Heck, I'm going to start a thread :D
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Heck, I'm going to start a thread :D
Go for it.
Well, Ultimatelly, it is idealistic to hope that everyone must have a great critical reading, because they will domain the aspects of the texts, and not be manipulated, the whole democratic access to the power of words, etc.
In pratice, if we are talking about teens, some critical reading is just enough, more important is to build up the familiarity with books, etc.
first off, I agree with JBI in that the books on the whole do favour a Red Herring story... and even the series looked at as a whole may seem to.. for Snape is regarded as a bad guy for the entire series by Harry, yet in his dying moment he reveals to Potter that he was actually good, and looking out for him the entire time...
now to deus ex machina... beginning with book 1.. well, the ending, somehow out of the blue Harry looks in the mirror and he now has the philosopher's stone in his pocket, apparently because only one pure of heart who didn't want the stone for selfish reasons could have it fall into their pocket.. besides that, the apparent revelation that touching Harry Potter's skin makes Quirrel's flesh burn, which is the only thing that saves Potter...
book 2... the fact that as you say Fawkes had been introduced earlier in the story, does not mean at all that this is not an example of deus ex machina... the bird appears suddenly for no apparent reason, "out of the blue", as if by "divine providence", you get the picture... drops Harry the sorting hat, blinds the Basilisk about to kill him, and then Harry somehow miraculously pulls a giant sword out of the hat and kills the snake... how is this not an example of deus ex machina?????
book 3... Harry and the others are about to be overwhelmed by dementors and all of a sudden from out of nowhere, a Patronus comes flying to the rescue and saves them... and who made this, we find out after that it was not Harry's father like he thought, but Harry himself who has apparently gone back in time with Hermione, who just happens to have a time machine, and well Harry saves himself and the others... deus ex machina? I think so...
book 4... well not so bad as the ending of the others in terms of being a use of deus ex machina.. it could be regarded as such in a sense.. for as Voldemort casts his killing curse at Harry, Harry casts a juvenile expelliarmus curse, and somehow the curses lock together, and echoes start coming out of Voldemort's wand of the most recent people he killed, and miraculously these shadows are able to protect Harry as he escapes with his life...
book 5... not so much...
book 6... again not so much...
book 7... well somehow Voldemort's killing curse against Harry cannot kill Harry but only the small part of him inside Harry as a horcrux.. so miraculously, yet again Harry survives.. when he wakes up Narcisa Malfoy, can only think of whether her son is alive, and somehow forgets that if she allows Harry Potter to fake death, someone else might check and then her whole family would be murdered surely.. she acts totally ridiculously for someone trying to protect her son in this case... so again Harry survives.. deus ex machina, I would say so...
and earlier in the book the Deer Patronus that somehow leads harry to Godric Gryffindor's sword which they had absolutely needed to find, as somehow Snape has tracked them down, explained very insatisfactorily with a guy seeing a brief glimpse of them in a tent hahahaha... and Snape has again turned into a good guy... and Ron appears out of nowhere having found his way back to them with the use of the deluminator which apparently was made just to find Harry and Hermione??? and then he saves Harry... again two more examples of deus ex machina...
I mean, honestly I only listed the ends of boook 1-4 and 7, and a couple examples from earlier in book 7.. .there are other smaller examples if we want to go into it... but to end 5 of 7 books in a series with a literary technique that is considered quite poor, well this just illustrates the extreme mediocrity of her writing technique.. and the overuse of the Red Herring as mentioned by JBI, and her overwhelming dependence on cliches... we could go into this if you would like, post a page or two of her books and analyze them...
and another serious flaw in book 7... how does Dumbledore defeat Grindelwald in their great duel and become master of the Elder Wand which has to win every duel for its master, as this is how Harry beats Voldemort in the end.. Grindelwald was master of this wand, and using it, and was unstoppable, and yet somehow Dumbledore defeats him in a duel.. this is just poor writing to forget that you just finished writing that the master of the wand could not be defeated and yet here is Grindelwald being defeated using it... silly? yes...
but everyone claims he imagination is so great, her vision so wonderful? are you serious? she can't barely think of a way to end a story outside of deus ex machina... half her bad guys end up being "red herrings"... imagination, I think she is seriously lacking if one goes deeper than the obvious.. of course she made up a world, it's a fantasy...
wait do you mean you think it is primarily a children's book? or that you don't think it is? for I think it's value would be much increased if it were for the 6-9 year old range, which it is obvioulsy not aimed at.. even the first book was aimed at 9-13 year olds, and the last books at 13- really any age... I mean almost as many adults read it for pleasure as children.. so it is obviously not marketed as, meant as, nor seen as primarily a children's book and that is what makes it so mediocre as a work of supposedly serious literature...Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
bring it into the classroom with what purpose though? kids will read it regardless of whether it is taught in the school system, so why should it be in the classroom, why not take the opporunity to have them read something good, something interesting, something that's positives outweight its negatives unlike Potter??
Honestly, who really cares about this masterwand toss - she made her protagonist Jesus - that's cliché enough - she even had him reincarnated to save the world. I mean, that's just pathetic if you ask me.
yes that is too true... and quite pathetic..
what I also find interesting here, on this thread, and other Harry Potter threads, is that those us of posting on why we think the work is mediocre are the ones doing all the explaining. elucidating our points, giving reasons, providing examples, discussing the issue in much more depth..
whereas, those arguing that Harry Potter is good or great or even just decent, only provide general blanket statements such as the works have great imagination, a really good storyline, moral lessons, etc. etc... I can't think of the other claimed reasons for Potter being good at the moment, but the point is, I have not seen a single person (besides DarkShadow, who just wrote out the beginning to two of the books and said it was good writing in one, and not as good in the other) arguing for Harry Potter provide any real argument for why it is a well written book, or good literature, or valuable in some way..
and yet the con side is the one criticized for making opinions fact, we are the ones told we are generalizing.... we are the ones told we have narrowminded views of what literature is.. we're called elitists, snobs... we're told that we are purposefully making inflammatory and derogatory comments, that we are insulting people and even their relations by calling what they read "fluff", "schlock", "mediocre".. that we are discouraging children from reading by calling it mediocre... and yet we are the only ones supplying real arguments and providing examples of why it is mediocre, whereas the pro side, is just saying it is good because I think so, or because it has imagination and a good storyline...
could anyone please provide some kind of argument as to why Harry Potter is good.. give examples please, show us why it is not mediocre writing...
i have seen a number of posts suggesting the 8 or 9 year old child should be reading something like Oliver Twist instead. Why? at that age all they are going to get from Twist is Fagin bad, Oliver good (unless anyone seriously thinks they are likely to pick up on dickens references to the poor law?) This is a vast oversimplification and they'd be as well not reading it at all. They will be just reading it for the story (and likely an abridged version at that), getting frustrated by language they are not familiar with & for a lot of them being put off from reading because of the complexity and boring nature of it to them at that age. Seeing as at that age they will just be getting the story where is the harm in letting them just read the story of HP instead? They may not progress to "higher" literature (whatever this may be) but they wont be put off from it either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by islandclimber
You are kidding right . . .
Other than JBI and I nobody has elucidated their points on why Harry Potter = bad or good. Can you provide some examples of where you offered evidence to back up your declarations? I can point to a number of your posts where you made some declarations, but offered no evidence to support those declarations. Okay, wait you finally did so in post #164. I also explained in that post how it functions as a fantasy, though, I could have explained that better I suppose, and various themes to be found in the book, and how the fantastical elements make these themes new (presents them more objectively in a way).
I also have some thoughts about the deus ex machina trope that Rowling uses. Yes, I agree with you that it's there, but I am not sure I agree its a deficiency when one thinks about what thematic purpose it satisfies.
I'm also hesitant to elaborate any further because I figure if I am spending all this time writing long posts and elucidating on Harry Potter I should either be doing it for my blog or as an article in a journal so I can at least make some cash from it.
8-9 year olds shouldn't be able to read all of Potter - they are not in the target age group for the series: from my understanding, 1-2 8-11 year olds, 3-4 13-15 year olds, and the rest 16+, from how I understand the marketing. Keep in mind, the last one came out almost a decade after the first one.Quote:
Originally Posted by kilted exile
So in a sense, though the 8-9 year olds may not wish to read Dickens, they could very well read Le Guin, for instance, and the 11+ year olds could start reading something like Tamora Pierce, or Caitlin Sweet, or something entirely different - there is actually quite a bit of Young Adult Fiction available. Of course, I think 15 or so is the right age to start reading very challenging books - I personally broke late, and started at 16 (and did much of my classical reading in those years directly following that), but I see no problem, for instance, handing a 14 year old Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë.
Those texts, and in truth, almost all texts, aren't all that difficult - the difference is though, they use real written English, as apposed to the colloquial English of the school yard, and as such, they are somehow seen as old fashion, or difficult - I know someone in university, for instance, who has difficulty reading A Tale of Two Cities, and is used to reading thrillers whereas I know enough people who are new to the language, who make the effort to familiarize themselves with more difficult texts, and as a result, their written English, as well as their conversational skills, and their vocabularies improve significantly.
A. E. Housman, William Blake, Doctor Sues, Christina Rossetti, amongst many, many others, both contemporary and classical, for instance, all wrote many accessible works that an 8-9 year old could get. You don't, for instance, want a child growing up with texts that offer no challenge, so generally, if one wants to be building reading comprehension, they should up the standard a little bit. A 12 year old who can't read Ulysses is fine, but a 15 year old who struggles through most novels, I'm afraid, is functionally illiterate. By the age of 16 or so, I think, one reaches the point where reading levels shouldn't be an issue - there are odd works, for instance, Poetry generally is hard for people to read, or James Joyce, or perhaps much of Faulkner (especially his Absalom Absalom) that people may have trouble with, but for the most part, they should be able to grasp almost anything in prose they read, and much of what is in verse, and, if they are any good, have something to say about it.
Harry Potter, in my honest opinion, looks like children's prose dressed up as mature literature - the themes attempt to be mature, yet at the same time lack a mature tone, so that the term snogging, for instance, is used instead of making out, or kissing everywhere - but lets be honest, what 17 year old makes a big deal about kissing girls - by about 12 or thirteen kissing shouldn't really be a big deal. By using the term snogging, it becomes a sort of joke, the tone is reduced, so if anything, I think, these books don't give enough credit to the ability of readers at that age to handle mature things.
But alas, she deliberately sticks in deaths and "dark moments" as a way to sort of make the books seem mature - there are so many pointless killings in the texts as to make it that I am unable to justify them, in terms of structure, without thinking that was her motive - she originally, for instance, said herself that she was trying to make them darker, and more mature on the original release, so perhaps there is credibility to that hypothesis.
Perhaps the biggest problem though, I find, is that she tries to turn Dickens style characters into Shakespeare style characters, and fails at both.
Dickens characters are ironized cartoon cuttings of society, which serve as comical, often darkly comical representations of our society. Shakespeare characters are infinitely complex ones, which are seemingly "more real" than ones in reality, and therefore help us rethink reality in our own terms by overhearing. What Rowling tries to do, is make a Dickens style character, such as Harry's friend Ron (though Harry in a sense is one too) out to be someone deep and profound, but he ultimately lacks the depth, and falls right in between them - not ironic or funny, and not deep or "more real". The melodrama of, for instance, him always fighting with the other two in the trio seems to highlight this problem - rather than the fighting being comical, as it would be in a Dickens type character, or series and show some insight of deepness of character, as in Shakespeare style characters, it seems melodramatic, pointless, and rather silly.
Perhaps the most realized Dickens characters come from her greatest rip offs of society - take her Rita Skeeter (I think that is the name) reporter character, who is perhaps the most realized one - that character functions well enough as a Dickens character, but her reappearance in the fifth book, I would argue, attempts to make a more rounded character out of her, and ultimately fails, her reemergence in later texts perhaps is a little bit cute, if such sentimentality is your thing, but doesn't really add much, and loses what was gained before.
Another Dickens character had similar treatment - the evil schoolteacher, Mrs. Umbridge (did I get the name wrong?) seems to be styled as a comical sort of Dickens character, but ultimately she gets the same treatment - an attempt at rounding out and fleshing which fails, and then a later resurgence, which is sentimental, and boring.
There is about 1000x more character development and depth in the first 50 lines of Rossetti's Goblin Market than in all of Harry Potter. I see no reason why a child cannot be given something with more to it.
Is Jane Austen's Mr. Collins, for instance not a better comical character than Rowling's Gilderoy Lockhart (sp?) is Dickens' Pip not a better character than Rowling's Harry? Is Cather's Antonia not a more mature and realized character than Hermione, and in turn, is not the romance (though not so happy ending) between the two characters in Cather's book more real and gut wrenching? Why then, do we feel it necessary to reduce things so much. I don't think anyone, for instance, whether male or female, can help falling in love with an Antonia, or with a Mr. Darcy, or any other in a long slew of fantastic characters. Even a Sparowhawk/Ged is a fantastically drawn out character to warrant much attention, and he too lingers in memory - but alas, we supposedly think kids to immature to read real books, and instead give them highly chaste children's junk that is written for people older than its content.
But I guess it makes sense - the same way we have kids music, young adults music, adolescent music, and just reaching maturity music, we have the equivalents in literature now. Harry Potter is just the equivalent to the Jonas Brothers, or Hannah Montana - it sees an audience, and its promoters exploit that by making it the only thing supposedly available for that age group. Then, the age group widens, so being functionally literate and reading books is deemed too precocious or something, and dismissed by educators and the like.
My school library in high school, for instance, divided the fiction by age group. The same Monica Hughes books I read as an 11 year old somehow fit better with a suggested audience of grade 10 (14 year olds), whereas Jane Austen is a 12th grade book. Needless to say, with a branch of the Toronto Public Library just outside the school nobody ended up borrowing books from there for casual reading, but the limitation of such things is ridiculous - it sets people up for mediocrity.
At least they are reading is not an excuse - it's called dumbing down for a reason, because one cuts the norm as a way of justifying making up for loss ground - if we simplify things to such a degree that anyone can read, then technically, everyone becomes literate - it's like moving down the difficulty on standardized testing and claiming the education system is doing better.
Luckily, they haven't gotten rid of Shakespeare from the grade 9 curriculum, otherwise I think the most challenging text any of those kids would read in their life here would be The Great Gatsby which, though a great text, should easily be accessible to anyone 13 or up, and not be taught in Grade 12, where something like Margaret Atwood's Surfacing, or Robertson Davies' Fifth Business, or Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man could be taught instead.
I think the people getting the least credit here are children with this - you need to show people things in order to get them to take - if people don't know about good literature, then they obviously aren't going to read it. But when you make Harry Potter the most advertised text in the world (complete with vibrating Broomsticks and every sort of type of toy imaginable, from food products to stickers) and praise it nonstop, of course they aren't going to think differently. Even here, daring to accuse the texts of mediocrity is seen as rude, and is met with a backlash - what better form of advertising.
Like I said, I have no problem with literature in that age group - I have been championing Caitlin Sweet for a while now, because I think her prose is some of the best I've seen in a long time, and is quite poetic and beautiful, as is her imagination - her book feels painted with watercolors, beautifully, rather than written - or Tamora Pierce, who has penned several very good book series for the same sort of age group as the third and fourth Harry Potter books, but deals a lot more with real issues, and has far stronger characters.
Those two are by no means "classical authors" and I am doubtful of their existence in the future as "canonical works", but in all honesty, I think they are far more culturally relevant, and powerful works than any Harry Potter, and would recommend them to a child probably over something like Tom Sawyer or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
I don't know - I certainly won't boast to be the only one - but you yourself claimed to be interested in a deeper textual analysis, and then, all of a sudden, merely forgot the text part, and continued on talking about the cultural phenomenon of Harry Potter, rather than the text of Harry Potter itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
In that sense, there has been very little real talk of Harry Potter, outside of the "Harry Potter the culture" zone.
I think the argument from outside the text has all but exhausted itself already - three Harry Potter threads over.
Perhaps now we can move on and actually talk about the qualities and faults of the text itself, rather than try to justify the quality of a book by the amount of illiterates, children, or philistines who read it.
and you also provided quite a number of posts with declarations for which you provided no evidence, and many others with anecdotal evidence, or your own personal experience as a librarian.. I volunteered in a library for a few years when the Harry Potter books were first coming out, but I don't need to fall back on claiming my own personal experience of seeing a few people in one random library behave a certain way reflects upon society as a greater truth...Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
anyways.. whatever I managed to say in my last post there, you have several times provided your arguments, explained them, given your own version of evidence for them (which, let's be honest is mostly just your own personal opinion of how Harry Potter shows world-building and works as a fantasy) and that's great... but on the whole I have seen JBI, JCamilo, MortalTerror, StLukes, myself (and yes I do admit I have several times made declarations without providing evidence, but to say I have not elucidated upon my claims before post 164 is a little silly and completely false) all do the same thing...
deus ex machina not a deficiency in Potter eh.. someone (I can't remember, was it you or someone else?) in this thread already said that cliches weren't bad in Rowling because children hadn't heard them before so therefore they were not cliches.. give me a break.. this is the same kind of argument.. JK Rowlings excessive dependence on Deus Ex Machina (to say nothing of cliches and her typical red herring plots) shows a writer who lacks the imagination to think of another way out of the corner she has written herself into... shows a writer that cannot keep her story's internal logic intact... maybe because it allows her to give a much more palatable ending however unlikely, however much it destroys "suspension of disbelief" which is what fantasy of course relies upon, does it not? but as long as she gives a half-assed explanation for the miracle afterwards it's okay, oh you have a pure heart so fate will always smile on you and miracles will rain down from the heavens to save you everytime you are put in peril? what thematic purposes does this satisfy? to show that the theme of Harry Potter is no hard work or skill required, miracles are a dime a dozen? don't worry, if you are a good guy, luck and fate will always be on your side?
I would disagree with this.. I do not think Rowling has any intention of creating characters in the style of Dickens... Dickens characters as you say often serve as darkly comical representations of our society, characters that often seem so exaggerated this way, that although we may recognize bits and pieces of them in the people we interact with everyday, we see them as somewhat beyond possibility, as exaggerated stereotypes, as comical misrepresentations of the average man, etc...Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Rowling in my opinion does not at all try to do this... besides on occasion with characters such as Skeeter, the Weasley parents, the Lovegoods, and other such secondary characters.. but with her main characters I think Rowling tries to create characters in a manner that we might say we know someone exactly like that, or that we may see as/in ourselves, she tries to allow young people to identify with her characters and to see that they are just as real and ordinary as any young person living in reality, just set up in a different world, in a fantasy world of wizards and witches and all that encompasses.. her characters seem to be quite content acting as normal, average teenagers placed in extraordinary circumstances... it's seems she is trying to create characters who think and act in ways that suggest to us, even compel us to believe well this character that I identify with, I would act and think in the exact same way if I was placed in this situation.. it seems to me she creates a fantasy world and tries to create characters that are all to made up of the stuff of this everyday world we live in.. I have mixed opinions on whether this is a good thing in fantasy or not, and whether or not Rowlings succeeds in this...
and this gets into your second point about the problems with the novel's mixed bag on maturity issues.. especially in the last 4 books.. they are no longer babies, people are dying around them, and Rowling misses no chance in expanding upon the themes of love and death in the later books... but it is a platonic love strictly.. and violent death only.. no one ever passes away of old age, no one dies of a disease... no one loves besides in a universal and general way.. or if they do love, it is briefly glanced at and then swept away as the novel switches back to focus on "darker" and more "mature" themes.. and this is where her characters fail miserably... for Rowling wants to make them so real, but what 15-18 year old does not have issues of sex and passionate love on his mind? a brief kiss, a few words on feeling something strange about someone else seem to be the only actions and emotions that Rowling's characters can display? and yet they can handle death being all around them, torture, intense hatred, violence, "evil", disorder... that just another example of the absurd failings in logic of Rowling's writing... and the safe nature of the works... is she afraid of the issue of sex? does she really think 16 year olds won't be able to handle it? and yet she seems to think she is writing for a mature audience as he works not only deal with death but a sadistic pleasure in some characters of not only killing but torturing? although even this seems somewhat glossed over, as she apparently is afraid of offending the sensibilities of her younger readers, torture though apparently prevalent among the death eaters for fun, is also briefly glossed over and death again takes its place...
I think Rowlings was looking for something entirely different then Dickens and Shakespeare in the creation of her characters, and that is an "intense reality"....
with regards to your other points I wholeheartedly agree, and I also hope we can pass on from discussing the cultural phenomenon of Harry Potter and maybe discuss why the text is so "good" or so "bad"
She isn't trying to write Dickens characters - she is trying to write Shakespeare type characters with "Real life feelings" and whatnot. The problem is, she really just doesn't have the ability, and is far more suited for Dickens style characters, though, without the umph I guess, to make one deep, profound, real seeming character - people always praise the Snape character, yet he doesn't really hold any ground as a profound Byronic hero - he is too removed, too stereotyped, and too limited in terms of what he says and does.
For the Snape Character to actually have worked, he would have needed a height of emotional strength rarely seen in characters - the best example, and perhaps most thought out one I can think of, is Wagner's Konig Marke, as heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJVbd...om=PL&index=12 or for a better video but with a, in my opinion, slightly worse singer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXtJEkcMbwo.
The character loses believability, and was made even worse by the division over time in the books - is he good, is he bad, no he's good, no he's bad, no he's really a hero, no, he love's Harry's mother, no wait, he sacrifices himself to save the day.
There is nothing really there that is believable too, except for Alan Rickman, who pulls it off by being able to carry the lines in the perfect, menacing accent.
@JBI: Agreed. However, I mostly was responding to my interlocutors and where they took the conversation.
@Islandclimber: All literary criticism is technically one particular critic's opinion, or the word we typically use is: interpretation. That's why texts and interpretations and even opinions about the quality of texts are never a closed debate (in actual scholarship or on these boards). There's always one more interpretation of Hamlet, one more scrutinizing of minute elements, one more reassessment of a forgotten book or a non-canonical book. We technically could go on forever without getting anywhere. So in a sense I completely agree with what you wrote. Even if I offered an impassioned defense with tons of textual evidence and explain what it is I see in Harry Potter I don't imagine for a second it would cause you or anyone to have an epiphany and reevaluate Harry Potter. You might think of it this way, opinions = interpretations/evaluation, facts = the text.
@Both: I'm working on a post that will be going on the blog about Harry Potter, which will address your criticisms of the books, and explain what I and others (since I will be quoting literary criticism) see in it by providing an interpretation that is supported by evidence from the books. It will take me some time to write up this post as it requires some research (I've written up the post, originally as an informal response, but I want to do some more formal research); I have a lot of other projects under my belt right now, mostly finding a job.
I don't know though, as you yourself said and I agree Shakespearean characters were created infinitely complex, to the point of being seen as more real than reality, another version of a distorted reality as the world is not only filled with this "real" man.... Dostoevsky is another example somewhat like this with his intensely real characters who so often behave and think in ways seemingly beyond reality but at the same time exceptionally rooted in reality...
I don't know if I would agree that this is what Rowling was looking for, a reality that was almost beyond reality in the creation of her characters... I would agree though that she attempted to create deep, real seeming characters, I just don't know if I would put the word profound in there.. it seems to me that while Shakespeare did create real characters at the same time they possessed something too real... Rowling creates characters that are meant to be entirely real, and profound is not in her equation of what is real... in my opinion.. the books show an attempt to delve into the thought processes of a young mind, and do a somewhat admirable job in some cases, but fail miserably in other ways... but they steer clear of the profound, although maybe this is more of something attempted and just missing, as you suggest and I am just missing this...
but I do agree that her characters sometimes do fall into the Dickens style especially when faced with the ordinary day to day life, they seem to lack resonance and become almost farcical... only when the extraordinary arrives again do they again become alive and real and vivid... the stark contrast is one of the main problems with her characters in my opinion...
and Snape is a perfect example... for as you say he is so removed, so stereotyped, so limited that when he all of a sudden pops up as really the hero of the series, when he all of a sudden comes to life, and in such a fantastic manner, well it just seems implausible and silly...
I do agree with you, although I do believe there is something to be said for discussing merits of certain works in changing people's opinions on them.. I don't for a second think I know everything about the Harry Potter books, all possible negatives, and all possible positives.. and maybe you will make some points that I find I can do nothing but agree with, and though it may not make me look upon Harry Potter as a good book, it may help me see it from a different perspective, or notice a few merits that I had otherwise been blinded to.. and who knows, I probably won't have a favourable opinion of the book all the same, but I may look on it a little less harshly than I currently do right ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
well I look forward to this post, and good luck finding a job.. :)
The problem of Dickens or Shakespeare characters is that they are supported by the plot and by the main characters. Shakespeare basically adds a perspective, since in a book a character is a representation of actions and feelings, he gave us someone to filter those actions and feelings. Ofelia is Ofelia because Hamlet is around. Iago defines Othelo and Othelo defines Iago. The same with Dickens, they are not just a plot device (huh, either the teacher is just some lousy addult who lets kids solve problems or he is the problem) or something object to build the scenario. But since the plot of HP is really obvious (it is really a red ex machine herring) and the character is basically a videogame dude (I have problem, i have new magical item and a new combo attack!), all the rest is empty. Some short of museum of oddities.
As what kids should read, usually the problem with kids is discipline to focus on length and vocabulary. There is studies who show they have a great capacity of interpretation, not bound by our addult experience, who in the end, lead us to the basic and normal interpretation.
Only paranoid fools who haven't read the Harry Potter series would say that it promotes the occult and witchcraft. It actually promotes many good values that every human being should embrace, such as friendship and other themes.
Yes, it promotes good vallues, liking esteeming witces and studying ancient languages.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adderhead
:lol: that's funny. Can you be resurrected if you didn't die?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Sorry, wrong word - reincarnated, resurrected - either way, the point is she couldn't even write a story on her own terms, she bent it toward a biblical ending, which undercuts the whole thing. Perhaps not a full Jesus, as he didn't ascent to heaven, but the reference is clear enough - Aslan meets Voldemort (Lilith/The Queen) gets beaten down on the ground, and rises again, stronger, with the power Voldemort does not know of, to save the day - the narrative is the exact freaking same, the only difference is this time it isn't from the focalization of Lucy, an observer, yet Jesus himself.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
So in a sense, though the 8-9 year olds may not wish to read Dickens, they could very well read Le Guin, for instance, and the 11+ year olds could start reading something like Tamora Pierce, or Caitlin Sweet, or something entirely different - there is actually quite a bit of Young Adult Fiction available. Of course, I think 15 or so is the right age to start reading very challenging books - I personally broke late, and started at 16 (and did much of my classical reading in those years directly following that), but I see no problem, for instance, handing a 14 year old Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë.
I really wish it was like his JBI. No doubt there are kids who fit this analysis - I can only speak of my knowledge of the UK - I am ignorent of he situation in Canada an the USA - but I see HP as perhaps reaching pre-teens and getting them intersted in reading. Sadly, what I have seen of educaion in my city is plenty of poor literacy standards. I now teach adults who have the scars of a poor education system going back decades.(The oldest guy I taught is 86). A lot of them never read anything but the papers. In my GCSE group last year - with ages ranging from 17 to 55, very few had read any poems at all, and these people are the sucesses in terms of doing something about their lack of education. My own favourable opinion of HP is merely in the hope of it reaching kids - it is a kids book as far as I'm concerned. I found the stories entertaining, but I tend to agree with yours, and others textual analysis.
I thought you didn't read the book ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
My point was, Harry didn't die. He was knocked out. You can't be reincarnated or resurrected if you haven't been killed first. So the Jesus analogy doesn't quite stack up though I see where you're coming from.
I didn't take it that Harry either 'rose stronger' or had any special powers or, in fact, defeated the Voldemort character. Effectively Voldemort defeated himself by bringing about the conclusion of a self-fulfilling prophecy by means of his own fear, hatred and lust for power. Throughout the books Rowling goes to great pains to show that Harry is not special, has no extraordinary powers and is reliant on the goodwill, friendship, skill and protection of others. If Harry is a ‘hero’ at all he is an accidental one.
Ha! You hit many of the points I raise in the essay I am working, and apparently understand Potter exactly as I do!Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
Rowling said herself after the publication of an early volume, that if you understand her beliefs, it wouldn't be difficult to guess the ending of the series - this was before the whole Prophecy bit (and yes, I didn't read the 7th one). Whether it is a perfect match or not, the whole Chosen One bit and the rising up to defeat the evil is taken straight out of scripture, or perhaps mimics Lewis - just because of some magical technicalities doesn't mean he isn't meant to be Jesus.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
As for him being an anti-hero, she does a pretty good job at making him out to be a character obsessed with himself as "Hero". No matter what moping he does about people not understanding him, and thinking him a freak or whatever, the truth is he is obsessed with it - he needs to spy on his teaches (1), spy on his classmates (2), go hunting his Godfather (3), save all the people underwater despite no having to, and then save everyone in the maze (4), go try and save the day in the fifth one, despite being no match at all (5), become the so called "Chosen One", and run off trying to save the day (6), and then go off hunting Voldemort to try and defeat him (7). Whether he is gifted or not is irrelevant, because he clearly has a desire to be a hero - I guess he likes the attention or something. Keep in mind, the only other thing he is particularly famous for, besides random bouts of hysteria in classes, is playing sports - being an athletic hero - and getting into mischief - being a sort of narcissist in that regard.
I've never read these books, are they popular?
Only when new movies are released.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Comedian
Yeah right, that's why stores open up through the night and the queues go round the block when the books come out. Libraries open through the night too and have Harry Potter sleepovers. They order in tons of the books. But JBI thinks they're only read when the films come out.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I'm talking about now - if you look on Google trends, you will see spikes occur when the new movies are released - there was about a month of hype before the last 3 of the books, that is true, but those are in the past, and the general "Potter Mania" hype has since ebbed drastically, as is want with anything popular, even good works like Dickens' stuff, and Zola's works back in the 19th century. There seems to be a resurgence of the mania though every time a new film is released - the result of advertising and nostalgia by my reckoning. Check the Google trends for a general idea of the graphing if you don't believe me.Quote:
Originally Posted by wessexgirl
For instance, I went a few years without seeing people reading them Potters on the subway, now, all of a sudden, this month I start to see some people reading them again - mostly 20 year olds, and females, though that is probably coincidental, given my limited exposure. I reckon there are die hard fans out there, as there are die hard fans for many things, and this is merely them - the original audience, who were between the ages of 8-12 when the first text was released, merely trying to regain that sort of hype. The bombardment of Potter advertisements for the movie certainly would help such a feeling, though I think this is the dead cat bounce, in terms of popularity - the books will never again reach the heights they did, and will continue on a downward slope, no matter what happens to the books in the future, as I don't think even the most fond critical minds can possibly consider these books as replacing something like Faulkner or Shakespeare, who have constant popularity as they have ingrained themselves so thoroughly on literature. Either the books are forgotten, or they remain an obscure children's classic like George MacDonald's works (which are still incredibly readable and insightful, and essentially created the trends of the genre even before many other classic authors) and remain read by kids with parents who are want to give them older texts, or strange academics with preoccupations with children's literature, or 200- culture.
No one talks about the Celestine Prophecy anymore, keep in mind, though I have of late seen a few copies float around while browsing used book stores. I'm willing to wager that there are now far more copies of Potter in circulation than the market can support, and, as a result, publishers aren't even going to try and promote them within the literary realm anymore - they will either find a new hero, or promote secondary items, like action figures, movies, candies, and video games.
No one is running out to buy an early copy of a 50$ children's book anymore - I think everyone should acknowledge that the general popularity of the text has ebbed, and though perhaps there is still some hype, it is not even a sliver of what it used to be.
Oh puh-lease! How absurd...so many posts asking to let a thread and a topic die...too funny! If you truly wanted it to die you would not even have peeaked let alone posted here in this thread.
I liked the series (of books), thought the ending of the last was a cop-out with the epilogue, but for the most part I did enjoy them all. I didn't start reading them until I was 40-ish. I read them to myself and aloud to my children.
Should we stop reading Cinderella, too, because of wand-toting-fairy-godmothers?
I think you can imagine my response.
~L
Perhaps it would be better to properly read the thread, before passing judgment on it in this fashion, even if we didn't like the series - just because one doesn't like a certain book doesn't mean they cannot discuss it. After all, as a cultural specimen the text is very important, if not as a literary text in its own right.Quote:
Originally Posted by LMK
I have to agree with this it would make for a boring discussion and a very quick one if everyone liked the same books, in fact this whole site would not be needed. There is nothing quite like a reasoned debate about a book and quite often I find things pointed out to me that I missed or over looked.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Please re-read my post. It is not to the persons who did not like the series, style, characters, message, etc. It was to the persons who specifically posted about letting the thread and the topic die. There is nothing I like better than a good debate. Well, maybe a good book.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
May I repeat your words back to you then, Perhaps it would be better to properly read the material (my word to replace 'thread') before passing judgement...
Thanks,
~L
Well those technicalities may well be the difference between a theory fitting and not ;) Somehow I get the feeling you're stretching the text to fit the theory and, perhaps, taking Rowlings comments slightly out of context. There are a number of discrepancies between the Harry is Aslan, Harry is Jesus theory which just don't fit. Harry doesn't die, Harry isn't resurrected, Harry doesn't save the day, Harry isn't and doesn't purport to be the son of God, Harry doesn't perform miracles, Harry seems to have no thought to saving others, only himself in fact it is only at the point where he realises he has to die that he takes steps to prevent any other people being killed on his behalf but that point comes after an awful lot of bloodshed. If there's a connection, and to be fair I acknowledge a vague connection, it's a rather loose one.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I don't dispute your comments re Harry as 'hero' or rather Harry presented as a character with a hero complex. I'd also say he's a character with a victim complex. On the whole I wouldn't say he was a laudable character, prone to irrationality verging on totally stupidity, getting other people into danger and trouble as well as himself. But maybe this is part of the message: you're only as strong as the people around you who are prepared to stick their neck out for you. Though sometimes quite how Harry manages to keep hold of his friends is a little beyond me, he doesn't seem to do a great deal to earn people's friendship except, perhaps, the occasional act of heroism ;) But my point was more that the conclusion of the series took away that heroism from Harry, no matter how hard he tried his success was more to do with other people than it was to do with himself. Or that was my reading of it anyway.
I'm not sure I agree with the "chosen one" because Harry wasn't the chosen one it could have been Harry or Neville.
Perhaps, because Voldemort chose Harry, not having heard the fully prophecy, it could be considered that he was chosen, but that message didn't sink as deeply with me.
Yes it was a battle between good and evil, did Harry possess more good? I don't think so, but he was thrust into greatness to survive. In the end it is Neville who makes it possible for Harry to conquer Voldemort, so back to the either Harry or Neville and not a case of clear cut chosen one.
Yes, I noticed that as well. I wondered if Rowling was highlighting that even if Voldemort had 'chosen' Neville the outcome would have been the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by LMK
Obviously not, but there is even worse to come. Thumbing through the latest copy of Time magazine I came across an item concerning a pop group called Harry and the Potters which has Ron on guitar, Hermione on bass, Hagrid on drums and Harry up front. What they play is known a wizard rock and apparently there are now dozens of wizard-rock bands in the US. They perform for people who think Harry Potter is awesome.Quote:
Originally Posted by mayneverhave
Oswald Spengler thou shouldst be living now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0W6G5bnurMQuote:
Originally Posted by Brian Bean
I stopped at 0.34 where the guy says "It's given me something to smile about"Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
This essay will seek to explicate the themes of Harry Potter, its important structural functions as a fantasy, and discuss where Harry Potter deviates from other fantasies. In order to do a proper essay and quote direct passages I would’ve had to re-read the books. In the future, I have plans to re-read Harry Potter as a series (probably far future) and will probably do a much more in depth analysis as I will be able to highlight what I want to quote as I read, but since that is impractical now I am merely going to refer to sections of story more broadly from memory.Quote:
Originally Posted by islandclimber
Harry Potter functions in a fantastical sub-genre known as Wainscot, which is a subgenre of Urban fantasy. The power of fantasy is in its ability to restore objectivity by divorcing itself even further from reality than Realist fiction is capable of doing, and allowing us to see important issues of our everyday reality in a new direction, new angle, new slant. In an interview I did with up-and-coming fantasy writer, Kameron Hurley, on my blog, she stated these points more succinctly:
“As for the remove that takes place in epic, heroic, or just plain fantasy works, I’d argue that it’s the remove from the real world than comes closest to examining issues objectively. When you’re mired in your own world, familiar surroundings, you’re more numb to what you’d see as the everyday routines of life, the “normal,” the “expected,” the “natural.” When you remove these things from their settings you can often see the absurdities of them, the injustice. Fantasy – good fantasy – can do that without feeling didactic.”
Urban fantasy in particular allows for direct parallels between the real world and the fantastical milieu. In Epic fantasy or Sword-and-Sorcery the world is further divorced from modern reality.
The world of Harry Potter is our world, but transformed through the lens of magic. The two worlds exist alongside each other within the story, encouraging us to read into these parallels. In the hidden magical world we have shops, banks, sporting events, boarding schools, government, but twisted around into new forms through the magical milieu. The attraction at first for the reader is the whimsical charm this familiarity brings, a strange world that is both alien and familiar at the same time. Harry Potter, while possessing a serious story at times, is almost playful with its world and characters and in the actual prose itself. Even in its opening lines we get this sense of playful whimsy:
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privert Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.” – Opening of HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Book 1).
One thing that most critics and proponents of the series can agree on is that the story on some level is about racism; disagreement, of course, exists over in what depth it deals with this issue. I also think this issue demonstrates how fantasy can let us see important problems that still infect our societies with fresh eyes. The racial theme centers on the inner-wizarding ideological conflict between mudbloods (wizards with human parents) and pure bloods (the term is self-explanatory). The ideology of wizarding “racism” for takes different forms throughout the novel: we have petty harassment, name-calling, and disdain (exemplified by Draco Malfoy and Slytherins), we have those who advocate for outright exclusion of mudbloods, along with torture and slavery of Muggles (the deatheaters), those with elitist racial attitudes who would rule over Muggles as benevolent philosopher-king/dictators for their own good (Dumbledore in his youth and the dark wizard Grindenwald), and even those who show a slight aversion towards Mudbloods if not verbalized hatred or actions of blatant discrimination (Slughorn who like the typical white person caught saying something stereotypically racist will deny that they are racist). The book doesn’t paint a simplistic portrait of racism, but shows it in its many different forms and expressions, some being more extreme than others, much like racism in real life. The story further complicates this reading through its parallels of the Muggle and Wizarding worlds; the real difference between these two worlds is that the members of one can do magic and the members of the other cannot. Nevertheless, a real difference of ability is presented through this binary based around genetics, and thus has an implicit racial component. Nevertheless, this very real difference between the inhabitants of the two worlds serves a sub-textual purpose that further exposes the arbitrariness of the mudblood/pure blood division so important to the racial politics of the Wizarding World since the real difference is between Muggles and Wizards, not mudbloods and purebloods. For the reader who knows there is no such thing as Wizards, this fictional logic and imaginary rules forces as to view racism in a new light; as far as we’re concerned all wizards are essentially the same, able to perform magic with equal ability whether they are mudblood or pure blood. The difference is between Muggles and Wizards. By divorcing it from the real world into an imaginary setting we see firsthand in an objective light just how arbitrary racism is as Rowling literally designs her own made-up form of racism in the Wizarding World. It allows children and young adults to think about this arbitrary quality to racism in a way that could never be achieved by just showing them a realistic story about it. It is precisely through the divorcing quality of fantasy, by creating an ideology that exists only in a different world, yet bearing similarities to our own ideologies, that allows us to see the extent of racism’s arbitrary nature. However, the opposite is not true in regards to the Muggle and Wizard divisions as possibly encouraging racist ideology.
It is important to remember that the Muggle and Wizarding worlds exist separately from each other much like two counties adjacent to one another, which is an inherent part of the Wainscott genre (the larger world needs to be ignorant of the magical sub-culture world living among or beside them). The Muggles live their everyday lives completely ignorant of the Wizarding World for the most part. The story never claims that Muggles are inferior to Wizards, at least not from the perspective of the heroes, only from the viewpoint of characters we are meant to despise. The Wizarding World and Muggles are merely different, not inferior or superior; this I think is the position of the story, and likewise, is present more for the sake of telling a fantasy story in the Wainscot tradition than serving as any effectual commentary on our society. After all, in real life there are no Wizards. These distinctions are merely conveniences of the genre, for the story’s sake, and most readers will recognize that instead of reading a particular theme of racial inferiority into it. After all, the readers of the books are all Muggles. It is ridiculous to think that readers will identify Muggles as inferior and bad when they themselves are Muggles. For this reason the real distinction between Muggles and Wizards doesn’t uncut the earlier anti-racial themes because readers will not identify this as any sort of real message that is applicable to their real lives, but merely as a genre trope, a convenience serving the nature of the story. The divorce between fantasy and reality is much greater in this instance. The racist belief that some races are superior to others in intelligence, physical prowess, and ability is too large of a metaphorical leap from the fantasy logic that some people can perform magic and others cannot for most people to read anything into this idea.
Even with all that said, Rowling paints the interrelations between these two dichotomous societies more complexly than just one having power over the other. Although most of the book shows the Wizarding World threatening to conquer the Muggle world, there are instances in the book when Muggles kill, torture, and harm wizards. The most obvious case being Dumbledore’s sister who is tortured by Muggles when they see her performing magic, but even Tom Riddle, the boy who would grow up to be Voldemort, lived also experienced a life being tortured by Muggles for being different in the orphanage. Harry Potter himself is verbally and psychologically abused by his adopted Muggle aunt and uncle. The Muggle world is just as much a threat to the Wizarding World as certain elements in the Wizarding World are a threat to the Muggle world. This explains why the Wizarding World needs to stay a secret. When Ministry officials tweak Muggle memories it is not out of some elitist joy of manipulating Muggles as rulers, but a general measure of preemptive self-defense.
Harry Potter is meant to be portrayed as a clever but mediocre Wizard who relies heavily on his friends for survival. Rowling continually emphasizes his average ability as a wizard. He cannot solve his problems merely by turning to his awesome powers, but needs help from outsiders, thus twisting the long tradition of fantasy archetypes and stereotypes of characters exemplified by characters such as Rand Al'Thor in The Wheel of Time of series where the Chosen One is super powerful and its through his immense power that he can save the world. Harry Potter subverts this trope numerous types by continually emphasizing Potter’s average ability as a wizard. As book 5 makes clear, I think with the prophecy (I think it was book 5), he was not Chosen because of his supreme ability in Wizarding, but Voldemort chose him because he believed the prophecy meant Potter (thus making it a self-fulfilling prophecy); the book says it could just as easily have been Neville Longbottom who the prophecy referred to, and had Voldemort read the prophecy that way he would’ve been the Chosen One and not Potter. What better way to show Harry Potter as unable to win by himself, then always forcing him to rely on something a friend provided him with in each and every book? This explains Rowling’s constant use of Deus ex Machina.
I would agree that generally Deus Ex Machina is a writing device that should be avoided. However, first rule of writing is that there are no rules of writing, only principles, and every rule can be broken if done for a purpose. Rowling’s Deus Ex Machina serve her aesthetic purposes by characterizing Potter a certain way, emphasizing her theme of Potter’s need to rely on his friends and trustworthy adults to the point where it stops being a plot device and starts functioning as a motif within the overall narrative structure. The same can be said for the so-called red herring elements in her plot. One of her themes in the book is adolescent misjudgment of people. The characters continually misjudged characters personalities and motivations. Not to mention Harry himself is naturally mistrustful of adults and friendship because of his upbringing with the Dursleys. A red herring shifting between possible villains makes perfect sense with a theme that centers on mistrusting adults, especially new ones to appear in your life, and misjudging people because of that mistrust, thus overturning expectations and assumptions of the characters. Harry doesn’t just misjudge Snape, but also Malfoy and a whole slew of characters—he even misjudges Dumbledore who it turns out has a darker side as revealed in the final book.
Larry from OF Blog at the Fallen adroitly links this theme of misjudgment with Harry’s maturity through the novels, “The HP of the first book is 11 years old, with the world-view of an 11 year-old boy. He cannot readily see the goodness that lurks within the tortured frame of a Snape or within the spoiled shaping of a Draco Malfoy. They are enemies to overcome - perhaps not capital E Evil like Voldemort, but still just that, "evil." But as the series progresses and we witness things through Harry's PoV, things subtly change, until we too are forced to change our preconceptions of a Snape or a Draco to see that they are not static characters, but that they too are as dynamic as Harry or any of his friends. We end up seeing Harry's world through the eyes of one who is ready to leave his childhood shell to become an adult who will be wise enough to remember the lessons learned during that childhood apprenticeship stage.”
Still, all the themes such as friendship, the power of love, learning to trust others after abuse and having no one to love you, learning to trust adults through an adolescent’s eyes in a world where adults lie and tell half-truths are all subservient to the larger moral theme of Harry Potter, the crux of the series so to speak: Choice. In Harry Potter it is the choices we make that define us.
The story’s true center is the connected background of Voldemort and Harry Potter. The longish looks into Voldemort's "origins," which play out throughout all the novels, but especially the middle ones, reveal that Voldemort and Harry Potter are mirror reflections of each other. Both orphans, both living among Muggles who mistreat them, and despite these similar backgrounds both choose to take different paths in their lives. Voldemort is terrified of dying, seeking immortality, while Harry is willing to sacrifice his life so that his friends might live. Voldemort inspires the loyalty of his followers through fear, torture, and his unmatched talent as a wizard, while Harry inspires his friends through his courage, even though he is a mediocre wizard as far as talent and skill go. In the earlier novels, the sorting hat suggests Harry would be a good fit in Slytherin before placing him in Gryffindor. Harry asks Dumbledore why the sorting head almost placed him in Slytherin. Dumbledore explains that the sorting hat looks at the qualities within us, but also pays attention to our own choices; Harry, of course, repeatedly told the hat that he didn't want to end up in Slytherin. We see here an important point made in this moment. Harry could've ended up in Slythern like Voldemort, but likewise Voldemort could've ended up in Griffindor had his choices been different. This theme and central parallel of the novel provides the main moral point of the novel: there is no such thing as immutable essences called good and evil, but it is our choices that make us good or evil. This is a world of difference from the million Tolkien copies where there are Lucifers, Devils, and Dark Ones who are evil Dark Lords in their core essence. Not only are Harry Potter and Voldemort linked by destiny to face each other and magical scars wounds that allow Harry to gain Voldemort’s abilities (ability to speak to snakes called Parsel tongue), but they really have many of the same experiences; however, they react to those experiences differently. Harry Potter chooses love and sacrifice, while Voldemort chooses fear and selfishness. Dumbledore continually tells his protégé that what separates Harry from voldemort is his loyalty to his friends and that most precious of emotions, love.
However, like most the themes in Harry Potter, even love is not an uncomplicated emotion. Like the anti-racial themes it too is treated in a fairly sophisticated way. As critic Karin Westman writes, “[w]hile the earlier books in the series depict love as a generative and protective force, Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows remind us that love can wound as well as shield. In these last two books Rowling locates love's damaging consequences not only within secondary characters like Voldemort's mother Merope and Bellatrix but also within the seemingly unassailable, all-powerful character of Dumbledore, thereby forging unlikely connections between disparate characters. Such parallels diminish easy distinctions between good and bad people and foreground the paradox of love's power. By the end of Rowling's series, love is indeed a weapon, as Dumbledore often explains to Harry, but that weapon is dangerously double-edged, placing the lover and the beloved at risk if it is improperly handled.” Even characters like Ron fall prey to this double-edged sword, temporarily abandoning Harry and Hermione in the final book because he thinks Potter is making moves on the woman he loves (Hermione) and jealousy over Harry’s fame (a personal character flaw that continually rears its ugly head from the earlier books). However, Ron does make the right moral choice and returns to his friends, winning the adoration of Hermione.
Individual moral choice is everywhere in the Potter books. Another obvious example is when Draco Malfoy cannot kill Dumbledore. He makes the wrong moral choices in the sixth book, Half-Blood Prince, by helping the Death Eaters to break into Hogwarts, while under duress over the threats to his father’s life. However, he too, must face a real moral choice. Dumbledore tells him he has a choice--he need not proceed down this path. Draco Malfoy in the final book makes the right choice, despite being inclined towards the path of pure-blooded racial politics of Slythern--we see a further complication of simplistic morality in that even racists, which the novel depicts Malfoy engaging in numerous times more than any other character--can sometimes make the right moral choices.
I advise everyone to go read Larry at OF Blog of the Fallen smart review for the final book of Harry Potter, which I already linked to, but will link to again here. I think very few people would argue that Harry Potter is brilliant literature on the grounds of aesthetics. However, it is fairly complicated literature for children's book, and I think it has earned its place in the history of Children's literature as both a popular phenomenon and for its own literary merits. Larry understands the appeal of Harry Potter as a child of abuse learning to negotiate a dark and sometimes cruel world that can be loveless and it can seem uncertain on whom you can trust, while not succumbing down the path of hatred, fear, and sadism, by not becoming a Voldemort. As Roni Natov puts it, “Harry embodies this state of injustice frequently experienced by children, often as inchoate fear and anger--and its other side, desire to possess extraordinary powers that will overcome such early and deep exile from the child's birthright of love and protection.” As Larry notes when he quotes G. K. Chesterton, Harry Potter teaches us that we all face dragons, but sometimes we can beat the dragons. I hope people treat this not so much as the next move in a debate, but rather a view into what I and others see when we read Harry Potter.
Work Cited
Beyond Assumptions Blog.
OF Blog of the Fallen.
Natov, Roni. “Harry Potter and the Extraordinariness of the Ordinary.” The Lion and the Unicorn. 25.1
Westman, Karen. “The Weapon we Have is Love.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly. 33 (2).