![]() The thread linked above is a revealing one. This last reading has become so pervasive in fan art on Tumblr that in some communities, depictions of Harry as a person of color are almost as frequent as depictions of him as written in Canon: You're on record approving the casting of Emma Watson, and you do in fact describe her skin tone, twice. This has taken many forms, including queering certain characters, expanding the universe through fanfiction and fan films, and, especially within the last two years, a fandom-wide shift among fan artists toward interpreting Harry and Hermione as people of color. The online Harry Potter fandom - the transformative, critical, markedly progressive branch of the fandom - has spent years adapting Harry’s reality to be more like our own. The recent focus on the queerness of Albus/Scorpius is part of a larger cultural shift in fandom toward nuanced representation and a desire for diverse characters and worldbuilding. Harry Potter fandom and the never-changing wizarding world ![]() At this point, the abundant straightness of the wizarding world is the most damning evidence of the Harry Potter universe’s failure to evolve. The fandom’s anger over Albus/Scorpius is especially potent right now because many fans have already spent years being angry at Rowling for her treatment of other queer characters in her books. ![]() Daily Dot reporter Gavia Baker-Whitelaw used this logic to reject comparisons of the play to fanfiction, pointing out that if actual members of the Harry Potter fandom had written this story, Albus and Scorpius would have been queer and in love. The friendship between Harry’s son, Albus, and Draco Malfoy’s son, Scorpius, in the play has drawn much media commentary that’s minced few words in criticizing the way the script spends its time building evidence for a canonically queer relationship between the two boys, only to brutally yank it away at the end with a flimsy "No Homo" excuse. The latest rumble in this schism is the central relationship in The Cursed Child. But this joyful return to the wizarding world doesn’t seem to have actually diversified or complicated it all that much - and the result is a growing gap between Rowling’s fans and her writing. Meanwhile, over the past several years, Rowling has begun actively and regularly expanding the HP universe through factoids on her Twitter account, new stories on the Pottermore website, the Fantastic Beasts films, and the new play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (written by Jack Thorne and directed by John Tiffany, who collaborated on the story). Teenage fans, meanwhile, thrive in a tech-infused, diverse reality that increasingly diverges from the one Rowling wrote. The millions of children who grew up with the books, learning a doctrine of love, kindness, and tolerance from its pages, are now adults trying to apply that doctrine to an increasingly complicated world: A recent study found that Harry Potter fans are far less likely to vote for Trump in the US presidential election. The Harry Potter universe has spawned an international legacy of fans across three generations: adult fans who enjoyed the books and movies as they came out, the children who grew into adults alongside Harry and his friends, and newer fans who are just discovering the series today.īut to many of these fans, the stagnation of the HP world has become harder and harder to ignore. ![]() Harry Potter and the fans who grew up without him With the most recent installment in the HP franchise, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, fans have buckled down on their criticism that Rowling and her collaborators haven’t done enough to bring modern progressive representation to Harry’s vast magical world. In the year 2016, however, nearly a decade after the outing of Dumbledore and almost 20 years after the publication of the very first Harry Potter book, the world of Harry Potter still looks and feels exactly like it did when Harry first entered Hogwarts: nearly all white and rigidly heteronormative. "If I had known this would have made you this happy," she said, "I would have announced it years ago." The audience immediately leapt to its feet and roared its approval. ![]() Rowling casually tossed off one of the biggest announcements in the history of her landmark fantasy phenomenon: Dumbledore, Harry’s mentor and the greatest wizard in the world until his dramatic death in book six, was gay. In October 2007, at a rare appearance at a packed Carnegie Hall, Harry Potter author J.K. ![]()
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