The Dramione Dilemma
The Woobification of a Baby Fascist, Trad Pub’s New Cash Cow, and the Continued Contribution to JKR’s Cultural Capital
The Zeitgeist Begins
This is a long one, friends, so buckle in.
I wasn’t surprised when fanfiction began its latest venture into the Big Five publishing houses, because, well, it’s always made its way into trad publishing. The 2010’s had Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James and Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren, both originally Twilight fanfics. The last few years have brought Reylo writers into the spotlight like Ali Hazelwood and Thea Guanzon. But I still found myself conflicted when three books popped up on a recommendation post for anticipated 2025 reads: Rose in Chains by Julie Soto, Alchemised by SenLinYu, and The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley. Not because they were by fanfiction authors or because two of them were reworked fanfics, but because I didn’t need someone to tell me they were based on Dramione. I could see that they were capitalizing on the current Dramione zeitgeist. Soto’s and Knightley’s covers are literally Draco and Hermione in illustrated form and SenLinYu has never made it a secret that Alchemised was a rewrite of Manacled. I didn’t have the desire to read these stories based on the Dramione of it all from the start but, like the over thinker I am, I assumed I was probably the one being dramatic. In recent weeks though, an increasing amount of people have talked on socials about their discomfort with these books. Without fail, whenever anyone has made critiques about these books and their link to JK Rowling, a number of readers that seem very excited about these books have tried to reassure us that these books are in no way associated with JKR and aren’t being advertised as such and you wouldn’t even know it was Dramione by reading it.
And you know what? They’re probably partially right. I’m sure if there weren’t multiple articles with Harry Potter in the headline advertising it as such, posts by the authors and publishers advertising it as such, or covers that are just Emma Watson and Tom Felton in illustrated form, I probably wouldn’t have known they were Dramione because I don’t read Dramione fanfiction. But that’s the problem. What was so clear to me (and others) was being purposefully denied by everyone else. These books were totally separated from Rowling and we should just enjoy them instead of not even giving them a chance.
By the time these books were announced, JK Rowling had already been down the TERF rabbit hole (transgender exclusionary radical feminist) for years. I knew it. The book community knew it. I’m sure these authors knew it. The publishing houses absolutely knew it. Still, I was increasingly uncomfortable by the way we were just expected to ignore the JKR of it all, no matter how many assurances I received that I should give them a shot. The fierce defense for these books confused me. After all, readers have had strong reactions to even mentions of HP in their romance books1. But with over 351k posts alone under the hashtag #dramione and 93k posts under #dramionefanfiction on TikTok and more than 570k #dramione posts on instagram, I’m not exactly surprised that publishers capitalized on the built in market that comes with this fandom. What did surprise me, though maybe it shouldn’t have, was the cognitive dissonance we were expected to consume these under. This insistence that we were being unfair and weren’t even giving the books a chance, that we were refusing to take a place in the very rebellious act of reading traditionally published Dramione romance. I thought, maybe they just weren’t aware of how much time Rowling spent on the internet spreading TERF ideology.
Large Gametes, Ad Nauseam
The average reader is probably not online as often as I am and probably doesn’t keep up with JK Rowling’s Twitter with any regularity. But Rowling didn’t just tweet a handful of transphobic tweets and then vanish into the ether, which would have been bad enough on its own. She’s actively spent the past five years tweeting constantly about biological sex and “gender ideology”. Joanne talks about transphobia so much that Elon Musk asked her to please talk about something else. She’s yelling about large gametes and chromosomes, harassing Women’s Olympic Boxing champions2, and going on and on about “the new men’s rights movement”. We’ve had five long years of Joanne never shutting up about trans people online.
But Joanne isn’t just a keyboard warrior. In 2024 on Rowling donated $89,000 to a Scottish organization, For Women Scotland, to aid in their crusade to change the legal definition of a woman in the UK to exclude trans women. This past week, the organization succeeded: the UK Supreme Court ruled that the definition of a woman for equality law purposes is now defined as someone born “biologically female”, according to an article from MSNBC. Rowling posted a celebratory picture of herself on April 16th, drink in hand, smoking a cigar on a yacht with the caption, “I love it when a plan comes together.” accompanied by the hashtags #WomensRights and #SupremeCourt.
Joanne is not a bumbling fool on the internet tapping away at her keyboard in a mold fueled daze. She’s a white woman billionaire that trades on her power and reputation as the author of a beloved children’s book series to influence laws and public perception surrounding trans people. Rowling is not only problematic. She’s actively causing harm. And she does it under the guise of “I’m not really transphobic! I’m just looking out for women and girls!” Which is why I do find myself confused and conflicted by not only the publication of these books, but the publication of these books in a time where we know who and what she is.
“For the Dramione Girlies”
The first Dramione fic I saw someone sob about online was Manacled, SenLinYu’s 925 pages long fan fiction that fuses a world in which Voldemort wins the wizarding war with elements of The Handmaid’s Tale. Draco is “High Reeve”, the wizard version of a commander in The Handmaid’s Tale. Hermione is a prisoner of war forced to be Draco’s surrogate. I didn’t get the appeal because I don’t particularly want one MC to rape the other, no matter what in story “reason” there is for it but that’s my own personal boundary. Even if it wasn’t for me, it certainly was for somebody. Quite a lot of somebodies.
Manacled has been translated into 19 different languages, has racked up 127,580 reviews on Goodreads, and was downloaded over 16 million times before it was removed from AO3 in anticipation of SenLinYu’s trad debut. In February of 2024, a trad deal was announced on SenLinYu’s socials: a “reimagined” version of Manacled titled Alchemised in a pre-empt two book deal to Del Rey books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
But SenLinYu’s Dramione fic turned trad story wasn’t a one off. In June of 2024, Julie Soto, already a USA Today bestselling author of Not Another Love Song and Forget Me Not, announced Rose in Chains, a high fantasy, enemies to lovers romance adapted from her incredibly popular Dramione fic, The Auction. I’ve been told that Knightley’s debut The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy is not a reworked version of her popular fanfic Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love. Regardless, Knightley’s deal with Ace/Orbit was announced in March of 2024.
And what frustrated me the most was this insistence that these books, so clearly marketed to the Dramione fan base, weren’t related to JK Rowling at all.
Now, look, I clocked these books from the get go. The covers for Soto’s and Knightley’s books are about as subtle as a sledgehammer to dry wall. But what had me stewing on this was the way the marketing for these books volleyed back and forth on whether this was Dramione or not to fit whatever narrative worked best for them at the time. When critiqued, it wasn’t Dramione. When capitalizing on the popularity of the fan base, it absolutely was.
What I really wanted to understand was how exactly we got here: trad deals for stories based on the IP of the loudest TERF on the internet with one of the most uncomfortable ship dynamics.
I put up a story over on instagram for anyone to chime in on their thoughts on these books and this pairing and a little over 100 sent DMs to let me know what exactly they think about the Dramione zeitgeist and the dilemma they find, or don’t find, themselves in with these books. Most requested to be anonymous, but unless I was given express permission to use their names, I’ve chosen to leave them anonymous as well out of respect for their privacy. All anonymous respondents will be demarcated with a randomly assigned letter.
No One Wants to Hear that the Hot Guy is a Fascist
I was a little surprised, though I didn’t disagree, that most of the “I don’t want to be in proximity to JKR’s IP” responses I received were followed up with an emphasis on how uncomfortable Dramione itself is as a romantic ship. If Draco was a regular, run of the mill, wizarding world bad boy, I could understand the appeal. A lover of bad boys, rakes, and ne’er do wells in romance myself, a bad boy that’s only good for his lover has a high appeal for me. Unfortunately, we’re not dealing with a run of the mill bad boy. We’re dealing with a woobified baby fascist who has been taken from budding nazi to traumatized baby boy that just needs love to turn him away from his pure blood supremacist beliefs.
I don’t really blame most readers for being ignorant to this so much as I blame this on fan fiction canon, aka fanon. Fanon tends to take on a life of its own and is often so entwined with canon it can be hard to differentiate. (And while I’m reluctant to offer any praise for anything HP in this write up, I do think Tom Felton and Emma Watson’s phenomenal acting skills contributed to this ship’s popularity). But, because I’m the resident party pooper, I have to tell you that Draco Malfoy isn’t a traumatized broody bean that just needs love. Canonically, he’s the child of old money parents that have spoiled him absolutely rotten and have babied him to death and only escapes the fate of other death eaters because his family shifts sides once they see that Voldemort is losing, not because of any real change of heart. It’s the reason I never found Dramione as a ship appealing. I knew too many real world Draco Malfoys, the kind of character that, had he been real, would have ended up on a manosphere podcast or marching in the Unite the Right rally.
I would love to think Dramione fans are critically consuming these fan written stories and are at least, I don’t know, unaware of the fact that Draco is a canonical supremacist. And perhaps some are. I think a fair share probably don’t even really think about the implications of Draco and Hermione’s dynamic. After all, I did have a few respondents that didn’t grow up on HP and weren’t familiar with the canon at all. But I also think some readers believe that, just like they can “separate the art from the artist”, they can separate the fasc from the fascist (heh).
However, perusing TikTok videos under #dramione, I found that a number of readers were open about not caring that Draco hurls slurs at Hermione or is a blood supremacist. In one video that made me deeply uncomfortable, a reader mimics having a conversation with someone off camera while music plays. The imaginary off camera person says “Dramione could never happen. He calls her a MUDBLOOD. Isn’t that disgusting”. The creator of the video nods and agrees and then looks away to wink wink, nudge nudge to the audience that that’s literally the appeal. The caption says “iykyk 😈. More uncomfortable to me were the comments under this video. One commenter says, “It’s called a redemption arc Janice” to which the original video creator replies “they like to get really hung up on this. Well, in the wise words of my husband, who could care less about any of this, “she probably likes it" 🤣”.
Do You Get Deja Vu
It’s incorrect to say the basis of these characters isn’t rooted in a deeply harmful dynamic: oppressor and oppressed. You can ignore it or be ignorant of it. But it doesn’t change what this dynamic, at its very core, is. The book community just spent days on social media (and rightfully so) talking about the problematic elements in Firebird by Juliette Cross, a romantasy from Bramble publishing with a master x slave dynamic between MCs. We have conversations about these unequal, and frankly disturbing, pairings but when it comes to Dramione, we can’t seem to call it what it is.
More baffling was Ace Books choosing to make marketing material stating “since Draco and Hermione are complete opposites, and because everyone loves a good enemies-to-lovers story, naturally, this was a fan favorite pairing”. Ace isn’t talking about Knightley’s characters. They’re talking about Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger in canon. It’s bad enough that we’re actively using Draco and Hermione by name in marketing, since we’re claiming these books have nothing at all to do with JKR, but for these publishers to pretend that this is some elementary school silliness where they just don’t like each other for benign reasons is bizarre. Yeah, Draco and Hermione don’t like each other…because he is a blood supremacist and she’s part of the demographic of wizards and witches he, his family, and his friends think shouldn’t exist. Dramione as a ship is a nazi youth x a girl from a marginalized group falling in love. I didn’t understand this ship even during my own days in fanfiction spaces. Pretending that’s not exactly what this is is either intentional obfuscation or unmitigated ignorance by these publishers. And I don’t believe Big Five imprints are this ignorant. Frankly, the addition of enslavement in two of these stories is an added level of uncomfortable to me. The origins of characters does matter because it’s the basis for this dynamic that’s drawn fans to these characters. I’d be just as pissed off if an imprint decided to publish a romance with an MC based on a character like Scarlett O’Hara or Warden Norton. And I wasn’t alone in my opposition to this ship.
“I don’t talk about this openly because I do have reader friends who are in my online spaces who love dramione fic. I assume that they are getting something they need out of it. I’m horrified by dramione because I have a problem with the woobification of fascists.” -anonymous reader L
“I am sure there are fics where Draco isn’t a fascist, but that doesn’t, to me, necessarily remove him from his character origins.” - anonymous reader M
“To me, Draco and Hermione will never be hot because it’s oppressor/oppressed!! He thinks she’s less than!?! Like just map that on to read world dynamics and ick.” -anonymous reader N
“Why pair up a racist n*zi with someone who is part of the group he is targeting? Is it because of the movies and how the movies changed some of the story for him? I would love to know the why behind it. And I’m not saying “let’s cancel those authors”, but I would love for them to have a conversation over why it is that they see Draco and Hermione and think “YES, star-crossed lovers.” -anonymous read O
“Do these people also ship the girl from The Sound of Music and her boyfriend who literally ratted her family out to the nazis too? I’m trying to understand…but also I am not.” -anonymous reader P
Transformative or Regressive?
Transformative media is meant to make us see the original work in a new light. Perhaps in Knightley’s novel, I could understand if readers didn’t notice the baby fascist origin since it is both pitched as a romcom and the only one that’s not a direct fanfiction rework. But Soto and SenLinYu both have Draco owning Hermione. Are we actually divesting Draco from canon or are we just thinking if we woobify Draco enough, we won’t have to analyze a dynamic that would be horrifying in real life? I do hope readers are critically consuming this. But I don’t think that’s always the case.
Enemies to lovers will never be okay when the “enemies” portion comes from one character’s belief that the other shouldn’t exist based on their identity. And that is the core of Dramione. That is why these characters hated each other. I absolutely do wonder what it is about this ship that makes people go “ah! Star-crossed lovers!”. At a time when fascism is in full swing and a certain Big Five publishing house is having an imprint headed by a current fellow of Project 2025 architects, the Heritage Foundation3, I’m actually kind of surprised that this doesn’t bother more people. But something about the woobification of a fascist tracks in the current state of apolitical readers.
To Read or Not to Read
But if my vehement opposition to these books is the extreme end of the spectrum, the other end is enthusiastically anticipating these books. I constantly see folks on socials posting gushing reviews. I had a handful of respondents that were enthusiastic about the books and were concerned we wouldn’t give these books a fair chance and talked about how excited they were for them. People have continued to put them on their “most anticipated reads” listicles. But for some, these books don’t hold the appeal they could have had just five years ago.
In the messages I received, out of a little over 100 responses, all but 4 respondents fell somewhere between two poles: vehemently against these stories and unsure if they wanted to read them but willing to change their mind with certain caveats. The top reason respondents gave me for their lack of desire to read these books is that…well, they just don’t want to be tied to JKR anymore. Readers told me they are not able to separate JKR from something based on her intellectual property. And for some people I messaged with, they fell somewhat in the middle of the spectrum, wanting a more definitive statement from authors disavowing Rowling before they felt comfortable consuming these books.
I spoke with author, culture critic, and host of the Rebel Ever After podcast, Ella Dawson of @brosandprose about this dilemma and her thoughts echoed much of what other readers I spoke to find themselves wishing for before they engage with these stories:
“I think it’s intellectually dishonest to pretend publishers aren’t relying on the relationship to Harry Potter to drive sales. The authors of these books need to make it very clear that they do not share Rowling’s transphobia, and preferably support and donate to trans organizations. I was happy to see Brigitte Knightley adding a trans nonprofit org to her profile…My current plan as a reader and as a critic is to not engage with the Dramione books unless the author actively supports the trans community in their actions and on social media. Better yet if they make a full statement disavowing JK Rowling and transphobia.”
Ella Dawson, @brosandprose
SenLinYu, Julie Soto, and Brigitte Knightley have all put links in their Instagram bios to Bridgerton and Derry Girls actress Nicola Coughlan’s campaign with the UK trans nonprofit organization Not A Phase. As of me publishing this post, I did not find posts on substack, social media accounts, or the authors’ websites that had any explicit disavowal of JKR and her transphobia. I do not believe these authors share Rowling’s beliefs. I am curious though, what made trad publish acquire these books when they did, an answer I haven’t found yet, at a time when the Trump administration here in the US is on an anti-trans crusade. It’s incredibly confusing. What’s more confusing is the marketing name dropping HP characters but not allowing (?) these authors to post denouncements for Rowling’s TERF rhetoric. I feel like if we were worried about Rowling suing, we would be doing our damndest to stifle any mentions of her in the marketing, but I’m not a lawyer so that’s just a plebs observation.
“Fandom is difficult because I know a lot of queer folks who saw themselves in the Harry Potter books, and fix it fan fic has been a way for people to process their disappointment and grief about who JK Rowling has turned out to be. I don't condemn people who thoughtfully engage in the fandom. But it's uncomfortable and confusing to me that the romance community talks so much about inclusivity and fighting for a better world, while avoiding this exact conversation about traditional publishing investing in Harry Potter-inspired media at the same time as queer books are banned all over the place and LGBTQ rights are rolling backward.”
Ella Dawson, @brosandprose
For a couple of readers I spoke to, even if there was a disavowal of JKR, it isn’t quite enough to get them to personally read the books.
“I see the authors very inconspicuously fundraising for trans folx (in recompense? idk?) and it seems too little whilst ostensibly being a thing that promotes JKR no matter how veiled.” -anonymous reader A
“It doesn’t feel like enough for me personally, but I’m not going to hold it against anyone else who reads them.” -anonymous reader B
But most responses boiled down to the inability to separate what Rowling has become from her IP.
“I hate the “Dramione” wave. Passionately and fully hate it. I hate that it’s getting so much attention. I hate how it’s marketed. I hate the ship. I hate the context.” -anonymous reader C
“Honestly, as a trans person, I’m so done with HP in general that I don’t want to knowingly consume anything HP related!” -anonymous reader D
“I personally just find the whole thing to be odd, because it feels like Dramione fic has skyrocketed in popularity since it became clear the JKR is who she is, whereas, as someone outside the fandom, I guess I would have expected interest in the fic to wane…” - anonymous reader E
“The way I see it, we’re letting this whole thing perpetuate into further generations. It doesn’t matter if she’s not getting direct $$ from the fics. They’re there, they’re circulated. They validate to young people discovering fic that HP is still cool.” -anonymous reader F
Interpellation and Association
If fan fiction is as transformative as we proclaim it to be, to what extent is JKR’s influence removed enough from these books? After all, the HP books and movies are rife with racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, and happy slaves. To what extent can we ever remove the art from the artist when the artist has woven their own prejudice into their work already? The pushback has been met over and over with reassurances from people that are either early readers or who are highly anticipating these books with disclaimers that these books aren’t really tied to JKR or Dramione. But if the marketing is any indicator, these books are not divested from Rowling in the least. These publishers are banking on the popularity of Dramione online to line their pockets. They’re not making a singular attempt to distance themselves from dear Joanne when they’re name dropping Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger on promotional material or interpolating their very recognizable character descriptions onto book covers. If we were totally divesting these books from Dramione, from JKR, from Harry Potter, we could have changed the appearance of the characters involved, no? Or had a nice object cover like other romantasies of the moment. Unless we’re relying on the association to Dramione to sell books in which case….well. I think this is literally just a way to make consuming Rowling’s palatable for people that wouldn’t otherwise buy anything Harry Potter related.
I talked extensively with my friend Amanda from @books_ergo_sum on instagram, a fellow book reviewer who focuses on romance, nonfiction, and philosophy, about the branding of these books in particular:
“If someone picked these books up and read them and literally never clocked it as Dramione, and maybe they don’t even know what that is…that would be one thing. But I think even just those covers are interpellating (if I can get Althusser philosophy about it lol) the reader to think about Dramione so then it’s not “so removed from HP” because interpellation is the core of how we relate to ideas through objects and how those objects don’t influence our thoughts but create our thoughts.”
- Amanda @books_ergo_sum
Regardless of whether we can truly separate art from the artist or art of the art from the original artist, that’s not what’s being done here. By the publishers or by these authors. We know who JKR is. We know what she is. She’s made her beliefs clear. I struggle to see what’s rebellious about publishing or buying these books. With enough twisting and contorting, we can convince ourselves a lot of things are actually a revolt because I think minor inconvenience is often too much for us. At what point do we have to sit down and acknowledge that we’re not actually concerned with reclamation at all when we’re feeding stories based off Rowling’s IP into the capitalist machine for profit.
Where Art Thou, Critical Consumption
I also asked Amanda about her thoughts on reclamation and her answer is exactly what I’ve hoped to get across, but much less long winded (I am who I am, okay?).
“I think the reclaiming has to come with at least half-and-half reclaiming enjoyment and critique. If not more critique than enjoyment of the thing we're reclaiming. And I think the critique and, maybe even the enjoyment, needs to be targeted and on-theme as a critique. Like, reclaiming queer as a word. The critique and the enjoyment in queerness is very targeted at anti-heteronormativity, if that makes sense. If the critique and enjoyment aren't directed at the thing we're reclaiming the word or idea from... does that ever work?“
Amanda, @books_ergo_sum
Or better yet, to what extent are we simply ignoring the JKR of it all, instead of actively participating in critique?
“Because, if you showed them [readers] ‘art’ that involved increasingly little craftsmanship of human creation and asked them “is this art?” I think they’d eventually say “no, it’s not art. because there’s no artist behind this.” So then they agree that art, by definition, requires a connection to an artist and they actually don’t separate the art from the artist-at the level of aesthetic enjoyment. At the level of “I just wanna”….well, cognitive dissonance can do a lot.”
Amanda, @books_ergo_sum
The belief of those in fan fiction spaces for years who continued to write and read HP fanfic was that it was an act of rebellion, a way to reclaim what had been stolen from readers that grew up loving Harry Potter. When it comes to writing fanfiction that’s antithetical to JKR’s beliefs for our own grieving process, I can see instances where it is used as a way to lift a metaphorical middle finger. Author Georgina Kiersten, who also writes under the pen name Jasper Hyde, is currently writing a bi4bi trans Harry Potter/Iron Man romance on their Wattpad, AO3, and website, which I’ll link below, with all proceeds raised going to a trans charity. That, to me, feels like a way to use Rowling’s IP as a fuck you. But acting as if reading these three incredibly profitable books in particular is somehow an act of rebellion? Rebelliousness disrupts, otherwise it’s just a fancy photo-op.
You Gotta See the Middle Finger to Care About the Middle Finger
JK Rowling does not care that we make her characters queer or infuse themes of gender expansivity within her world. She fashions herself as a protector of the LGB from the T. Her only objection to fanfiction is that it be kid friendly because her characters are canonically minors. She vehemently denies even being transphobic, though we know that’s the core of TERF ideology. The idea that…buying and reading a traditionally published book marketed with her IP is a disruption for her is a paper thin excuse. If it keeps her relevant in the culture, she’s fine with it. A middle finger doesn’t feel all that satisfying if the person you’re flipping off is smoking a cigar on her yacht after donating tens of thousands of dollars to hurt trans women while we…sit and read a romantasy based on her IP? Joanne Rowling does not care. I don’t think I can stress that enough. If she did care, these publishers wouldn’t be so open that this is based on her IP.
On the inverse of that, I’ve also seen the fact that she doesn’t care as a positive. As if because she doesn’t care, we should actually be okay with consuming her IP. But that’s a whole lot like defending buying Hogwarts Legacy because she’s already a billionaire and you refraining from buying it won’t cost her her billionaire status. There’s probably a lot of awful things I could rationalize buying or consuming if I wanted to be a nihilist.
And maybe the fact that JKR doesn’t see the fanfics and the art and the trad pub inspired by her books is the reason some of us in the book world tout our support of these books as some sort of contrarian activism4. Because it doesn’t actually come with any cost to our comfort. We get to stick our tongues out at JKR and then continue to contribute to her “cultural capital”, as one person I spoke to put it. We can label just about anything a “rebellion” in order to convince ourselves that we’re okay to do whatever Thing we want to do but might face backlash for. I would rather people just say “I’m going to read these books because I want to”, instead of grasping at straws to make this a revolutionary stance. I don’t believe they actually believe it’s a form of rebellion and I certainly don’t think anyone else does either.
She’s Unfortunately Real
I think we, as a society at large, sometimes forget that people like JKR are real people with the power to do real harm. They almost take on a mythical quality. I’m not trying to “cancel” these authors (although cancel culture doesn’t exist!) but I am struggling with the decision to pursue publication of these books years after Rowling’s mask came off. I can’t find an acceptable reason for that in my head. I can’t imagine circumstances where the marketing capitalizing on the Dramione zeitgeist wasn’t the exact plan. And still, I find myself so outdone with publishers because fandom has long been a way to explore queerness and subvert stereotypes through art. It’s just another instance of capitalist commodification of a community that does have queer and trans people writing fanfiction to process the grief of something that meant the wold to them growing up, that may have even helped them discover their identities and who they are through The Boy Who Lived. But the stories that actually do these things won’t get gigantic trad deals or have imprints fighting each other to buy their manuscript. Otherwise, we’d have a trans, BIPOC Harry Potter retelling getting a pre empt already. Because ultimately, these books and the choice to publish them aren’t about rebellion or a fuck you or anything else. It’s publishing houses capitalizing on a trendy fandom on social media for their own bottom line. Who are these books a fuck you to?
“Instead of having a ton of critique of JKR, these readers want to ignore JKR, which is exactly the wrong way to do middle finger stuff, I think.”
Amanda, @books_ergo_sum
One reader, J, who I spoke with said, “There are fanfics by people who add links to charities or GoFundMes or Patreon, but when you take someone’s fan fiction, which already has a fanbase on the site posted, and you rebrand it at a publishing house? And market it as fanfic “rebranded”? It feels like you’re sucking out every single bit of joy and rebellion born out of it.”
These Books Will Be Fine. I Promise.
Someone’s probably going to get really mad and say that I’m being mean or a bully or trying to cancel these authors or shaming readers. And that’s not true. What I want is for publishers to let go of this intellectual dishonesty and for readers to understand that there’s very valid critique here. One reader called the backlash to these books “virtue signaling”. Which is perhaps my favorite response when someone’s mad the Thing they like is getting critiqued. I promise you these books are going to be fine. The books are already written. They’re still going to be bestsellers. Illumicrate is still going to sell special edition copies of Rose in Chains after stating in 2020 that they would no longer be including HP related material in their book boxes. Because, at the end of the day, most of us these companies, these publishing houses are very willing to align themselves with Rowling’s IP if it means turning a profit.
No one is going to pull the books from publication. You’re still going to be able to buy one of the bazillion special editions that have been announced already up for preorder5. Me, a peon on the internet with a laptop, sharing my opinion to my 80-ish followers on substack isn’t going to affect these authors’ book releases with their combined 170k following. I promise.
“I don’t see how [a published book] based on an oppressor x oppressed ship is somehow rebellious. I don’t see how marketing it as such is rebellion. I don’t see how potentially paying her royalties if things get dicey is rebellion. I don’t understand how rebellion is keeping her relevant. I don’t even understand why the demographic of cishet white women are the ones claiming they’re rebelling when they’re not affected.” - J
No Conclusion, Only More Befuddlement
I, personally, am mostly annoyed with the publishing industry itself. However, when you choose to put yourself in proximity to the IP of one of the most well known transphobes in the world, there’s going to be criticism. I don’t know how I feel about the authors choosing to pitch these books with they did but I’m going out on a limb and assuming that no one forced them to take what appear to be high dollar deals for these books.
Joanne has suffered not a single consequence for her actions. She’s getting an addition to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal in May. Her Hogwarts Legacy game was a massive success with $1 billion in gross sales. She’s getting an HBO show redo of Harry Potter because she’s mad that Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, and Daniel Radcliffe don’t want anything to do with her. No consequences. No repercussions. Only more power and more wealth to target the most vulnerable population just asking for literal basic human rights and decency. How infuriating.
Fin
Dramione is not going anywhere and these books will literally be fine, sales wise. And the most important thing I want to point out is that we can’t let boycotting Joanne and her IP be our only support for trans people. I don’t think that a boycott of these books by those of us adamantly against them will probably affect very much when they have the money and power of Big 5 behind them. But I’d like for us to stop pretending that these stories are some kind of rebellious middle finger and just…say you want to read the books. I’d have a more respect if that was the case, I think. At the end of the day, I think most people supporting these books really do believe that this is a way they can push back at JKR (because I’m trying to be less harsh and give grace in 2025, look at me go) in the same way we’ve been offered a very non-confrontational view of activism and protest our whole lives. There’s no rebellion by participation in capitalism. It’s inherently antithetical.
I lived in fandom spaces for most of my adolescence and early adulthood. Harry, Ron, and Hermione meant the absolute world to me. My family marathon watched all of the movies every Christmas. Letting them go was hard and was a strange form of grief. But no amount of telling myself I was somehow sticking it to Joanne ever made me, personally, comfortable consuming anything adjacent to her post 2020.
I try to end everything I write with some kind of take away, some call to action, or some way for us to reflect as readers on the topic. I don’t know that I have a take away because this conversation actually does feel a bit like banging my head into a wall. But I can’t wait for the day I don’t hear about JK Rowling anymore. No new book deals, no new movies, no video games, no tv shows. No books that capitalize on her legacy. No fucking tweets on the internet about large gametes and fertilization. Nothing that keeps her and her IP relevant so she can help take more trans rights away and do her best to stub them out like the ashes on her goddamn celebratory yacht cigar. A girl can only dream.
“Life is seldom perfect, and everyone knows the sometime necessity of a compromise. But if we accept the necessity-the desirability-of offering up the lives of others to improve our own, then we have already lost.”
-C.N. Lester, Trans Like Me
Trans Rights Organizations To Support:
The Okra Project, a Black, trans led mutual aid fund
Not A Phase, a UK organization for trans rights
The Transgender Law Center, trans led work for trans liberation
The TransLatin@ Coalition, trans led advocacy organization for trans Latina women that immigrate to the United States
Mermaids UK, UK advocacy group founded by parents of gender non-conforming children that focus on advocacy, diversity, equity, and inclusion for gender non-conforming, nonbinary, and trans youth
Georgina Kiersten’s HP/Iron man fanfic for trans charity here
Most notably when author Alexis Hall stated they would not be removing Harry Potter mentions from the 2024 rerelease of their 2014 MM romance novel Pansies.
My god. I watched the harassment of Imane Khelif, Olympic Champion for women’s boxing happening in real time and was so angry for her the whole time.
Thomas Spence, Heritage Foundation fellow and senior advisor, is the at the helm of Basic Liberty, a conservative imprint of Hatchett’s Basic Books Group. Hatchett is also the home of Forever publishing, an imprint of their Grand Central Publishing line, which is publishing Soto’s Dramione rework.
And to be fair, I also think if the only activism we do for trans people is boycott Harry Potter, that’s also performative and we need to do more than that.
Waterstones has already sold out of their special edition of Alchemised once and it’s not even released yet.
Okay, last comment. "But I’d like for us to stop pretending that these stories are some kind of rebellious middle finger and just… say you want to read the books." Exactly this.
I’m going to dive into this further when I log off work today, but I agree with you. The rising popularity of this fanfic and other subgenres of romance that center fascist and anti-feminist themes is VERY ALARMING. It echoes the growing eminence of ideals like the Trad Wife Movement and I am absolutely horrified by all of it.