This Vatican literary critic must only have read the Cliff's Notes of Narnia & LOTR...
Spotted this link : http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=55967 on HPANA to an article about Vatican literary critic,Edoardo Rialti's comments in the Italian newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano and had to rant a little about it.
As usual this guy is telling the Catholic world that Harry Potter is evil and the work of Satan basically, but the thing that irked me about his comments wasn't that he doesn't like Harry Potter (I've come to accept that some people are just that ignorant) but that he CLEARLY never actually reads the books he's discussing or any of the ones he's using to boost his arguments. Case in point...his comments in this paragraph...
The hero in Christian allegory, like Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings, achieves great things by perseverance and reliance on his own abilities, the L'Osservatore article notes. Harry Potter, on the other hand, invokes special powers that make him something more than a mortal human. Thus Harry Potter cannot be considered a proper hero, the article concludes.
And in this paragraph...
Harry Potter, the L'Osservatore article notes, uses his recondite knowledge and special powers to manipulate nature and overcome obstacles.
I guess being a busy lit. crit. he doesn't have a lot of spare time for reading, so I guess he's only read the Cliff's Notes editions of The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series. Because, if he had actually read any of these books fully he'd see how incorrect those statements are.
In The Lord of the Rings, there is not just one hero. There are numerous characters that are instrumental in making sure the one ring is destroyed and helping Frodo to accomplish that goal. Gandalf for example plays a HUGE role in the destruction of the one ring. You remember Gandalf right? He's the WIZARD! The one with the MAGICAL staff.The one who came back from the dead. Ok, well, even if Senore Rialti skipped those bits in the book, maybe he will remember Galadiel? Ya know...she was the really powerful and benevolent WITCH! The one who could read minds and foretell the future by looking into her cauldron...uh, I mean the Mirror of Galadiel. She was also the one who supplied Frodo and his friends with numerous magical items that helped them on their quest- things like Elvin cloaks that would be "a great aid in keeping out of the sight of unfriendly eyes," Hmmm, sounds like an invisibility cloak to me. But there were other things, like magic ropes so they could get over the mountains into Mordor, a mallorn seed and a box of earth from Galadriel's garden, which she gave to Sam and he used to heal the damage that had been done to the Shire and of course a magic bottle of light given to Frodo. From where I'm sitting that sounds a lot like magic and sorcery and manipulating nature. But for some reason this Rialti character has no problem with these things in LOTR or Narnia, just in Harry Potter. Hypocritical much?
So, now that we have established that this chump didn't read LOTR, let's look at Narnia. Hmmm, yup, I seem to remember a big wooden box that let them travel to a parellel universe. What was it called....oh yeah, a WARDROBE! And those kids certainly could have survived on their own, but it was great that Santa showed up with all those gifts for them, like the MAGIC POTION he gave to Lucy that could bring people back from the brink of death. It was also pretty convenient that Aslan showed up too to give them all that help and guidance. I mean it's great to " achieve great things through by perseverance and reliance on ones own abilities" but why do character like Susan, Peter, Edmond, Lucy, Frodo or Aragorn need to do that when they have all that extra help from wizards like Gandalf and Galadriel, and when folks like Aslan and Santa Claus and Samwise are willing to go the extra mile for them and make sure they succeed.
As for Harry Potter I think that he is definitely a hero and it's clear that this "critic" never read any of the books, but especially Deathly Hallows. If he had read them he would see that what makes Harry a hero is not wands or potions or spells. It's the fact that in those last chapters, he leaves his wand and his spells and all of his "help" behind and faces evil on his own two feet with no hope of survival. He sacrifices himself, willingly giving up his own life to save those of his friends and family and yes, even his enemies (he saves Draco from certain death after all, remember), which is more than can be said for Frodo. Frodo was tempted by the ring through the entire story, and would have given in to it's lure more times than can be counted if not for the help of Sam. Frodo would have died and the ring would have never been destroyed if not also for Sam saving him and carrying Frodo's burden for a while.
I think that Senore Rialti needs to sit down and actually read each of these books in its entirety before he starts making comparisons regarding what constitutes a hero in any of them.
As usual this guy is telling the Catholic world that Harry Potter is evil and the work of Satan basically, but the thing that irked me about his comments wasn't that he doesn't like Harry Potter (I've come to accept that some people are just that ignorant) but that he CLEARLY never actually reads the books he's discussing or any of the ones he's using to boost his arguments. Case in point...his comments in this paragraph...
The hero in Christian allegory, like Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings, achieves great things by perseverance and reliance on his own abilities, the L'Osservatore article notes. Harry Potter, on the other hand, invokes special powers that make him something more than a mortal human. Thus Harry Potter cannot be considered a proper hero, the article concludes.
And in this paragraph...
Harry Potter, the L'Osservatore article notes, uses his recondite knowledge and special powers to manipulate nature and overcome obstacles.
I guess being a busy lit. crit. he doesn't have a lot of spare time for reading, so I guess he's only read the Cliff's Notes editions of The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series. Because, if he had actually read any of these books fully he'd see how incorrect those statements are.
In The Lord of the Rings, there is not just one hero. There are numerous characters that are instrumental in making sure the one ring is destroyed and helping Frodo to accomplish that goal. Gandalf for example plays a HUGE role in the destruction of the one ring. You remember Gandalf right? He's the WIZARD! The one with the MAGICAL staff.The one who came back from the dead. Ok, well, even if Senore Rialti skipped those bits in the book, maybe he will remember Galadiel? Ya know...she was the really powerful and benevolent WITCH! The one who could read minds and foretell the future by looking into her cauldron...uh, I mean the Mirror of Galadiel. She was also the one who supplied Frodo and his friends with numerous magical items that helped them on their quest- things like Elvin cloaks that would be "a great aid in keeping out of the sight of unfriendly eyes," Hmmm, sounds like an invisibility cloak to me. But there were other things, like magic ropes so they could get over the mountains into Mordor, a mallorn seed and a box of earth from Galadriel's garden, which she gave to Sam and he used to heal the damage that had been done to the Shire and of course a magic bottle of light given to Frodo. From where I'm sitting that sounds a lot like magic and sorcery and manipulating nature. But for some reason this Rialti character has no problem with these things in LOTR or Narnia, just in Harry Potter. Hypocritical much?
So, now that we have established that this chump didn't read LOTR, let's look at Narnia. Hmmm, yup, I seem to remember a big wooden box that let them travel to a parellel universe. What was it called....oh yeah, a WARDROBE! And those kids certainly could have survived on their own, but it was great that Santa showed up with all those gifts for them, like the MAGIC POTION he gave to Lucy that could bring people back from the brink of death. It was also pretty convenient that Aslan showed up too to give them all that help and guidance. I mean it's great to " achieve great things through by perseverance and reliance on ones own abilities" but why do character like Susan, Peter, Edmond, Lucy, Frodo or Aragorn need to do that when they have all that extra help from wizards like Gandalf and Galadriel, and when folks like Aslan and Santa Claus and Samwise are willing to go the extra mile for them and make sure they succeed.
As for Harry Potter I think that he is definitely a hero and it's clear that this "critic" never read any of the books, but especially Deathly Hallows. If he had read them he would see that what makes Harry a hero is not wands or potions or spells. It's the fact that in those last chapters, he leaves his wand and his spells and all of his "help" behind and faces evil on his own two feet with no hope of survival. He sacrifices himself, willingly giving up his own life to save those of his friends and family and yes, even his enemies (he saves Draco from certain death after all, remember), which is more than can be said for Frodo. Frodo was tempted by the ring through the entire story, and would have given in to it's lure more times than can be counted if not for the help of Sam. Frodo would have died and the ring would have never been destroyed if not also for Sam saving him and carrying Frodo's burden for a while.
I think that Senore Rialti needs to sit down and actually read each of these books in its entirety before he starts making comparisons regarding what constitutes a hero in any of them.