Sandra Clark
Christopher NeugebauerWired's review of the Antisemitic wizarding game replaces the "buy now" link with a donation link for Trans Lifeline. Spectacular.
(Great review, too)
https://www.wired.com/review/hogwarts-legacy-review/
have we all agreed that we can call it Antisemitic Wizarding Game and know exactly what we're talking about?
great.
Glyph@chrisjrn I know what you’re talking about but I hardly think it’s fair to leave “transphobic” out of its name? Perhaps, for brevity and generality, we could stick to Bigot Wizarding Game
@glyph Not to downplay the transphobia of the transphobic British woman who (irony of ironies) writes novels under a man's name, but there's value in pointing out the specific bigotry that appears to form the basis of the entire plot of the game.
(Yes, all bigotries are bad, but trying to name the beast here)
@chrisjrn oh jeez I hadn’t even gotten to the actual content of the game itself, I’m still on the “every copy comes with a donation to the ‘Help Kill Trans Kids UK’ political organization” level of discourse. It can sometimes feel a little self-serving for me to focus too much on the clumsy, sometimes unintentional antisemitism in the art (which ostensibly affects me personally) as opposed to the very real-world trans-exterminationist agenda of its author
@chrisjrn but I also wouldn’t want to downplay it particularly if newer iterations have made it even worse, the history of antisemites who make a habit of initially harassing trans and queer people because they’re softer targets in social discourse is *not great*
@glyph Quite.
On the other hand, I have (trans!) friends who have made peace with the idea that the media itself is not transphobic, even if the author is. In that (entirely misguided) context, it's useful to point out that the media harms other groups of people.
Moshe Zadka
Ferrous
Vegetable Gremlin ⍼👻@vegetablegremlin @chrisjrn yeah I saw some direct commentary on that and holy shit the way the shofar is presented makes it very clear that some actual nazis were involved
Mordko@chrisjrn no. Being Jewish, I can tell you Christopher: its BS.
Anyway, what I really appreciate about that review is how well it articulates the sense of utter betrayal the queer community has felt after discovering that some books that helped so many _different_ people learn to accept themselves were written by someone who actually only wanted people to feel empathy for her precise circumstances and nobody else.
And how bereft the community of Wizarding World storytellers is, now that queer people don't care for it any more.
A++ work.
バツ子（犬育てマニア@chrisjrn
read one of those books when it came out and never understood such appeal
secret magical aristocracy chooses not to help anyone and accepts slavery and punishment of indefinite torture as normal, and misfit boy who finds out he's actually a celebrity never questions anything and his biggest aspiration (finally realised) is growing up to be a cop
it's cute when the dragon boy and glasses boy kiss, but that never actually happened, right?
read one of those books when it came out and never understood such appeal
secret magical aristocracy chooses not to help anyone and accepts slavery and punishment of indefinite torture as normal, and misfit boy who finds out he's actually a celebrity never questions anything and his biggest aspiration (finally realised) is growing up to be a cop
it's cute when the dragon boy and glasses boy kiss, but that never actually happened, right?
@chrisjrn
wonder what popular children's book series would make actual sense for "queer" self-insert of that generation, interesting. "outsider kid protagonist" is kind of just standard for children's fiction, so need to reach for that
did really enjoy golden compass back then, but it got a little more wiggly in later books, and "girl loves the boy" was too strong for that purpose maybe?
had a thing for swiftly tilting planet particularly, but l'engle was very loudly anti-gay
le guin is too anti-cs-lewis religious about things to have the mass appeal
garth nix didn't have something long enough for people to really latch onto
phillip reeve came a little late, maybe, and his writing itself is bad (though so is rowling's, and his stories are more interesting
wonder what popular children's book series would make actual sense for "queer" self-insert of that generation, interesting. "outsider kid protagonist" is kind of just standard for children's fiction, so need to reach for that
did really enjoy golden compass back then, but it got a little more wiggly in later books, and "girl loves the boy" was too strong for that purpose maybe?
had a thing for swiftly tilting planet particularly, but l'engle was very loudly anti-gay
le guin is too anti-cs-lewis religious about things to have the mass appeal
garth nix didn't have something long enough for people to really latch onto
phillip reeve came a little late, maybe, and his writing itself is bad (though so is rowling's, and his stories are more interesting
@ageha Animorphs ended up being surprisingly good, but with a lot of mediocrity in the middle. KA Applegate ended up having a trans kid, too.
ArneBab@chrisjrn Reading this article caused me to worry — against my expectation.
Appropriate Tributes@chrisjrn EMPATHIES FOR THE EMPATHY GOD
Tansy Hoskins 🍉 🍉@chrisjrn that was a truly moving review, going to share it widely.
Stephen Coles@chrisjrn Beautifully written. Let’s get Jaina Rodriguez Grey on Mast!
@chrisjrn this is … really awesome, nice to see an actual materially good thing coming out of the Discourse. Almost a little jarring after recently reading all the ways Wired has its historical roots in cheerleading for republicans deregulating telecom!
@glyph I'm glad that _some_ organisations with their roots in early Internet libertarianism* have learned that there's actually a balance that needs to be struck.
---
(* which at the time looked like an entirely reasonable response to telecom monopolies)
clarkiestar@chrisjrn this line is just fantastic:
“there are no nits to pick, it’s just lice all the way down”
“there are no nits to pick, it’s just lice all the way down”
Luna Corbden@chrisjrn Now THIS is helpful activism!
Chel@chrisjrn fucking legends
Kiri DeLandé@chrisjrn Thank you for sharing. My partner and I are both queer/trans and just - ugh - I haven't known what to do now that the game's actually out. But this author's criticisms, especially the ending - illustrating the solidarity of queer and trans folk everywhere who refused to work on this game - it gave me chills, and I felt a spark of hope. Really, thank you for sharing. <3
@aspenwoodsong My pleasure, and I'm glad it made you feel better about not needing to have anything to with the game. Hope you can spend your time with something more enjoyable.
(I'm playing Metroid Prime: Remastered this weekend!)
Éibhear 🔭@chrisjrn Beautifully written, too.
Jeri Dansky@chrisjrn Thanks for the pointer! It had been a while since I last donated to the Trans Lifeline; now I've rectified that.
@chrisjrn And once again, my general theory of the transphobia to antisemitism pipeline fails to be disproven...
RamenCatholic 🐢🌈@chrisjrn 💔💔💔 on She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named:
"I don’t hate her. It would honestly be easier if I did. Inside me somewhere, there’s a kid who still loves her despite everything. That kid has a lot of experience loving people who hurt her. She never asks why; she just wants to know what she did wrong and how she can fix it. It’s hard to tell her there’s nothing left to fix. And that there are places we can’t return to. Places like Hogwarts."
bassplayer@chrisjrn
I never liked HP. I thought the whole premise was stupid. That being said, wired Is not a place I go for game reviews especially from an author who mostly writes about dildos. There is maybe a paragraph about the actual game and the rest is her experience about the author and movies. She didn't talk about game mechanics, economy, load times, levels etc. The things real gamers talk about So I can't take this as a review of the game only of the author. That's fine if you own up to it.
I never liked HP. I thought the whole premise was stupid. That being said, wired Is not a place I go for game reviews especially from an author who mostly writes about dildos. There is maybe a paragraph about the actual game and the rest is her experience about the author and movies. She didn't talk about game mechanics, economy, load times, levels etc. The things real gamers talk about So I can't take this as a review of the game only of the author. That's fine if you own up to it.
Ruth Zakarin 🧶🪬😷@chrisjrn
“Every homophobic or transphobic thing queer kids hear growing up becomes a voice that follows them for a long time… When one of those voices comes from the author who taught you about accepting yourself, a person you thought truly saw you and kids like you, it hurts in a way I honestly hope she never understands. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
That made me take pause. 😢
Mr. Adah Ruins@chrisjrn "Antisemitic wizarding game" 😂
bondolo@chrisjrn I hadn’t heard of the game but saw a clip. I thought it was a joke mod for GTA:San Andreas. It didn’t look atmospherically the least like the movies.
ekesThe whole antisemitism accusation ignores the entire Western fantasy genre.
It just establishes a narrative and cherry-picks disconnected similarities with malicious depictions of Jewish people in historic works.
By that logic Christianity is also inherently antisemitic, so let's ban the religion and its believers. I wouldn't mind much.
HydralDM
pizzapal@chrisjrn there should be Bunnicula game!!!!
Kevin Karhan 
Darth@chrisjrn it’s. A. Game.
Morgana@chrisjrn Based WIRED
Gustav Wengel@chrisjrn Damn that review is savage.
For I am CJ 
Binyamin Green@chrisjrn How is this game antisemitic? I'm Jewish, and Antisemitism is a big issue for me.
Mirco Poretti@chrisjrn as a passionate gamer, when I read this article some days ago the first thing I was able to think is that this is the most unprofessional non-review I’ve seen in my life. This is not a review. The author didn’t play the game and the goal was only to grab the attention of people for other reasons. Also, giving such vote and judgments has no respect for people who worked on the development of the product. Bullshits. And in general all the extremisms to me are only bad.
Fabian Zolar@chrisjrn why is it antisemitic?