Confession

I have a confession to make. I am a fan of Harry Potter. I am not a super huge fan as some are, but I do enjoy the books and movies and own all of them. Next week marks my two year anniversary of reading my first Harry Potter book (I read it in the waiting room of a hospital - not the most pleasant of circumstances). I like the books and films because of J K Rowling's great imagination and engaging story. Fantasy is fun, even for adults.

I know that many Christians do not like Harry Potter at all (most of whom I imagine have not read any of the books) and some that thought it was okay originally balked after book 4 was released, as it took "a dark turn." Usually the complaints are about witchcraft and the presence of evil in the books and films. I understand this criticism. I think it is fair for people to hold that position. I think it is amusing that some of these same people are Lord of the Rings fans. LOTR has wizardry (granted, not practiced by children), a very strong presence of evil (um, Sauron is no more benign than Voldemort) and is full of references to characters drinking a lot of alcohol and smoking weeds (drinking and smoking being two of American Christendom's most abhorred activities). Is it any better? But it is a Christian allegory! No, it is not, it is pure fantasy (if you doubt me, just read the author's preface to the book; I don't really care how many books are written to "prove" that Tolkien did, in fact, intentionally write an allegory). Every hero in good vs. evil stories is going to have some typological connection to the greatest story because Christ's triumph over evil is complete. Anything that attempts to deal with good against evil must therefore emulate to some degree, intentionally or not. But I digress. Why are we so quick to condemn one and embrace the other? Is it because LOTR was a childhood favorite for a lot of Christians in the English speaking world? Really, the kinds of criticisms I hear of Harry Potter could be turned toward LOTR nine times out of ten but I don't hear LOTR condemned (at least not loudly). Not that I want it to be condemned, of course, as I quite enjoy it (and own the book and the extended edition DVD sets and an X-box game - oh, yeah, I have a Harry Potter X-box game, too).

What I find interesting about the Potter criticism is that it all seems so focused on the witchcraft and evil and so little focused on the character of Harry himself. Harry is a rule breaker. He disobeys all the time and is praised for it in the end because he solves all sorts of problems. That is what bothers me most (well, that and the amount of "snogging" in one of the books - about the only benefit I received from that is adding one more British term to my lexicon - "snogging" sounds to me like something that one might do when one has a bad head cold), yet I really don't hear much about Harry as a questionable (in a non-magical sense) role model for young people.

I do not know if I would recommend Harry Potter to children. I think the books are "appropriate" reading for kids as they age with Harry and his friends. For instance, an eleven year old could handle the good/evil balance of book 1 but probably would suffer more than a fourteen year old from the content of book 4. The witchcraft question is more sticky, admittedly, but I think my sister was right when she said that it would probably not be damaging to children if an adult discussed the issue with them and if they understood that it is fantasy as presented and very evil and dangerous in reality. I think that is a decision for parents to make for their own children, not for me to make for them. As for me, however, I still like Harry despite his problems, and eagerly await the release of the final book. (I saw something in the news several months ago that it was supposed to be released this year, but the latest rumors say it will be another full year if not longer, putting the book release date very close to the theatrical release of the 5th movie in July 2007.)