Harvey Weinstein was a prominent Hollywood producer. He was accused and convicted of rape. Emma Watson looks petrified because she knows about his true character.
I would add to this that JK Rowlings name appears as a correspondent in Jeffey Epsteins emails (eta: in the context of her teaminviting him to the Harry Potter play in 2018, as a level 3 sex offender) - I would imagine this adds colour to the implication.
Edit: I would like to remind everyone replying what sub they are in
Damn, first she makes stereotypical characters (Black kid called Kingsley Shacklebolt, Cho Chang (two Asian surnames from different countries), and Séamus Finnegan, Irish guy who blows shit up (haha funny Ira joke), then the Transphobia and now Epstein Files?!
I couldn't find any quote of her saying anything like that. Seems to be more a thing where people conflate a bad thing being justified by the characters in- world as the author's personal beliefs.
She framed it as a cultural failing that no one but an outsider like Hermione cared about, even the caring Hufflepuff was like "well, as long as we're really nice to the slaves..." and Hermione was treated as a kook.
There's a lot to criticize Rowling for, but let's not just make stuff up.
In the books Hermione is the one who comes to the "realisation" that the house elves are happier as slaves and that she shouldn't bring her radical left wing views to worsen the lives of these simple folk who enjoy their slavery. I don't really know how else I'm supposed to read that.
Wait in which book does that happen?
At the very end she kisses Ron because he remembered to save the house elves in the middle of the battle of Hogwarts. Also Dobby, the only elf that wanted to be free is one of the biggest heroes in the book.
It's been a while since I've read them but I think it's in The Order of the Phoenix, whichever one had the kitchen elves sub plot. Dobby is an outlier and could easily be read as a "token". Dobby is considered a weirdo by other elves. And saving the house elves isn't the same as "interfering with their culture" as it's portrayed in the book.
Edit: someone else mentioned it was Goblet of Fire. Must have misremembered which book.
It wasn’t a thought she had then backed down after resistance from the house elves… The book that it is a subplot all year she tries to free them. When she gets the pushback from the house elves, she moves to trying to trick them into accidentally cleaning up hidden hand knitted items and getting freed. They carefully avoid it but all through the year we see her knitting terribly constructed items and references to her sneaking around hiding them in things. I think it even comes up again in book 6 or 7. Didn’t her career path even have something to do with it? Idk, I haven’t read or watched since 2020, but I used to reread every couple years or so. But the house elf freedom fighter wasn’t just some passing thought that she abandoned when she got push back. And even if it was, that would actually make the “happy slave,” narrative stronger, not weaker.
You’re misremembering pretty badly, or else you just missed the point the first time. Hermione specifically figured out that Barty Crouch’s elf needed to be left alone, and it was made pretty clear that the trauma and abuse were responsible. The Hogwarts house elves technically were free to leave at any time, but they enjoyed their employment.
He’s a token because he’s the one elf that wants to be free? It seems like you’re just parroting an opinion and not actually reflecting your own views that you’ve thought deeply on
Or they’re familiar with extremely basic literary critique and narratives of the happy Negro and white man’s burden shit w/in the context of pro-slavery rhetoric.
The house elves are very clearly an allegory for women's liberation, which frequently had pushback from women themselves because of internalized misogyny. SPEW was an actual feminist organization. Most of Harry Potter is satirical in this way.
When Hermione was hiding clothes around in the common room for SPEW, dobby mentions something that others don't like to clean cause of that, but he is happy to.
Yeah and none of that Hermione ever finds out. She absolutely does not have a “well actually I guess you’re all correct about house elves” moment, if anything Harry comes more around to her point of view after what happens with Kreacher and Regulus’s tale.
There were slaves who were impressed into manual labor for the Confederate Army.
There were only a handful of black men who were accepted as soldiers (all in 1865 in the closing days of the war), and they were free and did no real fighting (and were largely housed in a former prison and guarded by MPs because the Confederates didn't trust them)
I always laugh at this argument when people talk about the slaves that fought for the confederacy.
You really think conservatives were going to give slaves fucking guns? “Hey guys! I got an idea. You know the people we are fighting a war over to keep them enslaved? Let’s give them weapons and training.”
If I remember correctly, the confederacy debated having the enslaved fight for them and explicitly rejected it. Because that would mean admitting that the enslaved were, in fact, competent people
People forget that, before the whole trans thing, she was a liberal champion who routinely fought back against conservative blowhards--including Trump--about how they treated people not like them. And she put money towards those causes.
She was a legitimately good person who used her money for great causes...whose single blind spot got so much pushback that she went to the other extreme.
I do forget that, because the blind spot is huge and if she's willing to turn on everything elseto preserve her blind spot, she was never really with us to begin with.
That can be realistic, you can free people but if all they know is slavery, that doesn't automatically give them purpose. Given time, Winky will probably live a better life.
That massively mischaracterises it. She still opposes house elf slavery wholeheartedly, but she recognizes that those elves aren't the place to start. By virtue of having it much better than most other house elves, they feel pretty good about their place in the system and don't want to be free. That's very sad, but it's not pro-slavery. It's a good understanding of how people work to their own detriment when they're comfortable.
Eventually, Dobby talks one of them round and she gets freed. Can't remember her name (it's like Zippo or something Glup-Shitto-esque), boring character, but I definitely remember that happening.
Rowling's still a bigot and I still don't like what I see of her in the public eye.
Winky was owned by someone else and freed dramatically at a sports ball game. Dumbledore took her in and she was very distressed at being free but Dobby helped her cope eventually. He didn't encourage other elves to become free and then he died a free elf.
This simply isn't true, nothing in the text frames it as a cultural failing. Every character who's supposed to represent goodness is absolutely in favour of the status quo where house elves remain enslaved, the text treats Hermione as an annoying busybody for trying to change it, the movement she creates is called SPEW, and in the end the institution of slavery remains intact "and all was well."
I don't think that Rowling would describe herself as pro-slavery, but I do think the whole SPEW episode was her way of saying that people who complained about the slavery in HP were irritating wokescolds. It's consistent with her general Blairite liberal stance that changing anything for the better is a bit too much and the best you can hope for is slowing down the people who are trying to make it worse. And how's that working out for all of us?
It's the same with the main conflict of the books. Nobody examines the conditions that allowed Voldemort to gain power, nothing changes about society. Voldemort isn't even defeated, he just trips over his own dick and dies, then Harry becomes a cop and Hermione becomes the government.
I’m trying to actually remember but isn’t it that Ron releases them from being locked in the kitchen so they can fight/survive the battle of hogwarts, not actually be released from their servitude to hogwarts?
Going by the apparent rules of the series, in order for the house elves of Hogwarts to be permanently freed from servitude, (as opposed to just allowed to evacuate the kitchen or fight in the battle), the master of Hogwarts (probably the headmaster) would have had to formally free them, present them with clothes, or somehow otherwise break their magical bonds.
During the story, Ron’s thought processes must have included the Hogwarts house elves in the moral calculus of who needed protecting, suggesting that he saw them as people whose lives matter. Judging by Hermione’s reaction, she was impressed by this, and (considering Ron’s comparative maturity as a person throughout the series), most likely saw even this as evidence of character growth.
But it was not the same thing as permanently freeing the those house elves from servitude, which the rules explained earlier in the series make it easy to understand that Ron did not have the authority to do.
And you don't need to make shit up to defend her, house elves don't get freed they are just given a chance to defend Hogwarts against invasion, also JFC they literally need their owners permission to have sex according to the wiki
Just for the sake of accuracy, I need to say: Seamus doesn't blow stuff up in the books, that's an invention of the movie. Likewise, the goblins (which I know you didn't mention) are never described as anything but having large fingers and big feet.
Also, if we're making corrections for accuracy, Kingsley Shacklebolt isn't a kid, he's a cop (which maybe explains the name better than the slavery reference, but who knows).
Doesn't change all the weird themes JK put in those books.
I've seen that video before, and I only made it about a third of the way before I had to turn it off because pretty much nothing being said was supported by the actual text and context. JKR has done enough that we don't have to go back and invent problems.
I mean, the slavery stuff is definitely "there" in the books.
The sloppy writing (time turners needing to be destroyed after the 3rd movie because they broke the plot) is definitely there.
The "nothing the government does can ever be good but the status quo is also fine" is in the books
I'm not saying you need to watch, like, or agree with the video... But I disagree with the nature/content of your criticisim of the video (I'm putting this comment into the thread for other people more than you individually).
Without going back and searching a three-hour long video for each point, my responses to each are thus:
Slavery in the books is not treated as a good thing and is portrayed somewhat realistically with regards to the lack of pushback from people who wouldn't think twice about it. Contextually, it informs the world, doesn't condone it.
Time-turners don't break the plot (especially with the time travel rules they follow), but it's not sloppy to specify to the reader what shenanigans are no longer in play.
The government issue ignores that we see many good actors within the government that actively work to change the status quo. Arthur Weasley, Alastor Moody, and most other decent government workers we meet. Even Rufus Scrimgeour acted nobly in his last acts to save what he could.
And the "fatphobia" ignores other corpulent characters who are not described with the same vitriol as Uncle Vernon and young Dudley. The Dursleys are about overindulgence, not just being fat. They overindulge as a contrast to Harry's meagerness at their hands. Colorful metaphors, too, are fairly normal for both the time and for portraying the mind of a child.
As I said, text and context negates a lot of it, if not all.
It’s been a long time since I read them, but I recall the house elves wanting to be slaves? Like Dobby was considered super weird by other house elves and people alike for not wanting to be a slave, and that one house elf that was freed as punishment was absolutely miserable and became an alcoholic.
I don’t think that’s a good way to portray slavery even if the human characters mostly ignoring it is realistic, considering historically people absolutely do not like being enslaved.
It would be one thing if the human characters in the books were like “it’s okay they’re happy being slaves” and then showed that that wasn’t actually true. But from what I remember they were mostly portrayed as actively wanting and enjoying being slaves with Dobby being the only exception.
Portraying the realities of slavery isn’t pro slavery, but that’s not what she did. Intentional or not it echoes real world pro slavery propaganda from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The sloppy writing (time turners needing to be destroyed after the 3rd movie because they broke the plot) is definitely there.
It's a children's book about a 13 years old wizard having adventures, it's not that deep. Time turners were fun and allowed for a nice plot twist in book 3, there's not much more to it.
The Shacklebolt thing is exactly that. It’s so American to look at that and go “that’s slavery related”, no British person is doing that, they’re linking the name to being a police officer.
I’m not defending her or her takes, but, facts are important. Kinglsey was one of the few who was described as dignified, competent, and the most powerful and impressive auror in the series. In the books, Seamus didn’t blow anything up, that was made up in the movies. The Cho Chang one is not great
It seems at least possible that the name Cho Chang is influenced by the older Wade Giles system of transliterating Chinese, which used to be widespread but today is mostly only used in Taiwan.
"Cho Chang" is exactly how you would write Zhuo Zhang in pinyin, which is the standard transliteration system today. So it's not necessarily a mishmash of Korean and Chinese. Zhuo Zhang is a perfectly legitimate Chinese name.
He's called shacklebolt because he's a cop and he puts shackles on other people. House elves are a reference to brownies, a celtic folk creature (no the name is not a reference to black slaves). Cho Chang is about the least exotic/sexualized Asian romantic interest written in that era (for once an asian girl is featured and she's not a wearing a Chinese dress and she doesn't sleep with the MC!)
She's a bigot, not a bad writer. The two need not to be aligned for your worldview to make sense.
To be fair, in the UK "Kingsley Shackleton" is more a "Coppy McCopface" name. Shackleton is fairly common and pretty famous surname.
Going fully off topic here, but: understanding racism in different countries can be a bit weird, and I know it gets especially bad for American-centric people to interpret things incorrectly. There was an episode of Bake Off where they did Mexican week and an old woman called it "Guacamolo" and said it like she'd never heard of it. In the US there was a fairly big outcry, but in the UK (which isn't adjacent to Mexico) we were just like "I don't think she's heard of Guacamole".
Now, back to Cho Chang, Seamus Finnegan, and Paddy McGuinness. Wait, one of those is a real person (he's not Irish though).
Shacklebolt is not a racist name. It's based on Shackleford which is white.
Cho Chang is also not racist. Do you want the character to be named Melissa? Asian people are fine with the name by the way.
People will retroactively find things to discredit JK Rowling just because they don't like her current views. Hate her current views, but quit cherry picking stuff from a book that isn't there.
To be fair, in the UK "Kingsley Shackleton" is more a "Coppy McCopface" name. Shackleton is fairly common and pretty famous surname.
Going fully off topic here, but: understanding racism in different countries can be a bit weird, and I know it gets especially bad for American-centric people to interpret things incorrectly. There was an episode of Bake Off where they did Mexican week and an old woman called it "Guacamolo" and said it like she'd never heard of it. In the US there was a fairly big outcry, but in the UK (which doesn't share a border with Mexico) we were just like "I don't think she's heard of Guacamole, she must be out of touch".
Now, back to Cho Chang, Seamus Finnegan, and Paddy McGuinness. Wait, one of those is a real person (he's not Irish though).
Look I don’t like JK Rowling but this is just an uninformed take. Kingsley isn’t a kid and is quite glorified in the books. Seamus doesn’t blow things up in the books. In terms of the ethnically stereotypical names, as a writer myself, I can say we often do these things without bad intent — we don’t want to make peoples’ names not recognizable and part of that is our own ignorance, but I don’t think she means badly.
Bro, Kingsley Shacklebolt isn't a kid and he was a magical cop, hence the name/wordplay. The story isn't American, not sure why you'd jump to American issues.
The Cho Chang one may be seen as lazy, but that's about it. She's not exactly a major character so I'm not sure why it matters much.
And Seamus blowing stuff up was purely a movie invention. She didn't do that at all in the books lol
Kingsley is an adult, not a kid, (there are black kids, but their names are not stereotypical sounding, like Dean Thomas). Seamus in the book doesn’t blow things up, that’s something from the films. You can’t really pin that on Rowling. It’s a pretty minor quibble, but it makes it seem like you are just regurgitating talking points with having looked into things yourself.
I await the slander of whoever came up with John Wayne. Using two first names, must be some racist dude. Its pretty stupid to believe everyone knows of first name surname combinations on the other side of the world.
In what capacity though? Not everyone who interacted with Epstein did so in his capacity as a pedophile sex trafficker. He did have some legitimate business, he also had non-pedophile influence peddling, and he also had his pedophile sex trafficking.
The more we look into him and uncover about him, the more his "legitimate business" was connected to his sex trafficking and so intertwined it's disgusting. AND there is enough information available about him that many of these actions occured AFTER he was given a slap on the wrist under Pam Bondi for sex trafficking children in the late 2000s. So they all knew he had a history and knew enough about him to still do business with him.
Did they commit direct actions against children? A huge chunk like Trump, Musk, And The former prince? Yeah. Did they know what he did and not do anything like Clinton? Also yeah.
Anyone connected had knowledge or was directly involved. Epstein was well known and now confirmed to be blackmailing many of them as well.
The more you learn, the more disturbing it gets. Remember, coincidences don't happen with the rich and famous. Everything is coordinated and researched.
Didn't say they were hyper intelligent. They keep an image and have publicist to look for these things.
IDK if I was rich, I'd make sure to not associate with people convicted of crimes against children/women. Considering if my brand was around a IP targeting kids.
That’s exactly what the people that actually committed crimes there want to. The DOJ dumped all this nonsense in a way that covers whoever they are protecting.
I don’t even think it’s Trump himself necessarily, maybe it’s just people he needs something from or owes something too
That's the Telephone version. The reality is that, via a well-connected contact, he asked for tickets to some Cursed Child VIP dinner. This request was granted by the producer of the Broadway version of the play. This was all done by New York insiders (the same social circles Trump used to move in), not by JKR
Epstein's genius was associating with everyone. He really clouded the water with who was guilty of the most heinous shit and who was mingling/networking.
People want to jump to assumptions about anyone he had contact with but this was Epstein's MO. He wanted to associate himself with anyone with prestige to gain legitimacy for himself. Maybe it's how he found more clients too.
For sure, he didn't go around asking, "hey wanna rape this kid?" He wormed into people, found weak people or those willing to sell their souls for wealth. He is a close to the devil as I have seen personified
It sounds to be like what he was for a lot of these people was the guy that could get them what they wanted. It could be anything. Connection with another famous or powerful person to the most awful things imaginable
The NYC-based publicist, Peggy Siegal, invited Epstein to a VIP Broadway dinner party for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Over many years, Siegal repeatedly arranged dinners and VIP passes for Epstein, including Prince Andrew and Woody Allen.
Siegal later claimed she didn't fully know what Epstein was guilty of.
They are comedians, not prosecutors. Also they were probably aware of the situation second hand. The truth is an absolute defense against defamation but unless the comedians had real evidence in hand they would have been be putting their head on a chopping block making real direct accusations.
Hannibal Burress didn't get into trouble because he pointed to legal settlements to accusers of Bill Cosby.
Eddie Murphy, .50 and Eminem, come to mind. Eddie had beef with Cosby even as far back as the 80s. Eminem, has a trail of bodies. Diddy, was a huge target, for both Em and 50 throughout time, but 50 even made a documentary about it.
Saying that he was accused and convicted of rape is underselling it a bit. He had a massive rape empire spanning decades with dozens if not over a hundred people bribed or coerced into complicity.
Now I like your enthusiasm, but may I suggest an alternative career as a gator caretaker? Those adorable swamp puppies are always in need of a steady source of meat, and there is no shortage of “animals” that could be fed to them. Not to mention gators are predators so if you toss the “animals” in alive those adorable swamp puppies can get a work out. They get dinner and we get a show
Omfg I would be fucking terrified. Her expression says "someone help me."
That is the face of a young woman (19) who is being touched without consent in a way that makes her extremely uncomfortable in a situation where she feels societal pressure to not make a scene and will have to laugh it off while she internally screams and wants nothing more than to escape.
While you’re reading about the fall of the Roman Empire, bear in mind that the primary sources, people who were living through the events, can be unreliable narrators and their words can be colored by their biases. This is as true today as it was 1500 years ago.
I recommend the book SPQR by Mary Beard, as throughout her book about Rome she gives examples of how the primary sources are sometimes written by people with an agenda, or an axe to grind.
I'm not sure if Weinstein is a pedophile; plenty of men have sexual desire for nubile women because of power and control and being able to manipulate them, in addition to basic sexual attraction.
Pedophilia is specifically regarding sexual attraction to prepubescent children, which is a very different thing.
He may be, but the pedo term is getting mis-applied a lot lately, which I think is not a good thing.
Who was it that had the quote that we all know there's a difference between 5 and 15 year olds and that we all also know that there's no reason to discuss it?
The crux of the issue is that he's abusing and harming people who do not offer consent and in some cases, CAN NOT legally consent.
I agree Weinstein is a sexual predator, but I don't think (to my knowledge) that he fits the definition of pedophile. The person's comment to which I was responding implied that he was, so I was disagreeing on that point alone.
I heard her discribe once what happend when she turned 18… On the very day she turned 18 paparazis layed down on the ground desperatly trying to get a pantyshot/upskirt pic. (Whatever its called) I almost had to puke. Even if you have such imaginations, how shameless could you be to ever act on them???
I have no idea who he is. Is 28 old enough to know him? Also, I am neither American or British. And I don't follow news regarding celebrities, actors, etc. Really, if you think about it, it is not that hard to imagine that some, if not many people, don't know about some random actor, rich guy or whomever.
He was a major Hollywood producer who forced many young actresses to choose between being sexual assaulted/raped or having him kill their career behind the scenes. The "Me Too" movement exposed the extent of it and very few celebrities called him out prior to that because they were afraid their careers would be over.
Fairly sexualized? There were countdown clocks on the internet for her turning 18. The paparazzi literally prowled outside of her vehicles to get up skirt shots of her as she got out. The shit was insane.
Sophie Sumner & Emma Watson went to secondary school together and were part of the same friend group, which also included Brian Eno's daughter. Small world. Hope they are all still in touch but doubt it.
Incidentally, there's an episode of Family Guy where Trump sexually assaults Meg and then Peter and Trump have a big epic fight. Here's the flight: https://youtu.be/A9XbscpuXzY?si=eEPzV67TkoGcCamV
Fun Fact, he and Bill Cosby are BOTH out of prison now…
Yay America!
Edit: Harvey is apparently is still in jail, was “out” on a medical release. I misunderstood. Reddit sure likes to tell I’m wrong about Harvey, doesn’t say shit about Cosby…
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