Oy. This is actually a piece written prior to the release of Book 7, but I found it while looking for something else on the Time site, and it irritates me, so what the hell.
Title? Who Dies in Harry Potter? God.
Yeah. Seriously.
I was reading the book this weekend, and it struck me how often characters said, “Thank God,” or churches were discussed, or there was Christmas and Easter mentioned. Hell, too. So God’s not entirely absent from the picture. He’s just not central to it, which seems to be getting up the author’s nose.
It starts off with a discussion of how many houses J.K. Rowling has, and how she has more money than the Queen but no middle name (the “K” was an add-on). Which sort of puzzled me, because what does that have to do with anything, let alone God?
And then:
Rowling’s work is so familiar that we’ve forgotten how radical it really is. Look at her literary forebears. In The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien fused his ardent Catholicism with a deep, nostalgic love for the unspoiled English landscape. C.S. Lewis was a devout Anglican whose Chronicles of Narnia forms an extended argument for Christian faith. Now look at Rowling’s books. What’s missing? If you want to know who dies in Harry Potter, the answer is easy: God.
Harry Potter lives in a world free of any religion or spirituality of any kind. He lives surrounded by ghosts but has no one to pray to, even if he were so inclined, which he isn’t. Rowling has more in common with celebrity atheists like Christopher Hitchens than she has with Tolkien and Lewis.
Yeah. Like I said, the characters in the Harry Potterverse celebrate Christmas and Easter, just like a lot of Anglicans. They just don’t talk about Jesus as their personal savior. Just like a lot of Anglicans.
In any event, while both Tolkien and Lewis were devout in their faiths, only Lewis did allegory, something which Tolkien disdained. And Tolkien wove a lot more than Christianity into the fabric of Middle Earth — there was a lot of Norse and Anglo-Saxon and Celtic mythology and imagery, and the land itself had power. That’s a distinctly non-Christian/pre-Christian concept.
But then, Tolkien didn’t need to beat people over the head with Christianity in his writing to prove his own faith to himself. Unlike, say, Lewis. Did Frodo ever call on God in his hour of need? He did not. He had Sam, his gardener. Narnia had Aslan, a Christ figure. Rather a different beast.
And Rowling doesn’t feel the need to proselytize, either. But there are some distinctly Christian concepts in the books, such as the redeeming power of love and forgiveness, and sacrifice. More I will not say lest I spoil, but it’s clear from the books, even without reading the last one, that these characters have souls, that there is an afterlife, that love, honor and duty are important, that small and/or overlooked creatures often have great importance, and that they believe in some force greater than themselves. Call it God, call it magic, but to claim that the books are utterly devoid of any sort of spirituality is ludicrous. But when you’re a winger cultural critic, you spend a lot of time trying to fit square pegs in round holes:
What does Harry have instead of God? Rowling’s answer, at once glib and profound, is that Harry’s power comes from love. This charming notion represents a cultural sea change. In the new millennium, magic comes not from God or nature or anything grander or more mystical than a mere human emotion. In choosing Rowling as the reigning dreamer of our era, we have chosen a writer who dreams of a secular, bureaucratized, all-too-human sorcery, in which psychology and technology have superseded the sacred.
See, I have to think that this guy never read any of the books, and certainly not Order of the Phoenix, or he’d see that the bureaucracy is a comment on current events rather than on the mystical.
But why does Harry, et al., even need God?
When the end comes, where will it leave Harry? He’ll face tougher choices than his fantasy ancestors did. Frodo was last seen skipping town with the elves. Lewis sent the Pevensie kids to the paradise of Aslan’s Land. It’s unlikely that such a comfortable retirement awaits Harry in the Deathly Hallows.
Frodo died. As did the Pevensie kids (except for Susan, that slut, who dared to go through puberty), killed in a train bombing during the Blitz. That’s “retirement”? In any event, it’s not like an afterlife hasn’t been discussed in Rowling’s books.
Harry’s mom sacrifices herself so that Harry can live, and that love sheilds Harry from an evil figure that tries to harm him. Nope, no Christian allegory there.
Actually, I think what has the fundies so creeped out is that the Christ figure in Harry Potter is a woman. If it had been Harry’s dad who sacrificed himself (I mean, he died anyway, but it wasn’t for the express purpose of “I will now die so that my son can live”) they probably wouldn’t go through such contortions to make it into SuperSatanBook.
Good point, Mighty Ponygirl. I hadn’t considered that.
What I had always considered was exactly how Christian the books are. I’m an atheist I’m not offended in the least by these books yet some fundies are offended tremendously. They don’t like the fact that the author apparently doesn’t subscribe to their dogma (most Christians don’t, in fact, subscribe to that dogma). Of course, for some fundies, Rowling also dares to glorify magic in her books and that get’s their knickers in a twist in the same way that my brother’s Dungeons and Dragons club did in eight grade. In their view magic exists and is always demonic (insert Monty Python voice “Oooooo, demons”) when practiced by humans who are, like Icarus, coming too close to God when they use magic. Such fundies disavow Greek gods as false, but are happy to appropriate and update their myths.
“What does Harry have instead of God? Rowling’s answer, at once glib and profound, is that Harry’s power comes from love.”
Well, *someone* obviously missed the “God is love” memo. I’d have to agree that the books are very rooted in Christian values–though that’s not exactly what I’d base my assessment of their values on, given my own atheism.
I’d be curious to know what this author thinks of Philip Pullman. Little bit of a shift from C.S. Lewis there.
I think part of what offends is that Muggle-born wizards are coded as Jews in the book, and prejudice against them is very sternly rejected as wrong.
Then God’s a real weaknut, i’int he?
I think, particularly in the last book, the idea that any one group can rule over any other group because of a “superiority” of the former is pretty sternly rejected as wrong, which is working against the purpose of the fundie theocrats.
I’d like to know the liturgy of the church that this particular writer attends, if it has anything approaching liturgy, that is. I grew up with the line “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son Jesus Christ to die for our sins.” Someone should tell God to stop being so glib, I guess.
Yeah, back when I was confirmed a Methodist, my confirmation verse was 1 John 4:8: “Whosoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” So I laughed out loud when I read that statement — it’s completely at odds with the Bible. Of course, I ended up converting to Unitarianism, and unlike most fundamentalists, I’ve actually read an appreciable part of the Bible, so I’m sure that’s a handicap; if only I’d read more truly Christian literature, like Left Behind.
As for the word “bureaucratized”, I think that’s wingnut code for “all the various rules of an egalitarian society that prevent me from ruling over my family and community with the force of religion and violence behind me”.
It’s also one of those things that Bush uses to dismiss ideas he doesn’t like, such as when he dismissed the global warming report: “I read the report put out by the bureaucracy.”
And we see what he did with FEMA.
Thistle, I was about to say the same thing. Love as a “mere human emotion”? I seem to remember a frequent hymn at my old church going along the lines of “God is love/and we who live in love/live in God/ and God in us”. Seems the fundies totally missed that message.
As a human, I find the dismal of our mere emotions to be offensive.
There’s actually a running joke in fandom about how one of the background characters is “the only Jew at Hogwarts” because his last name is Goldstein. The society of Rowling’s wizarding world is pretty clearly Anglican-standard, even if the cursing is more like “Merlin’s beard!” than “Goddammit!”
Love, charity, sacrifice, forgiveness, and redemption are backbones of the series. This article is about as nonsensical as the old Onion piece about children using HP as a manual to practice black magic.
Ah, yes, the old “If it doesn’t say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ it’s SATANIC!!11!!”
And I join in the chorus of mockery towards a supposed “Christian” who forgets little things like, “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son…” etc. Can you even call yourself a Christian if you’ve never heard of John 3:16? They put it up at sporting events, fer cryin’ out loud!
Jeff and Arianna already said what I was going to say. But yeah, the wingnut fundie reactions to HP, especially to the last book, just floor me. It’s very clear to me that there is a greater force at work in the HP universe, and it doesn’t *matter* that nobody ever calls it by name. Harry and friends celebreate Christian holidays, the afterlife that Harry encounters is very much in line with the Christian concept of such, and the entire last book is built around the ideas of love, sacrifice, forgiveness, mercy, and redemption. It’s everything that Jesus taught, distilled into its purest form, and then dressed up a bit with magic spells and dragons.
As a Christian, I have to say that I honestly love the HP books, particularly the last book. Because it’s a pure reflection of everything that *should* be good about my faith, stripped of the bigotry and hatred and oppression that usually infest Christianity. (Or rather, the bigotry and hatred and oppression are there, but are textually condemned.) But then again, so many so-called Christians regularly miss the “love thy neighbor” memo when it comes to queers, women, and people of different faiths anyway… So I’m not surprised that they would misinterpret the symbolism in the Harry Potter books. I mean, they can’t even get the Bible right when it’s laid out in plain King James English language!
It’s too bad that our country cannot turn our abundant aggressive self-righteous theocratic tackiness into an alternative fuel, though we came close with amoral tackiness in Vegas.
I try to show compassion for these right-wing evangelical Christians by remembering that most evangelical Christians arrive at that faith after tremendous pain, shame or anguish in other parts of their lives. A Jewish psychologist acquaintance of mine routinely referrals from a mega-church in cases where the attendee needs to learn something that the church cannot tell her or him within their dogma, such as “You are gay, that’s a fact and that’s fine” or “if you don’t take the kids and leave him, eventually he will cripple you or the kids, you have to go.” Most of us have pain and misfortune in our lives and most don’t become evangelical Christians, but the correlation is said to be very strong.
Many mega-churchers are recovering from alcoholism, from drug abuse, from medically dangerously loose living or other debilitating pain from other dysfunction in their own lives and those of their families. The two most religiously conservative evangelical Christians I know are both sex abuse survivors - replete with 7 children on a cop’s salary. They don’t have to imagine demons and Hell; they see demons in the mirror and Hell was just last week. Not to say that you cannot find survivors of great pain and unjustice among atheists or Unitarians of course but the violent imagery and content of hard-core fundamentalist Christianity usually mirrors the violence and pain of their own lives.
Few evangelical Christians “think” their way to that position. You can tell this by the weak, facile “arguments” of former attorney Lee Strobel, whose law professors must be appalled at their former student’s repeated logical fallacies. It’s about the emotional reality of the worshippers and any attempt to fight evangelical Christianity must face this core fact. Evangelical Christians will tolerate the indecency and injustice of the Bible because it made the indecency and injustices of their own lives more manageable emotionally. That’s why their preachers sound different from Unitarian ministers intoning reason and tolerance.
They are?
Most of us have pain and misfortune in our lives and most don’t become evangelical Christians, but the correlation is said to be very strong.
The evangelical family that I knew in high school (Church of God, I think) started going there because one of their daughters died of viral meningitis at the age of six. That’s the kind of thing that often turns people towards religion for answers, because the atheist answer of, “Hey, shit happens, it’s nobody’s fault that your six-year-old died in tremendous pain,” isn’t very comforting.
In every book, the families all celebrate Christmas, so I don’t agree that the book is completely absent of Christian reference. The fundies are fussy about the fact that Rowling hasn’t made it an obvious focal point of Harry’s life and if you aren’t wearing it on your sleeve then you must be a heathen. Boo hoo. In the meantime, Harry is a “good” figure, who sometimes gets angry or bitter or falters… sort of like some Christian heroes. But overall, the message is that its hard being good all the time, temptations, challenges, and disappointments are around us, but if you stay the course good will overcome evil. Not exactly a satanic message.
Kat — don’t forget, in the last book, Harry kills Ron so that he can marry Hermione! It was very “King David” if you ask me. :p
Who Dies in Harry Potter? God
No, no no. God dies in Philip Pullman’s books. Sheesh.
human - sure they are! Voldemort is all about the “purity” of the wizarding people, wanting to destroy Muggles and stamp out the “impurity” of those with Muggle or “Mudblood” ancestry. The preservation of pureblooded families is another part of his pseudo-Hitlerian crusade, along with the idea that Muggle sympathizers like the Weasleys are “blood traitors.” There’s some stuff in book 7 that makes this even more blatant, like compulsory registration of Muggle-born wizards.
God also dies in the end of Trek movies directed by William Shatner. Which is really quite poetic.
If God dies, who’s gonna pay for the funeral?
I do not think is a specific attack on anti-Semitism but an attack on prejudice and racism more generally. The entire issue of “pure blood” wizards vs. other magical humans and creatures is a sharp criticism of heirarchical thinking, mutual mistrust and oppression.
Yes, precisely. But I think that the “Harry Potter is Satanic” people are far more likely to sense (and be made uncomfortable by) the similarity to anti-semitism than the broader view.
Wow…that’s so ironic, I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry.
I just posted my own reveiw…I’d love to hear what others think!
http://catherinemcniel.blogspot.com/2007/08/my-final-post-about-harry.html
Oh please. I’m fed up with Christian’s finding a ‘Christian allegory’ in any popular work of fiction. Harry’s mother sacrifices herself to save Harry - it must be a Christian allegory! I’m an athiest and without a second thought would sacrifice myself to save either of my daughters, as I’m sure would nearly any mother (or father) - Christian’s don’t have a monopoloy on ‘love’ of this nature.
Harry celebrates christmas etc - it must be a Christian allegory! Well I celebrate these holidays too without any spiritual influence - they have ‘evolved’ into secular traditions not necessitating any Christian belief.
One writer speaks of the books being built around the ‘ideas of love, sacrifice, forgiveness, mercy, and redemption. It’s everything that Jesus taught …’ - please! These may represent some Christian ideals but they are far from unique to Christian faith, or theism of any kind. Get a grip. It’s said to be a Christian allegory insofar as it incorporates these ‘positive ideals’ but not to the extent that other aspects of the book (like, let’s say, magic!) interfere. Let’s just enjoy the book as a work of fiction without the desperate need to claim theistic intent. (and, of course, simply because Rowling is a Christian and may have borrowed from some of the more positive aspects of Christianity does not make the book a Christian allegory)