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But the book is not based on Rowling’s own controversies…says Rowling. “I should make it really clear after some of the things that have happened the last year that this is not depicting [that],” Rowling said to Graham Norton in an interview. “I had written the book before certain things happened to me online. I said to my husband, ‘I think everyone is going to see this as a response to what happened to me,’ but it genuinely wasn’t. The first draft of the book was finished at the point certain things happened.”
Tom Felton dismissed her involvement in the films.
In an interview with The Independent about his memoir, the Draco Malfoy actor said he is “pro-human-rights across the board” and suggested Rowling “wasn’t part of the filmmaking process as much as some people might think.”
“First of all, I don’t know enough about the specifics of what anyone said,” he said of Rowling’s statements, per Variety. “My dog takes up far too much time for me to go into such matters. I mean, the obvious things to say are that I’m pro-choice, pro-discussion, pro-human-rights across the board, and pro-love. And anything that is not those things, I don’t really have much time for.”
The actor continued, “It is also a reminder that as much as Jo is the founder of [these] stories, she wasn’t part of the filmmaking process as much as some people might think. I think I only recall seeing her once or twice on set.”
Helena Bonham Carter came to her defense.
Bonham Carter, who played Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter films, defended Rowling in a November 2022 interview with The Sunday Times Magazine.
“It’s horrendous, a load of bollocks,” she said of the Rowling backlash. “I think she has been hounded. It’s been taken to the extreme, the judgmentalism of people. She’s allowed her opinion, particularly if she’s suffered abuse,” Bonham Carter continued. “Everybody carries their own history of trauma and forms their opinions from that trauma, and you have to respect where people come from and their pain. You don’t all have to agree on everything—that would be insane and boring. She’s not meaning it aggressively, she’s just saying something out of her own experience.”
A trans artist resells Harry Potter books with new covers that omit Rowling’s name.
Canadian printmaker and book artist Laur Flom, who is trans, garnered major attention when they began a project of buying secondhand Harry Potter books and replacing the covers with redesigned versions that don’t have J.K. Rowling’s name. Flom then resells the books for £140, according to Yahoo! News. In a TikTok from February 2022, Flom said, “My aim with this project is to engage critically and give an option to people who do still want to enjoy Harry Potter without supporting J.K. Rowling.”
Hogwarts Legacy, a video game based on the franchise, seemingly introduces a trans character.
Per Entertainment Weekly, the hotly anticipated Hogwarts Legacy, a video game set in the Harry Potter universe, introduces a new character, Sirona Ryan, who is seemingly trans. Though Sirona, a barkeep at Three Broomsticks, is not explicitly labeled as transgender, a line of her dialogue is highly suggestive. Referring to her friendship with a goblin, she says, “Hadn’t seen him in years when he came in a few months ago. But he recognized me instantly. Which is more than I can say for some of my own classmates. Took them a second to realize I was actually a witch, not a wizard.”