I have a suspicion that trouble with FA is about to flare up again

[fpb]

My older friends will remember the long war I had with a previous generation of FA moderators. Now I have lost my temper again, spectacularly and on their threads, and I suspect that it will make trouble.

I just read a chaptered fic (you will understand that I have no intention to increase the author's hit count, so we'll forget the name and title) which contains the following passage (behind lj-cut):
"Precisely," Caitlin smiled thinly. "And if it sounds horrible to you, think what a mage would think, coming from a community where you had magical privies that made the waste disappear, mud resistant robes, cures for most diseases known to the Muggles, a non-existent infant mortality rate, nice clean stone buildings for everyone, house elves that kept everything sanitary using magic and a standard of living not far off what you're both used to. I'm telling you, the phrase 'filthy Muggles' wasn't abuse back then, it was a fact. Of course the mages of the day felt they were superior - why wouldn't they? The poorest mage lived better than a Muggle king. Salazar was only different in that his attitudes were more extreme and professed more openly. He wasn't interested in saving Muggles from themselves, and he certainly didn't want their children around, with their insistence in only one god, and eternal damnation for those who didn't follow him, and that magic users not sanctioned by their High Priest in Rome were going straight to Hell. Actually can't say I entirely blame him on that score," she said with a grin.

Luella had to admit that being told that your magic was evil on a daily basis would probably annoy even the most patient of mages.

"But that doesn't mean being a Muggle-born makes you inferior!" she responded.

"Well, of course not," Caitlin replied. "Times have changed, and so have Muggles. Most love the idea of magic. That weird Middle Eastern crucifixion cult has lost its hold on their minds. And perhaps most importantly, they've discovered science, and it's given them power equal to ours in a way. No, Luella, in no way do I think Muggles are inferior. But back then, Salazar had some good points, and a lot of mages agreed with him, up until the point where he started secretly advocating the extermination of Muggle-borns, and the banning of mage-Muggle marriages, or at least severely restricting them to suitable candidates. That was when he crossed the line, and that's when war broke out, and Salazar got thrown out of Hogwarts. Battles were fought, alliances were made and broken, and a particularly nasty bloodfeud ensued that endures to this day. Salazar, I might add, lost, although his House stayed. Enough of them repented or stayed loyal to make it worthwhile keeping it. After all, Salazar Slytherin was still a Founder. But from then on, Slytherin House was seen as different, marked out by its past. At best, a house to be wary of, at worst the source of everything evil. Dark mages from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are overlooked or explained away as having had a traumatic past. Dark Slytherins have always been blown up into terrifying figures of absolute evil. Their Dark Mages are seen as one-offs, aberrations. Ours are seen as typical Slytherins. Until the 1970's, we Slytherins have always put up with the prejudice and just got on with our lives. We dealt with it by consoling ourselves that our house may be evil but at least we were the talented ones. That's why we're noted for our ambition: we start out automatically disadvantaged and work twice as hard to catch up. We've all got something to prove. We've been hated but we get by....

I found this not only offensive but a genuine instance of hate speech, including evident racist overtones (apparently being "middle eastern" is bad) and a loathsome misrepresentation of historical fact. I let the author know in the comments thread, and added a warning against this fic in the thread where I had originally found the link. Now it all depends on whether the moderators think this is, a), flaming, and, b), not justified by the evident and contemptible hate speech in the fic. Either way, I really do not think I intend to retract a single word.

Comments

[camillofan.livejournal.com]

I'm not playing dumb here, honest: is "weird Middle Eastern crucifixion cult" the hate speech line?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

What about the high priest in Rome dictating what could be believed or not? What about the ugly and distorted picture of history in general? What about the whole assumption that monotheism is somehow A Bad Thing?

[camillofan.livejournal.com]

The speaker is a Slytherin, right? I took it as disrespect on the part of the character, but wasn't offended.

I do find it aesthetically bothersome whenever Christianity makes an appearance (even a cameo, like being mentioned in a conversation) in a story set in a magic universe, though. I know HP exists in "our" world, but still...

And you can number me with those who had to work extra hard to suspend disbelief for Father Christmas in Narnia.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

You said what needed to be said.

(The exchange reminds me a little too much of C.S. Lewis-style villains. HP meets That Hideous Strength or something.)

The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[pathology-doc.livejournal.com]

If "Weird Middle Eastern crucifixion cult" is the hate-speech line (and I think that's what you're getting at), I think you're dead wrong. 'Middle Eastern' correctly describes the broad geographic area of origin of Christianity. As for Christianity being a weird crucifixion cult, seen from the viewpoint of an outside, atheist observer (or at least a nonbeliever in the Abrahamic God), it's probably an apt description - show me any other religion whose holy mark is a symbolization of the device used to execute its originator, and whose central rite comprises spiritual (or if you believe in transubstantiation, literal) cannibalism.

If a religion arose today which venerated the silhouette of the gun (for instance) and preached the symbolic consumption of human flesh to achieve (or improve) oneness with God, it would be called a cult; regardless of what its spiritual background was, or the nobility of its underlying message.

I would be interested in a more specific indication of the claimed historical inaccuracies. Are you referring to the treatment of "sorcerers" and "witches" by the early Church? The tendency of extremist Christians (and for much of its life the entire Roman Church) to write off as damned (or at best to act with condescending pity towards) those not toeing the doctrinal line is well known, and historical examples abound. Another point worth bearing in mind is that it is well known that the wizarding world canonically has grave issues regarding its understanding of the way the Muggle world works, and it could be argued that this almost certainly extends to their knowledge and interpretation of Muggle history. If two wizard characters are misrepresenting Muggle history in dialogue, that's called "being faithful to canon" - it would actually be grossly out of character to have any ordinary wizard (maybe any wizard at all, with the possible exception of Charity Burbage, Albus Dumbledore or Hermione Granger) demonstrate a knowledge of Muggle history equal to yours.

The only way to know whether you're right is to be able to read the segment in the context of the whole. When you reference a body of work, you are under obligation to provide unambiguous paths back to the source. Your personal loathing of the text does not IMO release you from this obligation.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I am in no mood to treat this author's work except than as the crap it is. I am not getting him any more readers, so if you want, track it down yourself.

If an author presents a character as admirable, then he approves of her views. Caitlin is consistently presented as admirable - stylish, attractive, brave (she is an Auror), diplomatic and wise. What she says is not challenged.

You got the history wrong. The period the author is speaking about is the high Middle Ages (a period in which, historically, witch hunts did not happen - they were a by-product of that great love of all "humanists" and enemies of Christianity, the Renaissance, began about 1400 and reached their climax about 1600).

Contrary to your curious belief, the centrality of bloody sacrifice and the identification of bloody sacrifice with both the sacrificer and the supreme god are a feature of most religions I know. To the extent that I know for a fact, and have shown in my publication Gods of the West I: Indiges, that at some point in the lost history of Celtic Christianity, some sort of identification between the chief gods of Celtic religion and the Three Persons of the Trinity must have taken place, based largely on the identification of Lleu/Lug with sacrifice and of sacrifice with the Second Person. So much for the strangeness of Christian religious ideas. And no matter how much you twist it, "weird Middle Eastern crucifixion cult" for the religion of Galileo, Beethoven and Shakespeare is an insult, and a racist insult to boot.

I cannot imagine what drives you to search for every possible red herring to bring to the argument. Would you have done the same if, instead of insulting Christians and Christianity, this creep had spoken of, say, smelly N---ers or treacherous slit-eyed Chinks? This is the level we are on.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

The founding of Hogwarts is said to be about 1000 years ago, which would place it after the Great Schism, but only just. Therefore, it is highly inaccurate to refer "magic users not sanctioned by their High Priest in Rome" as if the Pope was the only supreme authority. He was not. There were five partiarchs: the Patriarch in Rome (who we call the "Pope"), and the patriarchs of Constantinopole, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria (Egypt).

In 1054, not long before Hogwarts is supposed to have been founded, the Patriarchs of East and West were too busy fighting with each other to give much though too what they lay membership was doing. In fact, the Roman church was barely able to rouse itself to make sure that parish priests even knew the Mass properly. This is one of the things that would annoy the snot of St. Bernard in the 12th century and St. Francis is the 13th.

It goes further actually; in the that period of history (centuries before the Reformation and counter-Reformation) the Church was not overly concerned with doctrinal purity. They were more concerned with converting the "elite" (King, Princes, and perhaps more importantly the noble women who had influence at court). They pretty much let the masses do as they wanted as long as it didn't upset the political and social order too much. Of course, when a "native" Christian movement got too much out of line, that would attract dangerous attention (like the Albigensian Crusade).

Therefore, if as you say the Wizarding world was as woefully ignorant of their neighbors then as now, then the fact is, that the character would not hold those views at since there was nothing to base them on. That she does spout such nonsense proves that either the author is injecting too much of her prejudice in, or the character has spent time listening to 20th century Muggle intelligensia spouting nonsense and taken it to heart - which I believe is diametrically opposed to what the character is supposed to be line in terms of her Muggle knowledge/relation.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

bla bla blah magical privies LOL blah blah being told that your magic LOL

Well - it's an interesting perspective, though I don't think the dates work out (you know more about that than me). I wouldn't assume that the author agrees with what the characters are saying, now, but I've always found it funny that so many Harry Potter fans are into justifying Slytherin or the Pureblood thing. Which is probably why I'm LOLing at this.

In any event, this writer needs a better beta.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I thought it was supposed to be humorous. Seems like the author is trying to indicate how ridiculously off-base familiar institutions are from the point of view of an outsider, in the same vein as Arthur Weasley's perpetual wonder at Muggle inventions. ("To find out how aeroplanes stay up.")

I also don't think an author necessarily agrees with the views of her characters, or even her heroes. For instance, in Till We Have Faces, the Fox is portrayed as largely noble and his views are never challenged, but Lewis obviously wasn't a Stoic! Same with Professor de la Paz, the Latin American revolutionary in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. A good author can always present divergent and even distasteful views convincingly, which makes dowsing through their works for ideology dangerous. (That, I think, is Michael Moorcock's main sin in his little anti-Tolkien polemic. I wonder how he would feel about people trying to divine his views from Elric of Melniboné?)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

There is some connection between the author and Asatru. No, believe me, it was not meant to be funny. I already knew it of his/her/its circle, now I know it about him/her/it.

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

Without having read the rest of the fic it is impossible to know what the tone or the intention of the writer is. What the passage did remind me off was the recent re-evaluation of Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speach. Where the casual, accepted, racism of the past is supposed to be justified in some way by the times or the circumstances of the country. The sentence "But back then, Salazar had some good points" could have been heard or read recently on Radio or int he papers with Powell's name added.

Should I have ever tried my hand at HP fiction, it is just the sort of thing I could imagine a 'good' Syltherin character saying towards the beginning of a story. Simply to display that while they were otherwise a 'good' person, they retained areas of prejudice from their background.

What would be interesting to read would be your response on the thread, and I'd be very interested to know what you think the FA moderators should do about the fic? (What is FA anyway?)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

FictionAlley, one of the largest Harry Potter fanfic sites. All my fics are published there, but I also have a long story of disagreement - to put it politely - with a previous administration.

I think your comparison is not really apt, since it assumes that the "good points" include calling Christianity a "weird Middle Eastern crucifixion cult" that has now lost its hold on people. That is the equivalent of implying that Powell's views about people of another sort remain valid. Also, it as historically accurate. In forty years of increasing immigration, we certainly have not seen the river Thames - or any other - foaming with much blood: even the Brixton riots were mild affairs, by comparison not only with what is frequent in poorer countries, but even with the history of London itself (think of the Gordon riots). By the same token, to describe Christianity as a fading cult is self-deception on a monstrous scale.

[ms-katonic.livejournal.com]

Correct! She's a Slytherin whose family opposed Voldemort and consequently all got killed, leaving her traumatised and really rather screwed up as a result. She's a mother-mentor figure to the younger generation, but by no means a perfect one - she's a deeply flawed character. I certainly don't expect my readers to agree 100% with everything or indeed anything she says. She's hardly a role model.

controversy

[elskuligr.livejournal.com]

I wonder if you're not overreacting a bit.
As a matter of fact, I had already read that fic (although to be honest, I lost interest after a couple of chapters and can't remember the title, so I'm not exacty a big fan either) and I didn't like this passage either, but I wouldn't say it's hate speech.
Especially, concerning the use of "middle-eastern" here, I don't think the implication is that anything coming from the Middle East is bad, but that what some people think of as universal truth (cf. 'insistence in only one god') is in fact a localized religious phenomenon (see also in this respect 'their High Priest in Rome' which has the same function by calling what some might call the representative of God on earth (universal) a mere local religious leader).

The historical view here is generally quite biased and extremely vague as all the History of the world is characterised in one sweeping gesture: assumption of existence of modern concepts of hygiene in wizarding communities of the past (particularly the insistance on "sanitary" conditions which seems to me an anachronistic transposition of modern Western obsessions), typical clichés about men of the past being all rather clueless and dirty...
It certainly doesn't have its place in a History book, not even a wizarding History book ;)

That being said, I don't find it particularly shocking either: I don't think it is a crime for a fictional character to have very biased views.
It is perhaps a bit disappointing that the narrator doesn't seem to have much critical distance and that she apparently genuinely thinks that humanity wasn't worth much before the 20th century, but one has to bear in mind that such views about history are quite widespread and that the author may be mistaken and yet not mean harm. Her work migh be more naïve than actually hateful.
I don't know what kind of message you left her, but I don't think there was any need for aggressivity here. You might think I'm too tolerant but according to me, some polite criticism and a few suggestions to improve the passage perhaps would have been plenty enough. Actually, I had been thinking recently, you seem rather angry with the world in general these days, especially with matters of religion. Any reason in particular for this extreme sensitivity these days or has it always been the case and I hadn't noticed?

Re: controversy

[fpb.livejournal.com]

...such views of history are quite widespread...
Exactly. And if you are familiar with this blog, you will know that I am at war with this kind of unhistorical arrogance and vanity (what CS Lewis called chronological snobbery). If you think you are smarter than Beethoven or Thomas Aquinas, prove it.

I say it's hate speech because I think it's hate speech. I am not going to retract it. And to be quite frank, I suggest that you reflect on a sentence from that mine of wisdom and quotations, GK Chesterton: "Perhaps you have never seen it the right way up," said Father Brown. "I told you that artists turn a picture the wrong way up when they want to see it the right way up. Perhaps, over all those breakfasts and tea - tables, you had got used to the face of a fiend." Very little, after all, is easier than to get used to constantly-repeated vicious talk from people who do not themselves immediately seem vicious; only to wake up one day and find that the secret police is abroad in the land, and that people are vanishing with disquieting regularity, and that the pleasant colleague who believed in the revolution or in restoring order did, in fact, believe exactly what he said.

[ms-katonic.livejournal.com]

I happen to know the author very well - she's not a Christian, but doesn't have anything against the members per se, she just doesn't believe in it.

Also, I don't think she believes in every single thing her characters say. I know the fic in question, and Caitlin's intentionally a deeply flawed character - not evil, but damaged. You're not meant to want to be her or follow her every word. I believe it's called "expecting one's readers to have a brain in their head and use it".

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I refuse to read beyond the passage that I found disgusting, but I understand from your and your colleagues that several chapters after that, Caitlin does something regrettable or criminal and certainly disgusting. Let me point out that at the point we are in, nobody would minimally suspect her. IN narrative terms, she is setting the stage. Even her apparently criminal behaviour later on does nothing to alter the credibility of her narrative. It would only be if the narrative itself were shown to be fraudulent that you could say anything to defend it.

And now, let us cut the bullshit. You ought to know as well as I do that this kind of shit is simply the ordinary currency among the half-educated, those who know nothing about history but have an opinion about it anyway, and who do not want to bother to learn more because the facts might confuse them. To present them in this bald and unashamed fashion, as historical narrative, by a character who at this point figures as the enlightened one and the enlightener, shedding light in every direction, is to approve of it. If you try to argue otherwise, you are a rotten judge of prose and narrative.

[blue-sky-day.livejournal.com]

Don't you think it's a bit disingenous to be referring to yourself in the third person like that?

[dragonrider7.livejournal.com]

I'm good friends with the author in question, and if you think she's a racist or whatever else your insane ramblings are supposed to be indicating, you're sorely (and very amusingly) mistaken.

Trust me, there is *plenty* of genuinely inflammatory stuff out there that you could be leaping on. Why this? Also, why this one line out of the entire rest of the story? Why not the part where Caitlin rapes a man, or the part where her daughter beats the living hell out of Ron Weasley?

There's so much injustice in this world, stop making a fool of yourself and track down some real prejudice instead of picking on fanfiction writers who probably don't give a toss about what you think. You're just making a fool of yourself.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I haven't got to the place where those wonderful displays of heroism and even-mindedness you describe are set out, and I do not intend to. But if you wanted to show me that this author is either attractive or upright, you have a funny way to go about it. Also, I am not impressed by the way that "friends" of the author keep turning up to defend her and insult me. When I am in a fight with someone, I generally ask my friends to stay out of it; I don't want them to get in trouble, and my enmities are no business of theirs.

[mattador.livejournal.com]

The Middle East is where Christianity began. Calling Christianity Middle eastern is not racist, it's accurate. And the above passage, while it implies negative things about Christianity, does not imply them about the Middle east, so far as I can tell.

Likewise, to say that an author who makes a character likeable endorses all of that character's statements and opinions is blatantly untrue, and could be contradicted by literally dozens of examples- I'd cite almost every book written by John Barnes or Robert Heinlein, for one, as containing main characters who have vocal opinions that are clearly and demonstrably not held by the author.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I hate it when people try to resurrect dead arguments. I hate it twice over when they repeat things I have already answered. I hate it three times over when they show blatant lack of understanding of things like writing. Either you understand nothing about how words are arranged for effect, or you are being deliberately disingenuous. Either way, this is the only response you will have from me. Go away.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose you have actually bothered to read Gay Bar? Mind you, even if you had, it would be a point of honour with your likes not to concede anything on an issue where all the Right People have posted repulsive and mmendacious posts. If you want specimens of hate speech, read the comments threads. Now go away.

P.S.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Compare behaviours. I have positively refused to identify the author or to encourage any of my friends on her fic, till she identified herself. You and your mates have wasted weeks egging each other on, backstabber thread by backstabber thread and lynch mob by lynch mob, even though most of you did not even bother to properly read what offended you. And the hilarious thing is that you probably support the Mohammed cartoons and dislike Muslim lynch mobs; but when it comes to supposed offences against homosexuality, you are the very image of those bloodthirsty mobs. And now, as I said, go away and don't come back.