this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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Related to the reply at the bottom, it's so weird to me whenever people try to either separate or hand-wave Lovecraft's attitudes from his works as if they're not super-duper fucking related to each other. Like, you can't say "HPL was a elitist xenophobe but Shadow over Innsmouth is a good story," like one doesn't follow the other... "therefore, Shadow over Innsmouth is a good story."
Part of what makes Lovecraft's horrors so timeless dispite their frankly dated and unsatisfying writings is how he tapped into a primal fear that most other creatives have abandoned, the fear of "the other group."
/rant
I may elaborate more/clarify some things if people want to talk about it
Lovecraft is a bit of an odd duck in this comparison largely because his own works are fairly dull and uninteresting on top of being a generally shitty person overall.
His contributions are mostly that he had some really interesting ideas from the world building side of things that other authors and creators turned into far more interesting stories. Not really comparable to JKR in that Harry Potter is actually a pretty good piece of YA fiction.
Well, Harry Potter is entertaining, but it is racist and bigoted in a more modern subtle micro-aggressive way. “Slaves actually want it, if you are a good master” apology, Voldemort is evil because he wants to be immortal (not because he promotes the ideas of an genocidal eugenicist), glorifying emotional manipulation, the high school jock is the protagonist and he grows up to be a cop. The text is difficult content wise for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with Rowling's political stances. I mean the girl of Asian descent is literally called Cho Chang.
She called the Asian girl "ching chong", she called one of the few black people in it "shackle bolt", and she might as well have called the Irish kid "Irish O'Carbomb" given his name an propensity for unintentionally setting things on fire.
Don't even get me started on the goblins.
She straight up admitted lycanthropy is HIV, and all werewolves are interested j is spreading their disease by attacking anyone nearby, one werewolf specifically targets children, if I remember correctly.
The only gay characters I am aware of, one is a villain, and the other other is "one of the good ones" who never acted on it after a point and just stayed a celibate single.
The only non-magical users in the magic world "squibs", basically disabled people, are portrayed as shitty humans. Every summer Harry got left with ms fig who was "a mad old lady", and the school caretaker Filch, who is a sadist that welcomes umbridge with open arms, a parasite who latches on to whoever benefits him most.
I'm sure there's others I've never caught or thought about.
Notice that two queer coded characters (Lupin and Tonks) are shoved into a straight, age gap relationship, where they immediately have a baby and are killed off.
Tonks is especially egregious. You have a woman who dyes her hair crazy colors and chooses to go by a more masculine nickname, and then at the end, we have Lupin calling her “Nymphadora.”
The alcoholic driving instructor. Her name is Madam Hooch, what more proof do you need?