The ability to quote scenes from Harry Potter verbatim is a skill I’ve been proud of since I was twelve, so growing up to discover that the woman who created this universe I love so much was transphobic was jarring to me. I couldn’t quite connect the version of her in my head- an admirable, inspiring strong woman to reality, where I’d spent years looking up to a bigot.
My first instinct was to boycott the whole franchise. Removing all eight movies from my favourites from my shelves made me feel grown up in the beginning. I thought I was making my stand, and choosing the harder right instead of the easier wrong but as my initial rage and dismay cooled I realised I missed it. The comfort those books provided me and the space they gave me to embroider my own thoughts in the margins.
I’d been a tween who hated Snape because I was in the middle of a ‘situation’ with a teacher and I’d been fifteen year old shipping Drarry and reading headcanons on tumblr and her insistence that the elements of the story that were personal to me were incorrect unsettled me.
Further, as a queer person, having a role model invalidate me wasn’t great and she hurt trans readers further still. I finally came to the realisation that I needed to separate the art from the artist, because whether she intended it or not Harry Potter taught me a lot of things, and so I didn’t want to lose that.
Hearing Daniel, Emma and Rupert stand with the community was heartening, and it was this quote that finally cinched it:
‘…To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you. If these books taught you that love is the strongest force in the universe, capable of overcoming anything; if they taught you that strength is found in diversity, and that dogmatic ideas of pureness lead to the oppression of vulnerable groups; if you believe that a particular character is trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid, or that they are gay or bisexual; if you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life — then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred. And in my opinion nobody can touch that…’
It reiterated everything I needed to know and I realised that I could choose to disagree with the creator of the work while continuing to cherish what their work had already afforded me. I couldn’t bring myself to read any Robert Galbraiths, but I don’t shirk from Potter marathons either.
The philosophy of Srishti Chaudhary, the writer of Once Upon a Curfew and Lallan Sweets describes this perfectly. She believes that once an author has completed a book and it is out of their hands, their intentions no longer matter and it is now up to the reader to make of the book what they want. Being aware of this made I realise how much I admire Cassandra Clare, because it’s hard to find books aimed at teens that openly and correct portray characters from LGBTQ+ community.
In essence, you can enjoy the pleasures of your childhood while continuing to be respectful to all people. I know I won’t subscribe to a problematic creators work in the present, but I sure appreciate being able to reread Hermoine setting Snape on fire.