Comments | erebrandir: Harry Potter and the Evangelical Christian

erebrandir

Harry Potter and the Evangelical Christian

Jan 25, 2006 12:36

As you know, I've been a big fan of the Harry Potter books for about a year now. Now, I'm sure this has been thought of before - I know there are books out there on looking for Christian messages in Harry Potter - but because I haven't read those books, and probably won't, you're going to get my take on this.

This is not to say that one is in any ( Read more... )

christianity, harry potter

Comments 15

merissa_hino January 25 2006, 18:49:42 UTC

I'm rather amused by those books...because when Harry Potter first became banned, there were a ton of books on "why Harry Potter is evil"

erebrandir January 25 2006, 18:58:11 UTC

Yeah, I remember that, too! It took me a while, but eventually I started reading them just to see what all the fuss about. Of course I was hooked. But for a while I felt I had to hide them from my mom. :-p

merissa_hino January 25 2006, 19:00:05 UTC

I guess my take on it, is that people are so desprate for a sign from God, that they'll look for signs in anything...

erebrandir January 25 2006, 19:07:08 UTC

Very true. The same can be said for messages from outer space, or the dead, or Elvis, or whatever. If you look hard enough at anything, you're likely to see what you want to see and believe what you want to believe. That's human nature.

potionmistress January 25 2006, 18:56:01 UTC

Wow. Very cool. I've never thought of it that way, but very true. Great observation ( ... )

merissa_hino January 25 2006, 19:01:29 UTC

don't you think we as Christians might have gone too far in these books?

I wonder that as well. Why can people just accept fiction as fiction, as in not real. Why does there have to be meaning in everything?

erebrandir January 25 2006, 19:05:29 UTC

BWAHAHAHA. Yeah, I think it stretches things, too. But it's really no different than what any other literary critic does. I'm convinced at least half of all literary criticism is looking for things in texts that aren't really there at all. I'm also convinced that about 90% of the books sold in evangelical bookstores are meaningless fluff - stuff that could be said better in a lot fewer words, stuff that's already been said a thousand times before, stuff that any thinking person should have already realized, and stuff that shouldn't be said at all. People like to read things that make them feel good, and authors like to write books that will make them lots of money. Lots and lots of people love Harry Potter and Napoleon Dynamite, and Christians like to read things that reassure them that what they're reading and watching is okay.

(The comment has been removed)

erebrandir January 25 2006, 19:21:47 UTC

Harry Potter? I've been reading them for a couple of years now. ;-) Have you forgotten how nuts I went over potential spoilers the last time? I guess I'd probably better rephrase this post; I guess that's confusing. I just meant I haven't read those "Finding God in Harry Potter" books.

thejinn January 25 2006, 19:34:52 UTC

Do you think that maybe people are looking for the next C.S. Lewis or something?

Everytime there is something that involves fantasy or fantasy worlds, many different groups of people can often take different meanings from it, even if the intention of the author was nothing more than to entertain.

As you probably can tell from my LJ, we Muslims have the same sort of thing. We have our own bookstores, books, music, labels, companies, organizations, schools, clothing, art, lifestyle and language/lingo and more. You have Bilical verses and we have Qur'anic verses (and no pictures LOL). Sometimes I wonder if it's hard to understand what I'm writing for non-Muslims since I tend to have a lot of Arabic in my posts. We even have prayers for a lot of mundane things like entering/leaving a place and what not, which to some people may seem like magical invocations LOL. Also, our own beliefs frequently appear in science fiction. Dune for instance, took straight from Islam with our belief in the Mahdi and even (I can't spell his name) is an ( ... )

erebrandir January 25 2006, 19:54:46 UTC

I don't know. I'm sure somewhere, there may be deeper meaning in Harry Potter, but I think people do look too hard. In Narnia, it's all very easy to see, and C.S. Lewis was a thousand times the writer J.K. Rowling is ( ... )

thejinn January 25 2006, 20:12:25 UTC

Interesting!

Yeah, I agree.

Don't ever be shy to ask if you need to understand the meaning of something or whatever. :)

jojobear99 January 25 2006, 20:13:51 UTC

That's a really interesting (and apt) comparison. Could probably even be drawn out further too...like the "magic" community has more awareness between the relationship between their community and the "muggle" community than the muggles apparently do...or... I know I've made posts before about the weirdness of how christianese sometimes seems like a parallel universe very similar to our own...but seperate and different ( ... )