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The Forum > Article Comments > Harry Potter’s victory over Christian wowsers > Comments

Harry Potter’s victory over Christian wowsers : Comments

By Tim Kroenert, published 15/7/2011

The predictable conclusion of the Harry Potter film franchise marks the end of an era.

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"Instead they have enjoyed and been inspired by an unforgettable story containing a simple but profound message lifted straight from the gospels. Amen."

Gosh, I must have missed the bits where Jesus talks to snakes, defeats a three-headed dog, chats to a ghost in the toilet and learns to breathe underwater. Chapter and verse for these, please.
Posted by Jon J, Friday, 15 July 2011 7:16:32 AM
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Jon Jesus is claimed to have done pretty much the same thing.

Those stories he told to illustrate a point put into a context that the listeners might enjoy hearing.

Have a look at how many times Jesus is claimed to have said something like "The Kingdom of heaven is like" then told a simple story that in the detail is nothing like you probably expect heaven to be but tells of values.

The three headed dog, the talking snakes etc are not the issue.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Friday, 15 July 2011 7:29:29 AM
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Right, so if anybody says anything is 'like' something else they are quoting from the Gospels? Got it. I'm glad they didn't have copyright regulations back then, or we'd all be screwed.
Posted by Jon J, Friday, 15 July 2011 7:57:44 AM
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Thank goodness I was too stupid to realize that the Harry Potter books were just another set of biblical parables. It would have quite spoiled my enjoyment.

Mind you, she hid it well, among all the magic and witchcraft that drove those Southern baptists to conniptions.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 15 July 2011 8:55:17 AM
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I think victory over 'evil' was thought of long before Jesus was supposed to have walked the earth and brought Christianity to us all, so I fail to see why they would be upset about these fantasy novels such as Harry Potter.
I really enjoyed the series, but I didn't equate any of it to any form of gospel!
Posted by suzeonline, Friday, 15 July 2011 10:14:21 AM
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Some could say that the christian wowsers were deflated after not being raptured recently so to commit hubris on behalf of Harry Potter is a little unsporting.

Nevertheless, given that wowsers only recognise wow as the second syllable of a dog bark they deserve what they get.

My wife and son love the Harry Potter movies but I prefer real christian films where crusaders slaughter saracens and vice versa.
Posted by Neutral, Saturday, 16 July 2011 1:19:51 AM
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The backlash against the Harry Potter books and films were quite intriguing. For a start the books are FICTION. Witches and wizards and Voldemorts, magic wands and talking animals are not real.

Harry Potter was all about good versus evil. The reactions of some religious groups border on irrational hysteria at times.
Posted by pelican, Saturday, 16 July 2011 11:17:25 AM
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The Harry Potter books were marvellous, humourous, powerful, disturbing, illuminating, everything one might want in a good read.
And children loved them.

We all have books that lifted the fog
for us, caused the Great Aha!, and literally changed our lives.
The printed word is pondered, and it is received only when the mind is fully engaged. Like no other medium it has the power to stay with us. Harry Potter was an excellent role model for children, he showed what noble deeds looked like - and that there is such a thing as duty and sacrifice. He enchanted not only for the magic, but because he remained steadfast in the most unbearable circumstances. He made children believe that life's possibilities are without limit. Magic was in, it was great literature that wasn't didactic and it certainly instructed. What a pity that some people are totally unreasonable.

J. K. Rowling forces her young readers to think about the issues involved. That in itself makes her remarkable as a writer. Worth reading, not censoring. Isn't that what educating our young people is all about? Teaching them to think for themselves?

Obviously some people think not. They consider her work, "immoral" and "evil."
I wonder how many of these people have actually read any of the Harry Potter books?

I guess the heart of this issue is one's definition of education. Obviously these Christian "wowsers," believe that education is designed to pass on from generation to generation a prescribed, accepted, and very limited body of knowledge. And that everything else is taboo.

Most thinking people on the other hand, believe that the purpose of education is to teach young people to be problem solvers, to gain new insights, to determine their own positions. The wowsers are entitled to their beliefs what they are not entitled to is to impose their beliefs on others. Great ideas and great societies are the products of free inquiry. It must continue to remain free.
Posted by Lexi, Saturday, 16 July 2011 1:49:03 PM
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I think you hit the nail on the head, Lexi, when you question the number of 'anti-Potterists' who have actually read any of the books. At the last school at which I worked, we had a class set of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for reading in Year 8. It was at once the most popular and least used of all our texts. It was popular because most of the kids - even non-readers - were excited about it. It was rarely used because there were always a couple of kids in each class whose parents had forbidden them from reading Harry Potter. Eager to please, the school allowed this to get in the way. Fair enough, I guess - it's not the place of a school to force kids to defy their parents. Sad, though, because it would have been one of the few books many of these kids would have read and enjoyed. Who knows - it could have opened the world of reading up to a whole group of students who had never considered it pleasant before.

The wowsers who hate Potter are the same wowsers who kick up a fuss every time a school studies Macbeth. They are people who miss the point: yes, magic, the occult and witchcraft feature; however, they are motifs used to draw out deeper points about the world. Kids don't read Harry Potter to learn magic, and critics don't praise it for its apparent promotion of the occult.

Rather, Harry Potter has been a roaring success because it does the things literature should do:
1) It fuels the imagination
2) It gets people thinking
3) It entertains
4) It makes a statement about life.
The values of friendship, hope, loyalty, honesty, fighting for the underdog, standing up for what is right, self-sacrifice, courage in the face of adversity, perseverance and integrity towards oneself and others are all things these wowsers claim to stand for. So why are they so against people reading about them?
Posted by Otokonoko, Saturday, 16 July 2011 2:01:52 PM
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Until Harry Potter came along I had not read any fiction for years. There was always too much I wanted to know/learn to have time for, or interest in fiction. The last one was Michener's Hawaii. Having read his Tales of the South Pacific, I wanted to see how he spun it.

Then I picked up the first Potter, we had given to my daughter.

What an imagination Rowling has. I don't know if I'd like to live in her head, but what comes out of it is sheer joy. How anyone could have an issue with such imaginative & fun stuff I can't imagine. I do know I would not like to live in their heads.

I have not read the last couple in the series, which I have heard criticised as a bit too dark, so that's a pleasure I shall partake of, some time soon. If the kids had not left home, I would have of course. I may go & see the movies instead. I'll have to think about that, it's a drastic step. The last movie I actually watched was the original star wars, & I only went to see it because the theme music was so good
Posted by Hasbeen, Saturday, 16 July 2011 4:44:33 PM
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Hasbeen,

I haven't read any of the books - for some reason, I just don't enjoy Rowling's style of writing. I read a lot of fiction, but I think my mind was poisoned when I studied literature as an undergrad. If something's plain, simple, straightforward and easy to read, it seems to be a bit beyond me. I'm stuck with 'classics' and 'subversive' literature - something I'll have to rectify.

I'm sure that was all very interesting. But the point of this post is:

I have seen every movie in the series (saw the last one this evening), and thoroughly enjoyed them. Take away Rowling's writing style, and the ideas appeal to me a lot. I've enjoyed watching the Potter crew grow up, just as my own students have been growing up. At the start, I related them to my Year 8s; as it went on, I could connect with them on higher and higher levels. The last movie was a little bit of a disappointment, largely because of the gimmicky 3D effects they threw in. I saw it in 2D, but could see that the purpose of much of the cinematography and action was to add the 'wow' factor to the 3D screenings. It didn't detract from the plot or the ideas, but I did feel that they could have put a bit more effort into remaining true to the series and a bit less into the gimmicks. Still, I thoroughly recommend you go and watch it. Take yourself out to a late session (or one when the kids are all at school), and you'll enjoy a very grown-up movie that has a satisfying (if predictable) close to the series.
Posted by Otokonoko, Saturday, 16 July 2011 10:14:28 PM
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Oh, and I forgot to mention that I share your enthusiasm for Michener - he seems like an earlier Bill Bryson to me: informative, if taken with a pinch of salt, and thoroughly amusing.
Posted by Otokonoko, Saturday, 16 July 2011 10:15:28 PM
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Otokonoko, thanks for the advice, but I'll probably leave it to watch on TV. Got to justify the thing somehow.

There is so much out there that defies belief, just as much as Harry Potter. Early in my time in the islands, I sailed into a little group of islands in the northern Solomons. I found everything, [houses boats the jetty], tied together with insulated wire. The locals showed me their store.

It was the 4 million miles of telephone cable the yanks dumped there at wars end. Next to it was a pile, 100 ft diameter by 30 ft high, at the centre, of aircraft machine guns.

On another island I was shown a cave used by one of the coast watchers to hide from the Japs. This started me consuming everything I could find in the WW11 in the islands, & particularly those coast watchers

Back then there was no TV, & often not much radio reception up there, so I needed some light relief, when I spent some weeks at an atoll.

At a garage sale in Honiara I found a complete Encyclopedia Britannica. As it was difficult keeping them all accessible on a small yacht, I kept just one out. Starting at Aalto, I worked my way progressively through to Zwingli, all 19 volumes.

I think I am probably unique in having read the Britannica front to back. It took about 18 months. If the net had been available I would never have finished, as there was so much on which I wanted to do more research.

The overpowering message I got was just how many have died pursuing one persons dream of conquest.

This is why whenever I hear anyone calling for leadership my reaction is, BL00DY IDIOT, leaders get so many killed.

That's one thing I like about Harry Potter, he only leads because he can't avoid it, not because he wants to.
Posted by Hasbeen, Sunday, 17 July 2011 12:10:18 PM
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Hi Hasbeen,
Well said, what more can I say?
Noisy
Posted by Noisy Scrub Bird, Monday, 18 July 2011 7:15:18 PM
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Lessons from Harry Potter:Be friends with all kinds of people. Harry befriended the tall and the small, the kids others might call weird and even an annoying House Elf that some of us were hoping he’d leave behind after the first four minutes with him. All these friends reciprocated in more ways than just companionship. Hagrid protected Harry on numerous occasions, Dobby saved Harry’s life, Luna was instrumental in Harry discovering the penultimate Horcrux and Neville turned out to be one heck of a loyal warrior. Maybe it’s not so literal in reality, but friends can save your life. Choose wisely but don’t be stingy extending your friendship.
mobile phone jammer http://www.espow.com/jammers/security-surveillance-jammer.html
Posted by mobile phone jammer, Thursday, 28 July 2011 4:48:31 PM
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