Hogwarts Hogwash

I didn’t used to like J. K. Rowling. Actually, that’s not fair. What I mean is, I didn’t and still don’t like her writing, but I was ambivalent? apathetic? indifferent? about her as a person because I wasn’t bothered to find out anything about her.

The Harry Potter storylines are fine enough but her style is, well, not for me. Dad couldn’t get on with her either. He tried a couple of her novels and never finished them. Given that he studied English Lit at Oxford (under JRR Tolkien and C S Lewis) and was an ace speed-reader, his track record with JK reflects more on her writing than on him as a reader. (Nothing reflected badly on Dad.)

Some years ago, I managed to read The Casual Vacancy, one of her non-HarryP novels, but only because a friend of mine bought me a copy for my birthday as a bit of a joke. He used to be the Parish Council Chair and I was his Vice Chair. He was old-school Labour and I was / am / will always be a Thatcherite. But when it came to local politics and issues, we were two peas in a pod and got on really really well. Therefore, when he was ousted as Chair, brutally, by someone not worthy of polishing his boots, I resigned as VC pretty darn quickly afterwards. The ex-Chair and I spent many a therapeutic hour in the pub licking our wounds. The idea of a parish council vacancy after the sudden death of the chairman, the basic plot of The Casual Vacancy, appealed to our mutually warped sense of humour. I managed to finish the book despite it being a struggle. A couple of sub-plots weren’t believable, and too many characters were stereotypical – heartless, middle-class Nimbys. Yawn.

Having said that, JK has done one thing absolutely brilliantly that, to be honest, outweighs any shortcomings as a writer. She got kids to read books. What a superstar. And, while Dad didn’t like her writing, he enjoyed the films and film scores and even played them as organ voluntaries at Church services. Way to go, JK!

In recent years, I’ve come to admire her for speaking out against the silly arm of the trans lobby. She has been bullied, cancelled and threatened with goodness knows what, because she believes in something for the best of reasons. Her views are fact-based, commonsensical, non-violent and supported by the vast majority of the population. Her aim is to protect vulnerable women and girls. How does that make her a bad person? It doesn’t. According to Wiki, JK says that transgender people should live their lives as they please in "peace and security".

Even if you disagree with her on the trans issue, it’s wrong to judge her overall on that one thing without bearing in mind that she’s given millions to good causes. She genuinely cares for the less well-off for their own sakes, not as political pawns in some menacing repressive ideology.

JK’s most vociferous critics on the other hand, you know, those who owe her their fame and fortune, those she nurtured and cared for, like Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, demonise her, setting themselves up as paragons of virtue because they show some sort of sinister solidarity with the extreme trans lobby. Virtuous? Hardly. One example, Watson is an activist for environmental justice. Really? Those owls and bats and ravens and rats, amongst others, that starred alongside her in the Potter movies weren’t digital illusions, they were real creatures, captured and bred and caged and trained to perform. I thought we Brits frowned on dancing bears and circus animals. What is the moral difference with animals performing for the film and tv industry? Surely an environmental justice warrior should feel guilty about the lack of justice for these poor creatures and hand back her ill-gotten gains.

But no. Watson is rich and famous on the back of the toil of subjugated creatures she claims to defend as well as because of the hard work and good heart of a woman from whom she holds a different opinion. Someone ought to explain to the little moo that having a social conscience means sensitivity and friendship on a personal as well as an abstract level.

Watson, Radcliffe et al have a right to disagree with JK, but not to brutally supress her.

Another woman I used to criticise was Fiona Bruce. Again, no dislike of her as a person, I just think her delivery is awful, despite her other talents. Her demeanour is falsely intense and, as for her diction, she garbles and swallows her vowels. I’d rather scrape my fingernails down a blackboard (oh, get over it) than listen to her say ‘tharsands’.

However. The other day she got it in the neck for simply doing her job during Question Time. She followed the instructions of her BBC bosses, upholding their sacred principle of impartiality, and contextualised a claim about Boris Johnson’s father being a wife-beater. For that, she was hauled over the coals and has had to step back from her role as an ambassador for the domestic violence charity Refuge, a cause that is very dear to her heart and for whom she has done so much.

What she said was, “… Friends of [Stanley Johnson’s] have said it did happen, it was a one-off." 

Oh, the Titterati went into overdrive, and Refuge commented cowardly, "These words minimised the seriousness of domestic abuse and this has been retraumatising for survivors”; they accepted her resignation with unseemly haste.

Um, excuse me, but Fi didn’t say it was a one-off; she reported that Johnson’s friends said it was a one-off because she was told to. Fi didn’t minimise the seriousness of domestic abuse; Johnson’s friends did. The fact that Fi has been a good friend to Refuge should have at least earned her the benefit of the doubt, some breathing space, a second chance, a smidgeon of forgiveness perhaps. 

But no. Refuge has turned its back on a good friend and, in effect, endorsed the abuse she has unjustly received on social media. Someone ought to explain to this uncharitable charity that you don’t help abused women by compounding the abuse of a woman. I can understand that Refuge didn’t like what Fi said and that they have a right to voice their disquiet, but they have a duty of care towards all women, otherwise they’re singing from the misogynists’ hymn sheet.

We live in a world dominated by bullies espousing narrow, unforgiving principles, where the rudest rule the roost (unlike those poor Harry Potter birds and bats), refusing to countenance that there’s more than one way to skin a cat (unfortunate cliché under the circumstances). 

I hope JK and Fi take some solace from the fact that while they speak reasonably and rationally, their detractors speak a load of hogwash. Hogwarts Hogwash.