Defending Harry Potter

WorldNetDaily ^ | 6/21/03 | Joel Miller

[Xenalyte]

If provoking others to sneer is your thing, I've got the trick: Just walk into a room of Christians and say, "I love Harry Potter!" It works like magic.

Take the case of Beliefnet writer Anne Morse, who has taken it on the chin for her support of J.K. Rowling's series of children's novels centered on the muss-haired, bespectacled boy wizard.

"Dear Ms. Morse," one reader began, "You are the handmaiden of Satan, a succubus from the pit of Hell." I suppose few folks ever win points for timidity, but isn't this going too far?

The four Potter novels I've read have been very well written. The characters have deepened and grown considerably since book 1, making their continued stories of great interest. Rowling's humor works, and her sense of pace is nearly perfect. As the plots gain complexity from book to book, this is especially important. Rowling carried off the 700-plus pages of book 4 with hardly a bump – unless we're talking about "witchcraft."

Sure to trip up at least some Christian readers (Frank Sinatra did say it was "strictly taboo"), I put the term in scare-quotes because the kind of "witchcraft" you get in the Potter novels is like the stuff you get from the green lady with the warty nose in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons.

My wife, a Wiccan before converting to Christianity, can well attest to the fact that flying broomsticks, wands, magic potions and the like are all, for lack of a better term, hocus-pocus. The use of these items in the Potter novels is pure fantasy and fancy.

Rowling ties some of the "magic" to the darker arts, sure, but that is only to create the necessary evil in the story. No conflict, no story. No bad guys, snore. In the end, the type of "magic" used in Harry Potter is no more diabolical than the so-called "magic" of the Tolkien or Lewis stories. (Note also a few other great Christian novelists who use "magic" to entertaining ends: Charles Williams, George MacDonald, Stephen R. Lawhead.)

What's more, Douglas Jones, senior editor of evangelical culture-and-thought magazine Credenda/Agenda, makes an insightful argument about the general shape of worldviews and the hat-tip that Potter – however unconsciously – makes toward Christianity, not against it:

One of the most overlooked features of modern stories like the Potter series is their implicit confession of the triumph of Christianity. This compliment to Christianity is not just the fact that the Potter stories are decidedly Christ-figure stories – an elect son, threatened at birth, who sacrifices His life for his friends and triumphs over evil in an underworld, even coming back from death for a feast. Those narrative categories are complimentary enough, but the deeper compliment is the story's use of a Christian psychology. In its generic sense, a psychology is just a worldview's characteristic way of interacting with life. There is a distinctive Christian psychology, a Hellenistic psychology, a modernist psychology, a postmodern psychology, a Wiccan psychology, and so on. The Potter characters could have been written with any of these. They could have acted like those resentful infant-adults of the Iliad; they could have had the psychology of ancient druids. But they don't. Instead, the Potter stories give us largely Christianized witches, witches who have fully absorbed Christian ethical categories: love, kindness, hope, loyalty, hierarchy, community, and more.

Young Potter and his friends learn the importance of bravery, self-sacrifice, duty and defending the weak. And the story portrays a striking moral divide.

Take just the first novel: The lie of the main antagonist, Voldemort, spoken through an enslaved professor from Potter's school, is that "There is no good or evil, there is only power, and those too weak to pursue it." Harry knows the truth and fights to the point of death to keep Voldemort from seizing the power he desires.

On a more minor scale, The Mirror of Erised ("Desire" backwards) teaches a lesson about covetousness, contentment and spending too much time wishing after things wanted instead of going out and actually doing.

Some have complained about Potter's disrespect for authority and how he is seemingly rewarded for breaking school rules. This is poppycock. Rowling puts Harry into situations that make for good storytelling: The rule says one thing, but not confronting the danger lurking around the corner is far worse than the consequences of breaking the rule. The dilemma creates the tension that motivates the character. Moral and ethical dilemmas are what make or break stories. In short, Harry isn't rewarded for breaking rules; he's rewarded for sacrificing himself, saving lives and fighting evil.

What about the danger that people will miss the obvious moral message and heroism and succumb instead to the supposed proselytizing for paganism? Jones has the blunt instrument: "Harry Potter can't be a threat. Wizardry doesn't really work. And if your kids are really tempted to join a coven, then it's not a giant leap to say that you've failed miserably as a parent."

This may be too general a statement, but I think it's generally true: The morality of the Harry Potter novels is impossible to miss; the immorality has to be blown out of proportion or imported entirely.

Perhaps instead of railing, my fellow Christians should start reading. The Potter novels certainly get many things wrong, but they get a lot of things right, and if we are discerning, we can learn from both.

[vin-one]

BB, I said the Bible was full of Parables, and Not all parables,
boy talk about taking a persons words the wrong way,
and I believe one other person in the bible tells us that, IN fact I believe J.C. himself said these things are parables
or something to that effect.

[Question_Assumptions]

If I suggested a ban, I suppose you'd be making an interesting point. So long as you try to frame this as an excluded middle argument, you'll be missing the truth as much as the book burners do. Saying that some children may be drawn to occultism through Harry Potter or Dungeons and Dragons simply will not make sense to you if you can only think in terms of all or no and absolutes.

If I tell you that you skiing is dangerous, I'm not saying that all skiers will die from that hobby. If I tell you that you should excercise caution while skiing or letting your children ski, I'm not saying that you should ban skiing or that no child should ever ski. Can you tell the difference?

[billbears]

IN fact I believe J.C. himself said these things are parables or something to that effect.

The Old Testament?!? Because I've had it explained by a Catholic monk that the majority of the Old Testament is just a parable. And I don't remember Christ saying anything of the sort

[ican'tbelieveit]

I am agreeing with what you said originally, not against you at all. But there are many out there that want to ban books, in particular, Potter books in libraries, etc.

I was using something you picked out to add additionally to your point.

It is my job as a parent to say what my kids come into contact with. If I don't want a book in my house, it is my job to not allow it into the house. But, it is not my job to dictate my beliefs on everyone else in our society. Otherwise, that allows for people I do not agree with (liberals) to dictate their beliefs on me, on how I choose to raise my children.

But once my children are grown, they should enjoy the freedom to choose for themselves, also. If they do choose to not follow in my beliefs, that is their right.

[Question_Assumptions]

Yes, religion can be dangerous, too. My point is simply that anything that is "powerful" and gathers a following can be dangerous in the wrong hands, including heavy metal music, role-playing, the occult, and, yes, even Christianity. Banning it isn't the answer but neither is claiming that there is absolutely nothing to be concerned about. Like anything, the solution is more difficult than a simple excluded middle slogan. You need to pay attention to what children are doing and how obsessed they are getting with the things they do.

[nmh]

Why does it bother Harry Potter fans that many disapprove of the books? I won't allow that book in my household, yet I don't spend oodles of time villifying those who do. I'll simply put in my two cents if a thread pops up on it and move on. Here I see quite a few threads dominated by supporters of Harry Potter and why those who don't support him are idiots. Sigh ... thankfully what others believe doesn't dictate my values and beliefs.

[Xenalyte]

Because the disapproval is based on absolutely nothing. If there were anything factual behind it, I'd be inclined to give it a bit more weight.

[discostu]

If they just said "I don't want to read the books, nor will I allow my children to" that would be one thing. But they don't. Their answer is to claim the books are evil and lead to paganism and satan and therefore those that read them are evil. Just look at the original article, there are people describing others as "handmaiden of satan"m that's not mere disapproval, that's a direct attack on people's character. Not to mention that the same song and dance gets played every few years about something and there's a a large group of us that are just damned sick of being told we're dupes of satan by clowns that can't find their rearends with both hands a map and a sherpa.

[Xenalyte]

Both hands, a map and a Sherpa - I like that!

[Only1choice____Freedom]

These 100 calls are the kids that are the reason that my son's cape on his "Batman" costume has the warning - "WARNING! Cape does not enable wearer to fly."

My kids know the difference between reality and fantasy. Most of the kids know the difference as well.

My sister is a Pagan because the chruch we grew up in failed. I can testify that it failed me too. I found what I was looking for, but I had to search. If churches cannot reach these kids, they will be lost no matter whose book they are reading.

[kevkrom]

Not to mention that the same song and dance gets played every few years about something

No kidding... I thought Armageddon was at hand due to Pokemon. Now it's Harry Potter. What'll be tomorrow?

[discostu]

They missed a shot to go after D&D again when the 3rd edition came out (and actually knocked Harry Potter off the top of the charts). Usually when they're inbetween targets they pick on heavy metal. I'm suprised they didn't go after Altoids.

[TheBigB]

BTW, where can I get me one a'them "Handmaidens of Satan?" My most recent girlfriend has developed a slow leak.

[Xenalyte]

BTW, where can I get me one a'them "Handmaidens of Satan?" My most recent girlfriend has developed a slow leak.

I know JUST the person to help you.

B, meet TC. TC, meet B.

[Xenalyte]

I've changed my mind.

I'm gonna form a band, and we'll be Devil Xena and the Handmaidens of Satan.

[discostu]

Hasbro sells them, in the Harry Potter section of the toy catalog of course ;)

[TheBigB]

If they have one that looks like Christina Aguilera (who better to represent a typical Handmaiden of Satan, really?), then I'll take several...

[discostu]

There's too much cheap plastic in Aguilera even for Hasbro.

[Xenalyte]

Oh, my Lord, she DOES look like Dee Snider.

[discostu]

But Dee sings better, he was actually classically trained you know.