Ma chere, you are probably the closest thing to an absolute genius in my whole f-list - at least since Kenna Hijja is not there - but in this you suffer from the problem that you have never been Christian and know fairly little about it. Above all, your tone rather than your content suggests that you simply missed the point of my opening paragraph - namely, that Christianity and morality are two different things. So are Christianity and "religion". What you call "religion" is certainly present in JKR; it is what I call paganism, and, if you read again, you will find that I approve of it, and only wish JKR had more. It is an attitude of honour and respect for all things that deserve it, natural and supernatural. Christianity, on the other hand, is a doctrine, indeed a philosophy. Some of the finest men in history have not been Christian. Some of the worst scoundrels have been (although I as a Christian would argue that they have misunderstood and misapplied the doctrine). It is my view that the impact of Christianity on a community is overall positive, but it does not mean that I have to use the word "Christian" of any person as praise. Have I not said that, in certain areas, JKR's moral imagination is superlative?
Probably you are right about this. I can't help thinking, though, that there is a sense in which Christ became the Master of Death by embracing it. There is also a sense in the HP books that because HP embraced death it didn't have a hold on him but because Voldemort did resist it did.
My first impulse was to answer in the negative, but you have a really good point there. However, JKR has given a proper magical reason why Harry did not die - though he came to the edge of death: Voldemort himself bore Harry's own protection in himself. All he had managed to do was destroy his own Horcrux. Death itself, as such, is not involved here - but we know that Our Lord defeated death itself.
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