Harry Potter?.......( Is it bad?)

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Harry Potter should be avoided I’ve been told by priests because it is witchcraft. The author isn’t exactly a charitable gem either. Why go with Harry Potter when you have the mother of them all: Lord of the Rings by a Catholic.
 
Roguish said:
But you see, CCC 2117 doesn’t make those exceptions. It condems all magic without exception,
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For context, it’s always good to read the entire sentence. (bolding mine)
“All practices of magic or sorcery , by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion.”

Reading about fake, fictional magic is not “practices,” nor is it “attempts to tame occult powers.”
 
Roguish said:
Ah, I see the gloves are coming off. Okay. Well, there’s nothing ironic about it, CW. I am defending the Dursleys because I am one. Not by last name, but certainly by lifestyle. No joke.
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Well, if you were Mr. Durlsey, I’d say “And I’m sure you take great pride in that fact.” And he’d puff out his chest and say, “Indeed, I do.”

I’ve never watched anything produced by an existentialist theatre troupe, so I don’t know what you’re referring to.

You seem to be commenting on the Harry Potter films more than the movie. I’m not sure what you find off but I’ll get into what I like and dislike about the films.
  1. Putting too much of the books to film The first two films are so faithful to the books that the films are exceeding long. This is due to Chris Columbus wanting to stay too loyal to the books. He gave Rowling, who had no experience in the art of film, creative control. He cut the content only for the sake of run-time.
  2. Off-putting cinematic tone Since there were really no good examples of children’s books being adapted like this before, Columbus went with a tone similar to that of the film Matilda. While, technically speaking, this does reflect the use of childish exaggeration to describe characters with that is present in Rowling’s prose, as a cinematic style, it tends to make characters feel cartoonish and two-dimensional, especially when they’re adults. There’s no subtext to be found in their movements that children would miss. Thus, nothing quite seems real. The humor, also, feels off.
  3. Tone variation between films The third film creates a more appropriate Gothic tone for the adaptation and allowed for a real adaptation to be made of the books. This means not merely cutting and combining book scenes for time, but reflecting on the overarching themes of the work and rewriting the work in the screenplay into a story that resembles the original source material enough but is appropriate for cinema. This works much better, though–especially with the Goblet of Fire, it was still difficult to compact the story for time.
  4. Dividing the last book into two movies While compacting the last book into one film would have been a nightmare, the fact that the book is divided in half creates a problem. The first film is all set up. The second book is all climax without set up.
If your issue is that you don’t like a gothic color palate or imagery that creeps you out, that’s not a spiritual sense at all. Tones are created intentionally and there’s nothing supernatural going on there. It’s like how music can portray emotion.
 
LumineDiei said:
The priests that are making this claim haven’t been involved in witchcraft (Wicca). Those who have been involved in Wicca/Neopaganism and have reverted back to Catholicism will tell you HP is not “witchcraft” as we know it.
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I never even got into Wicca. I have friends who have. I’m familiar with it enough. I don’t have a problem, either, with reading fictional accounts involving any witchcraft that actually resembles Wicca either. I’ve enjoyed a few. Enjoying an entertaining read is not the occult even if it involves characters who practice the occult.

It’s utterly nutty that we get into arguments over whether Harry Potter is appropriate magic in fantasy (of the Likes of Narnia and Tolkien) or not. I mean, seriously, if you found a magical wardrobe that could take you into a land of good magic, that’d probably be something to be concerned about. But it’s fiction and the magic in it is a literary device.
 
I read the first book in the series and found it to be geared toward kids…entertaing, but the whole witchcraft thing did make me a little uncomfortable.
Our daughter wasn’t into the books so that wasn’t an issue, but she did want to read the Goosebumps books when she was in 5th and 6th grade and I didn’t allow it because I thought they might be too violent. Now, looking back, I may have made a rash decision considering I personally never read one.
 
angel12 said:
Reading about fake, fictional magic is not “practices,” nor is it “attempts to tame occult powers.”
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Yeah, of course not. I never said the CCC forbids reading fiction that has magic in them. I said the CCC forbids using/practicing magic.

My argument (and that of many) has been that HP is hardly Christian because it presents the use of magic as fun/okay/interesting/useful. I’ve also given other arguments why HP isn’t particularly healthy reading material, especially for children. Those other arguments are in fact more important to me, but again we are reverting to the “magic” argument because that’s most obvious.
 
Catholicwife32 said:
Well, if you were Mr. Durlsey, I’d say “And I’m sure you take great pride in that fact.” And he’d puff out his chest and say, “Indeed, I do.”
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You think stereotyping a certain type of person and their lifestyle as “dreary, dull, prideful, etc.” is harmless or even appropriate. I think it is not harmless, I think it’s cruel. Even if there was something not quite right about Dursleyish people – which is a huge claim to make because who are you or any non-Dursley to understand us Dursleys? – stereotyping them in a children’s book is not ethical.
 
I think a lot of children and teen literature hinges on the premise of kids being the wise and resourceful ones and the adults being drowsy and rather dull.

IRL , kids simply aren’t the decision makers, and much of their lives seem pretty arbitrary to them, so they enjoy being in charge, even if only precariously in a book.

John Hughes movies tended to run on this premise.
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
I think a lot of children and teen literature hinges on the premise of kids being the wise and resourceful ones and the adults being drowsy and rather dull.
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Yes! But note that this is only the case in children’s literature in the West. Where I live this type of “literature” doesn’t exist. The idea that somehow adults are drowsy and dull is alien to the culture here. You couldn’t get kids to “get the joke” no matter how hard you tried. Cultural difference.
 
Roguish said:
You think stereotyping a certain type of person and their lifestyle as “dreary, dull, prideful, etc.” is harmless or even appropriate. I think it is not harmless, I think it’s cruel. Even if there was something not quite right about Dursleyish people – which is a huge claim to make because who are you or any non-Dursley to understand us Dursleys? – stereotyping them in a children’s book is not ethical.
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You seem to think the term “Dursleyish” existed before Harry Potter.
 
Catholicwife32 said:
You seem to think the term “Dursleyish” existed before Harry Potter.
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No, of course the term did not exist before HP. But the kind of people that the term refers to did exist before HP, and have been the subject of mockery many times before. They’re an easy target.
 
Roguish said:
No, of course the term did not exist before HP. But the kind of people that the term refers to did exist before HP, and have been the subject of mockery many times before. They’re an easy target.
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🤨 The dominant trait of the Dursleys is their vanity, not dullness. As I said, they are a character study on the vice of pride. The ironic thing about the Dursleys is that they take pride in being dull. Their dullness is a false humility. “I’m only an ordinary man, and I wear it as a badge of honor and consider myself superior to those who are not ordinary.” Their dullness is something they conform themselves to and something they feel great anxiety about losing. They even cut off connection with Lily and James Potter to protect their reputation.

We learn in the last book that Petunia had become jealous when her sister, Lily, had discovered her magical powers and gained the attention of Severus Snape. Part of this was because Severus had mistreated her, insulting her with the name of muggle (both with wizarding world in the human world in the books have their prejudices). Petunia’s response to being excluded for lacking magical powers leads her not to merely accept herself as a muggle, but to guard her vanity by declaring her sister a freak.

The characters offer great opportunities to talk about the sin of pride and how we can become pompous about anything, even things that aren’t that profound. We can embrace false humility, deciding that we’re better than others because we’re more humble. The moment we think that way, the moment we simply can’t claim we’re humble. And we can ask our children “Are the Dursleys actually dull or do they just want to be dull? Are there threats to their dullness? Who is the threat? How does our concern for being perceived as what we think we ought to be interfere with our ability to actually become what we ought to be?”

All these questions are PROFOUNDLY Christian. If you identify with the pride of the Dursleys, then Harry Potter just helped you examine your conscience. All you have to do now is be TRULY humble about it.
 
Alright, well, all of that noted, but we’re out of time. I must make my closing statement. So… let me hook my thumbs into my suspenders (see note below), puff up my chest, and pontificate, true to my Dursley style, as follows:

While you may look down on us Dursleys for being proud, and dull, and dreary, etc., and on our world as small and small-minded, and on our lives as hum-drum, and on our concerns as petty, and on our humility as false, it just so happens that we are still Christians who put our faith in God, and who believe that it suffices to live our lives the way we do: in relative simplicity and free of sin insofar as we can. It also happens that while you judge us, ridicule us, and tell us to be “truly” humble, we do not judge you, ridicule you, or instruct you to be humble. So when the Last Day comes, as surely it will, we will see how false our humility really was, and how “ridiculous” and “proud” we really were for living in modesty and being content with our simple existences. And with that, I salute you, on behalf of all muggles: Goodbye, and Godspeed.

Note (on suspenders): for those of you from the UK (or Aus?), let me make it very clear that my suspenders are straps that go over my shoulders and hold up my pants (trousers!). They do not hold up my stockings. My stockings stay up all by themselves, thank you very much!

Dursley out.
 
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