I was asked today by a very kind reporter to summarize the way I think about books and Harry Potter especially. Here, well,  below the jump,  is my flash response as a rushed email note, posted  for your comment, amendment, and correction:

• Eliade’s thesis, Granger corollary: Reading in a secular culture serves a religious or mythic function, the more Christian content and the more subtly it is delivered, the more popular the fiction is. The Potter books, in this light, not only are not “gateways to the occult,” they are as popular as they are only because of their edifying spiritual content and the profound experience readers share.
• Iconological Criticism: Human beings know things in four ways — sense, opinion, science (deduction), and wisdom — hence every text of value, especially works of intentional artistry or divine inspiration, has traditionally been read at four levels rather than cricized eclusively at the surface narrative or moral layers. Rowling and Meyer are dismissed by deconstructive-happy and nominalist critics that don’t know how to read the way people have understood scripture and fiction from Homer and the rabbinic culture through Dante, Aquinas, and Spencer, through John Ruskin and Northrup Frye. Potter-mania and the Twi-hards are responses to texts that works as spiritual allegories and anagogical translucencies.
• Literary Alchemy, the Alchemy of literature: there is a tradition of transformational symbolism in English literature from Shakespeare to Rowling which has the staying power and just sheer power it has because reading fiction as an activity itself is an alchemical experience. Though that Ms. Rowling was writing intentionally alchemical fiction was scoffed at for more than a few years, we now have an interview in which the author admits as much. Mrs. Meyer. Ms. Collins, and Mr. Ness incorporate much of the same symbolism and sequences in their serial fiction.
• Shared Text: Ms. Rowling’s Harry Potter books have changed and continue to re-make the 21st century story-telling world (cf., Twilight, Chaos Walking, Hunger Games) because they are the books everyone knows — and the experience that is now a common expectation from other stories [Google 'John Granger Book Binders Touchstone' for an article I wrote on this subject.]
• Ring Composition: the Hogwarts Saga both as a seven part cycle and as individual books is written as traditional Ring, meaning its beginning and end elide, its midpoint is an echo and pointer to the beginning-end conjunction, and the chapter-books on either side of the divide mirror those after them. If anyone doubted the detail of the artistry and planning of these works, the revelation that every one of the 198 chapters in the series is deliberately placed and related to other chapters to create an exact effect should extinguish that doubt. [My lecture on this subject is now available as a LuLu.com download: Harry Potter as Ring Composition and Ring Cycle.]
• Postmodernism: Everything written in the 21st century must confirm and reinforce the politically correct anti-metanarrative metanarrative of our time — while the best works address this contradiction and point to a transcendent metanarrative of love as the best exit. Ms. Rowling is not as successful as she is without preaching what we already believe — if she does give us some xperience of a larger, non-relativist view.
• Logos Epistemology: English high fantasy is grounded in Coleridgean natural theology, most notably that the “world is Mental” (as Barfield taught Lewis) and that the non-personal logos of our conscience and thinking is continuous if not identical with the fabric of reality created by the Logos or Word of God (hence the Harry-Dumbledore conversation Rowling says is key to the series: “Of course this is happening in your head, Harry, but why would you think it isn’t real?”)

Here are the Six Previous Predictions in this Series for your convenience and easy reference:

Prediction #1: “Deathly Hallows Will Be Very Much Like the First Six Harry Potter Novels” (with 3 Sure-Things We’ll See at Deathly Hallows’ Publication)

Prediction #2: “The Master Plan Will Be Revealed”

Prediction #3: “Mistaken Identities”

Prediction #4: “Through the Veil”

Prediction #5: “The Rubedo”

Prediction #6: “The House-Elves”

Prediction #6.5: “Tale of Two Cities: Why We Should Expect a Beheading in Deathly Hallows”

There isn’t much here that’s especially mind-boggling or off-the-wall (unless you count some of the guesses at mistaken identities) because each prediction is an illustration or pointer to one or many more of the Five Keys that Serious Readers use to get under the surface of the Harry Potter novels. Ms. Rowling works in patterns and formulas, some of which are fairly easy to understand and see (the Hero’s Journey for instance), others of which require some study (the Literary Alchemy and Postmodern Themes come to mind).

I like these predictions, not because I think they’re “winners” or “bull’s eyes” — I’d be more foolish than I am if I thought more than a few have a chance of proving to be Ms. Rowling’s actual plot points — but because they require readers to think seriously about the patterns Ms. Rowling will be following in what ever direction she takes the series in its finale. Sales of Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader continue to be strong while other Interlibrum titles like the MuggleNet guesses about HP7 have fallen off; readers are telling other serious readers that it isn’t just a pre-Deathly Hallows title.

Thank you for these word-of-mouth sales.

My last prediction is in answer to the question Ms. Rowling has fostered in our minds, “Will Harry die in Deathly Hallows?” I am certain the answer is, “Yes, he will.”

But what sort of death will it be?

Harry, after all, has died a figurative or “near death” in every book so far, only to rise-from-the-dead in the presence of a symbol of Christ. Will that pattern be continued in this last episode or has that periodic resurrection only been a prologue or perumbration for the hero’s real and final demise in Deathly Hallows?

Both versions, of course, would satisfy Ms. Rowling’s patterns that we see in the Five Keys so I won’t pretend to have a definitive answer. My thoughts about specific plot points are perhaps better than the average readers but not so much more that I’d want to bet more than I have in my wallet (never very much, alas).

I don’t know what Harry will learn at the Dursleys’, at Godric’s Hollow, or at the Alchemical Wedding in The Burrow, or even if Harry’s itinerary will conform to his stated destinations at the end of Half-Blood Prince once VoldeWar II breaks out in earnest. I doubt very much there will be the grand Horcrux Hunt many expect or, if he does find the Horcruxes, that he’ll find them in working order. The Rubedo will reveal what happened in the White Stage of the work and much of that Harry just doesn’t understand (see prediction #2). I have a hard time seeing Albus and Severus leaving Horcrux destruction to a self-important man-boy without any clear instructions about destroying them or clues about finding them.

I do imagine that Harry will travel underground and visit the Dead (see prediction #4). If he goes through the Veil, we’ll know why Ms. Rowling had Harry go deep every year and, perhaps, why she thought her faith would be self-evident in the finale. A three day “harrying of Hell” and return-to-life would suffice for that, no?

As much as this trip would satisfy a checklist requirement for “death” and “resurrection,” even Ms. Rowling’s assertion that we’d see in Deathly Hallows how near we could get to the dead, my gut feeling is that we’ll see another death, this time by beheading (see Prediction #6.5). Harry may learn something about his ScarCam Horcrux (which I think Severus disarmed at the end of Prince before leaving the Hogwarts grounds) and foolishly believe his decapitation will destroy the Horcrux (logic says it wouldn’t; only blowing up his head entirely or removing and destroying the Horcrux itself would do that because it isn’t dependent on Harry’s life, it rests on his skull).

Whatever, it seems there is so much beheading and near-beheading in the books that I suspect, as Linda McCabe has said, Chekhov’s Dictum that a loaded gun brought on stage must be fired seems to require that we have a Sydney Carton-like finish to Deathly Hallows. I hope you’ll forgive me for not believing that it will be Harry’s demise.

We know that Unicorn blood will save your life no matter how weak your hold on existence (if drinking this cipher for the Blood of Christ will damn anyone drinking it unworthily, a la 1 Corinthians). We know, too, that Dumbledore was the man who discovered the 12 uses of Dragon’s Blood and that Dragon’s Heart Strings are magically powerful. It turns out that “Dragon’s Blood” is alchemical language for the “Elixir of Life,” another cipher for the Blood of Christ. We saw a little of this power in Phoenix when Hagrid manages to endure Grawp’s beatings for months via the judicious application of Dragon steaks.

Look for Norbert to return like the calvary to Harry’s Cavalry and, with some help, to do for him what Fawkes did for his wounds in the Chamber of Secrets. A little trickier, of course, if Harry is doing his impersonation of Nearly Headless Nick, but certainly doable.

Harry then, may die not only once but twice in Deathly Hallows. He may pass through the Veil and join the Dead. He almost certainly will return. I expect then that Harry will die in a way that convinces us he is “dead and gone” but we will be wrong. In a “big twist” and probably via the services of the Dumbledore men on the scene, Hagrid and Snape, Harry will be revived with Dragon’s Blood. Severus, however redeemed and revealed as a hero and the Great Physician and the Man the World Knew Not, will not be so lucky. Look for Wormtail to be Severus’ bane, thinking he is doing what Harry (and Harry’s father) would want….

It’s getting late and I have a very long night ahead, speaking at Barnes and Noble Saucon Valley and then reading aloud to my three youngest children, Stasia, Timothy, and Zossima. Thank you for reading these predictions and, in advance, for your charity in the coming hours as you find out that all my guesswork has been wrong, at least superficially, as it must prove to be. Reflection on the Five Keys of Narrative Misdirection, Literary Alchemy, the Hero’s Journey, Postmodern Themes, and Traditional Symbolism will help us unravel the meaning of Deathly Hallows more than these guesses made using the Keys have unraveled Ms. Rowling’s finale beforehand.

I hope you have had even half the fun and friendship through your thinking about Harry Potter, here and elsewhere, that I have had. If you have, these books will always have a very special place near your heart.

“Accio Tomorrow!”

Hogwarts Professor will be closed until Monday when I will be appearing at the Barnes & Noble Book Club online as Guest Host for a day, beginning the international and all-comers discussion there of Deathly Hallows. “See you there and then!”

Monday of Potter Week and we’re up to the third Five Keys Prediction for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This one will cause a lot of eyeball rolling and dilatory disputation, if the latter is possible when much of Deathly Hallows has supposedly been posted online, because the subject of “Mistaken Identities” is not a “no-brainer,” especially when it comes to naming names.

Here, then, is my disclaimer about these predictions.

I’m not a brilliant writer of fiction as is Ms. Rowling and I am not a wizard. When I make predictions, consequently, I’m not doing this with the serious intention of hitting bulls eyes. I’m firing at a target in a dark forest, and, while the target is fixed, not moving, I can’t see it and I don’t know where it is. I’ll be delighted and as surprised as anyone if I am correct in the details of any of my predictions. Outside of a few “hits” in the past (Snape as Half-Blood Prince, Ron and Ginny as “Quarreling Couple,” Death of Dumbledore, weather predictions, etc.), all my plot point predictions have been wrong.

Why do I bother?

My intention in making these predictions is to illustrate the Five Keys that open up or “unlock” Harry Potter for the serious reader. I’ve tried to make the best-guesses fun and engaging, even credible because they are detailed rather than formless generalities, but they’re just mind-grabbing illustrations of the Five Keys. The specifics are almost certainly wrong but the Five Keys the predictions exemplify are very valuable (read Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader to see what I’m talking about!).

Back to “Mistaken Identities.”

In the “Hero’s Journey” chapter of Unlocking Harry Potter, I detail the repeated cycles, patterns, and story points that Ms. Rowling uses in most every book. One of the most interesting of the story points that she uses is “Mistaken Identities.” The existence of Polyjuice Potion, Animagi, and simpler Transfiguration spells mean that Hogwarts School specifically (and the Wizarding World in general) is not a place where you can be sure the person you’re speaking with or just seeing is the person you think you’re seeing or talking to.

We learned about Polyjuice Potion in Chamber of Secrets when our precocious trio brewed some up in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. The Potion became the means by which Barty Crouch, Jr. deceived us all in Goblet of Fire. We see a cauldron full of the stuff again in Half-Blood Prince and Crabbe and Goyle seem to be making generous use of it to act as watch-girls in front of the Room of Requirement.

We meet our first Animagi in the first chapter of Philosopher’s Stone when Professor MacGonagall appears as a cat on the Dursley’s garden wall with Dumbledore. This hallmark of the mage accomplished in Transfiguration becomes the centerpiece of the storyline in Prisoner of Azkaban and plays a lesser but still important role in Goblet. Every student and teacher, of course, while perhaps not capable of brewing Polyjuice Potion or transforming themselves into an Animagus form, has studied Potions and Transfiguration and is capable of deceptive Switching Spells and the like.

The Ministry has tried to put restrictions in place so this sort of deception remains somewhat limited (and well-regulated). When Voldemort returns, however, the bureaucrats understand that the Dark Lord and his Deatheaters are not going to register themselves as Animagi or lay off the Polyjuice Potion. Half-Blood Prince opens, consequently, with several pointed references to Ministry publications and wall-hangings urging the law-abiders not to trust their sense perceptions. They are urged to test the people they meet to be certain they are not being deceived by a Deatheater. Dumbledore speaks to Harry about this and he sees the Weasley parents ask each other for passwords.

But, outside of Crabbe and Goyle, no one is using Polyjuice Potion or other cloaking devices in Half-Blood Prince, right? None that are revealed at the end of the book the way Barty Crouch, Jr., was revealed certainly. Could there have been other folks that we didn’t learn about at the end of the book?

Oh, yeah. The patterns Ms. Rowling uses (in addition to the emphasis she gives the possibility in the opening chapters of Prince) in all the books almost make it a certainty that we’ll learn in Deathly Hallows who was pretending to be who in Half-Blood Prince. The last stage of Alchemical Drama reveals what really happened in the next to last stage. As explained in Prediction #2 yesterday, narrrative misdirection in its reminding us that we don’t know, even that we cannot know what is real is a vehicle of one of Ms. Rowling’s postmodern themes, epistemology division. “Mistaken Identities” deliver the same freight; you’re deluded if you believe what you think you are seeing or what you know “for sure.”

For your consideration, I nominate the following Prince characters as possible Polyjuice imposters:

(1) Horace Slughorn:

Every ‘New Guy’ or ‘New Gal’ that we’ve met each year at Hogwarts (besides the substitute Care of Magical Creatures lady…) has had a secret and it has been a mind-blower. Quirrelldemort, Gilderoy the Memory Fraud, Lupin the Werewolf, Crouch/Moody, and Deranged Dolores the Dementor Dispatcher. Everybody new except, it seems, Horace Slughorn.

Is he a Deatheater undercover at Hogwarts? He could be the source of Draco’s Polyjuice Potion and his gode, a Dark Lord monitor on Severus, and the assassin trying to kill Harry and Ron with the poisoned mead on Ron’s birthday. His “giving” Harry the Horcrux memory was probably only on the instruction of his Master if Sluggo is evil; certainly he wasn’t drunk under the table by a boy teetotaler (or unaware that Harry was on a Felix Felicis high).

Or is Horace one of the White Hats? Sally Gallo makes an excellent case from canon and historical evidence in Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? that it is Professor Slughorn on the Astronomy Tower polyjuicing the Headmaster. The stage magician on which Mrs. Gallo thinks Sluggo is based, Horace Goldin, had as his most-famous trick the show stopper of catching a bullet fired at his heart from a gun with a wedgewood plate. Dumbledore and Snape have a plan to defeat Voldemort; it seems likely that they had to have help, especially if Dumbledore’s Drop was a staged event. Sluggo seems a believable possibility.

Either way, we should be learning more from and about Slughorn in Deathly Hallows.

(2) Sybill Trelawney:

Draco says that he has better help inside Hogwarts than his friends Crabbe and Goyle. Was he lying? If not, who could he have meant if Slughorn is not his ally?

I think Bellatrix LeStrange is on deck. She’s noticeably absent from the fray at the Astronomy Tower stairs. She is Voldemort’s “right hand.” We see her in the second chapter of Prince, “Spinner’s End,” express her distrust of Snape and her shared concerns for her nephew, Draco. What better person to put undercover at Hogwarts?

And Trelawney would be a snap to capture and to play convincingly. The Divinations teacher has few friends and is an incompetent teacher without a full class load. With a little cooking sherry to blur the edges of her already eccentric and irregular appearance, and no one would like twice at her.

And then there’s the scene at the Room of Requirement the night Harry goes Horcrux Hunting with the Headmaster….

Sybill makes a loud noise just as Harry is passing that way in his headlong rush to the Headmaster’s Office. He has been trying to get into the Room of Requirement all year with no luck — and, now, he finally has the knowledge he needs to get in because of what the drunken Divinations Diva tells him! Incredibly, he balks, and, for perhaps the first time in his life, does the responsible go-to-Dumbledore thing. He half-drags Trelawney with him until she drops a dime on Snape, as the person who overheard the Prophecy.

If this really is Trelawney, the coincidences are stacked pretty high. She just happens to be there exactly when Harry is passing by. She knows what Harry has wanted to learn all year. She turns the conversation to Severus Snape and the night she was the channel of the Prophecy, the one thing guaranteed to light Harry’s internal Roman Candle.

Now look at it from the perspective of Bellatrix polyjuicing Trelawney.

The Vanishing Cabinets have been fixed. The Execution of Dumbledore plan is in motion for that night. What variable do the bad guys want off-campus to improve their chances of pulling off this invasion and assassination? Harry Potter. Chucklehead and clueless he may be, but the Chosen One has a heck of a track record in fighting Deatheaters. The Black Hats want Harry to Vanish.

Enter Bellatrix at the Room of Requirements door. A stooge at the Gryffindor Common Room door could use a Malfoy enchanted coin to alert those inside the Room of Requirement that Harry was on his way. Bellatrix makes her crashing noise to get Harry’s attention and gives him the information he needs to get inside and check out what Draco is up to. And Harry has his uncharacteristic moment of good judgment!

Bellatrix P!Trelawney, though, is no dope. If you cannot get Harry into a Vanishing Cabinet, a good second-best option is create havoc in Harry’s heart, not to mention among the Order of the Phoenix folks in the castle. Drop the Dumbledore-Knows-Snape-Betrayed-Your-Parents Bomb! BOOM! That worked. Harry goes off into the mental space of no-maps. Mission as good as accomplished.

The real Trelawney, of course, unless Dumbledore was lying about what Severus heard of the Prophecy (a real possibility), could not have seen Snape at the end of the Prophecy. The Red Hen has conjectured that Severus wasn’t there at all and that Dumbledore and Snape made up the fiction of his only overhearing half the Prophecy. P!Trelawney, though, only knows what Voldemort told her, which was almost certainly Dumbledore’s story of Snape on the landing outside the door. She turns it into a tale where Trelawney sees Snape after the Prophecy is finished in order to create maximum damage to Harry’s trust in Dumbledore and Snape on the night of the battle.

Last week, I read that Ms. Rowling called the actress who played Bellatrix in Phoenix to encourage her to take the part, despite the paucity of lines or time on-screen. Ms. Rowling is supposed to have said that Bellatrix will play a major part in Deathly Hallows so it would be worth it to do the bit piece in Phoenix.

How about Bellatrix P!Trelawney revealed early on at Hogwarts, in addition to her inevitable confrontation with Neville? Good parts.

(3) Remus Lupin:

This is not my theory, alas, though I’d love to claim it. Reading it for the first time was a big push toward my collecting the speculative essays that became Who Killed Albus Dumbledore?. The author, a Live Journal writer who goes by Swythyv, has a way of writing that demands and delights repeated reading. That she usually knocks my socks off with things I missed (and never would have thought of) adds to the attraction. You can read her musings at three sites: the WKAD Live Journal, at hp_essays, and on her own Live Journal. The original Mourning for Her Own True Love can be read at HP-Essays along with Swythyv’s and Professor Mum’s modification of this theory. If you have Who Killed Albus Dumbledore?, you have the LP version and all the bells and whistles.

In a nutshell, Lupin isn’t Lupin in Half-Blood Prince, it’s Pettigrew P!Lupin.

Can’t get your head around that, even after reading “Mourning for Her Own True Love”? How about Lupin plays Nymphadora Tonks through most of Half-Blood Prince? I won’t diminish your reading pleasure by laying out Swythyv’s speculative arguments; there’s a pond of Polyjuice Potion at Hogwarts Castle and Lupin or someone playing Lupin is drinking from it.

(4) Severus Snape:

Snape leaves Hogwarts at the end of Half-Blood Prince as the Judas and Brutus of the story, both betrayer and assassin. A thoughtful woman at Enlightening 2007 pointed out to me that it isn’t the “New Guy” or “New Gal” at Hogwarts that was always carrying a secret; it’s the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. She suggested that Horace, consequently, was just what he seemed to be (Pineapple Pimp?) and that Severus Snape was the teacher with a secret in Prince.

It seemed to work that way, didn’t it? Did any of you expect Severus to blast Albus or an Albus stand-in from the Tower? Not me, and I had been predicting Dumbledore’s death for three years at that point.

And if Snape turns out to be Good!Snape rather than EVIL!Snape or even if he is just Machiavelli!Snape, that, too, will make him the teacher with a surprise-inside. A Cracker Jack box with an M-80 inside, the “big twist” of the whole series…

And, yes, I’m still holding out on the long-shot that Severus is a half-Vampire. Not only does this theory bring the Potions genius into the fold of liminal characters on the Good Guys side (Half-Giant, Half-Veela, Werewolf, Blood Traitors, Mudblood, Criminal, Metamorphmagus, et alii), it gives us a ledge on which to stand if we think Lily was someone Snape admired, even loved. Could Lily have been the Potions adept that invented the pastie given to Sanguini at the Prince Christmas Party to calm the savage Neck Biter?

Just a thought!

(5) Albus Dumbledore:

Last but not least, we have the Hogwarts Headmaster.

What sort of “mistaken identity” can there be about dear, old Albus? Two sorts.

First, is the wizard who seems to be Albus Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince really Albus Dumbledore? I doubt it. Professor Mum was the first Harry Potter maven I know that argued cogently that the Dumbledore on the Horcrux Hunt to the Cave was actually Severus Snape getting Harry out of the castle for the same reason that Bellatrix wanted him out of the castle (the melodrama they had planned on the Tower couldn’t happen without Harry arriving with webcam from Hogsmeade). Really, it is as likely that Severus plays P!Albus throughout Half-Blood Prince (which would give the Scholastic cover with P!Albus over the Birdbath from Hell an especially delicious after-taste, Snape being the Half-Blood Prince).

Re-read the visit with the Dursleys. Does Dumbledore dance glasses against the heads of Muggles? Try again. And the tutorials with Harry? Does Albus give impossible missions, no guidance, and then admonish failure? No, but Severus polyjuicing Dumbledore might.

Why would Severus be Polyjuicing Dumbledore?

(1) Dumbledore is out doing something more important, e.g., finding and destroying Horcruxes;

(2) Snape must know everything said exactly as it was said to Potter because it is being scar-cast to Lord Voldemort;

(3) Dumbledore is near death or already dead and unable to swing the Pensieve and Cave trips; or

(4) All of the above.

I lean to “(4) All of the above.” Which brings us to another way of mistaking Dumbledore’s identity in Half-Blood Prince. One way is thinking that the man who seems to be the Hogwarts Headmaster pursuing the Mistress of Adventure is really Albus Dumbledore rather than someone else, probably Severus or Horace polyjuicing him. The other way is assuming that Dumbledore is alive at any time in Half-Blood Prince.

Cut back to Severus. When I said one reason to think that Snape was a Half-Vampire was that it would make him a match for the Order of the Phoenix cast of misfits, note the parenthetic list of freaks in the Order. They are all liminal figures who straddle two worlds, often in their very being.

Wouldn’t it be weird if their leader were a pure-blood wonder who didn’t personify their duality? I guess you could say, “Well, Voldemort is a mudblood and he leads the pureblood faction of Wizards; why couldn’t Dumbledore be similarly different from his flock?” A possible parallel but Dumbledore as double-natured character I think resonates with his followers in the Order and with Ms. Rowling’s use of him as a Christ figure in the books as well.

In brief, Albus Dumbledore is straddling the worlds of life and death. He is dead in Prince and perhaps has been dead for quite a few books, his demise coming sometime after the Philosopher’s Stone was destroyed. He is not, however, “dead and gone.” Severus has stoppered his death, as he said he could in the ever-referenced first Potions class with Harry, and Dumbledore “lives on” in a state of suspended de-animation and very much attached to Severus, for obvious reasons. [I explain Cathy Leisner's "Stoppered Death" theory at length in both Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? and Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader.]

This explains Dumby’s comments to Voldemort in their battle in the Ministry about death not being so bad and his telling Draco “they cannot kill you if you are already dead.” This would explain the seeming murder on the Tower; Dumbledore is dead before the drama begins so Severus cannot kill him. Perhaps he “severs” their tie and releases Dumbledore at last — or maybe he just knocks the Headmaster over the wall of the Tower to continue his stoppered existence until he chooses to walk through the Veil, on his own terms, in pursuit of that next great adventure.

Rowling wasn’t lying when she said Dumbledore is “definitely dead.” But she was careful not to say either that the Rushdies were wrong in their theory of Snape’s innocence when charged with murder or that Dumbledore died on the Tower.

And Dumbledore being the bridge between the living and the dead won’t “obviously” make him Jesus (cf, Ms. Rowling’s comment to Lev Grossman, atheist, in 2005). But his overcoming death after a fashion won’t diminish that reading of his character either, “obviously.”

Prediction #3 is that we’ll learn the several mistaken identities we missed in Half-Blood Prince and perhaps a couple unique to the struggles and characters of Deathly Hallows. I’m almost certainly wrong about some or all the characters I suggest above are not who they seem to be. I’d bet Dumbledore’s withered arm, though, that the Keys of Narrative Misdirection, Postmodern Themes, and Traditional Symbolism that point to this possibility are spot-on.

I look forward to reading your ideas about the folks we mistook in Prince as well as your thoughts about my best guesses.

Accio Deathly Hallows!

Before I get into the sublimely risible business of making predictions about what we will learn in Ms. Rowling’s finale to her Harry Potter magnus opus, let me make a few guesses that I would bet my daughter’s flute on [I would have said "the family cars" but the flute cost more than our cars....]

(1) The Steve Vander Ark Prediction: Harry Potter “Big Name Fandomers” come in three main tiers. The third tier are the many writers and bloggers who have created followings on the internet via their fan-fiction and better-than-the-average-bear speculations. The second tier is the gaggle, ever growing, of book writers and featured speakers at conferences. The first layer of the hierarchy, those just below Ms. Rowling herself and the players in the films made from her books, are those who lead the fan sites that get hundreds of thousands of hits a day — and whom the publicity folks at Warner Brothers and Bloomsbury and Scholastic court.

The Triumvirate of this upper crust are Lexicon Steve, MuggleNet Emerson, and Leaky Melissa. I almost met Melissa at the BEA in NYC in June when she had lunch with Connie Neal and I almost got to see Emerson Spartz at Enlightening 2007 — but he left Philadelphia and the Family Camp on Thursday night after sending his email apologies to the sponsors (he had a film date in New York he’d forgotten; “sorry, campers!”). These folks are celestial and hard to “run into,” even on the Harry Potter circuit.

Steve Vander Ark, unlike his fellow Potter Fandom top-drawer celebrities, doesn’t do many interviews and focuses just on making his website the best Potter resource imaginable. [Check out his "Canon Portkey" that he and his 12 house-elves are laboring to create and post at the Lexicon if you think that's hype.] He was on the A&E special about Phoenix and is a featured speaker at every HPEF event but he doesn’t seem to be on the MSM radar outside of Warner Brothers.

Worse, Steve, who is one of the more profound thinkers about the divisions in Wizardry and the dimensions of “canon” I have met, rarely talks about “what will happen” in the series outside private conversations. I asked him at the A&E interviews why he was so close-mouthed on a subject about which he is so eloquent in private. He said, matter-of-factly, “It’s not my job.” In brief, his credibility as a lexicographer is in keeping to the facts, just the facts.

Hence my surprise in finding online an interview and profile of Steve in a Grand Rapids newspaper earlier this month. The big surprise wasn’t that the journalist revealed so much about Steve and his several secret selves, most never shown to Fandom (though, really, it is an excellent article). The stunner was that Steve made a prediction about Deathly Hallows.

This was the conclusion of “Profile: Harry Potter Webmaster Steve Vander Ark“ (Sunday, July 08, 2007), by Terri Finch Hamilton in The Grand Rapids Press:

“There’s a sadness,” he says. “Because it’s been fun. It’s fun to speculate, to wonder. Part of the delight of the books is wonder.”

“It will sell a lot of copies,” he says.

Let that go down as my first sure-thing prediction: Deathly Hallows will break a lot of sales records.

(2) The Big Disappointment

Deathly Hallows is also going to break a lot of hearts. There is simply NO WAY this book can meet expectations. Why not? Because the expectations of readers around the world are so unreasonably high. Deathly Hallows will have to raise the dead, get Susan, the dwarves, and the White Witch into Narnia heaven, bring peace to Iraq and the West Bank, cure cancer, wax floors, and hit every checklist point on millions of readers’ agendas.

It ain’t happening.

Ms. Rowling knows that some people “must loathe” this book and seems to be dreading the inevitable backlash from a world of disappointed fans. Lisa Bunker at Madam Pince’s Potter Pages posted this excerpt from Ms. Rowling’s comments to the camera crew filming her (!) the night she finished Deathly Hallows:

“Thank you…yeah, you don’t know, it might be rubbish. Some people will loathe it, they will absolutely loathe it. For some people to love it, other people must loathe it. That’s just in the nature of the plot.” She adds, “I’m actually really, really happy with it”, before bowing her head on the keyboard to exclaim: “Oh my God!”

She has written six wonderful novels, each one of which has created more fans with more theories about how the books must end, with more emotional engagement with more characters. Deathly Hallows will, of course, be a magnificent book. It will also be met with critical scorn (especially if it has an ending that can be considered remotely “spiritual” or “non-secular”) and fan disappointment.

Christmas morning’s gifts were so rarely what we wanted or even what we expected our folks would give us. I doubt many people will say they “loathe” or “despise” Deathly Hallows on Monday, 23 July (PDay plus two). I expect, though, that there will be legions of readers who will volunteer they are disappointed in the ending she chose, that this is the end of the series, and that their hoped-for ending wasn’t anywhere near what Ms. Rowling gave the septology.

Expect an internet and a critical media “bloodbath.” Call it “Rita Unleashed” or “Post-Partum Potter dePression.”

(3) A Potter Week Revelation

I don’t want this last sure-thing prediction to be true. In fact, I dread it. I think, nonetheless, that someone, somewhere, probably in the US with its 12 million floating copies or in the English speaking diaspora (where I cannot believe security is so tight around books that won’t be translated into native languages for months), will get hold of a copy of Deathly Hallows and post facts from or whole sections of text to reveal the ending. And that ending will be public knowledge before we line up at midnight to get our copies.

To believe anything else is charmingly naive.

Boy, do I hope the naive and hopeful are right on this one and that I am wrong. I make this prediction, in fact, only because my track record in predictions has been so very bad. Maybe by my predicting it, I will be able to read the story to my children next Saturday and Sunday without having heard the ending. My fingers are crossed but I’m shaking my head.

I’ve never made a stock tip at HogwartsProfessor, but here is one for the record. If Amazon were making any money on these books (they say they aren’t), and if I had money to invest, I might buy Amazon shares and sell B&N short. Because, if the ending does get out (which has to have a high probability), there won’t be a point of getting the book at midnight in bricks-and-mortar stores at a less-than-Amazon discount; the better price delivered to your door Saturday will suffice. Buy FedEx; Sell Borders/WaldenBooks.

No, I’m not pawning the flute to raise capital. But I would if I were the “Rich Dad” type.

Real Prediction #1: Deathly Hallows Will Be Very Much Like the First Six Harry Potter Novels

I post this first prediction made from the Five Keys I use in Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader to explore the patterns and artistry of Ms. Rowling’s work alongside what I think are three “sure-things” because I think this first Five Keys prediction should be a “no-brainer.” There are millions of folks with different expectations, however, so here goes.

Ms. Rowling is a “pattern writer.” I didn’t say “formula writer” only because “formula writer” has the pejorative connotation that she writes mechanically and is bound by the patterns and structures she brings to her story-telling. That isn’t true.

She does have patterns she uses consistently and to great effect. Thinking that she will abandon her themes, structures, and symbols on the last lap of her seven lap journey is a little bit like preparing for a game against the ‘Magic’ Johnson – Kareem Abdul Jabbar LA Lakers with the expectation that Johnson, the NBA All-Time Assist record holder, would not be looking for Abdul Jabbar, the NBA All Time leading scorer, inside. Johnson is going to Abdul Jabbar whenever he can. Count on it.

Running through the Five Keys, then, we should expect that:

(a) Ms. Rowling is going to be using narrative misdirection in Deathly Hallows and revealing all that we missed in Half-Blood Prince. There will be a Big Twist or two or three, any one of which will be bigger than the one at the end of Austen’s Emma, Rowling’s gold standard.

(b) The last book will be the alchemical rubedo, complete with Alchemical Wedding, and the resolution of contraries the drama demands. The lady said in 1998 that alchemy set the parameters and magic of the series; don’t expect her to create a new set of parameters or look for her to “skip the end” of the alchemical Great Work she has carried through six stages. Seven is the most powerful number in these books because alchemy is a seven stage process.

(c) Harry will make one last Hero’s Journey and conform largely to the patterns laid out in the first six books. “But Harry said he wasn’t going back to Hogwarts!” Sorry, but Ms. Rowling didn’t spend six books at Hogwarts to leave that stage and all the wow props there for a trip to Durmstrang, Egypt, or Albania (three sites I have heard discussed as possible Deathly Hallows locales). Ms. Rowling will almost certainly drop the go-to-classes and sweat-the-Quidditch match narrative line in VoldeWar II. But the steps she has used in every Hero’s Journey so far, every year, are a good bet for the steps Harry will take in Deathly Hallows.

(d) The Postmodern Themes Ms. Rowling has been advancing will come to a conclusion with a satisfactory “answer” in Deathly Hallows. The evil Metanarrative and its role in enslaving both Deatheaters and house-elves? Replaced with a metanarrative of love that has no “necessary other.” The revelation that what we think is nearly always wrong because of our preconceptions and narrow view? See “(a) narrative misdirection” above. Strength is in pluralism and unity? The Freak Army of Outsiders and the Excluded will defeat the Pureblood Regiments of Lord Voldemort.

It just isn’t credible that Ms. Rowling will drop her postmodern themes in the finale and pick up The Little White Horse or The Last Battle as her models. Harry Potter is postmodern epic. Look for the author to finish what she has started and to answer the questions she has raised.

(e) This includes Ms. Rowling’s use of traditional symbols. In the last few weeks I have read comments by Christian critics saying such things as “you need a PhD in Classics to pick up on what little Christian symbolism is in the series” and “I consider myself a thoughtful Christian and ‘serious reader’ but what Granger observes escapes me.” Ignoring the laugher of thinking a PhD in Classics makes you competent to recognize Christian symbolism in contemporary literature (the comment was meant as a bone to anti-intellectual readers, but still…), these critics misunderstand the quality and character of Harry Potter‘s Christian content.

It isn’t transparent or evangelical a la Lewis’ “Aslan on Stone Table.” It is relatively opaque, if the use of Fawkes in Chamber‘s climax and the Unicorn blood scene in Stone was borderline allegorical; the symbols Ms. Rowlinguses are only meant to highlight and illumine the narrative line. They don’t drive it or overwhelm it. But the symbolism and the transcendent referents are there. These symbols and the plot line elements of purity of soul, immortal life, and sacrificial love carry substantial spiritual freight, too, atheists and Christian nay-sayers to the contrary.

And we will see the symbols, plot points, and their freight again in Deathly Hallows. Will readers wanting to see only the obvious or what they want to see miss them again? I’d bet on that, too.

So, Prediction #1 is an exercise in common sense. Deathly Hallows will be the end-of-the-line for this invaluable franchise, not Harry Potter leaving-the-rails and traveling in different directions to come to a bizarre end, secular or evangelical. I’ll be expanding on this base-line prediction in the next six predictions, all of which are really just throw-away illustrations of the Five Keys.

Tomorrow, Prediction #2. See you then!

As I’ve said before here, I look forward to July 21 and the release of Deathly Hallows as much as every other Fandom reader, if perhaps for different reasons. Yes, I just want to find out how the story ends and will devour the book mindlessly cover to cover in the early hours of the day it is released. Won’t we all? What a relief that will be!

I am looking forward to P-Day (for “publication”), though, almost as much because it will end the Interlibrum and the super-speculative fascination of Fandom waiting on the saga’s last volume. There will be plenty of questions left over at book’s end, I’m sure, that only Ms. Rowling’s version of a Silmarillion will resolve but at least a new period of writing and thinking about the books can begin. This period, to last until the Lord comes I guess, will focus on the interpretation of the meaning and discussion of the artistry of the series. “What’s gonna/gotta happen?” will be supplanted by “What makes these books so popular to so many different people?” as the chief question thoughtful people are trying to answer.

Which is good news and bad news for me. I have been trying to answer the latter question since 2003 and finally having the complete series will mean I have to re-write Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader and cut out the speculative parts and expand the explanations in light of what we will soon know about Harry, Severus, and company. The good news is that finally Ms. Rowling will answer questions about the alchemy in the books, her themes, and her grand-scheme for the stories. The questions, in other words, that I have been trying to answer without her help.

That, frankly, is as exciting to me as finding out what happens to Harry in Deathly Hallows. I won’t miss the speculative side of things because (a) I’ve only engaged in it to illustrate larger points (and have some fun) and (b) I’m not very good at it because I don’t think like a story teller.

I have two friends that I’ve met through my books on Harry Potter who are story tellers. They’re quick to tell me I stink at the speculative side of things because I neglect the story-teller’s art and the requirements of said art. Janet Batchler, author of What Will Harry Do?, is a professional screen writer and semi-pro Harry Potter maven. I love everything Janet writes about story set-ups and pay-offs because it comes from a perspective absolutely alien to me (and comes to conclusions that baffle me – Harry not a Horcrux? I don’t get it!). She doesn’t jump up and down about the alchemy or postmodernism or symbolism like I do but what Janet does “get” is the story-telling side of things.

And that really is important. The absence of this consideration is what makes so much of my speculation so heavy and unlikely. As good as my plot point posibilities are in unlocking the genius of these books, they aren’t story telling keys. I think after reading a note from one of my favorite writers, Regina Doman, that the pre-Deathly Hallows version of my book should have a Sixth Key for those who are only interested in the speculative side of things.

Regina wrote me a letter after reading Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader that said very kind things about literary alchemy, postmodern themes, and the other keys and how much she learned from the book (which I hope she is turning into a review for Amazon and BN.com!). She also threw a beacon light into my story-telling blind-spot. Here are those un-cut corrective comments:

John, when it comes to your SWAG theories, again, I’m inclined to disagree with you and Mr. Prinzi, et al, because I have a feeling you’re missing the book’s emotional and character arcs, as well as one big factor: the audience. (As a communications major, “Remember Your Audience” was hammered home to me again and again and again throughout college, so it’s the first thing I think of.)

All the theories in the book are plausible (they would “work”), I admit, but they don’t jive with the basic rules of the story she’s telling, which is not just a detective story or The Wizard Who Came In From The Cold, but a hero’s story. And that means Harry’s story.

I will not weep big tears if Scar-o-Scope is a bust. [I am re-reading Phoenix now, though, with my cadets and I confess to thinking S-o-S explains a lot.] What Janet and Regina say about story telling and simplicity have the ring of truth to me — if we believe, as they do, that these books have been written to end as conventional “Young Adult” fiction. As devoted and loyal as Ms. Rowling is to her children readers, I suspect Regina may have underestimated Ms. Rowling’s aim for these books and what unexpected places she may have to go to achieve “the biggest twist” in English literature. But if I were to include a sixth key, the piece I have neglected out of ignorance and lack of sympathy, it would be the art of story telling, for sure.

I look forward to reading your thoughts about Harry Potter as conventional Young Adult books and the likelihood they will end as Harry-is-Hero books.

This week seems to be my time to tip my hat and introduce the work of Fandom friends whose grasp of Harry Potter is magisterial. Just below, you can read the Red Hen’s exposition of the critical back-story of what really happened at Godric’s Hollow. By reflection on Voldemort’s special ability to possess others and suggesting a possible two step spell process for Horcrux creation, Joyce offers a more than plausible theory of how Harry became a Horcrux, how Lily’s love saved him, and why Voldemort was vaporized in the back-blast. A big part of the past or foundation of these stories seems to have been filled in.

But what will happen in the future? How will Harry and friends overcome the combined forces of the Dark Lord, his Death eaters, the Giants, the Goblins, and the rapidly-reproducing dementors?

Travis Prinzi, maven at the Sword of Gryffindor weBlog and, yes, like Joyce, one of my friends (full disclosure!), has a theory that I think satisfies one of the Postmodern requirements of the story, namely, that the periphery become the center, that the “other” becomes what is good and decisive in the central conflict. Travis’ theory is that the house-elves in Hogwarts are Dumbledore’s real Army; Ollivander has “disappeared” to arm them with wands and Dobby will lead them in combat against the Dark Lord they all despise to save their hero, Harry Potter. Travis’ original post, “What Happened to Ollivander,” is worth reading in its entirety, but here is the part about the house-elves I find so striking:

[The goals of S.P.E.W. as Hermione shares them in Goblet are:] fair wages, good working conditions, political representation, and — wands. Wands! I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the same book that focuses so heavily on house-elf slavery also focuses so heavily on wands, and makes the point that the wizarding prejudice against house-elves is actually institutionalized, by forbidding them wands. We should probably conclude from this that, with wands in hand, house-elves would be powerful enough to be a threat to wizards.

Ah, if Harry Potter only knew what he means to us, to the lowly, the enslaved, we dregs of the magical world! Dobby remembers how it was when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was at the height of his powers, sir! We house-elves were treated like vermin, sir! life has improved for my kind since you triumphed over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Harry Potter survived, and the Dark Lord’s power was broken, and it was a new dawn, sir, and Harry Potter shone like a beacon of hope for those of us who thought the Dark days would never end, sir.(CS-10)

Harry feels the same way about Hogwarts, and he’s not going to give it up without a fight. I don’t think the house-elves of Hogwarts would be too keen on having to submit to Voldemort himself, especially if many of them recall their days as slaves of Death Eaters. Look for a force of house-elves, finally armed with wands provided by Ollivander himself, in Book 7.

In terms of the Five Keys, this theory satisfies the Postmodern theme requirement, Traditional Symbolism (can you say, “the Last will be First”?), Repeated Elements (what Travis points out in the several attempts at taking Hogwarts from Dumbledore’s control), Literary Alchemy (Harry as quintessence, the resolution of contraries), and, of course, Narrative Misdirection. As important as Dobby, Winky, and Kreacher have been in the story-line thus far and as involved as Hermione has been in her fantasy of liberating the oppressed house-wives (I mean “elves”), no one takes the house-elves very seriously, do they? House-elves are comic relief, and pathetic comic relief at that.

But it is just this “overlooking” that is the strongest pointer to the likelihood of Mr. Prinzi’s theory. Dumbledore doesn’t overlook the strengths and possibilities in people or Magical Brethren.

On their first meeting in Goblet of Fire, Dobby says to Harry, Ron, and Hermione down in the kitchens that he and the other house-elves are delighted to be in the Headmaster’s service. He goes so far as to say the house-elves know the Headmaster’s secrets.

“Tis part of the house-elf’s enslavement, sir. We keeps their secrets and our silence, sir. We upholds the family’s honor, and we never speaks ill of them — though Professor Dumbledore told Dobby he does not insist upon this. Professor Dumbledore said we is free to — to –”

“But Dobby is not wanting to, Harry Potter,” he said, talking normally again, and shaking his head so that his ears flapped. “Dobby likes Professor Dumbledore very much, sir, and is proud to keep his secrets and our silence for him.” Goblet, Chapter 21, ‘House-Elf Liberation Front,’ Scholastic page 380.

The biggest of these secrets seems to be his training them for more than cooking and cleaning duties. All Five of the Keys for the Serious Reader (have you ordered Unlocking Harry Potter yet?) point to Travis’ being “spot-on” in his SWAG that the house-elves will be the deciding factor in the climactic battle in Deathly Hallows. A tip of the hat to my friend at “Sword of Gryffindor” and my request that friends here will share their thoughts about this possible ending of the series. Don’t forget the house-elves at the Ministry of Magic after the battle between the Dark Lord and the Headmaster…

Eeyore (Pat) wrote after reading my post below on “Postmodernism, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Harry Potter” that:

I understand your point about her being post modern — it makes sense that she is a writer of her times — which is also why it’s always made sense to me that much of the imagery is Christian, because she IS a Christian. I think it would be very difficult for a writer to not let their beliefs or their era influence their writing.

So, how does this all fit in with the Christian message that so many of us see? I’ve thought since HBP that she is not necessarily intending the books to have a Christian, or even religious, point, but that it is there, nonetheless.

I’ll try to answer the question of how Harry Potter can be simultaneously postmodern and Christian by discussing what it means to be a “Great Book” and how the “five keys for the serious reader” work together, to include the keys of Postmodern themes and Traditional Symbolism.

In my experience, all the good literature professors, the ones that are able to get you to see the genius and magic of a book, begin and end the same way, whatever they’re reading with a class. They start out, especially with English books, plays, or poems written a long time ago, by laying out the historical beliefs, prejudices, and concerns of the time period the piece comes from and how the specific writer they’re talking about fit in or did not fit in with these beliefs.

This can be really helpful or it can be a disaster. The disaster is when the teacher decides everyone writing in that period was a homophobe or a racist chauvinist lap-dog and the reading descends into a group judgment of our ignorant ancestors. The helpful part is when the historical part opens up your thinking to an entirely different perspective on the world than the one we all bring to the text, a light that helps with the more obscure ideas in the play the class is reading.

I say “play” because I took a Shakespeare course the spring of my senior year in High School where I had this experience. Our Harkness teacher, Henry Ploegstra, made us read a thin book called The Elizabethan World Picture: A study of the idea of order in the age of Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton by E. M. W. Tillyard. We had to read it before we began reading the plays. We were reading every single Shakespeare play in one semester and I confess to thinking we really didn’t need one more thing to read “to get ready.”

Wow. Was I wrong.

Without Tillyard’s little book, I wouldn’t have understood the little bit of Shakespeare I did understand back then and I certainly wouldn’t be reading and studying the Bard today for pleasure. Tillyard’s book, for example, was the first one I read that discussed the fundamentals of literary alchemy (four elements, four humors, quintessence, etc.). Without the 109 pages of Elizabethan World Picture, I would have been just another reader projecting my conceptions into the text and ignoring whatever didn’t fit.

Historical understanding of worldview is where the good literature professors begin. Common sense tells us it is just as important in unlocking the meaning and artistry of Harry Potter as it is when reading Shakespeare. If anything, though, it’s harder and more important for a contemporary writer.

Understanding our historical period requires, for example, that we acknowledge that we live in an “Age” with its own peculiar beliefs and prejudices, just like the Elizabethans and the Victorians did. Most people in our times, like most people in every time, imagine that they live at the end of time and at the height of progress, which to them means that the way we see things is the way they really are. C. S. Lewis, a contemporary and friend of Tillyard, called this disdain for the past and faith in the present time “chronological snobbery.”

Beyond just acknowledging that we live in a historical period, too, looking at the beliefs of a contemporary author means looking at the predominant beliefs of our time. This is no small trick. Imagine looking at your own eyeballs. Studying postmodernism is learning about the peculiar way we all think and the unexamined myths we share as truth.

The fourth chapter of Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader (pre-publication special: free shipping from Zossima Press at the end of January if ordered now from www.Zossima.com with the secret code FS1369) is all about looking at our postmodern eyeballs. I think it’s the best chapter in the book. De gustibus, of course. I’ll introduce the ten things you’ll find in almost every postmodern story, book, film, play, or poem – you’ve read three in yesterday’s post – and then we’ll look at Harry Potter as a PoMo myth. I think you’ll be delighted and surprised to see how the world’s favorite books resonate with the predominant concerns and beliefs of our time. I know I was as I wrote that chapter, eyeballs inward.

I said a few paragraphs back that all the really good literature profs start and end the same way. They start with the historical information we need to escape our own historical prison. They end, though, by explaining or discovering with us what is timeless or transcendent in the poem, play, or novel we’re reading, why Buck Rogers of the 21st century should care about what a 17th century poet or a 19th century novelist wrote. I cover this in the fifth chapter of Unlocking by explaining Ms. Rowling’s philosophical realism, evident in her stories’ symbolism, themes, and storyline. This is where she breaks with more orthodox postmoderns — and wins our hearts completely.

It makes sense that a great book has to be an artifact of its historical period if its author is human while simultaneously lifting its readers out of and above that age by answering questions human beings have about our existence regardless of the time and place in which we live. Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov probably meant something more to Russian readers of Ruskii Vestnik, the newspaper in which both appeared, because they are “period pieces” in addition to being “flawless as a work of art” (what Dostoevsky said of Karenina). For great popularity that continues for generations, a book must have both topical and timeless meaning for readers.

The problem with Harry Potter, though, as Eeyore (Pat) points out, is that postmodernism per se is, in the popular mind, at least, about the “death of God,” the non-existence of objective knowledge and meaning, and a melange of relativism, nihilism, and “secular” values. How does a postmodern writer put together a story embodying the concerns and godless beliefs of this historical period that also has transcendent, timeless meaning? Rowling says she is a Christian, and, if you’ve read Looking for God in Harry Potter, you know her books are stuffed with traditional Christian symbols, themes, even theological points. How does she pull-off an epic that is at once “postmodern” and “spiritually edifying”?

Good question.

When I first started speaking about Harry Potter at schools, stores, and churches, my talk was about what makes a book a “Great Book.” I said there were four qualities a “Great Book” had: popularity over several generations, themes addressing the big questions of human existence, artistry that made a match of the stories and their themes, and, in English literature at least, no little Christian content. As English lit until well into the 20th Century was almost exclusively books written by Christians for other Christians, the “answers” authors gave in the “Great Books” were almost without exception Christian answers. I said in this talk that Ms. Rowling, on the evidence of her first five books, had to be given a score of 75% and I fully expected, given the height of Potter-mania, that future generations would give her a perfect score. Harry Potter has satisfied every test for a “Great Book” other than staying in print for a century or two.

I think the answer to the question of how is it possible for a postmodern to write spiritually edifying books can be found in the “artistry” point of that list. But to get to that you have to understand how it is possible for postmoderns as such to be Christian. That’s pretty straight forward.

One of the contradictions of the postmodern view is that it denounces metanarrative – and especially the Grand Myths of religion and political culture – and this contra-metanarrative, capital “T” Truth-denying position has itself become, oddly enough, the metanarrative of our times. A true postmodern, then, turns on this postmodern metanarrative and deconstructs it as a relativist position born of the anti-colonial wars in North Africa of the 1950′s. In itself, postmodernism is not a “Truth” position and can only rightly be used to be profoundly skeptical of ideologies and fundamentalist viewpoints of both religion and political creeds, not to mention being critical of the vehicles of these metanarratives that breed prejudice and injustice in communities.

Philip Pullman is a postmodern writer who is ideologically postmodern, in the sense that he is politically correct and he loves to kick the dead horse of the “institutional religion” boogey in his fiction. He is a deliverer of the divisive and discriminatory, albeit also postmodern, metanarrative. Joanne Rowling, in contrast, is a postmodern Christian writer. Her faith is not about surety in her verities or trust in bodies of worship. She isn’t an every-Sunday-goes-to-church believer, and “like Graham Greene,” she says, “my faith is sometimes about if my faith will return. It’s important to me.”

Her books, unlike Pullman’s, never bash the church; her preferred targets are schools, government, prisons, and media, the real boogeys that carry destructive metanarrative poison. Given the Sho’ah and Soviet holocaust of Orthodox Christians, how could anyone see religious people as the great persecutors of the twentieth century and the present time when believers have been far and away the victims of the most relentless persecutions, even of genocide?

Christians have said for millenia that the three enemies of those seeking human perfection in Christ are the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. “Flesh” is not the body-despising position of Puritans and Calvinists but the “carnal mindedness” St. Paul says is “death,” as opposed to “spiritual-mindedness” which is “life and peace” (Romans 6:8). The Devil is real and “the God of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4). I don’t mean to diminish the reality or relevance of these obstacles, but to the postmodern Christian, the World has become the more pressing concern. It is our preoccupation with our programming and the difficulty we have in transcending the myths dividing us into factions that keep us from any relationship with Truth, however dimly perceived. We receive booster shots for this programming from school, government, and 24/7 media fostering desire over noetic perception and even over reason.

Postmodernism, then, isn’t anti-Christian if taken to its logical end. Its defense of the minority and disenfranchised position and criticism of the metanarrative and those who deliver and enforce its divisions could be taken straight from the parable of the Good Samaritan. Rowling in this regard, I think, is best understood as a “postmodern realist,” the philosophical position contrary to philosophical nominalism that believes that signifiers have real meaning and symbols even more real, if otherworldly, antecedents.

Which brings us back to her artistry. The stories are heavy with symbols taken from Christian art and literature, ranging from Philosopher’s Stone and White Stag to Unicorn and Griffin/Hippogriff, and traditional literary structures like the Hero’s Journey and Alchemical Work. From these symbols and structures she crafts a story of human transformation that is about transcending the Grand Myth of the Magical World via the power of love. Ms. Rowling deconstructs the metanarrative of faction and prejudice that makes postmodern life a nightmare and offers a metannarrative that cannot create a constitutive other, namely, a worldview that has love as its origin and end.

Too much of a stretch? Look at the five keys and how they act together to work her magic.

Narrative misdirection teaches us how silly we are to think that our limited view is any way comprehensive or omniscient. This, of course, is a postmodern theme and part of her assault on the ideologies and ideologues that divide us into “houses” or factions and foster an unloving spirit in each of us. The literary alchemy, both in (1) its creation of Hogwarts Hermaphrodites who transcend the Gryffindor/Slytherin antagonism by incorporating literally both houses’ qualities in themselves and (2) the revelations in the rubedo of the concealed changes that happened in the albedo HBP, backs-up the lessons of narrative misdirection and the postmodern themes. The repetitions of the Hero’s Journey and Alchemical cycles drive home the point of Harry’s hope of rebirth and transformation in that each story ends with his figurative death and resurrection in the presence of a symbol of Christ, Love Himself, the resolution of all contraries, “neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male oe female” (Galatians 3:28). The Christian symbolism reinforces the anti-metanarrative postmodern message and its answer to the contradictions of postmodernism in a spiritual Grand Myth of love.

The five keys can be explained and understood separately but to really get how they are responsible for the great popularity of Ms. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels you need to see how they work together. These novels are as popular as they are with readers in every country, old and young, because they embody the concerns and many of the beliefs of our age while simultaneously, implicitly and explicitly, answering the questions we have about what it means to be fully human.

That’s a pretty heavy load and an awkward way of arguing these are “Great Books.” As you’d expect, C. S. Lewis had a simpler test that isn’t as hard as juggling five different shaped keys in the air at the same time. George Sayer, a tutorial student and later the close friend of C. S. Lewis, told Mark Koonz that Lewis’ test for a books greatness was much simpler than mine: “Does it make you better, wiser, and happier? And do you like it?” (“George Sayer on C.S. Lewis’ Definition of a Great Book: Excerpts from our Conversation,” Mark Koonz, CSL December, 2006).

I hope we can agree that we like these books and that they make us “better, wiser, and happier” people. I look forward to reading your comments about this post, postmodernism and Christianity, and how the five keys work together.

The book I am finishing the final edits for this week (go to www.zossima.com to order it at the pre-publication special price) is titled Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader. Almost everything I will write about here at HogPro will relate to one or more of these keys, so let me provide a short introduction to each one, why I think they are important, and how they work together. It helps I think to recall the keys to Moody’s chest in Goblet of Fire.

Narrative Misdirection: The first chapter of Who Killed Albus Dumbledore?(WKAD) is an essay on narrative misdirection I wrote for one of my Prince classes at BNU in 2005. That book had to start with this essay because WKAD is about what happens beneath the story-line of Half-Blood Prince. Narrative misdirection is the literary device Ms. Rowling uses in each of her books to create the impression in the reader’s mind that they have a good idea of what is going on when really all they have is Harry’s view. As Harry is at best a little slow and quite possibly, qua Gryffindor, born with a headless hat in place, Harry’s perspective is quite the restricted view. We learn this at the end of every book except Prince when Dumbledore and circumstances reveal all the mistakes Harry made in judgment, often from lack of information or just misunderstanding and neglecting clues on the periphery of his vision. I explain in Unlocking Harry Potter how Ms. Rowling does this and the debt she owes to Austen’s Emma for this technique.

Hero’s Journey and Repeated Elements: There is little mystery or deceit in Ms. Rowling’s formulaic writing. Harry’s story each year begins on Privet Drive and proceeds through ten steps of his annual adventure until he returns to King’s Cross Station for another summer with his Aunt and Uncle on Privet Drive. With the exception, again, of Half-Blood Prince’s finale, this journey and its repeated elements are the skeleton on which Ms. Rowling hangs her tales. I detail the ten steps, the important exceptions from formula in Prince, and, more to the point, what each journey means in Harry’s transformation year-by-year and his formation as hero and Voldy-Vanquisher overall.

Literary Alchemy: The subject of personal change via the journey brings us to Ms. Rowling’s remarkable and profound use of traditional alchemical imagery and symbols to detail and describe the process of Harry’s transformation. Alchemy is a seven stage work, hence the seven years of Hogwarts education and the seven books, it has three primary stages, hence the Black, White (Albus), and Red (Rubeus, among others) characters and action in the latest three novels, and alchemy is about the action of contraries – feminine alchemical mercury and masculine sulfur – resolving the impurities of a substance, hence Hermione (Hg) and Ron, “the quarrelling couple” of Harry’s alchemical life. The Harry Potter epic is suffused with symbols, number, and meaning from the stream of literary alchemy in traditional English literature that stretches from Shakespeare to C. S. Lewis. Despite this being cued from the first book’s title, Philosopher’s Stone, it remains something obscure for most readers and a large part of Unlocking Harry Potter is spent explaining how this key works in opening up everything from the sequence and details of the Tr-Wizard tasks to what the alchemical wedding of Bill and Fleur, the Red King and White Queen, means for Deathly Hallows.

Postmodern Themes and Meaning: As interesting as I find these keys, the most fun and biggest challenge I had while writing Unlocking Harry Potter was thinking of Ms. Rowling, not as a literary throwback to Austen or alchemical dinosaur, as a woman of our times. Trying to answer the question of why the books are so popular means thinking first of how and why they resonate as they do with readers of all ages and nationalities in the 21st century, not the 16th. I explain the twelve points books and screenplays written in our times, what is usually called “postmodernism” or post-structuralism,” have in common and then discuss how the Harry Potter books conform to this model. I hope this week to discuss on HogPro blog “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” the Christmas time television special, in light of three of four of these predominant themes to give you a taste for this. It involves looking at your own eyeballs, thinking about the “given” ideas we all share just by living and breathing in this historical period, but the rewards in understanding Harry Potter and just about every book and movie being released – think Happy Feet and Apocalypto – are probably greater than any other of the five keys.

Traditional Symbolism: Last but not least is the transcendent element of Ms. Rowling’s books, the symbols, themes, and meaning she gives her book that resonate with the human heart more than just with the preconceptions of our times. This includes the traditional Christian content I detailed in Looking for God in Harry Potter, although here I explain how Ms. Rowling’s use of these images is postmodern rather than evangelical, reflecting both her concerns and her faith, and the differences between her, Tolkien, and Lewis in this regard.

These five keys work together to create the wow effect that has entranced the readers of the world. To deliver her postmodern message about the limits of human understanding, the ubiquity of prejudice, and the dangers, even the evil of the predominant metanarrative, Ms. Rowling uses narrative misdirection to show us again and again how little we can “get” of what is really happening around us. Because the alchemical work is completed in the “white stage” or albedo, what transpired in Half-Blood Prince, a transformation that is invisible until the “red stage” to come in Deathly Hallows, we know that what we think happened in Prince is almost completely deception to be revealed in the eucatastrophe or apocalypse of the coming book. She resolves postmodern questions in each book by turning on the materialist metanarrative within postmodern thinking itself with Harry’s figurative death and resurrection in the presence of Christ, the hero’s ending we should expect at Deathly Hallows’ end. Harry either dies a faux-death once again, beheaded like Buckbeak or pulling off a Draught of Living Death escape, or Harry does the Sydney Carton sacrifice to redeem the magical world himself.

I’ll be posting here on the five keys in various contexts as I did in using literary alchemy to throw light on the meaning of the just announced title of the seventh book (see “The Meaning of Deathly Hallows, 25 December below). God and time allowing, I’ll try later this week to share the postmodern themes that have made “Rudolph” so popular. Stay Tuned!

And, if you want to get a steal-of-a-deal and your just-off-the presses copy of Unlocking Harry Potter, I’ll let you know when you can go to www.zossima.com and order your pre-publication copy (any day now!). Here’s what Tom Morris, author of If Harry Potter ran General Electric, wrote about the draft I shared with him this summer:

“I got so hooked I had to stop everything else I was doing and just read, read, read. I carried it around the house, I read it while using the exercycle, I hid in rooms away from the action of daily life so I could take it all in. I haven’t had that reaction to a book since, well, The Half-Blood Prince. A spectacular read for all serious fans of Rowling’s work. Compelling, well argued, fun and funny. Engaging. Thought provoking. Erudite.”

You can order Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? today at Zossima.com. I’ll send out your autographed copy via my seven dwarves packaging team if the Zossima elves forward your order by noon! Here is what Vincent Kling, Professor of Literature at La Salle University wrote about WKAD:

Edmund Wilson once expressed his contempt for detective fiction by asking about one of Agatha Christie’s books, in a wrongheaded and curmudgeonly burst of annoyance, “Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?” And there are still no doubt those readers who find Harry Potter too juvenile, silly, trivial or marginal to care about Dumbledore or any other HP character. But people with any degree of interest at all will find this book a feast of information, speculation, and background.

If you’re past the introductory phases of what’s too lightly called fandom, you will treasue this book. Hurry and get it now so you can compare it with the actual seventh volume. Keep an eye out, too, for Granger’s forthcoming book; it has the best analysis of postmoderism ever, and I’ve read plenty!