My neice is playing online games with occult themes?

[Lost_Wanderer]

… then you haven’t read the whole thing. Read on, and you just might change your mind on HP…

(Truly, truly, I say to you, this really is my last post. :yup

Uh, no. If anything the section under Practical Conclusions does not in anyway discourage me in a manner that you yourself wish.

My position on Harry Potter has remained the same (as my position on the whole of the fantasy genre).

 

[brgregmack]

Uh, no. If anything the section under Practical Conclusions does not in anyway discourage me in a manner that you yourself wish.

My position on Harry Potter has remained the same (as my position on the whole of the fantasy genre).

But do you at least now understand and accept why many think that the presentation of magic in HP is problematic and perhaps even subtly anti-Christian?

and btw, I’m not anti-fantasy even though I’m not into it at all anymore. I’m just more on the side of caution when it comes to all of this.

 

[nickybr38]

But do you at least now understand and accept why many think that the presentation of magic in HP is problematic and perhaps even subtly anti-Christian?

and btw, I’m not anti-fantasy even though I’m not into it at all anymore. I’m just more on the side of caution when it comes to all of this.

There’s nothing wrong with being cautious. There are some people who cannot handle fantasy, but I would say our society (as a whole) is far more dangerous then any fantasy novel could be.

 

[brgregmack]

There’s nothing wrong with being cautious. There are some people who cannot handle fantasy, but I would say our society (as a whole) is far more dangerous then any fantasy novel could be.

… depending on the fantasy novel, for there are some such as Twilight that are manuals for sex & love addiction. I actually escaped into fantasy novels and video games for quite a long time, was forced to take a loooong break, and haven’t desired to go back.

 

[brgregmack]

also… can it not be argued that the prominent fantasy novels are both a reflection of and a further influence on the culture at any given point in time?

 

[JHow]

Okay. I read the whole thing. Here’s what I think:

This essay is more about justifying the use of magic in Tolkien and Lewis than it is about Harry Potter. It could have a subtitle: “I’m Christian and I deplore magic, so how do I square that with my love of Tolkien?” It suffers as well from a partial reading of HP, as I don’t believe all the books were published at the time this was written. Its conclusions (parents decide, could be safe, could not be) result more from a mis-understanding of how literature works than how magic “works”, and a mis-understanding of the job of the reader to think about what he is reading.

The author makes a lot of hay out of his seven “hedges” in Tolkien and Lewis. Let’s take a look at them:

Tolkien and Lewis confine the pursuit of magic as a safe and lawful occupation to wholly imaginary realms…

Who doesn’t look at the Shire and see an idealized English landscape, with hobbits as imaginary idyllic Englishmen (“Second breakfast” is as real as it gets.). Also, Potterworld is emphatically not “our” world (no story is really “our” world). Even the most realistic literature can never make this claim. Consider the “sound of a string breaking” stage direction in Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard – it reminds the viewer that literature is not reality.

…Harry Potter lives in a world in which magic is a secret, hidden reality acknowledged openly only among a magical elite…

Everyone that matters to the story in Harry Potters’ world is aware of magic except the muggles, who really contribute little. The basic trope in HP is to imagine if magic were an everyday subject, such that you would have to go to school to learn it. Rowling has made magic so commonplace it needs a bureaucracy to manage it. Magical folk in Potter are far from being “elite”, by the way, as proven by how confounded they are by things like the telephone or automobiles. Characters have magic in Potter simply by accident of birth, and magic people in Potter are good, bad, simple and brilliant, rich and poor.

Tolkien and Lewis confine the pursuit of magic as a safe and lawful occupation to characters who are numbered among the supporting cast, not the protagonists…

Well, the Lion (Aslan) got title billing alongside the Witch. I guess Gandalf is a supporting cast member, along with Elrond and others, but the “Lord” in LOTR is not good guy. And Aragorn did make the title in Return of the King. I don’t think being a title character has a lot of significance here. Having a magic-free protagonist makes a difference? Okay, what happens if we apply that to something like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (which Tolkien translated).

…Tolkien and Lewis include cautionary threads in which exposure to magical forces proves to be a corrupting influence on their protagonists…the practice of magic is Harry Potter’s salvation from his horrible relatives and from virtually every adversity he must overcome.

Actually, Harry’s “salvation” is very much akin to the “old” or “deep” magic that allows Aslan to triumph over the witch in LWW. I fear that at the time this critique was written, the reviewer had not read all seven volumes. Also, in Rowling’s work, magic is part of the “physics” of the story.

Tolkien and Lewis confine the pursuit of magic as a safe and lawful occupation to characters who are not in fact human beings.

Just reading LOTR doesn’t give enough indication as to what Gandalf and Sarumin are and a reader would not immediately distinguish them from men. Rowling doesn’t have nearly the depth of theory behind how magic works in her world that Tolkien does.

…Tolkien and Lewis emphasize the pursuit of magic as the safe and lawful occupation of characters who, in appearance, stature, behavior, and role, embody a certain wizard archetype — white-haired old men with beards and robes and staffs…

What kind of archetype, pray tell, is Tom Bombadil? (If one is upset by magic, how do you feel about Pan?) What kind of magic does he employ? Tolkien doesn’t fit in to this neat box.

…Tolkien and Lewis devote no narrative space to the process by which their magical specialists acquire their magical prowess…

Yes, Rowling does this in the form of a running joke. Imagine if wizards didn’t just drop fully-formed into the story, but, like everything else in human experience had to learn their craft? At a school? With quizzes and homework? She riffs on this theme for seven very long books. This ultimately is what the anti-Potter critiques really miss: Rowling is a mile wide and an inch deep, and the point of much of what she writes is humor. If presented the choice between presenting a coherent, well thought out theory of literary magic, or making a joke, Rowling instinctively heads for the joke.

 

[Hastrman]

The Potter books’ magic is harmless. There are other things—the equation of goodness and beauty, the cookie-cutter evil rich people/fantasy-metaphor race-card playing (complete with Godwin’s Law!), the assisted suicide, and especially the patronizing attitude of the ‘good’ wizards toward “Muggles”—that are less harmless. Most of that nonsense you’ll get anywhere in English-language media, though, and most of that’s not nearly as well done as Potter.

 

[nickybr38]

Okay. I read the whole thing. Here’s what I think:

This essay is more about justifying the use of magic in Tolkien and Lewis than it is about Harry Potter. It could have a subtitle: “I’m Christian and I deplore magic, so how do I square that with my love of Tolkien?” It suffers as well from a partial reading of HP, as I don’t believe all the books were published at the time this was written. Its conclusions (parents decide, could be safe, could not be) result more from a mis-understanding of how literature works than how magic “works”, and a mis-understanding of the job of the reader to think about what he is reading.

The author makes a lot of hay out of his seven “hedges” in Tolkien and Lewis. Let’s take a look at them:

Who doesn’t look at the Shire and see an idealized English landscape, with hobbits as imaginary idyllic Englishmen (“Second breakfast” is as real as it gets.). Also, Potterworld is emphatically not “our” world (no story is really “our” world). Even the most realistic literature can never make this claim. Consider the “sound of a string breaking” stage direction in Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard – it reminds the viewer that literature is not reality.

Everyone that matters to the story in Harry Potters’ world is aware of magic except the muggles, who really contribute little. The basic trope in HP is to imagine if magic were an everyday subject, such that you would have to go to school to learn it. Rowling has made magic so commonplace it needs a bureaucracy to manage it. Magical folk in Potter are far from being “elite”, by the way, as proven by how confounded they are by things like the telephone or automobiles. Characters have magic in Potter simply by accident of birth, and magic people in Potter are good, bad, simple and brilliant, rich and poor.

Well, the Lion (Aslan) got title billing alongside the Witch. I guess Gandalf is a supporting cast member, along with Elrond and others, but the “Lord” in LOTR is not good guy. And Aragorn did make the title in Return of the King. I don’t think being a title character has a lot of significance here. Having a magic-free protagonist makes a difference? Okay, what happens if we apply that to something like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (which Tolkien translated).

Actually, Harry’s “salvation” is very much akin to the “old” or “deep” magic that allows Aslan to triumph over the witch in LWW. I fear that at the time this critique was written, the reviewer had not read all seven volumes. Also, in Rowling’s work, magic is part of the “physics” of the story.

Just reading LOTR doesn’t give enough indication as to what Gandalf and Sarumin are and a reader would not immediately distinguish them from men. Rowling doesn’t have nearly the depth of theory behind how magic works in her world that Tolkien does.

What kind of archetype, pray tell, is Tom Bombadil? (If one is upset by magic, how do you feel about Pan?) What kind of magic does he employ? Tolkien doesn’t fit in to this neat box.

Yes, Rowling does this in the form of a running joke. Imagine if wizards didn’t just drop fully-formed into the story, but, like everything else in human experience had to learn their craft? At a school? With quizzes and homework? She riffs on this theme for seven very long books. This ultimately is what the anti-Potter critiques really miss: Rowling is a mile wide and an inch deep, and the point of much of what she writes is humor. If presented the choice between presenting a coherent, well thought out theory of literary magic, or making a joke, Rowling instinctively heads for the joke.

Wow. Go you!

 

[brgregmack]

Yes, Rowling does this in the form of a running joke. Imagine if wizards didn’t just drop fully-formed into the story, but, like everything else in human experience had to learn their craft? At a school? With quizzes and homework? She riffs on this theme for seven very long books. This ultimately is what the anti-Potter critiques really miss: Rowling is a mile wide and an inch deep, and the point of much of what she writes is humor. If presented the choice between presenting a coherent, well thought out theory of literary magic, or making a joke, Rowling instinctively heads for the joke.

A perfectly valid argument here, although I feel that your other objections may be fueled by some emotionalism from your liking of Potter.

Remember that he doesn’t claim infallibility, and instead asserts that both sides have valid reasons for their views. I personally think that if something is this controversial in a negative way, it should by all means be avoided. And when I said subtly anti-Christian, I concede that it may be unintentional, and instead be a reflection of our culture’s fascination with esoteric knowledge and power. Remember that Rowling is a modern-day Brit, a country which recognizes druidry as an acceptable religion and is steeped in practical atheism.

 

[JHow]

As anti-Potterism goes, Greydanus is more balanced than some others, I’ll give him that.

A perfectly valid argument here, although I feel that your other objections may be fueled by some emotionalism from your liking of Potter.

I like Rowling, but I like Tolkien, Lewis, Charles Williams (I await the the Greater Trumps thread), George MacDonald, and Lord Dunsany even better. My responses to the article are necessarily terse because of the format here. I don’t put Potter in the same class as these other writers, but I admire Rowling because for the first time in a long time we have a cultural phenomenon that truly belongs to every class. Nearly all English-language readers (certain anti-Potterists excepted, I suppose) share Potter knowledge in a way they don’t share other works of literature (like some of the above).

…our culture’s fascination with esoteric knowledge and power. Remember that Rowling is a modern-day Brit, a country which recognizes druidry as an acceptable religion and is steeped in practical atheism.

I still think the “esoteric knowledge” thing is simply incorrect literary analysis. Magic in Potter is posited as an everyday phenomenon (the exact opposite of what is meant by “hidden” or occult knowledge). The ability to work it is fairly random - some have it, some don’t. To set the story in modern Britain, it is necessary to create some explanation for why normal people (us “muggles”) don’t recognize the existence of magic, hence the secret nature of the “wizarding world” in Potter. This secrecy does not say anything about the nature of magic in the story, rather it is a device to explain the setting.

In its function in the story, magic in Potter is almost entirely mechanistic: wave the wand, say a word or two, acheive the magical feat. It’s more David Copperfield than druid. The magic in Potter that is not mechanistic occurs in the parts that would be likely be most troubling to an atheist: Harry’s mother sacrificing herself for Harry, Harry’s willingness to die for his friends, the scene where the shrivelled soul of Voldemort cries on the floor of the Kings Cross station.

 

[Sonic]

Hello,

my neice is playing online games that have strong occult themes, and I just found out that there is going to be a harry potter game online. It’s going to be called “Pottermore”. My 12 year old neice has a strong interest in the occult. She has expressed desires to become a wizard in real life. She spends all day on the computer playing Wizard101, which is her favorite game, and is forever saying she wishes there was a harry potter games. She talks about if she could do magic in real life, and this scares me. With the internet I’m not sure what she’s getting into. Should I be worried? If she did get into occult websites, would she hurt me? We’ve had a bumpy relationship, and everytime I try to talk to her about religion she seems to get unsettled. Ideas?

Thanks

Misguided, lets leave all the discussions about Harry Potter and what constitutes fantasy and the occult behind. As scintillating as all that is, it doesn’t answer your question.

Yes, you should be worried. You niece is 12 years old and is escaping into her own world of fantasy as opposed to interacting with the real world. Spending all day playing a computer game is not what’s good for twelve year old children. She’s looking for an outlet in order to exert her independence (something twelve year olds are discovering but don’t have a lot of). Computer games are like junk food in this department. They provide a quick fix, but they aren’t necessarily going to give someone what they need.

Get her out of the house and get her involved with something. When I was a kid, we didn’t have these fantasy games. We had to go outside and interact with real people.

You may even try getting her involved with charity work outside of other activities. Why? She needs to see that the world has real problems (poverty, homelessness, loneliness) that can be fixed with real solutions, which your niece has the power to fix. Dragons, orcs, and magical elves are fine for fantasy, but she’s not going to encounter these things in the real world… and no amount of spell casting is going to feed hungry people.

Remember, she’s wanting independence. In order to do that, she needs to have responsibilities and choices she can make. The reason we know we are free inside is because we have free will, and the reason we know we are free outside is because we have property (something to call our own and take care of). Computer games have choices, but they’re limited and pre-determined by the game creators. It’s not something that will allow anyone to grow as a person.

If your niece is not responding to religion, then maybe it would help if she got to know Christ through the type of people he came to help.

 

[brgregmack]

Misguided, lets leave all the discussions about Harry Potter and what constitutes fantasy and the occult behind. As scintillating as all that is, it doesn’t answer your question.

Yes, you should be worried. You niece is 12 years old and is escaping into her own world of fantasy as opposed to interacting with the real world. Spending all day playing a computer game is not what’s good for twelve year old children. She’s looking for an outlet in order to exert her independence (something twelve year olds are discovering but don’t have a lot of). Computer games are like junk food in this department. They provide a quick fix, but they aren’t necessarily going to give someone what they need.

Get her out of the house and get her involved with something. When I was a kid, we didn’t have these fantasy games. We had to go outside and interact with real people.

You may even try getting her involved with charity work outside of other activities. Why? She needs to see that the world has real problems (poverty, homelessness, loneliness) that can be fixed with real solutions, which your niece has the power to fix. Dragons, orcs, and magical elves are fine for fantasy, but she’s not going to encounter these things in the real world… and no amount of spell casting is going to feed hungry people.

Remember, she’s wanting independence. In order to do that, she needs to have responsibilities and choices she can make. The reason we know we are free inside is because we have free will, and the reason we know we are free outside is because we have property (something to call our own and take care of). Computer games have choices, but they’re limited and pre-determined by the game creators. It’s not something that will allow anyone to grow as a person.

If your niece is not responding to religion, then maybe it would help if she got to know Christ through the type of people he came to help.

yup… that was a looooooong tangent

 

[brgregmack]

I don’t think paganism has tax exempt status here as druidry does in the U.K. does it?

And “our culture” includes us. I know that Rowling is christian, and “practical atheism” is not the same as actual atheism. I’m referring to the low church attendance in the UK.

 

[brgregmack]

If you wanna discuss this more, we should probably start a new thread.

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

also, it must be remembered that it’s not necessarily the presence of magic that makes something to be avoided, but rather how magic is portrayed. HP is to be avoided because it portrays magic as something to be used for good as well as pushing the myth of white and black magic. Narnia and LOTR are fine because magic is portrayed as the evil it really is.

Is it portrayed as evil when Lucy Pevensie casts a spell or two from a magician’s spell book? What about when Glenstorm the centaur explains that he used astrology? How about when Caspian uses a magical object to summon the Pevensie children to Narnia?

Harry Potter is harmless; the “magic” it portrays is a purely natural inborn function of a separate sub-species of the human race. Ordinary humans like you and I can’t do “magic” in Rowling’s world, any more than men in Tolkien can do the kind of “magic” elves can.

By the way, brgregmack, I actually think the article you linked to is really well done. The principles he lays out are solid and rational.

I find that his own standards actually vindicate Harry Potter too, though.

 

[catholicgamer]

To the OP, Wizardry 101 is one of the best kids MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) games out there on the market right now. I did an interview with them at GDC a couple years back and I can say without a doubt that they have the best safeguards for kids playing online.

Regarding the Wizardry stuff…just keep an eye on it as pretend and imagination is good. Even Tolkien enjoyed the idea of a wizard. We want our kids to develop the imagination, but in healthy ways. Shooting ice bolts in Wizard 101 is a good way to do it

Another great game for kids is FreeRealms. Highly recommended. That game has a whole bunch of things to do like soccer, racing, fishing. Great stuff.

My final note. Play online with your kids. Most of these places…Wizardry 101 especially…has family subscriptions were you can play with your kids. Group up with them. Do quests with them. Explore with them. There are some good memories to be had in these games…don’t just sit on the sidelines and watch it happen. Participate.

 

[thisone35]

I play with my kids online, as well as with home lan parties. I had seen where they had downloaded Wizard 101 on to a couple of the computers. They had been playing it for a couple of weeks, and I never got into it. I happened to walk in and watch them playing it, and I was a little shocked. There characters were fighting other online participants in a circle with fire around the edges, there were about 6 or 7 points I can’t remember. It immediately reminded me of a pentagram. I watched them for a bit, and saw some of the other combinations of shooting spells at the other characters, and the lines of shooting spells were in triangle directions, or the star, configuration. I told them what I thought of the circle arena and what the diagram in the center represented, i.e. the goats head, two points up, etc. I also said they couldn’t play it any more.

What do you all think?

 

[Job42]

I play with my kids online, as well as with home lan parties. I had seen where they had downloaded Wizard 101 on to a couple of the computers. They had been playing it for a couple of weeks, and I never got into it. I happened to walk in and watch them playing it, and I was a little shocked. There characters were fighting other online participants in a circle with fire around the edges, there were about 6 or 7 points I can’t remember. It immediately reminded me of a pentagram. I watched them for a bit, and saw some of the other combinations of shooting spells at the other characters, and the lines of shooting spells were in triangle directions, or the star, configuration. I told them what I thought of the circle arena and what the diagram in the center represented, i.e. the goats head, two points up, etc. I also said they couldn’t play it any more.

What do you all think?

I looked at the website briefly. I tend to be scrupulous and maybe even a bit paranoid when it comes to games and popular media, but I know there is a line somewhere. There are certain games that I think definitely cross the line with overt Satanic themes. This particular game is obviously not one of those, but if you think you saw occult images, or even fake occult images in the game, I think you were right to trust that instinct and to tell your kids to stop playing it.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

This particular game is obviously not one of those, but if you think you saw occult images, or even fake occult images in the game, I think you were right to trust that instinct and to tell your kids to stop playing it.

Your opinion =/= Moral imperative. Stop giving people the false impression that a few emotional willies from seeing images is a substitute for rational thought.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

I told them what I thought of the circle arena and what the diagram in the center represented, i.e. the goats head, two points up, etc. I also said they couldn’t play it any more.

What do you all think?

I think you need to educate yourself in basic semiotics and realize the hollow emptiness of the symbol you’re overreacting too.

I’ve seen that symbol used a dozen times in plenty of RPGs. It’s just a symbol to stand for magic. End of story. Imposing the whole goat’s head analysis is no more insightful than a chemistry nerd complaining about Stan Lee’s use of gamma radiation.