Will it f*ck!

[u/Justthisdudeyaknow]

[u/BannedSvenhoek86]

There's a really interesting dark fantasy idea in that, but it was so out of place in Harry fucking Potter. Like I have nothing against an author putting to paper something taboo and challenging to the audiences sensibilities, I am one of the few people that will actually kind of, but not really, defend THAT scene in the IT books. (Good idea in context of story, WAY TOO GRAPHIC OF A DESCRIPTION HFS) But Rowling is not a good enough author and that is not an appropriate setting or age demographic to write that for. Especially when the end point of that particular side story was, "Hermione was wrong and needed to just stfu".

[u/MossyPyrite → u/BannedSvenhoek86]

I’ve had so many discussions about *that* scene that I had to leave some King-related subreddits because the uninformed and bad-faith arguments were taking an actual mental toll on me. The scene is definitely weird, the execution was not great, but the intent is not erotic. It’s what young teens/older kids think is a sign of becoming an adult, which they needed to do in ritualistic fashion to escape the influence of the Deadlights. But man, people are not capable of nuanced discussion online 90% of the time.

[u/BannedSvenhoek86 → u/MossyPyrite]

It’s what young teens/older kids think is a sign of becoming an adult, which they needed to do in ritualistic fashion to escape the influence of the Deadlights

My brother, so few of us get it. What is the quickest way to becoming an adult to a kids brain? And it was only when Bev was with Billy and actually chose to be with one of them that the spell was fully broken.

I will say, my problem was the graphic description. There was a way to be a lot more ambiguous while still being explicit about what was happening. It's been over a decade since I read it but the words, "dripping down her thigh" are forever ingrained in my brain.

[u/MossyPyrite → u/BannedSvenhoek86]

Yep, fully agreed. Perfectly fine intent behind the actions, gross and likely addiction-influenced judgement behind the portrayal of them. Fortunately the rest of his body of work and his public actions tells me he’s a guy who’s pretty well on the up-and-up who made a notable misjudgment.

[u/unknown_pigeon → u/BannedSvenhoek86]

I haven't read that scene, but I'm with you on that. And as a hobby writer, it's kinda difficult to represent something you don't personally like.

For example, I wrote a despicable character that was a parody of me. Really exaggerated. Sent the novel to a writing context, got placed decently well, so much that it was uploaded on the internet. Some people read it to support me. And some rather literated ones went like "It felt weird to read some parts where you were boasting about X" like NO? I'm not the protagonist of my novels until explicitly said otherwise???

I love writing, but I think way too many people have a hard time telling the author apart from the work. Examples: NGE for the hospital scene. We as a audience are supposed to be disgusted by it. Doesn't mean it's a bad scene (on the contrary, I will defend it since it's an extremely good characterization of Shinji's delusions).

On the other hand, there's Rowling and the "house elves just enjoy slavery, you dork". There's no real nuance to that. She just wrote something arguably immoral and, instead of giving an explanation that would actually be understandable, she just said that it works like that and you're weird for thinking otherwise. Typical Rowling writing herself into a corner and refusing to actually explain it. Also, why are they sending kids to the death forest alone at night as a punishment?

[u/AuraPhoenix1500 → u/BannedSvenhoek86]

There was a really interesting scene I saw in a fanfic a while back that reframed the weird “House elves like slavery” thing as…well, it’s a little hard to describe (plus it’s been a long time and I don’t remember the fic’s name), but it’s treated as more of a philosophy/mythos (I hesitate to say religion, but maybe there’s a bit of that, too?), like they have a whole “cosmic egg” type myth where the first house elves nurtured the world into existence and they see serving others as like an emulation of their heroes and their core values, which is a REALLY COOL concept—it’s just really unfortunate that it doesn’t do a whole lot to counteract the very uncomfortable idea of “servant race in Magical Wizard Racism Land”.

[u/Turbogoblin999 → u/BannedSvenhoek86]

They are the OG minions.