Posted on 08/17/2005 1:10:26 PM PDT by T-Bird45
Can't get excited about a discussion with no spoilers. It's been a month now. time to move on.
There is a lot anti authoritarian /anti government satire in Harry Potter. A part of the Order of the Phoenix was supprising very anti government control of education and had a Strong anti gun control/pro selfdefence message
Mmmm... yes and no. Harry Potter became famous via word of mouth from children to children. At first, J.K. could barely get it published since most publishers told her no child would read a book that complex and long. But once it did get published, children ate it up. The media, as usual, was an also-ran, looking for a story, and came in well after the fact. The media doesn't have a single creative idea now days.
According to JK all that stuff Hermione learned from Hogwart's a History and other wizarding history books is basically just a device to explain things to the reader. She said in the interview on Muggle.net that's why Harry will never read those books, because if he reads them then he won't need anybody to tell him stuff and given the narative style she's chosen the only way to tell the reader is to tell Harry.
I think on the JK Rowling Biography on A & E she said her ex was Spanish.
I admit to being an admirer of her writing. I put her in the same league as JRR Tolkien and others that use a mythical environment through which to chart a large morality tale and a mulititude of little moral lessons along the way.
With a thoroughly good writer, those elements are discovered in the reading of the story, not in a philosophical discussion in the text. Like color and taste, they are experienced and you know them to be true without having that truth explained.
In the Middle Ages, some Christian religious orders developed practices for learning from the Bible in the same way, as a religious experience - letting the text speak to the spirit, as opposed to seeking an intellectual understanding by textual analysis.
She has often been interviewed about her Christianity and goes to the (what is called in the states) the Presbyterian Church. Like all people, only God knows her heart, I guess.
Articles on the "Inking" issue are here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel062003.asp
http://tmatt.gospelcom.net/column/2003/06/18/
As for the tin-foil hat Christians, I'm a freemason, and they think we sacrifice children or something. (Idiots attacking one of the finest service organizations, ever! Yeah, the Scottish Rite hospital is so EVIL!)
To take but one example: children aren't "taken away from their natural parents at age 11 and remanded to a government-run school, where they are required to wear uniforms and tuition is free." For example, Stan Shunpike didn't go to Hogwarts, and the expense of attending Hogwarts (just including clothing, books, and supplies) is borne by the students, not by the government.
Perhaps Our Author is merely ignorant of the details of English boarding schools?
Unfortunately for the Wizarding community, it doesn't appear that the free health care includes dental. Based on what I saw in the third movie, over half the wizards need some serious orthodontia and about ninety percent need a good cleaning.
I stand corrected.
I do believe that tuition IS required at Hogwarts, and it is not government-run, it has board of trustee-like group.
There WERE laws passed giving the government more control over the school, but they were all rescinded, and Dumbledore kicked the Ministry to the curb.
"The fundamentalists"?
Pretty broad brush you are using there....
Stan Shunpike is a squib, so he is ineligible to go to Hogwarts.
Just as it should be in real life, the Weasleys sacrifice a lot to send their kids to the best school.
"Unfortunately for the Wizarding community, it doesn't appear that the free health care includes dental. Based on what I saw in the third movie, over half the wizards need some serious orthodontia and about ninety percent need a good cleaning."
Once again, it's just an accurate portryal of conditions in the UK. :)
The recent book makes it clear there is a cost to go. Potter is rich so it doesn't phase him, Tom Riddle got a free ride thanks to a charitable fund (he being an orphan and all) so once again welfare helps create a menace to society.
Someone posted here that she is using her zillions to hire lobbyists to pressure the English Government to provide more benefits for single parents. In other words, she's not giving HER money to the single parents - she wants other British taxpayers to do it.
Can anyone else confirm that?
Ok, then, the extreme paranoid. Is that better?
MUCH better!! : )
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