Last night, I was at an event in the Madoka Magica shirt that my partner bought for me off Etsy. This gay cis was wearing a “Hogwartz Alumni” shirt. I internally rolled my eyes and decided to keep my distance. Unfortunately, this gay cis had the unmitigated gall to talk about trans lives as though they were a joke. Our lives, to be sure, are pretty damn comedic at times, but our jokes about that and cis jokes about that are light-years apart.
Here’s an example of a trans joke about trans life: “How many people does it take to change the lightbulb? A doctor, a psychiatrist, and a therapist. The light has to wait a year to see if it really wants to be changed.” Oldie but a goodie.
I’ll offer what I think is the most common example of a trans joke made by the cis about our lives and a good example of one. The most common joke is known in trans circles as “the one joke.” That one joke goes something like this: “I sexually identify as an attack helicopter.” Almost all other “jokes” made by cis people about us are permutations of this joke. Hence why I sexually identify as the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger Air Defense System. It would behoove those who sexually identify as attack helicopters squawk ident and proceed east outside my airspace. The good joke by a cis person about our experience was a man (I can’t find clip and I don’t remember his name, which makes me sad) saying “I know trans women are real women because when I have sex with them they don’t come either.” I still hold to the idea that all straight or bi cis men are attracted to trans women. Not one of them is free from sin.
The joke the gay guy who sexually identifies as someone who doesn’t support J.K. Rowling made was about a trans man performing as a drag queen. He thought the idea was a laugh riot. I walked up to him and said (with an attempt at smile and a pleasant tone… I was very annoyed) “Hi, I’m a transsexual. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them.” I was told later I came across as angry. The lady who told me this said she likes Harry Potter because of the relationships between the characters, the magic, and the dragons (apparently there are two?). Way before all this, I recommended Ursula K. Leguin’s Earthsea novels to her, on account of all the dragons. I don’t make recommendations like that lightly. I weigh a lot of factors before I do. After she told me why she liked Harry Potter (I asked her to sell it to me), I told her it only made my resolve to recommend the Earthsea novels that much stronger. So, without further delay, here is my list of magic stories that are better than the Harry Potter books.
The “Earthsea” novels by Ursula K. Leguin (obviously). I will never forget the time I read what she said about the first HP book, saying that Rowling’s writing was mean-spirited and that Leguin guessed Rowling was a good typist? ^_^; Being real, I am of the opinion Rowling owes everything to Leguin in terms of ideas, and Rowling hates that. Also, Leguin asked “What is a woman?” way before it was cool to do so and her answers are far better than anything that Rowling or that one guy with that shitty mockumentary came up with.
Sailor Moon. Oldie but a goodie. The magna is written by Naoko Takeuchi. She literally wrote about the friends she wanted and now she has them, which I think is neat. It’s about magical girls who fight exploitation as an idea in many permutations. This isn’t nostalgia for me, because I didn’t watch the anime until I was an adult, and I watched it in Japanese, and I watched all 200 episodes (including Sailor Stars, which was amazing). Sailors Neptune and Uranus are lovers, not cousins. And Sailor Moon is totally into Sailor Uranus (if something happens to Tuxedo Mask, that is).
Madoka Magica is one of those stories that has a magical exterior, but has a sci-fi core. If I were to be hyper reductionist, I’d say that Madoka Magica is Sailor Moon with the addition of choice. However, it is truly something unique. It explores a lot of ideas that Sailor Moon doesn’t. That doesn’t make it “better”, if only because Usagi Tsukino walked so Akemi Homura could become LITERALLY FUCKING SATAN. I watched both the OG anime and the Rebellion story around the time they were released. One of my favorite parts in the whole series is in Side Story where there’s all this fighting going on, and the members of Iroha Tamaki’s found family household are working very hard to keep this set of pretty coasters they found safe.
His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust by Phillip Pulman have witches. They fly around, shoot arrows, practice botany, and become invisible. I like how, aside from the flying, everything they do is very grounded in a relationship with the earth. When a certain character is injured in The Subtle Knife, they rely on their knowledge of herbs to heal him. However, even their flying is tied to the earth due to their need for a cloud pine to fly. The way this plays out in the HBO series is kind of horrifying, and is a large part of why I have a love-hate relationship with Mrs. Coulter’s character, but that’s less to do with magic and more to do with her throwing a bunch of people under the bus and at the last second doing something really amazing that almost makes up for it… if you squint hard enough. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the characters in Harry Potter felt like cardboard cutouts while the characters in Pullman’s novels felt more like real people (mostly… his writing isn’t perfect, but it’s a damn sight better than Rowling’s).
Ms. Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid has lots of dragons, lots of magic, lots of boobs, and lots of wonderful other stuff that is questionable at best. Also, there’s an episode where one of the dragons goes to New York, and it was wonderful in both sub and dub (how could I not watch both?!?).
The “Harriet Porber” novels by the illustrious Chuck Tingle. The bad boy parasaralophus is my favorite bad boy and parasaralophus. The poundings are magical, and true buckaroos should find these novels absolutely delightful.
Also, there’s some isekai anime where a mage is super autistic for explosion magic that I need to revisit and see if it’s any good before I recommend it? And one titled “The Healer Who Was Banished From The Party Was Actually The Strongest” that I swear is about my Final Fantasy XI White Mage (supoort job Ninja, using my wands to keep my mana up lol). There’s also “The Unwanted Undead Adventurer” that was really amazing. Basically, the point is, there are so many other stories with everything that I hear people tell me they like about Harry Potter, but done so in so much more thoughtful ways. So, to all you Harry Potter fans that are still stuck on Harry Potter even after perusing a few of my reccos, I am going to quote an arguably even worse novel-turned-movie than Harry Potter: “You should not use magic! You do not understand!”
Final thought: Monogatari is way more magical than Harry Potter could ever hope to be. There’s no magic in a hateful heart.
