A Catholic Homeschool Father Won't Bother to Review the Rest of the Harry Potters

Gloria Romanorum blog ^ | 10/25/07 | Florentius

[Antoninus]

I’d think you would do the first, yet you are here, on this thread, doing the last.

Some people would continue to drink the poisoned water on principle and say it was delicious as they breathed their last.

[Antoninus]

Where does it end? First Rowling and then Capote and Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal? Do you ban your children from listening to Elton John? How about Tchaikovsky and Copeland? No "Nutcracker" or "Rodeo"? Do Disney's "Lion King" and "Fantasia" become prohibited? At what point does it become a danger?

It becomes a danger when an author/artist writes something ostensibly for children to read that inserts their pernicious, vulgar, and insipid worldview into my kids lives.

I've never read Tennessee Williams. All the works of Gore Vidal and Truman Capote could be accidentally dropped in the sewer and the world would be no poorer. Elton John is a hack who writes trite pop ditties that will be utterly forgotten in 50 years.

As for Copeland, he didn't come out and say later that he was in love with Billy the Kid, nor did Tchaikovsky rename his work Romeo and Julio.

If you can't see the difference between that and what Rowling did, I can't help you.

[cothrige]

I must congratulate you on reading this entire series in the first place. I read the first five I believe, but could go no further. The first book I will gladly concede was very nearly fantastic. It was fun, exciting and heroic in all the right ways. I honestly loved it, and could easily see why it was such a phenomenon. The second was also very good, though not quite as brilliant as the first which I suppose is unavoidable in such a case. The third was fine, but nothing more really. A pattern was emerging, but I was hoping that the downturn was a typical lull in a long story arc as things were being developed for future revelation. However, hope can carry you on for only so long, and after the next two I could go no further.

As the books got longer, and more dreary, they seemed to lose any interest in the characters themselves. By the fourth and fifth I found that I hated Harry. He became a snide, nasty, sniveling little egomaniac and I could really find no difference between his character and the villains. That may be fine in some settings, but in a series of books touted as heroic good vs. evil fantasy it just doesn’t work. You simply have to like the hero, and as the series wound on it was clear that there was no hero at all, but merely an incidental protagonist who happened to be a jerk. I simply couldn’t think of reading yet another massive tome about an illtempered primadonna like Potter, and so gave up on them. The rewards of reading the books had disappeared and the costs were hefty. Boring, boring, boring...

So, again, congratulations on the effort. I really don’t know how you did it.

[William Terrell]

So that one comment changed everything in your opinion and turned the entire series from so-so to pure evil?

Uhhh, like the Dixie Chicks, maybe?

[darkangel82]

Elton John is a hack who writes trite pop ditties that will be utterly forgotten in 50 years.

50? It won't take that long, but then again pop "music" is forgettable anyway.

[HKMk23]

Some people would continue to drink the poisoned water on principle and say it was delicious as they breathed their last.

Too true. Finish this, "for wide is the gate, and broad is the way..."

[trisham]

Sadly, I’m afraid I do. Best of luck to you.

[Antoninus]

But suddenly the whole series is vile and evil, not because of what is in it, but because something said outside of the books.

Yes, something that was said by the author of the books concerning one of the main heroic characters--and this in a series that is ostensibly for kids to read. And now, the tiresome subject of homosexuality will be broached any time the series is discussed--especially in academic settings. They're already talking about using them as "teachable moments."

And it's not "suddenly". The moral sense of the books has been convoluted from day one and I've tried to point that out in my reviews when I saw it. Harry's incessant lying, his contempt for authority, his repeated dissing of his friends, his use of unforgivable "dark magic", his complete lack of remorse for bad acts he commits.

"Dumbledore is gay" is just the final straw, as far as I'm concerned.

[Antoninus]

He became a snide, nasty, sniveling little egomaniac and I could really find no difference between his character and the villains. That may be fine in some settings, but in a series of books touted as heroic good vs. evil fantasy it just doesn’t work.

I agree. In the later books, I kept waiting for Harry to repent of his obnoxious ways. But he never did. To a certain extent, he stopped acting that way, but he never felt any remorse for acting like a jerk in the first place. And that fits with the pseudo-Christian mindset of the JK Rowlings of this world, if you ask me. There's no such thing as sin, so there's no need to repent for anything. Guilt is bad as we know.

Basically, as the series ended, I thought Harry was a crummy hero and Voldemort was a hopeless villain. I was truly hoping that it would turn out that Neville was the real hero and Harry was just along for the ride. Alas, that might have been too daring.

[Antoninus]

Finish this, "for wide is the gate, and broad is the way..."

...that leads to destruction. And many will enter it."

[Tired of Taxes]

I agree with you here. After talking with other parents and reading the first book myself, I let my eldest son read the entire series as each book was released. I think he owns all the books. Some were gifts. He won one in a contest. Then he spent his own money buying the final book.

As someone said on another thread, it is pure evil that Rowling hid the information and waited until her last book was sold to reveal this news. I’m sure kids are going to hear about it and spread the news. These days, it may be made into an issue in the movies, too.

Of course, my son also read Narnia, LOTR, and other books that are pure good vs. evil, so he’s not a Potter-obsessed fan (anymore). I’m now glad my other two children are not early readers who like big, thick novels.

[Antoninus]

As someone said on another thread, it is pure evil that Rowling hid the information and waited until her last book was sold to reveal this news. I’m sure kids are going to hear about it and spread the news. These days, it may be made into an issue in the movies, too.

With the make up of Hollyweird these days, you can almost guarantee that it will be added to the movies, if only in some "inside joke" kind of way.

I'd say "I'll be watching for it," but I have no intention on spending another dime on a Harry Potter realted product.