Hogwarts Legacy Controversy and Call for Boycott, Explained

Hogwarts legacy, On the surface, it should have been pure wish-fulfillment for the millions of fans who were mesmerized by the legend of the Harry Potterworld over the past 25 years. In video games, coming out next weekPlayers will live a life of mystery and adventure as a student at popular culture’s leading school of witchcraft and magic.

Still, Hogwarts legacy and the Harry Potter series cause trouble for many fans for reasons outside of the story or setting of the video game. Why so? We will now go further behind the curtain of the Wizarding World to explain this controversy.

What is Hogwarts Heritage?

published for the first time at PlayStation’s State of Play event in September 2020, Hogwarts legacy is an open world, action role-playing adventure in which the player enrolls in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. User-generated player characters; however, they are fifth year students, so they will start the game with some advanced magic aptitude.

Photo: Dave J Hogan/Getty photo

Why is this game controversial?

It’s largely due to the public opinion that author and series creator J.K. Rowling has chosen to take regarding gender identity since 2018. Her views are on full display in the summer of 2020. At the time, Scotland (Rowling was a resident of Edinburgh, writing much of the Harry Potter series there) was considering changing its laws to allow individuals to change the gender indicated on their birth certificates. them without medical diagnosis.

After a few years shy social media gesture and reply to this thread, on June 10, 2020, Rowling published a 3,600-word confrontational essay on her personal website outlining her views on gender identity, her skepticism towards transgender laws and policies, and the “new transgender activism”. Rowling invokes her own existence in the face of domestic violence and sexual assault, and points out a discredited hypothesis about male sexual predators being allowed into women’s and girls’ restrooms as long as they identify as one.

Since that June 2020 editorial, Rowling has continued to engage with the topic of transgender identity, from the same perspective. Her crime novels Blood disorder, also published in 2020 under the title Robert Galbraith, tells the story of a serial killer who dresses as a woman while committing his murders. Pro-LGBTQ+ organizations have condemned it and other Rowling posts as harmful or a substitute for transgender harm and discrimination, despite some of Rowling’s prominent colleagues. openly defend her.

Image: Warner Bros. Avalanche/Interactive Entertainment.

Is JK Rowling Developing The Hogwarts Legacy?

Known not. After that Hogwarts legacywill launch worldwide in September 2020, publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Posted FAQ that drove the project away from Rowling. Hogwarts legacy “Not a new JK Rowling story,” WBIE said, adding that Rowling “was not directly involved in the creation of the game.” However, it is clear that it builds on the Harry Potter standards and concepts that Rowling has developed since the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, To be published in 1997.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has located its Utah-based studio, Avalanche Software, on Hogwarts Heritage. WBIE acquired Avalanche in 2017, the same year Warner Bros. founded the publishing company Portkey Games to oversee the WB’s licensing of Harry Potter works.

All of this says that Rowling definitely benefits from publishing and selling Hogwarts legacy, whether it’s in the form of royalties, a specific payment to adapt this work, an ongoing contract with Warner Bros., or simply publicity and attention to her work. that. Warner Bros. purchased the license to Rowling’s “Wizarding World” franchise in 1997, and has since used it to produce and distribute 11 films (eight adaptations of the Harry Potter novels, three in the storyline. Fantastic Beasts).

Is there anything in the Hogwarts Legacy that reflects JK Rowling’s point of view?

Probably, no, though broader criticism of the Harry Potter classics considered it patriarchal and regressed from the views of modern society. significantly, Hogwarts legacy‘S character creation option will allow players to choose voices, clothing, and body shapes that are not related or associated with the other gender. In 2021, Bloomberg reported that developments on Hogwarts legacy began before Rowling’s anti-transgender statements and public positions emerged, leaving many developers at Avalanche “sad and frustrated” in dealing with the aftermath and fan anger.

From Hogwarts legacy‘S Announced, Avalanche Games and WBIE appear to be aware of the controversy Rowling has created and have quickly removed it from the game. Six months after the game was announced, lead designer, Troy Leavitt, left Avalanche Software Later expose that he holds far-right views, including supporting the Gamergate online hate campaign.

What is JK Rowling’s reaction to fan criticism?

Rowling has noticed not only the backlash regarding her work in general, but Hogwarts legacy in particular, and she still participates in it whether or not criticism is directed at her. For example:

Rowling replied:

In addition, Rowling convene a public “gender war” lunch of women with similar interests—called TERFs by their critics (for “trans-exclusionary radical feminists”) a year ago. Her comments were also quoted when the United States Senate Republican block the way of the LGBTQ equal rights bill by 2022.

So it’s not a matter of a creator ignoring or even tacitly acknowledging her critics. In spite of Hogwarts legacy developed exclusively, Rowling considers it an extension of her work. And that’s why so many people have second thoughts about participating in it.

Hogwarts legacy Released on February 10th for PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series X; April 4 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One; and July 25 for the Nintendo Switch.