this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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Enders Game (and the whole series) is a bit different, as unlike Harry Potter they are actually trying to teach a lesson in empathy and understanding instead of just being a fun magical romp.
To this day I have literally no idea how the Orson who wrote those books became the man he did. He lives his life by the antithesis of the ideals he preached.
He had a stroke in 2011, and I think having two kids die fucked him up. (Some of his early works had sympathetic portrayals of gay men.)
I’ve always found it amusing that the guy who wrote Wyrms (fourteen year old girl is destined to be impregnated by a monster, and the book is her weird horny journey to it) and Hart’s Hope (where our hero has to rape a teenage girl in front of an audience in order to claim sovereignty over the kingdom, and she turns into the story’s main villain) got so hung up about sexual purity.
S.P.E.W. and mugblood rhetoric seem like progressive topics with real world analogues.
Her transphobic politics seem to be separate from the HP universe.
The point of S.P.E.W. is that Hermoine is an obnoxious activist for caring about slavery so much. Winky gets freed and becomes a depressed alcoholic, the other house elves get pissed that Hermoine tries to give them homemade socks. Hagrid calls Dobby weird for not wanting to be a slave.
Pottermore used to have an article “To SPEW or not to SPEW” which was critical of Hermoine. The text clearly condones the race based slavery. Heck - even the name “SPEW” is a joke.
I never considered that Rowling was making fun of Hermoine's Elf position.
But I did think it strange that a nicely set-up elf rebellion never arrived.
They’ve tried their best to wipe this article off the internet:
If you look at other translations, “SPEW” is often changed to that language’s word for “vomit,” “fart,” or “snot.”
The idea that Dobby is mentally unwell for wanting to be free has some upsetting historical precedent.
The only person responsible for the written content seems to be Rowling. And her key witness is Hagrid who is not portrayed for his intelligence in the books.
This is not good for Rowling, but I think kids would still read the HP series and take Hermoine's point of view.