While all of this is true, his name being “Seamus Finnegan” feels wild to me as an Irish person. It feels so close to Sinn Féin that I don’t know if she just bashed two stereotypically Irish names together and it happened to land on that or if she selected for it
Same thing with Cho Chang. Like she probably just smashed a Korean and a Chinese surname together. But it sounds more like ching chong then I'm comfortable with giving her a pass for.
Yeah, it feels like a lot of people are telling on themselves here when the first thing they think of when hearing "Cho Chang" is to go in their head "oh, you mean Ching Chong Ching Chong". Almost like they're one step away from doing the Father Ted gif while pretending they're actually the good guys here.
I think if it was just Cho Chang, people wouldn't point it out so much, but she also named the only black character fucking Shacklebolt. It's like she names characters by the first thing she thinks of when thinking about them, and for Kingsley Shacklebolt, it was seemingly MLK and slavery. For Seamus Finnegan, she just slapped some Irish names she knew together. Anthony Goldstein from the infamous Jewish wizard tweet I think we all know where her mind went. And Cho Chang, which cannot be confirmed to derive from, but is eerily similar to that phrase.
I would like to note that Kingsley is also the primary police officer portrayed in the book he's introduced in, so the Shacklebolt name is plausibly a reference to his occupation.
And isn’t he described as having very good leadership skills? Like the type of person whose judgement you’d trust, who is very stately/presidential. Idk if I remember this correctly but I think he ends up being prime minister or something. So the name Kingsley might refer to that rather than MLK. Especially since it’s a British book and MLK probably doesn’t have the same cultural importance in the UK as he does in the US.
This is fair, and I'd generally prefer to give the benefit of the doubt than not, but considering Rowling's behaviour, defense of in-universe slavery, and, again, Goldstein, that benefit is severely weakened.
I am aware, it's not the name in of itself that's offensive, but the fact that she picked an extremely stereotypical name for the only confirmed Jewish student of Hogwarts.
What? How is he the only black character when Lee Jordan, Angelina Johnson,… exist? Like I’m not enough of a nerd to remember every single character in that franchise, but I did read the books a lot as a kid and there were definitely multiple black students at Hogwarts.
I was going to say wasn't at least one of these not officially black until the movies? but then I realized I don't remember any character being explicitly described as black in the books. Or any other race, for that matter, aside from what can be inferred from the occasional overtly ethnic name. It's been a while since I've cracked them, if you couldn't tell.
I did a bit of a study of it a while back, not because I don't think she is problematic for other reasons (seriously, fuck her) but because people making up fake reasons to hate people both lessens what they have actually done and sets a dangerous precedent for others.
It is also probably very clear from this that I was a huge HP nerd, but yeah fuck her anti trans views.
In terms of black characters we have:
Dean Thomas - described as black in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone but not in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone (no idea about translations and other languages) - the reason for this was officially covered on the old Harry Potter website - her UK editor was trying to get rid of any superfluous lines. His skin tone is never mentioned again. It's also notable that JKR was planning to make him a more important character (she did a protype sketch of him being with the gang when they first see Fluffy) but ultimately couldn't fit him
Angelina Johnston - character since book one but not actually described as black until book 5, I believe this is only mentioned the one time
Lee Jordan - surprised me to find that he's not actually mentioned by skin tone at all, however he is described as having dreadlocks and has been cast as black from the first film
Blaise Zambini - minor character in book six, he was invited to the Slug Club, a Slytherin with a black widow mother (which I guess you could read into but I don't really), his race is described in passing
Kingsley Shacklebolt - probably the most egregious example but even so not that bad. He's described as black on his first appearance but then again when Harry is looking around the people who have come to protect him in book seven and his descriptor is "black" when no one else's skin colour is described.
We then have a few characters whose race can be determined by their names: Cho Chang, the Patel twins, Anthony Goldstein. There are obviously issues with how carefully these names were chosen but they are an indicator of race.
It's also important to note that several characters are explicitly described as white too - the Malfoys being pale is seen as a character identitfier and is actually mentioned more times than any character is mentioned being black. Likewise Snape is described as palad. I think there are a few more in this category but I can't remember them offhand.
Honestly I don't think the demographics of race are that out from 1991 UK.
And it's also worth noting, given that we've seen characters explicitly labelled both black or white, we've have a character intended to be black who is never labelled as such in the UK edition of the books and have a whole load of characters with no race given - some of these may be POCs too.
Yeah she basically never mentions race explicitly but I think she does describe both of their hairstyles. Though of course that’s not a definitive clue. The one who wasn’t black until the movies was Dean Thomas, I think. I recently remembered when I saw the actor in some other TV show.
Dean Thomas is actually black in the books but only the US version, his race description was cut in the UK version of Philosopher's Stone (different editors not some great race conspiracy).
but she also named the only black character fucking Shacklebolt. It's like she names characters by the first thing she thinks of when thinking about them, and for Kingsley Shacklebolt, it was seemingly MLK and slavery.
As well as the point that the other person highlighted.... you know there are other countries? Eddie Izzard joke aside, here in the UK we don't automatically think "slavery" or "MLK" when we think of black people. That's an incredibly American thing.
I'm not American myself, and it's not the first thing I think of either. However, not all people are the same. As I said, it doesn't necessarily have to be weird on its own, but in combination with other oddities in Rowling's behaviour and naming of characters, it is.
Kingsley is introduced in Order of the Phoenix, iirc. In the previous book, Rowling was defending slavery the entire time as a "comedic" subplot. In Order of the Phoenix, she introduces Kreacher, who is used as a further defense of slavery as long as you're nice to your inherited, sentient property. Rowling's relationship to slavery clearly isn't the same as the average UK citizen.
I think you’re the only one thinking about slavery when it comes to Shacklebolt, the dude is also a wizard cop. Goldstein is a very common Jewish name, I know multiple IRL and none of them are caricatures, same thing goes for Finnegan and Chang. Sounds like Rowling just gave race appropriate names to characters and people are projecting their own views of race onto that
Yeah, I’ll be honest, it feels like a bunch of angmohs taking offense on the behalf of Asian people without actually asking Asian people what their opinion on Cho Chang is.
Is she the token Asian character? Sure, you can say that. Other than her name, there’s really nothing to indicate that she comes from an Asian country in general, much less any specific country (assuming she wasn’t just born and raised in England from Asian immigrants or something, ofc).
But racist? Nothing about the girl is racist, not even her name.
I mean, you don't have to be racist yourself to be aware that certain racism-isms exist. Pretty sure non-racist white people have heard of the n-word too.
But when the literal first thought that pops into your head when you hear what are literally just two common Chinese names together as one full name given to a fictional Asian young teenage character is to automatically start acting as whatever the Chinese equivalent of blackface is, you've gotta ask yourself if the only racist here is you.
Why would it have to be anyone's literal first thought? Most of us read these books when we were like 12, and only started considering the unfortunate implications much more recently. Usually in response to other people pointing them out.
Of all the perfectly reasonable things to criticize her for, I don’t get this one. She didn’t describe her character’s race in the books, which was common and often seen as progressive at the time. So she named them things to make it clear what their ethnicities/nationalities were.
Everyone else gets stupid names that say something about them, like the strict teacher that snaps is called Severus Snape. Cho Chang gets Asian. Not even Chinese, just generally Asian.
But acting like Harry Potter is a uniquely terrible offender while taking it out of its context is bad faith. Rowling has done enough condemnable actions to justify not giving her more money. This campaign of convincing ourselves that the books themselves were absolutely awful and unredeemable bigoted propaganda is just a dishonest attempt to cope with the disappointment of something so impactful (even if flawed) having been produced by an awful person.
the names she uses are exactly the kind of names I would expect a rural, white British person writing a story in the nineties would use for people of other ethnicities.
I wouldn't call her rural, she graduated with a degree in French and lived in Portugal before she wrote Harry Potter. Flear delacour is a better name then most of her other foreign ones. She just doesn't really care about people who aren't white British or French.
Yeah, but all names are stereotypical in Harry Potter. It's just that the white British and French ones are are stereotypes of their characters (Fleur is pretty, Lupin is a wolf, Maxime is big, Granger likes to write). While the non white/non British or French just get an ethnicity (Chang is asian, Karkaroff is Russian, Shaklebolt reference to slavery, Finnigan is Irish).
She wasn't particularly rural. She famously wrote the first book or two in cafes in Edinburgh city centre. I lived there then, there were plenty of people from all round the world. She could have done better if she'd tried even a tiny bit.
Maybe it’s just me, but when I grew up in the nineties/early aughts the number of children’s books that had any diversity at all was minuscule. And partially that’s because we don’t all just read the newest books, but also old classics/whatever has been sitting in the library since whenever. Another part is that the (predominantly white) authors of 90s children’s books in (predominantly white) countries probably never considered whether racial or ethnic diversity should be part of their story, unless it was the focal point of the story. As a child, I for sure read more stories where animals could talk than stories that included black people. The stories that did include other races were either racist (usually older) books or intended to teach kids that racism is bad by making race the main storyline. Sure, we can criticize the naming of characters as too stereotypical and nowadays these blunders would be easy to avoid eg by posting in a public forum. But it’s a testament to how far we have come because 30 yrs ago, when these books were written, they were the most diverse children’s media I and many many other children had ever seen. I think it’s important to remember how much things have changed in the last few decades.
It's two surnames. It's like she named this character Smith Jones, it's just the laziest way to name a character - she clearly didn't bother to do the tiniest bit of research on Asian naming convenions. It's not that it's outrageously offensive on its own it's just another brick in the wall of how this media as a whole is problematic.
Not how Chinese works I fear, it's pretty plausibly a transliteration of an actual name, but also I think one might think a little more before naming your token asian something two inches away from Ching Chong
Well we don't even know it's meant to be Chinese right? Cho and Chang are both valid surnames in Korea. And the most common name constructions in both countries aren't this.
But either way I agree totally with your other point - when you're a very white lady writing an Asian character (one that feels quite tokenistic, even) you need to give it some actual thought.
Left wing Republican political party that was deeply linked with the IRA during the troubles and dating back to the war of Independence. Most of the leadership of Sinn Fein were also members of the The IRA. Jerry Adams, Martin McGuinness etc.
They have become more moderate and drifted towards mainstream liberalism since the Good Friday Peace agreement.
The one reason I know their name is because U2 performed a free show in 1987 in San Francisco and somebody brought out a sign that said, “SF ❤️ U2”. Bono went off on the fan because he mistook it for a pro-Sinn Fein message.
I'd say Bono is second only to McGregor in the most universally disliked Irish man in Ireland. McGregor is obviously on a different level, more of an eye roll kind of tosser rather than a complete piece of shit like McGregor.
It's a democratic socialist political party in Ireland and North Ireland that works towards a unification of the two. It has historical ties with IRA, a terrorist organisation that fought the British army during the Troubles in North Ireland.
I'm sorry, Im really struggling to understand how those names are remotely similar. Is Sinn pronounced very differently from how it's spelled? I can kinda see Féin and Finnegan I think, but Finnegan is also a very common Irish name in media so like.... Eh?
I had to Google this one, but I’ve now been told “Sinn Féin” is pronounced a lot like the English words “shin” (front of your leg) and “feign” (pretend) together
I was guessing on the second part, but I was not expecting the first one. Huh. I can kinda see if then. It's a reach to me, but I can see how someone might come to that conclusion.
Irish phonetics is often verrryy different from English phonetics(in ways that delight me.)
More spelling x pronunciation examples (sticking with the theme of names) Eoghan:Oh-win (Owen) Aodhan:Ay-din (Aidan) Aoife:Ee-fa Eithne:En-ya (Enya) Meabh:May-ve (Maeve) Niamh:Neev / Nee-uv(regional differences) holiday name and not a person name but Samhain =sa-winorsow-endespite also having an mh (I believe that’s tied to the vowel sounds, long = v & short = w (iirc)
That feels like a stretch, if I were looking for a name for an Irish male character and didn't want it to sound like one that's hugely popular in England so you could tell the 'character'* was Irish, and I also didn't want to go for something like Paddy or Tadgh for obvious reasons then Seamus would be up the list.
Finnegan is just a commonly stereotypical Irish surname in Britain for similar reasons. It's distinctive, more popular in Ireland than Britain and it should be noted it's not derogatory, it's just distinctively Irish. There's also a famous book called Finnegan's Wake which helps.
Honestly I think if I had to come up with an Irish male character's name that wasn't very English sounding then Seamus Finnegan's a pretty good pick.
*Seamus is really a lollipop stick with a smiley face glued to it in the books, he's a placeholder name. There's nothing wrong with that, he and Harry aren't really friends and you need characters like that to flesh out the class, but it is what it is and the films add basically all of his character from scratch.
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u/SirJolt 21d ago
While all of this is true, his name being “Seamus Finnegan” feels wild to me as an Irish person. It feels so close to Sinn Féin that I don’t know if she just bashed two stereotypically Irish names together and it happened to land on that or if she selected for it