I really enjoy playing video games with my son.

We’ve played a lot of different video games together, but our most enduring favorites are the LEGO video games. We’ve played the Harry Potter games, The Pirates of the Caribbean (POTC), Star Wars, Marvel Super Heroes, and Incredibles.

Back when we were newlyweds, Oneal and I would stay up late–sometimes until early morning–playing LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4, and we accomplished about 98% of the game! So it was really fun to revisit that with Lucas. Even better, we got LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7, so Lucas and I were able to discover the later years together.

I don’t remember if Oneal and I played the LEGO Pirates game much, but Lucas and I certainly did. Inevitably, we watched the movies that preceded these games, and I’m sure someday Lucas will read the Harry Potter books too.

The thought, though, is bittersweet for me.

Harry Potter and POTC are two movie franchises I really enjoyed, for a great many reasons, and yet I find myself conflicted over the thought of how my son will consume and enjoy them. I don’t quite know how to tell my son that the writer who thought up Hermione and Harry, goblins and Gringotts, is a woman who encourages hate and discrimination. I don’t quite know how to explain to him that the actor who played his favorite drunken pirate is a toxic, abusive person.

I’ve felt this discomfort and sadness over more than a few other films that I enjoyed as a child, which we recently shared with our son. He quite enjoyed the Indiana Jones movies, while I was horrified to realize how the “hero” had preyed on a young Marion Ravenwood. Even Star Wars, the universe that brought me and Oneal together, sometimes concerns me; I remember absolutely adoring Han Solo when I was a child, and as an adult I realize how horrible and patronizing he actually was (in the Original Trilogy) to Leia.

There was discomfort even as we watched Michael Jackson videos; while Lucas sang and danced, I remembered the allegations of child sexual abuse. There was discomfort as we watched one of my favorite movies from childhood, Labyrinth, and I recalled the rape allegations I only learned about when David Bowie died.

Right now, I think it’s the Harry Potter franchise and its author’s horrible transphobia that’s the most painful for me to think about. I think my love of the video game greatly increased my attachment to the stories and the characters, and I’m fairly sure Lucas shares this affection for this magical world. We love Hedwig and Hagrid, and figuring out the spells and charms. I always find myself particularly heartbroken by Harry’s longing for family.

How do I tell Lucas about the woman who wrote these characters, especially in light of everything we’ve told him about gender and inclusivity? Here we are, always telling him that nobody can tell you whom to love, that people should be able to love and be with who they want, that anybody can be as feminine or as masculine as they want to be. And yet here we are, clinging to these stories written by a woman who seems to believe the complete opposite.

The more I think about it, the harder it is to reconcile, and I weep over the prospect of explaining all this to him.

I’m oversimplifying things greatly as I write this, definitely. I scramble for words. I think about how his young brain will absorb all these things he sees in these movies, and how we might someday talk about the real people who brought these stories to life. I think about how he’s going to have to learn that some stories and characters we grew up with and love are connected to some pretty awful stories and humans.

I guess these are things Lucas will only understand when he’s older, when he’s seen a bit more of the world and all the ways we are human. I suppose he’ll have to learn that the world is made up of all sorts of people, and people might do good and awesome things, or terrible and hurtful things, and people who do one might also do the other. It pains me to think of the ways he might become disillusioned or disappointed, of how he might lose some joy or wonder in the things we loved.

While these are important lessons to learn, I hope Lucas eventually realizes that while some of the things we loved might be tainted by awful horrors, there is no erasing the joy and profound feelings they stirred in us. There’s no erasing my love for Hermione or Hedwig, my enjoyment of Elizabeth Swann, my fascination with archeology. There’s no shame in the countless hours of enjoyment Lucas and I shared while playing these games or watching these movies, and the conversations that followed.

As a parent, a woman, a writer, I struggle to navigate the intersections here. But I’d like to hope that, as he gets older, Lucas will be able to articulate any feelings and questions he has about these things. I’d like to think that we can at least equip him with an awareness of these complexities, and the language to discuss them, so that he can eventually figure out how to dissect and reconcile these things for himself, when the time comes. If anything, at least we can do that.