It’s not an exaggeration to say that Harry Potter defined a generation and continues to be an influential part of popular media today. It’s impressive that the franchise has kept its place in the cultural zeitgeist, but it has not aged well. As many fans re-read their beloved series, they realize that there’s problematic imagery contained within the writing. In recent years, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling let the world know she agrees with transphobic rhetoric, giving some fans the notion that they may not be accepted into a world they had come to love so dearly.
J.K. Rowling has called herself a “feminist,” but the more accurate term is TERF—Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. TERFs claim to be feminists, but also believe that sex will always define gender and that the lived experience of, say, a trans woman isn’t that of a woman, that somehow trans women are still men. This is understandably devastating for Harry Potter fans to hear, as many readers found themselves through the world J.K. Rowling created. Harley, known online as Breadwitchery, and co-founder of collaborative TTRPG channel Stories Told discussed how they have put on a Harry Potter campaign and tried to reclaim the franchise in the midst of J.K. Rowling’s transphobic views.
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The Witchcraft and Wizardry system is a free-to-use TTRPG campaign set in the Harry Potter universe and created by Wacksteven, a GM on a different TTRPG channel, Tablestory. Wacksteven created Witchcraft and Wizardry using the Powered by the Apocalypse system and all assets are available for download on the Tablestory website. It includes the rulebook, character sheets, character creation sheets, the Sorting Hat, and NPC sheets.
The Tablestory website says that Witchcraft and Wizardry is completely free and will remain that way. This is important because many Harry Potter fans don’t want to let go of a series they’ve loved for so long, even though its creator has proven to be transphobic. Many fans skirt around putting money directly in J.K. Rowling’s pockets by buying Harry Potter merchandise from small businesses or secondhand. Witchcraft and Wizardry is both immersive and fanmade, meaning fans can participate in the TTRPG campaign without monetarily supporting J.K. Rowling.
While Tablestory has its own Witchcraft and Wizardry campaign, Stories Told adopted the system for a different campaign it ran titled The Fifth House. It’s also one of the rare Stories Told campaigns that will be coming back for a second season. From the start of deciding to run this campaign, Harley knew she’d need to be as transparent as possible about choosing to run anything with a Harry Potter IP, because even though money may not go to J.K. Rowling directly, running a campaign with an audience would still feed into the author’s cultural capital.
Harley made a post on the Stories Told Patreon that outlined how they specifically felt about running a Witchcraft and Wizardry campaign but also acknowledged that some viewers may not feel comfortable watching or supporting a Harry Potter IP. The cast of The Fifth House is primarily trans people and People of Color, so in a way the campaign is meant to fight back against the comments and views J.K. Rowling has expressed. Harley is nonbinary and said that a small motivation for running The Fifth House was to spite J.K. Rowling’s transphobia. However, the bigger motivator is just love for Harry Potter as a whole.
“… we're using it as a personal reclamation and bastardization of the narrative and it's very much like we're trying to reclaim this for our nostalgia, and we think it's funny if it's a bunch of nonbinary people trotting around in the world.”
Additionally, The Fifth House ran a fundraiser throughout the entirety of the campaign for Mermaids UK, an organization dedicated to helping transgender, non-binary, and gender-diverse individuals. Harley said they got a laugh out of the fact that they were fundraising for a cause J.K. Rowling would probably hate. Harley said The Fifth House raised over $1,300 for the organization over the course of five episodes.
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The GM of the campaign also pulled a sneaky surprise for the cast that no one really caught until the End of Year speech. According to Harley, the villain of the season was someone who had helped create Hogwarts but turned out to be “a horrible person.” The metaphor was executed subtly enough that no one really caught on until the End of Year speech during the campaign. Harley said it was “really, really good” and all the cast members loved it.
The metaphor mentioned obviously mirrors J.K. Rowling’s fall from grace after asserting her transphobic views. She is the foundation of the Harry Potter IP but she let down a large portion of her fans, especially those who are trans and wish to transition or have already done so. It’s been disheartening to not only see J.K. Rowling assert these transphobic claims but double down on them when confronted. The moment she sided with TERFs, Hogwarts became a lot less accepting.
“… myself, as a nonbinary woman, a bastardization of her work by including nonbinary characters and also fundraising for a cause she'd hate is something that I find very funny and it's very comforting to me.”
As a whole, a lot of issues have been found within J.K. Rowling’s original Harry Potter works, with the author brushing over the problems entirely. The new Hogwarts Legacy game proves that Harry Potter probably won’t be going anywhere for a long time. However, little acts of rebellion, like putting on a TTRPG Witchcraft and Wizardry campaign with a cast of trans folks and People of Color can bring some comfort to fans, especially in the wake of J.K. Rowling’s transphobic views.
Stories Told airs its new campaign based on Good Society on Wednesdays at 9 PM BST/ 1 PM PST.
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