Harry Potter [2]

This debate deserves Petty, but he doesn't check the Harry Potter thread.

It's hard to separate the damage the films do to the original story from their stand-alone value as films. I thought the HP films did a good job of capturing the spirit of the original, where with the Hobbit films you have to jot down notes of general plot elements on paper before you can see the similarities.

But putting source material aside....err....I'll have to come back after a couple hours of deep meditation.

No, I think he's serious.

I think if you were thoroughly sauced and forgot any connection may exist to the actual Hobbit, you may be able to enjoy the films the way you enjoy anything where things 'splode and you are in proper delerium to appreciate them going boom.

The extra stuff would be great if it wasn't all perversions of what it should be.

Was the famous, epic White Council really just 4 people sitting around insulting each other in slow motion?

Would the real Radagast really have a sled pulled by bunny rabbits?

Would a beautiful elf really fall in love with a third-string dwarf?

Azog packed all the bad-guy tropes smashed together for no other reason than somebody seemed to think a perilous journey wasn't challenge enough. Here, let's make the most obvious bad guy ever seen. Not gauche at all.

Did the sandworms bust through from the thin wall separating middle earth from the Dune universe?

Yes, the Boar added SO MUCH to the dignity of Dain.

Too tired to continue...

I don't remember that scene very well, but I was very much looking forward to seeing Galadriel cast Sauron out of Dol Goldur (I also had this confused with her throwing down the walls of Dol Goldur later).   I wanted to see her being a complete bad-ass.  But the scene disappointed me.  Probably my preconceptions - Galadriel's usually pretty laid back; but in my view when she up and DECIDES to be a badass, there's no doubt who's gonna win.  She just up and slaps folks into line. The fact that later on during the War of the Ring she actually cast down the fortress of Dol Gulder itself shows that she's not a bitch you can mess with when she's got her dander up.

Ah, now I remember. that wasn't right. They showed her being badass, but not the right kind of badass. I went back and watched clips of it: at first when she flipped off the orc it was about right, then she looked uncertain and not at all badass when the nazgul showed up. Finally when Sauron showed up she turned into evil badass bitch instead of righteous badass bitch. Ruined it.

It was Galadriel who later threw down the walls of Dol Goldur.  Sure, Celeborn showed up first and did some house cleaning by way of chasing all the orcses out (ho-hum guy stuff), but to really make shit go 'boom!' you need Galadriel.  Elrond doesn't figure into it.  At least they had her be the one to kick Sauron out, so they realized she was the key figure, I'll give them that.

This comes down to how much research is done.

The way things were portrayed in the media, a woman was forced out of her job simply for saying a man can't be changed into a woman.  This is chromosonally correct and from this video it's clear that a trans man can't always disguise his former maleness.

But upon the further research done by the narrator, the finding of the jobs bureau was that this woman would insist on pointing such things out even if they caused considerable discomfort to her co-workers.  

JK Rowling seemed to be basing her statement on the incomplete media portrayal. As would most people.  This is unfair to the employer who we should expect to only take such a drastic step when the actual work environment is under real threat, but I think it's the way the vast majority of the population reads news.

So I wouldn't say Rowling's statement is transphobic so much as the same lazy acceptance of the media story that most of us tend to do.  The rule should be that if something sets off alarm bells about behavior, we should dig deeper to get the whole story.  Most people are reasonable and if they seem not to be it may be because of other unreasonable people that you may not have been alerted to on a first pass.

The presenter digs up what is referred to as a "history" of tranphobia, but to me they look more like chances to not be neutral, but Rowling remained neutral.  By "neutral" I mean the idea that a trans man should be treated like a woman, but not ask the population to believe she actually physically IS a woman.  

I believe the presenter fully is a woman inside, but must grasp the realism of the situation: everyone who looks and hears will see a trans man rather than a woman.  It's not racist to say a black man is a black man so long as he's treated no different than a white man.  I'd say the same here about what the presenter claims to be transphobia.  The key is that you should feel no reason to bring it up as it shouldn't make a difference.