Not For Me – And That’s Why It Matters: On Heartstopper, Rowling, and the Stories We Keep

There’s this thing in literature, this unwritten rule, that you’re meant to see yourself in the protagonist. That’s how we’re taught to connect. It’s a core part of the reading experience. The hero, the journey, the resonance. You see your shadow in their struggle and it draws you in.

It’s one of the reasons the backlash to J.K. Rowling has been so particularly fierce. Because if you take Harry Potter at face value, it’s a story about a white, straight, male child, an orphan, sure, but still absurdly wealthy by the time he visits Gringotts and promptly whisked away to a gothic boarding school full of status, power, and legacy. It was written for the kinds of boys who already get to see themselves everywhere. Not really for the everyman. As Jack Dee once said: “I don’t care about a speccy twat on a broom.” It wasn’t for him. And fair enough.

But Rowling built complexity into Harry too. He wasn’t just The Chosen One, he was an outcast. Neither fully wizard nor muggle. Bullied, misunderstood, feared. That sliver of alienation meant that the story took on a new meaning for readers outside that target demographic. Queer kids, neurodivergent kids, working-class kids, trans kids, they all saw something of themselves in Harry’s outsider status. And Rowling knew that. She knew the books had become a lifeline.

So when she decided to pull up the ladder, to aggressively and publicly exclude the very readers who’d found sanctuary in her work, it wasn’t just offensive, it was deeply personal. A betrayal of the bond between author and reader. Not just because her views are ugly (and they are), but because she actively and gleefully made marginalised people feel unseen again, just when they thought they had a seat at the table.

That’s what stings. That’s why it matters.

And it’s partly what made my experience watching Heartstopper so unexpected, and so powerful.

Drawn In Anyway

I’m a straight forty-two year old man. I was never meant to be Heartstopper’s demographic. I don’t tick any of the usual identity boxes that make me the natural reader or viewer of a queer teen romance. And yet, something in it pulled me in completely.

Maybe it’s because I have two queer kids. Maybe it’s because I never felt like I quite fit when I was younger, socially awkward, unsure of myself, embarrassed by my own heterosexuality, awkward around women. Maybe I was just tired of seeing male tenderness only in the form of either tragedy or parody.

Whatever it was, I found myself utterly transfixed.

The first two seasons on Netflix are tender, warm, and deeply kind. There’s no big villain, no world-ending stakes, just teenagers trying to figure themselves out. And that’s what makes it radical. It lets queer kids have softness. It lets them have normality. And it lets them have joy, not just as a reward, but as the default.

Why Heartstopper Matters

There’s something almost revolutionary about how gentle Heartstopper is. In a media landscape where queer stories are often either hypersexualised or drenched in trauma, here is something that just breathes. That says, “you get to have this.” The right to blush. To be awkward. To fall in love without having to die for it. I mean, It’s a Sin was marvelous television, but it was pure trauma! Essential, but traumatic!

Nick and Charlie’s story isn’t free from pain, but the pain is never there to punish them. It’s just part of growing up. Coming out is hard. But it’s also beautiful. Vulnerability is difficult. But it’s also shared. And as a viewer, you’re not asked to pity them, you’re invited to root for them.

The acting is understated, the soundtrack perfectly pitched, and the emotional beats, especially in season two, are genuinely affecting. The coming out is not to fanfare. There’s no speech. Just relief. Real connection. That scene alone dismantles decades of performative, overwrought coming out narratives in one quiet moment.

The Unwritten Rule: Broken (and Rebuilt)

Heartstopper broke that unwritten rule for me. It reminded me that identification doesn’t always come from sameness. Sometimes it comes from shared emotions. From the echoes of things we never got to be. From watching someone else get the softness we were once denied.

No, I wasn’t the target audience for this show, but I loved it anyway. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe the best stories are the ones that don’t reflect you perfectly, but instead offer a glimpse of something better. Something braver. Something you want to protect.

Not everything queer needs to be soaked in struggle. Not everything needs to end in martyrdom or tragedy. Sometimes, it’s enough for two teenage boys to hold hands in a corridor, and for the world not to collapse.

And sometimes, that’s the story that sticks with you the most.