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

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Exactly. I had a very dark individual tell me not that long ago that there was no evil and no good.
As soon as the words left her lips I closed my ears.

(I can’t like that seagull because it would look as though I was agreeing with it, good post!)
 
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MiserereMei25 said:
Bottom line…I still like Harry Potter, LOTR, and Narnia. I used to be involved in the occult but as a strict Catholic Harry Potter does scare me, it’s actually good wholesome entertainment as long as we teach our children well.
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I don’t think Harry Potter can be grouped with Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.

Both C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton were devout Christians and are considered great Christian thinkers. They also both wrote non-fiction books on Christianity, etc. They were not just non-fiction writers like J.K. Rowling.

Both the Lord of the Rings and Narnia series take place in a different world and were written using a Christian Worldview. The Christian undertones in both were deliberate. The Lord of the Rings was written with a Catholic Worldview, while Narnia was written with a High Church, Anglican worldview.

Harry Potter takes place on Earth, it’s not a different planet, realm, dimension, etc. And, unless I’m mistaken, J. K. Rowling did NOT intentionally create Christian undertones to Harry Potter. So which ever undertones are there, were not intentional.

Here’s a brief essay comparing C.S. Lewis’s Narnia to Harry Potter.

https://www.thelionscall.com/books-and-movies/articles/narnia-vs-harry-potter-whats-the-big-deal/
 
She didn’t say this.

A character she wrote did.

That would be like attributing Satan’s word to God because God divinely inspired the Bible.
 
I don’t think so about the Bible.

Seagull is pointing out that the author has a character that expressed this sentiment. I’m sure, It’s an example of how such thought can corrupt whilst seeming fairly innocent to a young mind.

I once mentioned to my girlfriends father that I’d just read a ww2 statement made by someone that “only the weak need justice.” Similar and not good. He nearly threw me out of the house!
 
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MHLucille said:
but my christian school is not super happy about it… is it wrong to LOVE Harry Potter
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They’re wrong to HATE Harry Potter. Honestly, the fact that so many Christians AND Catholics need to have theological/Christian/biblical things overtly banged over their heads for them to endorse something with fantasy elements drives me bonkers! The total LACK of understanding of literary devices results in them demanding propaganda pieces rather than good Christian fiction.

The series was still coming out while I was in college. I was attending Franciscan University at the time and had to hide my books from others when I read it. When I got caught, I had people insist “That’s heresy.” Some people thought "Okay, it’s benign fictional stuff, but there’s probably something better. Midway through the series, though, I realize it is FULL of Christian themes. But it presents those themes in an appropriate literary way making it suitable to a general audience. It’s not a book preaching to the choir.

These books should have been PRAISED and ENCOURAGED by the Christian community, but there’s a definite element of Professor Umbridges in the world.

Some resources to bang people over the head with


 
That was never said by Rowling. It was said by the villain of the first novel.

Again, what point are you making?
 
phil19034 said:
And, unless I’m mistaken, J. K. Rowling did NOT intentionally create Christian undertones to Harry Potter. So which ever undertones are there, were not intentional.
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You are mistaken. They were all intentional:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture...wling-Christianity-inspired-Harry-Potter.html
Speaking in America this week, she was open about the Christian allegories in her latest book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The author said that she had always deflected questions on the issue in the past to avoid disclosing the direction in which the books were heading.

“To me, the religious parallels have always been obvious,” Rowling said. “But I never wanted to talk too openly about it because I thought it might show people who just wanted the story where we were going.”

At the end of her latest and final installment in the series, there are specific references to Christianity and themes of life after death and resurrection.

At one point Harry visits his parents’ graves and finds two biblical passages inscribed on their tombstones.

“They are very British books, so on a very practical note, Harry was going to find biblical quotations on tombstones,” she said.

“But I think those two particular quotations he finds on the tombstones …they sum up, they almost epitomise, the whole series.”
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Before becoming a Christian I wrote a book, never published, which also contained a lot of Christian values. That’s because I was raised in a Christian country and because my parents were nice people. That explains that.

The use of magic is not Christian, you may have been protected by your prior values but innocent children may not have that defence.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
She didn’t say this.

A character she wrote did.

That would be like attributing Satan’s word to God because God divinely inspired the Bible.
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The logic here doesn’t flow. God wasn’t the author of the devil’s words.

The problem here is she created evil characters that are too interesting.

Google this: “theres no good or evil, only power jk rowling” and you will see the number of memes & articles that celebrate this line.

She wrote her books to simply make money. She didn’t write them to teach morality, and didn’t consider the flaw in the moral of her stories. The moral of her books seems to be simply “if you are determined, you can overcome any obstacle,” which is a fine moral in of itself. But she teaches that moral by introducing good vs evil and never directly addresses the problem of evil.

NOTE: again, I don’t think there is an issue with Harry Potter itself, but I think there is an issue when grouped with the larger Hollywood trend of glamorizing witchcraft.
 
Lou2U said:
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phil19034:
And, unless I’m mistaken, J. K. Rowling did NOT intentionally create Christian undertones to Harry Potter. So which ever undertones are there, were not intentional.
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You are mistaken. They were all intentional:

J K Rowling: 'Christianity inspired Harry Potter'
Speaking in America this week, she was open about the Christian allegories in her latest book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The author said that she had always deflected questions on the issue in the past to avoid disclosing the direction in which the books were heading.

“To me, the religious parallels have always been obvious,” Rowling said. “But I never wanted to talk too openly about it because I thought it might show people who just wanted the story where we were going.”

At the end of her latest and final installment in the series, there are specific references to Christianity and themes of life after death and resurrection.

At one point Harry visits his parents’ graves and finds two biblical passages inscribed on their tombstones.

“They are very British books, so on a very practical note, Harry was going to find biblical quotations on tombstones,” she said.

“But I think those two particular quotations he finds on the tombstones …they sum up, they almost epitomise, the whole series.”
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Ok, fine.

But what I meant was she didn’t intend to write a Christian work of fiction. She wrote a work of fiction and borrowed from Christianity.

CS Lewis and GK Chesterton were both Christian Philosophers and used their fiction to teach the Christian worldview.

JK Rowling didn’t seek out to do the same thing as Lewis and Chesterton. And if she did, she failed.

NOTE: I’m not condemning Harry Potter. But it cannot be considered a masterpiece work of Christian fiction like Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia
 
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If the point was to show that a character expressed the sentiment, then the quote should have been attributed to the character, not to the author. It is, at best, disingenuous. And how could it seem “fairly innocent” to anyone coming from the mouth of a character that epitomizes evil within the story?
 
whatistrue said:
Be fair. You are attributing a character’s line to the author.
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Uh, yes, the author does not speak for herself in the HP series. It’s not an autobiography (I think). So if you rule out characters’ lines you rule out everything.

As for the line, it’s actually a very compelling example. Sure it’s what the character is saying, but that doesn’t change the fact that this idea (“There is no good and evil, there is only power and those who seek it”) is present in the book anyway. Is this stuff for children? No. In fact what this line conveys is unhealthy even for grown-ups to consider. It’s a slippery slope, you know.
whatistrue said:
And how could it seem “fairly innocent” to anyone coming from the mouth of a character that epitomizes evil within the story?
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But that is just the point, @whatistrue. The trouble with HP is that evil sometimes sounds rather convincing. In HP it isn’t always clear what evil is. And yes, real-world evil is like that, but should children be exposed to it in fiction?
ProdglArchitect said:
By your logic, we could never use fiction to convey truths because the bad guys would be promoting evil things…
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No, @ProdglArchitect, the argument is not that bad guys can’t be bad guys in fiction; the argument is that it isn’t stuff for children, and that it isn’t Christian.
 
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I watched one of the films and found it extremely boring, I haven’t read any books.

I may have enjoyed some of the films if I had been a child when they came out.

Unfortunately they do portray magic as good instead of bad.
 
That’s the whole point of it’s inclusion. It is in there, and said specifically by Voldemort, to express how utterly deplorable that line of reasoning is. It is said by the (second) most evil character in the entire story. (I still Hold that Umbridge is worse than Voldy.)

By your logic, we could never use fiction to convey truths because the bad guys would be promoting evil things…
 
whatistrue said:
If the point was to show that a character expressed the sentiment, then the quote should have been attributed to the character, not to the author. It is, at best, disingenuous. And how could it seem “fairly innocent” to anyone coming from the mouth of a character that epitomizes evil within the story?
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Yeah, but the issue is the people who created those memes typically AGREE with that line and give her the credit.

Few people who disagree with that line will write those memes.

There are tons of them.
 
Not ruling out anything, but if you are quoting a character, attribute the quote properly.

The idea is present to be defeated. You are familiar with the idea of conflict as a literary device, right?
 
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