(Original here)
Let me begin with something. I'm a member of the "Harry Potter Generation", the kids that grew up with Harry, Ron and Hermione in the 90's and 00's. I used to go to school with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire under my arm and I was bullied for carrying that "dictionary" every single day. My book won't lie. It's broken, damaged and dirty. And for God's sake, I cried like a baby when Sirius Black was killed.
In other words, I love Harry Potter.
So, why do I say that J.K. should shut up? Because she's ruining everything. There are two basic rules in writing. First, when you give your text to others, it isn't your text anymore. It does not belong to you. It's theirs. And second, your damn text should stand by itself, if it can't, then it's bullshit.
J.K. did well the first years after the end of Harry Potter. And by end I mean both, when the last book was published and when the last movie was screened. It hurt, of course. As a fan, I cried when the Golden Trio hugged each other at the Premier of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2. But it was the correct thing, the production stopped, but the aesthetic object would continue. It has continued this years.
However, the social networks have been the nightmare of the author. Fans all over the world not only have written lots and lots of fanfics, now they have J.K. in twitter, and they're asking her every single doubt. They're begging her to fill the damn indeterminate spaces instead of imagining them. And that's a problem. It might seem that they're a bunch of fans trying to get in touch with the woman that turned their (and our) childhood into something magic, but the chaos begins when J.K. actually answers.
A couple of weeks ago J.K. asked fans to wish Harry's son good luck on his first day at Hogwarts. Like, really? Was it necessary? Obviously, the fans reacted. It's ok to "live" the books, but there's a limit and this woman is crossing it.
The problem isn't that J.K. keeps in touch with her fans, the problem is that she's not writing accesories for the Harry Potter books, she's fixing them. Instead of leaving things as she left them years ago, she is reimagining the story through the fans' questions. For example, she has recently told that Hagrid is not capable of making a Patronus because it's a really difficult charm. I was furious. Yes, she's the author, but she has no right to correct nor add things to Hagrid. We perfectly know that Hagrid is less powerful than other wizards, but J.K. threw a lot of shit to him with that comment.
It's the same with Snape. She has told that he smells of "bitterness and old shoes". I mean, come on...! It was enough with having such a character killed by a fucking snake in the most ridiculous way, don't ruin it more. Yes, we all know that Snape looks like he hasn't taken a bath in years, but that's no reason to humiliate him (more and more). If J.K. was smart, she would notice the powerful character she has. Snape is greater than Harry and has touched more memories than the Chosen One himself.
I could tell more and more examples. Rowling has told why uncle Vernon didn't like James (and Harry for consequence), has invented in which House is the oldest son of Harry, what happened with Teddy Lupin, new articles of Rita Skeeter... But the worst was when she said that Ron didn't deserve Hermione.
Goddammit, J.K.!
Yeah, we all know that Hermione is a genius and that Ron, well, he has a brilliant and warm heart. Both of them are willing to sacrifice themselves to save the ones they love. We all didn't agree with Ron marrying Hermione and extremely sickly sweet (and kind of sexist) details like their Patronuses. But it was Rowling's decision to put them together and we all respected it. Obviously we reacted with a lot of fanfics, but come on, there are fanfics of Harry married with Draco or even with Dumbledore (daaaaaamn), so it's no surprise.
But when the author says that she made a mistake and wants to compensate Hermione, we definitely have a problem. The first reaction was like "oh yeah, I knew it!", but then I felt shame for J.K., because she's not letting his work rest. To tell that to her fans wasn't to compensate Hermione, she wanted to feel good with herself. She didn't like it, she wrote something else, the fandom believed it and everything is fine. It's deplorable.
And with this I'm counting to ten until the first potterhead tells me that I'm a hater, a stupid-you-know-nothing, or even a Death Eater. As I said, I love Harry Potter. That's why I can't stand seeing and reading what J.K. is doing. Harry Potter is my childhood and this woman is trying to change it. I spent years looking for my damn letter and she says that we all went to Hogwarts because it's in our heads. She killed my favourite characters (I won't forgive Sirius death in my whole life) and then she humiliated them. I have reasons to thank J.K. Rowling, but she's giving me more reasons to hate her.
When I was ten, more or less, I finished The Order of the Phoenix and swore to myself that I would never read something else from her, because of the pain she gave me killing Sirius Black. Until today, I have achieved it, except by a couple of those Pottermore articles and her tweets. And with the things she's doing, I have no intention of reading something more. It's my reader's right. I don't wanna see the texts I love chopped again and again.
For many of the potterheads, J.K. Rowling is their Queen. For me, she was. I'm terribly dissappointed. Once I wanted to be a writer like her, but not anymore. I mean, I do want to be a writer, but if I ever modify my texts in twitter after they have been published, please shoot me. She's like Pavlov, she announces something new, a detail, and the fandom goes mad and almost start salivating (some actually do...). J.K. really believes she's the Queen and that she can do whatever she wants. Actually she can, because she has the money and the prestige, but that doesn't means that everybody's gonna applaud it.
J.K. should shut up and let Harry and the others in fucking peace. A tweet won't change the story and just leaves her like a poor writer. The books are published, and even if she decided to make a new edition changing all the things she hates, she can't undone the story she wrote. I know that tweeting and answering fans' questions is a strategy to sell, to get more readers and to keep the loyalty of the others. But it can be done in a different way. She could involve the reader's mind and imagination to answer the questions instead of being the "voice of reason and truth".
The Harry Potter fandom is huge and loyal as a dog. Everything Rowling says will be taken as a truth, but again, the texts are not hers. Are ours. She created this macrocosmos and let us live in it, but we decide how to live in it, we don't need her to tell us how's everything. That's the fucking power of the literature, imagination, and ironically, magic.
Someone must tell her to stop.
