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As some of you know, one of my jobs at the moment requires me to keep an eye on the UK Christian press, which I particularly enjoyed last November and December as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and then The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe were released and reviewed.
I also have some very fundamentalist Christian relatives in the US and Canada, and after my aunt was regarded in shocked silence by their children when she mentioned Harry Potter (apparently they were afraid her soul was in danger), I decided to dig out this short article from the [Anglican] Church Times to send to her. I’m posting it here partly because I want to have a ‘copy’ onhand, and partly because I want to share what I reckon is the most insightful article on HP that I’ve seen in print.
ETA: For the record, I don't agree with everything the author says about the Narnia film, which I enjoyed though didn't move me as much as I'd hoped it would.
Potter can beat Aslan every time
by Giles Fraser
Church Times, 9 December 2005
I’ve overdosed on children’s cimema over the past few weeks: The Corpse Bride, Wallace and Gromit:The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. For entertainment value, it’s got to be The Corpse Bride. But for moral education, there is nothing to beat Harry Potter.
“Dark times lie ahead,” says Professor Dumbledore to Harry. “Soon we are going to have to choose between what is good and what is easy.” He didn’t say we would have to choose between good and evil, which one might have expected. No, the choice is between the good and the easy: brilliant.
There were many things I disliked about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. First, there is its manipulative use of sentimentality. Then there’s its offensively right-wing politics and warmongering – all sugar-coated for camoflage. But, above all, I hated its unremitting Manichaeism – that dualistic philosophy that proposes the eternal battle between good and evil. Like the cosmology of the heretical Manichees, the world of Narnia is divded into the nice and the nasty, the warm and the frozen, the light and the dark. The goodies are recognisably good, and the baddies bad.
Harry Potter doesn’t patronise my children with such simplistic moral fantasies. The questions of good and evil is not as might be expected. As new characters are introduced, the audience is left asking itself whether they are goodies or baddies. And, not as in Narnia, appearances can be deceptive. Sirius Black looks and sounds like a baddie, but he isn’t. After a while, the kids get it: you can be a good person even if you look weird, scary, or just plain ugly. Likewise, sometimes the nice-looking ones are the real bastards. You’ve got to work it out yourselves.
Mr Olivander the wand-maker is puzzled that the wand that is right for Harry is the same wand that is used by Lord Voldemort. Good and evil have some strange and uncomfortable connection. Most of the people in the story don’t see it yet. Only Harry and Dumbledore are ever able to name evil honestly. Everybody else is too scared to use Lord Voldemort’s name.
I’ll wager that it’ll turn out that what makes the very ordinary Harry so special and courageous has nothing to do with his having super magical powers, and everything to do with his being deeply loved by parents who sacrificed their lives for their beloved son. Love defeated Voldemort the first time, and that’s what’ll get him again. Forget Aslan. This is the better lesson for Sunday school.
The Revd Dr Giles Fraser is Team Rector of Putney, and lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford.
I also have some very fundamentalist Christian relatives in the US and Canada, and after my aunt was regarded in shocked silence by their children when she mentioned Harry Potter (apparently they were afraid her soul was in danger), I decided to dig out this short article from the [Anglican] Church Times to send to her. I’m posting it here partly because I want to have a ‘copy’ onhand, and partly because I want to share what I reckon is the most insightful article on HP that I’ve seen in print.
ETA: For the record, I don't agree with everything the author says about the Narnia film, which I enjoyed though didn't move me as much as I'd hoped it would.
Potter can beat Aslan every time
by Giles Fraser
Church Times, 9 December 2005
I’ve overdosed on children’s cimema over the past few weeks: The Corpse Bride, Wallace and Gromit:The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. For entertainment value, it’s got to be The Corpse Bride. But for moral education, there is nothing to beat Harry Potter.
“Dark times lie ahead,” says Professor Dumbledore to Harry. “Soon we are going to have to choose between what is good and what is easy.” He didn’t say we would have to choose between good and evil, which one might have expected. No, the choice is between the good and the easy: brilliant.
There were many things I disliked about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. First, there is its manipulative use of sentimentality. Then there’s its offensively right-wing politics and warmongering – all sugar-coated for camoflage. But, above all, I hated its unremitting Manichaeism – that dualistic philosophy that proposes the eternal battle between good and evil. Like the cosmology of the heretical Manichees, the world of Narnia is divded into the nice and the nasty, the warm and the frozen, the light and the dark. The goodies are recognisably good, and the baddies bad.
Harry Potter doesn’t patronise my children with such simplistic moral fantasies. The questions of good and evil is not as might be expected. As new characters are introduced, the audience is left asking itself whether they are goodies or baddies. And, not as in Narnia, appearances can be deceptive. Sirius Black looks and sounds like a baddie, but he isn’t. After a while, the kids get it: you can be a good person even if you look weird, scary, or just plain ugly. Likewise, sometimes the nice-looking ones are the real bastards. You’ve got to work it out yourselves.
Mr Olivander the wand-maker is puzzled that the wand that is right for Harry is the same wand that is used by Lord Voldemort. Good and evil have some strange and uncomfortable connection. Most of the people in the story don’t see it yet. Only Harry and Dumbledore are ever able to name evil honestly. Everybody else is too scared to use Lord Voldemort’s name.
I’ll wager that it’ll turn out that what makes the very ordinary Harry so special and courageous has nothing to do with his having super magical powers, and everything to do with his being deeply loved by parents who sacrificed their lives for their beloved son. Love defeated Voldemort the first time, and that’s what’ll get him again. Forget Aslan. This is the better lesson for Sunday school.
The Revd Dr Giles Fraser is Team Rector of Putney, and lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford.
