Disabled gamer thanks Hogwarts Legacy devs for representation
Topics: Hogwarts Legacy, Harry Potter
Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Topics: Hogwarts Legacy, Harry Potter
Hogwarts Legacy players have now had almost a whole week with the game and they're head over heels for the charm of the 19th century magical school and the epic open world that it offers.
That being said, Harry Potter fans are a house divided. While a fair few are happy, others are voicing their disappointment over the success of the game due to the views of author J. K. Rowling. Rowling frequently expresses anxiety over transgender activism, and has once claimed that transitioning is a “new form of conversion therapy for young gay people.” Consequently, in spite of Avalanche Software's admission that she had no direct involvement in the development of Hogwarts Legacy, fans have been boycotting the game and donating the price of the RPG to charity to try to offset the royalties going to the author.
Take a tour of the common rooms of Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin below:
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It's certainly one of the most controversial releases in recent memory though there are fans who are singing the praises of the game. Speaking on the Hogwarts Legacy subreddit, one player praised the RPG's representation of blindness in the Wizarding World, namely the character Ominis Gaunt.
"Often I feel like when disabled people are represented in games, it's a token or throwaway character in a wheelchair, to check a box," explained Reddit user nina_qj. It's a very valid point: the wheelchair item in Animal Crossing: New Horizons only acts as a piece of furniture to sit on, for example.
"But Omnis Gaunt is an amazing example of representation. He's blind. But instead of a stick, he uses a spell with a pulsing red light to get around. If you follow him around a bit, you'll see," they continued. "I like to think that [it's] some kind of echolocation-ping type of thing, but [what's] important is that the devs thought about him and how someone like him would fit into the logic of the world."
"Not a stick, like a muggle would have, but a spell. Because of course there would be spells that would aid the disabled, just like there are spells for all sorts of things that muggles solved in different, non-magical ways."
Ominis is also unique in the use of his wand to support his day-to-day and one player described him as "wizard Daredevil." There are worse names, to be sure.