Hogwarts Professor

Please forgive my absence during the extended Spring Break at the electronic Hogwarts. I am in the process of finding work, submitting book proposals, responding to publisher proofs, re-writing Unlocking Harry Potter, studying Artemis Fowl, and doing what I can to become receptive to the life-changing graces available during Great Lent. I have five HogPro posts near completion, and God allowing, they’ll begin to go up next week. Thank you for your patience.

Into the breach of my inbox comes an essay from Adam Ross, an English major and senior, about ‘Power in Harry Potter.’ As he wrote to me: “Independently from classes, I’ve written an essay on how the Potter series views power and power relations (from a Christian perspective), focusing on the contrasting views of Harry and Voldemort and how they both respond to gaining power, especially when the Hallows are concerned.” The Christian perspective is never unwelcome here, so I offer it the HogPro All-Pros for your reflection and comments. Thank you, Adam, for sharing this with us.

Hallows or Horcruxes? Power in Harry Potter

There is no good and evil. There is only power, and those too weak to seek it. Lord Voldemort (SS, film version)

What do the Potter books have to say about power and our relationship with it? Is it good, bad, worthy of being sought, even hungered for? How does the view of power in the Potter epic mesh with the view of power laid out in Scripture? [Read more…]

[Note February 2018: AdeelAmini.com no longer exists. The longest excerpts available from the interview are inside this report at The Leaky Cauldron. In case it too goes away, I have copied and pasted longer sections by topic from the Leaky report in the comments boxes below this post.

Nota bene: I contacted the writer of the TIME magazine ‘Person of the Year’ article on Rowling in 2007 to ask if she knew to whom Rowling was referring in her “eyes open” comment. She very generously and promptly responded that it was Connie Neal, author of What’s a Christian to Do about Harry Potter? and other books. She also gave me a link to the talk Connie Neal gave in which she made the “lost evangelical opportunity” comment Rowling admired. Case closed!]

Read the full text here. We’ve discussed much of this interview’s comments before (the importance of Dumbledore’s single-sex attraction incident, her colloquial use of the word ‘fundamentalism,’ etc.) but the whole thing is, as always, much better than the excerpted parts.

There is one passage, though, I hope you will take home and show your friends:

Moving on to a more contentious issue, Rowling has categorically said that she does believe in a higher power, a statement reinforced by her childhood church-going (“Till I was 17,” she clarifies). It must be difficult to reconcile her religious beliefs with those that denounce Harry Potter as anti-Christian, I wonder aloud. Rowling’s expression does not change a fraction. “There was a Christian commentator who said that Harry Potter had been the Christian church’s biggest missed opportunity. And I thought, there’s someone who actually has their eyes open.”

I can think of ten writers who wrote that “missed opportunity” line, several of whom aren’t Christians, but, as one of those commentators, I’ll tell you it is grand to read Ms. Rowling thought this was the “eyes open” understanding of her books.

I should note, too, the fact that this sentence was not mentioned in any of the previous reports about the interview throws light on the blind-spot in Daily Prophet coverage of Harry Potter. All we have read about this interview was homophobia and stupid Christian fundamentalists. Not one mention of the author pointing to the spiritual content of the books and their explicit and implicit Christian meaning!

How different all our lives would be!

For those who are not disturbed by interpretations driven by the Personal Heresy, this revelation would support the psychological or Jungian interpretation of the alchemy in the series. Either way, I know Ms. Rowling’s recovery from depression and consequent success will come to my mind the next time I am speaking to someone convinced their life is going nowhere and is meaningless; depression can be overcome and the world made better, much better, by those who have overcome it.

And its premiere is in Spokane, Washington! Arabella, please send us a full report!

Okay, this isn’t exactly a HogPro-type subject, Wizard Rock bands not fitting neatly into the “Serious Reader” pigeonhole, but you all are in recovery from your Easter indulgences and travel, so we’ll get to the Grand Inquisitor/High Inquisitor links, to book reviews, and to Artemis Fowl beginning tomorrow. I met the twin towers who made this “wrockumentary” in Las Vegas at Lumos 2006. I was autographing books in a small booth with the Rev. Francis Bridger and they asked me if I would answer some questions about the meaning of the music in Harry Potter for their documentary. Sure; why not? [Read more…]