"Sikidy" here is a synonym for "geomancy" The "West African dialect", the language, is *Malagasy* It's extremely sloppy and obnoxious to confuse the two, like if I said "Aquarius is a word from the Mediterranean European dialect of Zodiac" Only I spelled it "Zociad"
-
Show this thread
-
But even that, in and of itself, is not the most embarrassing thing The most embarrassing thing is "Alohomora" does not mean "favorable to thieves" "Alohomora" is one of the sixteen signs of Sikidy, it's just derived from the Arabic "al-humra", "the red one" (like "Alhambra"
2 replies 60 retweets 1,171 likesShow this thread -
What happened is JKR saw a chart of the 16 signs of Sikidy and noticed that *part of the description of Alohomora* says that it's "favorable to thieves" And then she went and decided that's literally what the word *meant* https://www.serenapowers.com/sikidy.html
1 reply 95 retweets 1,273 likesShow this thread -
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
2 replies 42 retweets 1,221 likesShow this thread -
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
3 replies 87 retweets 1,306 likesShow this thread -
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
3 replies 109 retweets 1,616 likesShow this thread -
It's just a huge pile of Wrong in one single Fun Fact from the Harry Potter-verse
2 replies 34 retweets 1,073 likesShow this thread -
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
5 replies 78 retweets 1,357 likesShow this thread -
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
5 replies 52 retweets 1,304 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @arthur_affect
Honestly, it wouldn't have been a big deal if she honestly said "sound cool"
1 reply 1 retweet 9 likes
I would have SO much more respect for JK Rowling if she just fucking ADMITTED it, if she just said "These are just some dumb fun books where I was making everything up as I went along", or, even better, if she admitted "This is just my fanfic of The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy"
-
-
Replying to @arthur_affect
It's the part where her fucking fans kept hyping her up as an auteur and an artiste who did "meticulous research into mythology and folklore" and *she bought her own hype* that sent her into this amazing spiral
2 replies 1 retweet 39 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect
That ends with her trying to do a fucking serious gritty drama about Wizard Hitler stoking Wizard Fascism in order to spark Wizard World War II and expecting us all to nod and stroke our beards thoughtfully as she goes "In the United States the word for Muggle is 'no-maj'"
3 replies 1 retweet 36 likes - Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.