JK Rowling talks LGBT & Religious Faiths at Hogwarts

[TheWatcher]

So I just read this at People.http://www.people.com/article/j.k.-rowling-hogwarts-lgbt-students

As she continues giving clues about Hogwarts through her 12 Days of Harry Potter Christmas bonus on Pottermore, J.K. Rowling has also been busy offering fans even more new tidbits about the school of witchcraft and wizardry.

After confirming earlier this week that yes, there were, she clarified – Rowling followed up with another response to a fan’s Tweet: Do LGBT students attend as well?

“It’s safe to assume that Hogwarts had a variety of people and I like to think it’s a safe place for LGBT students,” she Tweeted on Tuesday, along with an illustration from the Youth Project, a Canadian LGBT group.

“If Harry Potter taught us anything, it’s that no one should live in the closet,” reads the illustration.
But the Tweets also opened the floodgates to other questions about exactly which groups would be represented at Hogwarts, to which Rowling had a rather.

“To everyone asking whether their religion/belief/non-belief system is represented at Hogwarts: the only people I never imagined there are Wiccans,” she wrote. “It’s a different concept of magic to the one laid out in the books, so I don’t really see how they can co-exist.”

 

[TheWatcher]

now, I am not a wiccan or pagan, but this really urks me beyond words. Like, first I’m pretty sure the magic she portrays in her books goes against MOST religions and spiritualties in the world. Not all, but most. Even if magic works differently than in Wicca, why can’t there be students of the wiccan faith who believe what they believe but still have and use magic? I just can’t even process why this just rubs me the wrong way >> JK Rowling could have just said there are students in Hogwarts who have all kinds of faiths and religions. ALL kinds. And just left it at that.
I am not a happy sorceress.

 

"I could have the giant duck as my steed!" --Daniel Radcliffe
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[Felie]

Hmm… I don’t know much about Wiccans and their faith tbh. Perhaps she means that they would have their own school?

I always imagined that there was more than just Hogwarts in the UK for magical children to go to. Perhaps a disagreement based on religion would be one reason to have a magic school separate from Hogwarts in the UK?

But is is kind of weird that she would single them out like this without delving further into any legit reasons for doing so (if there are any, which I kind of doubt).

"so there’s this new show….."
"there’s lesbians in it"

[RumplesGirl]

Odd statement given her past sayings that her own Christian faith informed much of her writing like Harry’s journey.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[Sci-Fi Girl]

It seems very random and arbitrary, like it’s the one religion that JK doesn’t “get”, or maybe doesn’t like. Either way, totally inappropriate to say.

Either that, or she’s trying (very late) to appease some of the Christian critics, who complained that her books would “lure children to paganism” or some such nonsense. Which is usually a dig at wiccans and the like.

And it’s absurd, there is no reason to try to appease those people, they will never be happy. The Harry Potter universe stands on its own, and is not “recruiting” for any religion, Christian or otherwise. *shakes head*

SFG

Keeper of Anna’s Awkward Babbling and Kristoff’s Fur-trimmed Tunic!

[Josephine]

I kind of get where she’s coming from actually. When you think of “witches” in our real world you think of Wiccans. However, she’s laid out a world of witches and wizards that is not similar to that religion. So because Wiccans are the most closely associated with real-world witchcraft, that’s why she singled it out.

Keeper of Rumplestiltskin's and Neal's spears and war paint and crystal ball.

[Author]

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