*
I am again re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - and as I began to break down in tears in a cafe (halfway through 'The Missing Mirror' chapter), and was forced to lay the book aside and stop reading or risk dissolving into a blubbering mass; I realized for the nth time that many adults are missing reading this wonderful book for the simple reason that they are either unable or unwilling to read children's books.
*
The problem is that, according to conventional wisdom, the Deathly Hallows can only be approached via the preceding six Harry Potter stories; two of which are designed for intelligent (approx) eight year olds, the next for ten year olds, two more for 12-14 year olds, and only the last two volumes of being fully adult novels.
But, despite that I enjoy reading 'children's literature' - this was in fact not how I personally approached the Harry Potter series.
*
I had seen all the early movies (which I found entertaining but not deep - because the deep stuff has been censored or edited-out); but after abortive attempts to tackle the early HP volumes, I finally read some chunks of the Half Blood Prince, due to my inability to understand the movie (becuase it incompetently missed-out key facts).
Then, my daughter got very keen on HP and began reading through the series - and in order to be able to discuss it with her, as she progressed through each volume, I read the corresponding plot summaries on Wikipedia/ Harry Potter Wiki - then I eventually read the whole of Deathly Hallows and was amazed, astonished, delighted - and extremely moved by it.
So I went back and read all the earlier stories, but not in chronological order (I have read the whole series, aloud, in chronological order since then).
Anyway, my point is that, so long as it is regarded as essential for adults to read through the Harry Potter stories from the Philosopher's Stone onwards before tackling the last books, for so long will many adults be prevented from appreciating the wonderful last book.
*
In fact, in terms of both structure and style, the Half Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows make up a unit: therefore, the solution is that they should be published together in a single mega-volume marketed to adults - and with all the necessary back story provided in the form or a Foreword or Preface, plus a few explanatory notes (probably as footnotes).
This would be ideal: but in the meantime I invite adults to plunge straight into the Half Blood Prince followed by Deathly Hallows, having read the back story on Wikipedia, the Harry Potter Wiki or somewhere similar; and looking-up any puzzling references as you go.
Because, you really don't want to miss these books - especially if you are a Christian.
*
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query harry potter deathly hallows. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query harry potter deathly hallows. Sort by date Show all posts
Thursday, 8 August 2013
Thursday, 3 February 2022
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows... re-read!
I've just finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which I have read many times before. It really is a superb novel - especially for a Christian.
The other six preceding Harry Potter novels are all good, in different ways - but there are many people who would find the Deathly Hallows a powerful, even transformative, experience - but would would find it unenjoyable to hack through the earlier (more child-orientated) HP novels to reach it.
If so - do not be put off! You could do as I did and read plot summaries (or, if you prefer, watch movies) of the earlier books and then begin straight-in on the Deathly Hallows - or else (as I did) read summaries of the first five and start with book six (Half-Blood Prince) - which is the first fully adult novel and narratively-continuous-with Deathly Hallows.
Christians who appreciate fantasy fiction should set-aside most of whatever they have heard about Harry Potter or JK Rowling, and at least have a look through Deathly Hallows.
It might be one the great experiences of your reading life, as it was for me - as it was for Jerram Barrs.
Monday, 18 July 2011
The moral message of the movie - Harry Potter Deathly Hallows part 2
*
I have been to see the newly released Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2.
I can pronounce it an excellent movie - in particular the middle section from the death of Snape, which packed as powerful an emotional punch as any movie I have seen.
At any rate I was reduced to a blubbing wreck by it for a continuous period of some 20 minutes; which hasn't happened to me with many films, and none before quite so much as this one.
*
As I had predicted, this last part of the series continued to delete almost all of the the deepest moral and spiritual theme of the books - which, as I discussed recently, are concerned with the soul:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/07/soul-in-harry-potter-and-deathly.html
*
However, this leaves open the question of what is the deepest moral message of the movie, and by implication of the whole series of movies. What was it that moved me so?
The deepest theme of the movies, in my opinion, is the validity and importance of steadfast, unrequited, disinterested, sacrificial Love.
*
This theme gets a double emphasis from the stories of two major characters of Harry and Snape.
Harry is motivated explicitly and throughout by love for his dead parents, who died when he was a small baby, and of whom he has (initially) no memories. Ultimately, this love leads him to allow himself to be killed by Voldemort. He allows himself to be sacrificed for love.
Snape, we discover towards the end of the last book, was motivated covertly and throughout by love for Harry's dead mother Lily; a love which was unrequited (except, partially, during their childhood) - and for which he endures much fear, horror, hazard and suffering until he is finally killed by Voldemort. His whole life, since the death of Lily, has indeed been a sacrifice, a martyrdom, for love.
*
Harry and Snape's greatest love is for the dead, indeed the focus of their love overlaps; and this love is not actively reciprocal.
Since Harry's parents are dead and 'therefore', so far as he is aware until near the end, the love is unilateral; Snape's love was explicitly unilateral since Lily repudiated him. Yet both Harry and Snape both voluntarily acquiesce to death for this love.
What can this mean?
*
In a modern, worldly secular morality, unrequited love, love for the dead, suffering unto death, martyrdom are all behaviours generally regarded either pathetic, stupid or pathological.
Harry and Snape would therefore be regarded (from a modern and this-wordly perspective) as losers, creeps or nutters.
Yet, clearly this is not the case in the world of the movies (and even less so for the books): which implies that Harry and Snape's love is not worldly, but transcendental.
The implicit validity of Harry and Snape's love is implicitly pointing-offstage at some transcendental, presumably divine, source of validation - whereby disinterested and sacrificial love is worthy and admirable.
*
Also, implicitly, is lurking the idea that Harry's and Snape's whole lives are made not just purposeful but also meaningful (that is to say their lives are redeemed) by their love (this unrequited love); and therefore that the love of specific persons can be a proxy for the love of God (since how else could their love be a saving love?).
The redemptive nature of sacrificial love is particularly obvious in the case of Snape who is a mostly-wicked man redeemed by only two virtues - Courage in pursuit of Love: but these virtues are enough.
*
So, even the Harry Potter movies - which have substantially deleted the deepest (and Christian) stratum of the Harry Potter books - are predicated on a vision of human life and behaviour in terms of unconditional love -- a perspective that is (to say the least) unfashionable; and would indeed be regarded by mainstream modern morality as at best incomprehensible, more likely pitiful, and at worst frankly deluded.
*
Note: In the movies especially, the workings of disinterested sacrificial love are much more obvious and focused for Snape than for Harry (Harry has several other motives for his self-sacrifice, many of them straightforward and mainstream; such as helping his friends, appeasing Voldemort, trying to prevent suffering etc.) - and I suspect that this clarity and singleness of motivation accounts for much of the widespread fascination with the character of Snape.
*
I have been to see the newly released Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2.
I can pronounce it an excellent movie - in particular the middle section from the death of Snape, which packed as powerful an emotional punch as any movie I have seen.
At any rate I was reduced to a blubbing wreck by it for a continuous period of some 20 minutes; which hasn't happened to me with many films, and none before quite so much as this one.
*
As I had predicted, this last part of the series continued to delete almost all of the the deepest moral and spiritual theme of the books - which, as I discussed recently, are concerned with the soul:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/07/soul-in-harry-potter-and-deathly.html
*
However, this leaves open the question of what is the deepest moral message of the movie, and by implication of the whole series of movies. What was it that moved me so?
The deepest theme of the movies, in my opinion, is the validity and importance of steadfast, unrequited, disinterested, sacrificial Love.
*
This theme gets a double emphasis from the stories of two major characters of Harry and Snape.
Harry is motivated explicitly and throughout by love for his dead parents, who died when he was a small baby, and of whom he has (initially) no memories. Ultimately, this love leads him to allow himself to be killed by Voldemort. He allows himself to be sacrificed for love.
Snape, we discover towards the end of the last book, was motivated covertly and throughout by love for Harry's dead mother Lily; a love which was unrequited (except, partially, during their childhood) - and for which he endures much fear, horror, hazard and suffering until he is finally killed by Voldemort. His whole life, since the death of Lily, has indeed been a sacrifice, a martyrdom, for love.
*
Harry and Snape's greatest love is for the dead, indeed the focus of their love overlaps; and this love is not actively reciprocal.
Since Harry's parents are dead and 'therefore', so far as he is aware until near the end, the love is unilateral; Snape's love was explicitly unilateral since Lily repudiated him. Yet both Harry and Snape both voluntarily acquiesce to death for this love.
What can this mean?
*
In a modern, worldly secular morality, unrequited love, love for the dead, suffering unto death, martyrdom are all behaviours generally regarded either pathetic, stupid or pathological.
Harry and Snape would therefore be regarded (from a modern and this-wordly perspective) as losers, creeps or nutters.
Yet, clearly this is not the case in the world of the movies (and even less so for the books): which implies that Harry and Snape's love is not worldly, but transcendental.
The implicit validity of Harry and Snape's love is implicitly pointing-offstage at some transcendental, presumably divine, source of validation - whereby disinterested and sacrificial love is worthy and admirable.
*
Also, implicitly, is lurking the idea that Harry's and Snape's whole lives are made not just purposeful but also meaningful (that is to say their lives are redeemed) by their love (this unrequited love); and therefore that the love of specific persons can be a proxy for the love of God (since how else could their love be a saving love?).
The redemptive nature of sacrificial love is particularly obvious in the case of Snape who is a mostly-wicked man redeemed by only two virtues - Courage in pursuit of Love: but these virtues are enough.
*
So, even the Harry Potter movies - which have substantially deleted the deepest (and Christian) stratum of the Harry Potter books - are predicated on a vision of human life and behaviour in terms of unconditional love -- a perspective that is (to say the least) unfashionable; and would indeed be regarded by mainstream modern morality as at best incomprehensible, more likely pitiful, and at worst frankly deluded.
*
Note: In the movies especially, the workings of disinterested sacrificial love are much more obvious and focused for Snape than for Harry (Harry has several other motives for his self-sacrifice, many of them straightforward and mainstream; such as helping his friends, appeasing Voldemort, trying to prevent suffering etc.) - and I suspect that this clarity and singleness of motivation accounts for much of the widespread fascination with the character of Snape.
*
Monday, 7 February 2011
The soul and prophecies in Harry Potter
*
I have been, very belatedly, hooked by the Harry Potter series; which initially I was indifferent-to, or mildly hostile about.
It required that I read the end of the series (to 'get' what the books were doing) and then went back and read the earlier books (albeit in some peculiar order, which I cannot now recall).
Now I am very taken with them, and regard them as genuinely inspired (whereas, previously, I saw them as merely ingeniously contrived - the product of a magpie bricolateur, rather than of a wise and farseeing owl - as I now think).
*
The most stunning, and heartening, thing about the series is their moral seriousness underpinned by a transcendental perspective: which is pretty much exactly what the modern world requires.
The Harry Potter books provide a rich Christian perspective - but not too rich nor too obvious (indeed, not-at-all obvious - there is their strength); they provide about as much as our deeply corrupt and barren modern world can reasonably digest.
Much more, and the books would have been merely a cult. As it is, there is a great deal in HP, and it has gone out to tens (or, more likely, hundreds) of millions of people - and the books have not merely been read-through, but devoured, multi-read, and assimilated.
Remarkable.
*
The first and most vital thing is that the Harry Potter series is predicated on the reality of the immortal soul.
The reality of the soul is not argued; it is accepted: as indeed it must be.
It is there; indispensable and woven through the whole story: Death is real, necessary and irreversible; yet the soul is eternal.
And the soul is regarded as being a person's primary concern; susceptible of change as a result of choices.
(And free will is foundational, assumed, intrinsic to the series as well, as it must be.)
The soul can be maimed and diminished, irreversibly, by choices during life - as we discover from Harry's sight of Voldemort's maimed and diminished soul in the King's Cross chapter of Deathly Hallows.
Such damage cannot be undone after death.
That is what I mean by moral seriousness.
How many other works of late twentieth century mainstream literature can compare with this? I can't think of any at all.
*
The second aspect is prophecy.
We moderns have a big, big problem with the reality of prophecy - which I take it is a self-made and artificial problem, because earlier generations did not share it.
That there were real prophecies was a given: the problems related to discerning the real prophets and prophecies from the fake; and understanding the real prophecies, and recognizing when they were being, or had been, fulfilled.
But the reality of the phenomenon of prophecy was not in question.
*
In relation to Harry Potter the explicit explanation of prophecy (both from Dumbledore, and by JKR) is psychological - prophecies are real because (and only because) people believe them, and make them come true.
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/11/19/new-interview-with-j-k-rowling-for-release-of-dutch-edition-of-deathly-hallows
But as pointed out in this insightful blog posting...
http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2008/08/prophecy-potter.html
...this is not quite right, since Dumbledore clearly recognizes when Professor Trelawney is making a real prophecy (only twice, when she goes into an altered state of consciousness and is apparently unaware of what she is saying and does not recall it), and when she is just consciously making-up stuff.
*
My feeling is that these are moments when JKR is pointing off-stage, beyond the world of HP, since true prophecy is supernaturally inspired (and is beyond the capability of 'magic'); ultimately true prophecy would imply God.
(Prophecy implies God even when a specific prophecy might well be 'demonic' - indeed it might well be that most true prophecies were indeed demonic - because the existence of demons is predicated on the existence of God)
Rowling must have known, or been inspired to act on the basis, that she could not bring God explicitly into Harry Potter, or else her book would have been restricted to a Christian genre and a Christian sub-culture.
The Harry Potter novels are therefore compatible with a Christian perspective, subtly point to that perspective, but in an entirely optional and 'deniable' fashion.
You don't need to acknowledge the presence of Christian underpinnings; but they are there if you notice them, want them, or need them.
*
As CS Lewis recognized after publishing That Hideous Strength and Perelandra, it is one advantage for the Christian apologist in our secular public discourse that almost any amount of theology can be 'smuggled' into fantasy novels without being detected, but still having an effect - so long as it is not explicitly labelled as such.
*
Given the sheer scale of their sales, and the obvious devotion of their readership (and no book can have much real influence on people unless it inspires multiple re-readings - which the series clearly does) - I would have to regard the Harry Potter books as one of the most hopeful and potentially fruitful recent phenomena of the Western world.
*
I have been, very belatedly, hooked by the Harry Potter series; which initially I was indifferent-to, or mildly hostile about.
It required that I read the end of the series (to 'get' what the books were doing) and then went back and read the earlier books (albeit in some peculiar order, which I cannot now recall).
Now I am very taken with them, and regard them as genuinely inspired (whereas, previously, I saw them as merely ingeniously contrived - the product of a magpie bricolateur, rather than of a wise and farseeing owl - as I now think).
*
The most stunning, and heartening, thing about the series is their moral seriousness underpinned by a transcendental perspective: which is pretty much exactly what the modern world requires.
The Harry Potter books provide a rich Christian perspective - but not too rich nor too obvious (indeed, not-at-all obvious - there is their strength); they provide about as much as our deeply corrupt and barren modern world can reasonably digest.
Much more, and the books would have been merely a cult. As it is, there is a great deal in HP, and it has gone out to tens (or, more likely, hundreds) of millions of people - and the books have not merely been read-through, but devoured, multi-read, and assimilated.
Remarkable.
*
The first and most vital thing is that the Harry Potter series is predicated on the reality of the immortal soul.
The reality of the soul is not argued; it is accepted: as indeed it must be.
It is there; indispensable and woven through the whole story: Death is real, necessary and irreversible; yet the soul is eternal.
And the soul is regarded as being a person's primary concern; susceptible of change as a result of choices.
(And free will is foundational, assumed, intrinsic to the series as well, as it must be.)
The soul can be maimed and diminished, irreversibly, by choices during life - as we discover from Harry's sight of Voldemort's maimed and diminished soul in the King's Cross chapter of Deathly Hallows.
Such damage cannot be undone after death.
That is what I mean by moral seriousness.
How many other works of late twentieth century mainstream literature can compare with this? I can't think of any at all.
*
The second aspect is prophecy.
We moderns have a big, big problem with the reality of prophecy - which I take it is a self-made and artificial problem, because earlier generations did not share it.
That there were real prophecies was a given: the problems related to discerning the real prophets and prophecies from the fake; and understanding the real prophecies, and recognizing when they were being, or had been, fulfilled.
But the reality of the phenomenon of prophecy was not in question.
*
In relation to Harry Potter the explicit explanation of prophecy (both from Dumbledore, and by JKR) is psychological - prophecies are real because (and only because) people believe them, and make them come true.
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/11/19/new-interview-with-j-k-rowling-for-release-of-dutch-edition-of-deathly-hallows
But as pointed out in this insightful blog posting...
http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2008/08/prophecy-potter.html
...this is not quite right, since Dumbledore clearly recognizes when Professor Trelawney is making a real prophecy (only twice, when she goes into an altered state of consciousness and is apparently unaware of what she is saying and does not recall it), and when she is just consciously making-up stuff.
*
My feeling is that these are moments when JKR is pointing off-stage, beyond the world of HP, since true prophecy is supernaturally inspired (and is beyond the capability of 'magic'); ultimately true prophecy would imply God.
(Prophecy implies God even when a specific prophecy might well be 'demonic' - indeed it might well be that most true prophecies were indeed demonic - because the existence of demons is predicated on the existence of God)
Rowling must have known, or been inspired to act on the basis, that she could not bring God explicitly into Harry Potter, or else her book would have been restricted to a Christian genre and a Christian sub-culture.
The Harry Potter novels are therefore compatible with a Christian perspective, subtly point to that perspective, but in an entirely optional and 'deniable' fashion.
You don't need to acknowledge the presence of Christian underpinnings; but they are there if you notice them, want them, or need them.
*
As CS Lewis recognized after publishing That Hideous Strength and Perelandra, it is one advantage for the Christian apologist in our secular public discourse that almost any amount of theology can be 'smuggled' into fantasy novels without being detected, but still having an effect - so long as it is not explicitly labelled as such.
*
Given the sheer scale of their sales, and the obvious devotion of their readership (and no book can have much real influence on people unless it inspires multiple re-readings - which the series clearly does) - I would have to regard the Harry Potter books as one of the most hopeful and potentially fruitful recent phenomena of the Western world.
*
Saturday, 31 March 2012
Why is Harry Potter so focused on his dead parents?
*
Before I understood the deep (and Christian) level of the Harry Potter novels, in other words before reading the Deathly Hallows, I found his relentless focus on his dead parents either unconvincing or pathological.
After all, his parents were killed while he was a baby, and Harry had no memory of them (until the memories were re-awakened by various magical means - such as the Dementors - later in the series).
*
The surface (sentimental?) explanation for Harry's growing fixation on his dead parents (exemplified by the Mirror of Erised episode in Volume 1) is that his adopted parents (the Dursley's) are horrible people who are deliberately mean to him.
But this explanation 'merely' implies the self-interested idea that Harry thinks he would have been more kindly and generously treated by his natural parents. This is almost certainly true, but not enough to bear the moral weight of a seven volume series.
If Harry's strong feelings about his dead parents really was based on the comparative nastiness of the Dursley's, then it would be, at bottom, 'merely' a desire for comfort and pleasure on Harry's part; which, while understandable (don't we all share it?) is not exactly admirable.
*
A deeper, but as it turns-out incorrect, explanation is that Harry has a kind of pathological, fantasy fixation on his dead parents - presumably as a consequence of having been-lied-to about them, or as a projection onto them of unrealistic levels of perfection.
There series of novels would then be seen as a progress away from over-idealised imagination towards a real understanding of his parents.
This would make the Harry Potter saga into a psychodrama of personal growth. But Harry is the hero, and it does not make sense for him to be motivated by something that is so purely personal. A hero saves his community - not only himself, and Harry's feelings for his dead parents are bound up with this.
*
The deeper picture which emerges over the course of the whole saga is that there are strong elements of destiny and heredity at work.
Harry begins by identifying with his father - for his exploits in Quiddich, his magical skill and as a dominant 'gang leader'; but ends by recognising that his father was also a spiteful bully and that the best in Harry comes from his mother: specifically his mother's exceptionally loving nature which has both affected Harry and been inherited by him.
This is symbolised by the fact that Harry looks almost identical to his father, except that he has his mother's eyes (and therefore, it implied, soul).
The people who best understand Harry (e.g. Dumbledore, Lupin and Snape just as he dies) recognise that Harry is 'his mother's son', but the people who misunderstand Harry (e.g. Snape until he dies, and Sirius) see Harry almost as a reincarnation of his father.
*
The stunning revelations of Deathly Hallows (prefigured in the graveyard at the end of Goblet) include that Harry's dead parents are not dead, gone and extinguished, but continue to live another existence 'beyond the veil' - aware of Harry, with some possibility of communication, and even able to provide some kind of support to him.
The deep metaphysical, and Christian, message of the Harry Potter series is that love has permanent effects: love affects everything and everybody forever.
Love may be overcome by evil, but is never destroyed by it.
*
Before I understood the deep (and Christian) level of the Harry Potter novels, in other words before reading the Deathly Hallows, I found his relentless focus on his dead parents either unconvincing or pathological.
After all, his parents were killed while he was a baby, and Harry had no memory of them (until the memories were re-awakened by various magical means - such as the Dementors - later in the series).
*
The surface (sentimental?) explanation for Harry's growing fixation on his dead parents (exemplified by the Mirror of Erised episode in Volume 1) is that his adopted parents (the Dursley's) are horrible people who are deliberately mean to him.
But this explanation 'merely' implies the self-interested idea that Harry thinks he would have been more kindly and generously treated by his natural parents. This is almost certainly true, but not enough to bear the moral weight of a seven volume series.
If Harry's strong feelings about his dead parents really was based on the comparative nastiness of the Dursley's, then it would be, at bottom, 'merely' a desire for comfort and pleasure on Harry's part; which, while understandable (don't we all share it?) is not exactly admirable.
*
A deeper, but as it turns-out incorrect, explanation is that Harry has a kind of pathological, fantasy fixation on his dead parents - presumably as a consequence of having been-lied-to about them, or as a projection onto them of unrealistic levels of perfection.
There series of novels would then be seen as a progress away from over-idealised imagination towards a real understanding of his parents.
This would make the Harry Potter saga into a psychodrama of personal growth. But Harry is the hero, and it does not make sense for him to be motivated by something that is so purely personal. A hero saves his community - not only himself, and Harry's feelings for his dead parents are bound up with this.
*
The deeper picture which emerges over the course of the whole saga is that there are strong elements of destiny and heredity at work.
Harry begins by identifying with his father - for his exploits in Quiddich, his magical skill and as a dominant 'gang leader'; but ends by recognising that his father was also a spiteful bully and that the best in Harry comes from his mother: specifically his mother's exceptionally loving nature which has both affected Harry and been inherited by him.
This is symbolised by the fact that Harry looks almost identical to his father, except that he has his mother's eyes (and therefore, it implied, soul).
The people who best understand Harry (e.g. Dumbledore, Lupin and Snape just as he dies) recognise that Harry is 'his mother's son', but the people who misunderstand Harry (e.g. Snape until he dies, and Sirius) see Harry almost as a reincarnation of his father.
*
The stunning revelations of Deathly Hallows (prefigured in the graveyard at the end of Goblet) include that Harry's dead parents are not dead, gone and extinguished, but continue to live another existence 'beyond the veil' - aware of Harry, with some possibility of communication, and even able to provide some kind of support to him.
The deep metaphysical, and Christian, message of the Harry Potter series is that love has permanent effects: love affects everything and everybody forever.
Love may be overcome by evil, but is never destroyed by it.
*
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Deathly Hallows Part II movie - What is the moral? - Part II
*
I re-watched the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II last week - which confirmed my early view
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/07/moral-message-of-harry-potter-at.html
(i.e. Flawed, but more importantly contains perhaps the most moving sequence of scenes I have ever seen in any movie - viz from the death of Snape up to include Harry's own death and the King's Cross limbo scene.)
*
The HP franchise movie's most serious weakness is their deletion of the deepest, and Christian, moral or message from the books.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/07/soul-in-harry-potter-and-deathly.html
This leaves the movies somewhat incoherent, and lacking in profundity.
*
But watching this time I noticed some attempt to replace the Christian core with a modern secular moral.
This moral is a version of the idea that - while there is no real immortality - and nothing truly survives death, the dead continue to 'live' in the minds' or hearts, of those who loved them.
(Yes, I know that this is nothing more than a play on words, but it is what passes for high minded and inspiring spirituality nowadays.)
*
There seem to be two key moments when this morality is given quite explicitly, and where the text of the novel has been changed.
In the chapter The Forest Again, Harry finds the resurrection stone inside the golden snitch left him by Dumbledore, and recalls from the dead ghostly - but real - images of his parents, Lupin and Sirius, who will accompany him through the forest repelling the dementors.
Harry asks Sirius, "won't they be able to see you?" and in the book Sirius replies no - "we are part of you, invisible to anyone else".
But in the movie, Sirius is given the line: "No, we're here you see" - and on the word 'here' he points a finger at Harry's heart.
*
In the book, Neville runs forward and tries to attack Voldemort and Nagini, and because he is a 'pure blooded' wizard is is asked to join the Death Eaters.
In the book, Neville replies "I'll join you when hell freezes over... Dumbledore's Army!"
In the movie Neville is given a set-piece speech (which made me cringe) in which he delivers what I felt was intended to be the moral:
"Yeah, we lost Harry tonight (pause) But he's still with us - in here!" Pointing to his own heart on the word 'here'.
*
My interpretation of these added and visually/ verbally linked scenes in the movie, is that they were an attempt to provide a secular and non-denominational equivalent for the excised Christian morality - and they were about as effective and convincing as such attempts always are - which is to say, hardly at all...
*
I re-watched the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II last week - which confirmed my early view
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/07/moral-message-of-harry-potter-at.html
(i.e. Flawed, but more importantly contains perhaps the most moving sequence of scenes I have ever seen in any movie - viz from the death of Snape up to include Harry's own death and the King's Cross limbo scene.)
*
The HP franchise movie's most serious weakness is their deletion of the deepest, and Christian, moral or message from the books.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/07/soul-in-harry-potter-and-deathly.html
This leaves the movies somewhat incoherent, and lacking in profundity.
*
But watching this time I noticed some attempt to replace the Christian core with a modern secular moral.
This moral is a version of the idea that - while there is no real immortality - and nothing truly survives death, the dead continue to 'live' in the minds' or hearts, of those who loved them.
(Yes, I know that this is nothing more than a play on words, but it is what passes for high minded and inspiring spirituality nowadays.)
*
There seem to be two key moments when this morality is given quite explicitly, and where the text of the novel has been changed.
In the chapter The Forest Again, Harry finds the resurrection stone inside the golden snitch left him by Dumbledore, and recalls from the dead ghostly - but real - images of his parents, Lupin and Sirius, who will accompany him through the forest repelling the dementors.
Harry asks Sirius, "won't they be able to see you?" and in the book Sirius replies no - "we are part of you, invisible to anyone else".
But in the movie, Sirius is given the line: "No, we're here you see" - and on the word 'here' he points a finger at Harry's heart.
*
In the book, Neville runs forward and tries to attack Voldemort and Nagini, and because he is a 'pure blooded' wizard is is asked to join the Death Eaters.
In the book, Neville replies "I'll join you when hell freezes over... Dumbledore's Army!"
In the movie Neville is given a set-piece speech (which made me cringe) in which he delivers what I felt was intended to be the moral:
"Yeah, we lost Harry tonight (pause) But he's still with us - in here!" Pointing to his own heart on the word 'here'.
*
My interpretation of these added and visually/ verbally linked scenes in the movie, is that they were an attempt to provide a secular and non-denominational equivalent for the excised Christian morality - and they were about as effective and convincing as such attempts always are - which is to say, hardly at all...
*
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Harry Potter is a Saint - literally
*
Is Harry Potter a Saint?
The answer is a clear and resounding yes!
By the end of The Deathly Hallows, Harry is indeed a Saint - indeed the seven book series is an account of the making of a Saint who can save the world from the personification of evil.
*
Of course Harry does not start out as a Saint when we first meet him as a 10 year old boy - but following his numerous trials and tests, symbolic deaths and rebirths, and actual death and restoration to life, by the last pages of the last book Harry really has become a Saint:
*
In saying that HP is a Saint I am aware I appear to be contradicting both JK Rowling and John Granger (aka The Hogwarts Professor), both of who have categorically stated that Harry is 'no saint'.
Who am I to go against the author and the premier Potter Scholar?
My understanding is that JKR and JG would not disagree with my explanation of why Harry becomes a Saint, but in saying HP is 'no saint' they were trying not to be misunderstood by the average reader - because the average reader profoundly misunderstands what is a Saint.
*
JKR and JG are also probably trying to be clear that for most of the series Harry is not a Saint, indeed nothing like a Saint.
But that applies to many real Saints too - for much of their lives they were not Saints.
*
The corrupt and secular (legalistic) mainstream modern definition of a Saint is (roughly) a person without flaws, who never does anything wrong.
But by this kind of 'zero-tolerance' definition - not only is Harry no saint, but nor was any real-life saint a real Saint. All real Saints were fallen humans (except perhaps the Blessed Virgin Mary, according to recent Roman Catholic doctrine), lived in this world, and had flaws when their lives as a whole are surveyed.
(Except that some Saints probably did achieve a 'flawless' perfection after long struggle and shortly before death.)
*
In what follows, I hope I am simply sticking somewhat closer to the idea of a Saint being someone who, while still living on earth, has their deepest being turned-toward God, their soul in communion with God (feet on earth, head in heaven).
*
Real life Saints are a result of a long process of 'theosis', sanctification, of purification - this is what is happening to Harry in the first six and three quarter books.
Harry is tried, again and again, and comes through these trials a better and braver man: indeed, by the end he is the best and the bravest (as Dumbledore tells him in King's Cross).
Then Harry accepts death in a spirit of loving self-sacrifice, is killed and chooses to return to life.
Thus he becomes a martyr-Saint - which (sadly) is the most abundant type of Christian Saint: but unlike most martyr-Saints, Harry is restored to life to intervene in the world, to save the world.
*
(Harry is not 'resurrected', which would suggest a new and perfected body - but Harry's soul, having vacated the body and been endowed with greater wisdom and sanctity, then returns to and reanimates his briefly-dead body.)
*
Harry's loving self-sacrifice renders immune to the enemy not just himself but all his loved friends, all the good forces defending Hogwarts - after Harry returns to life, from that point onwards nobody among the defenders of the castle is killed, nobody is injured nor even hit by a curse.
This means that Harry is a miracle-working Saint - a wonderworker.
*
Harry returns from death by martyrdom as a wonderworking Saint, a saviour and messenger.
Only a great Saint could save the world from Voldemort - who has become, by his choices, not so much a human but more a kind of demonic servant of (implicitly) Satan.
(Satan is, of course - but implicitly, the source of Voldemort's extraordinary powers, the source of all 'Dark magic'; although Voldemort himself does not realise it, since Voldemort's pride is such that he will not acknowledge any other will, but claims everything to himself.)
*
'Saviour' because Harry's self-sacrifice enables him to save the world from Satan's emissary Voldemort; returning from death Harry immediately realises that is now immune to the Cruciatus curse (cough cough - symbolism alert).
Harry is given power (uniquely, nobody else could do it) to kill the un-dead Voldemort - but pauses in order to offer him a chance for remorse/ repentance.
Voldemort cannot even comprehend the offer.
And it is through his invincible pride in persisting in trying to kill the invulnerable Harry that Voldemort kills himself with his own rebounding death curse.
A beautiful, deep parable.
*
(Harry knows, because he has seen Voldemort's soul and because Dumbledore has told him, that Voldemort almost certainly cannot be helped. Humans can always repent, but Voldemort - with his multiply-fragmented soul - is hardly human, almost a demon. (And for various theological reasons, fallen angels/ demons cannot repent). Why then does Harry try to bring Voldemort to feel 'remorse'? I think it is 'just in case'. Since Voldemort is an unique kind of maimed being, Harry is not sure of what he is capable. Harry knows (from Dumbledore in King's Cross) that Voldemort cannot be saved by another person's will. Repentance cannot be done by others. So Harry offers Voldemort a final choice to repent and 'save' his remaining fragment of soul (although it is unclear what that might mean) - because Harry cannot be sure that such a choice is impossible to Voldemort.)
*
Harry is a 'messenger' because he has learned about ultimate reality - beyond death - from Dumbledore in the King's Cross chapter; Dumbledore himself has become a prophetic messenger from the other side.
When restored to life, Harry brings this divine revelation back to earth for the benefit of the world.
This is typical of great Saints - they are divine messengers and intermediaries; explaining, clarifying, amplifying revelation.
Indeed, only Saints can really understand Christian teaching. So far as we know, by the end of the series, only Harry, in the whole world, can really understand the nature of the world.
Harry thus takes over the role of 'Spiritual Father to the wizard world' from Dumbledore, but as a greater - because better, albeit less magically powerful - man than Dumbledore.
*
So, I would say that, at a deep and mostly implicit level, the Harry Potter series is precisely about 'the making of a Saint'.
And is not that a remarkable and wonderful thing?
That the best-selling and most widely-read book series of recent decades (in some respects, of all time), this in a modern world apparently without any living Saints, should ultimately be about the making of a Saint?
*
Note: the above analysis is built-upon the work of John Granger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Granger
And his vastly-documented insight that the Harry Potter series is, without any doubt, an essentially Christian work: both by intent and in achievement.
*
Is Harry Potter a Saint?
The answer is a clear and resounding yes!
By the end of The Deathly Hallows, Harry is indeed a Saint - indeed the seven book series is an account of the making of a Saint who can save the world from the personification of evil.
*
Of course Harry does not start out as a Saint when we first meet him as a 10 year old boy - but following his numerous trials and tests, symbolic deaths and rebirths, and actual death and restoration to life, by the last pages of the last book Harry really has become a Saint:
*
In saying that HP is a Saint I am aware I appear to be contradicting both JK Rowling and John Granger (aka The Hogwarts Professor), both of who have categorically stated that Harry is 'no saint'.
Who am I to go against the author and the premier Potter Scholar?
My understanding is that JKR and JG would not disagree with my explanation of why Harry becomes a Saint, but in saying HP is 'no saint' they were trying not to be misunderstood by the average reader - because the average reader profoundly misunderstands what is a Saint.
*
JKR and JG are also probably trying to be clear that for most of the series Harry is not a Saint, indeed nothing like a Saint.
But that applies to many real Saints too - for much of their lives they were not Saints.
*
The corrupt and secular (legalistic) mainstream modern definition of a Saint is (roughly) a person without flaws, who never does anything wrong.
But by this kind of 'zero-tolerance' definition - not only is Harry no saint, but nor was any real-life saint a real Saint. All real Saints were fallen humans (except perhaps the Blessed Virgin Mary, according to recent Roman Catholic doctrine), lived in this world, and had flaws when their lives as a whole are surveyed.
(Except that some Saints probably did achieve a 'flawless' perfection after long struggle and shortly before death.)
*
In what follows, I hope I am simply sticking somewhat closer to the idea of a Saint being someone who, while still living on earth, has their deepest being turned-toward God, their soul in communion with God (feet on earth, head in heaven).
*
Real life Saints are a result of a long process of 'theosis', sanctification, of purification - this is what is happening to Harry in the first six and three quarter books.
Harry is tried, again and again, and comes through these trials a better and braver man: indeed, by the end he is the best and the bravest (as Dumbledore tells him in King's Cross).
Then Harry accepts death in a spirit of loving self-sacrifice, is killed and chooses to return to life.
Thus he becomes a martyr-Saint - which (sadly) is the most abundant type of Christian Saint: but unlike most martyr-Saints, Harry is restored to life to intervene in the world, to save the world.
*
(Harry is not 'resurrected', which would suggest a new and perfected body - but Harry's soul, having vacated the body and been endowed with greater wisdom and sanctity, then returns to and reanimates his briefly-dead body.)
*
Harry's loving self-sacrifice renders immune to the enemy not just himself but all his loved friends, all the good forces defending Hogwarts - after Harry returns to life, from that point onwards nobody among the defenders of the castle is killed, nobody is injured nor even hit by a curse.
This means that Harry is a miracle-working Saint - a wonderworker.
*
Harry returns from death by martyrdom as a wonderworking Saint, a saviour and messenger.
Only a great Saint could save the world from Voldemort - who has become, by his choices, not so much a human but more a kind of demonic servant of (implicitly) Satan.
(Satan is, of course - but implicitly, the source of Voldemort's extraordinary powers, the source of all 'Dark magic'; although Voldemort himself does not realise it, since Voldemort's pride is such that he will not acknowledge any other will, but claims everything to himself.)
*
'Saviour' because Harry's self-sacrifice enables him to save the world from Satan's emissary Voldemort; returning from death Harry immediately realises that is now immune to the Cruciatus curse (cough cough - symbolism alert).
Harry is given power (uniquely, nobody else could do it) to kill the un-dead Voldemort - but pauses in order to offer him a chance for remorse/ repentance.
Voldemort cannot even comprehend the offer.
And it is through his invincible pride in persisting in trying to kill the invulnerable Harry that Voldemort kills himself with his own rebounding death curse.
A beautiful, deep parable.
*
(Harry knows, because he has seen Voldemort's soul and because Dumbledore has told him, that Voldemort almost certainly cannot be helped. Humans can always repent, but Voldemort - with his multiply-fragmented soul - is hardly human, almost a demon. (And for various theological reasons, fallen angels/ demons cannot repent). Why then does Harry try to bring Voldemort to feel 'remorse'? I think it is 'just in case'. Since Voldemort is an unique kind of maimed being, Harry is not sure of what he is capable. Harry knows (from Dumbledore in King's Cross) that Voldemort cannot be saved by another person's will. Repentance cannot be done by others. So Harry offers Voldemort a final choice to repent and 'save' his remaining fragment of soul (although it is unclear what that might mean) - because Harry cannot be sure that such a choice is impossible to Voldemort.)
*
Harry is a 'messenger' because he has learned about ultimate reality - beyond death - from Dumbledore in the King's Cross chapter; Dumbledore himself has become a prophetic messenger from the other side.
When restored to life, Harry brings this divine revelation back to earth for the benefit of the world.
This is typical of great Saints - they are divine messengers and intermediaries; explaining, clarifying, amplifying revelation.
Indeed, only Saints can really understand Christian teaching. So far as we know, by the end of the series, only Harry, in the whole world, can really understand the nature of the world.
Harry thus takes over the role of 'Spiritual Father to the wizard world' from Dumbledore, but as a greater - because better, albeit less magically powerful - man than Dumbledore.
*
So, I would say that, at a deep and mostly implicit level, the Harry Potter series is precisely about 'the making of a Saint'.
And is not that a remarkable and wonderful thing?
That the best-selling and most widely-read book series of recent decades (in some respects, of all time), this in a modern world apparently without any living Saints, should ultimately be about the making of a Saint?
*
Note: the above analysis is built-upon the work of John Granger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Granger
And his vastly-documented insight that the Harry Potter series is, without any doubt, an essentially Christian work: both by intent and in achievement.
*
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Harry Potter, Co-inherence, and Substituted Love
*
I am actively reading both Charles Williams (the Inkling) and JK Rowling's Harry Potter chronicles - including John Granger's superb 'How Harry cast his Spell'...
when I suddenly realised that Rowling's book, across the whole series, is about the best possible illustration of C.W's distinctive ideas of co-inherence, substitution (including substituted love) and exchange.
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2012/01/understanding-charles-williams-co.html
*
It was the following passage, from the end of the first book of the series Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - Dumbledore is speaking to Harry:
Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing that Voldemort cannot understand, it is love.
He didn't realize that love as powerful as you mother's for you leaves its own mark.
Not a scar, no visible sign...
to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever: It is in your very skin.
*
This is pure Charles Williams! Not that I think it derives directly from Charles Williams - rather it indicates that JK Rowling has independently worked-out the same implications as did C.W. - implications which are orthodoxly, traditionally Christian yet somehow neglected or de-emphasised.
*
He saved others: himself he cannot save - this was said of Christ, indicating the reality of co-inherence - and the same could be said of Harry Potter.
Throughout the book he is saved from death, again and again, by the love of others - especially by sacrificial love, up to and including acceptance of death for love - such love as a kind of real but immaterial and permanent protection... It is operative even when (as in most instances) 'the person who loved us is gone'.
*
And in the end, in The Deathly Hallows, Harry demonstrates that as we are saved by the love of others; so it is our task to save - not ourselves but others.
Harry sacrifices himself (allows Vodlemort to kill him) from love of others; and the effect of this act of sacrificial love is seen immediately because after Harrys death and rebirth the pupils, Professors, parents and friends of Hogwarts are rendered immune to the curses and magic of Voldemort and the Death Eaters - there are no more casualties from the Good side in the battle.
So, because of the effects of Harry's invisible love, the evil cannot (for a while, anyway) harm good.
*
Yet all this happens without the Hogwarts defenders or the death eaters being aware of it - only Harry (and Dumbledore) know what has happened.
*
So this is love that is real (not a psychological trick, not effective because people believe it is effective - but effective even without awareness) love as a real 'substance', but immaterial...
Rowling's is a description of love that is totally in contradiction to the mainstream one in our society - where love is seen as a type of pleasure; something wholly subjective, one-way and temporary.
For moderns, A loves B, and the love is something happening in A's brain. When the brain state changes, or the brain dies, then love dies and leaves nothing behind - unless it has influenced another brain state, which is equally evanescent.
Indeed the modern cliche idea is that love is a short term brainstorm, maybe pleasurable or maybe miserable - but inevitably disappearing like snow in sunshine to leave no trace. Unrequited or one-way love is seen as pathetic, undignified, a waste of time.
*
Rowling's is a concept of love that saves - as it saves Snape, an almost-wholly nasty man, but who is wholly and gloriously redeemed by his love for a long-dead woman - married to someone else and who eventually disliked him - and the courage this love enables.
And of course, via Lily his mother (who is long since dead, but not 'gone') Snape's love saves Harry, many times - even despite that at a superficial level Snape loathes Harry (and the feeling is mutual).
Snape is a classic 'loser', in love but not loved; making sacrifices - his whole double-agent life is a sacrifice and he is sacrificially killed by Vodemort; except that this is not mere infatuation but real love, as proved by his sacrifice - hence its effects are real and permanent.
*
And CW's definition of the worst thing - the exclusion of love - is almost a literal rendition of Dumbledore's and Harry's explanation for Voldemort - a man who deliberately lived without love, and therefore became a kind of demon.
*
So the Harry Potter books can be seen as an illustration of Charles Williams web of exchange, substitution - people doing the work of salvation for each other - and only indirectly for themselves; this enabled because of co-inherence - that we are members one of another (contain a bit of each other) and unified by Christ (contained by and containing).
Love always working in both directions, and across the divide between life and death.
Love as real, effectual, permanent - the only answer to death.
*
It is very difficult for modern people to understand 'love' (agape) and how it is central to Christianity.
But the Harry Potter series does not just explain Christian love, it shows agape in operation such that readers can experience it for themselves.
For moderns, Rowling's use of love in her plot is extraordinarily strange (so much of it being love between the living and the dead) and it is remarkable that this very obvious and repeatedly emphasized fact is apparently unnoticed - at least consciously.
*
Somehow, the fact has eluded secular culture that Rowling's mega-bestselling seven volume book is, at a deep level, a precise and completely unambiguous depiction of agape in action, in multiple acts of exchange and substitution, crossing between this life and the next.
*
I am actively reading both Charles Williams (the Inkling) and JK Rowling's Harry Potter chronicles - including John Granger's superb 'How Harry cast his Spell'...
when I suddenly realised that Rowling's book, across the whole series, is about the best possible illustration of C.W's distinctive ideas of co-inherence, substitution (including substituted love) and exchange.
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2012/01/understanding-charles-williams-co.html
*
It was the following passage, from the end of the first book of the series Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - Dumbledore is speaking to Harry:
Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing that Voldemort cannot understand, it is love.
He didn't realize that love as powerful as you mother's for you leaves its own mark.
Not a scar, no visible sign...
to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever: It is in your very skin.
*
This is pure Charles Williams! Not that I think it derives directly from Charles Williams - rather it indicates that JK Rowling has independently worked-out the same implications as did C.W. - implications which are orthodoxly, traditionally Christian yet somehow neglected or de-emphasised.
*
He saved others: himself he cannot save - this was said of Christ, indicating the reality of co-inherence - and the same could be said of Harry Potter.
Throughout the book he is saved from death, again and again, by the love of others - especially by sacrificial love, up to and including acceptance of death for love - such love as a kind of real but immaterial and permanent protection... It is operative even when (as in most instances) 'the person who loved us is gone'.
*
And in the end, in The Deathly Hallows, Harry demonstrates that as we are saved by the love of others; so it is our task to save - not ourselves but others.
Harry sacrifices himself (allows Vodlemort to kill him) from love of others; and the effect of this act of sacrificial love is seen immediately because after Harrys death and rebirth the pupils, Professors, parents and friends of Hogwarts are rendered immune to the curses and magic of Voldemort and the Death Eaters - there are no more casualties from the Good side in the battle.
So, because of the effects of Harry's invisible love, the evil cannot (for a while, anyway) harm good.
*
Yet all this happens without the Hogwarts defenders or the death eaters being aware of it - only Harry (and Dumbledore) know what has happened.
*
So this is love that is real (not a psychological trick, not effective because people believe it is effective - but effective even without awareness) love as a real 'substance', but immaterial...
Rowling's is a description of love that is totally in contradiction to the mainstream one in our society - where love is seen as a type of pleasure; something wholly subjective, one-way and temporary.
For moderns, A loves B, and the love is something happening in A's brain. When the brain state changes, or the brain dies, then love dies and leaves nothing behind - unless it has influenced another brain state, which is equally evanescent.
Indeed the modern cliche idea is that love is a short term brainstorm, maybe pleasurable or maybe miserable - but inevitably disappearing like snow in sunshine to leave no trace. Unrequited or one-way love is seen as pathetic, undignified, a waste of time.
*
Rowling's is a concept of love that saves - as it saves Snape, an almost-wholly nasty man, but who is wholly and gloriously redeemed by his love for a long-dead woman - married to someone else and who eventually disliked him - and the courage this love enables.
And of course, via Lily his mother (who is long since dead, but not 'gone') Snape's love saves Harry, many times - even despite that at a superficial level Snape loathes Harry (and the feeling is mutual).
Snape is a classic 'loser', in love but not loved; making sacrifices - his whole double-agent life is a sacrifice and he is sacrificially killed by Vodemort; except that this is not mere infatuation but real love, as proved by his sacrifice - hence its effects are real and permanent.
*
And CW's definition of the worst thing - the exclusion of love - is almost a literal rendition of Dumbledore's and Harry's explanation for Voldemort - a man who deliberately lived without love, and therefore became a kind of demon.
*
So the Harry Potter books can be seen as an illustration of Charles Williams web of exchange, substitution - people doing the work of salvation for each other - and only indirectly for themselves; this enabled because of co-inherence - that we are members one of another (contain a bit of each other) and unified by Christ (contained by and containing).
Love always working in both directions, and across the divide between life and death.
Love as real, effectual, permanent - the only answer to death.
*
It is very difficult for modern people to understand 'love' (agape) and how it is central to Christianity.
But the Harry Potter series does not just explain Christian love, it shows agape in operation such that readers can experience it for themselves.
For moderns, Rowling's use of love in her plot is extraordinarily strange (so much of it being love between the living and the dead) and it is remarkable that this very obvious and repeatedly emphasized fact is apparently unnoticed - at least consciously.
*
Somehow, the fact has eluded secular culture that Rowling's mega-bestselling seven volume book is, at a deep level, a precise and completely unambiguous depiction of agape in action, in multiple acts of exchange and substitution, crossing between this life and the next.
*
Thursday, 12 September 2024
A Harry Potter Retrospective
Although the unprecedented "Pottermania" that gripped the Western world until approximately a decade ago has now receded; the opinion I formed of the Harry Potter series some 15 years ago as being a work of genius has by now survived multiple (six?) complete re-readings - plus further dippings-in.
I find my appetite for the Harry Potter books undiminished, and get more from every time I encounter them.
I was late to the series, having sampled and discarded the "Philosopher''s Stone" and a couple of earlier books.
I kept falling at the fence of The Dursleys - especially in the first book, where this part of the plot takes up many slow and tedious chapters before Harry eventually enters the Wizarding World.
It therefore does not surprise me that this book was rejected so often before finding a publisher - if the editors were anything like me, they will not have got through the early section to reach the good stuff later.
Those parts of the books featuring the Dursley family continue to strike me as mostly unsuccessful, and written at a much lower level than the rest.
The Dursley characters are cartoonishly unbelievable, when they are not figures of oppressively heavy-handed juvenile satire.
Furthermore, the way that Harry (who is believable, and with whom we empathize) is physically and psychologically tormented by the Dursleys in the first and other early books; is so appalling that it is either viscerally horrific and overwhelms the other elements of the story, or else we are compelled to adopt a superficial and appropriately cartoonish level of engagement in our reading (which is what most people seem to be doing).
Thus it was not until 2009 that I actually read the Potter books; although I had watched the movies as they came out, with no great depth of appreciation - except for "The Prisoner of Askeban"; which is (in retrospect) unsurprising, since the movies had been almost completely filleted of profundity.
Then in 2009 I read the second-to-last book "The Half-Blood Prince" before launching into the crowning glory and triumphant vindication that is "Deathly Hallows".
After which I went back and read all the earlier five books, albeit probably not in order of publication.
And "I was hooked".
Harry Potter has since, over a span of fifteen years proved to be robustly enjoyable across a wide range; from its large cast of memorable (indeed archetypal) characterizations; its abundant and delightful humour (surely this is an under-rated facet - these books are very funny in parts); the richness of invention, excitement, and adventure; the very impressive plotting (mastery of the full range of techniques of an expert murder mystery writer was evident); and most importantly these books spiritual depth and edification across the series.
The accomplishment of such a long coming-of-age time-frame, for several major child characters as well as Harry, makes these books unique in my experience.
While I have no idea how the Harry Potter book-series will fare in future; in terms of mass marketing and cultural significance; for me they have easily passed the test of repaying repeated engagements over a long time span.
Tuesday, 4 September 2012
Does Dumbledore really raise Harry 'like a pig for slaughter'? (Reflections after reading the HP saga aloud.)
*
Over the past several months I have read aloud the whole Harry Potter series.
It was a wholly enjoyable experience, and confirmed my opinion of the excellence of these books.
(Which is, itself, a revised opinion: I found the early books uninteresting at the time they were published - and it was only after I had been given 'the key' by reading the later parts of the last book that I was able to go back and appreciate the earlier ones. I pretty much first-read the books in reverse order.)
*
My general impression about quality is that Philosophers Stone and Chamber make up a duo of 'perfect' children's books in which the deeper meanings are only hinted at briefly - but they are certainly present. Azkaban is the teen-novel transition - and also perfect of its kind. I now perceive a sagging in the middle with Goblet and Phoenix, in each volume of which there is some (but not much) 'surplus fat'. And Prince and Hallows become fully adult novels, and make up a single unit, with the quality of writing taking a qualitative step up.
*
Rowling's main limitation as a writer, aside from the need for better sub-editing - which would tidy-up the writing but not really improve the book; is that the quality of prose writing - while perfectly effective - is not as good as the best of the Fantasy genre (e.g. Tolkien, Lewis, Ray Bradbury).
A second problem is that the author's inventiveness with respect to magical possibilities makes it impossible for her to be consistent. The clearest example is the Time Turner, which is much too powerful a device.
Another example is apparation. Or the ability of wizards to become invisible (either with cloaks or disillusionment charms - no wizard would ever know if they were alone/ unobserved).
Or the Polyjuice potion and Imperius Curse (you could never be sure who you were talking-to, or whether they were responsible for their actions). But in general, she cannot keep the magic fully under control.
Also, the big 'set-pieces' do not work very well for me. For example, the episodes when the trio break into the Ministry of Magic and Gringotts are the only parts of Hallows which are not wholly-successful and absorbing. And the descriptions of battles and duels are contrived, especially by comparison with those of ex-soldiers such as Tolkien, Lewis, or Lloyd Alexander. The tasks in Goblet are unconvincing too.
*
But this is the price to pay for such richness of ideas - and I can happily suspend my critical faculties most of the time.
As more-then-compensation there is a deep underlying spiritual (indeed Christian) dimension concerning death, a profound meditation upon love, and some gripping character studies in Harry, Snape, Dumbledore, Herminone, Ron, Luna and Neville (plus a terrific supporting cast).
There is a really enjoyable humour throughout - not just jokes, but comedy in its ancient sense of the play of humours, character.
And the detail is wonderful - the detailed descriptions of daily life at school, having meals, doing homework etc.
*
Yet the biggest virtue of all is the emotional punch of the Deathly Hallows.
I found it harder to read out the Deathly Hallows without breaking down and blubbing, than any other book I have ever read aloud.
That, I think, is a tribute to the author!
*
Any one of these great emotional climaxes comes in the following passage:
Snape, talking to Dumbeldore about Harry: You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment? ... I have spied for you, and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me that you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter?
In context, including what follows, this is so moving that we tend to assume it is true, but it is not.
On reflection, we recall that Dumbledore only understood about Horcruxes, and that Harry's scar was a Horcrux, in the last few months of his life - so he could not have raised Harry with this in mind.
On the other hand, what does become clear is that Dumbedore's love for Harry is less than his determination to rid the world of Voldemort - and this is shocking enough, albeit morally less repellent or perhaps even admirable (and Dumbeldore was not asking of Harry more than he was himself prepared to give).
*
As a final aside - I was struck by how often, and how readily, Harry lied all throughout the series of books, and without any strong sense that lying was wrong.
I suspect that this may be a male female difference - since I don't recall heroic and good characters in similarly Christian books by men who have Harry's, ummm, instrumental attitude to verbal veracity.
Or perhaps this is more like the attitude of the pagan saga-men for whom successful deception was a virtue, when deployed in a good cause (ie. for the home team).
At any rate, only after his sanctification by death and rebirth, and in the final pages of the series, does Harry become wholly truthful - final recognition that truth is indeed among the highest values.
*
Over the past several months I have read aloud the whole Harry Potter series.
It was a wholly enjoyable experience, and confirmed my opinion of the excellence of these books.
(Which is, itself, a revised opinion: I found the early books uninteresting at the time they were published - and it was only after I had been given 'the key' by reading the later parts of the last book that I was able to go back and appreciate the earlier ones. I pretty much first-read the books in reverse order.)
*
My general impression about quality is that Philosophers Stone and Chamber make up a duo of 'perfect' children's books in which the deeper meanings are only hinted at briefly - but they are certainly present. Azkaban is the teen-novel transition - and also perfect of its kind. I now perceive a sagging in the middle with Goblet and Phoenix, in each volume of which there is some (but not much) 'surplus fat'. And Prince and Hallows become fully adult novels, and make up a single unit, with the quality of writing taking a qualitative step up.
*
Rowling's main limitation as a writer, aside from the need for better sub-editing - which would tidy-up the writing but not really improve the book; is that the quality of prose writing - while perfectly effective - is not as good as the best of the Fantasy genre (e.g. Tolkien, Lewis, Ray Bradbury).
A second problem is that the author's inventiveness with respect to magical possibilities makes it impossible for her to be consistent. The clearest example is the Time Turner, which is much too powerful a device.
Another example is apparation. Or the ability of wizards to become invisible (either with cloaks or disillusionment charms - no wizard would ever know if they were alone/ unobserved).
Or the Polyjuice potion and Imperius Curse (you could never be sure who you were talking-to, or whether they were responsible for their actions). But in general, she cannot keep the magic fully under control.
Also, the big 'set-pieces' do not work very well for me. For example, the episodes when the trio break into the Ministry of Magic and Gringotts are the only parts of Hallows which are not wholly-successful and absorbing. And the descriptions of battles and duels are contrived, especially by comparison with those of ex-soldiers such as Tolkien, Lewis, or Lloyd Alexander. The tasks in Goblet are unconvincing too.
*
But this is the price to pay for such richness of ideas - and I can happily suspend my critical faculties most of the time.
As more-then-compensation there is a deep underlying spiritual (indeed Christian) dimension concerning death, a profound meditation upon love, and some gripping character studies in Harry, Snape, Dumbledore, Herminone, Ron, Luna and Neville (plus a terrific supporting cast).
There is a really enjoyable humour throughout - not just jokes, but comedy in its ancient sense of the play of humours, character.
And the detail is wonderful - the detailed descriptions of daily life at school, having meals, doing homework etc.
*
Yet the biggest virtue of all is the emotional punch of the Deathly Hallows.
I found it harder to read out the Deathly Hallows without breaking down and blubbing, than any other book I have ever read aloud.
That, I think, is a tribute to the author!
*
Any one of these great emotional climaxes comes in the following passage:
Snape, talking to Dumbeldore about Harry: You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment? ... I have spied for you, and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me that you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter?
In context, including what follows, this is so moving that we tend to assume it is true, but it is not.
On reflection, we recall that Dumbledore only understood about Horcruxes, and that Harry's scar was a Horcrux, in the last few months of his life - so he could not have raised Harry with this in mind.
On the other hand, what does become clear is that Dumbedore's love for Harry is less than his determination to rid the world of Voldemort - and this is shocking enough, albeit morally less repellent or perhaps even admirable (and Dumbeldore was not asking of Harry more than he was himself prepared to give).
*
As a final aside - I was struck by how often, and how readily, Harry lied all throughout the series of books, and without any strong sense that lying was wrong.
I suspect that this may be a male female difference - since I don't recall heroic and good characters in similarly Christian books by men who have Harry's, ummm, instrumental attitude to verbal veracity.
Or perhaps this is more like the attitude of the pagan saga-men for whom successful deception was a virtue, when deployed in a good cause (ie. for the home team).
At any rate, only after his sanctification by death and rebirth, and in the final pages of the series, does Harry become wholly truthful - final recognition that truth is indeed among the highest values.
*
Saturday, 16 July 2011
The soul in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
*
I had missed a key scene in my earlier readings of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, coming in the early Chapter entitled The Ghoul in Pyjamas:
'And the more I've read about [Horcruxes]', said Hermione, 'the more horrible they seem, and the less I can believe that he actually made six. It warns in this book how unstable you make the rest of your soul by ripping it, and that's just by making one Horcrux!'
Harry remembered what Dumbledore had said, about Voldemort moving beyond 'usual evil'.
Isn't there any way of putting yourself back together?' Ron asked.
'Yes' said Herminone, with a hollow smile, 'but it would be excruciatingly painful.'
'Why? How do you do it?' asked Harry.
'Remorse', said Herminone. 'You've got to really feel what you've done. There's a footnote. Apparently the pain of it can destroy you. I can't see Voldemort attempting it, somehow, can you?'
*
Then, from the penultimate Chapter - in the final confrontation:
Harry: 'Before you try to kill me, I'd advise you to think about what you've done... think, and try for some remorse, Riddle...
'What is this?'
Of all the things Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt, nothing had shocked Voldemort like this. (...)
'It's your one last chance', said Harry, 'it's all you've got left... I've seen what you'll be otherwise... be a man... try... try for some remorse...'
*
In JK Rowling's covert Christian supposal, 'remorse' = 'repentance'. And, as with The Good Thief, she is saying that Voldemort's soul really could be saved, even at the last moment, if Voldemort was sincerely to recognize what he had done and repent.
But of course he does not; and in the King's Cross Chapter (in a Limbo between life and death) Harry has seen what Voldemort's ripped, unrepentant and un-saved soul has become:
It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath. (...)
He ought to comfort it, but it repulsed him.
'You cannot help' [, said Dumbledore].
*
I had missed a key scene in my earlier readings of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, coming in the early Chapter entitled The Ghoul in Pyjamas:
'And the more I've read about [Horcruxes]', said Hermione, 'the more horrible they seem, and the less I can believe that he actually made six. It warns in this book how unstable you make the rest of your soul by ripping it, and that's just by making one Horcrux!'
Harry remembered what Dumbledore had said, about Voldemort moving beyond 'usual evil'.
Isn't there any way of putting yourself back together?' Ron asked.
'Yes' said Herminone, with a hollow smile, 'but it would be excruciatingly painful.'
'Why? How do you do it?' asked Harry.
'Remorse', said Herminone. 'You've got to really feel what you've done. There's a footnote. Apparently the pain of it can destroy you. I can't see Voldemort attempting it, somehow, can you?'
*
Then, from the penultimate Chapter - in the final confrontation:
Harry: 'Before you try to kill me, I'd advise you to think about what you've done... think, and try for some remorse, Riddle...
'What is this?'
Of all the things Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt, nothing had shocked Voldemort like this. (...)
'It's your one last chance', said Harry, 'it's all you've got left... I've seen what you'll be otherwise... be a man... try... try for some remorse...'
*
In JK Rowling's covert Christian supposal, 'remorse' = 'repentance'. And, as with The Good Thief, she is saying that Voldemort's soul really could be saved, even at the last moment, if Voldemort was sincerely to recognize what he had done and repent.
But of course he does not; and in the King's Cross Chapter (in a Limbo between life and death) Harry has seen what Voldemort's ripped, unrepentant and un-saved soul has become:
It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath. (...)
He ought to comfort it, but it repulsed him.
'You cannot help' [, said Dumbledore].
*
Tuesday, 11 January 2022
Harry Potter illustrates that the sides of Good and evil are primary; and that personality and behaviour are secondary
The original Harry Potter series of seven books, completed by the superb "Deathly Hallows" volume, is probably the major Christian fantasy fiction since the Lord of the Rings; because (as well as its many incidental delights) it has a deep moral structure, and this deep plot concerns depicts matters of primary and transcendental importance for Christians.
As such, the Harry Potter (HP) books can illustrate and clarify some of the most important questions of value that confront us in the world today.
One such is that the single most important choice a person makes is which side to take: the side of Good or that of evil - and there are only two sides.
In the HP books, Voldemort is a picture of Satan, and his side includes both a cadre of Death Eaters (analogous to demons), and a great mass of people who just go-along-with the agenda of evil for various motives - serving its overall goals, and passively absorbing and adopting its core beliefs and motivations.
In life, as in Harry Potter, there is no value-neutral position, and sooner-or-later it seems that everybody (even the non-human magical 'creatures such as House Elves, Centaurs, Goblins and Giants) is compelled to pick his side, and choose one way or the other.
And also as in life; in the fictional world of HP - some nice people chose the side of evil; while (more or less) many of those on the side of Good are (more or less) nasty people
This aspect of Harry Potter has particular value in these times, since our situation seems to be that most of the nice (decent, sensible, hard-working, intelligent, kind..) people are on the side of evil; while many of those on the side of Good are more-or-less nasty.
Perhaps the major nasty person on the side of Good is Severus Snape; who is represented throughout as a thoroughly nasty man - yet one who by his great courage and genuine love (for Lily Potter, Harry's mother) has heroically chosen the side of Good.
Another less obvious example is Dumbledore; who emerges as a greatly flawed character, with a strong tendency towards deception and manipulation and who struggles with a temptation for power and an almost paralyzing sense of guilt for his past affiliation to evil and its consequences; yet who is more solidly on the side of Good, and working-for Good, than almost anyone.
An even less obvious example are the Weasley Twins - Fred and George. These share a tendency to callous cruelty, indeed sadism, which is a serious character flaw. In general they are hedonistic and manipulative without regard for the consequences for others, although because they are charming and 'cool' they are generally well-liked. But Fred and George are always staunchly and courageously on the side of Good - because they are sustained by an indomitable fraternal and familial love, which is their bottom line.
And while the Death Eaters are almost always very nasty people, there are several on the side of evil who would be regarded as 'good guys' in terms of everyday social behaviour.
For instance, Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic (in the earlier books) is a kindly and avuncular character, and his faults would seem to be mostly minor: cowardice and untruthfulness, unacknowledged incompetence, and wilful blindness to the reality of evil emergent. Yet these faults are unrepented such that that he ends-up working for the triumph of Voldemort and against those who oppose him; this despite believing himself to be motivated towards Good. Fudge is a type seen frequently these days - heading-up major social institutions of all kinds (including leaders of the self-described Christian churches).
The later Minister of Magic - Rufus Scrimgeour - also ends-up on the wrong side despite his admirable courage and staunch opposition to the Death Eaters; because he subscribes to various Big Lies, and becomes corrupted by the doctrine that the end justifies the means. He wants Harry to participate in various official lies, tries to blackmail and bribe him; and attempts to make Harry subordinate his 'chosen one' mission to the current 'needs' of propaganda and the magical bureaucracy. He also dishonestly imprisons (with torment) the naïve and innocent Stan Shunpike, on the pretense that SS is a Death Eater, because Scrimgeour believes this will help the cause.
Ludo Bagman - the Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports - is another 'type' seen among the nominal leaders used by the Global Establishment nowadays (e.g. Boris Johnson). A charming, popular man - for whose incompetence and stupidity people are usually prepared to make excuses because they find him likeable. "Ludo" emerges as a self-interested gambling addict and defrauder; one who bought his position by providing secret insider information about the Ministry to a Death Eater; and who abuses his position for his own pleasure and profit. Bagman (the name implies a criminal go-between) overall, in many ways, aids the ascent of Voldemort.
JK Rowling is clear that the determinant of a person's status of Good or evil is which side they take; and also that the two main virtues that most matter in this choice are love and courage.
Love is, of course, the core Christian virtue which 'drives' all that is Good - while courage is necessary for that virtue to remain dominant, and to resist the insidious, pervasive and powerful forces of corruption when evil becomes dominant - when "The Ministry has fallen".
Lack of courage - cowardice, represents a lack of faith in the cause of Good, and concern with the expediencies of this world rather than fundamental values; so that fear unrepented and unopposed is the root cause of a great deal of corruption.
Self-sacrifice is required of all the Good characters at some point in the series; and this is not possible without the right motivation of love, and the key virtue of courage in that cause.
Harry himself is naturally the greatest moral exemplar. A very flawed hero; throughout the books he comes to a clarity and conviction of what matters most - what must not be given-up; and eventually he makes the ultimate sacrifice by which the world is saved from evil.
Wednesday, 22 August 2012
Good-nasty = Snape. But who are the nice people on the side of evil?
*
Traditionally, for Christians, Good and evil are understood in terms of the 'unseen warfare' or 'spiritual warfare' between (one the one hand) God and the angels and (on the other) Satan and his demons - humans are the location of this warfare, rather than its instigators - and the main decision of each person is which side they will take.
*
At the same time, some people are mostly nice, while others are mostly nasty.
And there need not be much or any correlation between Good-nice and evil-nasty: indeed, the character type of Good-nasty is a favourite in literature.
*
A recent example of Good-nasty is Severus Snape - who is probably the most interesting and moving character in the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling.
Yet, the lack of a framework of spiritual warfare means that the secular perspective misinterprets Snape as a 'morally ambiguous character'.
Snape is not morally ambiguous - he is nasty, as is abundantly demonstrated throughout the series. However, like Harry, he has Rowling's prime twin virtues of Courage and self-sacrificing Love - and these mean that he has chosen the side of Good, as it emerges near the very end of the seven volumes.
Throughout the series we should not be in doubt that Snape is nasty - what we are unsure about - and what the novels mislead us about - is the answer to the question: What side is Snape on ?
*
In the Harry Potter series, the background of unseen warfare between God and the Devil is only hinted at - and superficially replaced (for much of the series) by Dumbledore versus Voldemort: nice versus nasty, kind versus cruel.
Yet in the Deathly Hallows we recognize that Dumbledore is sometimes nasty, has several nasty traits, has a history of cruelty.
At the secular level, this subverts the moral clarity of the novels - but not if a backdrop of spiritual conflict is acknowledged.
*
The real conflict in Harry Potter, and in Lord of the Rings and in the Narnia books, is between God and evil - and the bottom line evil is not cruelty but heresy: evil wants to be worshiped as God.
*
This is clearer in Tolkien and Lewis - but there are sufficient hints in Rowling that this is 'The Dark Lord's ultimate purpose: to be worshiped as an immortal god. Voldemort is, of course, cruel - but it is his indifference to others (e.g. killing Cedric Diggory as 'the spare'), his treating them merely as a means to his end, which is portrayed as his worst sin. They exist only to serve and worship him.
*
My point would be much clearer is there was a nice but evil character to mirror Snape as nasty but Good - however, I don't think there are any.
Indeed, this is a major deficiency in most modern/ recent literature and narrative art: the way that nastiness and evil are conflated.
Evil people in books, movies, on TV always turn-out to be nasty (cruel, sadistic etc) whereas in real life many of most devoted the servants of evil are (mostly) nice, and not especially cruel.
Can anyone come up with a good example of a genuine, clear cut nice-evil character from art?
Or life?
Somebody really nice, and really evil?
*
Traditionally, for Christians, Good and evil are understood in terms of the 'unseen warfare' or 'spiritual warfare' between (one the one hand) God and the angels and (on the other) Satan and his demons - humans are the location of this warfare, rather than its instigators - and the main decision of each person is which side they will take.
*
At the same time, some people are mostly nice, while others are mostly nasty.
And there need not be much or any correlation between Good-nice and evil-nasty: indeed, the character type of Good-nasty is a favourite in literature.
*
A recent example of Good-nasty is Severus Snape - who is probably the most interesting and moving character in the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling.
Yet, the lack of a framework of spiritual warfare means that the secular perspective misinterprets Snape as a 'morally ambiguous character'.
Snape is not morally ambiguous - he is nasty, as is abundantly demonstrated throughout the series. However, like Harry, he has Rowling's prime twin virtues of Courage and self-sacrificing Love - and these mean that he has chosen the side of Good, as it emerges near the very end of the seven volumes.
Throughout the series we should not be in doubt that Snape is nasty - what we are unsure about - and what the novels mislead us about - is the answer to the question: What side is Snape on ?
*
In the Harry Potter series, the background of unseen warfare between God and the Devil is only hinted at - and superficially replaced (for much of the series) by Dumbledore versus Voldemort: nice versus nasty, kind versus cruel.
Yet in the Deathly Hallows we recognize that Dumbledore is sometimes nasty, has several nasty traits, has a history of cruelty.
At the secular level, this subverts the moral clarity of the novels - but not if a backdrop of spiritual conflict is acknowledged.
*
The real conflict in Harry Potter, and in Lord of the Rings and in the Narnia books, is between God and evil - and the bottom line evil is not cruelty but heresy: evil wants to be worshiped as God.
*
This is clearer in Tolkien and Lewis - but there are sufficient hints in Rowling that this is 'The Dark Lord's ultimate purpose: to be worshiped as an immortal god. Voldemort is, of course, cruel - but it is his indifference to others (e.g. killing Cedric Diggory as 'the spare'), his treating them merely as a means to his end, which is portrayed as his worst sin. They exist only to serve and worship him.
*
My point would be much clearer is there was a nice but evil character to mirror Snape as nasty but Good - however, I don't think there are any.
Indeed, this is a major deficiency in most modern/ recent literature and narrative art: the way that nastiness and evil are conflated.
Evil people in books, movies, on TV always turn-out to be nasty (cruel, sadistic etc) whereas in real life many of most devoted the servants of evil are (mostly) nice, and not especially cruel.
Can anyone come up with a good example of a genuine, clear cut nice-evil character from art?
Or life?
Somebody really nice, and really evil?
*
Monday, 15 July 2013
The dishonesty of JK Rowling - the fake biography of Robert Galbraith
*
One of my major ethical concerns in reading the Harry Potter series was Harry's habitual lying - up to the point in the Deathly Hallows when he is sanctified, after which he becomes completely truthful.
My problem was not so much that Harry lied, but that I did not sense any authorial disapproval of the lying - it was as if the author went-along with Harry's dishonesty, such that almost anything served to justify Harry's lies (even to Dumbledore).
I had the feeling that this flaw was a consequence of Rowling's own moral stance - that she was herself the kind of person who lied easily, and who easily excused her own lying.
Seems I was correct.
It has emerged that JKR has published a crime novel under a male pseudonym
http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/j-k-rowling-ghost-writes-the-cuckoos-calling/
I don't have any disagreement with publishing under a pseudonym, nor even under a male pseudonym - but the fake-biography of the pseudonymous 'Robert Galbraith' is a self-serving lie:
“After several years with the Royal Military Police, Robert Galbraith was attached to the SIB (Special Investigative Branch), the plain-clothes branch of the RMP. He left the military in 2003 and has been working since then in the civilian security industry. The idea for Cormoran Strike grew directly out of his own experiences and those of his military friends who returned to the civilian world. ‘Robert Galbraith’ is a pseudonym.”
There is no doubt that the specific but lying claim of the novel to have a basis in direct personal experience lends fake authority to a crime novel in a way which is expedient and financially rewarding to the real author - as much as if the author of a scientific novel falsely-claimed to have a PhD in the subject, or if the author of a self-help book on money making pretended to be a multi-millionare.
I find this very disappointing, and indeed shocking - it goes far beyond even the most extreme exaggeration, hype or spin.
And it confirms my perception that JK Rowling, despite having written one of the most profoundly moral of popular novel series, has become corrupted, a turncoat and traitor, and is now working undercover for the Death Eaters.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/case-study-of-leftist-resentment-moral.html
*
One of my major ethical concerns in reading the Harry Potter series was Harry's habitual lying - up to the point in the Deathly Hallows when he is sanctified, after which he becomes completely truthful.
My problem was not so much that Harry lied, but that I did not sense any authorial disapproval of the lying - it was as if the author went-along with Harry's dishonesty, such that almost anything served to justify Harry's lies (even to Dumbledore).
I had the feeling that this flaw was a consequence of Rowling's own moral stance - that she was herself the kind of person who lied easily, and who easily excused her own lying.
Seems I was correct.
It has emerged that JKR has published a crime novel under a male pseudonym
http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/j-k-rowling-ghost-writes-the-cuckoos-calling/
I don't have any disagreement with publishing under a pseudonym, nor even under a male pseudonym - but the fake-biography of the pseudonymous 'Robert Galbraith' is a self-serving lie:
“After several years with the Royal Military Police, Robert Galbraith was attached to the SIB (Special Investigative Branch), the plain-clothes branch of the RMP. He left the military in 2003 and has been working since then in the civilian security industry. The idea for Cormoran Strike grew directly out of his own experiences and those of his military friends who returned to the civilian world. ‘Robert Galbraith’ is a pseudonym.”
There is no doubt that the specific but lying claim of the novel to have a basis in direct personal experience lends fake authority to a crime novel in a way which is expedient and financially rewarding to the real author - as much as if the author of a scientific novel falsely-claimed to have a PhD in the subject, or if the author of a self-help book on money making pretended to be a multi-millionare.
I find this very disappointing, and indeed shocking - it goes far beyond even the most extreme exaggeration, hype or spin.
And it confirms my perception that JK Rowling, despite having written one of the most profoundly moral of popular novel series, has become corrupted, a turncoat and traitor, and is now working undercover for the Death Eaters.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/case-study-of-leftist-resentment-moral.html
*
Monday, 6 June 2011
The nature of evil characters in fantasy - Tolkien and Rowling
*
What is the difference between good and evil characters in fantasy novels?
There is a superficial difference which seems universal to the genre, and a fundamental difference which is seen only in the best of the genre.
*
The superficial difference is that good characters are kind, honest and altruistic, while bad characters are cruel, lying and selfish.
But the main superficial difference is kindness versus cruelty - the scenes which depict the evilness of the evil characters are typically those where they take pleasure in torment and torture.
This is seen in the best of the genre as well as the mainstream - Tolkien's orcs are cruel and love to torture, Rowling's Death Eaters love to torture Muggles and Muggle-lovers.
This can be seen as a hedonic morality, evil characters make others miserable: Vote for the goodies and have a better life.
*
Cruelty is never good but it is possible to imagine a fantasy novel in which the goodies were violent and the baddies are pacifists. When the regime is evil and in control, and the only escape from oppression is by force, then evil may be pacifist.
In Lord of the Rings Wormtongue takes a pacifist line when it comes to fighting Saruman, and he tries to protray Eomer as a blood-thirsty troublemaker who is the cause of provoking Saruman's aggression against Rohan.
In the Deathly Hallows where Voldemort controls in Ministary of Magic, official propaganda presents Harry and his supporters as the cause of all repressions, and provoking the necessity for the Snatcher squads. If only Harry would surrender, or would be handed-in to the authorities - then all would be peaceful...
*
But the fundamental nature of evil in both Tolkien and Rowling is that evil desires to usurp God and itself be worshipped.
This meaning is deeply buried, but it is there.
The reality of Tolkien's universe is that The One is supreme; but Morgoth's prideful desire is to be worshipped in his place. Sauron is Morgoth's chief 'priest', and when he corrupts Numenor Sauron reinstates the worship of Morgoth. Presumably this would be Sauron's aim if he ruled Middle Earth - or alternatively to set himself up for worship (there are indications in the History of Middle Earth that Sauron pretended to be Morgoth at one point).
It is this displacement of God which is Morgoth/ Sauron's fundamental evil - that they falsely set themselves up as the supreme object of worship.
*
And in Harry Potter something similar applies to Voldemort.
While Dumbledore and Harry implicitly serve some higher but unnamed Good (which is, in fact, God - as is suggested by the Harry-Dumbledore discussions of the King's Cross - Limbo chapter, and its depiction of the state of Voldemort's soul) - but Voldemort wants to be worshipped as supreme.
This is perhaps why Voldemort/ Tom Riddle will not allow anyone to speak his name, will not allow his name to be 'taken in vain' - this is characteristic of a jealous god.
*
So, in the best fantasy, evil is ultimately that which would falsely usurp God as that which ought to be worshipped: evil is that which sets itself up to replace the true God.
The goodies are those who oppose this - and the characters are defined as good or evil not so much by their conduct as by which side they choose: real God or usurper; truth or falsehood (although conduct is also affected by the choice of sides).
Evil is an objective wrong because it is a denial of the Truth of the universe, the evil usurper is not - in fact - God: God is God - the only legitimate object of worship.
*
In fantasy novels the attempt to enforce worship of evil leads to the superficial features of evil; because to worship evil and deny God is inherently false; it is distorting, unnatural.
The desire to overturn the organizing principle of the world is indicative of the primacy of pride and will - and to re-order the world requires immense power to reshape everything according to the will of the usurper - the more unnatural the desired state, the greater the power required to create it.
Hence evil characters seek power over the world. The unnatural deployment of power then leads on to the 'superficial' side effects that characterize the evil characters in fantasy: destruction of beauty, denial of Natural Law, deceitfulness, and that cruelty that delights in bending the will of others to conformity with the will-full fantasy of the evil villain.
*
What is the difference between good and evil characters in fantasy novels?
There is a superficial difference which seems universal to the genre, and a fundamental difference which is seen only in the best of the genre.
*
The superficial difference is that good characters are kind, honest and altruistic, while bad characters are cruel, lying and selfish.
But the main superficial difference is kindness versus cruelty - the scenes which depict the evilness of the evil characters are typically those where they take pleasure in torment and torture.
This is seen in the best of the genre as well as the mainstream - Tolkien's orcs are cruel and love to torture, Rowling's Death Eaters love to torture Muggles and Muggle-lovers.
This can be seen as a hedonic morality, evil characters make others miserable: Vote for the goodies and have a better life.
*
Cruelty is never good but it is possible to imagine a fantasy novel in which the goodies were violent and the baddies are pacifists. When the regime is evil and in control, and the only escape from oppression is by force, then evil may be pacifist.
In Lord of the Rings Wormtongue takes a pacifist line when it comes to fighting Saruman, and he tries to protray Eomer as a blood-thirsty troublemaker who is the cause of provoking Saruman's aggression against Rohan.
In the Deathly Hallows where Voldemort controls in Ministary of Magic, official propaganda presents Harry and his supporters as the cause of all repressions, and provoking the necessity for the Snatcher squads. If only Harry would surrender, or would be handed-in to the authorities - then all would be peaceful...
*
But the fundamental nature of evil in both Tolkien and Rowling is that evil desires to usurp God and itself be worshipped.
This meaning is deeply buried, but it is there.
The reality of Tolkien's universe is that The One is supreme; but Morgoth's prideful desire is to be worshipped in his place. Sauron is Morgoth's chief 'priest', and when he corrupts Numenor Sauron reinstates the worship of Morgoth. Presumably this would be Sauron's aim if he ruled Middle Earth - or alternatively to set himself up for worship (there are indications in the History of Middle Earth that Sauron pretended to be Morgoth at one point).
It is this displacement of God which is Morgoth/ Sauron's fundamental evil - that they falsely set themselves up as the supreme object of worship.
*
And in Harry Potter something similar applies to Voldemort.
While Dumbledore and Harry implicitly serve some higher but unnamed Good (which is, in fact, God - as is suggested by the Harry-Dumbledore discussions of the King's Cross - Limbo chapter, and its depiction of the state of Voldemort's soul) - but Voldemort wants to be worshipped as supreme.
This is perhaps why Voldemort/ Tom Riddle will not allow anyone to speak his name, will not allow his name to be 'taken in vain' - this is characteristic of a jealous god.
*
So, in the best fantasy, evil is ultimately that which would falsely usurp God as that which ought to be worshipped: evil is that which sets itself up to replace the true God.
The goodies are those who oppose this - and the characters are defined as good or evil not so much by their conduct as by which side they choose: real God or usurper; truth or falsehood (although conduct is also affected by the choice of sides).
Evil is an objective wrong because it is a denial of the Truth of the universe, the evil usurper is not - in fact - God: God is God - the only legitimate object of worship.
*
In fantasy novels the attempt to enforce worship of evil leads to the superficial features of evil; because to worship evil and deny God is inherently false; it is distorting, unnatural.
The desire to overturn the organizing principle of the world is indicative of the primacy of pride and will - and to re-order the world requires immense power to reshape everything according to the will of the usurper - the more unnatural the desired state, the greater the power required to create it.
Hence evil characters seek power over the world. The unnatural deployment of power then leads on to the 'superficial' side effects that characterize the evil characters in fantasy: destruction of beauty, denial of Natural Law, deceitfulness, and that cruelty that delights in bending the will of others to conformity with the will-full fantasy of the evil villain.
*
Tuesday, 3 September 2024
Recommending Michael Gambon as Simenon's Maigret, 1992-3, Granada TV (And a comment on how a bad man could create a good fictional character.)
I've recently watched the two series of adaptations from Georges Simenon's Maigret stories; released in 1992-3 by the British ITV company Granada; and starring Michael Gambon as the eponymous detective.
I found these extremely enjoyable. They are excellently constructed TV plays, with good teams of actors; and Maigret as depicted by Gambon was a very decent, likeable, and impressive detective - which is (for me) a vital aspect in the enjoyment of any such series.
The setting of 1950s Paris was strikingly convincing (although it wasn't actually Paris!); and (being made more than thirty years ago - unlike these woke-preachy times!) the characters also fit their appropriate time-and-place in terms of motives and behaviour; so that I got the feeling of being transported to another world.
**
Somewhat aside; I found it interesting that Simenon was able convincingly to create such a basically good man as Maigret - given that he was not himself such a person: at least not overall.
(...This negative evaluation of Simenon is from what I have gathered, and indeed it seems to be a general belief - I leave it to readers to explore this issue for themselves. By contrast; the goodness of Miss Marple is easily understood as exemplifying Agatha Christie's fine personality*.)
How is it that a mostly-bad man (as I think Simenon was) can write an essentially-good man like Maigret?
One answer is presumably that Simenon was, like everyone, a mixture of good and bad motivations; and he wrote Maigret from that which was good in himself - from the better part of himself.
Another aspect is that Maigret mysteries are light literature, in a minor genre - and do not attempt to tackle the greatest or deepest matters such as the conflict of spiritual good and evil, or the nature and implications of death.
It would - I think - be impossible for Simenon to write great literature. To attain greatness an author must draw upon his deepest nature, and for his vision of reality to be essentially good, would entail that he himself was personally committed to goodness.
In other words: the work cannot be greater than the man.
(The greatness of The Lord of the Rings is necessarily a product of Tolkien's greatness as a man; etc.)
But a man who was fundamentally petty, greedy, dishonest, unprincipled, selfish or the like - and one who was affiliated to such values - cannot produce genuinely great work - try as he might.
**
Note: Of course, an author or other creative artist may be good when producing a masterpiece of greatness; yet may change, may become corrupted, later - and I suggest he would then become incapable of greatness.
Something of this kind has, I think, been the case for JK Rowling - whose Harry Potter series I regard as great (although at a lower level than Lord of the Rings).
The Potter books (especially "Deathly Hallows") were written when she was committed to Christian metaphysics and values.
But Rowling later rejected her former ultimately spiritual perspective; instead embracing and advocating this-worldly secular leftist values. Her post-Potter work is consequently (it seems to me) at a very much lower level.
*This difference between Simenon and Christie - deriving from their authors - could be encapsulated by saying that Maigret is a good policeman; while Miss Marple is a good person.
Friday, 22 July 2011
Pork-Pie Peril in movies
*
From a history of the Gilbert and Sullivan Savoy Operas.
The Mikado" had, of course, a very long original run. This engendered, eventually, a somewhat irresponsible attitude on the part of certain members of the cast.
Gilbert had made it his business to check up - and George Grossmith was not exempt from censure over his antics with Jessie Bond, who was playing Pitti-Sing. Gilbert had heard that in their scene with the Mikado, when kneeling before him, Jessie Bond had given Grossmith a push, and he had rolled right over.
Gilbert taxed the actor with this.
But I got a big laugh", protested Grossmith.
So you would if you sat on a pork pie", retorted the author.
http://pinafore.www3.50megs.com/g-grossmith.html
*
"Pork Pie" laughs are laughs for the sake of laughs: laughs which - and this is why Gilbert opposed them - detract from the work as a whole.
*
Modern movies have an analogous problem with Pork Pie Peril - needless injections of arbitrary and artificial suspense and shocks.
For example, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, the three heroes are attacked by Death Eater villains during the course of a wedding celebration and just manage to escape by 'disapparating' (teleporting) into central London.
Then comes the Pork Pie Peril - the three heroes happen re-appear right in front of an on-coming double decker bus, and only just manage to get out of the way before being run-over.
*
These stupid injections are presumably taught in film school nowadays, since they are in almost every movie; including some of the best.
Directors must realize that Pork Pie Peril works like cheap laughs: they make movies worse, not better.
*
From a history of the Gilbert and Sullivan Savoy Operas.
The Mikado" had, of course, a very long original run. This engendered, eventually, a somewhat irresponsible attitude on the part of certain members of the cast.
Gilbert had made it his business to check up - and George Grossmith was not exempt from censure over his antics with Jessie Bond, who was playing Pitti-Sing. Gilbert had heard that in their scene with the Mikado, when kneeling before him, Jessie Bond had given Grossmith a push, and he had rolled right over.
Gilbert taxed the actor with this.
But I got a big laugh", protested Grossmith.
So you would if you sat on a pork pie", retorted the author.
http://pinafore.www3.50megs.com/g-grossmith.html
*
"Pork Pie" laughs are laughs for the sake of laughs: laughs which - and this is why Gilbert opposed them - detract from the work as a whole.
*
Modern movies have an analogous problem with Pork Pie Peril - needless injections of arbitrary and artificial suspense and shocks.
For example, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, the three heroes are attacked by Death Eater villains during the course of a wedding celebration and just manage to escape by 'disapparating' (teleporting) into central London.
Then comes the Pork Pie Peril - the three heroes happen re-appear right in front of an on-coming double decker bus, and only just manage to get out of the way before being run-over.
*
These stupid injections are presumably taught in film school nowadays, since they are in almost every movie; including some of the best.
Directors must realize that Pork Pie Peril works like cheap laughs: they make movies worse, not better.
*
Friday, 13 January 2012
Rotten organizations
*
One of the hardest, and most paradox generating, aspects of modern life for a reactionary Anglican Christian is that all the organizations are rotten; including the institutional church.
I can still remember what it was like to believe that my medical school and university, the Medical Research Council, the National Health Service and other large organizations in which I worked were basically good, I even remember feeling that the British government was basically good.
By basically good I mean well intentioned, good at heart, productive of mostly good decisions and policies...
*
And over the years all these comforting feelings have fallen away or been stripped away. When almost every single decision an organization makes, and (especially) every new policy or rule, every initiative is bad - and not just slightly bad - then comes a time when your attitude 'flips'.
So suddenly you are in an essentially hostile world - where power resides in bureaucracies that run everything and are active agents of evil. Of course good people and good impulses remain in these organizations (thank Heavens) - but you can see them being mopped up and eliminated over the years.
What this means is that I find myself in the service of evil - since I live in a world of these organizations. Not the service of pure evil, of course! - but in service of organizations whose hearts are rotten.
*
It is like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when Voldemort rules from behind the scenes - using and subverting the established institutions to opposite goals - and the situation resembles Mr Weasley at the Ministry of Magic (promoting a pure blood agenda) or Professor McGonagall at Hogwarts (where torture is on the curriculum) - and where the Daily Prophet is propaganda in moral inversion and people believe it. How can a hoping-to-be-good individual operate in a trying-to-be-bad institution? Might they actually be making matters worse, lending support to the evil agenda? such that people might say: "well if Weasley and McGonagall are going along with all this stuff, it must be okay - they're decent people...".
*
What to do when a society, an organization, an institutions is set up such that it serves evil?
And such that individuals are neutered - all authority vested in impersonal committees, impersonal rules - where responsibility is displaced up and up until it reaches the purest ideology (just following orders); where the basis of each evaluative decision is bad in principle as well as practice...
*
Some reactionary Christians may feel that their Church is a refuge from this - but that is obviously impossible for an Anglican to believe - and I feel that other denominations are deluded on this matter: maybe this is an advantage for Anglicans? The recognition that insofar as a church or part-of-church is powerful, it is corrupt; insofar as a church is true it is beleaguered.
The clarity of knowing that there really is no powerful institutional refuge. The recognition that all which is good in an institution is under threat, feeble, may disappear at any time. Sooner or later Mr Weasley will be sacked and arrested; sooner or later Professor McGonagall will be forced to leave Hogwarts, the good priests will retire and be replaced by undercover Leftists.
*
One of the hardest, and most paradox generating, aspects of modern life for a reactionary Anglican Christian is that all the organizations are rotten; including the institutional church.
I can still remember what it was like to believe that my medical school and university, the Medical Research Council, the National Health Service and other large organizations in which I worked were basically good, I even remember feeling that the British government was basically good.
By basically good I mean well intentioned, good at heart, productive of mostly good decisions and policies...
*
And over the years all these comforting feelings have fallen away or been stripped away. When almost every single decision an organization makes, and (especially) every new policy or rule, every initiative is bad - and not just slightly bad - then comes a time when your attitude 'flips'.
So suddenly you are in an essentially hostile world - where power resides in bureaucracies that run everything and are active agents of evil. Of course good people and good impulses remain in these organizations (thank Heavens) - but you can see them being mopped up and eliminated over the years.
What this means is that I find myself in the service of evil - since I live in a world of these organizations. Not the service of pure evil, of course! - but in service of organizations whose hearts are rotten.
*
It is like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when Voldemort rules from behind the scenes - using and subverting the established institutions to opposite goals - and the situation resembles Mr Weasley at the Ministry of Magic (promoting a pure blood agenda) or Professor McGonagall at Hogwarts (where torture is on the curriculum) - and where the Daily Prophet is propaganda in moral inversion and people believe it. How can a hoping-to-be-good individual operate in a trying-to-be-bad institution? Might they actually be making matters worse, lending support to the evil agenda? such that people might say: "well if Weasley and McGonagall are going along with all this stuff, it must be okay - they're decent people...".
*
What to do when a society, an organization, an institutions is set up such that it serves evil?
And such that individuals are neutered - all authority vested in impersonal committees, impersonal rules - where responsibility is displaced up and up until it reaches the purest ideology (just following orders); where the basis of each evaluative decision is bad in principle as well as practice...
*
Some reactionary Christians may feel that their Church is a refuge from this - but that is obviously impossible for an Anglican to believe - and I feel that other denominations are deluded on this matter: maybe this is an advantage for Anglicans? The recognition that insofar as a church or part-of-church is powerful, it is corrupt; insofar as a church is true it is beleaguered.
The clarity of knowing that there really is no powerful institutional refuge. The recognition that all which is good in an institution is under threat, feeble, may disappear at any time. Sooner or later Mr Weasley will be sacked and arrested; sooner or later Professor McGonagall will be forced to leave Hogwarts, the good priests will retire and be replaced by undercover Leftists.
*
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