Quidditch rebrands as quadball and further distances itself from JKR

July 26, 2022 7:30 AM

Fans of quidditch are now fans of quadball, the new name for the real-life sport that was first inspired by the Harry Potter book series. U.S. Quidditch and Major League Quidditch announced the name change on Tuesday as well as their own rebranding as U.S. Quadball and Major League Quadball. The groups announced their intention to find a new name for the sport in December, citing what they called anti-trans positions of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.
posted by Etrigan (57 comments total)

This is good. JKR doesn't understand -- nor, clearly, care -- that her works (flawed as they are) have inspired many thousands (or even millions) of people out there to live a life true to themselves be they cis, trans, straight, queer, of any color or ability. Let the fans use that inspiration as a stepping stone to grow beyond her shitty worldview.

Three cheers for quadball!
posted by tclark at 7:58 AM on July 26, 2022 [15 favorites]

You love to see it. I'm more inclined to think of bigotry in terms of power than in terms of personal pathology, but in a case like Rowling's where it's so clearly maladaptive to her own immediate best interests, I think there's some sort of obsessive derangement there-- it's weird and sad. I know that people have identified a variety of shitty stuff that's endogenous to her works, but still, I'm certain that without the transphobic crusade she could have just blithely sailed into her golden years on her enormous heap of money and accolades, comfortably taking her seat among the pantheon of moderately problematic yet comfortably canonical popular authors. And yet...!
posted by dusty potato at 8:07 AM on July 26, 2022 [26 favorites]

I hope the fantasy author that invented cricket doesn't turn out to be a nazi.
posted by adept256 at 8:09 AM on July 26, 2022 [17 favorites]

I say "yessssssssss" to this. Not that I play, but anything that makes her get the vapours is a positive.
posted by mephron at 8:18 AM on July 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

I hope the fantasy author that invented cricket doesn't turn out to be a nazi.

Slartibartfast enjoys the game of cricket, but he notes that most sensible citizens of the galaxy find the sport to be in rather bad taste.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:20 AM on July 26, 2022 [26 favorites]

JK Rowling writing a bully: - "Oi, fatty" said Malfoy, being bad and wicked for laughing at someone's weight.

JK Rowling writing a stupid person: - His big fat face swivelled around like a fat load of fat. He sat on his fat piggy bottom. "Hello", he said, like a big fat bastard.

@StevenWritesNow

posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:23 AM on July 26, 2022 [45 favorites]

I am a little surprised that this took as long as it did, for other reasons. It seems like it would be really hard to live under the shadow of Warner Brothers holding the Trademark to the name of your organization and sport https://trademarks.justia.com/758/58/quidditch-75858041.html
posted by 3j0hn at 8:39 AM on July 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

Next: come up with new names for the H*gw**ts-houses-as-personality-archetypes so that former Potter fans can keep them in their bios without signalling that they're au fait with bigotry.
posted by acb at 8:44 AM on July 26, 2022 [9 favorites]

Man, it's a good thing for Roald Dahl that he didn't live to be part of Twitter. Imagine how much he would show his ass. There wouldn't be a new Willy Wonka movie, that's for sure.

As far as I can tell, JKR was getting lovebombed by TERFs at the same time as she was catching internet heat for saying some bad things. She went with the nice ladies she could have liquid lunches with instead of the young people who weren't starry-eyed and grateful anymore, who sent angry gifs and wouldn't back down. This isn't tone-policing; it's a failure of character on her part.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:46 AM on July 26, 2022 [27 favorites]

(Also, living as she does on TERF Island and only talking to people who won't tell her no, she may not have any real idea what she's done to her legacy, if she even cares.)
posted by Countess Elena at 8:48 AM on July 26, 2022 [8 favorites]

Next: come up with new names for the H*gw**ts-houses-as-personality-archetypes so that former Potter fans can keep them in their bios without being seen to be au fait with bigotry.

What's wrong with lion-raven-badger-snake. I think they're all in the public domain.
posted by sukeban at 8:48 AM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure that changing the names of the houses helps much, given that the premise is that you're sorted as a child and this classification is immutable, informs your lifelong treatment, politics, and friendships, can never be breached/changed... It kind of feels part and parcel of her blinkered worldview, tbh.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:52 AM on July 26, 2022 [26 favorites]

IIRC, “TERF Island” was shown recently to be a myth. Obsessive transphobia is a fringe position in the UK, a tiny minority of a minority, albeit one with Twitter botnets and the ear of media proprietors, while most Britons are quite happy for trans people to be as they are.
posted by acb at 8:53 AM on July 26, 2022 [11 favorites]

Next: come up with new names for the H*gw**ts-houses-as-personality-archetypes

The four new houses are Cleveland Browns, Planet Express Crew, Wu Tang Clan and US Department of Labor.

Sort yourself.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 8:54 AM on July 26, 2022 [107 favorites]

acb: fair enough, I'm sorry to be so flip. But I do expect she lives in a bubble of thought.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:01 AM on July 26, 2022

Is this why astrology and the zodiac are having a new Renaissance? I don't mind. Discussing Hogwarts houses was tedious (I tried to make myself like it for the sake of HP fans in my life, pre JKR's showing her ass, but now I don't have to, thank God). Discussing the nuances of Gemini ascendancy (my favorite flop sigh) is far more rewarding, IMO. :P
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 9:02 AM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

I applaud this name change. I am still not sure this game really works as a sport, but going to the US Quadball site, I see that they have at least reduced the point score from catching the snitch so it's not a game-ending auto-win. It seems faintly ridiculous that everyone has to run around with sticks between their legs, but it certainly does add to the difficulty!
posted by dellsolace at 9:13 AM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

I think all of those things (and the Enneagram, and MBTI, and personality quizzes in general, and that really detailed fictional character personality quiz that went around a couple years ago) are just potentially fun and interesting (albeit sometimes very boring) ways of talking about our personalities and understanding each other. It can be easier to talk to someone you just met about how you identify with [fictional character/house] than actually get into your deepest values or your attachment style or things like that. I tend to like all of these better than astrology because they are more about choice, but you can also approach astrology though the lens of "here is what resonates with me."

I'm fascinated by this sorting system that used the Houses as a jumping-off point, but is more complex and nuanced than what's in the books. It talks about motivation and tactics and how your house can be what you aspire to rather than how you are right now.

And I'm so glad about this rebranding! I've found the community that blossomed around these books so beautiful, and it's really lovely to see all the different ways in which members of that community are claiming it for themselves and creating spaces of joy, love, and acceptance.
posted by earth by april at 9:15 AM on July 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

Hahahah, I knew Sorting Hat Chats had to come up!

Puffs, a play based on the books featuring things from the POV of Hufflepuffs, calls people "Smarts" and "Braves" and "Puffs." I can't recall what they called Slytherins though.

Man, it's a good thing for Roald Dahl that he didn't live to be part of Twitter. Imagine how much he would show his ass.

There are definitely certain authors I can think of where I've thought, "It's a good thing they died in the 90's because hooooooo boy would they not be having a good time if they were alive these days."

I'm more inclined to think of bigotry in terms of power than in terms of personal pathology, but in a case like Rowling's where it's so clearly maladaptive to her own immediate best interests, I think there's some sort of obsessive derangement there-- it's weird and sad.

She seems bizarrely obsessed with the idea that trans women are dressing up so they can go into bathrooms and rape women. I keep wondering where the hell she got convinced that This Is A Thing That Is Happening because I sure as fuck haven't seen any news articles about that trend sweeping any nations.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:25 AM on July 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

MetaFitler: It seems faintly ridiculous that everyone has to run around with sticks between their legs, but it certainly does add to the difficulty.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:48 AM on July 26, 2022 [14 favorites]

Good. Take the pleasure her work can give out into the world and away from her. I can hardly think of a person who had more opportunity to do good and instead leaned hard into the worst choices.
posted by praemunire at 10:11 AM on July 26, 2022 [8 favorites]

It seems faintly ridiculous that everyone has to run around with sticks between their legs, but it certainly does add to the difficulty!

Looking at the slo-mo videos on the quadball site, this looks like groin injuries must be frequent and painful. Just the abrasions would be bad enough, never mind the impacts.

But to the real point of the FPP, I think it is great that they are creating more distance from JKR. I still feel bad for all of the fans who have appreciated the books and yet been hurt by the terrible things she keeps saying and digging in.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:27 AM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Next: come up with new names for the H*gw**ts-houses-as-personality-archetypes so that former Potter fans can keep them in their bios without signalling that they're au fait with bigotry.

Dunno, I feel like “Jock Hero”, “Nerd Hero”, “Mean Person” and “NPC” were never great categories regardless of their wrapping paper.
posted by mhoye at 11:10 AM on July 26, 2022 [36 favorites]

I get why it had to happen, but it sucks that iIts stuck with such a boring “ball-related” name.Rowling and people like her are some of the reason we can’t have interestingly named things.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:20 AM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

What a time to be alive.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:32 AM on July 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

Next: come up with new names for the H*gw**ts-houses-as-personality-archetypes so that former Potter fans can keep them in their bios without signalling that they're au fait with bigotry.

It's essential that we have a way of signalling that we read some books but not, like, a lot.

Call me a cynic, but these guys have been trying to commercialise their hobby/sport for quite some time and never managed it because a third party owns all the IP. Good news everybody, now they have a reason to rename everything.
posted by atrazine at 11:36 AM on July 26, 2022

Harry Potter Jr.
Harry Potter Jr.
Harry Potter Jr.....

k, bridge is clear.
posted by clavdivs at 12:04 PM on July 26, 2022

now that the sport is called quadball, i propose we just bring in another ip and call the players krogans
posted by i used to be someone else at 12:34 PM on July 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

JK Rowling did so much damage to her reputation that former dans are willing to call themselves quadballers.
posted by ActionPopulated at 1:14 PM on July 26, 2022

But if the word ball isn't involved, how will we know it's a sportsball activity?

I loved finding out that nobody wanted to buy a signed book at a charity auction recently. Or at least nobody wanted to pay that much for it, I guess.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:22 PM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Dunno, I feel like “Jock Hero”, “Nerd Hero”, “Mean Person” and “NPC” were never great categories regardless of their wrapping paper.

The Dimension20 actualplay miniseries "Misfits and Magic" was such a great riff / teardown of all things Potterverse, and the bit about the kids getting sorted into houses was particularly hilarious. "This is tracking! It's really proven ineffective and harmful to students... and, sorry, is one of the flavors of kid *evil*?"
posted by FatherDagon at 1:34 PM on July 26, 2022 [7 favorites]

I would have preferred the name youarewrongabouttranspeoplejoanneball but I can understand how that might not fit on various stadia.
posted by dannyboybell at 1:37 PM on July 26, 2022 [11 favorites]

“It seems faintly ridiculous that everyone has to run around with sticks between their legs, but it certainly does add to the difficulty!”

To go with the name change, they should start playing on quads.
posted by mbrubeck at 1:43 PM on July 26, 2022

Just hol’ up a dang second!

There’s nothing in the dang game that is based on the dang ol’ number four so how the dang heck can it be Quadball? Dang ol’ game got seven players, five dang balls, three dang hoops …

Where the dang heck did they get that dang ol’ name anyways?

I swear! Dang it to heck! Dang ol’ Quadball got the wrong dang name!
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 2:20 PM on July 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

Excellent, now go to one ball, and make it an oval shaped one, and you can only pass it backwards, and you can tackle, and it’s five phases of play before a turnover, and a try is worth four points and conversions and penalties two, and there’s thirteen a side, hey you’ve got a game there
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:52 PM on July 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

Next: come up with new names for the H*gw**ts-houses-as-personality-archetypes so that former Potter fans can keep them in their bios without being seen to be au fait with bigotry.

Slytherin can continue to be called Slytherin.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:54 PM on July 26, 2022

I would have preferred the name youarewrongabouttranspeoplejoanneball but I can understand how that might not fit on various stadia.

I have to assume that the team names in this league would be amazing.
posted by mhoye at 3:02 PM on July 26, 2022

Re the sticks - I get the feeling that quadball players are just waiting, waiting... For the flying to be possible. Flyball is already taken, though.
posted by freethefeet at 3:08 PM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

There’s nothing in the dang game that is based on the dang ol’ number four so how the dang heck can it be Quadball?

Poundball seems like a real missed opportunity.
posted by The Tensor at 3:22 PM on July 26, 2022

I've often wondered if people like Rowling and Chappelle may have some trans feelings themselves, or if they're really attracted to trans people, and they're going fucking nuts trying to repress it. Like, if Rowling came out as transmasculine tomorrow or Chapelle married a trans woman you'd be surprised but you'd also kind of go, "Oh, now I get why they were always so fucked up." If Rowling's epiphany is going to come I hope it comes very soon. She's in danger of totally tanking her legacy over this stupid shit. Unfortunately I think it's more likely she'll tell some TERF origin story about the terrible trans person who wronged her that one time, and showed her what Those People are really like. I bet they were fat too.

I get the feeling that quadball players are just waiting, waiting... For the flying to be possible.

Have they ever tried to play this game on bikes or Segways or something? Anything's better than running around with a goddamned broom handle bonking around between your knees and giving you bruises and splinters. There were some college kids who used to play in a nearby park, and they looked like a cutaway gag from a Monty Python sketch.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:35 PM on July 26, 2022

I've often wondered if people like Rowling and Chappelle may have some trans feelings themselves.

Normally I’d say you really shouldn’t do this kind of internet-psychoanalysis, but in Rowling’s case, you don’t need to wonder. She’s come right out and said so:

“The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition.”

“The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge.”

posted by mhoye at 3:54 PM on July 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

Normally I’d say you really shouldn’t do this kind of internet-psychoanalysis

I'm aware of the potential impropriety, but when rich, famous and highly influential people are just hollering all day long about how much they hate those icky trans folks, to the point that it's actually driving away fans and harming their careers, you gotta wonder. As a trans person myself, I don't have serious qualms about this kind of speculation about them.

I'd read that Rowling quote before, and... yeah. She talks about "escaping" womanhood rather than embracing manhood, but even so... yeah.

I think Orson Scott Card may be my favorite (as in, least favorite) genre author LGBTQ-phobe who doth protest too much. Dude won't shut up about how much he hates gay stuff, then you go back and read Ender's Game and it's like, "Oh, my Christ, this is the squirmiest thing ever."
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:34 PM on July 26, 2022 [5 favorites]

Internet psychoanalysis doesn’t do anyone any favors. It doesn’t help the subjects and it leads to false narratives, leading to impassioned defenses, leading to … it’s an endless circle of jerking.

Just accept that some people are jerks and are gonna have to fix themselves and live your own life as well as you can and you will find some peace, maybe.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 5:09 PM on July 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

Just accept that some people are jerks and are gonna have to fix themselves and live your own life as well as you can and you will find some peace, maybe.

The problem with that is that these people are actively harming people like me with their hateful statements. Me "living my own life" means that I have no choice but to deal with all the strife caused by these celebrity gazillionaire transphobes. They can do more harm with a single tweet than I could in a lifetime of speculating that they might have more in common with me than they'd care to admit.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:35 PM on July 26, 2022 [12 favorites]

"This is tracking! It's really proven ineffective and harmful to students... and, sorry, is one of the flavors of kid *evil*?"

Harry Potter is a trust fund jock who wasted his academic opportunities and political connections and wound up a cop, there I said it.
posted by mhoye at 6:15 PM on July 26, 2022 [14 favorites]

I love Sorting Hat Chats as an example of fandom brilliance breaking and hacking broken systems and making it work on a much more complex and nuanced level than the source material, to the point of re-writing and writing out the inherently problematic parts of Harry Potter/JKR's nonsensical worldbilding. It's also been interesting to read recent asks on their tumblr where people just flat out say "I'm a Lion Primary, Badger Secondary" to deal with this. Just fascinating, as someone who used to love wasting hours on taking personality quizzes.

As far as I know, Harry Potter that is JKR and the Harry Potter that the fandom has built are two completely different worlds, and the second is by those who are determined to remake it into what it should have been. The deeper implications of that is something I'm still contemplating
posted by yueliang at 6:24 PM on July 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

Also I refer you all to my theory that Hogwarts is an exercise in Östalgie.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:43 PM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Here's the thing—JKR is losing, literally, millions of dollars because of her shitty views on trans issues. No exaggeration.

I suspect—and oh, I know this is going to come out sounding like some entirely bogus, backyard-around-the-firepit drink-in-hand sleuthing, without nary a shred of evidence, but let me just put this in your thoughts—I suspect that something HAPPENED to J. K. Rowling, somewhere along the way, that causes her to cling, with the grip of death, to her quite horrible and indefensible views. I don't know what, I don't know when or who, but I think that, in a just world, we (someone in her fanbase at least) would recognize that, and say to her "Everything's going to be alright. Just let go." even as we all recognize that what's she's doing right now is shitty and hurtful for a LOT of people.
posted by newdaddy at 6:50 PM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

But why would I want to gallop around the field with a stick between my legs while playing an active sport? There's uh... problematic geometry of motion at play. Seriously. Why is this popular?
posted by metametamind at 7:04 PM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

I’m not saying don’t oppose them. I am saying quit trying to figure out why they are the way they are. That parts not your problem.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 7:29 PM on July 26, 2022

... to the point of re-writing and writing out the inherently problematic parts of Harry Potter/JKR's nonsensical worldbilding.

Yes!
This is why I find Harry Potter fascinating. It's the fans.

The books are OK. Uneven, some excellent moments and characters, some not so great, and stare at any of it too long and some very problematic ideas emerge. And yet the fans' love transforms everything.

I love that I can Google a Harry Potter plot hole, and find a thoughtful and well argued post that explains how things make sense if you consider an extremely unlikely but entertaining new way of interpreting the text.
If Harry was really a vampire, or his own father, or swopped at birth with Neville.

I love the fact that so many thousands of people are so passionate about stories that they choose to spend their time arguing about them and reinventing them and speculating about them.
posted by Zumbador at 9:34 PM on July 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

But why would I want to gallop around the field with a stick between my legs while playing an active sport? There's uh... problematic geometry of motion at play.

Why have an egg-and-spoon race? The egg is bound to fall off.
posted by solarion at 2:50 AM on July 27, 2022

Newdaddy, I totally agree. It feels like something happened to send her down this shitty rabbit hole. I still wonder what and if she can get therapy about it.

I suspect the worldbuilding of HP is the real and best selling thing about it. Theme parks exist so you can go to Hogwarts for real.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:39 AM on July 27, 2022

"This is tracking! It's really proven ineffective and harmful to students... and, sorry, is one of the flavors of kid *evil*?"

This was really funny. It got me to thinking about how popular the houses were, even among young adults.

The idea that you can sort people as "Jock,* Nerd, Mean Person, and NPC" (as someone said) instinctively appeals to most children and teens. That's what they see when they look around them at school or at media about school. And kids love to belong, especially the kids who never have belonged somewhere.

JKR's strength as a middle-grade writer was that she understood very well how it was to feel what kids feel and see what they see. So much of the adult world does not make any sense to children (as indeed it shouldn't sometimes). The vast institutional machinery of a school actually doing things that would make sense to kids, like sorting into houses, having constant battles with evil teachers, and defining the entire course of your life to come -- that's an irresistible fantasy about being part of something. It's about belonging.

And now JKR as a person repudiates the entire idea of instinctively belonging, which is basically all her pastiche world has going for it.

----
* Though I would say it's more Protagonist House than Jock House. Now that I think about it, the main characters all belonged in different houses, but that wouldn't have been so cozy.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:21 AM on July 27, 2022 [4 favorites]

I don't know what, I don't know when or who

I would add that it's probably not useful to care. Everyone who breaks bad has a story,. It's usually the same story

Took me a while, but it's keeping the "qu" sound and then "oddball", isn't it?
posted by running order squabble fest at 2:10 PM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]

It seems faintly ridiculous that everyone has to run around with sticks between their legs

As a trans woman I do that every day. But as many British trans women would tell you, it’s hard to get rid of an unwanted Johnson.
posted by mephron at 6:44 PM on July 27, 2022 [10 favorites]

There's uh... problematic geometry of motion at play. Seriously.

Quadball? Hell it damn near etc. etc.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 11:27 PM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]