A letter from independent scholar Joel Hunter, formerly of Arizona State University’s Barrett Honors College — with a request for help from all Potter Pundits! I cannot think of a group more qualified to answer this than we are, so please share your answers to the survey question here as well as sending a note to the student.

Hello, Friends,

I have a request from an ASU student who is trying to complete her final project for a class, but she is hitting a roadblock with getting feedback from a Tumblr post she broadcast requesting feedback from HP fans. So I agreed to reach out to you all to see whether she could expand her network (it appears that she doesn’t have enough Tumblr followers who are also HP fans). What she’d like to get fans’ responses about she expressed as follows:

“I hope to know whether or not I am correct in thinking an online community for Harry Potter fans is a positive experience that can lead to valuable friendships, even if those friendships are only through the internet.”

I’m not sure how she’s conceptualizing “valuable friendship,” but for this she may be drawing from some of our readings.

Respondents should send their answer to Sarah.E.Mann@asu.edu.

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

Every best wish,
Joel

I confess I expected to see a BBC chapter-by-chapter television program, an opera, and Quidditch replacing Wrestling in the Olympic Games b we’d see the world’s shared text on stage performed as an evangelical drama. But I was wrong again.

The Moscow News reports an Orthodox Christian priest in Tartarstan has written a play about Harry’s defeat of the Dark Lord via his traditional faith in Christ.Read the whole thing but here is the Fan Fic scenario:

In the beginning Hedwig, Harry’s pet owl, brings sad news from Hogwarts. The battle between good and evil ended with Voldemort’s victory, and all Harry’s friends, Hermione, Ron and nearly all the Weasleys, have died.

Harry rushes to see Dumbledore, who tells him to find “the one who created everything”, as he’s the only power that can stop Voldemort.

And both good and evil are just two sides of the same coin, the headmaster warns Harry, before he draws his last breath.

Harry is then teleported to an orthodox church where he learns his parents baptised him into Orthodoxy just before they died.

He heads to Jerusalem to see the descent of the Holy Flame with his new friends – Anastas and Agniya, two Orthodox siblings he met along the way.

The final encounter with Voldemort happens in the Holy Land and with the help of Saint Cyprianus, his patron saint, Harry defeats his enemy.

I’m guessing you see some problems with the scenario as laid out (Dumbledore is still alive at the Battle of Hogwarts? Harry teleports?) but maybe this is just a translation issue. Or of course it could be an exploitation issue… or maybe just a priest with too much time on his hands? During Great Lent?

Thanks to Lee for sending today’s First Thing blog post on this subject. Please, anyone, write in a comment at the blog saying that Looking for God in Harry Potter has been revised and retitled as How Harry Cast His Spell. And mention, too, that the sadly sacreligious iconological treatment of Harry as Christ is from the Dallas Morning News article ‘The Book of Harry’ published in 2009.