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The Great Debate of Hogwarts Legacy

By Ethan Cohen
 
How the magical universe loved by many clashed with its creator and her critical opinions.
Promotional Image for Hogwarts Legacy, a game based on J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, developed by PortKey Games.
Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. 2023

Hogwarts Legacy is an open-world Harry Potter RPG game with players taking on the role of a fifth-year transfer student at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. While many are excited about this reinvention of such a beloved story, recent transphobic comments and actions by the book's creator, J.K. Rowling, along with the controversial stereotypes in her writing have swayed some from supporting it. Among those instances, she published an almost 4,000-word "manifesto" in 2020. Rowling wrote on reasons that make her worried about trans activism, detransitioning and questioned whether or not there's a "contagion" being spread by social media. To read more about that, please go to NBC News' story at this link.


Where Gamers Get Involved

In the gaming space, a lot of the conversation revolved around creators and their public support (or rebuttal) of Hogwarts Legacy. Marginalized communities have become more prevalent in the community in recent years. This includes, but is not limited to, trans and non-binary people entering the pro field, drag queens and BIPOC building platforms on Twitch, TikTok and Twitter. Needless to say, there has been a massive spike in visible diversity in the gaming community.


Screenshot of gameplay from Hogwarts Legacy. A female Hogwarts student is holding up a wand next to Olivander, the wand maker, in his shop.
Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. 2023

With this, though, social justice issues have also entered the conversation, which is how Hogwarts Legacy became such a heated topic. In its first few days of release, the game amassed a peak concurrent viewership of 1.2 million, and in the last 7 days there have been over 5.5 million hours [of live content] watched. Twitch creators are split on their stances; some played it regardless, others said they wouldn't be playing or talking about it to avoid drama (saying it's "not worth" getting bullied) and then some who have spoken out against it and Rowling's involvement. While Rowling wasn't directly involved in the creation of the game, she gets paid royalties from anything using the Harry Potter IP (which Hogwarts Legacy is more than drenched in). Some people argued that they were supporting the people that created the game: developers, designers, animators, musicians, etc. People hired to make a game are paid a salary and that salary doesn't vary on how well the game sells - it is not commission based.


My Thoughts

At this point, people are unlikely to be swayed from their current stance. If they want to play the game, they're going to play it and if they hate it, they'll mute the word 'Hogwarts' on Twitter. Sometimes things can be debated and nothing else; an intersection of online cancel culture and real-life conversations. There's not always a clear right and wrong, just as there's not always a "winner" and "loser" of the debate.


As a Percy Jackson kid, I was never overly infatuated with Harry Potter. Rick Riordan (or as fans call him, Uncle Rick) had a way of incorporating all sorts of identities into his stories; the first time I saw myself in media was Nico di Angelo, a weird, sad loner who was revealed to be gay later in his story. That type of positive representation was lacking in the Harry Potter stories; as a Jewish kid, I wasn't huge on the greedy goblins with big noses that ran Gringotts Wizarding Bank. There was the singular Asian kid named Cho Chang, an Indian student named Parvati Patil, and more interesting name choices for "non-mainstream" character types. While I love the world of mythical and magical, this game is an easy non-purchase for me; it's not worth ignoring the issues with the creation of the Wizarding World to enjoy a $60 game that I'll touch once. Would you buy it?


For more in-depth, informational articles on this topic, I'd recommend Forbes' article or Jessie Earl's post to gamespot.com.

 

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