Video game thread

Disappearing into Hogwarts Castle doesn’t render this ongoing debate invisible. In fact, the world of Hogwarts Legacy — in particular, the game’s conspicuous attempts at diversity — illuminates Rowling’s hatefulness in stark relief. Somehow, Hogwarts as it existed in the 1890s, when the game takes place, is more diverse along every axis than it is in 1995, when the Harry Potter novels begin. When I read the books as a young girl, I longed for more Indian representation than just Parvati and Padma Patil. In Hogwarts Legacy, multiple professors are Indian, as are my classmates. There’s a potion vendor in one of the small hamlets that has the same name as my mother. Rather than providing comfort, it makes me skeptical. While Rowling’s racial representation has never been good, tossing a half-dozen Indians into the Scottish countryside willy-nilly isn’t exactly better. Where did they come from — India, which was still under British rule in the 1800s? And where did they all go by the time Harry got there?