Writes Rebecca Jennings in "How the Harry Potter video game became an ethical minefield/Hogwarts Legacy is one of the most anticipated video games of all time. Whether or not you play it is a question of morality" (Vox).
Another aspect of the game that contradicts Rowling’s moral logic is that in Hogwarts Legacy, players are free to use one of the three “Unforgivable Curses” — the killing curse, the torture curse, and the spell that allows you to control other people’s actions — without punishment. In the books, casting any one of them results in a lifetime sentence in Azkaban, which is a prison where very often your soul gets sucked out, but as lead designer Kelly Rowland told Games Radar, the decision “comes from a place of non-judgment by the game creators. If you want to be evil, be evil.”
In any other video game, this would seem like a pretty reasonable choice; many of the most popular games, after all, encourage players to murder one another. But in Harry Potter, a book series whose moral code is so central to the story, and where the “evil” people are essentially eugenicists (they believe that wizards should only be of “pure blood” and that wizardkind should be free to subjugate and enslave non-magic people), it feels not only extra icky but like a major break from the franchise’s ethos.
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31 comments:
people are SMASHING copies already!
EVERYONE should RUSH OUT and buy more copies; to smash them!
Nothing says WE HATE YOU, and WE HATE YOUR PRODUCT; like buying copies (and smashing them!)
It's flabbergasting to people like me when you realize this is over a childrens book, a Children's author, and video games serving as the iconography of a demented sexual movement to physically mutilate oneself.
How can anyone take these people seriously?
More trans bullshit? I'll never understand how a demonstrably mentally ill, microscopic segment of the population came to dominate the supposed intelligentsia.
About the alleged contradiction regarding the “Unforgivable Curses,” I don't think the linked article mentioned that Hogwarts Legacy is set in the year 1899, more than 100 years before the Harry Potter stories. So it is very plausible that the laws and punishments regarding Unforgivable Curses could have changed from one century to another.
Maybe I'm behind, but I thought Rowling was a pro-trans but a TERF. So it wouldn't defy her beliefs unless the character said, "Took them a second to realize I was actually a witch *with a life experience identical to those recognized as a witch since birth*, not a wizard."
As long as they don't kill or torture, they can say they're non-violent. They definitely want to control your words and actions.
It seems that you have to accept an entire package of beliefs to escape getting called anti-trans.
If you just want to protect women, and want to think through the issues according to feminist principles, you are denounced for even venturing into the subject.
If you want to understand the scientific basis for the various medical treatments, you are condemned at the start.
If you feel called to protect children above all, you are treated as if you were trying to murder these children.
It's so extreme and censorious, unlike anything else I can remember seeing in my lifetime.
If you really believe in your cause so strongly, why are you so afraid to expose it to debate? It's as though you don't believe at all.
When James Madison argued against compelled religion, he made many good arguments, and one of them was that it would "foster in those who still reject it, a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own merits."
I stopped using the term peak stupid for obvious reasons
jaydub said...
I'll never understand how a demonstrably mentally ill, microscopic segment of the population came to dominate the supposed intelligentsia.
Follow the Money.. In Particular, ask the Pritzkers
"It's so extreme and censorious, unlike anything else I can remember seeing in my lifetime."
The logical conclusion and result of the homosexual agenda, as begun in the 60s, and seen historically in two other time periods in Western history...and just as fast too (within the span of decades).
It happens rarely for obvious reasons and is very shocking until you realize this has happened before. It is one of the influences for the historical corpus of anti-homosexual legislation - worldwide - throughout human history.
The psychology of hyper-sexualized aberration in the context of genetic rejection and internal trauma leads to "extreme and censorious" behaviors...among many others. Who knew!
This accidentally stumbles on video game conventions and the genuine distinction between games and real life. Some of the recent transgender stuff likely follows from people who never really grasped the difference, not understood the one-way-path of real life decisions.
Video games have long allowed (mostly male) players to adopt female avatars. This dates way back to primitive arcade games such as Mortal Combat (1992), which always featured women with big busts and lots of cleavage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Kombat
The Tomb Raider (1996) series required (mostly male) players to become big-busted Laura Croft and received a lot of attention for this. "You are objectifying women."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_Raider
Other persistent online environments such as Second Life (2003) became notorious for male-to-female role playing. Real life lesbians became jaded and bitter about the many males who pretended to be females.
https://secondlife.com/community/lgbtq
https://secondlife.fandom.com/wiki/SLesbian
Following this, some children have grown up where phones, tablets, games, and social media allow and facilitate transgender identities. They've likely spend more thinking hours in role play than in real life.
So, not news but a seeming major cultural issue for sure. The science on this is weak, and the debate is often dominated by activists. Hmmm?
"If you really believe in your cause so strongly, why are you so afraid to expose it to debate? It's as though you don't believe at all."
Uh oh! You're danger close! You've got a thumb in this terf-war, you might want to check your security before you put the whole hand in.
Shhh...I think I hear Pritzker's pen-dragqueens stirring. They could be here any minute!
EFFing video games! The focus on such ridiculous, asinine gender horseschiff and hog warts and unicorn farts and…
Get Real! Deal with Real Problems in Real Life!
I bought this game. Partly because I thought the folks pushing the boycott were assholes, and partly because it looked like it might be fun to play. The scene where you meet the trans tavern-keeper does seem a little performative to me, but that may be because I've been aware of the "controversy," but also because I assumed magic would let non-muggles to be who they wanted without irreversible medical procedures.
The game is awesome, by the way; it really pulls you in and makes you want to explore the world they've created.
Oh Good Lord, I’m playing the game now and Sirona is a minor character who just advances a plot line ( runs the 3 broomsticks tavern). The only “clue” is that she has a really husky voice and drops that line about her Goblin friend outing her. There’s not a hint of anything else in the game regarding sex.
As far as the “moral choice” bit, the unforgivable curses are called just that - no one says you go to prison, it’s just “unforgivable” to use them - one character from a pureblood family is estranged because he’s got moral qualms about using it on others. And the other ones - the main character has concerns over using them - and the one that teaches him is obsessed about saving his sister from the curse spell. Bonus points too - the game FORCES you to use one curse to solve a puzzle to get out of a trap.
This is just moral preening and virtue signaling baloney. I’ve seen reviews where “concern” is expressed over Rowling and dismissed by commentators. More hilarious ( and revealing of the hypocrisy and shallowness of these reviewers) is the recent “Flash” movie trailer with Ezra Miller that says not a word about his multiple issues with theft, assault and underage dalliance. The comments section lit up with people calling out the site for their sudden silence when they plastered the other articles with scorn about Rowling. ( unjustified totally too - she merely stands up for women’s privacy and safety)
Ann Althouse said...
"If you want to understand the scientific basis for the various medical treatments, you are condemned at the start."
What scientific basis? I have yet to see a study that doesn't rely on feelings or weasel words to arrive at the conclusions required by The Narrative®.
If you know of any studies that support the surgical or medical treatments, I'll read them and see if they actually do.
Ann Althouse said...If you really believe in your cause so strongly, why are you so afraid to expose it to debate? It's as though you don't believe at all.
It's been my experience that people who have good reason for believing what they believe don't mind their beliefs being challenged--because they are comfortable defending them. Someone who gets angry when their beliefs are challenged gets angry because they can't defend them.
I think it's all tied in with that other thing society accepts but that I've always hated.
jaydub said...
More trans bullshit? I'll never understand how a demonstrably mentally ill, microscopic segment of the population came to dominate the supposed intelligentsia.
It is more stray voltage to keep society and the little people divided.
Most Trans/Gay people are not at all happy about this instigation. They want to be left alone.
Most of the people attacking Rowling are not trans or gay. They are typical red shirt maoist college age rich kids just like the maoist revolutionaries.
This is just a few very wealthy families who happen to own the media as well pulling the pendulum back. When it swings the other way they will be behind that movement too.
As long as the little people squabble about stupid shit like this we aren't talking about open borders, endless wars, or globalist free trade.
Control the coinage and the courts.
The rest is a side show.
I’m ‘too old to play video games’, but I still do. There are several games where your actions can play out as homosexual or straight. I think it’s kind of silly, but whatever. You can play female characters and male characters (or orcs, or undead, or anything…) it’s a video game.
Doesn’t this, also, fall into the Streisand effect? I never really had any interest in playing such a game, but the controversy surrounding it has probably sold a lot of copies. Maybe I should jump on that bandwagon?
I plan to buy this after it's released for Switch. It's an RPG. Of course the game gives you options to play a more evil style of character. That's the nature of the genre. The best games give you a range of role-playing choices. Actually, playing as demonic is a go-to. Playing as a believer in a God-like Maker is a rarer option.
Watching people on reddit twist themselves into knots about Rowling and the game, to justify playing the game, has been quite the source of amusement lately. Sadly, I have yet to see evidence of enlightenment among the commenters.
The arguments definitely have a certain Talmudic flavor. Or perhaps, since I'm in California, I should say they remind me of the recent "bees are fish" legal decision. (At least that one followed the statutory text.)
Why no performative the word tag?
"Why no performative the word tag?"
Thanks. I'd forgotten about it. Will add.
I'd make some Monty Python reference and say nobody expects the Woke Inquisition, but everybody expects it, every single time.
Blogger Iman said...
EFFing video games!
The video game industry is larger than Hollywood, both in revenue and in time spent engaged with those products. I also suspect the younger you get in demographics the larger this difference becomes. If you have ever worried about movies or TV delivering incorrect messages, and you believe that politics is downstream of culture, then you should be concerned about what goes on in Video Games.
So, Harry does not love Hermione does not love Harry? Queer.
Makes me wonder, how does 'ostensibly play' differ from 'play'?
It is my--perhaps misinformed--understanding that video games sometimes allow players to take the roles or avatars of Nazi soldiers.
“If you have ever worried about movies or TV delivering incorrect messages, and you believe that politics is downstream of culture, then you should be concerned about what goes on in Video Games.”
Oh, I’m concerned… about all of it. But I’m especially concerned for the people who are drawn into this shit.
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