Yesterday I received The Mystery of Harry Potter written by Nancy Carpentier Brown of the Flying Stars Blog and pretty much set down and read it in one sitting. It is subtitled A Catholic Family Guide and that is it is exactly what it is. Over the years there has been a certain amount of controversy over whether Christian parents should let their children read the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowlings. Mrs. Brown provides a great resource for parents in prudently deciding this question and the answers and suggestions she gives should be used by all parents in deciding what literature they should allow their children to read.
Nancy Brown had originally started at the the point of a negative view towards the world of Harry Power and later revisited this because a Catholic friend of hers who she trusted recommended them and ended up reading the books and reading some of them to her children. I myself had quite a negative view of the Harry Potter book since I had read and heard commentary against them by Catholics whose views I generally trusted. Though over the years I was surprised to find that there wasn’t this anti-Potter bias in the Catholic blogosphere and in fact there was quite a positive view of the books and the movies in general. I have seen the first four movies and enjoyed them and finally got around to reading the first six books in the series earlier this year in just a two week period. I enjoyed the series and like so many others is awaiting the final book in the series. I got around the to reading the books mainly because of Nancy Brown’s blog and her entries on the books.
I really liked the advice given in The Mystery of Harry Potter in that even though she enjoys the books she does not advocate parents just going out and getting the books and giving them to her children. I also liked the fact that she encouraged parents to read the books first and then to make their own decision as to whether their children should read the books at all. She mentions that after all there are just so many good books that they could read and it certainly is not mandatory in any way that people should read these books. This advice certainly goes along with the Catholic view that parents are the primary educators. She also gives good general advice on pre-reading children’s books in general and web resources for book reviews. She also gives a general guide as to what ages each book is appropriate to and that this must be used with prudence in considering the sensitivity of each child. The books do get darker as they go since they do deal with the battle of good and evil and death. While talking about the series she is careful not to give away plot points to those who have not yet read the book.
Since Nancy Brown is a thoroughly going fan of G.K. Chesterton I was not surprised at the Chestertonian references throughout. I did find it quite interesting that through out the book she used sections of Chesterton’s Lepanto poem with sections of the HP books along with contrasts. Besides Chesterton she references C.S. Lewis, Thomas Fleming’s The Morality of Everyday Life, John Granger’s Looking for God in Harry Potter, and several other books. One section of the book starts off with Michael O’Brien’s A Landscape With Dragons: The Battle for Your Child’s Mind, though I think she should have mentioned that O’Brien (an author I really like) has written extensively against the Harry Potter books. This book was also accidentally left out of the biography at the end of the book.
I do think that Mrs. Brown did a very good job of addressing the complaints of critics and where they had valid points she agreed with them. I do think seeing these books primarily as a Fairy Tale as she and others have proposed is the best way to understand them and that they are driven by a Christian imagination and the magical elements to the stories are the background and not the primary focus. She points out that really it should be secular side that should be complaining about the series because amazingly it is so free of political correctness so often found in children’s books today. That the power of love and sacrificial love, friendships, good vs. evil morality, children needing the help of adults are the main themes of the books. I think what I enjoyed most about the book was the balance. There is no tint of "if you don’t like the books something is wrong with you" and that she doesn’t just overlook some problematic aspects of the books such as the so-called "white lies’ told by Harry and his friends at times. She puts all the impetus on the parents to judge. Towards the end she also addresses the movies in the Harry Potter franchise and cautions that Harry is much nobler in the books and the scripts in the movies sometimes inject dialogue not really fitting.
An appendix includes interviews with Dale Alquist the president of the American Chesterton Society and Regina Doman author of Angels in the Water and other children’s books on the subject of the Harry Potter books. Both of the interviews are interesting for their insights and Regina Doman was once in the anti-Potter camp. Another appendix includes discussion questions for teachers, catechists, and parents. Throughout the book there are discussion points of topics pertaining to the books to make for fruitful parent child interaction and to ensure that proper lessons are learned from the series.
This is a really good book whether you are a fan of series or have some serious questions about it.
* I would also recommend SQPN’s series The Secrets of Harry Potter podcast where Fr Roderick and Brother Giles explore the world of Harry Potter and the Christian connections throughout.
24 comments
I think a lot depends on what happens in this last book; there are many possibly Christian themes in the book, particularly in the battle of good vs. evil. Reserving judgment until the final book…
Snape may not have hated Dumbledore (though he may have and has just hidden it really well), but he certainly is capable of great hatred and cruelty. The way he treats Harry despite his debt to his father and his being partially responsible for his and Lily’s death proves that. He also has tremendous mental discipline, as his occlumency skill attests. I think he’d be able to channel that hatred elsewhere if he really needed to.
Besides, as I asked before: if Snape didn’t kill Dumbledore, why isn’t Snape dead? The Vow ought to have killed him. Maybe he knows a way around it through various mental gyrations or through some potion (perhaps he even had access to a small quantity of the Elixir of Life, perhaps through Dumbledore who was a friend of Nicholas Flammel). Still, it seems the sort of thing that must necessarily be impossible to get out of, or virtually so.
I’m waiting to find out the end of the last book before I decide to use these for my kids– if Snape isn’t evil, it’s a great story of redemption.
If she cheaply makes him evil, I won’t be able to enjoy it….
My problem is: did Dumbledore cause his own death (by delegating Snape to kill him)? And if so, does Rowling think that was right?
And about this shady Ms. Brown: she thinks parents should raise their kids, and make decisions for them? Nonsense…
Good post and good links. I’ll be putting up some last-minute speculation on my own blog, but I also look forward to the intra-Catholic discussion that will take place after the whole story is in.
Re Kathy’s question, I’m going with the theory that it was the potion at the birdbath-from-hell, not Snape’s curse, that killed Dumbledore. There’s textual evidence that I’ll spell out on my blog.
Anyway, I think D’s highest priority at that point was to prevent Draco from becoming a killer, and that was achieved. Another priority was to prevent Harry from becoming a user of Unforgivable Curses, and that too was achieved — by Snape!
But wouldn’t Snape have died if he didn’t kill Dumbledore due to breaking an Unbreakable Vow?
The way the character Luna Lovegood treats others as well her outlook on life and life after death is almost certainly identifiable as Christian or even Catholic despite her belief in the existence of crumpled-horn snorkacks whatever they are. Her Christian perspective came out in the movie especially her forgiveness of others for the pranks others pulled on her and her belief in life after death.
Snape~the modern day Jephthah.
I used to read Harry Potter, but gave up after Book 4 due to lack of interest. They were page-turners for sure, but I never wanted to pick them up after reading them. Though I never caught onto anything deep like you guys have, or like what I find in LOTR or FMA. Is it worth giving it a second chance? As a nerd I feel so left out!
Publius, I think Snape killed Dumbledore on Dumbledore’s orders. “Severus, please,” meant “Severus, please do what I ordered you to do that night in the corridor.” Snape was a brave double agent; he would readily have died. Anyways he had to leave Hogwarts since his job was cursed.
I agree with Cacciaguida that Dumbledore’s first priority was Draco. In fact I think that Dumbledore was giving his life to place a “mark of love” on Draco, much as I (Lily) had placed a mark on Harry by dying for him.
Too bad he basically committed suicide.
These and other cheery thoughts can be found at at http://www.jamesandlilypotterlive.blogspot.com/
Lily,
You may very well be right; we’ll find out in two weeks. It need not be so, though. Snape may could have had his own agenda in the matter, such as trying to destroy Voldemort himself without being limited by Dumbledore’s ethics and killed him to that end because it was “necessary.” Alternately he might have gotten trapped into taking the vow before he knew what it was (though I think that is unlikely), intended to die rather than fulfill it out of loyalty, but seeing how Dumbledore was going to die anyway went ahead with it (as Snape, though he may be on the side of good, does not strike me as a scrupulous moral absolutist who would consider the murder of a dying man to save his own life and Malfoy’s to be unacceptable). Or he might have thought at the time, or told himself, that Dumbledore wanted him to do it without necessarily being correct.
You may very well be right; we’ll find out in two weeks.
Rather, we’ll find out in nine days plus however long it takes to get to the relevant passages. 🙂
On Snape- I don’t think he hated Dumbledore. Given that, his death-spell couldn’t have worked– but I wouldn’t put it past Dumbledore, fatally poisoned, to fall back and save three of his students. (Voldie already mentioned that you have to truly hate someone to AK them– if killin’ your folks doesn’t do that, I don’t think Snape’s got it in him, either.) (Oh, and I say three, because Snape is one of his students, too– one that he already failed.)
See, this is why I enjoy the internet– so many neat ideas, and smart folks to chatter with!
I wrote a letter to the “National Catholic Register” describing how seemingly innocent interest in witchcraft on shows like “Bewtiched” led my friends and I to attempt it, playfully, in the fourth through eighth grade. We tried spells, seances, Ouija board, levitation, etc. Because of a silly TV show, we were to see a frightening manifestation of some sort of power, as a glass table in my bedroom spontaneously split in half!
It’s not the content of Harry Potter, I’ve seen the films, it’s the curiousity which it engenders. Look at the type of books next to the Harry Potter display in the bookstore; most link to the occult.
Harry Potter might be OK as adult fare, but I’ll keep my daughters in Narnia, thank you!
Waiting until the last book does not, however, answer the question for parents whose children have been of the age to read the books for some time now. Especially those parents whose children went to Catholic schools where these books were some of the least questionable to be required–or at least strongly suggested as reading material for an optional-yet-mandatory reading program!!
Incidently, I had him stop temporarily after book 3, since the themes become more “mature” after that point; he’s 10.
Oh, here we go again. I am glad this is the last book in the series. I have been tired of the little wizard since book 4. The first book helped my youngest children learn to read early. The second encouraged their reading. It took me a long time to realize that all the adult/teacher/librarian support of HP and every book that the children “will love, because they’re similar to Harry Potter” (occult-wise, of course, not in the way of all the “positive values” understood through HP) encouraged in them an appetite they haven’t yet lost for all things magical, and all things alternatively spiritual.
We’re supposed to direct the children’s love for the supernatural toward God (for Whom their souls yearn), not magic. Magic, being supernatural, is somewhat like God; God is certainly not LIKE magic! It seems to me that every HP season turns that understanding upside-down.
I don’t ban the wizard in my house. But I don’t let him TAKE OVER my children’s interest anymore. A book is a book is a book. Unless it’s a movie. 🙂
This wasn’t as big a deal for us, since our children (Cacciadelia, the youngest, is now twelve) are not by age or situation particularly vulnerable to the dangers that definitely exist in the Harry Potter books. I’ve always said that children in very unhappy, hopeless situations – like Harry’s as the series begins, and from which he’s rescued by escaoing from the responsible adults into a magical world – could easily be led to experiment with magic to their cost. Like Mrs. Brown, I object to the prevailing message that it’s perfectly all right to tell lies to get onesself out of tight corners.
I’ve said it before, and I stick to it: it doesn’t matter if Snape had made an Unbreakable Vow; it doesn’t matter if Dumbledore was in extremis; it doesn’t matter if Dumbledore wanted to be killed. If Snape knowingly and with intention did what he knew must kill another person, he’s a murderer. Period. I don’t think he’s still a Death Eater, but he’s whiny, pathetic, childish, cruel, and a killer. Earth to Snape: LOTS OF US had bad childhoods and were bullied in school. Most of us, however, decided to get over it and not let our rocky pasts trap us in a perpetual cycle of misery and venomous ill-will. You chose otherwise, and, as has been remarked, it’s our choices that show what we are.
Publius- He vowed to help the little twit Draco if Draco couldn’t do his job. Dumbledore isn’t a threat to Voldie anymore (which I doubt, given the Phoenix stunt on the coffin) so the oath is fulfilled.
As for how Snape treats the kids– yes, he’s not nice, but has he done actual harm? Keep in mind, he’s saved Harry’s life pretty much constantly since the first book– the bucking broom, throwing himself between the kids and the werewolf (not in the text but approved specifically by Mrs. Rowling), and everyone else in the wizarding world is cooing over Harry.
After that last book, *I* wanted to smack Harry around. Also, Snape only owed his life to Harry’s dad because of the “joke” that nearly got him torn to shreds by poor Lupin– I don’t see that as much of a debt.
Elinor- we still don’t know if Snape actually did something to kill him, since the only thing we know about that exact spell is that it doesn’t work unless you *hate* the person with all of your will. Either Snape did hate him, and thus is evil and a murderer and has been a traitor the entire time, or he didn’t hate him, the spell didn’t work and Dumbledore pulled some kind of stunt. Given the hints about stoppering death, Dumbledore may have been dead since he messed with that ring, and Snape used some odd potion to suspend his death.
…. wow, I’ve really spent too much time thinking about this….
Can’t believe so many people are going off the deep end about some fictional characters. Take a breath folks, it’s all make believe!
That said, IMHO Snape will remain an enigma. Rowling will kill him off in such a manner we’ll never know the truth.
Malfoy and Harry will have some sort of reluctant reconciliation, Voldemort will be destroyed by an unlikely agent (Neville Longbottom?), Hagrid will die in a spectacular manner.
And I’m just as twisted as everyone else that’s posted here so far!
My two cents on Snape! The man is twisted, and in the *process* of redemption. I don’t think he was fully redeemed back fifteen years ago, but nor do I think he’s a Death Eater fanatic a la Bellatrix Lestrange. He’s somewhere in the middle, and has always been.
As has been pointed out before, if Snape hadn’t killed Dumbledore, he’d have died under the terms of the Unbreakable Vow. This isn’t to say that Rowling didn’t perhaps make a mistake about this. She’s made a lot of mistakes, and I’m frankly not looking forward to finding out what a hash she’s made of the final unravelling. As I see it, she has painted herself into a corner, and she won’t be able to get out of it without some stupid kluge or other.
I read some of the Granger fellow’s book about Snape in HBP. His style is irritating in the extreme – not surprising, seeing as he teaches high school English – but what really struck me about the book is the bizarreness of the theories. According to the contributors, several of the characters are dead, except the ones we think are dead, and most of the rest of them are taking Polyjuice Potion to impersonate someone else. They remind me strongly of the people who used to prove that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s plays. I wanted to say, of course he did; now, take your medication and have a nice lie-down, there’s a dear.
If she intends Snape to be not just disloyal to Voldemort, but actually good, then she did write herself into a corner in which she’ll have to endorse Snape’s offing Dumbledore (and likely having Dumbledore endorsing his own murder). OTOH, if Snape turns out to be bad, but not a loyal Death Eater (sort of like Dolores Umbridge, possessing her cruelty and amorality, but not her infuriating and willful stupidity) or thoroughly evil, then I don’t necessarily see a problem. If Snape turns out to be a loyal Death Eater and servant of Voldemort—well, then Rowling’s going to have a LOT of pissed-off Severus Snape fans writing her nasty and/or threatening letters.
thanks for sharing these ideas