Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire

(cw transmisogyny/discussion of racist caricatures/alcoholism)

This is for Rita Skeeter.

I’m done playing nice and I’m done being charitable. I’d give this a zero if I could. Does it matter if it has parts I like? What are a couple choice scraps when they’re sandwiched between slabs of spoiled meat?

Who cares if the Defense Against the Dark Arts profession is seemingly doomed to be a revolving door of random hot men? Who cares if the Unforgivable Curses chapter is one of the best pieces of YA horror I’ve seen in recent memory? Who cares if the action scenes are fun and memorable? That the ending twist was pretty decent? That the unexpected death of a character hit surprisingly hard?

I do. I care, and that’s the thing. That’s the rub, isn’t it? It is so, so frustrating to see an author showcase something beyond basic competence, only to stumble back and self-sabotage because she just can’t resist the image of giving herself the last laugh by having her oh-so-clever tabloid reporter “suck the end of her quill” in a novel for children.

I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m sorry if this is without structure or disjointed. I’m just angry. I’ve had fun, and I’ll continue to do so I read these, but only after I blow off some steam.

If you found this by skimming the other one-star reviews, hi! Why yes, I am biased. Look at my profile if you want to see why. I don’t have a comforting shawl of nostalgia. Maybe you’re like me, someone wanting to understand why people our age still publicly cling to these books and keep their Hogwarts house in their OKCupid profile headers. Clearly, they haven’t read them since they were in school themselves. Or maybe they have and just don’t care, not when it’s too cozy to bother to look over the rim of their frosty, butterbeer-sloshing mug and peel themselves away from that sweet, dopey haze.

How convenient that I’ve seen such an attitude first-hand even now, people puffing out their chests and loudly proclaiming their support of an upcoming game about a goblin uprising (referenced in this book, no less!) that lines the pockets of a woman who has time and again gone out of her way to publish full-scale manifestos to make it all too clear that she sees trans feminine people as nefarious predators and trans masculine people as child-like gender traitors.

Embarrassing. All of it is so embarrassing.

How sad is it that I have so little to say about a book this long? It takes Harry over a hundred pages to get to his magical boarding school this time, a new record. That’s because he gets himself invited to a Quidditch World Cup event by the Weasleys. This event is being held on the farmland of a muggle named Mr. Roberts, who we learn is being forcibly memory-wiped by members of the Wizarding world’s equivalent of the feds, the Ministry of Magic.

In a normal novel, this would showcase a bit of foreshadowing, a small glimpse into the horrors of intergovernmental corruption. Classic YA. The frustrating thing is that I don’t think Rowling intended for her audience to find this disturbing. It’s put on the same footing as any other whimsical happening. Harry doesn’t seem at all concerned by it, and Hermione, who is muggle-born herself, has no lines at all during that scene.

It’s at this World Cup event that we meet Winky, another house elf. She speaks in a dialect I can only describe as racially targeted. Anyone who says otherwise is being willfully obtuse. You’d have to try to make your characters sound more scathingly offensive. If you still have a copy of this book, the original Scholastic edition (because I know most people haven’t read this since they were thirteen), go and turn to page 134. Look at that dialogue and remember that a white woman wrote that. It’d be enough to make Kathryn Sockett blush with shame (at least, I would hope).

I have to wonder why Rowling thought it was so necessary to reveal that the Hogwarts food is made by happy slaves bedecked in rags with an embroidered coat of arms in a literal basement, out of sight and out of mind. I have to wonder why she felt the need to walk backwards into Hell and paint Dobby not as an individual rightfully happy with his freedom, but as an eccentric even among his species. Because house elves like being slaves. They enjoy the work! Why, even Dobby shudders at the idea of ‘too much’ pay and weekends off. What an odd little thing, foolish for going in over his head! He’s lucky he didn’t end up like Winky, who spends her freedom in regretful alcoholism as all the other house elves treat her as a shameful undesirable. It is literal anti-abolitionist propaganda, all dressed-up nice and neat in a book parents read to their children at bedtime.

At one point, on Christmas Day, Dobby visits Harry Potter and gives him a pair of hand-knitted socks with broomsticks and snitches patterned on them. Harry, our hero, barely acknowledges the gesture and gives Dobby a pair of moldy socks in return.

S.P.E.W makes its debut in this book, the house elf rights organization that Hermione starts after she learns that her food at her magical boarding school is made by, as she correctly points out, “slave labor.” Everyone else, including Harry himself, pooh-poohs Hermione’s distress with patronizing finger wags and frowns. Rowling uses Hermione to showcase over-zealous activism much in the same way that bogus astroturf organizations headlined by industry leaders will try and cut down animal rights/welfare groups. I do not understand why she felt the need to do this. Is it so she could use alcoholism as a joke again?

What was that? The story? I mean, it’s fine. It’s whatever. It’s an international tournament plotline, which means Rowling gets to do what she loves more than quote retweeting trans people from term searches, writing dialects so off the wall banana nut bread deranged that Richard Adams would tell her she’s being a bit overzealous. ‘Grandmuzzer’? Really, Jo?

Hagrid continues to piss me off at every opportunity. Somehow, he’s still retained his teaching position despite his lessons being both vapid and dangerous. I hate this man. I hate what he represents, that condescending upper middle-class attitude towards the poor. At one point, Hagrid is replaced by a temporary substitute who is described as being a much better teacher than he ever was, and yet the narrative bemoans it all as being simply terrible. Funny, I don’t remember any of her lessons involving injuries.

Okay. I need to talk about Rita now.

Rita Skeeter is a transmisogynist caricature doubling as Rowling’s punching bag against whatever press she was getting at the time. Rita is a woman who is described as having an outwardly gaudy sense of fashion with an alligator purse and long, claw-like fingernails. The audience is meant to see her as a phony from the get-go with her introduction in chapter 18. Those four pages are rife with transphobic dog whistles, with some loud enough to, I would hope, reach even a general audience’s ears. She even goes so far as to grab a fourteen-year-old boy and drag him into a broom closet to interrogate him.

Rowling desperately wants you to see this character, who she describes as having “mannish” hands and a heavy jaw, as a predator. She wrote this in the late-90’s. She knew what she was doing. There was a never a ‘senior moment’ or lapse in judgement formed by sudden wealth down the line.

The evil was always there. She just has a twitter account now. What makes it all the more absurd is that I’ve seen several people say things like “well, she would still be famous if she had just kept her mouth shut” as if that solves anything at all. It’s like when people fawn over how ‘brave’ a trans person is. A lot of hot air that means nothing and yet tells me everything about how little understanding is at play.

She deserved better. I’m done. See you all for the next one.