To those of you, like me, who are eagerly anticipating the latest in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling (to be titled Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and released on July 16), you can find all the latest Potter updates at The Leaky Cauldron.
As an aside: Am I the only Potter fan who thinks it would have been better in keeping with the series to date to have titled the book The Mudblood Prince? I wonder why mudblood, the epithet used for wizards of mixed ancestry, was changed to half-blood. I really hope it wasn’t political correctness.
To those of you, unlike me, who are unsure of the Potter phenomenon, I recommend reading John Granger’s Looking for God in Harry Potter. You can also visit Granger’s website HogwartsProfessor.com. Also, fellow JA.org blogger Steven D. Greydanus has an article on Potter, which you can read here (the editorial sidebar to Greydanus’s article can be read here).
Technically “mudblood” is most properly attributed to wizards with two muggle parents, like Hermione, otherwise known as muggle-borns. Half-blood most properly means a wizard with one wizard parent and one muggle parent, like Voldemort, though both meanings can be extended. Thus I doubt political correctness had much to do with it.
I guess my point in the above post was that the two terms mean somewhat different things, i.e., half-blood isn’t just a politer form of mudblood.
Hmm. From a publishing/marketing perspective, “Mudblood” would be inside baseball. Only people who know the stories would understand the title, and they want to sell more broadly than that.
Also, how do you know that “half” refers to half muggle half wizard? It might be some other type of division.
Also, how do you know that “half” refers to half muggle half wizard? It might be some other type of division.
Like half-wizard, half-giant? Hadn’t thought of that, but I suppose it’s possible.
I have not read any Harry Potter books and will not allow my children to read them. I was told that the Harry Potter character tends to not listen to authority figures and does what he wants instead (not a good role model for young children). I was also told that the spells that are used in the books are actual spells taken from present day witchcraft which could be considered occultism. I don’t know if it is true, but both my husband and I dabbled in that sort of reading when we were young and stupid and there was something very dark and sinister about it. Let’s just say it wasn’t very edifying and it led us down dark paths.
Suzanne–Harry does have issues with authority figures, and that’s a point of concern, but his defiance of authority can be justified in some cases, and in the later books has been more likely to cause serious harm. He’s not a perfect hero, but he [i]is[/i] growing up.
As for the magic . . . I know a very little about modern occultism (the hazard of hanging around fantasy/sci-fi/roleplaying circles, I suppose) and the magic in Harry Potter books bears virtually no resemblance to what I know about it. As John Granger has pointed out, most magic (ancient or modern) is invocational, calling upon spirits or ‘forces’. The magic in Harry Potter is the magic of fairy tales, folklore, and legend, with the most ‘realistic’ element, fortune-telling, being sent up as nonsense (fortune-telling).
And my guess as to the Half-Blood Prince? Godric Gryffindor.
Suzanne, not long ago my husband read and interview with Ms Rowling: she was asked where she got the book’s spells from, and she answered, “I made them up.” 🙂
I don’t think you need to worry about these books. I agree with you that real occultism is nasty stuff, but the books aren’t like that at all.
Suzanne,
I agree with you. I read the first book and won’t read any more of them. I was a Wiccan for a time, and have NO desire to go back to that. The spells themselves are made up in the book, just as wiccans and ceremonial magicians make up their own spells in real life. The problem with the books is not their imaginative qualities, but the places where they imitate life. Michael O’Brien has an excellent article on his site about the books http://studiobrien.com/cfiles/articles/013.html
Great article Amy. I will err on the side of not letting my kids near Harry Potter.
I got the Granger book after Mark Shea wrote about it so much. He makes some very good points. The real test will be when the series is done. Jo Rowling seems like the sort of person I’d like to chat with over coffee. And there are a few questions about some dramatic choices she’s made that I’d love to ask her!
It’s interesting that folks who’ve had real experience &/or connection with the occult in their lives have not many kind things to say about HP & those who have not, tend to like the books. As I’ve never been into the occult & have no desire to delve, I probably haven’t gotten most of the allusions the books contain.
I’ve read all the books & enjoyed them. I did have a concern with Harry’s penchant to disobey authority figures but there’s less & less of that as he gets older. (But I especially don’t like that, in the first couple books, all the students are told by professors, “don’t do such’n’such or you’ll be expelled” & when Harry does it, not only is he not expelled, but there’re rarely any consequences at all.) But as the stakes get higher, & there’re more adulst who’re sympathetic to Harry’s plight, & some baddies who’re really out to get him, a lot of the sneaking about is justified. Plus, didn’t Huck Finn get into a lotta trouble with lying & sneaking around? As noted above by another poster, HP’s a kid & still learning. Time will tell but I think if kids have a well-formed faith, they’ll be OK with HP.
Now, the real evil kids books are Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Nasty, poisionous, insidiously evil books! A sort of a kid’s DaVinci Code. Pullman’s 10 times the writer Rowling is &, compared to them, makes the stuff that concerns me in HP is very mild. I’d like to see O’Brien Landscape with Dragons & include a section on Pullman! These are the books we should be watching out for. And, of course, there are movies being made!
I too am looking forward to the book. I must admit to being a HArry Potter fan. I guess it comes with the science-fiction/fantasy stuff I read without pause as a kid. Much better reading than the DaVinci Code.
I don’t have many concerns about the Harry Potter books. I’ve read all of them and greatly enjoyed them…honestly, I think that the reason there is so much concern is the use of the word “witch”. “Witch” has connotations in people’s minds today that “wizard” does not.
Really, the magic in the books is a sort of hereditary ability…some people have it, others do not. They don’t call upon any forces to give them their abilities. In this it is much like the part of Lord of the Rings where Galadriel explains that the Elves do not perform magic, they just do what is within their abilities and it seems like magic to others.
Even if a child DID believe it was real (which should be avoided, of course), they would most likely conclude when they didn’t get an invitation to a school of wizardry that they are a “muggle” and not a wizard.
However, there is a danger I have seen in bookstores: often the bookstore people put actual occult stuff with the Harry Potter books. A display with the latest HP book in front has Philip Pullman’s stuff around the table, as well as horrid stuff like “magic kits” that teach children about witchcraft. Basically, I see Harry Potter as rather unoffensive. It doesn’t lead children to evil except VERY indirectly, and I think that parents should be able to see the difference between children reading about Harry Potter and children learning actual witchcraft.
Hey, Michelle-
We, too, are HP fans and I wanted to make an observation regarding Harry’s response to authority figures. From what I can tell Harry tries to obey the rules, but finds himself often in situations where he has to make a choice between breaking the rules and allowing some greater evil to happen. Quite sanely, he chooses to break the rule. I think we may all find ourselves in that predicament once or twice. Harry does not reject the rules willy-nilly, but recognizes that there is a higher “rule” (C.S. Lewis’ Tao?) over both him and his superiors.
Also, the “magic” in HP is quite cartoonish. If I were a modern Wiccan looking for a sympathetic portrayal I think I would find the Potter phenom rather deflating.
It’s interesting that folks who’ve had real experience &/or connection with the occult in their lives have not many kind things to say about HP & those who have not, tend to like the books.
It’s probably a good thing. I heard a priest once talk about how the same sort of temptations seem to follow family lines, and suggested that the devil sees that our biologial make-up can have an effect on what kids of temptations will work best on us. Is it true? I don’t know. However, I was briefly drawn into that sort of stuff back in high school, and my wife has had family issues with it too. We won’t have HP on our reading list while there’s so much good stuff out there.
Basically, Rowling’s spells are the equivalent of “wuggledybuggledy”. She crams Latin bits together in a deliberately silly way. She is not trying to get people to take magic seriously, or modeling any real spells. They are plot devices.
Now, I will grant you that some Wiccan liturgists, and those of similar religio-magical groups, come up with some fairly gutbustingly hilarious nonsense to use in their rites. But just as with Catholic liturgists, this is unintentional humor.
Look, anything is dangerous to those children with a giant sucking void inside their hearts or minds, thanks to parents or other issues. Very little is dangerous to those who are raised right and are lucky enough not to have problems. My parents let us read whatever we wanted, as long as it wasn’t Playboy. We all turned out fine. It never really occurred to me to be interested in the occult as anything else than another interesting, bizarre, and fruitless form of false religion, false science, and false art.
Meanwhile, all the people I know who had serious problems with the occult had serious problems before they ever encountered anything vaguely occult; the occult was just the way they happened to go, instead of or in addition to sex, drugs or rock and roll. This is not to minimalize the fact that the occult is a problem. But if it hadn’t been that sin, it would have been (and generally was) another.
If you want to worry about Harry Potter, I’d worry more about the unhealthy parts of the fannish culture which has formed around it. I have no earthly idea why a seven book mystery/adventure series would inspire so much really nasty smut and so many internecine flamewars. You would think that cute little fanfics and happy joy would be more the rule…but noooooo — smut and cliques. Like being trapped in the worst bits of a high schooler’s mind.
Maureen,
I guess my husband is an exception to the rule. He lived on a farm 10 miles from the closest town which had a population of 1000. Both his parents were teachers at the local high school he attended. They are wonderful people. He grew up in a devout Southern Baptist home (he converted to Catholicism in 1995) and did loads of farm work from sunup to sundown when he wasn’t doing school work. He was also involved in sports. There was no abuse in his family whatsoever. His parents let him listen to various kinds of music and let him read whatever he wanted. He became HEAVILY involved in the occult. I think that you can open a door to things not of God and get involved without having other issues from your past. We will stay away from anything that is not edifying.
I’ve read all but the last book. I felt completley overdosed on the media hype surrounding J.K. Rowling/Potter, her films and her written work and I simply couldn’t stomach reading something of that size. Watching the next film will give me a good excuse to take the children to the cinema and gorge on high fat tooth rotting products though, I think that I can just about manage that.
God Bless.
I think it depends on the person reading it. I could probably read any fiction book with any sort of magic in it and never be tempted to the occult. But for somebody else, it might be the opposite. So use discernment with yourself or your children; if you’re more interested in how to really make potions than whether Harry wins the team sport, put down the book.
You can also weigh what good comes out of the book against what bad may come out of it. A lot of good, Christian values are in the books. Free will and character’s choises making them who they are is emphasized. Characters are consistantly told to choose what is “right” over what is “easy.” A few characters proclaim the truth even when they’re ridiculed and ostrasized for it, and one character is told that he should have opposed the evil Lord Voldemort in order to save lives, even if it meant his own death.
There’s a real sense of good and evil and right and wrong, though characters are realistically portrayed as having good and bad qualities.
We learn that the sacrificial love of Harry’s mother protected him from being murdered. (Love is more powerful than death…where have I heard that before?)
In the later books especially the need for unity to oppose evil is brought up.
Love and family is shown as being better than materialism.
Harry and his friends do break the rules sometimes. But they’re either punished by authority or their actions backfire. They usually feel guilty as well. Sometimes they break the rules in order to save people from being killed. They do make mistakes, but they’re not written to be perfect. If you’re reading with a child, take a moment to analyze the character’s actions; to decide if they’re right or wrong, or what they should have done instead.