‘Harry Potter’ Star Ralph Fiennes Defends J.K. Rowling | 22 Words

JK Rowling has sparked huge backlash online following her comments on the trans community, and now the one who shall not be named has spoken out...

Lord Voldemort himself has chimed in...


And his take on the whole ordeal will shock you...

We all know J.K Rowling is the woman behind the wizarding world of Harry Potter.

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 What started out as a mere musing while stuck on a delayed train in London, 1990, led to a young Joanne Rowling conjuring up the magical story of Harry Potter.

The author has single-handedly built an empire.

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 Thirty years since it's creation, over 500 million copies of the book franchise have been sold worldwide in eighty different languages, making it one of the best-selling book series of all time.

But this success didn't come easily to the young author.

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 Rowling famously struggled with marriage and money issues in the 4 years she spent working on the first Harry Potter book and, in 1994, she found herself as a newly-divorced single mom living out of her sister's spare room in the Scottish city of Edinburgh.

And, unbelievably, her idea was turned down by several different publishers...

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 Who reportedly found the idea to be "too long-winded for children" Even her literary agent allegedly warned her, "You do realize, you will never make a fortune out of writing children's books?"

It was a dark and difficult time for the young woman.

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 But, regardless of her personal struggles, she continued working on her vision, frequently taking to small coffee shops across Edinburgh to complete her debut book.

And, in 1997, her hard work finally paid off.

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 500 copies of the debut Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone finally hit the shelves in bookstores across the United Kingdom.

The book was an instant success.

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 The adventures of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger were quick to capture a vast and loyal fanbase, with children and adults alike being instantly captivated by the novel.

And, in the years following from The Philosopher's Stone...

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 Rowling went on to release 6 more books that detailed Harry's fight against the notorious Lord Voldemort, which only made her unique take on the fantasy world of magic even more known and loved across the world.

We became Harry Potter obsessed.

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 So, of course, it didn't take long for the movie adaptations to come along.

In 2001, Warner Brothers swooped in on the book series...

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 And brought Rowling's words and imagination to life by transforming them into a series of blockbuster movies.

Many say that the 8 movies were the true start of the world's obsession with Harry Potter.

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 The wizardry and witchcraft mania that was induced by the books was only exaggerated after the release of the on-screen adaptations which, collectively, grossed around $6.5 billion in total.

The final chapter of the Harry Potter franchise, The Deathly Hallows, was released back in 2007...

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 And fans were finally able to discover the fate of Harry Potter and the rest of the wizarding community, something which Rowling has claimed she knew from the very beginning.

Since the end of Harry Potter, the author has embarked upon a handful of sequel projects...

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 Including the collaboration on the 2-part play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and the hugely successful blockbuster, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

But Hogwarts aside...

In recent years, many have deemed the author to be extremely problematic.

Rowling has a long history of gender-critical commentary...

And last year, she took to Twitter to pen what many perceived as a transphobic commentary.

She started off by tweeting this:

...Yikes.

And when followers replied saying the tweet was transphobic, Rowling decided to add to the thread. 

She truly dug herself a deeper hole.

Oh, and she didn't stop there.

The author then went on to say she had spoken to her gay friend - but of course, that didn't go down well either, with many saying it was completely reductive.

People couldn't believe what they had read.

"'If we accept trans women then that means lesbians aren’t real'??? What sort of dumb TERF nonsense is this? Go back to tweeting dumb sh*t like 'the sorting hat was bi' so you can try to get inclusivity brownie points without having to actually include diversity in your books."

People were outraged with Rowling's comments...

And many said that she had now ruined Harry Potter for them.

Sometimes you just need to stop tweeting...

"I disagree profoundly with your assessment. Sex and gender are different. You're confusing the issue. As a woman committed to equal rights for all, I absolutely do not feel erased by the existence of transgender people. Their struggles do not negate my own. We can rise together."

But now, Ralph Fiennes has given his opinions on the heated controversy...

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The actor, who played Lord Voldemort, expressed sympathy for Rowling after the backlash she received...

"I can't understand the vitriol directed at her," the actor told The Telegraph in an interview on Wednesday.

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"I can understand the heat of an argument, but I find this age of accusation and the need to condemn irrational. I find the level of hatred that people express about views that differ from theirs, and the violence of language towards others, disturbing."

Fiennes clearly doesn't take the same stance as fellow Harry Potter castmates who have reacted in full support for the trans community.

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Keep scrolling to see what the rest of the cast made of Rowling's comments...