Postscript: Klavan on Potter
Regarding a recent discussion in this space on the proper use of fictional witches and warlocks by Christian authors of fantasy stories:
By cosmic coincidence, if it is coincidence, Andrew Klavan, a well regarded author of thrillers and mysteries, but who has one rather well done fantasy book to his credit, holds forth briefly his opinion.
I note his answer briefly overlaps both mine and Mr. Graydanus, in that if the witch or wizard is both fictional and used in a fictional way, that is, as symbolic, it offends no Christian sensibility.
Klavan says Harry Potter is Christian, in that it deals with life and death and resurrection in a Christian theme; I myself would not go so far as this.
Harry Potter is very nearly Christian, even to the point of quoting scripture on gravestones in a scene in the final book, but the author loses her courage, and flinches back at the last moment, fails to take the last step, and does not fully express the Christian worldview. Her love of the world, and the Prince of this World overcame her, and she softened and weakened the final scene in the final book.
Compare the death and resurrection of Potter, where his voyage to the underworld is envisioned as a train station, and the lack either of compassion toward the wretched remnant of Voldemort or of condemnation to hellfire, with the emotional power and clear point of a parallel scene of the death and resurrection of Aslan, with its mockery of the lion, the tears of the schoolgirls, and joyful romp at their reunion, the echoes of awesome grander at the mention of a Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time, and so on.
Even the scene in the deliberately Taoist-themed Earthsea story where Sparrowhawk the Archimage of Roke suffers death and rebirth for a very similar reason — Cob of Paln and Voldemort both seek escape from death by magic craft — holds much more sobriety and artistic force, because Sparrowhawk sacrifices his magic on his trek through the Dry Lands of the Dead, in order to restore the universal balance to wholeness again.
Potter seems bland and slightly pointless: it is not clear why he had to die nor what he accomplished by doing so. JK Rowling set up all the foreshadowing needed for a strong Christian theme, but when the time came, there was no hint of the cause or meaning of the resurrection Potter enjoyed, no price exacted after, nothing.
It could have been the Raise Dead spell from Gygax, except Potter did not lose half a level of EP by coming back to life.
Not long after, in her public speaking, JK Rowling slandered Dumbledore, asserting him to be a sodomite. If course there is nothing in the text even to suggest such a loathsome thing. She made it up.
Now, one could point out she made up the whole content of the series, and argue she has equal license to make up whatever she likes. So speaks the mundane men who have to poetry in their hearts. A fiction inspired by the muse is art; a fiction inspired by a desire to deceive is a lie.
JK Rowling, by calling Dumbledore a homosexual, announced a lie. She did it to please a crowd. (That this same crowd turned on her when she refused to affirm yet more perverse perversions is an ironic justice on her weakness of character.)
There is no good outcome to such an announcement. It must either, one, glamorize an abomination to her many young and impressionable fans who idolize her work, or else, two, in young fans less impressionable, replace any admiration for an adorable Gandalf-figure and role model with a sense of disgust.
In older fans, like yours truly, who read these books aloud to family members, promoted them, or put representations of her charming characters in my role playing games to charm my players, a sharp sense of betrayal infuses the sense of disgust.
Yes, disgust. All sins are evil but some create a due and proper visceral loathing on top of that. If you are not nauseated by the idea of having a graybearded sexual pervert in charge of a boarding school full of tender children, there is something wrong with your heart and soul.
JK Rowling’s announcement is like throwing tomato soup on a work of art in order to make an egocentric public gesture of contempt toward truth and beauty. That the author herself defamed and defaced her own creation makes the matter worse, not better, for it was her own muse she betrayed, her own inner artistic soul.
So, Harry Potter is not antichristian, but, sadly, JK Rowling is.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
