I’m (Metaphorically) Killing JK Rowling This Year

Harry Potter was integral to my childhood. It wasn’t an immediate love - I had a natural resentment towards the series for a long time because my parents had forced me to listen to it for hours on end on every road trip. When I was finally bored enough to pick up the books myself, though, my life changed. I played Quidditch with my school’s Harry Potter club, I was bizarrely proud of being a Pottermore beta tester, and every Christmas I would watch Harry Potter movie marathons on TV.

Then, JK Rowling broke my heart with just a tweet.

See, I was a strong supporter of queer rights before I was a Harry Potter fan, and many of the friends I had made through the series were queer, including some who were trans and gender-nonconforming. The tweets, then, felt like a deep betrayal. I can’t say that Rowling is a transphobe (she herself seems to think otherwise), and I won’t even try to explain why her comments were so hurtful to myself and other fans. Instead, I want to discuss why so many people feel guilt about engaging in content made by “cancelled” creators and how we can cope with that by letting them (METAPHORICALLY!) die.

One of the major reasons why it feels wrong to engage with Rowling’s works is the obvious money issue. In an ideal world, there would be a limit to just how much money a person could earn. Instead, we get ultra-rich celebrities like Rowling spreading their half-baked ideas to an enormous audience without a second thought - after all, it won’t affect them financially. Since we live in a capitalist hellscape, though, the best way we can disagree with these celebrities in a meaningful way is through boycotts, trying to at least keep them from gaining more wealth. What that means, unfortunately, is no more Harry Potter movies, books, or games, not even for Christmas.

The other concern is with the content of the books themselves. There’s something truly evil about an author trying to add onto a book or share their opinions after it’s become so beloved, because it almost always ends up tainting the experience. The first time I read Harry Potter, I didn’t notice anything particularly off-putting. Then Rowling said Dumbledore was gay, and now every time I read the novel I feel weird about the fact that Rowling made no effort to actually make it meaningful that he was gay… It really feels like it was just for the “woke” points. If I go back and read the novels now, will I notice slight transphobic elements that I didn’t before? Will Hogwarts prove to be a little less warm and welcoming? I’m scared to find out.

Those are the two biggest issues that make it hard to engage with Harry Potter now, and it might sound silly, but it feels like a great loss. Not only is there grief from losing our ability to feel nostalgic for something so important to our childhoods, we also lost a future. Traditions like watching Harry Potter at Christmas feel wrong; when I think of raising my own kids, I can’t imagine letting them read Harry Potter; and all new Harry Potter media just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Perhaps this is just the end, and Harry Potter was destined not to go out in glory but in a series of bad tweets…

Except of course this isn’t the end. Luckily, fans fell in love with Harry Potter, not Rowling herself, so all we need to do is kill her - again, metaphorically! How do we do that? Well, to tackle the matter of giving Rowling money, find ways to enjoy Harry Potter for free (I’m not telling you to pirate, of course, but then again…). Then, when you’re enjoying the Potterverse, just pretend Rowling doesn’t exist. Better yet, deliberately read into things and fill in the gaps to make Harry Potter the welcoming universe you already knew it was. You can even cross out and rewrite sentences if you have to.

The reality is, there’s no place for the author anymore, and I’m saying that as a writer myself. In the modern world, writers are too vocal about who they are and how they want you to understand their work. This power only exists as long as we give it to them, though, and while authors might create the works we know and love, only we can decide why we love them, only we know what we get from them in the end. So this holiday season, do yourself a favour and (METAPHORICALLY) kill JK Rowling, along with every other creator you can’t stand - the peace of mind you’ll feel is the best gift you’ll get all season.