Harry Potter Native American Animagi.

[H-Man]

So Rowling's audience is kind of unhappy with her recent writings about Wizards in North America.

The full text can be seen here, but the two primary issues are as follows:

-Animagi in the US became known as the 'skinwalkers' and people who were afraid of them made up the legend to demonize them;
-Rowling wrote about Native American culture in a generalized, mixed pot manner, as opposed to treating it as several different tribes and ethnicities that don't mix that well.

I couldn't really parse the complaints because of a cultural barrier, mind. Someone who actually understands North American Native culture issues would do better than me at explaining that.

 

[Tom Haskworth]

Only looked at that briefly but it seemed to me she wasn't writing about native American culture but about a fictional American magical culture, in the same way as she wrote about a fictional British magical culture and a fictional British Muggle culture. I'm British but I wasn't offended to read how British Muggles were depicted or that magical British are apparently so stupid they are incapable of dressing up as Muggles without wearing ridiculous mixes of costume. The entire fiction is intentionally caricaturesque and its merit is as fictional literature not as literal description. These grumbles are as tiresome as the old complaints about fictional magic corrupting people and turning them to black magic.

 

[daniel_gudman]

It's because she's engaging in cultural appropriation, basically, where she's taking other people's religious heritage and using it as her background fluff with only a facile understanding.

It's like if she explained that the burning bush was just some wizard screwing with Moses as a prank.

Just... super tacky.

 

[da_fox2279]

It's like if she explained that the burning bush was just some wizard screwing with Moses as a prank.

And now that you've said it, someone will write it...

 

[daniel_gudman]

Rewriting the entire Old Testament as a bunch of time-traveling Death Eaters just totally fucking with muggles would be friggin' hilarious, but that's the kind of thing where you have to go into it prepared for blasphemy.

 

[jaredstar]

It's because she's engaging in cultural appropriation, basically, where she's taking other people's religious heritage and using it as her background fluff with only a facile understanding.

It's like if she explained that the burning bush was just some wizard screwing with Moses as a prank.

Just... super tacky.

bullshit....Bull Fracking Shit. what she has done is no more then what marvel has done with thor and any number of other gods from various earth pantheons. Or dc and their gods, or the percy jackson books or the secrets of the immortal Nicolas flammel books or the assassins creed games or if you want to keep it to Christianity, every adult cartoon sitcom ever made. this isn't appropriation this is at best alternate character interpretation

 

[daniel_gudman]

Well, that's easy for you to say, but it's not your decision to make, I guess?

 

[nixofcyzerra]

To be fair, it's my understanding that Native American culture is really complex and diverse, so JK would have to condense it down and simplify it in order to use it. I mean, it's either that or have massively long explanations that disrupt the flow of the narrative.

As for accusations of Cultural Appropriation... A huge part of advancements in culture, be it art, music, or something else, is due to being inspired by existing culture. We have laws to protect Intellectual property, but you can't really claim that the mythology of any culture hasn't entered the public domain, and is therefore eligible to be re-imagined or reinterpreted. I doubt many of my fellow Englishmen would have a serious problem with King Arthur being portrayed as Saber from F/SN.


Related video that I thoroughly agree with:

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiEXgpp37No[/video]

 

[Yorae Rasante]

Yeah... When I was younger I could have agreed with this "cultural apropriation" thing, but let's be honest, folk culture is dying, legends and mythologies are being sent to wikipedia and not to new books. Any spin you make into a part of culture draws attention to the original culture as long as it does not demonize the whole culture (save if the culture is nazism, they are acceptable targets for obvious reasons).

My own country has a vast culture that I barely know anything of anymore, and I don't remember them being mentioned in my sister's classes anymore (when I was young we had some days just for these old legends). The only legends that come to mind are Iara, Saci, Caipora, Boitatá and they are probably wrong in some point. One of the people most responsible for the younger people remembering so much is the author Monteiro Lobato, who added from said aboriginal characters to talking donkeys to pirates to Hercules to his books, would people today also complain of cultural appropriation if the tv shows based on his books are the main way most kids are learning of these folk lores?

 

[H-Man]

I think they would, to be honest.