5 Famous Writers With WTF Opinions Of Their Own Work

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J.K. Rowling Insists Lycanthropy Is Exactly Like AIDS

It's been almost 20 years since J.K. Rowling enchanted the world with her greatest creation: the magic glasses boy. But after a certain point, she decided gradually erode that magic through periodic over-explaining and retconning. Sometimes fans are simply grossed out, like when she revealed that wizards used to shit their pants and magic away the dookie before the invention of indoor plumbing. Other times they're more offended, like when she claimed Dumbledore was a queer hero, despite that element of his character never appearing in the books.

John Phillips/Getty ImagesBasically, she's ready to say anything to stay relevant without having to write another book at this point.

And then there was the time Rowling proudly declared that werewolves are a metaphor for AIDS. As she explained on Pottermore:

Lupin's condition of lycanthropy (being a werewolf) was a metaphor for those illnesses that carry a stigma, like HIV and AIDS. All kinds of superstitions seem to surround blood-borne conditions, probably due to taboos surrounding blood itself. The wizarding community is as prone to hysteria and prejudice as the Muggle one, and the character of Lupin gave me a chance to examine those attitudes.

If you've never dated a goth, werewolves are people who turn into violent beast-human monstrosities during the full moon, then stalk the lands attacking anything with a pulse. Sound like any AIDS victim you know? And the insulting comparisons don't stop there. One of the only two named werewolves in the Potter canon, Fenrir Greyback, is an evil creep who purposefully preys on children to "convert" them. Is that also part of the metaphor for an epidemic mostly blamed on gay men?

Or what about the fact that there's a treatment for lycanthropy, while in the '90s (the decade the Potter books are set in), AIDS was still mainly a slow and painful death sentence? Maybe stick to figuring out wizard poop. At least that's only harming the incontinent. And hygienic wizards.

4

Gene Roddenberry Wanted A Star Trek With No Drama Whatsoever

To facilitate the most positive future he could imagine, Gene Roddenberry ruled that in the future of Star Trek, people had evolved beyond conflict. Everyone had to always get along, and that was an order. It was a good recipe for a lovely society and a boring-ass television show. This embargo on interpersonal conflict annoyed the other Star Trek writers to no end. They had to bend over backward to create drama in a show in which characters weren't allowed to raise their voices to one another, even if a co-worker accidentally beamed your left arm to Omicron Vorp V.

CBS Television Distribution"I can't do it, captain, I don't have the power! ... Which is not a judgment of you or the ship itself. We should schedule a dialogue to explore our differing views on engine power."

3

Phillip K. Dick Wrote Novels To Warn People Of The Secret Roman Empire Controlling Time

In 1974, while recovering from dental surgery, Philip K. Dick received what he described as a prophetic vision. After downing a bunch of trippy meds from an agent of Christianity, a blinding flash of pink light beamed tiny aliens into his room. Also, an amorphous god named Zebra was there, but they were just hanging out. The tiny aliens told Dick that Earth time had stopped in 70 CE, when the Romans destroyed the temple of Jerusalem. Every moment since then had been a Matrix-style illusion by a shadowy Roman government which was also somehow the Nixon administration. Obviously!

2

Captain Planet Doesn't Exist, According To His Co-Creator

In Captain Planet And The Planeteers, the five teen protagonists join their magic rings together to summon an extra-dimensional janitor who cleans up humanity's messes. So far, so straightforward. But according to the show's co-creator, Barabara Pyle, that superhero weirdo they squeezed out "wasn't a physical being." In her interpretation, Captain Planet doesn't even exist inside the Captain Planet universe. Pyle never saw him as more than "a metaphor for teamwork" who "lives only in the imagination of those five kids," which at least explains why he looks like he was drawn by a five-year-old in a doctor's waiting room.

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J.R.R. Tolkien, Noted Hater Of Allegory, Thought Dwarves Were Very Jewish

While his friend C.S. Lewis loved to point out that his fantasy epic was basically the Bible but with sexy goat dudes, J.R.R. Tolkien balked at that namby-pamby allegorical stuff. No pretending that the One Ring symbolized peer pressure, or that the Entmoot was a critique of bureaucracy. Tolkien refused to acknowledge any far-fetched metaphor for religion, politics, or history attributed to his fantastical characters.

Except for the dwarves. They were totally the Jewish diaspora.

On multiple occasions, Tolkien admitted that his race of diminutive beardy dudes was very much inspired by Jewish socio-ethnology. Like Jews, dwarves had been displaced from their homeland (by goblins and dragons instead of the Romans) and scattered all over Middle-earth. And lest we forget our Old Testament, dwarves also share the "tremendous love of the artefact, and of course the immense warlike capacity of the Jews," as Tolkien put it.