An exhausted seven year old Khyathi plopped herself onto the bed after a long Saturday afternoon - she had just finished reading Judy Moody and the Bad Luck Charm, after around four long hours. Her novice self, who was clueless about how many books were left to explore, thought that the series was the greatest she would ever read. While she probed into the depths of how Judy Moody’s character learnt to believe in herself over the felicity offered by a squished penny, her mother joined her, and in the process, her train of thought was interrupted. Little did she know that this “tradition” of lying on the bed and discussing the most random of things would last for several years to come. Over the course of the conversation, Harry Potter was eventually brought into the picture, to be succinct, my curious mom wondered if there was any particular reason behind why I had not expressed any interest in reading the novels. A prime characteristic of my personality that is unique now, and even then, is the fact that I love to hold an opinion about everything, even if it is founded upon prejudice. At that point of time, I knew very little about Harry Potter, so I replied in a stereotypical and run-of-the-mill manner - my scoffing self told her that I was too old to read a book based on magic and fantasy. Thankfully, this was not met by contempt, and my opinion was respected, irrespective of how unfounded it was.
Fast-forward to sixth grade, I was introduced to a new environment with brighter peers than in the past. While I did spend the majority of fifth grade in the school library, I avoided the Harry Potter books like the plague. One of my classmates was an outspoken fellow (Mr. Blabbermouth) who was often subjected to jeering, which meant he was always on the lookout for an alternate target for people to ridicule in place of him. When he heard that I had not read Harry Potter yet, he deemed it unusual, and decided to spread the word. However, his closest acquaintace, who was also a friend of mine (Mr. Silent), decided to burst his bubble by stating that it was not abnormal at all - and his assertive tone was enough to convince Mr. Blabbermouth that he had targetted the wrong person. In spite of this outcome, I decided to begin reading the chronology on the next day, as the feminist in me was inquisitive about how successful J.K. Rowling was as a woman. Being a chaotic person, I did not always have the habit of reading books in the order that they were intended to be read. This resulted in me checking out the last Harry Potter book from the library instead of the first one, which was humorous to Mr. Blabbermouth, who had read the entire series. On the other hand, Mr. Silent, who was then reading the second book, offered to help me find Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, as he was sure that he had seen it in one of the shelves. Soon enough, I began reading the book at my own pace - I found it to be much better than I expected. I realised that my seven year old self had the wrong impression of Harry Potter, it wasn’t some children’s book that emphasized on unrealistic magic like a television show such as My Little Pony - it truly portrayed how the concept of superiority and inferiority could deepen the partitions present by default in a society, which in this case, was merely a school of witchcraft and wizardry. My heart went out to Hermione, a character that was initially portrayed to be a bossy and whiny martinet, who eventually turned out to be impressively rational and valiant.
I waited until library period the following week to search for the next book - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Since Mr. Silent had just completed the same book, he told me to take it right after he gave it back to the librarian. After doing so, I took my seat at a nearby table, giving me the opportunity to overhear the laughter of Mr. Blabbermouth and Mr. Silent as Mr. Blabbermouth helped Mr. Silent search for the third book in the saga. Out of nowhere, I felt left out when it struck me that all of my acquaintances were ahead of me, and I decided to finish the book well before my next library class, so that I could return the book and pick the next one without having to wait. This brought some amount of peace to my excluded self - however, my line of reasoning was interrupted by Mr. Silent, who felt the necessity to inform me that he had found not one, but over ten copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the library. While I was amazed by that fact, my competitive nature led to me maintaining a cold disposure until I caught up with him.
Much to Mr. Silent’s dismay, he could not find a copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in the library that day. I ended up finishing the second Harry Potter book in the span of a few hours, as I was mesmerized by the progression of the plot. I remember being enthralled when the book revealed that Ginevra Weasley was responsible for the cryptic writings on the walls of Hogwarts.
As I had caught up with Mr. Silent, I was quite pleased with myself - but then, I wanted to read the subsequent book before him. Fortunately, I was able to find Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in the library, and I sneakily checked it out without informing Mr. Silent. I flaunted it in front of him, hoping to ellicit some sort of reaction from his behalf, but he seemed completely unbothered, and politely asked me to lend it to him if I completed it prior to the allocated library time. Once again, I finished the book in the short span of two days, and lent it to Mr. Silent. Instead of returning the book in my hands, he left it under his desk and asked his sister to tell me where it was, as he was apparently “too shy” to give it back.
During the following library period, Mr. Silent found the fourth Harry Potter book before I did, and we made a similar deal which involved him lending the book to me as soon he was done with it. After completing the book, I was impatient to begin reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, so I brought it from Odyssey, as I had the opportunity to go there that weekend. Unfortunately, something else that accompanied that weekend was a power cut, which led to me reading nearly 800 pages in two days in the absence of light. When people ask me why I have poor eyesight now, I point to this moment.
This unexpected turn of events led to me finishing one book before Mr. Silent, and I was elated to tell him the same on Monday morning. While he was a bit upset, he was determined to find the fifth book in the school library. During the library class, I found the sixth Harry Potter book, and began reading it, seating myself at a nearby table, only this time I did not feel ostracized in any way or form. Out of nowhere, Mr. Silent seized my right hand in order to grab my attention. He managed to find the last Harry Potter book published at that time, which was also the only book I had to read in order to complete the chronology. As I was not allowed to check out two books at once, he came up with the idea of hiding the book in a shelf with humongous academic textbooks, so no one would find it, and I could borrow it with ease after completing Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. In due course of time, we would use this plan to hide several other books - the most notable of them being books from the Give yourself Goosebumps series.
My journey of completing the Harry Potter novels brought a great amount of contentment to me - not just because I adored the plot, and how J.K. Rowling threw light on the proletariat’s troubles by means of a few books, but also since it gifted me with a great amount of treasured memories, mostly involving the time I spent with friends while reading it. I was so obsessed with Harry Potter that I would ask my father to buy me Prop Replicas from Platform 9 3/4 at London, and these collectibles continue to inundate my house. Mr. Silent, Mr. Blabbermouth, and a few of my other friends would often quiz each other to test our knowledge of events that occurred in the series.
After a few days, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was finally released, and I was one of the first few people in my class to get my hands on the book, which meant I had the attention of several people who were waiting to read it, including Mr. Blabbermouth and a few acquaintances. Since I still held a bit of a grudge against Mr. Blabbermouth, the childish side of me decided to never lend it to him, though I eventually did. To follow suit with previous habits, the first person I gave the book to was Mr. Silent.
Thus began the slow ebbing away of my respect and affection for J. K. Rowling. I believe I speak for numerous fans of the series when I say that the last installment of the saga was a colossal disappointment. Filled with plot loopholes and a nimiety of inconsistencies, the book made little to no sense. The abrupt shift from regular writing to a playscript did not work very well in the large scheme of things. The personas of several characters had changed diversely, to the point that characters like Draco Malfoy were irrecognizable. While Harry Potter was always seen as a dimwit in my mind, I did appreciate his capacity to love - something that the author had emphasized on throughout the whole series. In no universe does it make sense when the amiable main character who we were accustomed to for seven long novels ends up telling his own son that he wishes he was not his father. In spite of being thirty seven years old, Harry Potter remains to be an impulsive nitwit, who fails to take a breather and think when the situation demands it. My favourite character was Scorpius Malfoy, who was, ironically, the son of Draco Malfoy and Astoria Greengrass. To be completely honest and blunt, it did take a while for me to reel from the vandalism caused by the book to the imageries in my mind.
Following the footsteps of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay did not fail to dishearten me either. I found it to be extremely boring and not as suspenseful as the books in the Harry Potter series. Since I did not enjoy two books in a row, I ended up thinking about J. K. Rowling in a logical and unbiased perspective, disallowing my emotional attachment to the original books in the series to impede by rationality.
Doing so, I began analysing my Harry Potter obsession, namely, how it began, and why I was prejudiced in the first place. That’s when I remembered - why did I not initially realise that J. K. Rowling was a woman? It was because she had used her initials in place of her full name, a move that was advised by the publishers since they foresaw the possibility of people being too prejudiced to read a book written by a woman. Knowing society and the idiosyncracies of men across the globe, in a business oriented perspective, I do not blame her for this decision. In the next few days, I decided to read a bit more about J. K. Rowling, and I will have to admit, that for the majority of the part, her story was inspiring - a classic tale of how people who could be considered social rejects end up becoming the most triumphant people in life. Irrespective of that, I found something questionable - around 2007, J. K. Rowling claimed that Dumbledore was gay, shortly after the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This seemed to me, like a classic example of queerbaiting - she probably wanted to prove that she had a progressive mind to the several fans of the saga, whilst rapidly increasing the interest of the LGBTQIA+ community. If she truly always thought of Dumbledore as a gay man, why was this concept not implemented into the books directly?
From that moment on, I did not hate J. K. Rowling, but I was pretty ambivalent to her general disposition. When someone asked me if I read Harry Potter, I would often reply by saying that I found the books interesting, but I wouldn’t know how to explain my attitude towards Rowling. My inconclusiveness about her personality prevailed for approximately 2 years - and then released Crimes of Grindelwald. At this point, I expected the worst - and I was glad I took to doing so. The casting of the movie was heavily denounced by fans worldwide as Johnny Depp was facing several domestic violence allegations at that time. The plot itself was subpar, pushing it to the same partition in my mind as the other two screenplays. To add, the movie gave J. K. Rowling an opportunity to explicitly state that Dumbledore was gay, however, it is scarcely implied, to the point that I would say the headcanon of Karma and Nagisa from Assassination Classroom seemed to be a far more realistic venture to the portrayal of gay romance. Now I was certainly at my wit’s end - and had quite a few words to say to anyone who supported this decision, nevertheless, I was patient enough to not loathe J. K. Rowling just yet.
To me, June 2020 was a classic summer month - in fact there was nothing about it that was unusual other than the lockdown. I spent most of my nights playing Fortnite, until it was banned on Mac devices, and I was close to finishing a squads game with a few acquaintances. My mother interrupted my incessant gaming by telling me that J. K. Rowling was facing severe backlash due to a few transphobic tweets. Believe it or not, I stopped playing in a flash, just so I could know what was going on. I was thoroughly disgusted by J. K. Rowling’s comments that came out on that day, and the weeks that followed. These hateful comments were the last straw for me - and what irked me most was her reluctance to educate herself on the difficulties faced by transgenders. She emphasized more on explaining and justifying herself instead, which absolutely tarnished the remnant of the respect in my mind. I was absolutely done with Harry Potter as well - what was the point of her writing a book that focused on the distinctions in society when she could barely accept transgenders? This was my chance to jump into the #RIPJKRowling bandwagon, and Harry Potter was pushed into the “lost” box of my mind, never to be “found” again, unless I wished to infuriate myself.
Usually, I am completely for unbiased thinking that puts emotions out of the way - and it is normally the easiest way for me to approach a situation. Despite that, I did find J. K. Rowling and Harry Potter to be directly in contrast with each other. Rowling wrote a series that depicted how terrible the world would be if we excluded a group in society, only to discriminate against transgender people at the end of the day, while also supporting other anti-trans remarks. Finally, my hatred for J. K. Rowling did percolate into my opinion of the Harry Potter books - and now they symbolise nothing but irony to me.
Note: Mr. Silent and Mr. Blabbermouth are aliases used in order to protect the identity of certain individuals. The use of “Blabbermouth” is not intended to be taken seriously, and if it is seen as demeaning to you, I highly recommend you read this or even better, watch this.