I think every person has a unique story of how they came to appreciate the Harry Potter franchise. My story is wholly original. I was in a Residential Treatment Center in Provo, Utah — think of a really big group home for troubled kids — when I first found the books. I remember that I was sitting in something called Short Term when a friend of mine slid a book to me on the ground to read. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone the book was called. Well, I was in detention of a sort and not going anywhere, so what did I have to lose? That’s how I found the Harry Potter franchise.
In the many years since I was given that book by a friend, much has been said and much has been done, including the re-writing of J.K. Rowling’s impact on society. She’s since revealed herself to be a trashy bigot not worthy of her station in life and that has had a profound effect on how people have come to view Harry Potter and Hogwarts as a creation. It’s also contributed directly to the age old argument of whether a person being shitty also means their art is shitty. It’s a really tough line to draw in the sand and everyone is going to have a different opinion on how to approach this topic.
I’m not here to tell anyone whether or not they should buy the upcoming Hogwarts Legacy game set to drop in February. Fans have been waiting for an extremely long time to get their hands on an action-RPG set in the Harry Potter universe and that’s exactly what this game is going to be. Outside of licensing her creation for this project, Rowling herself has had little to no involvement with the game, and it’s pretty easy to see why Portkey Games haven’t asked her for any sort of input, at least publicly. But as the game gets closer to launch, the question of whether or not to support it has worked its way toward the front of the class.
I think there are two schools of thought here and both of them should be looked at in equal measure. The first school of thought is that we should always be an ally when we have a chance. The LGBTQ community is under direct assault right now and anyone actively campaigning against them does so knowing their words and statements could have a profound effect on how someone treats or deals with an LGBTQ individual or setting. We’ve seen horrible shootings against gay clubs and settings, drag shows being shot up or threatened with a shooting, and we continue to see politicians espousing hateful rhetoric because they love ginning up their base against what they perceive to be “abominations against God” or whatever they justify it as.
If you had been around during the build up to WWII and saw people being anti-semitic, one would hope that you’d be willing to take a stand against such hatred, but we’re finding out that all sorts of people actually participate in rather than take a stand against hatred. To that end, we should absolutely seek to avoid any association with J.K. Rowling or her bigoted and backwards beliefs. That’s the first school of thought.
The second school of thought is that everyone found this story in their own way. For some people, this franchise represents the last thing they did with someone they loved. It may represent the franchise that got an LGBTQ individual through one of the toughest times in their life because they found inspiration and love in the Harry Potter community and fanbase. It may represent a franchise that people took solace in during a traumatic moment in their life like the death of a parent or a child or a sibling. You just never know where someone found their love of Harry Potter and who they shared that love with when they found it.
The world created by Harry Potter is often filled with outcasts, loners, quiet types, shy types, nerdy types, and everything in between. There are so many different groups of fans that have come together to form clubs, Quad Ball teams, houses or role-playing groups among themselves and I can promise they’re not ditching the friends and relationships they made as a result of Harry Potter, so if you’re not really cutting ties with every aspect of J.K. Rowling, are you really making the statement you think you are? I truthfully don’t know. That’s why I wrote this.
Whatever you decide to do, make sure it’s because you decided to do it and not because social movements or a Twitter account told you not to buy this game. If you choose to buy this game, don’t let other people tell you that you’re a bad person. The world is a scary place right now and many of us are finding comfort in things that once gave us a tremendous amount of peace and tranquility. If that was Harry Potter for you, then it was Harry Potter. As long as you’re staying true to who you think you are, any decision you make with regard to this game will be the right one.