Why Did J.K. Rowling Support the Three Percenters?

Untangling the shadow from gender fluidity

Last year, on her X account, J.K. Rowling liked a tweet by a self-described ‘3% Leader & Member WA3%’. The tweet was in relation to her views on transgender people.

Here’s the tweet from June 14th 2023:

‘Just wanted to say we stand with you and III% is proudly members of House Gryffindor’

Why did she like the tweet?

The Three Percenters are described by Wikipedia as an American and Canadian far-right, anti-government militia. The movement was officially recognised as being terrorist by the Canadian government in 2021.

Several factions of the Three Percenters were involved in the Capitol attack, such as the Patriot Boys of North Texas. Other factions such as DC Brigade and B Squad conspired with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. The riot left 9 people dead, 174 officers assaulted and $30 million damages on the Capitol.

One of the Three Percenters involved in the sedition was sentenced to jail for the siege, in which he was found to be in possession of handcuffs and a firearm. He said publicly he wanted to see ‘Nancy Pelosi’s head hit every stair on the way out’.

Would Rowling consider 3% members as extremists? Does she think it’s right to help the membership of that organisation with her 14 million X account? What do parents of impressionable children make of her support?

One lazy aspect of the Hogwarts myth, is the idea of there being entire ‘houses’ in the school of a good or bad nature. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the reader is expected to see Gryffindor as being very ‘good’, while Slytherin as mostly ‘bad’.

We’re the kindest, most bravest, most amazing kids ever: The happy clappy Gryffindors. Or as Megan Phelps-Roper said recently concerning her interview with J.K. Rowling:

She is a modern-day saint.

Phelps-Roper’s comment is laughable, but I think she should be shown some compassion. She only outgrew the worst aspects of her family’s Christian, cult-like background in her mid Twenties. At one point she even campaigned against the music of Lady Gaga saying it was the work of the devil.

‘Good’ Gryffindor (and Saint Rowling) are all fine and well for the purpose of a simplistic plot. But what happens when the children’s myth becomes a form of quasi religion? In some respects it looks similar to certain aspects of evangelical Christianity, in which the bright ‘love and light’ has trouble relating to its hidden, insecure shadow.

Quaternary correspondence

When faced with shadow elements causing upset in our life, it can help to explore quaternal correspondences to illustrate what has gone wrong. Likewise, we can apply the same analysis to lost adults who turn to children’s mythology, naively looking for guidance in life.

Here’s a quaternity to consider in relation to the attack on Hogwarts, that occurs at the end of the Harry Potter myth:

Gryffindor is well known for it’s brave role in defending Hogwarts from the forces of totalitarianism, culminating in the final battle at the end of the Potter myth. Contrarily, the Three Percenters became best known for having a part-leading role in the attack on democracy on the Capitol. We could view this as the final battle for the US election.

When a tension of opposites becomes so extreme, it gives rise to a paradoxical pairing: a conflict of opposites incapable of any genuine integration. Predictably, this particular shadow to Gryffindor has tapped into the current complex of gender fluidity to fuel its activity. A reminder here that the original tweet turned up within comments concerning the rights of transgender people.

Representation and reality

Rowling has every right to explore Gryffindor’s hidden negative side. It’s just a shame she didn’t do this in its rightful place, within her fictional myth. But in Hogwarts, the shallow fight with Slytherin does nothing to pay tribute to the whole. The four houses of Hogwarts were never blended psychologically as a whole.

It’s no surprise that J.K. Rowling would indulge and encourage the Three Percenters. After all, she talks to us within the dream-time of Hogwarts, as if it were a real place. It’s more comfortable to speak bizarrely from this inner landscape (via the collective unconscious of Twitter-X), than to consciously take adult responsibility for her online affiliations.

In this case, participation mystique becomes endless. There is a complete lack of discernment between reality and myth.

District Judge Dabney Friedrich passed sentence on the first Three Percenter to be sent to prison after the Capitol riot. Here, we leave behind infantile nonsense about Hogwarts and get down to brass tacks with a mature adult:

“And I want to be very clear … under no legitimate definition of the term ‘patriot’ (does) Mr. Reffitt’s behavior on and around January 6 fit the term. It is the antithesis of the word.”

“The officers at the Capitol are the patriots, as well as those who fought and even died to protect our democracy, our rule of law … those in the mob are not. Not only are they not patriots, they’re a direct threat to our democracy and will be punished as such.”

Quoted by Hannah Rabinowitz for CNN, August 1, 2022