Re: Harry Potter-A Worthwhile series?? - a reply

[Ev vy]

No: HPFGUIDX 33588

In reply to "kimballs6":

I've read your essay and I must say that I not entirely agree with you. And although I find it very superficial, I decided to write a reply. I'm not sending it directly to you, but to the list as I think that some points I make may be worth consideration regardless of being a part of my reply.

I'm a student of English literature and currently I'm writing my MA thesis on literature for children. And I'm putting HP series alongside 'The Hobbit' and Narnia Chronicles. And I must say that my professor is not at all surprised about it.

None of these books is fantasy and simple, and so as to Tolkien and Lewis there's simply no discussion about that. And I think that Rowling deserves to be put together with those two writers. And I'll try to prove it in my MA thesis by analyzing similarities and differences, by saying in which aspects Tolkien's and Lewis's works are superior to Rowling's and in which aspects Rowling's works are superior to Tolkien's and Lewis's 


I'd like to make two remarks before I'll refute some points of your essay:

1. Tolkien and Lewis wrote their books in a wholly different convention. They placed their characters in a completely imaginary world which being imaginary may be perfect, with clear divisions, etc. Their write with references to romance genre, epic stories and quest stories. The rules that govern their worlds belong to the chivalric age, to the age of noble knights. Whereas Rowling writes about a contemporary world. It doesn't matter that the wizarding world is imaginary as it's analogous to the Muggle world, it exists within the Muggle world, it's governed by the same rules as our world. It's contemporary story in this respect.


2. Don't forget that Tolkien and Lewis were scholars, they were Oxford University professors and Catholics, so their background had an immense impact on the way they wrote. Lewis created Narnia as an enormous metaphor of Christian worldview, and Tolkien created a completely self-consistent world, with its own history, mythology, etc. And Rowling did not attempt anything like this.


>>>>MS. ROWLING'S WORLD VIEW:
Rowling presents an arbitrary world in which good and evil are 
simply two sides of the same sorcery--the "Dark Side" and the 
other side, although no name is ever given for it.<<<


That's exactly what I like about Rowling. It's life. Anything can be either good or evil, or used either for good or evil purposes. Doesn't Rowling try to convince us that our own choices make us what we are? In this sense Tolkien's and Lewis's worlds seem to limited, as their characters are in a way predestined to be either good or evil. Which is BS, but the way you put the differences in your essay make me think of that this way.


>>>>Sometimes breaking rules is honorable, sometimes it must be punished.  Sometimes a lie is bad, sometimes it is good.<<<<


Again different conventions. In chivalric world, lie is always bad. In our world it's not necessarily true.


>>>>And finally, adult authority is attacked harshly, leaving ultimate authority in the hands of the kid who can grab the most power.<<<<


I'll make a refrence to the convention of romance (a quotation from Derek S. Brewer's essay 'The Lord o the Rings as Romance'):

'The hero has to escape from the domination of his parents and to establish relationship with his peers.'

Parents can be either real figurative. And this escape implies breaking the rules. Domination of parents means imposing the rules and conventions. To escape from the parents the hero has to break the rules and conventions.


>>>>If Harry needs to lie, he simply will:  "When facing a magic mirror, Harry thinks desperately, `I must lie,..I must look and lie about what I see, that's all.'"  And yes, he is rewarded with the Sorcerer's Stone.<<<<


He is _not_ rewared. He doesn't want the stone for himself, he wants to protect it from Voldemort, so he can't be rewareded with it. The stone is not his goal, his goal is to protect it. 


>>>>Yet later, when he asks Headmaster Dumbledore questions, Dumbledore says, "...I shall answer your questions unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you'll forgive me.  I shall not, or course, lie."  My immediate response was, why not?  It works for Harry.  Maybe Ms. Rowling meant this as a teaching point, but it doesn't go anywhere.<<<<


The point is: if Dumbledore said to Harry 'don't lie because it's wrong' it would be another rule among a number of rules which, as you pointed out, are eagerly broken by all the students of Hogwarts. And in such a way Dumbledore make the boy think why the wizard would not not lie.


>>>All adults are foolish, bungling, stupid and boringly 
unimaginative. Why would a child ever look up to them or need 
them in any way?<<<<


Don't you mean Muggles, perhaps??? I don't see Rowling making the adult wizards boringly unimaginative and stupid. BTW, references  to adults or people that Tolikien and Lewis make aren't very nice:
 Narnia - refers more to adults: 'Grown-ups are always thinking of uninteresting explanations.'

The  Hobbit - 'when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making noise like elephants which they [hobbits] can hear a mile off.'


>>>>C.S. LEWIS'S AND J.R.R. TOLKIEN'S WORLD VIEW:
In contrast, Lewis and Tolkien present a world where truth is 
absolute and transcends the individual.  Because the world has 
absolute truth, it is also a world in which order is upheld as an honorable characteristic for which to strive.  Good and evil are 
two distinct things, with the rewards and consequences for the 
characters' choices reflecting absolute values.  And finally, 
adults can be good or evil, and the good are presented with 
nobility of character.<<<<


Again convention, they write with strong reference to medieval conventions and genres, where the division to good and evil was a black/white division. In HP, we may find references to these conventions but made more freely, whereas Tolkien and Lewis are meticulous about 'intertextualizing' them. Moreover, Rowling equips her story with more psychological depth. Good and evil are rarely easily divided, the border between them is very blurry.


>>>>Consider the difference between how Dumbledore, Headmaster 
of Hogwarts School, and Aslan, ruler of Narnia, present 
themselves in their first appearance before the children. 
Rowlings writes,  "`Welcome!" he [Dumbledore] said.  `Welcome 
to a new year at Hogwarts!  Before we begin our banquet, I 
would like to say a few words.  And here they are:  Nitwit!  
Blubber!  Oddment!  Tweak!'"... Everybody clapped and cheered.  
Compare this to Aslan's welcome of the children:  "`Welcome, 
Peter, Son of Adam,'  said Aslan.  `Welcome, Susan and Lucy, 
daughters of Eve.  Welcome He-Beaver and She-Beaver.'  His 
voice was deep and rich and somehow took the fidgets out of 
them."  There is a vast difference between Dumbledore's 
foolishness and Aslan's nobility.<<<<


Foolishness??? Why do you call sense of humor foolishness?

And why do you compare Dumbledore and Aslan? They don't have the same status in the books. Aslan is the symbol of ultimate goodness and power, while Dumbledore is just considered to be the most powerful good wizard. Aslan is a Father figure while Dumbledore is just a father figure.

I would be much wiser to compare Dumbledore with Gandalf. Compare these quotation with those you used:

>From 'The Hobbit:
'Gandalf, Gandalf! <snip> Not the fellow who used to tell such woderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widow's sons? Not the man that used to make such particularly excellent fireworks.'
Or:
'He pulled open the door with a jerk, and they all fell in, one on top of the other. More dwarves, four more! And there was Gandalf behind, leaning on his staff and laughing.'


>>>All the characters--Harry, Bilbo and the children--are presented as heroes, yet only Lewis's and Tolkien's live in a world that has true consequences for right and wrong, and thus only they can truly grow in excellence.


HP is a series so the development of the character has to be somehow broken into parts. Each Narnia book is a completely separate entity so the whole process takes part in each of them in regard to different character. Rowling is much more realistic than Tolkien and Lewis. Harry Potter is a child, an eleven-year- old boy, who needs time to develop. Plus the convention, Narnia and The Hobbit are influenced by texts where the transformation of the hero, his redmption had to happen without paying any heed to psychological truth. Personally, I don't find Narnia and The Hobbit as psychologically convincing. Rwoling is more realistic, the good is not always rewarded and the evil punished.


      "Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't."

     "Someone was knocking to come in.  BOOM.  They knocked 
again."

      "Can you think of nobody who has waited many years to return to power, who has clung to life, awaiting their chance?"


Have you heard of political correctness??? All those instances require the use of pronouns in singular, but if you want to be politically correct (and now it _is_ even grammatically correct) you use the pronouns 'they', 'them', 'their' and plural form of verb instead.

Ev vy


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