thehungryvortigaunt:

lj-writes:

irrefutable analogues to real life or history that makes that
representation icky or racist. Let’s take Nagini for instance. Imagine a
raceless character for a moment. A girl is born into a magical world
with a disease that will slowly transform her from a human form. As she
grows up, she learns this is passed on from her mother, who knew this
would happen, but had her anyway. She grows to resent her mother as she
starts to turn, and begins to buy into a blood purity narrative she
hears from(2/)

the corners of society. She finds someone in Riddle who
simultaneously loves her and understands her in her new form and shares
her purity beliefs. She devotes her life to him and views carrying a
piece of his soul as the deepest form of love he knows. So, I’ve read
now from countless Asian people why this character is so problematic,
and it seems so obvious to me once I heard from their point of view. Yet
the ignorant part of me wants to say, “This could be such an incredible
character. (3/?)

Why shouldn’t she be able to be played by someone of Asian
descent just because the real world sucks and has disgusting parallels.”
So my ultimate question is, is there a point where we are so aware of
problematic representation that we miss out on opportunities to
represent? If the creator is of a particular culture or color, does that
change what is acceptable, because we can trust them better to
represent without leaning on inherent biases? (4/4)

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I think a work or character can be profoundly moving and deeply problematic all at once. For instance we can criticize the ableist implications in Gollum’s depiction while still enjoying the character and his story. Maybe Nagini’s will similarly be a well-told story that rings true like the one you describe, even if it would leave a bad taste in my mouth.

The questions you raise are ones I’ve struggled with, too, as have many others. We want marginalized identities to be represented as complex and meaty characters, obviously, not just bland, smiling tokens. That complexity includes great evil. I myself envisioned Bellatrix as a Korean-Chinese woman in a fanfic written between Books 4 and 5 before her name and details came out, and readers commented positively on how scary she was even as a teenager. Her brand of violent fanaticism from the Book 4 trial scene really resonated with me, and I drew from Korea’s post-liberation history of ideology-driven atrocities for her depiction. All this is to say I am most definitely not averse to evil characters who look like me, and I imagine this is true of many others who criticize Nagini as Asian representation.

So what’s the line between racist demonization and full, rich depictions of evil characters who happen to be minorities? I think one major issue with Nagini in the context of the HP franchise and the media environment in general is lopsidedness. If Western media had many examples of positive as well as negative representations of Asians and one of them, Nagini, happened to have taken up beliefs about blood purity as a wrongful response to understandable resentments and being preyed on by a powerful Dark magic user, I don’t think I’d mind as much. I mean I’d still be weirded out by her being a Korean woman with a Sanskrit name, but that could be Voldemort being a racist shithead because quelle surprise. Heck, if HP itself regularly treated Asian characters as complex and complete characters instead of bit parts and misogynistic caricatures torn down for the sake of the main white girls, I would not mind as much either. Instead, one of the very few times there is a major Asian character she’s the animal thrall of a magical fascist and thaaaat’s pretty uncomfortable.

Your question about the creator’s identity is an interesting one, too. I mean maybe I’d feel more comfortable if the creator were Asian herself, but that’s more as a matter of statistical probability since a lot of biases get internalized. Personally I think empathy, a sense of balance, and humility go a heck of lot farther than identity alone. What’s really terrifying about societal bigotry is that it allows people in the dominant group to get a pass for underdeveloping and underusing these qualities when it comes to people different than them. Empathy is not inherent in any one race but if you’re, say, a white person in the West you are encouraged in large and small ways to withhold empathy from racial minorities and you can function without being empathetic to their marginalization. The same goes for representation–there’s nothing saying that a white woman can’t depict a fictional Asian woman with sympathy and nuance, but societal racism means that she can get away with not doing so and will still be praised for it.

“Imagine a raceless character for a moment.”

LOL

I don’t see anything more than just tired regurgitations of the tragic Asian lover from shitshows like Madame Butterfly/Miss Saigon and the ‘sexy evil Dragon/Serpent Lady’ that westerners LOVE to perceive Asian women as. Even if this character were white, this retcon is also utterly pointless and misogynistic because of how the main text in Harry Potter literally dehumanizes her to the point that she’s a tool whose destruction to weaken the male villain is celebrated. People have pointed out that Cho and the Patil sisters, the most prominent Asians in HP, are either marginalized OR presented as inferior to Cool Girl Ginny because they’re “too emotional”/literally traumatized by the loss of a lover. And in Fantastic Beasts, every non-white woman is either portrayed as an incompetent racist obstructive bureaucrat, a servant, or an executioner.

People really need to stop giving the mediocre racist JK a pass and realize that she’s an opportunist who takes credit for her fans’ attempts to ‘diversify’ the text without actually taking any lessons from them in improving her own writing.

P.S. For what it’s worth, I imagined Bellatrix Lestrange as an Indian Brit – but in my experience, ‘racebending’ from fans generally prefers to brownwash characters they believe are sympathetic rather than evil.