Like a swooping evil, J.K. Rowling is known for wreaking havoc on the lives of the LGBTQIA+ community. Over the last few years, the Harry Potter author's venomous (and transphobic) rhetoric about the transgender community has increasingly drawn criticism from fandom, feminist scholars, and social justice activists. And now, Rowling is using her platform to memorialize her own perspective on cancel culture, according to Rolling Stone's Cheyenne Roundtree.
In The Ink Black Heart, the latest novel in the Cormoran Strike crime thriller series that is penned under JKR's pseudonym Robert Galbraith, the storyline seems to mirror JKR's public downfall. The new book introduces readers to a character who appears to be a stand-in for JKR herself: Edie Ledwell, a popular YouTube creator who "sees internet trolls and her own fandom turn on her after the cartoon was criticized as being racist and ableist, as well as transphobic for a bit about a hermaphrodite worm." The book takes clear aim at JKR's critics as Ledwell is then "doxxed" by her fans who post photos of her home across the internet, subject her to "death and rape threats for having an opinion," and ultimately killed, "a victim of a masterfully plotted, politically fueled hate campaign against her."
J.K. Rowling Claims The Ink Black Heart is Not Inspired by Her Own Life
But despite the clear similarities to her own life, Rowling claimed on The Graham Norton Radio Show that she was plotting the story "three years ago" and got the idea to depict an animated cartoon's online following via her children. "I should make it really clear after some of the things that have happened the last year that this is not depicting [that]," she said in reference to the recent threats made against her. "I had written the book before certain things happened to me online." she continued. "I said to my husband, 'I think everyone is going to see this as a response to what happened to me,' but it genuinely wasn’t. The first draft of the book was finished at the point certain things happened."
Even die-hard Harry Potter fan websites are skeptical of this claim, however. Before the most recent threats, Rowling claimed she was doxxed by a trio of "activist actors" who posted pictures of themselves posing outside of her castle, the address of which was readily available online at the time. Both of Rowling's Edinburgh-area residences are historical landmarks, one of which has its own Wikipedia page, are easy to find without the author's personal address (i.e., not doxxing because it was not private information).