Hogwarts Legacy received immense pushback from the public upon its release due to ongoing criticism of Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling. Rowling has repeatedly posted transphobic rhetoric to her Twitter account with an audience of nearly 14 million followers, causing an uproar from the LGBTQ+ community — and practically anyone who supports transgender rights. The ongoing debates over the game have culminated in the posting of spoilers, not only for Hogwarts Legacy, but for Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania too, which had its Hollywood premiere days ago and hits theaters next week.
A recent post on the Marvel Studios subreddit has detailed a Marvel fan’s unfortunate encounter with spoilers for not only Hogwarts Legacy (which the user stated that they “don’t care about”), but the upcoming Ant-Man movie as well. This recounted experience has shed light on the recent trend of posting spoilers for Hogwarts Legacy online as a result of the looming controversies surrounding the game’s release.
The weaponization of spoilers within fandoms and online communities to “ruin” everyone’s fun has been a longstanding trend, with numerous fans complaining that the content they love has been tainted by the voices of online naysayers. While no one wants to get excited about a new release only to have the entire plot spoiled for them, the case of Hogwarts Legacy is far more complex and nuanced due to the intense controversies surrounding it.
Boycotters have said that supporting Hogwarts Legacy is giving the IP cultural capital and putting money in Rowling’s pocket; this viewpoint is prevalent in /r/gamingcirclejerk, which the Reddit post indirectly mentions. Additional discourse surrounding certain anti-Semitic themes in the Hogwarts Legacy storyline has added more fuel to the fire, resulting in an internet-wide debate that has been continuously documented online.
Marvel fans who may not have any investment in the Harry Potter IP are bizarrely becoming collateral damage in this digital battlefield — the rising tensions within fan communities during this time may have contributed to the need to spoil the anticipated movie for bystanders. Every media release is bound to cause a stir online; needless to say, Marvel fans who have yet to see Quantumania will want to navigate the internet with caution.
