Fleur Is Hotter

My logical brain agrees, but my heart can't help but support unethical haterism. To some degree it will always slip, unfortunately...

On ethical haterism in fandom & how to be an ethical hater 

Being a hater (sharing negative opinions about tropes, ships, characters, and trends in fandom) is fun and often tempting. Being a skilled and ethical hater is even more fun, though difficult to achieve. 

(This is pretty HP focused. While all fandoms have an unethical hater problem, HP fandom has a particular dynamic where people are quick to feel guilty about fandom participation due to jkr being awful and then project that guilt onto others by trying to identify other people in fandom as being ‘bad’ so they can feel ‘good’ in comparison.) 

Number one question: Are you enjoying yourself? If you’re not, then stop. You cannot be an ethical fandom hater if you yourself are not having fun and are instead making yourself miserable by being a hater. None of these other factors are relevant if you’re not having fun. Take a break from fandom and go outside instead.  

The next consideration is space - public vs private and the specifics of social media platforms. 

You’re almost always being an ethical hater if you’re bitching and laughing in your friend’s DMs. You’re never being an ethical hater if you’re on Tiktok or another algorithm based platform where people cannot avoid your content showing up on their pages. Discord servers and tumblr posts are where it gets complicated. Make a good faith effort to make sure anyone who wants to avoid your hater content is able to do so via appropriate tagging or sticking to approved channels within the discord server. 

Next: humor

If you’re being mean, you better be very funny. If you’re not funny, you probably can’t get away with being mean. Be less mean. 

The best of ethical haterism is creative and funny and active. It is about creating and enjoying yourself with friends more than it is about tearing others down – even if you are mocking people and ships and characters! 

A useful question to ask: could a reasonable person with a different opinion from you find what you’re doing funny? (This is different from: can the absolute worst, whiniest, most sensitive person in fandom find what you’re doing funny?)

Things that are never ethical haterism: 

Making accusations about individual people’s politics, values, and identities based on their preferences for ships and characters. General rule: if you (or the people you surround yourself with) are throwing out the words ‘nazi,’ ‘pedophile,’ ‘freak’ or ‘bigot,’ you’re not being an ethical hater. 

Things I have seen that are not ethical haterism and are simply asshole behavior: accusing anyone who doesn’t like femme Sirius of being homophobic or transphobic, accusing anyone who ships any Death Eater/order member ship of being a nazi, accusing Snape stans of being incels, accusing anyone who ships Snarry or any student/teacher ship of being a pedophile etc.

Note: Ethical haterism is separate from critiquing fandom trends and the influence of broader politics on how we engage with fandom. It is asshole behavior to make specific accusations of individual people based on their ships, headcanons, and art, but it is reasonable (and I’d say good!) to examine how white supremacy/patriarchy/capitalism show up in trends in fandom. 

Things that are asshole behavior and never ethical haterism: commenting rudely on fics, talking publicly about specific fics you hate, deliberately going into ship tags to start fights, making accusations, generally being unpleasant. 

The two fundamental questions of being an ethical hater: 

Is what you’re doing making fandom more fun, more creative, more engaging, more lively, more connected? 

Are you sensitive to the idea that some people might not enjoy seeing this content and want to make sure it’s possible for them to avoid it? 

That’s my theory. Thoughts?

It makes me sad that we don't know more about Hermione's parents and all of their relationships' dynamic.

Yes! Leaving will do nothing progressive. Of course I understand those who do, for their personal and mental well being, but I love the HP world and I want the fandom to be a better place and to advocate for trans rights and make the fans as much different from the author as it's possible. So I will always stay.

i find the “don’t even THINK about anything even remotely related to harry potter, because that’s aiding and abetting jkr’s terf agenda” is giving abstinence only sex education vibes

Yeah it's stupid. And it's not confined to Harry Potter. There's this whole idea that there are the Bad Problematic TM works that must never be engaged with and the Good Virtuous works that are approved reading. And nope. Good people can write bad stuff. Bad people can write good stuff. Problematic works can still be meaningful and enjoyable. The key is to think and read critically. I love Shakespeare. It doesn't mean I agree with all the 1600s attitudes that color the works.

I also think too many people try to engage in bullying online by calling it "activism" so they can indulge in their basest desires while avoiding the work of doing any real actual activism.

Bigotry will always exist. Even if we banned all thoughts of Harry Potter it wouldn't end transphobia or make trans people safer. What WOULD help trans people is enacting tough laws that protect their rights and penalize discrimination and also educating people about trans issues and promoting inclusiveness so that over time society becomes more accepting. But all that takes work and is about actually helping people. And for some people that isn't the true goal.

Sirius Black is a loser.

Hi, one more question!

I read Tomarry fan fiction with time travel, and when they write that Harry is taking Tom from the orphanage, for some reason they write that Harry expects that if he gives the love and care that he was deprived of, then Tom will become a different person. That is, Harry projects himself onto Tom and expects the same reaction from him that Harry himself would have had if he had been taken away from the Dursleys. And also, I do not understand the authors themselves believe that if you give a child (Tom) everything he wants and do not limit him at least somehow, that he will grow up to be a morally better person? Or do they think that Harry is so narrow-minded and does not understand that punishments and rewards are needed for proper upbringing? That it's not enough to just say "don't do this because it's wrong for a moral reason", but to provide a logical explanation that would be based on logic and pragmatism, which would sound clearer to Tom? What do you think about it?

Anyone could write whatever they want, and I'm not going to diss any specific fics or authors. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of Harry going back in time to raise Tom fics because it's just not to my personal taste. So, this isn't the kind of scenario I really think about for Harry's and Tom's characters.

In general, though, I think Harry understands Tom and how he thinks more than fanon often gives him credit for. I also think Tom isn't as evil incarnate as some fanon paints him as. I don't think he's super moral, but I don't think he is especially cruel either.

Like, Tom doesn't do immoral things because he doesn't know what's good and what's evil, he is an intelligent capable adult — he knows very well what he's doing is evil, he just doesn't mind doing evil if he thinks it's necessary.

And he has morals. He regrets needing to kill Snape, he dislikes unnecessary death and bloodshed and actively avoids it in the first war. He doesn't want to kill students in the battle of Hogwarts and calls a ceasefire to let them regroup and treat their injuries to the detriment of his own side. He hates cowardice and treachery. He derides Wormtail because he betrayed his friends, yes, that betrayal helped Voldemort, but Voldemort despises cowardly traitors as a rule and his morals are important to him. He hates pretentious purebloods and he shows this contempt in how he treats his followers. Tom has a moral core all on its own with his shitty upbringing, it's just, kinda messed up and he's a practicality-over-morality kind of person most of the time. I'm saying most because he doesn't allow himself to cheat when trying to kill Harry. He just has to kill Harry properly, in a fair duel, because of his own morals and ideals. I also think Tom would be insulted by the concept of cheating at school, for example.

I mentioned in the past the fact Voldemort's favorite spell is the killing curse kinda shows that he has some twisted sense of morality. I mean, in a world where you can burn and cut and torture people with magic there are so many cruel and painful ways to kill someone, and yet, Voldemort's go-to spell, when he isn't making a point or torturing someone for a specific reason, is Avada Kedavra. The Killing Curse is a painless death, even Voldemort considers it a merciful death. It's quick and painless and efficient. This is the death he gave James and Lily because he respected them and didn't want them to suffer unnecessarily. This is the death he chooses for anyone he doesn't have a specific reason to torture because he is against what he deems as unnecessary cruelty. Snape's death is the only real death that is unnecessarily cruel but I think it has more to do with JKR needing a way for Snape to get Harry the information he needs rather than be accurate to Voldemort's character as he was shown thus far.

Like, he has some weird sense of morality, and even with the evil things he does, like murder, he knows they are bad and he does so anyway. Sometimes, he does so regretfully, in the most merciful way he can, and other times, when he hates someone, he relishes in it. It's not about not understanding good and evil or not knowing what morals are, it's about caring about morals less than about whatever goal he wants to accomplish, and sometimes that goal is to humiliate the crap out of Lucius Malfoy, or to showcase how great he is and be dramatic about it. But the fact he has his twisted morals and considers himself merciful is part of what makes him so interesting to me.

Harry is so gorgeous 🧎‍♀️🙏

Actually both Harry and Snape had full rights to turn evil ngl

"Harry also had a shitty childhood and was bullied, but he didn’t turn out like Snape."

True, because:

Harry found refuge at Hogwarts, where he felt welcomed, supported, and protected from the very beginning. Severus did not.

Harry had adult figures who protected him, cared about him (Hagrid, the Weasleys, Dumbledore, Lupin, Sirius...), and showed him affection over the years. Severus did not.

Harry had two friends who would have torn apart anyone who dared to strip him in front of the entire school. Severus did not.

Harry and Malfoy had a rivalry because they were on equal footing. Severus was bullied by a group of guys who attacked him together and were far above him socially and economically.

Harry was rich—disgustingly rich, to be exact. Severus was disgustingly poor.

Harry felt loved from the moment Hagrid came for him just after his 11th birthday. Severus never felt loved in his entire damn life.

Harry was favored by Dumbledore and other school staff on multiple occasions. Dumbledore forced Severus to stay silent about an attempted murder against him.

Harry had choices. Severus had nothing.

I hate Alan Rickman's face. He's not Snape! He's too old and, as someone who always saw Snape as oddly attractive, too ugly! (Ironically)

Definitely not Peter, he's too cunning and smart for that. James would, he's the trusting sort.

please explain reasoning

Exactly. His reason was 'because Snape exists', which must mean the wealthy, popular pureblood couldn't have possibly bullied the poor, unpopular halfblood with no serious consequences because of class. I cannot see the correlation. Lily was simply too pretty to be hanging out with that greasy weirdo, so James, the noble boy that he was, just had to protect her from him! That's it!

As a descendant of sea sponges, whose ancestors were ruthlessly exploited by Roman patricians for their decadent baths, as someone whose great-great-great-sponge ancestors experienced the full weight of class oppression when rich Romans used them in their thermal baths, as someone with deep sponge trauma, I understand better than anyone the dynamics between different social classes.

And I declare — James Potter didn't “bully” Snape because he was poor