JK Rowling new book — chronic illness references

[chrisb]

Much better to let them make their mistakes and then attack. Sometimes the enemy has to be lured from the trenches before they can be successfully attacked. The target is much too nebulous at the moment.

 

[perchance dreamer]

I'm really disappointed because I enjoyed the other Cormoran Strike books and had looked forward to this one. I had no idea about all the objectionable content.

I had ordered a copy as soon as it was available for preorder and got the book yesterday. Now I need to lug this behemoth to Whole Foods and return it to Amazon.

 

[V.R.T.]

I wonder if this might not be approached as a teachable moment in regards to why people with ME tend to have a more bleak outlook than suffers of MS or amputees or what have you.

Maybe explaining how ME takes away the ability to do basic things/hobbies, see family and friends and the low quality of life scores etc.

Could go better than focusing on the (ludicrous) character who's faking disability.

 

[Lou B Lou]

Much better to let them make their mistakes and then attack. Sometimes the enemy has to be lured from the trenches before they can be successfully attacked. The target is much too nebulous at the moment.

All of JKR's Strike novels have been serialised for TV (BBC 1, and Amazon). They are pretty popular, one had viewing figures of over 7 million, but mostly figures of well over 8 million viewers.

The TV series of JKR's last Strike book Troubled Blood (published 2020) will show on BBC 1 this autumn, 2 years after it was published, so as Ink Black Heart has just been published, the TV version will probably be scheduled for screening in late 2024.


After 8 million BBC 1 viewers have watched JKR's loaded bad portrayals of sick people with ME/CFS Fibro and POTS, of whiny 'Spoonies', all diseases deliberately named in the novel - it will be too late.

I do think pre-emptive action is needed to let the program makers, Bronte Film and TV, know there is concern (to say the least) about the portrayals of sick/disabled characters with named diseases in the novel, and referring to, quoting,
The Diamond Diversity Reporting Guideline component of the BBC is a good possibility, that @CRG posted about:

• Perceived: the diversity characteristics of on-screen characters, presenters and contributors to the programme as viewers might perceive them. This gives us a sense of how our content and storylines are likely to be representing the range of communities across the UK.

https://www.s4me.info/threads/jk-rowling-new-book-—-chronic-illness-references.29316/page-2


That JKR's novel may have reinforced negative perceptions of diseases which are neglected for research funding, and have been previously misrepresented by media for decades.

The NICE Guideline refers to Stigma, the new NIH page states that ME/CFS is diagnosed two to four times more often in women, the percentages mostly given are 75% or 80% female, 20% children.

Surely Bronte Films don't want to be seen mischaracterizing a disease that affects majority women. So in terms of Diversity, and the UK 2010 Equality Act Protected Characteristics, the concerns relate to the portrayal of Disability (disabling diseases) and Women (disabling diseases that affect majority women). Also the issue of Invisible Disabilities, that people with invisible disabilities face particular types of discrimination, especially disbelief. Sorry chaps, I know there' are loads of you with ME, just trying to be strategic. And that's as far as I can think atm. Thanks @CRG for the links.

 

[Amw66]

I wonder what Channel 4 s The Last Leg would make of this?
They don't shy away from things

 

[bobbler]

I wonder if this might not be approached as a teachable moment in regards to why people with ME tend to have a more bleak outlook than suffers of MS or amputees or what have you.

Maybe explaining how ME takes away the ability to do basic things/hobbies, see family and friends and the low quality of life scores etc.

Could go better than focusing on the (ludicrous) character who's faking disability.

You mean the tendency to laugh at the person for 'being miserable' when you've played a part in making their life such that anyone would be? I'm puzzled by the weird thing of 'being happy' apparently makes people likeable - it goes against all logic in that people who do what they want and might be unpleasant to others can be very happy and others reward them again. The two often are opposites to each other of 'nice person' vs 'happy'. Then turn it round?

Anyway putting that debate aside, I think the suggestion of the diversity reporting is pretty important because all illness have a mixture of people with whatever propensities and individual characteristics. Finding that the only time ME/CFS is portrayed in a year is as a grumpy internet troll or a faker is rather different given it is a trope (and that term needs to be used, it isn't based in truth and was invented for gain/distraction) pushed by certain factions currently and regularly (cite Fiona Fox and her inaccuracy for one) rather than e.g. an illness well-understood represented in numerous different ways each week.

For that reason switching it to a cancer patient would be very different indeed. And would have made for a deeper and more interesting point of note anyway as people would think of things like 'what happened', 'why' and the individual. They've got tropes they understandably weren't too keen on years ago and have to put up with 'fighter' and all that nonsense rather than being them, great if that's explored in depth, unless it becomes the cliche of every programme.

I horribly suspect she's chosen these illnesses not because of real life evidence, but because of the prior advertising of such tropes meaning she didn't need to unbundle the character but it 'doing the work for her' of 'a miserable troll'. Which says it all about its tropism.

Who'd know there were loads of us picking up the slack for colleagues despite being done in, helping out friends who aren't told of the illness because they are inadvertent bigots, 'hiding in plain sight' whilst our body disintegrates pretty obviously and any of the joyous things others enjoy outside this (like not feeling awful from overexertion as well as collapsed post-work) become impossible yet we still smile, but the public claim they either can't see or it's something else because of this nonsense.

And that if we use the appropriate words to describe the level of bigotry someone just said to our face it is manufactured as if that is anything but 'correct and accurate pulling up of something out of order'. So yes maybe there is some back story they could slide in of a wonderful person who the protagonist is awful to, and when they get told what anyone should say to someone being like that they play victim and pretend they've been hard done by then yes. But the programme isn't that long and doesn't sound nearly sophisticated enough for that to not look rather out of place to pull off. If a producer can be clever enough to work with the actors to get that done then they'd be showing their worth?

 

[TiredSam]

Important to be careful when approaching TV adaptation issues as we'll just be painted as "online trolls and campaigners" again if it's not handled properly.

Indeed, I can just imagine the headlines - "Woke online activists are now trying to silence national treasure JK Rowling" etc. We can be sure she'd make a meal of it. We don't have to accept the role that she's assigned to us.

Maybe she'll have self-destructed in the manner of Laurence Fox before long anyway. I wonder if we should overly concern ourselves with the rantings of an ill-informed privileged angry white woman as she slowly loses the plot.

 

[V.R.T.]

You mean the tendency to laugh at the person for 'being miserable' when you've played a part in making their life such that anyone would be. I'm puzzled by the weird thing of 'being happy' apparently makes people likeable - it goes against all logic in that people who do what they want and might be unpleasant to others can be very happy and others reward them again. The two often are opposites to each other of 'nice person' vs 'happy'. Then turn it round?

Anyway putting that debate aside, I think the suggestion of the diversity reporting is pretty important because all illness have a mixture of people with whatever propensities and individual characteristics. Finding that the only time ME/CFS is portrayed in a year is as a grumpy internet troll or a faker is rather different given it is a trope (and that term needs to be used, it isn't based in truth and was invented for gain/distraction) pushed by certain factions currently and regularly (cite Fiona Fox and her inaccuracy for one) rather than e.g. an illness well-understood represented in numerous different ways each week.

For that reason switching it to a cancer patient would be very different indeed. And would have made for a deeper and more interesting point of note anyway as people would think of things like 'what happened', 'why' and the individual. They've got tropes they understandably weren't too keen on years ago and have to put up with 'fighter' and all that nonsense rather than being them, great if that's explored in depth, unless it becomes the cliche of every programme.

I horribly suspect she's chosen these illnesses not because of real life evidence, but because of the prior advertising of such tropes meaning she didn't need to unbundle the character but it 'doing the work for her' of 'a miserable troll'. Which says it all about its tropism.

Who'd know there were loads of us picking up the slack for colleagues despite being done in, helping out friends who aren't told of the illness because they are inadvertent bigots 'hiding in plain sight' whilst our body disintegrates pretty obviously and any of the joyous things others enjoy outside this (like not feeling awful from overexertion as well as collapsed post-work) become impossible yet we still smile, but the public claim they either can't see or it's something else because of this nonsense.

And that if we use the appropriate words to describe the level of bigotry someone just said to our face it is manufactured as if that is anything but 'correct and accurate pulling up of something out of order'. So yes maybe there is some back story they could slide in of a wonderful person who the protagonist is awful to, and when they get told what anyone should say to someone being like that they play victim and pretend they've been hard done by then yes. But the programme isn't that long and doesn't sound nearly sophisticated enough for that to not look rather out of place to pull off. If a producer can be clever enough to work with the actors to get that done then they'd be showing their worth?

I agree with a lot of what you're saying here, but just to clarify I meant that we as ME patients might do better to counter the 'whiny negative attitude' narrative and use it to raise awareness of how awful ME can be, as opposed to getting sucked into the argument around this other character (although I understand that that is another toxic stereotype about the chronically ill).

Saying that I'm rather offended by this whole thing, and glad I listened to the Harry Potter audio books over the summer as I won't be able to for some time now. I was listening to them thinking about how much Rowling encourages and lauds that kind of push through/stuff upper lip attitude and how that has become impossible for me at my level of severity.

In addition, when the story about this book first broke I ended up reading some of the things she'd said about trans people (throwing out statistics) thinking 'how did they measure that?' and was reminded about the ME debate. Low and behold, the next day I discovered she's gone for us too.

What an odd and disappointing way for such a beloved children's book creator to spend their time and sqaunder their reputation.

 

[TiredSam]

Okay, I’ve downloaded and read this book now. It’s a whodunnit, and a fair discussion of Rowling’s attitudes to ME/CFS would be tricky without spoilers. So if you are keen on overlong detective novels, please read it yourself and ignore this post.

The co-creator of a cartoon series is murdered, and the suspects are all members of - or somehow connected to - the cartoon’s vocal fandom.

Several of the characters have disabilities or chronic illnesses. This partly serves to chart the hero’s evolving attitude to his own disability (by the end of the book, he has seemingly accepted the limits of stoicism), but also serves a plot purpose: we learn early on that the murderer is a carer.

Let’s look at these characters first, and then address the wider question of JKR’s attitude to PwME.

Inigo has ME, although his main symptoms alongside fatigue and wheelchair use (even indoors) seem more Parkinsonian: his illness is evidenced as real to the detectives when he spills his herbal tea all over himself. An overbearing, self-pitying and peevish domestic tyrant, his conversation and online output covers very S4ME themes, including the iniquity of graded exercise therapy and psychological diagnoses. His illness is portrayed as essentially real and not psychosomatic, although his rage at cruel fate is compared (through juxtaposition) with other, more stoical invalids.

Cormoran, for instance, the hero of the series, has part of a leg missing, but thumps gamely around London and uses mobility aids as little as possible. Like JKR’s most notable authorial proxy, Albus Dumbledore, he explicitly believes that it is one’s reactions to adversity that define one’s character, rather than the misfortune itself, and he has little sympathy for Inigo.

We don’t see much of Vikas, but he is a wheelchair-using cerebal palsy sufferer, who nevertheless has become a Cantabrigian astrophysicist. He is lauded by other characters for doggedly overcoming his disability.

Kea identifies as having CFS. The seriousness of her condition is suspiciously varied and perhaps selective: she runs away in awkward situations, sudden fatigue is cured with a glass of coke, and the explanation of “good days and bad days” is relayed with clear authorial snark.

Kea may just possibly be faking the whole thing: members of the fandom regularly pose as sufferers from chronic conditions in order to enter into dialogue with Inigo, whose wife is the cartoon creators’ agent. That would imply, though, that Kea is also deceiving her mother and primary carer. JKR leaves the matter open.

Kea’s online musings on illness and life are portrayed as mawkish, self-pitying and defensive. She posts that it is okay to use mobility aids without being advised to by a clinician: this is juxtaposed snidely with Cormoran’s avoidance of canes.

A member of the detective agency quits early on because he has MS and can no longer soldier on bravely. Another character’s mother has lupus.

The killer turns out to be Inigo’a put-upon son Gus, who suffers from hives, which he secretly excacerbates by eating unsuitable foods. Gus’s hives (alongside his virtuoso cello playing and his care for his father) initially serve as sympathy-inducing misdirection.

By contrast, Kea and Inigo are deeply unsympathetic characters from the start. That said, most of the characters are unlikeable - after all, this is a whodunnit, and JKR wants the reader to suspect all of them, at various points, of being the murderer.


JKR uses Kea’s possibly spurious illness and Inigo’s self-pity as indicators of potential villainy, but to be fair, she has a seemingly inexhaustible list of characteristics which she clearly regards as reprehensible. This eclectic list includes: dropping aitches, t-fronting or any other non-U diction; chewing noisily; exposed bosoms; shabby clothing; great wealth; having any interest in money; playing loud music; prolific social media output and spending time on the internet in general.

It’s a rather Daily Mail-ish mix of snobbery, inverted snobbery and anti-present nostalgia, which prejudices JKR seems to assume that her readers will share in full. It must be a huge relief for her to write for an audience of peers, rather than for the dewy-eyed children who morphed into the creepy adult Potter fandom which so clearly inspired much of this book.

Because fundamentally, what JKR hates isn’t PwME, it’s Internet People. Would she hate all of us? Undoubtedly. We’re on an online echo chamber of doom, complaining about reputable academics instead of somehow making the best of things. Like Kea, we write absurdities about “spoons” and may even list our comorbidities by way of online introduction.

And JKR has decided (understandably), to hate every aspect of microsocial platforms, especially the snap judgements and over-sharing of Twitter. Kea’s online activity is cast as risible, but then so is all online social communication.

I don’t think that JKR is good at writing about the Internet. She’s always had a tendency to write the dialogue of minor characters lazily and to lapse into parody, but this fault is much more glaring in the epistolary sequences of online communications. And it comes across as parodic, I suspect, because it has been lifted from quick scans of both primary online activity and secondary analysis. Her whiny ill people on Twitter are unsatisfactory for the same reason that her online pick-up-artists and Odinists are flimsily delineated: she doesn’t like them enough to put much work into them.

Are any of the characters trans-rights activists, or has JKR decided to chicken out of her fight with them and go for an easier target?

 

[Rain]

Is the book part of the Cormoran Strike series? I saw TV productions of a couple of those stories, and I quite enjoyed them—especially the first series, which was done really well.

All of JKR's Strike novels have been serialised for TV (BBC 1, and Amazon). They are pretty popular, one had viewing figures of over 7 million, but mostly figures of well over 8 million viewers.

The TV series of JKR's last Strike book Troubled Blood (published 2020) will show on BBC 1 this autumn, 2 years after it was published, so as Ink Black Heart has just been published, the TV version will probably be scheduled for screening in late 2024.


After 8 million BBC 1 viewers have watched JKR's loaded bad portrayals of sick people with ME/CFS Fibro and POTS, of whiny 'Spoonies', all diseases deliberately named in the novel - it will be too late.

I do think pre-emptive action is needed to let the program makers, Bronte Films know there is concern (to say the least) about the portrayals of sick/disabled characters with named diseases in the novel, and The Diamond Diversity Reporting component of the BBC is a good possibility, that @CRG posted about:

• Perceived: the diversity characteristics of on-screen characters, presenters and contributors to the programme as viewers might perceive them. This gives us a sense of how our content and storylines are likely to be representing the range of communities across the UK.

https://www.s4me.info/threads/jk-rowling-new-book-—-chronic-illness-references.29316/page-2


That JKR's novel may have reinforced negative portrayals of diseases which are neglected for research funding, and have been previously misrepresented by media for decades.

The NICE Guideline refers to Stigma, the new NIH page states that ME/CFS is diagnosed two to four times more often in women, the percentages mostly given are 75% or 80% female, 20% children.

Surely Bronte Films don't want to be seen mischaracterizing a disease that affects majority women. So in terms of Diversity, and the UK 2010 Equality Act Protected Characteristics, the concerns relate to the portrayal of Disability (disabling diseases) and Women (disabling diseases that affect majority women). Sorry chaps, I know there' are loads of you with ME, just trying to be strategic. And that's as far as I can think atm. Thanks @CRG for the links.

I have read all the books the TV series is based on so far. The Tv series have left out all the controversial story lines (including a plot about trans people being dangerous, and one about an online community for BID). Pretty confident that this chronic illness part will be left out as well if this book will ever be filmed.

I don’t understand how the book publishers think different from the TV industry, though. She might have more “I’ll have the last word” included in her contract in the book deal?

 

[Lou B Lou]

Are any of the characters trans-rights activists, or has JKR decided to chicken out of her fight with them and go for an easier target?

That's what I was about to ask. I don't think any characters are trans people, though the online characters had accused the murdered woman of racism, transphobia and ableism, so multi-rights activists. But I haven't finished the audiobook, it's hard going and long. I think she daren't make any of the antagonists, who are suspects of murder, trans people because then loads of people would say "See, we were right! She does hate trans people". And she couldn't get out of that.

I do think she has used the sick/disabled characters/antagonists as proxies for the online people who have a go at her, and for the online types who sent her rape and death threats We are soft targets and can't 'hit back'. She does seem to have such dislike and contempt for the sick/disabled people with the specific diseases she has exploited for literary effect.


Please note - I have edited this post for clarity.

 

[Shadrach Loom]

Are any of the characters trans-rights activists, or has JKR decided to chicken out of her fight with them and go for an easier target?

Kea posts at one point that she is not sure if she is entirely cis. So gender dysphoria is jumbled in with all the other signifiers that she is something of a drama queen.

The in-universe cartoon characters includes a genderless worm. Trans Twitter is angry about some aspects of his portrayal, which is presumably JKR’s sideswipe at those who cancelled her.

An unpleasant alt-right character burns some star of david biscuits in what all reliable characters agree is definitely anti-semitic humour, so that’s not really analysable as JKR defending her depiction of Gringott’s goblins.

 

[Shadrach Loom]

A couple of other quick points on this. I mentioned that Kea has CFS and Inigo has ME. At no point are the two described as having the same illness, so JKR may well be under the impression that they are not synonymous, perhaps seeing ME as the more authoritative diagnosis.

Also, the reason why Gus keeps his hives going with banned foodstuffs is so that he has an excuse to lurk in his room as an online villain rather than going back to college. This might be seen alongside Kea’s questionable symptoms as contributing to a secondary theme, of elective illness in pursuit of secondary gain and social avoidance.

 

[Snow Leopard]

Be weary how the argument may be misinterpreted.

Some people are saying, "So what, people with disabilities can't be villains?".

But that is not our argument. The problem is that the disease/illness/disability is being ridiculed/portrayed as a way of reducing the CREDIBILITY of the character in the book. That is the primary problem.

 

[bobbler]

Indeed, I can just imagine the headlines - "Woke online activists are now trying to silence national treasure JK Rowling" etc. We can be sure she'd make a meal of it. We don't have to accept the role that she's assigned to us.

Maybe she'll have self-destructed in the manner of Laurence Fox before long anyway. I wonder if we should overly concern ourselves with the rantings of an ill-informed privileged angry white woman as she slowly loses the plot.

100% agree. Which of course diverts attention from 'who would write such a thing about another human being' and judging their personality and the personal qualities/failings the writing itself shows. Currently it is utterly uncalled for picking on the weakest person that can be found - don't give her any pretence to muddy that and claim it is anything else.

She is currently the story - with a begging explanation that isn't there of why would you do this other than generalised small-mindedness.

Anything that is done here needs to be very careful and professionally coordinated EDIT* I was thinking from a charity or association etc - not least because no matter how nuanced what is actually written or said by one patient if that gets twisted or summarised into something false then said person has no voice to evidence that isn't what they said.

I'd suggest flagging basic stats on the diversity front (ie the diamond form in CRg's post) with little writing around it, and not written like a report/with arguments or points being made, but just basic tables (date, role description as per TV guide) showing the stats.

I'd suggest an open offer for actors and producers to witness/meet/see some who actually endure this - no 'push' of anything (people take offence to 'being educated'), just logging that there were options if someone wanted to do their research [given that isn't unusual/unorthodox that actors would seek to do this for a role].

We just have to make kind offers to allow those who choose to look further and research to access what I'm pretty sure speaks for itself if you see someone with very severe ME, severe ME etc. if you are the type of person who isn't closed-minded to wanting to see it (in which case anything gets interpreted as all sorts of ridiculousness and strange excuse).

It's one of the cruellest things of ME that we've been contrived to be put in a position where whatever we say, the moment we speak in a way that isn't fawning to falsehood/what people want to hear it is 'angry black man' trope. But we can mundanely and politely log what has been offered and data and hope bystanders notice the reply to these (rather than the 'question' ending up being the focus if it anything other than run of the mill and open) and draw their own conclusions on the behaviour of others rather than us.

 

[Mij]

Some people are saying, "So what, people with disabilities can't be villains?".

She has been very selective as to which "villains" she chose.

 

[TiredSam]

I have read all the books the TV series is based on so far. The Tv series have left out all the controversial story lines (including a plot about trans people being dangerous, and one about an online community for BID). Pretty confident that this chronic illness part will be left out as well if this book will ever be filmed.

If that's the case it may be better not to make a fuss. "Chronic illness was left out of the TV series after discussions with the BBC" is a non-story, but if she can vamp it up to "Chronic illness had to be left out of the TV series due to threats by online militant activists cancelling my freedom of speech" it would generate so much more publicity and give her something to whine on twitter about, forgetting to mention that the chronic illness element would never have made it to the TV series anyway.

 

[Lou B Lou]

Be weary how the argument may be misinterpreted.

Some people are saying, "So what, people with disabilities can't be villains?".

But that is not our argument. The problem is that the disease/illness/disability is being ridiculed/portrayed as a way of reducing the CREDIBILITY of the character in the book. That is the primary problem.

Yes.

The people saying "So what, people with disabilities can't be villains?" are people who don't live with the specific disabling diseases badly portrayed in the novel, diseases which have been systematically trivialised, with the sufferers gaslit, denigrated and demonised in the media repeatedly for decades.

And people who are oblivious of all the financial/political/commercial components of the undermining of ME as a disabling disease diagnosis (Insurance industry, DWP).


There was no publicity about the previous TV adaptations of Strike leaving out the more controversial components of the novels.

I don't think we can just hope for the best and trust that the producers will be benign and just leave out all the derogatory character portrayals of chronic illnesses. The theme of how the sick/disabled people handle disability and chronic illness runs throughout, it's embedded in the novel. The number of negative illness/disability tropes in her novel are shocking.

 

[Rain]

If that's the case it may be better not to make a fuss. "Chronic illness was left out of the TV series after discussions with the BBC" is a non-story, but if she can vamp it up to "Chronic illness had to be left out of the TV series due to threats by online militant activists cancelling my freedom of speech" it would generate so much more publicity and give her something to whine on twitter about, forgetting to mention that the chronic illness element would never have made it to the TV series anyway.

100% agree.

Here is an article about controversial content from earlier books. I think those you here who have only watched the series will agree that it was all left out/rewritten?

 

[Lou B Lou]

I would be happy for the derogatory/negative stereotype antagonists with the named diseases to be left out. But not in the least bit convinced the producers/writers would actual see anything controversial in JKR's handling of stigmatised disabling diseases. The diseases being already well and truly stigmatised and the sufferers misrepresented.

I do think the writers will have a job to convert the endless pages of inane tweets into watchable TV. The pages and pages of extended online messages exchanges and tweets have put off the book/audio readers already.