J.K. Rowling has… certainly been an interesting source of information lately. To say the least.
The Harry Potter books ended years ago but between movies, plays, and Rowling’s extremely controversial and often bizarre Twitter account, the Potterverse has been kept very much alive. When the books ended it, fans prayed for the magic not to die, but most of them are regretting that wish. This wasn’t quite what they went.
Her spouting of odd canon facts has at least inspired memes of a hilarious nature, with many fans turning to poke fan at her retroactive adding of canon information. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism.
Voldemort vs. Darth Vader
Seems bizarre, and very hyperbolic — J.K. Rowling isn’t making any crossover claims, because she doesn’t own those franchises. But this meme is hammering home just how weird some of her claims actually are. Like, it’s not implausible that she actually said this.
And it’s made even funnier by the fact Daniel Radcliffe and Adam Driver were in a movie together. That height difference, though.
Dumbledore Was More High-Tech Than We Thought
Grindr is a social network geared towards the LGBTQ+ community, and it has a reputation for revolving around hook-up culture. One of J.K. Rowling’s biggest revelations post-series was that Dumbledore is gay, and one of her more recent ones is to explicitly tell us he had an active sex life with Grindelwald. Which is all well and good, but just seems something kind of crazy to have to specify. Good for Dumbledore…?
An Attempt Was Made… Barely
But there’s a bigger problem than just unnecessary detail.
Rowling did not mention Dumbledore was gay in the books. Okay, they were written back in the twentieth century, when mentioning a sexuality other than straight was wrongly still treated as taboo. But she’s had a chance to right this, time and time again, by writing Dumbledore’s sexuality into the Fantastic Beasts movies. And she doesn’t.
It’s not representation when you just yell about it on Twitter, Rowling.
Giant Plot Twist
Not every detail she adds is about sexuality, though. There have also been some bizarre ones surrounding the characters that just… seem weird to make up and desperately want to throw out there.
Obviously, she never actually said this about Hagrid, but this is another tweet that could actually be legit. She just loves to add random twists.
Really, Though — No One Asked
This video is hilarious, because it’s kind of how we picture her.
It IS weird too that she tends to blurt out these ideas on Twitter, confirming things all over the place, rather than in interviews. Interviews with J.K. Rowling don’t actually tend to reveal very much. She’s very vague in them, only confirming things we already know, but on her social media… oh boy, it’s a whole other story.
Well. At least we can say one thing for her. It’s incredibly obvious she runs her own social media and doesn’t hide behind a publicist.
It’s Not Just The Platform…
Another reason these memes are coming thick and fast is because a lot of the details she reveals are NSFW. There’s the story of Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s sex life. There’s the story about how wizards had no plumbing, so they would just soil themselves and magically make it vanish. As much as we want the representation for Dumbledore and Grindelwald, some of the details are just too much… Especially for something she’s not even willing to mention in the movies.
So, no doubt this tweet is a reference to the more NSFW side of her random canon add-ons.
Live Long Enough…
There’s a big debate in fandoms when it comes to the author talking about things that aren’t mentioned in the source material. Some fans think the source material should be the only gospel, and anything the author says after is no more valid than any fan theories. Some fans think the author has the right to say anything about the world they invented.
Harry Potter fans used to disagree, but after some controversial Pottermore content and now all the tweets… We’d actually be fine if J.K. Rowling would just stop talking about her characters.
Please. Stop.
She doesn’t try to stop herself, though.
One of the main problems with J.K. Rowling is that she’s so utterly unapologetic. She can claim gay relationships existed in the books all she wants, but it was never stated. She can claim certain characters were more racially diverse than she ever stated, but it’s just not true. She came under fire after a black actress was cast in The Cursed Child for claiming she never specified Hermione was white — fans went back into the books and discovered that she DID specifically say Hermione had a “white face”.
It’s nice to strive for diversity, but trying to retroactively change an already-written series just seems lazy. Write a new, diverse series. Show us what you can do.
Dumbledore Had So Many Secrets
Another funny NSFW-hinting one. At least we’re getting a laugh out of this.
For those who don’t know what a premium Snap is, it’s when someone creates a Snapchat and makes people pay to friend them. The Snapchat usually consists of content you… wouldn’t see on a normal, generally family-friendly social media.
Another horrifying detail that seems as if it could truly have come from J.K. Rowling.
Another Romance Implied In The Books — Clearly
And finally, to round it all off, another jab at the fact that J.K. Rowling makes things retroactively canon that just keep getting crazier and crazier — including relationships. This also seems likely for her because she would no doubt count this as representation while refusing to mention it in her canon material, ever.
Some fans do think this is unfair. Some truly believe it counts as representation. And for them, that’s awesome, but the problem is that the majority are deeply unsatisfied and if Rowling truly wants to help, she could write one of her post-canon diverse relationships into a movie.
Will she? Probably not. You can be guaranteed she’ll write about it on her Twitter, though!