Of midi-chlorians, magic and the Christian doctrine of grace

by Emily Strand

I have mused elsewhere about the connections, both superficial and essential, between the Harry Potter and Star Wars sagas. Recently I’ve been struck by the parallels between each epic’s approach to its supernatural stuff. With respect for the legitimate and significant differences between the Force in Star Wars and magic in Harry Potter, I’d like to speculate about what notions might undergird each, in the imaginations of their respective creators (or “sub-creators” as Tolkien might call them). In C.S. Lewis’ essay “On Stories,” the Narnia author says, “To construct plausible and moving ‘other worlds’ you must draw on the only real ‘other world’ we know, that of the spirit.” Both Rowling and Lucas seem to have drawn on the Christian idea of grace to set the parameters for the supernatural stuff of their respective sagas, and how, within those parameters, certain characters are set apart.

First, a piece of advice: if you find yourself among Star Wars fans, don’t mention midi-chlorians. Just don’t bring them up. Don’t know what they are yourself? That’s fine, most fans will tell you. You’re not missing anything. The Force was just fine without the midi-chlorians. Many Star Wars fans choose not to think about midi-chlorians much, because, when they do, they realize they hate them more than Jar Jar Binks. Way more.

Now I’m going to totally disregard my own advice, because I really want to talk about the midi-chlorians. So life-long Star Wars fans, please go collect some rotten fruit to throw at your screens.

Okay, we’re back. Star Wars fans first encountered these microscopic trouble-makers in 1999’s The Phantom Menace, when Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, on a hunch, has his apprentice run a test of the midi-chlorian level of young Anakin Skywalker’s blood, only to find it exceeds even that of Master Yoda. Later, Qui-Gon explains to the boy that midi-chlorians are “microscopic life-forms that reside within the cells of all living things” and “continually speak to us … telling us the will of the Force.” (The Phantom Menace novelization by Terry Brooks) All this seems to imply that Force-sensitivity is a function of how many midi-chlorians you have running around your cells.

When Anakin responds that he still does not understand this reality, the audience is right there with the confused 9-year-old. Huh? Fans who grew up with the original franchise, who studied the Force with Luke under Obi-Wan Kenobi in 1977, understand the Force as something which surrounds us, penetrates us, binds us and all living things together. It seemed, from Obi-Wan’s description, that anyone could tap into the Force, and the Force was with us all. The prequels, besides bringing us Jar-Jar, upset our egalitarian impressions of the Force, formed by the original trilogy. Now we were forced (ahem) to wrestle with the reality that some folks have more of these Force-conducting midi-chlorians than others. For life-long fans, some dream died when they learned, as former Stormtrooper Finn learns from Han Solo in The Force Awakens, that average people can’t just “use the Force”: that this is not how it works.

Amy H. Sturgis rescued my imagination from midi-chlorian-induced despair in her inspiring course on Star Wars, the franchise and the phenomenon, for the Mythgard Institute in fall 2015. She pointed her students (some of whom seemed a bit irate about the subject) to Matthew Woodring Stover’s essay in Star Wars on Trial. Stover maintains that midi-chlorians are a metaphor, and not to get too technical with the concept. They count, claims Stover, as a measure of a person’s Force potential, and nothing more. And most helpfully, Stover points out the verisimilitude this lends the story, for this too is the way of the world; some people are especially gifted, others are not. And in the end, one’s giftedness is not what matters, but what one does with the gifts one is given. This is evidenced by the fact, Stover points out, that Anakin “I’m-a-walking-midi-chlorian-family-reunion” Skywalker gets smoked by the hard-working, ever-faithful Obi-Wan Kenobi in Revenge of the Sith.

This is where my Potter-shaped imagination took over, drawing connections between the two saga’s supernatural matter: the Force and magic. For doesn’t the same principle apply in Harry’s world? Either you get your owl from Hogwarts on your eleventh birthday, or you don’t. Fans of Rowling’s saga have never rebelled against the idea that not all children are given a place at Dumbledore’s school of magic. Simply put, some folks are magic, and some are Muggles. It’s just the way things are. Most readers see Petunia Evans’ childhood jealousy over her sister Lily’s witchhood as misguided and selfish, not justified. Of course, this notion of the selectivity of magical power in the Potter universe is clear from the beginning of Rowling’s saga: she never led us to believe magic is something one can choose to tap into. Even as she emphasizes the importance of choice in all things, it is understood to be choice of what to do with the gifts one is given, not the choice to possess those gifts in the first place.

This leads us to understand midi-chlorians in Star Wars as a tool Lucas uses to, like Rowling, set certain characters apart for some special purpose. Anakin’s abnormally high midi-chlorian count tells viewers that Qui-Gon was right: Anakin is the Chosen One, the one who will bring balance to the Force. And the calamitous advent of Harry Potter’s owl(s) from Hogwarts in Philosopher’s Stone shows us, all too clearly, that the magic of the universe will not be kept from its true purpose by Harry’s hard-hearted, unbelieving relations, the Dursleys. Harry too is a “Chosen One”, and he cannot be the beacon of old magic he is meant to be, locked away in a cupboard.

It is accepted that Christianity has, to varying degrees, influenced both the Harry Potter and the Star Wars sagas’ creators. It seems both Rowling and Lucas may have taken C.S. Lewis’ advice, drawing upon the realm of the spirit to inform and guide their narrative worlds, especially with regard to the supernatural stuff of their stories: magic and the Force. The “given-ness” (as opposed to “achieved-ness”) of both magic and midi-chlorians resonates, to this Christian fan of both sagas, with the doctrine of grace.

In ten years of teaching various aspects of Christianity on the collegiate level, I have always found grace the most difficult Christian concept to convey, despite its fairly straightforward nature. Christian students, especially, tend to think of their own salvation as a function of how well they’ve obeyed God’s commandments. They appear so scandalized when I contradict them, and despite my correction, many persist in the erroneous belief that Christians effect their own salvation through good works. Now different Christian traditions have differing notions of the details of how grace works, but most theologians agree that our salvation as Christians is not a function of our own good works, kind deeds or our faithfulness to God’s commands. These are all important factors in our earthly contentment, but what is essential to our eternal salvation is grace: a free gift from God through the person of Jesus Christ, who calls sinners, not the righteous, who rescues the lost, and whose death brings new life. Just ask the brother of the Prodigal Son in Luke’s Gospel; it’s not being “good” that saves us. It is the extravagant, even foolish mercy of our Father, who loves and forgives us sinners to excess.

Christians boldly believe ourselves to be special, set apart for a divine life. We believe we will get that letter from Hogwarts someday; we believe we can use the Force, even when the skeptics tells us that’s not how it works. But we concede with humility that what makes us special is not up to us. It is pure, boundless gift. As the charismatic Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber has pointed out, our only role in our own salvation – in this life of grace that God lavishes upon us so gratuitously – is our choice to live our lives in response to it: to live in such a way that God’s love for us will not have been in vain. Anything else is a path to the Dark Side. For, as a wise man once said, it is our choices, far more than our midi-chlorians, that show who we really are.

Emily Strand is a Catholic catechetical writer and author of the book Mass 101: Liturgy and Life (Liguori, 2013). She teaches Comparative Religions at Mt. Carmel College of Nursing and is the newest member of the HogPro teaching staff. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter (@ekcstrand).

The Allegory of “Fantastic Beasts 3: Scourers’, Pottermore, and Plot Predictions

by Chris Calderon

For the last two days, we’ve had the rather grim task of surveying the facts, both literary and historical, of the Christian sect Ms. Rowling appears to have in her satirical rifle crosshairs for her next Wizarding outing, namely, the Puritans.  It’s been a rather dark picture.  Luckily, however, it’s coming to a close (but not of other story elements which await their own future posts).  We’ve spent two entries looking at the background Ms. Rowling has to work with in her film, now it’s time to look at the story itself, or what little we have to go by.

Thankfully, she has provided us with almost all the background detail we need, or at least as much as she has decided is all we’ll need to make an educated guess.  With the release of Magic in North America as part of the Pottermore promotions for the film, along with a helpful character list courtesy of the Potter Wikia, we now have a more solid ground on which to base our predictions of what to expect in the upcoming blockbuster.

Scouring the New World

Ms. Rowling’s summary of her fictional equivalent of the Puritans, whom she refers to as Scourers, can be found at Pottermore, under the heading Seventeenth Century and Beyond here.  However, for our purposes a good (and pretty funny) overview is provided by the Radio Times of London here.  I’ll be using the Times summary for a guess at what we might expect to see come November, as it goes into a greater amount of detail in spelling out what Rowling’s synopsis just hints at.  With that in mind, here’s a question:

What’s a Scourer?

[Read more…]

DC Comics recently announced a new series of young adult novels, penned by four top names in young adult literature. The novels will feature four of the comics giant’s leading characters: Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman and Catwoman.  No doubt the company hopes to create some synergy between the ongoing wave of YA publications and the current, well-received TV comics characters TV series like The Flash and Supergirl. While translating superhero fiction out of visual media is always tricky, they no doubt have assembled a top-notch writing team.  I am personally looking forward to Matt de la Pena’s Superman.  And of course, Harry Potter is like a superhero in many ways,

These books won’t appear until 2017, so there is plenty of time left for anticipation.  In the meantime, here is a recommended list of Matt de la Pena novels to read in the meantime.  Note that The Living. previously discussed here on Hogpro, tops the list.  And I need to figure out a way to get the Superfriends theme song out of my head.

Harry Potter and the Three Days

by Emily Strand

This time of year, Christians of many denominations gather to share a particular story: a story about a young man, raised to die, who willingly meets death face-to-face, turning his dreadful duty into a loving choice for the sake of his friends. It is a grim story at first, but everything changes in a surprise ending (“eucatastrophe” as Tolkien would have it): after all, his grave is empty. His loving self-sacrifice saves not just this man’s friends, but all the world – even himself – from death itself. Sound familiar? To Harry Potter fans, it must. Both Harry Potter and Jesus Christ lived stories of service, self-sacrifice and the kind of love which even death cannot overcome.

Many Christians call the week that begins today “Holy Week,” because they consider it the most sacred time of the year. It is a week of many “holy” days: Palm Sunday, Holy or Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, etc. For Roman Catholics, three particular days within this holy week are essential: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday (the Vigil of Easter Sunday). Each year during these three days, known as the Great Paschal Triduum (Latin: “three days”), many Catholics fast, pray and attend a lot of extra services. I heard Stephen Colbert describe it as a “Catholic bender”, which is pretty accurate. The point? For the faithful, it is to make Jesus’ story their own through their ritual participation in the rich sacramental action of the Church at its solemn peak. Christians who are also Harry Potter readers can, without much difficulty, make important connections between the theological underpinnings of the Triduum liturgies and some of the most compelling themes of Rowling’s books, especially Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Recognizing such connections can help Christians understand, recover and appropriate the fundamental mysteries they celebrate in these great Three Days.

Radical service, radical love

Something bothered me about chapter 24 of Deathly Hallows. In it, Harry buries his friend Dobby, the house-elf whom Harry had freed from perpetual servitude several books back. Harry’s burying Dobby was fitting enough; after all, Dobby had been killed rescuing Harry and friends from imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Death Eaters. But Harry’s manner of burying Dobby confused me, because our hero refused to use magic.

“I want to do it properly… Not by magic. Have you got a spade?”

And shortly afterward he had set to work, alone, digging the grave … He dug with a kind of fury, relishing the manual work, glorying in the non-magic of it, for every drop of his sweat and every blister felt like a gift to the elf who had saved their lives. (Deathly Hallows, 478)

Harry’s unprecedented refusal to engage with his magical powers in this singular instance was a stumbling block to me. Why not use magic now, why not for this?

My imagination found the point of reference it needed to break open the passage months later, as I sat singing Francis Patrick O’Brien’s hymn “This is My Example” on Holy Thursday at my parish, and watched as members of the assembly came forward to have their feet ritually washed by the priest-presider.

In a time to come

you will know what I have done;

Let me wash you, let me serve.

This is my example,

love as I love you. (O’Brien, “This is My Example”, GIA Pub., 2001)

Christ’s radical act of service in washing his disciples’ feet is found only in the Gospel of John; it is featured in place of the synoptic Gospels’ accounts of the Last Supper. Catholics ritualize this moment in the Mandatum of Holy Thursday, because Jesus’ actions in washing the feet of his disciples both make the connection between the Eucharist and radical service, but also foreshadow Christ’s looming death on Good Friday, when he will lay down not merely his dignity and position for his friends, but also his life.

Like Christ washing the feet of his disciples, Harry’s act of service toward his servant Dobby foretells the still more radical service he will soon perform, another baldly “non-magical” act: laying down his own life for the sake of his friends. Unlike Christ, Harry does not yet fully understand his mission’s implication, yet as he toils and weeps for his friend, Harry steels himself for his ultimate task: destroying Voldemort’s horcruxes. When he is finished, he humbly marks Dobby’s resting place and walks away, “his mind full of those things that had come to him in the grave, ideas that had taken shape in the darkness, ideas both fascinating and terrible.” (Deathly Hallows, 481) These visions prepare him for his ultimate task, which will require his own death.

Glory in the cross

In the final chapters of Deathly Hallows, our hero is shown the full truth of the matter by Snape: Harry himself contains the last piece of Voldemort’s soul; he bears a horcrux, and must be destroyed. “Would it hurt to die?” (Hallows, 692) he immediately wonders, never considering a way to escape. The beating of his heart becomes a funeral drum as he walks through the castle and into the forest to meet death at his enemy’s hand. In his agony he pauses only once to pass the burden of a task unfinished to his friend and disciple Neville. Then he walks on. As the narrator details Harry’s thoughts during his solemn procession toward death, one emotion dominates: acceptance. A glimpse of his girlfriend Ginny gives him pause, but not for long. “At the same time he thought that he would not be able to go on, he knew that he must. The long game was ended…” (Hallows, 698)

Remarkably Christ-like, Harry’s self-offering is done freely in love. Christ is both victim and priest at the altar, and Harry is both victim and victor in the forest, as he stands face-to-face with death, wand purposefully pocketed to prevent self-defense, trusting his defeat will bring the community’s victory. “And that,” he is told moments later in death by his beloved headmaster, “will, I think, have made all the difference.” (Hallows, 708) Like Christ at Golgotha, Harry destroys death by accepting it: this is his glory. This is why the liturgy of Good Friday finds Roman Catholics rejoicing in the Cross, even venerating this horrific instrument of death. For it is this Cross, once wretched, which now sets us free. The liturgy of Good Friday is solemn, yes, but also surprisingly triumphant. Our colloquial name for the feast bespeaks our perspective on it: it is “Good” Friday. It is certainly not meant to be a liturgy marked by mourning, but rather by gratitude, for Christians rejoice in Christ’s acceptance of the task.

The feast of victory

Indeed, Harry’s acceptance makes all the difference. The same magic that protected him through life, his mother’s loving self-sacrifice, combines with his own offering to allow his return from death, free from the burden of evil. But all is not yet won; the man himself remains: Voldemort, now a mere mortal. It comes down to a duel by the light of dawn, which Harry wins not by committing murder, but by disarming Voldemort just as his enemy casts the killing spell. Voldemort’s wand turns on its owner, and the Dark Lord is destroyed forever.

Like Christ, Harry destroys death, personified in Voldemort, by disarming it. In his final duel with Voldemort, Harry notices his enemy’s spells “seemed unable to hold” (Hallows, 731) against the cheers of Harry’s supporters, who are filled with a new hope at his rising. As Catholics hear at the Easter Vigil in St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans, “death no longer has power over him.” (Rom. 6:9)

When the Dark Lord is finished for good, cries of thankful joy erupt as survivors flock to the Boy Who Lived. The sorrow of loss mingles with the elation of victory, just as Slytherins mingle with Gryffindors, house-elves with centaurs, teachers with pupils, the living with the spirits of the dead, for though Professor McGonagall replaces the four Hogwarts House tables so the warriors can break their fast, “nobody was sitting according to House anymore…” (Hallows, 745) For Christians, this striking scene images the Paschal banquet we celebrate at Holy Saturday’s Vigil of the Lord’s Resurrection, when all come to the feast of victory, knowing no division. For “this is the joyful feast of the people of God. They will come from east and west and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God.” (Book of Common Worship, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993)

Emily Strand is a Catholic catechetical writer and author of the book Mass 101: Liturgy and Life (Liguori, 2013). She teaches Comparative Religions at Mt. Carmel College of Nursing and is the newest member of the HogPro teaching staff. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter (@ekcstrand).

Matt de la Pena, whose YA novel The Living was discussed on Hogpro previously, as been awarded the Newbery Medal for his picture book, Last Stop on Market Street. He is the first Hispanic author so honored.  I haven’t read the book yet, but I’ll have to put in on my list.

As well as getting around to reviewing The Living‘s sequel, The Hunted.

Congratulations, Matt!  Score another for the psych majors!