“Hogwart’s Legacy”
After JK Rowling’s transphobic statements: New Harry Potter game comes with a transgender character
A ray of fire can also be conjured up in role-playing games with the spell “Incendio”.
© Avalanche Software
The game developers have implemented a trans witch in the recently released role-playing game “Hogwarts Legacy”. In response to JK Rowling?
The recently released action role-playing game “Hogwarts Legacy” is already a real bestseller: In the first week after the start of sales, the computer game climbed to first place in the top seller list on Steam.
Because the world of the game is based on the Harry Potter books by the author JK Rowlings, many people asked themselves before the release whether they should buy the game at all if they would support the author – there were also calls for a boycott. Rowling has faced criticism for her stance on trans people in the past. Among other things, she had criticized an article on Twitter by writing about “menstruating people”. Rowling recently addressed the allegations on a podcast with Megan Phelps-Roper and says she feels misunderstood.
Developers implement a trans woman
The game gave the topic new fodder: In the game you can create a character and choose your body type and voice. Clou about it: Both – the read physique and the heard voice – do not have to correspond to the same gender.
It continues in Hogsmeade, a small village near Hogwarts: There is the “Three Broomsticks” pub there, where Hogwarts students like to drink their butterbeer – and the players are also guided there by the gameplay. The pub is run by the witch Sirona Ryan – and she’s a trans character. Which becomes clear when she talks about her old classmates in a dialogue: “It took them a second to realize that I was actually a witch, not a wizard.”
According to the developers, the statements by the author allegedly had no effect on the computer game: the game was produced without the direct involvement of the author, according to a statement from the Avalanche Software developer studio.