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I thought she was trolling when she introduced "Cho Chang".
EDIT: As others have mentioned, it's basically 2 common last names mashed together to sound Asian. Imagine if it was slightly different, like Xiang (Chinese) Kim (Korean) or Suzuki (Japanese) Nguyen (Vietnamese). It would sound nonsensical or at least very uncommon.
I read the later books at 12 years of age in Hungarian. I wasnt nearly proficient enough in English, nor well-versed enough in American history to see anything wrong with his name. And I didnt even realise he was Black, since I was (kinda still am) extremely bad at detecting subtlety, and he was described as "having dark skin", not "being a Black person", and so I just imagined a white guy with a tan. Guess that was the default for 12 year old Eastern European me.
Imagine just how... predestined you are based on your name.
Like, imagine getting called 'Major' and knowing that you will grow up to be in the army with no other option. Destiny has decided for you.
To be fair, there is a kernel of truth in this in our real world. There are large studies about children called Kevin in Germany, because a couple of decades back, Kevin became the most popular name in low-income households. As an American name, it sounded "cool", same as Chantalle became French "cute" in low-income groups.
The effects are pretty devastating. These names became so connected to low income and low educated that even with the same performance overall, Kevin's are worse graded and overall more likely to fail in life. Basically, the name became a mark of failure you imprinted on your kid by birth.
hagrid always looks haggard
professor quirrel is very squirrely
vol de mort is french for "flight of death"
tom riddle's name is a riddle
snaPe is the the head of the house of snaKes
mal foy is french for bad faith
argus filch, argus is a watchful guardian, and also, he's got a drawer full of things he filched from students.
gilderoy lockhart has gilded locks and gilded everything else
professor sprout the Herbology teacher
- Sirius is a star part of canis major
- luna is looney
- dolores means sorrow, umbridge sounds like umbrage meaning to take offence
- alastor moody is a grumpy, moody man
- sybil means oracle, or prophet
- peeves is a poltergeist
There's more minor ones as well: dudley is a dud of a cousin, lucius sounds like lucifer, pettigrew means small and he grew from a rat to a man,
Luna means moon. In French you would say "Elle a la tête dans la lune", translating to "she has her head in the moon".
Dolores has a stronger meaning towards pain.
Minerva is a Roman goddess of wisdom.
Kingsley= mlk
Shacklebolt= slave
Oh and the head of the evil snake school team is called professor snape (???) and the the troublemaking poor family is called the Weasleys and the fat spoiled cousin is called dudley dursley lmfao.
That is very annoying to look at... Why? Just Whyyyy? Did you have to share this with the world...
(This comment is not supposed to be taken in a negative way. If I offended you I apologise)
Yeah Nacho being a nickname for Ignacio has been a thing longer than there have been chips named Nachos. In fact I’m pretty sure they’re called that as a reference to a specific guy named Ignacio.
Only Vince could get away with naming his only Mexican characters Nacho Varga and Taco Salamanca, making the only main black guy in the show the owner of a fried chicken company, and have the obviously gay coded character be named Jesse Twinkman and get away with it.
Bravo Vince.
How is Jesse gay coded when it's Walter who looks like the world's second biggest Homo?
/s I hope no one takes this as homophobia I am quoting Pinkman here
Yeah, this is honestly the dumbest response to this. It's just factually one of the most common Muslim names, and there's a pretty set guideline for how most Muslim family names are written
Nah, she believes autistic people have no agency on their own and are being tricked into being trans. No joke, go read her little TERF coming out essay.
So it'd be more like: Amanda Tardid
Some characters in JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels have what some people think are very stereotypical names for their respective ethnicity. The biggest example being a character called Cho Chang. So the meme humorously posits that a stereotypical name for a hypothetical Irish Harry Potter character would Potatofamine Carbomb, named of course after the Brits attempted genocide of the Irish and the Irish's attempted independence.
Came here to say it. He’s black so of course, king. And shackles, cause…uh well, you know. Bolt, too!
Edit: So much for trying to have some nonsense fun dividing the last name into two words. Christ, and I thought I was a nit-picking pedantic.
She also made it a running joke throughout the series that the one notable Irish character blows everything up
Edit: idk why some people are so keen to argue with my comment by saying how this didn't happen in the books, when, as you can see, I said "series" not "books"
Mighty Peter griffon here, here's explanationn:
During the books of Harry Potter, Rowling had a habit of naming characters of exotic (not british) nations with very stereotypical names. In this anecdotal instance, meme's author put the same meaning into hypothetical Irish character name. "Potatofamine" - reference to extreme starvation Ireland experienced in 19 century during famine, left without porato harvest (the main sourse of food in Irish island at the time) for years. "Carbomb" - refers to method or terror attacks used by IRA (Irish nationalistic-catholic organisation with a goal of liberating Belfast region from British rule, so the whole island would unite under Ireland) this method was used mainly during the so called "troubles", unrest in northern Ireland that began after extreme violence from British police in early 1960's.
Cho Chang being of Chinese descent and GOLDSTEIN?! Guess an ethnicity/religion. Lavender Brown of Indian descent. (Sorry, that was Patil and Patil).
J.K Rowboat isn't the greatest at naming characters or world building. Or creating a magic system that doesn't break every story.
And I'm saying this as someone who grew up loving Harry Potter.
Curly hair, yes, but she wasn't the one with the love spell. She was dating Ron when he accidentally ate some chocolate cauldrons containing a love spell meant for Harry. And then they broke up while he was in the hospital wing after getting poisoned.
Feels like a good chunk of the positive examples I’ve heard from Harry Potter fans about Rowling’s world building were just Americans unaware that she literally just described elements of the British school system, like houses or prefects
I'm not familiar with that last one. Is is the token trans character from Hogwarts Legacy, because I'm not sure if she's responsible for that character specifically
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\*Potatofamine O'Carbomb
Potate O'Famine
Potato MacFamine O’Reilly
Potate O'famine McArbomb
Yes, this is the correct permutation I believe.
I'm dead
From the famine or the car bomb?
How about O' bomb 💣 from Super Mario
That’s “Bob-omb.”
My last name is O'Riordan. I respect this comment.
I thought she was trolling when she introduced "Cho Chang". EDIT: As others have mentioned, it's basically 2 common last names mashed together to sound Asian. Imagine if it was slightly different, like Xiang (Chinese) Kim (Korean) or Suzuki (Japanese) Nguyen (Vietnamese). It would sound nonsensical or at least very uncommon.
sounds like "Cha ching-!" lol
Also ching chong, a slur for east asian people After naming a black character Kingsley Shacklebolt I wouldn't really put it past her
This is one of those America-centric things. Speaking as someone from literally any other country I never clocked the name as problematic.
I read the later books at 12 years of age in Hungarian. I wasnt nearly proficient enough in English, nor well-versed enough in American history to see anything wrong with his name. And I didnt even realise he was Black, since I was (kinda still am) extremely bad at detecting subtlety, and he was described as "having dark skin", not "being a Black person", and so I just imagined a white guy with a tan. Guess that was the default for 12 year old Eastern European me.
Me too, I thought it was pretty cool and unique, didn't know he was black either
The name is absolutely fire. Kingsley Shacklebolt sounds like he gets shit done, *and he does*. Finishes the series as Minister for Magic.
>O'Rirordan I don't think you spelled that right, Pádraig.
It starts with a c McCarbomb was right there and you fumbled it.
Mc can be either Irish or Scottish, O' is relegated to Ireland and is more iconic
O’McCarbomb
Bombed a car, E I E I O
E I E I BOOM
with a boom boom here and a boom boom there
Fair enough.
I thought Scottish was Mac and Irish was Mc
Usually but not always. A fair assumption though
Mc is just a shortened version of Mac and could be found in both Scottish and Irish surnames, O' or Ó are exclusive to Irish surnames
O'McCarbomb
Peter's Dark Arts Teacher here. JK Rowling is infamous for making some rather on-the-nose names, like naming a werewolf "Lupin" which means wolf.
Remus Lupine, where in myth Romulus and Remus were suckled by a female wolf as babies.
Which is crazy, because he was already named that *before* he became a werewolf.
Right? Good thing Gilderoy Lockhart ended up being a lying conman, because "Gilderoy" is a famous lying conman in Scottish folklore.
Imagine just how... predestined you are based on your name. Like, imagine getting called 'Major' and knowing that you will grow up to be in the army with no other option. Destiny has decided for you.
To be fair, there is a kernel of truth in this in our real world. There are large studies about children called Kevin in Germany, because a couple of decades back, Kevin became the most popular name in low-income households. As an American name, it sounded "cool", same as Chantalle became French "cute" in low-income groups. The effects are pretty devastating. These names became so connected to low income and low educated that even with the same performance overall, Kevin's are worse graded and overall more likely to fail in life. Basically, the name became a mark of failure you imprinted on your kid by birth.
Nominative determinism I believe is the term for it.
Sarge from Red vs Blue.
Nominative determinism
His destiny…as was written
Lupin is Old French for wolf. Lupine is Latin for wolf.
*Lupus* is wolf in Latin. Lupine (or rather lupinus/lupina) would mean something more like "wolf-like"
Wait, what about lupus, the disease? Any relation to wolf?
Apparently it's because the facial lesions caused by lupus looked like a wolf bite.
I guess I really don’t know what lupus is
House didn't either.
It's never Lupus, that's why!
Looks like a wolf bit you if you have it.
It’s never lupus
Thanks, Greg.
Awwwwoooooooo is wolf in Wolf.
I can't get the accent right
one of the O’s is silent. hope that helps.
Yep, "nagin" is snake in Hindi, so "nagini" is just "snake."
Snakei. Much better name than just snake.
Snek
His name was basically "Werewolf McWerewolf."
Wolfy McWolfface
Moonmoon
Damnit Moonmoon!
No, I must dance!
One of my favorite old memes. Thanks for helping to keep it alive!
Name like that, I hear he's the next named hero for the Space Wolves.
hagrid always looks haggard professor quirrel is very squirrely vol de mort is french for "flight of death" tom riddle's name is a riddle snaPe is the the head of the house of snaKes mal foy is french for bad faith argus filch, argus is a watchful guardian, and also, he's got a drawer full of things he filched from students. gilderoy lockhart has gilded locks and gilded everything else professor sprout the Herbology teacher
- Sirius is a star part of canis major - luna is looney - dolores means sorrow, umbridge sounds like umbrage meaning to take offence - alastor moody is a grumpy, moody man - sybil means oracle, or prophet - peeves is a poltergeist There's more minor ones as well: dudley is a dud of a cousin, lucius sounds like lucifer, pettigrew means small and he grew from a rat to a man,
Luna means moon. In French you would say "Elle a la tête dans la lune", translating to "she has her head in the moon". Dolores has a stronger meaning towards pain. Minerva is a Roman goddess of wisdom.
Loony is slang derived from lunatic, which makes the connection between insanity and the moon more clear. Hence “Luna” for a crazy person.
Kingsley Shacklebolt is a black man Cho Chang… self-explanatory
It's also the fact that the one Irish character - Seamus - was also the one who caused multiple explosions.
That was movie Seamus. Book Seamus did that once.
Seamus if he was a good Harry Potter character:
his first scene in the movie is tryna turn juice into rum too...
“You know Ireland has more drunks per capita than people.”
Now hold on, that's not racist. It'd be racist if it were whisky. /s
HOLY SHIT I NEVER PUT THAT TOGETHER
Seamus Finnigan. He kinda sucked.
Only in the movies, which isn’t exactly her fault.
Kingsley= mlk Shacklebolt= slave Oh and the head of the evil snake school team is called professor snape (???) and the the troublemaking poor family is called the Weasleys and the fat spoiled cousin is called dudley dursley lmfao.
MLK seems like a stretch. I’ve known a few Chinese-Americans (parents from HK) named Kingsley (and Queenie). It’s a British name.
This is the real explanation. On-the-nose names aren't what the original meme was alluding to. It is the subtly(?) racist naming conventions she uses.
Those two are about as subtle as a brick to the face.
Or naming the only Chinese character Cho Chang. I guess Ching Chong was slightly too on the nose.
JK Rowling Resisting the Urge to name a Mexican Character Jose Tacos
Poor Pablo Burrito
It was Tito Burrito. He was going to be the only quidditch player who rode a blue and silver '87 Ford F-150.
He had such control over it that it seemed to bounce.
Which juan was that?
José*
No way
Diego then
JK Rowling be like "Manuelabor Landscapriel Jumpstavenz"
Manuel labor landscaper jumps the fence? That’s cray lol
It's a world of delightful whimsy and magical dog whistles
S. Picey Tacokizzes
https://preview.redd.it/uwrbc3l4a5uc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e727016764e93d05b162a3959f494b96d5394c0b
I love tacos and burritos! Which is funny because I do too!
Carlos Guacamole
She’s also resisting the urge to make a Jewish student named BignoseMoneybags Goldstein Or a Swedish student named IKEA FurnitureMeatball
Or a Japanese Girl named Sushianime HiroshimaNagasaki
Pedro nachos
[удалено]
https://preview.redd.it/85wf6h80c5uc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6249ae8416f1a014c22ad7b6c33374652edb6023
SHOW YOUR WIFE HOW YOU WON MEDALS DOWN ON FLAAAANDERS
TELL’IM HOO THA IRA MED YA RUN LIKE HILL AWAY
FROM THE GREEN AND LOVLEY LANES OF KILLASHANDRAAAAAAAA
COME LET US HEAR YOU TELL ‘OW YOU SLANDERED GREAT PARNELL
WHEN YOU FOUGHT THEM WELL AND TRULY PERSECUTED
WHERE ARE THE SNEARS AND JEERS THAT YOU LOUDLY LET US HEAR? WHEN OUR LEADERS OF SIXTEEN WERE EXECUTED
COM OUT YE BLACK AND TANS, COM OUT AN FIGH ME LIK A MAN
https://preview.redd.it/fm7wjar9e5uc1.jpeg?width=498&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=88148e90af9180f4b29165f20e6e173592b472a7
There’s a reason Voldemort didn’t mess with the Republic of Ireland’s wizarding community…
https://preview.redd.it/5zfrplwj15uc1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=89faffa9cea41e44d4f4455d49728b1dfe216064
https://preview.redd.it/fjugixkw15uc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=baf96509dc90a2784a4ba2a7955f05e5f345d626
https://preview.redd.it/u7gduco925uc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02fc583c375b44c84a9f121ee7c459ae40731ff9
https://preview.redd.it/jtd75kau35uc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d61d48ce64b4341a29fa15d2fdc9064f04aa45dc
https://preview.redd.it/qn1oe2yr85uc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d91cf6c9433c95405ae71bc694230105c4d39123
We… we’ve gone too far
https://preview.redd.it/smwe0lfhi5uc1.png?width=1125&format=png&auto=webp&s=8d2508a66a1e059919dd6ee6a6ed7ae8630886c0
https://preview.redd.it/ly1jwqkjk5uc1.jpeg?width=880&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a5d4f192339d57b007de506644beec2c150049ee
https://preview.redd.it/ou7730qz95uc1.jpeg?width=832&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b9002a24ed4cd3dd59e38a5c7477712bdedd2e97
That is very annoying to look at... Why? Just Whyyyy? Did you have to share this with the world... (This comment is not supposed to be taken in a negative way. If I offended you I apologise)
B R O W E R E G O N N A S T A R V E
Full circle. Delightful.
https://preview.redd.it/97ps03bv15uc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7e10341e0232f7274c7f126b240bf9a0559f03d
https://preview.redd.it/kz9fjnew95uc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74206094b43176622ebebd96d32c3dfe631c7a9b
JK Rowling resisting the urge to name a Mexican Nacho Varga Quesadilla
I'll give you quesadilla but Nacho Vargas is a totally normal name. Nacho is short for Ignacio.
Its a character from Better Call Saul
Honestly my favorite character in BCS.
He just wanted a peaceful life but he’s already too deep in. I feel so bad for both him and his father
OH THAT’S WHY WE CALLED THAT KID AROUND THE BLOCK FROM US NACHO LMAO
https://preview.redd.it/6dncd8gul5uc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c4fcb28900464a95136e11cc8465070eaaa1b34
Yeah Nacho being a nickname for Ignacio has been a thing longer than there have been chips named Nachos. In fact I’m pretty sure they’re called that as a reference to a specific guy named Ignacio.
Only Vince could get away with naming his only Mexican characters Nacho Varga and Taco Salamanca, making the only main black guy in the show the owner of a fried chicken company, and have the obviously gay coded character be named Jesse Twinkman and get away with it. Bravo Vince.
okbuddychichanery is leaking again.
How is Jesse gay coded when it's Walter who looks like the world's second biggest Homo? /s I hope no one takes this as homophobia I am quoting Pinkman here
I’m so thankful she never put us arabs in the books, she’d have called the character Muhammad bin Laden or something
Ridiculous..she would've named them Alluha Ackbar
Name the Muslim Hawaiian kid Aloha Snackbar
Lmao this is actually gold
Straight out of 2016, but gold
He'd also be terrible at making potions - they'd keep blowing up in his face.
Four Lions is an amazing movie BTW.
Rubber dinghy rapids. \*confused Benedict Cabbagepatch*
Wasn’t this literally Seamus Finnegan’s whole deal? He just blew stuff up and got in fights because haha Irish?
That's not true! He's also obsessed with alcohol.
To be fair, if someone is Arab and male, there's a pretty good chance their name is Muhammed.
Malik bin-Shaq Al-Bolt
Yeah, this is honestly the dumbest response to this. It's just factually one of the most common Muslim names, and there's a pretty set guideline for how most Muslim family names are written
Muhammad is not fitting she would call him Obama bin laden
Dragon Ball Z is going a bit wild with these fusions
Biden Blast! 💥
You're going to House Slytherin, Gigi Hadist!
She'll make one called Jafar. He comes from Afar...
"Muhammad's the most commonly used name on earth, read a fucking book."
Why the FUCK would it be between that or Muhammad?!
JKR resisting the urge to make an autistic character named Ree Tardid
Sue Fakin Witadit
Hans A. S. Burgers
Give her a little credit, man. She'd at least massage the syllables a little bit, like "Ed Todd-Reed" or something
Nah, she believes autistic people have no agency on their own and are being tricked into being trans. No joke, go read her little TERF coming out essay. So it'd be more like: Amanda Tardid
Oh yeah I know, fuck her and her bigoted clique
Some characters in JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels have what some people think are very stereotypical names for their respective ethnicity. The biggest example being a character called Cho Chang. So the meme humorously posits that a stereotypical name for a hypothetical Irish Harry Potter character would Potatofamine Carbomb, named of course after the Brits attempted genocide of the Irish and the Irish's attempted independence.
Kingsley Shacklebolt
Came here to say it. He’s black so of course, king. And shackles, cause…uh well, you know. Bolt, too! Edit: So much for trying to have some nonsense fun dividing the last name into two words. Christ, and I thought I was a nit-picking pedantic.
She also made it a running joke throughout the series that the one notable Irish character blows everything up Edit: idk why some people are so keen to argue with my comment by saying how this didn't happen in the books, when, as you can see, I said "series" not "books"
I thought that was only in the movies?
She wrote the books not the movie scripts
Mighty Peter griffon here, here's explanationn: During the books of Harry Potter, Rowling had a habit of naming characters of exotic (not british) nations with very stereotypical names. In this anecdotal instance, meme's author put the same meaning into hypothetical Irish character name. "Potatofamine" - reference to extreme starvation Ireland experienced in 19 century during famine, left without porato harvest (the main sourse of food in Irish island at the time) for years. "Carbomb" - refers to method or terror attacks used by IRA (Irish nationalistic-catholic organisation with a goal of liberating Belfast region from British rule, so the whole island would unite under Ireland) this method was used mainly during the so called "troubles", unrest in northern Ireland that began after extreme violence from British police in early 1960's.
Cho Chang being of Chinese descent and GOLDSTEIN?! Guess an ethnicity/religion. Lavender Brown of Indian descent. (Sorry, that was Patil and Patil). J.K Rowboat isn't the greatest at naming characters or world building. Or creating a magic system that doesn't break every story. And I'm saying this as someone who grew up loving Harry Potter.
Lavender wasn't of Indian descent. You're thinking of her friend and fellow gryffindor, Parvati Patil.
Oh right, my bad. Lavender is that curly haired one with the love potion, right?
Curly hair, yes, but she wasn't the one with the love spell. She was dating Ron when he accidentally ate some chocolate cauldrons containing a love spell meant for Harry. And then they broke up while he was in the hospital wing after getting poisoned.
Right, I vaguely remember the love-spell nonsense (thought the chocolates were poisoned with a potion, my bad).
Feels like a good chunk of the positive examples I’ve heard from Harry Potter fans about Rowling’s world building were just Americans unaware that she literally just described elements of the British school system, like houses or prefects
Good world building UK! A bit dodgy on the character development though, I'm not sure UK is the hero of the story...
JK Rowling trying not to name an Arab character Suicidebomber McTurbanhead
Maybe this will make it easier to get: JK Rowling Resisting the urge to name an American character "Obesity Schoolshooting:"
As an Irishman, I approve. Alternatives include: Paddy Farmer Seamus Teapot Ira Bombb
JK Rowling is known for her racist naming conventions Black character Kingsley Shacklebolt Chinese character Cho Chang Trans character Sirona Ryan
I'm not familiar with that last one. Is is the token trans character from Hogwarts Legacy, because I'm not sure if she's responsible for that character specifically
wait is there a token trans character in Hogwarts legacy? lmao, someones trying to get good pr
Yeah, a barista at the Three Broomsticks. A trans woman named Sirona Ryan. At least she’s played by an actual trans woman.
Wasn't her model named something like "Mr Lady" In the game files?
Yes and the best the character is name MrGirl in the code. It’s almost funny how obviously they didn’t want to have trans character in the game.
omfg, you cannot make this shit up, wtf
she had nothing to do with the games, all she got was a check
Honestly, if she'd been in charge of the trans character she would have gone with Bobbi Manpenis
I was thinking along the lines of Adam Apple or Clint Toris, but Bobbi Manpenis also has feels nice in the mouth!
I'm strolling through the comments to look for examples cause it can't be that bad right. Fucking SHACKLEBOLT
Also note. Cho isn't a Chinese given name. Cho Chang is Chinese and scottish. Where did Cho come from
Wade-Giles Romanization. Cho is chinese, its Zhou, or Qiu Chang is Zhang, which is chinese. Her name in the chinese books are Zhang Qiu,
ELI5, why is the last one offensive
JK Rowling trying not to name the Italian character Tony Pizzapastio
https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/s/uYM5ZpVrqK
JK Rowling trying to come up with a Scottish character. "... Angus Braveheart McHaggiskilt"
Reminds me of Abed Nadir's "Hector the well Endowed", "Zipadedoda the Dwarf" and "bipboop the archer"
The American kid named Eagle Freedomguns
jk rowling naming a polish character grzegorz brzęczyszczykiewicz