Posted on 10/10/2007 10:48:10 AM PDT by Antoninus
There’s a war brewing. A deadly enemy from the past is back and doing what he does best—consolidating power, gaining new allies and intimidating old ones into renewing their allegiance. As the enemy’s power grows, he’s content to nibble around the edges and not go toe-to-toe with his most formidable foes.
But those who should be in the forefront of opposing the enemy’s murderous plans are failing to act. A government agency entrusted with thwarting the enemy suffers from bureaucratic mismanagement at the highest levels and is more concerned with maintaining high public opinion than in doing its hard duties. Instead of sounding the alarm, the bureaucrats simply refuse to admit the danger exists at all. Worse, rather than admit their failure to deal with the enemy while he was still weak, the government ministers instead use the media to defame and destroy any who attempt to alert the public to the threat and rally the defense.
Sound familiar? Well, it did to me. And I reckon it might sound even more familiar to citizens of some European countries. Perhaps I’m reading too much into this, but Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix felt to me like an allegory of the war against radical Islam. At it’s core, the moral of the story seems to be, “If good simply refuses to fight, don’t count on evil to return the favor.” Or perhaps, “Refusing to fight against a known evil makes you almost as bad as the evil itself.”
As a literary work, Order of the Phoenix is a mixed bag. As before, Rowling’s characters are generally very engaging and true-to-life. Ron and Hermione’s development progresses and it becomes clear that a relationship is in the offing. Also provided is more of the backstory for Neville Longbottom who becomes less of a goof and more sympathetic. Also, the highly amusing character of Luna Lovegood is introduced, as is the horrid Dolores Umbridge who is so odious, so obnoxious, so completely awful, that the reader simply can’t wait until she gets her just deserts. Having run into Umbridge-like people at a variety of government agencies and in academia, I can certainly appreciate Rowling’s perspective. What annoyed me about Rowling’s take here was giving Umbridge the title of “Hogwarts High Inquisitor.” That old British canard about the unprecedented horrors of the Spanish Inquisition dies hard, even in the face of research showing that the Inquisitional courts were no worse—and were often a good more lenient—than European temporal courts of the time, including those in Britain.
Unfortunately, Rowling also goes off the rails a bit with Harry. Leaving aside the awkward and obviously ephemeral flirtation between Harry and Cho, Rowling seemed at pains to make Harry behave more like a stereotypical teenager. She does this by putting nasty expressions in his mouth and having him snap rudely and not infrequently at his bosom friends and even his mentor, Dumbledore. If this was an attempt to add a depth and complexity to Harry’s character, it failed in my opinion. Rowling went to such lengths in the previous books to make Harry into a good, noble, and brave character, that I found his sudden unfounded rottenness to be just strange.
Also annoying to me was Harry’s attempted use of an “unforgivable” curse at the climax of the book. If these were supposed to be the calling cards of the Death Eaters, and in any sense truly “unforgivable”, then what is the hero of the story doing using them? With the arsenal of “forgivable” curses at Harry’s disposal, one wonders what would motivate him to attempt to use one of the bad ones. It also ash-cans my theory that only the evil characters use the “unforgivable” curses as part and parcel of what makes them evil. So Fr. Amorth's criticism of the series as drawing an artificial distinction between “light” and “dark” magic appears to have enhanced standing if even the good characters in the story use evil magic without a trace of remorse or punishment for doing so.
Beyond this, I found nothing particularly Christian about Order of the Phoenix, nor anything especially occult-related—at least nothing that wasn’t readily found in the prior books. The underlying symbolism seemed to be almost exclusively political in nature.
On to Book VI.
ongrats on the arrival of child #5, and thanks for the review.i always enjoy reading them.
You raise good points. I'd say that Order of the Phoenix was my least favorite book.
Yeah, Rowling wants Harry to be a moody teenager, one who (understandably) cracks a little under the strain. But I think she was heavy-handed, and it looked out-of-character. She obviously meant it be a piece of character development, but I think this largely failed.
I never felt that the "unforgivable curses" were available only to evil people. It's like sin or crime. I wouldn't murder anyone -- but I could. I will say, however, that as character development this may succeed a bit better than Harry's waspish behavior. Harry eventually becomes known for his use of the disarming spell. He makes very good use of this very innocuous spell, in situations where others would likely use more powerful spells. So in the long run, Harry pulls back from his brief use of an unforgivable curse and becomes much more circumspect. Decent character development in my book.
I would also say that one of the messages of the Lord of the Rings is that evil wins if good people hide their head and refuse to take a stand. Harry Potter has this message, as you point out. There's a lesson there for us all, and I don't see any reason to tie it to WWII or Iraq. It's just Good and Evil and it's a universal truism that we need to be vigilant.
Congratulations on your baby. I hope the mother, baby, and siblings are doing well!
My husband got me a kitten.
Since my family is in the throes of teenhood, I thought the new personality of Harry was, sadly, quite believable. None of my offspring has gone *quite* so batty, but they’re not under quite as much stress.
I pretty much agree with your other points. I considered the use of “unforgiveable” curses by “good” characters to be more on the order of a continuity glitch, since I never expected the characters to be perfectly black or white, as it were.
The only other two words that sum up this book: Teen Angst.
Harry has experienced more than he should for his years, but he is still treated as a child by the adults because he is a child. He has done so much, but he is not emotially prepared for what is to come, and his emotions do get the better of him in this one. He's perturbed far too much.
As for Harry trying the Unforgiveable curses, keep in mind that he fails at it because you have to mean it. (Keep in mind part of the definition of committing a Mortal Sin: you have to know that you are committing a Mortal Sin and commit it anyway). Harry tries it in despiration -- kill or be killed, as in self-defense or in war, but even at his angriest, he can't mean it -- he can't make it hurt.
One thing that he learns, which will carry forward to the following books, he can't defeat evil with more evil.
By the way, I don’t think that this book could have been written by an American author. The parallels with the current war on terror (as opposed to, say, World War II) would have had it labelled Conservative Extremist Pablum or somesuch.
Well, yes and no. Josiah was king when he was younger than 15!
I think part of the reason for Harry's emotional extremes is that the situation has him shifting from adult action to a child's role, and that's more difficult than being in one or the other position consistently.
I believe the "save the world from evil" action is a big part of what draws young readers in. Teens today usually have so little opportunity to engage in activities that test the limits of the their abilities, and that make a difference. (Sports can test your abilities, but the outcome is ultimately meaningless.) They want to "live" Harry Potter, so to speak, for the same reason they want to join the Marines: independence, competence, being essential to an important mission.
This is consistent with the long-term popularity of the boarding-school novel, the young soldier novel, the captured-by-pirates novel ... a young person gets away, or is taken away, from many of the constraints of childhood.
I watched a DVD about some survivors of the Holocaust the other evening, and one was a Ukrainian Jew who became a partisan fighter at 14. Now that's instant adulthood!
They have phases. Anoreth was a nightmare from 13 to 15, but she’s reverted to human at 16, except for the bizarre hair color thing.
At 13, Bill’s impossible about half the time, and I understand that’s likely to increase most of the time when he’s 14. (We’ll try marathon training ...) I don’t know what happens after that; my brother seems to have never gotten much past 14.
I should mention the possibly relevant information that I had two pregnancies/babies during the years Anoreth was 13-15. This may color my memories!
Since I’m not pregnant now, Bill may be wonderful when he’s 14!
As for the other characters, until Book 5, none have been put in the position that Harry has and none have been tested like he has. I doubt Ron or Neville would think that they could pull off one of those curses. Hermione probably thinks that she could but knows that it is totally wrong ... which in turn would actually prevent her. As it is, only Neville is in a position to have the anger and hatred built up inside from personal circumstance to even attempt it, which is why many expected (and maybe why JKR avoided) a final conflict between Neville and Bellatrix.
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