Im just going to be honest here, Im not writing this to virtue signal or to try and catch clicks or views. I’m writing this primarily as an explanation. Because I consider myself an ally to the LGBTQIA+ community, and I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea or impression of my beliefs. Because Its all but inevitable that I will eventually have to talk about this author’s work. So rather than be on the backfoot, or be in a situation where I’m having to defend my position on the spot. I figured it would probably be easier to pre-write and publish this article ahead of time, so when that inevitably happens, I can at least directly link people querying me to this article. Rather than trying to badly phrase or half explain myself when asked.

I don’t like JK Rowling. Prior to the mid 2010’s I was among the many people who considered her a progressive person who was helping destroy hate in all its forms and reconnect children with reading in an age where the television and computer had all but obliterated most attention spans.

Obviously, her biggest and best known works are the ‘Harry Potter’ books, and despite their huge success at the time they were published, I was never really a die hard fan. I read the first 3 books as they came out and thought they were fine enough…a bit of a time killer, but not something I was entirely invested in. Aaaand then the 4th book came out and had the same thickness as a shoebox, which I baulked at as someone who struggles with even the lightest of paperbacks…and then they only got thicker from there. So…I just decided the series wasnt really for me. And to this day I haven’t read a single one of those books since the first time I read the first three. 

Jump forward a few years and they start making Harry Potter FILMS. Now!, this is something a little bit easier to digest. I again watched the first 2 as they came out in cinemas. I enjoyed the first film, thought the 2nd film wasn’t quite as good as the first, but was still alright. And then life had a way of lifing, and I didn’t get around to watching the 3rd film until around 2010. And when I did, I didn’t really like it. You’d think being a sucker for sci-fi elements, the book that involves time travel as a key function would have captivated me. But the problem with introducing Time travel into a series that isnt inherently known for it (such as Doctor who or Back to the future) is as SOON as the time travel element is introduced, the entire series gets undercut with ‘well…they could just go back in time and do this differently.’ The 3rd film also goes a bit darker and moodier and teen angstier than the first two films, which wasnt my thing either…I just came away from it feeling like it wasnt the best adaptation of the book it could have been. And kind of feeling like i’d seen all I needed to see from this film series.

Then in the early 2010s, I met my partner. And for her sins, she (was) a Harry Potter fan. Loved the books, had seen all the films in the cinema as they went out, and had plenty of merch (mercifully she NARROWLY avoided a Harry Potter Tattoo). She’s also Autistic, and as became apparent quite quickly, Harry Potter is a comfort series for her. She has all the books as audio books which she listens to before bed, and she enjoyed rewatching the movies regularly.

Now, since the revelations about JK Rowling’s horrendous views on trans people and supporters of trans rights have come out, my partner has essentially ‘shunned’ the franchise. What does that mean in real terms? It means that since around 2015/2016 she hasn’t bought any new Harry Potter merchandise, she hasnt seen any of the newer films or had any business with ‘The Cursed Child’. She has no interest in going to the Warner Bros. set tour, she doesn’t accept gifts of Harry Potter merch. Her original Harry potter books are stored away, and the only things she has left, are digital copies of the Harry Potter Audio books which were fully paid up versions from 2012 that she has tried to move on from, but her particular brand of autism wont let her quite yet. And the films. 

Which leads me to myself. I obviously wanted to appreciate my partners interests, and despite not exactly being the biggest Harry Potter fan in the world, I at least wanted to try to make the effort to actually understand the franchise a bit better, and maybe try to see what she saw in it. So, around 2015, I grabbed a bluray boxset of all of the Harry potter films and decided to sit down and finally go through all of them with her over a christmas vacation, to see if she could open it up a bit better for me. 

And, I will say that after catching them all and having my partner fill in gaps from the books where applicable, I did get a bit of a better understanding as to why the series was as popular as it was. I still wouldn’t say I was a fan really…But I could appreciate the craft that went into making the films, I enjoyed a lot of the performances and came away from that marathon happier about my life choices than when I went in. I even ended up grabbing a couple of the audio books myself when they were on sale around this time, in part to FINALLY try and get through the 4th novel in a way that didn’t seem like active waterboarding, and in part as an insurance piece on the off chance my partner didn’t have her phone with her when she came to stay with me and needed her ‘white noise’. 

Then, around 2016, after a couple of years of questionable comments, J.K Rowling basically went full on, mask off anti-trans and anti womens rights…a slippery slide she has only continued to fall down since then in increasingly toxic and unpleasant ways. And, a bit like a fart during a tender moment, my enthusiasm for anything she’d ever done was sucked clean out of the room and a sense of shame was the only thing left behind. Around this time both me and my partner realised we couldnt in good faith continue to support someone with such vile ideological views. And that pretty much takes us to the present day, and the main reason im writing this blog. 

As mentioned, one of my partners coping techniques is to watch the Harry Potter movies, things have to be particularly bad for that to happen these days. J.K Rowlings awful opinions actually forced my partner into developing other coping techniques that made her feel better.  But roughly once or twice a year, the black dog comes barking and she needs to shut the world off for a couple of days to try and self right. She does this via my boxset of the movies to ensure that Rowling gets no money from her suffering. But its the only thing that breaks her out of a bad funk. In the last 5-6 years, i’ve not generally been around when those moments have happened. Or if I have, i’ve been too busy with other things to join her. But now that we live together, the odds of me rewatching the Harry Potter films have risen significantly, purely for the fact we now are both under the same roof. 

In particular, it seems to be an autumn/winter thing for my partner to crack the boxset open, and as I log everything I watch on Letterboxd…no matter HOW depraved or deranged. Its looking increasingly likely that i’ll probably end up watching these films over the new year at some point. Hence, this blog. As I wanted to make it as clear as possible that, should I log the Harry Potter films in my Letterboxd at any time, Its because theres a very depressed lady who just wants to spend a couple of hours detached from reality with someone who cares about her. And thats something I am more than happy to do for her. 

To reiterate, I have no strong love or admiration for the series, J.K Rowling and her estate haven’t seen a penny from either myself or my partner since 2015/16. And we dont accept any Harry Potter branded merch, nor do we support any of the ongoing franchise works or live events, including the upcoming TV series and audio re-adaptations, and nor shall we. 

My reviews of these films, when they happen. Will be purely grounded in how well I feel the director captured the spirit of the series, and how well the cast brought to life these characters. The more questionable aspects of the Harry Potter franchise (such as overtly racist names and stereotyping) have been covered to death by better pen owners than me, but I both understand and fully agree with the observations these people have raised that the series is deeply flawed and frankly problematic in that regard. I probably wont go into detail too heavily on that front in my reviews, purely because I feel it should be taken as a given that it would be something i’d detest (especially given this blog post), and that its insane to me that even in the late 90s, that kind of offensive bluntness was prominent in something so massive. 

My honest hope is that I’ll write about these films once, and then never have to speak about them again honestly. That would be a small mercy to me. The ability to watch the movies WITHOUT then having to spend 50 minutes dissecting them would be a tremendous weight off my mind. I appreciate that what I’ve said above won’t resonate with some people. And that, just by the mere act of viewing or listening to anything in this series, I’m committing an affront. And I do welcome discussion on that front, I can’t say it’ll be particularly productive because i’ve basically said everything I can and want to say about my feelings towards this here. But hey, I’m open minded.

All I do ask is for the understanding of why im doing what im doing, and that, should you see my letterboxed profile slowly fill with 2-3 Harry Potter ‘rewatches’, that you know that im out there, trying to help a very depressed woman through the worst of it.