Well done, JK Rowling – Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe don’t deserve your forgiveness
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Well done to JK Rowling, for her implacable stance when it comes to those who have wronged her. The prodigious author and creator of Harry Potter has stated that she will never forgive the not-quite-so-young-anymore performers who shot to fame thanks to their starring roles in the Hogwarts franchise then disowned and effectively vilified her for not subscribing to transgender extremism.
Speaking on Twitter (latterly known as X) in the wake of the Cass review, which condemned the way young people had been encouraged to undergo drastic treatment on the weakest of evidence, Rowling described it as a “watershed” moment that “lays bare the tragedy” of allowing children to transition.
When someone then tweeted that Radcliffe and Watson owed her “a very public apology... safe in the knowledge that you will forgive them”, Rowling responded by saying, with magnificent understatement: “Not safe, I’m afraid.”
She continued:
Not safe, I'm afraid. Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women's hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 10, 2024
Hurrah! I can’t see that happening anytime soon. Frankly, if I knew how to cancel someone, I’d cancel everyone who believes that you can assert any old nonsense about sex and gender, no matter how preposterous.
And by the same magical thinking, anyone who says things like “sex isn’t assigned at birth; have you ever heard of DNA?” is to be harassed, bullied and burned at the stake of Gen Z opinion.
Except, as Rowling has demonstrated with great dignity, you can’t victimise someone who has the backing of every right-thinking person on the planet. You can’t ostracise someone who has the moral courage to stand her ground as the witch hunt raged.
And you certainly can’t bully someone who is prepared to put her money where other people’s mouths are and challenge Scotland’s laughable new hate law, which was only introduced to curry favour with self-righteous teenagers so they will vote to leave the union once IndyRef 2 rears its ugly head.
Sometimes sorry just isn’t enough. And in my book, forgiveness is not always a corollary.
It’s fine to accept an apology – not least because it’s considered the height of bad manners not to – but that is not the same as forgiving, much less forgetting. There is no obligation to do either.
I’ve never subscribed to the idea that sorry is the hardest word. The hardest word is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. “Sorry” barely touches the sides; it’s easy to say, impossible to prove.
Bearing a grudge is supposed to be corrosive and generally gets a bad rap but nobody ever talks about the harmless pleasure it can bring as you plan how you’re going to elaborately settle old scores. You know who you are. No point libelling myself.
Of course, the prevailing consensus is that forgiveness is all to do with love and by forgiving you set yourself free, but I think that is more about wars, invasions, criminality and so forth.
My grudges are invariably petty. Minor betrayals; the noisy neighbour who reported me to the police; that time a colleague said “I thought you weren’t allowed to wear short skirts after the age of 30” and I yelled “OMG! Has that been made into an actual law?”.
Like a lot of people, I can only forgive if I forget. When abuse hurled at decent people is preserved online for posterity, how can anyone even begin to heal?
