Is Harry Potter Bad?

[sorbus]

I have a Theory that America is Terrified Yet Fascinated By European Culture
So They Disneyise The Literature So when Someone Savvy Like JK Rowling
can write in such a deceptively simple way presenting profound Ideas
Then Alarm Bells start Ringing
Mainly because She is Female
Who leads The Attack Male Christian Clerics
Yeah we are Really Suprised Not

[stoirmeil]

It's so much in proportion to the size (and the revenues) of the phenomenon. Theology and feminism pale beside that in the Harry Potter debate. Philip Pullman's "Dark Materials" trilogy (which is far better written and deeper than Harry Potter, but far, far more heretical) (and I love 'em, incidentally) has drawn a share of this kind of criticism too, but nothing like the HP kerfuffle. The plain truth is fewer people buy them. An order of magnitude or two difference. I think the real preoccupation is numbers (size of audience), which in turn translates into mega-moolah. It's morally reprehensible that this female author has taken in so much; it gnaws at the mind of people who are gnawable that way, but of course it's tacky and petty to say so, so the protest needs to be displaced onto something else. The questionable moral propriety of the books is just a large, dollar-green fig leaf.

So say I. Pass the Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. I think they just added a North Sea Gas flavor.

(There is no "tongue-in-cheekie" among the smilies. Maybe one is due to be added?)

True enough about American fascination with things euro. I think it may be some form of colonial residue.

[CelticCoalition]

I think the facination with other cultures comes from boring Puritanistic ideals this country stemmed from.

I mean, the Salem Witch Trials occurred in large part because the girls doing the accusations were bored and had, quite literally, nothing better to do.

I'll have to check out this other series you mention though. I'm always looking for something new to read.

[stoirmeil]

The three books are:

The Golden Compass (the UK edition is called "Northern Lights," I think)
The Subtle Knife
The Amber Spyglass

There's no comparison. We were wondering before, what makes this or that literature, and is Harry Potter literature?

This stuff is literature.

[sorbus]

Her Dark Materials is
More about Shamanism
and Anthropomorphism
Now this Guy
Phillip Pullman Does Have an Agenda
JK Rowling
is Being Atacked Because She is A Woman
Not Only That
But was Also A Single Parent
Abomination Upon Abomination
A True Jezabel
The Whore of Babylon Strides The Land
ROFLMAO

[Copar aBeannichte]

Why would Harry Potter go against the Bible?
The most important issue in J.K. Rowlings books is that good and pure love will conquer. And furthermore, it is fiction, not a series of books that will have the anwers to life for you. In the Bible itself there are more gruesome stories than in the Potter books and they, we should believe, did actually happen.
I personally feel that we are free people who should decide for ourselves wether these books are a bad influence or not. It all depends what we do with the world around us. Why don't we just enjoy and value our lives and the world, be open minded, learn and make the best of it . We have had so much doom and gloom thrown to us for so many ages, sometimes I feel that there are people who would prefer us to be still in the dark ages where we were told what was right and what was wrong and that we should look no further because we were ignorant anyway.

[oldraven]

Once you realise that paganism and witchcraft has absolutely nothing to do with evil or the devil, then people will see that there's nothing bad about fiction based on them. All of these perceptions that witchcraft = devil worship were created by Christians themselves, as was the term witch. They classify a religion as it would fit with their own. Obviously, anything that isn't God/Christ must be the Devil, by that reasoning. Point of view twisted fact until the faith no longer resembled its former self.

If you can open your mind a little bit to the reality of how the perceptions came about (fear, lack of knowledge, desire to gain/maintain power), questions like these should answer themselves.

And I think censorship of your children's entertainment to this extent will have a far worse effect on them than reading something a parent would find questionable. None can rebel like a pastor's kid.

[Copar aBeannichte]

Rightly said Old raven!!! Sometimes the rigid opinion of some people makes my blood boil.
Marc.