As expected, Harry Potter blew out all the competition on its opening weekend. In anticipation of the big event, last week’s Post Dispatch devoted three full pages to Potter topics, including an opinion piece that began, “If I were interrogated by the Order of the Phoenix, I would be forced to confess: I’m just mild about Harry.”
It was not a terribly enlightening opinion piece, but one sentence caught my attention: “After seven ‘Harry Potter movies—and umpteen competing franchises—reconstituted Christ imagery has become a bore.’” All I could think was that if people are responding to J.K. Rowling’s themes of love, self-sacrifice, and a proper attitude toward death by reading Christological lessons into the movies, then good for them.
If these themes are becoming passé in the movies, it’s because people hunger for meaning, for a glimpse of the bigger picture. And if Harry Potter causes anyone, child or adult, to view the familiar story of Christ’s Passion, death and resurrection in a fresh way, then hurrah for that. We need heroes who remind us of Christ. We need heroes who demonstrate sacrificial love and Christian values in everyday life, without spouting religious verbiage that turns people off. We need heroes who draw the same themes Christ did in a setting far removed from Roman dictators in togas.
There’s so much ugliness in our entertainment. The violence has to get more graphic, the crimes more heinous, because we’re so cosmopolitan now that nothing shocks us. There are no cop shows anymore about theft, only murder—and maybe kidnapping, with the promise of a murder to come. On that awful day in 2001, I watched those images again and again, and I told Christian, “There’s nothing on that screen that we haven’t seen before. It looks exactly like a movie. It’s just hard to believe it’s real life.”
As far as I’m concerned, it’s wonderful to have an entertainment franchise that is trying to point out that the worst evil, the one that spawns all others, is fear of death.
Kathleen M. Basi 
Great post
That’s an interesting twist made in Mr. William’s article, when we’ve become accustomed to the religious objections of Harry Potter’s world, for its occult themes… now someone is comparing him to Christ? Wonders never cease. 😉
I haven’t read the books (yet)…. so I cannot critique Ms. Rowling’s writing style. Naturally, I’ve heard the books are much better than the films (but that is usually the case).
However, another phrase particularly struck me, for its absurdity:
“The Latin phrases she filched from old encyclopedias underscored that she was not a scholar but a self-educated mom who was merely dabbling…
Is this writer actually discrediting Rowling for supposedly being a self-educated mom? Heaven forbid, she use Latin phrases from an old encyclopedia, rather than call upon her arcane knowledge….
Does he even realize how ludacris he sounds, when many of our greatest contributors to literature were themselves self-educated ~ notably Ernest Hemingway, William Blake, Herman Melville ~ and the list goes on….
Having taken a peek at her biography, I see that she did in fact graduate from college and taught English, before her divorce and relocation (which caused her to become jobless) ….
The press loves to dwell on her “rags to riches” story ~ the single mom living on welfare, who is now worth $1 billion.
However, she apparently was educated. So gve her a break, Mr. Williams… LOL
Oh, and please forgive me for spelling the name of a rapper by mistake, which only serves to make ME sound ludicrous! HAHAHA
🙂
I thought about addressing the occult issue that has so many so worked up, but I decided I didn’t really need to. I think part of the reason the sentence about Christ figures caught my attention was precisely because I’ve heard so many people call HP “evil” for using witches & wizards as subject matter. Personally, I think it’s wonderfully witty, the way she used Latin phrases to invoke her magic spells. As a person who gets a kick out of trying to translate texts in Latin, I find it so enjoyable to pause every time someone utters a spell.
And if you haven’t read these books…oh, my, girl! Get thee reading! 🙂
Yes, yes, I know I’m the 2nd-to-last person on the planet who has yet to read these books! (Someone else I know vowed never to read them, so THEY will be the last!) Muahahaha
I’ve recently finished getting caught up on an epic series (the final book won’t be released until March) *sigh* So I must dig up something fresh to read. Harry Potter looks like a strong contender. 😉
Out of curiosity, what series is that?
Awww. grrrr… I can’t reply to your reply of my reply…. *giggles*
I just finished the 13th book of The Wheel of Time series, originally written by Robert Jordan, who passed away in 2007. His wife (who was also his editor) hired a BYU teacher and fantasy author named Brandon Sanderson to complete the series, based on all the notes Jordan took while terminally ill.
The final book, written by Sanderson, is estimated to be published next March. *such a long time to wait*
I started reading the series in the mid-90’s… Jordan was publishing a novel every couple of years until his health declined.
I read all of those up till he died. How many have there been since then? I need to start over, I think…I liked them, but sometimes I wanted to throw them across the room. Every one was interesting but I was like, “Now, what’s the final aim, again?” Where are we going? I’ve forgotten! 🙂
I had the same problem, and had to re-read the first 3 novels to regain my perspective. Apparently he received quite a bit of criticism for it too!
I assumed that he was milking his royalties…. hehe
I stopped reading after he published Knife of Dreams, in 2005, but didn’t realize the lack of new material was due to his health (and death). I’m ashamed to say he fell off my radar. 😦
But Sanderson has taken the helm, and I was very surprised with how much I enjoy his style… if you haven’t read Jordan in awhile, and pick up Sanderson’s latest, you would never notice the difference in voice. Seriously.
I do think Brandon is more concise… he has sooooooo many loose ends to tie together, and he’s doing a fine job at it. 🙂
Jordan kept splitting the story into thousands of little plot lines, and added dozens of minor characters… then he inconveniently passed away, forcing a new author to wrap it up! 😛
“The Gathering Storm” and “Towers of Midnight” are the two recent additions by Sanderson. 🙂
They are ~ the beginning of The End.
The Last Battle is starting, armies are being gathered together, and the main characters are finally fulfilling their potential, and ascending to positions of power to lead nations. There is a sense of urgency in his writing… you can actually feel the tension building; their fantasy-version of Armageddon is on the horizon.
Ironically it parallels the End of Days obsession going on in real life, with all ficticious tribulations, natural disasters, and warfare going on in the series… I became almost disoriented, feeling like I was still “in the book” when I turn on the world news channels.