Transfiguring the Wizarding World of Harry Potter: J.K. Rowling’s Most Infamous Retcons

Remember the magnificent rainbow flags fluttering from Hogwarts’ turrets, the countless Jewish students of color peppering the Great Hall, the sexual tension thicker than a Polyjuice Potion between Dumbledore and every single male professor who walked past his office?

What, you can’t recall? Shame on you; it is, after all, canon! Perhaps none of these details made it to print during the original release of the “Harry Potter” novels, but since J.K. Rowling, the omnipotent creator of the Wizarding World, decreed in a series of tweets that her novels were actually secretly filled with diversity all along, it must be so.

To be clear, it is not morally reprehensible or at all surprising for a book series written in the nineties by a white author to be filled with predominantly white, straight characters — think the “Magic Tree House” saga by Mary Pope Osborne or the “Ramona” collection by Beverly Cleary. What is discomfiting is Rowling’s shallow attempts to paint “Harry Potter” as the pinnacle of progressive literature on Twitter. For the generation that grew up being captivated by Harry Potter’s magical shenanigans, Rowling’s George Lucas-esque tinkering with her series has unfortunately cast a shadow over both her fans’ childhood memories and her own legacy in the fantasy genre. A popular meme has even sprung up across social media, mocking the unsolicited, extraneous information that Rowling periodically reveals about her “Harry Potter” characters. Some comedic gems include: “me: jk rowling: buckbeak is into light choking but hasn’t found the right partner” and “Nobody: J.K. Rowling: Dumbledore ate the peach from Call Me By Your Name.”

At least “Harry Potter” fans can watch Rowling fall from a deified author whose every word was mined for clues about her upcoming projects to a self-made laughingstock who keeps milking “Harry Potter.” Now sit back and hold onto your Sorting Hat, because this list of Rowling’s most infamous retcons is about to shake you like the Whomping Willow.

5. Moaning Myrtle for Massachusetts Senator?

On May 11, 2015, Rowling declared to her Twitter followers that Moaning Myrtle, the sullen spirit haunting the second-floor girls’ bathroom at Hogwarts, was actually named Myrtle Elizabeth Warren. Although Rowling hastened to add that Myrtle was in no way related to Elizabeth Warren, the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, the coincidence is uncanny enough to raise a few eyebrows.

4. Hogwarts does not discriminate against Jewish wizards!

After being asked whether there were any Jewish students at Hogwarts, Rowling replied by citing, “Anthony Goldstein, Ravenclaw, Jewish wizard.” Struggling to remember when a person named Anthony Goldstein ever appeared in the “Harry Potter” series? That’s perfectly reasonable, considering that Anthony’s most salient dialogue in the entire seven-book series is his proclamation of “Hear, hear” in Chapter 16 of “Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix.” At least now he doubles as the token Jew so that Rowling can claim to represent religious diversity in her writing.

3. No toilets? No problem!

With no prompting, Rowling used the official Wizarding World Twitter account to drop the bomb that wizards didn’t conceptualize bathrooms or even develop basic plumbing technology until many years after their non-magical counterparts did so. In fact, prior to the eighteenth century, wizards simply “relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence,” according to Rowling. Perhaps this tidbit is merely setting the stage for a potential prequel to “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” in case Rowling ever needs to make some more quick cash off of her fans’ lingering nostalgia for the Wizarding World. Picture this: A band of highbrow witches and wizards of the Enlightenment era are engaged in rousing intellectual discussion when one of their number begins to pass water on the floor.

2. Who said Hermione was white?

In 2016, some controversy emerged online following the announcement that a black actress named Noma Dumezweni would portray Hermione Granger in live productions of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” a play co-written by Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne that takes place nineteen years after the events of the original series. While it’s perfectly respectable to voice support for Dumezweni and defend her casting choice, Rowling took it a step further in her Tweet by insisting that “White skin was never specified [for Hermione’s character],” and thus implying that she intended Hermione to be interpreted as a woman of color from the beginning. Contrary to her assertions, however, Rowling had previously released personal sketches of the protagonists of “Harry Potter” in 2004, and Hermione was depicted as Caucasian by her own hand.

1. Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s “incredibly intense…love relationship”

On the Blu-ray and DVD editions of “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” J.K. Rowling states that Dumbledore and the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald had shared an “incredibly intense…love relationship” that had “a sexual dimension” despite the fact that those two characters barely shared two minutes of screen time together. It would’ve been more believable for Rowling to posit that Dobby the house-elf had an “incredibly intense” relationship with the filthy sock that freed him from his then-master, Lucius Malfoy.

— Staff writer Miranda Eng can be reached at miranda.eng@thecrimson.com.