the ancestral home of the Jedi, was a great way to include Jedi social influence without having an actual literal Jedi running around.
Having some KOTOR character meet another member of Yoda’s species - or even a Baby Yoda - is fine. Having a side quest in the Galactic Senate, where you need to lobby Chancellor Palatine for a favor is cute.
So long as it’s tangential to the main plot arc, it gives the story a bit of grounding in the original works such that its not just Generic Space Fantasy.
Just use a light touch.
Seriously HP fans should just read other fucking books.
There’s so so many fantasy settings that are superior to HP in every way, better and more interesting politics, more consistent and more deep lore, more interesting characters. HP isn’t actually bad for a children’s story (if you ignore the ideology) but that’s all it is really.
The worldbuilding of HP is dog shit
The first book is warmed over Roald Dahl novel. No worse than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach.
Setting aside the farce that is Quidditch, the story through book 4 is on the better end of YA fiction. Certainly better than Twilight or Hunger Games.
After that they degrade rapidly. Book 7 is just a meandering clusterfuck.
But to just kinda write off a wildly popular series like this as “bad writing” feels reactionary. Just Ben Shapiro tier criticism.
I find The Worse Witch, let alone Narnia or The Dark is Rising to have generally better world building, all predate Rowling so she has no excuse.
Narnia was another series with a very strong start and a wet fart of an ending. The Last Battle was awful. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader literally went nowhere. There’s a reason they gave up making those movies halfway through.
Dark is Rising was cliche and boring compared to the LotR source material it desperately wanted to be.
Never read the Worse Witch so, shrug
I’m specifically criticizing the worldbuilding. JKR plays fast and loose with how the setting works and can’t leave well enough alone.
Things like the Time Turner, the canon information about magic outside of Hogwarts/UK, the oversimplified house system, and categorizing several sentient species as ‘magical creatures’ In this instance, it’s the portrayal of goblins.
I think a lot of the fans who were drawn to it, me included, brought our own imagination to the work. That’s good to capture an audience like that, but jkr’s politics easily seep into the way the world works.
Things like the Time Turner, the canon information about magic outside of Hogwarts/UK, the oversimplified house system, and categorizing several sentient species as ‘magical creatures’ In this instance, it’s the portrayal of goblins.
The Time Turner wasn’t any worse than any other bit of magical realism in the setting. It existed to build Hermonie - the workaholic - and Harry - the hero worshipper - as characters, not to magically solve all their problems.
Past that, its just nitpicking. The fact that she has a broader world and its not just four different kinds of Specials locked in a cage death match together puts it head and shoulders above most YA fiction.
a lot of the fans who were drawn to it, me included, brought our own imagination to the work. That’s good to capture an audience like that, but jkr’s politics easily seep into the way the world works.
The politics shifted over time, and that’s what really poisoned the series. What starts as this existential struggle between generations - the very opening scene is the Old World Dying and The New Being Born - lapses into a McGuffin Hunt in defense of the status quo.
So much of the Problem With Dobbie isn’t in Book 2. It shows up in 5, 6, and 7 when Rowling just kinda abandons the idea of emancipation and social justice.
The underdog story mutates into a crime drama and the protagonists change from revolutionary insurgents into child soldiers.
I thought the person you replied to was talking about bad writing in the game, not the series as a whole.
It features a white woman power fantasy wearing a revolutionary hat. Libs jumped all over it for a reason.
As always if you need your wizard school fill
Little witch academia is great and the lead joins the non human workforce strike in an episode
