Because I'm petty, I'm going to gather you all around and tell you about that time JK Rowling was extremely wrong about something and, by being wrong about it, poisoned Google search results for it for years afterwards and generally made the world ignorant about it
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That's... ridiculously embarrassing Like it's such a dumb dilettante mistake to make And she's immortalized it as part of her extremely popular children's books and now kids all over the world are repeating her stupid misconception
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Like imagine if I looked over a chart of the Western Zodiac and fixated on one bizarre random thing -- "Pisces are especially known for their love of music" And then I went and made my wizard book where the Pisces Potion specifically gave you the ability to play the guitar
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And when I was asked what the origin of the Pisces Potion was I totally misremembered the details and just said "Well, in the Northern European dialect of Zociad, the word Pisces means 'good at music'" And then all the Asian people in the world thought that's what it meant
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It's just a huge pile of Wrong in one single Fun Fact from the Harry Potter-verse
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Misremembering Madagascar as being in "West Africa" Confusing the Malagasy language with the divination practice of Sikidy Misspelling Sikidy "Sidiki" And then thinking one aspect of the sign was the sign's whole meaning
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It's just... really fucking lazy and disrespectful It would not be a big deal -- it would be depressingly par for the course -- if it were just some random fantasy book But of course it's a big deal now because the books became a big deal And she never raised her standards
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This is the same shitty level of research she put into bloviating about skinwalkers in Navajo culture or naga in Hindu culture Hell, it's the same shitty level of research she put into talking about boggarts and brownies and other elements of *English* culture
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This is what I mean when I say she's not just a bad writer and a bigoted person but profoundly lazy Her worldview is shaped by this amazingly self-confident willingness to just glance at something once or twice and be sure she understands as much of it as she needs to
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Was there ever any need to go back and look up what "Alohomora" meant? Nah Was there ever any worry that someone from the culture she was shamelessly lifting from might be offended or take issue with her? Nah Just plow on ahead, Jo, let your imagination be your compass
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Go ahead and name that girl "Cho Chang" Who the fuck cares It sounds like a name to you and that's all that matters
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Lol I went back to get the full context of the original quote where she scolds Steve Vander Ark for getting the etymology of Alohomora "wrong" (he guessed it came from "aloha") and Jesus Christ the sheer audacitypic.twitter.com/Gmyp2RPtne
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"Maybe he should do some actual research" Jfc listen to yourself woman
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End of conversation
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