Harry Potter Fans Are Casting a Vanishing Spell On J.K. Rowling, But Can Fandoms Survive Without Their Creators?

The death of the author is not a new concept to fans of works by problematic creators. Over the last five years, fans of Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Frank Miller, Louis CK, and the list goes on and on, have all had to reckon with the actions, alleged and admitted, of their heroes. Generally, these situations end with the accused telling fans via a YouTube apology or an old-fashioned Apple Notes letter that they need time to reflect on their actions–if they apologize at all. Still, cancelation isn’t the death knell for creators that they report it is. They continue to make art and cash checks at a pretty healthy pace. Woody still releases a movie a year, Mel Gibson still gets Oscar nominations and Louis CK still sells out comedy clubs. This persecution, continuously seen as the end of their professional lives, is nothing more than a blip on their career trajectory.

But what happens when fans, many of which are authors and storytellers themselves, come to view the creators of their favorite fictional worlds as toxic? Can they survive without the help of the creator?

Harry Potter fans are in the middle of figuring that out. Following a series of controversial tweets, J.K. Rowling, the head-headmistress of Hogwarts and author of all the Harry Potter novels, plays and spin-offs, including something called Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, became a significant portion of the fandom’s own Voldemort. Many Potter fans have grown tired of Rowling’s online presence over the last few years. Her statements have been widely accused of being “gender critical,” transphobic, or even dangerous, by fans and advocacy groups. Last month, the LGBTQ+ rights organization GLAAD characterized Rowling’s tweets as “anti-trans” and “cruel.”

No one:

J.K. Rowling: pic.twitter.com/GCFgII8yQT

— Tom Zohar (@TomZohar) December 19, 2019

As a result, earlier this month, two of the internet’s greatest hubs of Wizarding fan content, Mugglenet and the Leaky Cauldron announced that they would no longer be covering Rowling news. In a lengthy statement, Mugglenet editors posted a rebuttal to the deluge of tweets and blog entries made by Rowling about transgender people.

“As this fandom enters its third decade,” Mugglenet’s statement reads. “J.K. Rowling has chosen this time to loudly pronounce harmful and disproven beliefs about what it means to be a transgender person.”

They continue:

MuggleNet’s one and only concern is to create a safe community where all feel welcome. This means continuing to be comprehensive in our coverage while making changes to ensure that this content is accessible to those who want to interact with it and not forced upon those who do not.

We will continue to cover J.K. Rowling’s work set outside of the wizarding world (e.g., the Cormoran Strike series, The Ickabog) as well as her charitable foundation, Lumos.

We will no longer be covering aspects of her personal life (e.g., awards won, life achievements, tweets that are unrelated to the Wizarding World, charitable donations, legal issues, political commentary or opinions).

Additionally, the sites announced sweeping changes to how they will cover Rowling in the future, including the removal of purchase links, links to Rowling’s website, as well as new protocols for posting about Rowling on social media, knowing that many Potter fans have her muted or blocked.

The decision comes at the end of a long road for the fandom, who over the last two years has been left holding the bag for Rowling, whose opinions became a burden that many found to be antithetical to the fandom and what they believe Rowling’s stories are about. But where can they go from here?

Potter world wouldn’t be the first to encounter this problem. Fans of Joss Whedon have spent the last few years watching his popularity wain due to allegations of abuse by his ex-wife and cast members. In summer 2017, Whedon’s ex-wife, Kai Cole, called him a “hypocrite preaching feminist ideals” in a blistering blog post. She accused him of infidelity, hiding multiple affairs on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as “a number of inappropriate emotional ones that he had with his actresses, co-workers, fans and friends” during the marriage.

The news of Whedon’s actions sent a shockwave through the fandom, and Whedon more or less disappeared. He didn’t really show up to do press for Justice League, the movie he finished for Zack Snyder, which already has its own bizarre and complicated journey. Moreover, about 24 hours after Cole told her story, Whedonesque, one of the biggest hubs for Joss-related content, shuttered. 15 years of fandom gone in a flash. “So farewell then,” the site’s editors wrote. “15 years is a long time and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. But now it’s time to say goodbye. No more threads after this one, we’re closing down. The site will at some stage become a read only site.” Since the shuttering of the site, what’s been going on in Whedon’s fanbase? Not much. Whedon’s yet to really make a public response to the blog post, and he’s been mum on the more recent allegations of abusive behavior made by Justice Leagues‘s Ray Fisher.

Joss Wheadon’s on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable.

He was enabled, in many ways, by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg.

Accountability>Entertainment

— Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) July 1, 2020

Before Whedon, fans of the Ender’s Game series had their own J.K. Rowling moment, contending with series creator Orson Scott Card’s homophobic views on gay marriage and the LGBTQ+ community. Way back in 1990, he told an interviewer: “Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society’s regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.” Fans of his once massively popular book series weren’t on board.

In 2013, fans boycotted a long-in-the-works film adaptation of Ender’s Game, citing the author’s anti-gay views and enlisted the help from LGBTQ+ advocacy groups to get the word out. The studio behind $110 million the film, Lionsgate, was rightly freaked out.

“We obviously do not agree with the personal views of Orson Scott Card,” said a Lion’s Gate spokesperson at the time. “The simple fact is that neither the underlying book nor the film itself reflect these views in any way, shape or form.”

Don’t look up Orson Scott Card then. https://t.co/xTCsKaUyj0

— Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) July 6, 2020

The statements didn’t end there. Orson Scott Card, perhaps concerned that the backlash could hurt the film’s box office returns, released a comment as well. He asked for “tolerance” from the fan community. He told Entertainment Weekly at the time:

Ender’s Game is set more than a century in the future and has nothing to do with political issues that did not exist when the book was written in 1984.

With the recent Supreme Court ruling, the gay marriage issue becomes moot. The Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution will, sooner or later, give legal force in every state to any marriage contract recognized by any other state.

Now it will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute.

Like Rowling’s controversial “TERF Wars” essay, Card’s statement was widely seen as a confirmation of fan’s concerns. Still, Card and Lionsgate were right to be worried. The film bombed in the U.S., grossing just over $60 million. While the film squeaked past its $110 million budget thanks to worldwide ticket sales, the film’s box office failure kneecapped a potential film franchise before it even got started, leaving the series’ 16 novels, 13 short stories and 47 comics to languish on the printed page. It was the endgame for Ender’s Game.

The Wizarding World has an uphill battle if the fan community wants to excommunicate Rowling. As the series’ sole creator, not only does Rowling have a massive footprint on the series, she may have the only print. There’s still something like 100 more Fantastic Beasts movies to come. Right now, there simply isn’t a Harry Potter without J.K. Rowling, so it’ll rely on the fans’ love of what’s already there to keep the fandom alive. But will fans be following Rowling on more adventures of Grindelwald and his magic crimes? If Ender’s Game and the declining interest in the Fantastic Beasts franchise are any indications, all signs point to no.