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One of my first thoughts when I read chapter 1 of DH was, "OMG, JKR triggered Godwin's Law in her own books!" Then I was angry at the cheapness and heavy-handedness of it.
No, I do not think for a minute that *Rowling* thought that James et al were racist or that the possibility ever entered her head. But the thing is: when she insists that her books are a "plea for tolerance" and explicitly invokes the Nazi example, there is no privilege that says she gets to stop half-way. Of course, I do not think we are bound by this interpretation (I refuse to use the phrase "interpretive gloss" for anything so heavy-handed), which I think is part of what bohemianspirit was arguing in her post. And in that discussion, I said that I really did not think we all wanted to go there.
But because of the insistence (and quite right it is, too), that Rowling intended us to go there, I thought we should see just where it takes us. And yes, it appears to me to lead us to the clear conclusion that the woman used a cheap, easy, and lazy shorthand with no thought for what she was portraying. And it infuriates me because she repeatedly states publicly that she intends her protagonists to be an example to children of how to behave.
So I come back in the end to the idea that Rowling's statements, including her delusion that she wrote a plea for tolerance, belong in the bin. And we can take the world she cobbled together from all the sources from which she "borrowed" and have fun with it in fanfic, etc., with our own interpretations.
No, I do not think for a minute that *Rowling* thought that James et al were racist or that the possibility ever entered her head. But the thing is: when she insists that her books are a "plea for tolerance" and explicitly invokes the Nazi example, there is no privilege that says she gets to stop half-way. Of course, I do not think we are bound by this interpretation (I refuse to use the phrase "interpretive gloss" for anything so heavy-handed), which I think is part of what bohemianspirit was arguing in her post. And in that discussion, I said that I really did not think we all wanted to go there.
But because of the insistence (and quite right it is, too), that Rowling intended us to go there, I thought we should see just where it takes us. And yes, it appears to me to lead us to the clear conclusion that the woman used a cheap, easy, and lazy shorthand with no thought for what she was portraying. And it infuriates me because she repeatedly states publicly that she intends her protagonists to be an example to children of how to behave.
So I come back in the end to the idea that Rowling's statements, including her delusion that she wrote a plea for tolerance, belong in the bin. And we can take the world she cobbled together from all the sources from which she "borrowed" and have fun with it in fanfic, etc., with our own interpretations.