Can a game that hasn’t even come out yet be any more controversial? Hogwarts Legacy is proving to be quite a controversial game as millions have decided to boycott because of the controversy with the franchise it belongs too.
To be honest, I’m just catching up to speed on Hogwarts Legacy and all of the controversy surrounding it and its famous/infamous franchise: The Harry Potter Franchise.
As a kid who was never really into Harry Potter, the Wizarding World, or any of its bad spinoff movies (don’t try to defend them), I was never really ‘in the know’ about the controversies and dividend opinions about Harry Potter and the author behind it, J.K. Rowling.
Being an outsider to the Potter fandom, all I knew was that J.K. Rowling was an extremely successful, vocal, passionate, and political author who had no qualms about spreading her beliefs across social media, regardless of the backlash to her and her works.
Yes, I heard about the complains and accusations that she was transphobic and whatever else people have said about her, but I honestly didn’t pay it too much attention for the simple reason that I was never a massive fan of her work.
In fact, I have never read the books, I haven’t seen all of the movies, and I think she’s a pretty poor screenwriter as the Fantastic Beast franchise is a poor man’s Harry Potter copycat. Yes, Fantastic Beasts shouldn’t even be viewed on the same level as the original source’s world material in my opinion. So, at least in my own little bubble, J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter were a minor footnote.
And then I saw the State of Play trailer to Hogwart Legacy today.
Yes, I know it came out nearly eight months ago, but like I said, I was completely in the dark about this game and the Potter franchise in general. Nevertheless, I have to admit that the game looks amazing as it not only allows us to recreate the famous spells, potions, curses, etc. of the books and movies, but it is also an RPG that allows us to create an entirely new character in the world of Harry Potter.
Set in the late 1880’s, the game will send us on many missions and adventures as a 5th year student of Hogwarts as we seek to stop a brewing ancient mystery and potential Goblin rebellion that threatens to destroy the very Wizarding World….in any way possible.
So, in other words, we can use the killing curse to defeat out enemies and end up as a Dark Wizard/Witch like Voldemort and Grindelwald, which is super cool.
The books and movies are solely told through the prospective of the heroes/’good guys’, so it’ll be nice to finally be able to play as a Dark/Morally Grey wizard/witch that has mastery of both the good and bad parts of magic.
(Image Source: PlayStation/Image Owner: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment-Hogwarts Legacy-State of Play Official Trailer)
Anyway, I could go into massive amounts of detail about this game, but there’s a massive black cloud hanging over Warner Bros. and the developer studio over this title. Of course, I’m referring to the huge boycott that I mentioned earlier on in the article.
Now, I’m not going to get into the politics of J.K. Rowling or her critics and supporters as that’s just not what I do with this platform, but it also is a pain in the ass. Politics is like a corrosive disease that spreads its tentacles across everything it touches until the point it either destroys or corrupts the said thing it interacted with.
At least in my opinion, politics only works to divide us all rather than unite, no matter what perspective/side one agrees/disagrees with. It’s important to remember that (in my humble opinion) everything about modern day politics always falls on one side or the other of the same corrosive coin. There is very rarely neutral nuance.
Nevertheless, I will also say that everyone deserves to be respected and treated with equality without the fear of persecution or intolerance. I don’t know the specifics of J.K. Rowling’s views and I don’t plan on learning them either, but I will say that being transphobic in general is wrong (regardless of whether Rowling is or is not). There’s no need to hate/mistreat someone based on a characteristic of their external appearance.
In my opinion, you should always judge someone based on their character, not their appearance.
As the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” I agree wholeheartedly, which is the final thing I will say on this topic.
As for the boycott, I also don’t believe that the video game developers of Warner Bros. should have to suffer for the actions/words of Rowling. Warner Bros. has specifically come out and said that Rowling had nothing to do with this project, unlike the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts books and movies.
These developers have given years of their life to put together what looks like one of the Game of the Year contenders for 2023 and deserve to be recognized and applauded for it. Yes, I understand that the source material they’re deriving on is controversial to some, but that shouldn’t be used against them.
(Image Source: PlayStation/Image Owner: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment-Hogwarts Legacy-State of Play Official Trailer)
Afterall, the video game developers of Warner Bros. are but humble caretakers of the property, adding their own new ideas and storylines to the material. If this game absolutely bombs for reasons that are not related to its gaming mechanics/performances, then I find that to be extremely unjustified on the gaming developers.
Why should their livelihoods be ruined and their reputations forever damaged because of controversy they did not start? Again, in my opinion, one should buy the game, see if they enjoy it or not, and then review/critique it with the knowledge of the controversy that surrounds it.
But what do I know? I’m just a simple guy from Massachusetts.
Do/say what you will with this game, but just try to be cordial with those you interact with when reviewing it.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Image Source: PlayStation/Image Owner: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment) (Hogwarts Legacy – State of Play Official Gameplay Reveal | PS5, PS4 – YouTube)
In Text Image 1: (Image Source: PlayStation/Image Owner: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment) (Hogwarts Legacy – State of Play Official Gameplay Reveal | PS5, PS4 – YouTube)
In Text Image 2: (Image Source: PlayStation/Image Owner: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment) (Hogwarts Legacy – State of Play Official Gameplay Reveal | PS5, PS4 – YouTube)
