I’m usually content to just lurk on the forums, but this particular subject is quite close to me, so i’d like to weigh in a little bit (also, hi!). Firstly, to answer your main question, I believe no piece of entertainment is worth that much internal anguish. This is a very minor dilemma on the grand scheme of things, so just focus on which decision makes you feel better, make your peace with the consequences and stick to it, no matter how many strangers on the internet or multi-million dollar marketing campaigns beg you to reconsider. Being indecisive will only stress you out without solving the issue at hand.
On that note, I have a very personal anecdote to share, which I hope adds to the discussion. When I was a child, soon after learning to read, my mother gave me a huge stack of books that belonged to her when she was my age. It was called “Sítio do Pica-Pau Amarelo”, from a very influential early 20th century brazilian author named “Monteiro Lobato”. It’s a collection of 23 children’s literature books featuring two kids having fantastical adventures on their grandmother’s farm: other recurring characters include a talking corn stalk, a living cloth doll and an older black lady who works as their live-in housekeeper. Now, by this point it’s worth mentioning Lobato’s works have been, for some time now, the target of many accusations of racism, including his depictions of the housekeeper character. Nevertheless, I have two or three year’s worth of fond childhood memories reading (and enjoying) the entire collection.
The year I finished them, my mother gifted me four books: the first four Harry Potter novels (oh boy, am I lucky with my authors or what). Being at this point a pre-teen, I quickly read through these and, for the first time in my life, ran out of books to read. So I started visiting the local library, and over my teenager years read through dozens more, eventually adding non-fiction books into the mix. Nowadays, I buy and read through one or two books a month, on all sorts of subjects. I should add that the main reason I can understand english is due to a mix of reading Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in english and the many games I've played in the meantime.
The point of this story is not to defend terrible people, but rather to show how even terrible people can, through their art, have a positive impact on others. This process kickstarted by my mother’s old childhood books and their racist writer, followed by Harry Potter and its transphobic writer has had a profound impact on my life, and is quite literally integral to who I became, not by turning me into a raging racist transphobe, but by instilling in me a love of books, a fondness for imagination and fantasy and, as a result, curiosity and the drive to seek out knowledge on my own. It’s why I, personally, try to never let my knowledge of an author’s background influence my enjoyment (or lack thereof) of their work.
P.S. I’m not used to actually expressing myself in english, so i’m sorry for any weird phrasing.
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