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Hogwarts Legacy Subreddit Bans Discussion of JK Rowling Because Defenders Can’t Stop Being Bigots

A wizard looks at her wand as the tip glows in 'Hogwarts Legacy'

Moderators of the nearly 100 thousand-member subreddit devoted to discussing the forthcoming RPG set in Harry Potter’s universe, Hogwarts Legacy, have once again banned members from discussing controversial and openly anti-transgender Harry Potter author, JK Rowling. Moderators announced the ban on Thursday, saying users just couldn’t keep themselves from going off-topic and engaging in bigotry. What’s that, you say? Reddit users aren’t getting along and being polite? Shocking!

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“Allowing conversation about JKR quickly spirals into bigoted language towards LGBTQ+ individuals,” the moderator, u/hello-everything, posted in r/HarryPotterGame, adding “Users who rally behind JKR under the guise of “keeping things about the game” are still taking conversations off topic from the actual game.” Apparently, moderators have found that forum members are branching off into “us against them” factions sometimes described as “trolls” and “woketavists,” which takes away from the purpose of the subreddit, which is the content and the impending release of the game, and not Rowling. 

This is the second time such a ban has been instituted. The first time was in June of 2020, soon after Rowling first made some gross comments on Twitter. According to moderators, they had recently eased up on the rules, and it was definitely a mistake. This is why we can’t have nice things, Redditors!

Hogwarts Legacy has been an especially controversial game since it was announced in September 2020, not too long after Rowling made international waves by publicly outing herself as a transphobe. She took issue with the idea of health officials using the term “people who menstruate” instead of “women,” by making a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad joke, tweeting: “‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

Then after millions around the world tried to explain to her that her comments were anti-trans and hurtful, she kept digging herself a deeper, grosser, nastier hole, tweeting: “The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women – ie, to male violence – ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences – is a nonsense.”

Honestly, there’s more, but you get the idea. Rowling does not get what a harmful, self-serving derp she has been and she does not deserve our money. So even though most Harry Potter fans agree Hogwarts Legacy looks like an amazing single-person, open-world action RPG, many are not cool with the fact that buying it will line Rowling’s pockets with even more cash than she’s already hauled in from her books and movies and existing games. 

And if you feel sorry for Rowling losing fans, you can save those sorries in a sack, because she has publicly posted that she pretty much equates her continued income with fan approval. When a user on Twitter asked her how she sleeps at night knowing she lost so many fans from her hateful comments, she slapped back: “I read my most recent royalty cheques and find the pain goes away pretty quickly.” Damn! Someone needs a few years in Azkaban for that one.

(featured image: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)

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Cammy Pedroja
Author and independent journalist since 2015. Frequent contributor of news and commentary on social justice, politics, culture, and lifestyle to publications including The Mary Sue, Newsweek, Business Insider, Slate, Women, USA Today, and Huffington Post. Lover of forests, poetry, books, champagne, and trashy TV.

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