Fair enough.
it’s been pointed out that Cho and Chang are both family names from entirely different cultures
Just for fun I opened LinkedIn, and I have found 2 pages of people called Cho Chang. This doesn't say anything, of course, and I know nothing about Asian names and cultures, but I still found it interesting.
I will leave out interpretations of stuff in the book. You can interpret it in multiple ways, the author might have meant it in multiple ways, plus there are probably way more facts to keep into consideration that revolve around a character in the book that is pivotal for the whole plot.
I think it’s incredibly silly to suggest that you can’t make some judgements about an author
You can make some judgements, of course. But there
Nobody is really saying she was a hateful bigot while writing those books
The first comment in this chain, which is the reason why I am discussing at all...:
Harry Potter is racist AF. Rowling named the black guy Kingsley Shacklebolt and the Asian girl Cho Chang. The books are pro-slavery too, and argue that if you free slaves they’ll turn to alcoholism. Rowling has always been a white supremacist.
So, the nuance of the characterization of women, whatever that actually means in practice, sounds already more reasonable. Stuff like this quote are completely insane IMHO.
I am not a fan of some of his ideas either, especially the ones tending towards libertarianism. Some other ideas instead are quite decent, like how he thinks companies should give back to the community. He also built a tech company without VC funding and with a good share of ownership for workers (which I think is nice), without any marketing (which I despise as industry) and generally without the predatory nature that 98% of tech companies have nowadays.
I am sure you are referring to the Brave debacle of months back, and FWIW, I agree with his position on that particular issue. Anyway, considering that I have no ideas about the positions for the CEOs/founders of the alternatives, I think it's still a very worthy compromise to have a good product (incl. nonfunctional qualities like privacy, ecological impact etc.).
She invented a world with race based slavery and only addressed it by normalizing the slavery whenever an outside took issue with it. It would have been easy to have the Weasleys be opposed to House Elves, but they also wanted one and the reader is suppose to feel pity that our poor, loving, relatable family can't have a house slave.
This discussion is the kind of stuff I really don't care about. I read the book when I was a kid and I remember clearly feeling for the injustice of elves being slave, cheering when Dobby was freed and for Hermione and her movement (she started one, I believe). So I am not sure what's the point to discuss what the author "could have written" or what you think she meant you to feel when writing. These are both assumptions that I can't even relate to, so they fit perfectly into what I was talking about: starting from "she is racist" and then trying to find bits and pieces in the books that can be used to support the claim.
but the thesis of a story is going to reflect the writer's beliefs and morals.
Assuming this is true in every case, which is debatable, none of the stuff mentioned is the thesis of the book. In fact, I answered to a comment that was claiming she was a white suprematist based on character names and stuff like this. On the other hand, a HUGE role in the story is taken by the opposition to the "pure blood" movement (embodied by the main villain), and basically every positive character is or supports mixed-bloods (in English they are called mud-bloods? Not sure). To me this in complete anthitesis with white suprematism, but I would use neither to try to infer what JKR views are on race/society.
My point is that in 7 books and thousands of pages you will find details that you can use to suggest her views are anything you want. The main plot of HP is generally a positive story, nothing that can be linked to racism, white suprematism etc. and so are the main characters. So why picking minor details or creative interpretations of the books instead of her actual words as JKR? Like yes, a transphobic, racist, whatever wrote a nice book series, possibly before becoming transphobia, racist etc.
Completely agree, I started seeing business hours popping up lately, I know that they know it's an area of improvement.
It's a premium service but it has very nice features and is a good product overall.
I specifically suggested to use her actual opinions (like the shit she tweets) instead of making stuff up from the books.
So I guess we agree...?
No, I believe that not everything an author writes is a political manifesto for their ideas. I believe some is, and in fiction this could be a very variable amount. The chance of minor plot or character features being such a clear representation of the author's views is even smaller, compared to general and major plot dynamics or characteristics of main characters. Your Lovecraft example I think is very fitting, as even I (who studied few of his works) know a bunch of short stories entirely focused on the issue of "others". It's way more reasonable to infer the views of the author when this is a recurring theme, core to some works etc.
BTW from a logical standpoint, the negation of "everything" is not "nothing". Me saying that I don't think every element in a book is a manifesto doesn't mean no element is.
It doesn't bother me, it seems just a silly and far fetched way to retrofit opinions on her, using an invalid methodology (I.e., you don't have to agree with every detail you write about in a fictional book - I don't think the books are a good argument to show she thinks school should start at 11 and last 7 years, for example).
On a greater scale, IMHO it makes the arguments against her less compelling, as I can't honestly take seriously an argument that is based on choosing a name for a character or something like this, or a person who unironically uses this argument.
So there is no need to make triple jumps to infer her political stance based on elements in her books.
I am glad we agree.
I continue to be one of the happiest customers for Kagi, a service that I am so happy to pay (for my family as well).
To be clear, there are some widgets that might be useful in some cases, but it should not be all you see (and it should definitely not include similar stuff as if the focus for any search is just to find more stuff to consume and please advertisers...).
There are a lot of layers of arbitrary interpretation here. Can't we just stick to criticize opinions JKR actually expressed and is known to support, without having to make shit up? There are plenty of them anyway.
P.s. Even in the worst case scenario, not every book is a manifest for what the author thinks. People are able to write stories that do not reflect their worldviews.
No, 670k from 42 investors means less than 20k of investment per investor. 670k is already a number ridiculously small for VC funding, but 20k is basically nothing.
Also, after just a few years, 37 employees and 30k users the company became profitable, which is an insanely low period/scale for usual VC funded tech companies.