Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has received a wide range of scorn for her views on gender in recent years and now seems to care little if it hurts her historical legacy.
The 57-year-old expressed as much in the new The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling podcast, which made its debut today. The series looks at a number of conflicts through the lens of Rowling’s life and career and, when asked if she is concerned about how she will be remembered, Rowling said that to do such a thing is arrogant and the most important thing for her is to just live in the moment.
“I do not walk around my house, thinking about my legacy. You know, what a pompous way to live your life walking around thinking, ‘what will my legacy be?’ Whatever, I’ll be dead. I care about now. I care about the living.”
The comments were picked up by and reported on by Variety. The outlet’s article also notes that Rowling claims to be misunderstood in the series and historically, she has written comments like “if sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.”
Rowling has also claimed that trans women are more likely than cisgender women to physically or sexually assault someone in a women’s locker room, a sentiment that has drawn harsh criticism from Harry Potter film actors. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Eddie Redmayne have already criticized Rowling, and, as host Megan Phelps-Roper (formerly of the Westboro Baptist Church) explains at the start, it is this cross-cultural dislike that sparked the podcast to begin with.
“What is it about this woman and her work that has captured the ire of very different groups of people across time?”
For those who are unaware, Rowling was previously scorned by far-right Christians over the books. They wanted to ban and burn them and today, they defend her while those who once loved her books are expressing similar, though politically opposite views.
The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling is set to last seven episodes, the first two of which are out now. For those who do not want to listen but still enjoy the Wizarding World, the Hogwarts Legacy game is out now and is doing its best to distance itself from the world’s creator, though some are not buying into it and even charities are restricting people from playing it.