Terry Pratchett lays into JK Rowling!

[Thadlerian]

Obviously you haven't read more than the first book! To me Jo relays racism in her books MUCH more than Terry Pratchett, and in more disturbing ways!

The racism as portrayed in Pratchett's books is more than a bit more subtle, that's why it seems less. The racism in Harry Potter is kind of a cute, museum-type racism: Extremely loudly portrayed: It's the whole reason of existence for the bad guys. It is pronounced so blatantly and obvious, and by characters who Rowling goes to great lengths to portray as petty and stupid: In Harry Potter, all racists are either stupid or Evil. The racists are different from "us", because we readers, like the main characters with whom we identify, are the smart and good guys. In the end, Rowling doesn't really critizise anyone. She doesn't tell us anything, she just makes us feel good because we're so obviously not racists.

What Pratchett portrays in his books, starting a while into the series, is the everyday racism of passive prejudice and discrimination of which we're all guilty. Ankh-Morpork faces a very real challenge: Increasing immigration of foreign ethnic groups, inevitably changing the demography and culture of the city, and people acting in response to that. The Human-Dwarf-Troll relations are all about normal people trying to lead entirely normal lives; not stupid or Evil, just people, like us. Furthermore, in Rowling's HP, the victims of racism remain just that: Victims. They sit idly and wait for the good guys to liberate them from hate and violence. In Ankh-Morpork, the alienation and frustration leads the Dwarves and the Trolls into forming aggressive countercultural groups (vividly described in Thud!), very much like Extreme Muslims in today's West. Pratchett explores not just racist expressions, but also the reasons for them and their consequences onto society.

To sum it up, Rowling portrays Fantasy racism in a Fantasy society. Her books might have had a relevance back in the 1930s or -50s. Pratchett, on the other hand, portrays real racism in a Fantasy society; a mirror image of a problem that is unique to our contemporary world. Pratchett aims to tell us that relevant racism is not a bunch of badguys shouting slogans, but a far deeper problem that seems to be inherent to our society, and which concerns us all.

Read all the HP books, by the way. Quite liked them, but the same statements about "muggles" and "mudbloods" eternally put on "repeat" for 600-odd pages is hard to take seriously.

 

[SmoothasSilk]

So you're accusing me of passive racism???? A woman with Jewish blood in her? AS well as Scottish, Irish, and possibly French? Saying that WE'RE ALL racist in some degree??? I wholeheartedly disagree with EVERYTHING you said above.

What about Terrorists? Could they be likened to Death Eaters, I think so, and Jo has said that herself... What about Lord Voldemort being in hiding using minions to do his evil deeds? I think that relates to Osama Bin Laden and the way he works the Al Quaeda (sp?) I also disagree strongly that her racism would more likely fit in the 30s-50s. Have you heard of Neo Nazism, or the phrase LEST WE FORGET! And I'm sorry but Racists are stupid and Evil. They are like Draco Malfoy, I know that because I went to school with a guy who complained that most of the names used in maths text books were Asian and he even said they should be kicked out of England.

I was also born in an area where 1 in every 3 were Asian or Black and there are a lot of Racist riots in that area still - on the scale of Death Eaters.

To also prove that I am NOT a Passive Racist AS you so said, I don't consider myself a British citizen BUT a Citizen of the World as we ALL are. I HAVE never said that Blacks are second class, I have never thought that ASIANS have landed and I AM NOT proud to belong to one country, but to be a human being that has the luck to be born in the most beautiful planet in our solar system.

You know what I thought I'd have fun on this bored but you all are just so damn snooty about certain things. YOU are not the first person to make me feel this way. I don't think I'll visit this board again... I'm going to find another one!

 

[zorcarepublic]

So what if you have Jewish, Scottish, Irish and possibly French geneology? Does that make you magically (excuse any semi-pun) non-racist?

No.

Where I live, there were hardly any other ethnic groups until recently. It was easy to promote, say, the French as being arrogant, for example.. And, I regret to say, I still have a portion of that programming. I've been able to un-programme myself to the point where Im not a raving nationalist, but some of that programming will still remain. I think of it as being instinctual programming, from before we were homo sapiens sapiens, and even when we were, when different tribes would always fight. Now we simply have bigger tribes.

So, if you've been able to re-programme yourself, congratulations. But I ask you this: have you ever felt slightly uneasy around other ethnic groups? If you have, thats your 'core programming', if you will. Some people are able to get over that, and I congratulate them. I myself am not yet over that. I suspect, unfortunately, I never will be. But I try, and I will never stop trying.

 

[SmoothasSilk]

No!! I have never felt uneasy about other PEOPLES colour skin or ethnicity, because I don't think like that! EVER... you know what, this board SUCKS! I am leaving.

 

[Brian G Turner]

It would be nice if we could try and keep to the original question at hand, and not try reading meanings into posts that simply do not exist. No one on this board is accusing anyone of being racist.

I'd be grateful if some members would avoid flying off the handle simply because other other members have a different opinion of which books and/or authors work best for them, thanks.

 

[Thadlerian]

First of all, SmoothasSilk, I'm sorry if you took my comment "of which we're all guilty" as a personal attack. What I was trying to imply was that this is a problem that concerns all of the Western societies, the very way they function. I considered it more a criticism of myself than of you. I've been raised in a country in which racial thinking is strong, even though direct racism is abolished.

I'm not saying you're a racist, not more than anyone else, but that we, as living in the West, have our ideas shaped by inevitably being exposed to a culture that promotes passive racism. This is what Terry Pratchett is trying to criticise.

Second, I'm sorry if my previous post, or perhaps this thread as a whole, has caused you to abandon faith in Chronicles Network. This is a great place, filled with difference of opinion, while at the same time blessed with mostly self-restraining posters. I think there's hard to find a similar place out there offering the same width of topics, the same amount of people, while simultaneously being just as civilized.

What about Terrorists? Could they be likened to Death Eaters, I think so, and Jo has said that herself... What about Lord Voldemort being in hiding using minions to do his evil deeds? I think that relates to Osama Bin Laden and the way he works the Al Quaeda (sp?)

I don't think terrorists could be likened to Death Eaters, unless you focus completely on the point of view of their victims. Terrorists come in all kind of flavours, all with different reasons, motivations and methods. The Death Eaters, on the other hand, are purely stock Evil Minions. They hate Muggles, but they could just as welll have hated chess, tea or the color blue, without that having any siginificant effect on their behaviour. "Racism" is just a label Rowling has put on them to make sure no-one will sympathise with their effort, to let it be no doubt they're Evil.

Have you heard of Neo Nazism (...)?

Neo-nazis and their affilates are marginal groups of confused and frustrated individuals. They have absolutely no credibility in mainstream culture (everyone else hates them, fears them and condemns them), their damage potential is minuscule compared to that of passive racism, which alienates whole ethnicities, and form deep-rooted conflicts between groups and cultures.

Groups like NN and KKK are just the top of an iceberg, and about as interesting as explanations for why the big ocean steamer S.S. Peace & Tolerance is doomed to sink.

 

[chrispenycate]

I'm going to stick my neck out here; I don't think "rejection of the different" in it's various guises as racism, patriotism, religious fundamentalism and so forth ad nauseum is a product of western culture; it's practically universal in humanity, and the other primates, and very widely distributed across other mammals, birds, and even reptiles and fish. I suspect it's a natural check against mutation, keeping the main bloodline "clean" unless the mutation in question is sufficiently favorable to replace its tormentors, or sufficiently sbtle to avoid triggering the reaction. Still, this doesn't make giving in to it by homo sapiens, who is theoretically capable of using his intellect to overcome his instinctive predjudices, any prettier.
And it's not merely skin colour, or clothing conventions (or smell - we've a tendency to skim over how deeply our chemosensors are wired into our emotional system); even working in an environment where no-one else speaks the same language as you stimulates your lizard brain into raising your hackles and you into feeling around for your flint hand axe (waddyer mean, mixed metaphore? That's the multiple layers of the brain, there)

Instinctive, but not inescapable; society is all about building patterns tolerable to the majority of it's members. After all, if I get a phisiological reaction upon seeing a pleasing pair of mammary appendages passing me in the street, I do not wrestle their owner to the ground and demonstrate my approval, this would be socially unacceptable (and impolite, to boot) Rejection of any definable group of humans (even the demonstrably mental defectives who smoke cigars in the non-smoking regions of retaurants when others are still eating) should be repressed by socal taboos as strict.
Which still doesn't prevent me from feeling those "dangerous alien" tingles; it just means I'm ashamed of them rather than the contrary.

 

[Thadlerian]

There's always been ethnocentrism and stigmatizing of the different, all over the world. The West is of course hardly unique in this sense. What I meant in my previous posts (now guessing that Chris' post was a comment on mine) was that the problem of racism in the West seems, at the moment, to be far more crucial for the future development of the world than the general ethnocentrism that exists everywhere. Western governments and corporations still dictate pretty much of what's going on in the world (although rival blocks are on the rise), so that the initiative to change has to come from us; we've got to change our ways of thinking (and speaking, as well). That's why I feel it's more important to focus on the passive racism as Pratchett does, rather than the vague, classic racism that we find in Harry Potter.

When I said " a mirror image of a problem that is unique to our contemporary world.", I didn't mean that racism is unique to the West, I meant that the challenge of east-to-west immigration that we're seeing is unique to this very age: Racism as it works today can't be likened to pre-1960-70s racism, because it is expressed in completely different ways, by different people.

 

[SpaceShip]

... and everybody seems to be laying into everybody else!

Phew this is a very contentious thread. Hope by now everyone has calmed down and made up!

If it's caused all this anger on the Chronicles - what on earth has it done elsewhere?

I have read Pratchett but not JKR. The not reading JKR was deliberate because as I write fantasy I didn't want people saying I had been influenced by her or had copied her writing.

Funny thing is, though, one of my characters has the same name as one of hers, even though mine is a hero and hers is not.

So, apart from that, I am unable to comment.

 

[HoopyFrood]

Woo go TP! I don't like JK, I think she's quite arrogant.
And I don't understand why the magazine that she was in says that Fantasy is just knights and ladie...fantasy encompasses SO much more than that.
And if she didn't think she was writing fantasy, then what on earth did she think the genre was? Real life?
wow, that was rather vitrolic of me actually...but as I said, I don't like her.

 

[Dwarf_With_An_Axe]

I haven't read the article but I'd like to comment on the respective authors writing ability. I started reading Pratchett when I was about eight or nine and JK at the same time and I am now 15 going on 16. Now while I didn't get the deeper issues in TP's books then I still enjoyed them even if they did shake up my LOTR pre-conceived notions (bad elves and nice trolls!?) because they had several layers and to this day I still read them and make sure I have every book (recently got Wintersmith) and have read them all about three times each. And they've got more enjoyable as my knowledge grew! JK's books however bore me. I read the books once when they come out as everyone talks about them and I'd be at sea but that's it. I haven't touched a HP book since the last one came out and can't stand them. They both deal with issues but JK's are so blunt and poorly put in a fantasy setting (despite what she says) that they're not relevant. TP however has put them in a fantasy setting and I find I agree with him and can see where he's got the ideas.

 

[Dean F. Wilson]

Haven't read all these replies, so forgive me if I'm repeating something, but I think alot of people are hyping up Pratchett's comments there. He barely says anything, and it certainly isn't a "swipe" at her (if he said something like "I think Rowling's books are terrible and she can't write", then the phrasing might be more apt). He certainly doesn't "lay into" her there...

-D

 

[Werthead]

I think Pratchett wasn't perhaps quite so annoyed about Rowling's stupid statements about not writing fantasy, but he was more irritated by people like Jeremy Vine saying to him in an interview that he found Pratchett's novel Equal Rites (published in 1987) reminiscent of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (published in 1997). Understandably, Pratchett was quite irritated by this, even moreso because he is an extremely famous and well-known author, and to have such simple mistakes made by people interviewing him shows a lack of basic research.

What was funny were the Rowling fans who accused Pratchett of sour grapes, since he was the biggest-selling living fantasy writer in the world (unless you count Stephen King as a fantasy novelist, not a horror one) before Rowling and HP came along. I don't think Pratchett really cares about that: he never needs to work again, certainly, and he has far more critical respect than Rowling has achieved.

There's also the point that Rowling won a Hugo Award for The Goblet of Fire, a pretty ridiculous result considering she was up against GRRM's masterpiece A Storm of Swords, but she didn't bother turning up to pick up the award and she didn't send anyone to collect it for about three years and sent a very curt, "Thank you," message, and then the following year gushed at winning some literary prize because she'd, "Never won an adult award before." Certainly an arrogant, ignorant response showing only contempt for a chunk of her audience.

 

[the_faery_queen]

really? she did that! i guess she still doesn't get the fact she DOES write fantasy, that saying it isn't so doesn't make it so. and that having distain like that for the genre she writes in is rude. but i guess she may not care. she doesn't seem to think she writes fantasy, doesn't seem tot hink a lot of it, so it's no wonder she doesn't care abotu a fantasy award

its part of why life is unfair. martin deserves a hugo for his work. they're amazing. rowling, what i've seen, hasn't done anyuthing new with the genre, anything interesting. ok kids are reading more than before, but i imagine a lot of adults have their passion for fantasy and reading renewed because of martin. but as we're adults, no one cares what we think.

rambling now, but god, that was rude of her.

 

[Joel007]

I just wandered across this link Wizard News: Terry Pratchett clarifies J.K. Rowling remarks
Where terry gives his opinion on the way his opinion was presented

 

[Pyan]

By the way, look at the date on that - August 2005.
Shows that the facts only get in the way of a good story!

 

[High Eight]

What about Terrorists? Could they be likened to Death Eaters,

Not really - and anyway PTerry writes about actual terrorists without disguising them in some fantasy allegory.

 

[Milk]

Now im no fan of JK Rowling, in fact, near as I can tell, I hate the Harry Potter franchise, and simultaneously, I love Terry Pratchet and have a profound respect for him which I don't see in many writers. I mean that guy is up there with Douglas Adams. So knowing all of this..

In Rowlings defense.. its just something that came out in an interview, It is not point/counterpoint between Terry Pratchet and Rowling. She was interviewed, she said some general, biased and flawed statements... then completely seperate, Terry Pratchet commented on her percieved opinions after reading this interview.

So this isnt like a debate.

If you've ever been interviewed by the press.. well... Unless you are an expert at being interviewed, its very easy to make exagerated statements even you dont completely agree with. Now im not saying Rowlins was faking her opinions or even disagrees with what she had said, im just saying maybe she has no interview tack. This would make her appear more arrogant.
Look some people don't interview well at all in the same way that some people don't test well. The people that don't test well, are they stupid because of this? No. Its very easy to misconstrue attitude especially from an interviewer that is trying to get a good slant. So, I would give her the benefit of the doubt, even though, as I said above, I hate the Harry Potter Franchise. However if you can read between the lines of what im saying... I hate the press much more.


So to what Rowlins said , roll eyes.
To what Terry Pratchet said roll eyes.


Seems more like its the press trying to stir up animosity where it does not exist.


EDIT:

LOL @ "

I just wandered across this link Wizard News: Terry Pratchett clarifies J.K. Rowling remarks
Where terry gives his opinion on the way his opinion was presented "


I just read that article in this thread after typing out the above few paragraphs (which were just me guessing) and the link agrees with my guess at the situation.

 

[Urlik]

there isn't really anything new in HP
a school/academy for wizards/witches has shown up in many books previously (Miss Cackle's school appeared in The Worst Witch in 1974 and the HP characters and settings bear a striking resemblance {see The Worst Witch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for a comparison chart at the bottom} )
TP on the other hand fills his books with humour and easily read essays about how and why people behave the way they do.
JKR's characters seem invented whereas TP's are alive. I know people exactly like characters from all the Discworld books (could be because my mother's family is from the village that shelters in the vale below the White Horse in Hat Full of Sky).
Another thing that springs to mind is that each of the HP books fits nicely into a ninety minute film whereas even the short Discworld books have been around three hours long as screen plays (and even then some parts still had to be cut)

 

[Lyrebird]

It never had never crossed my mind that JKR might be a bit thick/ignorant (in some areas, at any rate)! Not after dilligently reading and re-reading all her Harry potter books, up to HBP... This revelation hasn't by itself had much of an impact on my desire to read the last book, but it has certainly affected my outlook regarding herself.

I'm a new member here. I try to make a practice of skimming over all/most past posts in a thread before making a contribution. No exception here.

To me, it seemed obvious when I first read "Pratchett takes swipe at Rowling", the article was misrepresentative, and the quote from Pratchett was, equally obviously, presented out of context. My assessment was that Pratchett was being gently chiding of JKR's naive comments. After all, you come to expect a popular figure such as herself, an acclaimed children's author with a fanbase of both children and adults, to be more circumspect in her comments. To put it differently (and mildly), such a comment from an author whose works I was not familier with, might have induced me to roll my eyes, and comment in passing to anybody close at hand, what an ignorant ninny! And, I wouldn't have given a second thought to the matter.

However, I have always had a soft spot for HP (Aye, I'm fatally attracted to the whimsical ), and, as a direct consequence held a soft spot for Rowling. So, for the moment, I'll just mentally tag her as 'under review'.

I classify/tag HP under (and not in any particular order) Fiction, Fantasy, Children's Fiction, and Adventure.
If you're so inclined, HP could also be classed as Alternate Reality/Alternate History which also falls under Speculative Fiction.

So, what is Fantasy?
According to Wikipedia (Oh, we'll give this the benefit of doubt ):

Fantasy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fantasy is a genre of art that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. The genre is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by overall look, feel, and theme of the individual work, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three (collectively known as speculative fiction). In its broadest sense, fantasy comprises works by many writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians, from ancient myths and legends to many recent works embraced by a wide audience today.
...

While you're at it, look up on "speculative fiction", "high fantasy", etc.

For examples, Tolkein's works are classed as High Fantasy. Robert Jordan believes he writes High Fantasy as well. However, there can hardly ever be any clear cut definitions of genres or cross-genre borders. So, Terry Goodkind calls his style 'Romanticism'? Good for him, but having read tSoT upto Chainfire, I'll stick all that under fantasy, myself.

How you classify a so called "Speculative Fiction" into a subgenre would likely depend on your personal beliefs. After all, for a wiccan, any works revolving around magic would be either conventional fiction, or possibly even historical chronicles. To take an example with a broader purview, is God real? Is the bible fiction? Fantasy?

Any arguments along these lines would be entirely pointless. As readers, we identify what we read based on the pertinent elements of the work. So, what are the elements in HP that could be declared elements of fantasy?

Why, all the items Terry Pratchett mentioneed, and more! While at first glance appearing to be silly, JKR's comment seems to suggest such a thought hadn't occured to her, as hard as it is to believe... After all, she never denied writing fantasy, did she? Therefore, the question arises: What ever did she imagine she was writing?! And, wow, she must have some pretty quaint idea of what's fantasy! As for 'subvert', all I can come up with in excuse on behalf of JKR would be that her comments were possibly taken out of context... Was she referring to some other genre?

pTerry, as the acknowledged and acclaimed author of fantasy with the added weight of professional seniority, has every right to comment on what is and what is not fantasy. JKR, after all, implicitly renounced her right to any such authority by her own declaration.

Finally, on the validity of his comments, I side with pTerry. From what I read, everybody except SmoothasSilk, are generally in agreement on this point.