Rick and Morty will soon be going through some changes. In the aftermath of the awful revelations about co-creator Justin Roiland (and his impending domestic abuse trial) he was fired from the show and the studio is currently searching for a replacement voice actor.
Now we have some indication of what it’s been like backstage during this controversy. Heather Anne Campbell joined the Rick and Morty writing team for the sixth season and, while discussing Hogwarts Legacy on this week’s episode of the Get Played podcast, she expressed empathy for the developers at Avalanche Software for working on the game after Rowling’s repeated transphobic statements.
She said:
“There’s a sort of hopelessness. Without drawing too many parallels, when behavior becomes visible to parent companies and there are ways to exorcise the bad actors and the studio or network or whatever takes those steps it really helps the people involved with the product who have felt trapped by being blindsided by something.”
We imagine the mood was pretty grim amongst the Rick and Morty team during this whole situation, particularly as Roiland apparently hasn’t had a “meaningful creative presence” on the show in years:
But, while Rick and Morty looks like it’ll be able to move past the Roiland situation, the Harry Potter franchise probably won’t. Campbell continued:
“I feel like the problem with Hogwarts Legacy is that you can’t remove J.K. Rowling from Harry Potter. Whatever contract she’s negotiating, not only is she like the octopus at the top of the media empire with her tendrils in everything, but nobody’s ever going to be able to wrench Potter away from her.”
It’s worth noting that despite the intense negativity online Rowling’s transphobia doesn’t appear to have affected Hogwarts Legacy‘s success. The game is already the biggest selling title of the year, one of the most watched games on Twitch, and entered the most played games on Steam charts (no mean feat for a single-player only title).
Even if Rowling could be removed we suspect that for many the beloved Harry Potter world has been irrevocably tarnished, so kudos to any former fans who’ve put their money where their mouth is and skipped Hogwarts Legacy.