JK Rowling naming characters scandal

Trigger warning: this may involve cultural references prior to 1997 and younger readers in particularly are advised to proceed with caution.

A major scandal arose last night as it emerged that someone who wrote a book decades ago contains storylines and characters which reflected the attitudes of provincial Britain at the time. 

Joanne Rowling (pen name ‘JK Rowling), a provincial working-class woman in 1990s Britain wrote a book which critics allege “reflected the attitudes of the time".

The most insidious example was the naming of a character “Cho Chang”, despite ‘Cho’ being a well-known Korean surname and ‘Chang’ being an established Chinese surname, a fact which should have been obvious to a 1990’s single mother in the pre-internet era. 

There has also been criticism of the problematic word ‘F*t’ to describe the Friar, a character with excess food consumption syndrome. 

Eyebrows were also raised about French character Jean-Pierre Garlic, a creepy womaniser with poor body odour, and the overweight Italian chef Carlo Carbonara who continually gesticulates when talking loudly. 

Alongside such criticisms, many pundits have noted the preponderance of characters, particularly primary characters, with traditional Anglo names such as ‘Harry, Hermione and Ron’. This is despite it being set in a traditional England boarding school. Such lack of diversity amongst main characters has horrified the Diversity Tsar in the OMS, Perpetua Indignatia, who questioned the appropriateness of such stories for the under 30’s.

“The predominance of such white-adjacent names is disturbing, as is the absence of typical British names like Mohammed, Dangote and Granola”

One anti-fascist organisation queried the significance of Rowling naming her two main characters Harry and Hermione, noting that starting both names with the letter ‘H’ could be a subtle nod to ‘Heil Hitler’, a neo-Nazi rallying cry.

In defiance of OMS guidelines, Ms Rowling has refused to apologise for her behaviour and has rejected the offer to spend a month at an ‘opinion modernisation centre’. She has said she would refuse to allow surgical implants into her brain to modernise her opinions.

Professor Adrian Loser, Professor of Colonial Studies at Culture War College, Hackney, was withering:

“The failure to mention the murder of George Floyd is perhaps excusable given this was written several decades before his brutal murder, but that just makes the absence of Stephen Lawrence far harder for Rowling to explain”

It is not the first time that Ms Rowling has been subject to controversy. After some comments on the social media site, X (previously twitter) came to light, JK was attacked by the Flat Earth Society for her promotion of 'scientific concepts' such as gravity. 

A spokesperson for the Flat Earth Society, which previously claimed to have members all around the globe (link), suggested Rowling was guilty of ‘flatphobia’ and said she was a poor role model for impressionable adults. 

In the Netflix adaptation of her books, to be available in the UK in 2027, the Harry Potter Universe will take place on a fictional flat earth, to assuage such concerns. All the actors involved have publicly distanced themselves from Rowling’s views on the shape of the earth.

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