Grim Rhapsody

No doubt you are familiar with world-renowed book series Harry Potter, seven books detailing the teenage years of Harry Potter, a boy who discovers he is a wizard and is pitched against the Dark Lord Voldemort. The success of the bildungsroman fantasy novels has made author J.K. Rowling the highest-earning novelist in history, and with fair reason: the novels are extremely enthralling and unique and lead the reader on a twisting journey from start to finish.

As a “children’s series”, Harry Potter has drawn considerable attention to its aspects of evil: the villains of the series are not your bumbling, evil-laughing, constantly-thwarted typical children’s villains, but are truly cruel, violent and cunning, symbolised in the murderous main antagonist Lord Voldemort. Notable, the books’ violent content increases from first to seventh book, and with obvious reason: with ten years between the first and last instalments, Potter’s original readers have matured, and Rowling has emphasised that it is this associated journey and maturing of her original audience along with Harry that leads to the latter books’ bloodshed.

As part of that original audience, I was a true follower of Harry Potter from its beginning in 1997 to its end almost two months ago, and my gratitude to Rowling extends likewise. Unfortunately, but not unsurprisingly, more religious segments of the world have heavily criticised the series, for not only its themes of death and scenes of horror but for the mere presence of magic.

Harry Potter is set in a magical world. Harry attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for six of the seven books, and the school remains the main setting for the whole series. This won’t settle for hardcore Christians: in their eyes, Harry is “desensitizing children to the Occult” and “leading children to be fascinated by magic, however ‘white’ or ‘dark’ it may be”. This article by typical fundamentalist website ChristianAnswers is a fine example of such a response.

Of course, Christians have long condemned witchcraft. I need not remind you that Christians were responsibly for the medieval burnings of innocent people who had been fanatically identified as “making pacts with the Devil”. Their justification was as such:

When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the LORD your God. The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so. [Deuteronomy 18:10-14]

Naturally, the fact that God detests these practices yet is unable to do anything about them is evidence against God himself, but putting this aside, it seems that Christians believe that the Bible not only applies to people, but also to works of fiction. The aforementioned article claims: “Furthermore, if one were to use the reasoning that such objectionable material can be included in fantasy literature, then ‘that line of reasoning would tell you that you could include in fantasy any violence, pornography, whatever you wanted, and still defend those books by that very same statement’.” This asserts that practices that offend religion (notably, practices that don’t actually function) are on the same level as practices that offend human nature (of which pornography can barely be classified, offending Christians for the same religious reasons).

This is the sole basis of Christian dislike of Harry Potter: the supposed presence and promotion of Occult practices, moral relativism, violence and fascination in “witchcraft”. This seems to hinge upon their belief, which ironically originates from God’s belief, that the Occult is actually a functional practice and actually allows the participant to use Potter-like magic. The fact that Harry Potter is fundamentally a magic-infused reflection of society is ironic in this sense, and thankfully the majority of Christians can accept the series for what it is — a fantasy series. (Maybe the real reason fundies despise Harry is because he’s challenged the Bible as the world’s highest-selling book.)

To finish on a different note, ChristianAnswers’ article concludes with this:

Parents, whether Christian or not, must take an active role in what their children are being exposed to and determine what is appropriate. Christians especially should be guided by God’s Word, the Bible.

I doubt this article’s author has read the Bible. If so, he would be urging parents to keep it hidden and read only from verses based around the love of Jesus (otherwise known as the one-verse doctrine, John 3:16). Isaac Asimov says it best: “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”