a worthwhile series?

[fluxed at earthlink.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 33634


"kimballs6" wrote

Much debate is swirling around the Harry Potter books versus 
C.S. Lewis's and Tolkien's stories.  Many argue that these 
books are all similar--just fantasy, pure and simple.  I disagree.  
They are fantasies (Lewis going into allegory), but that is where 
the similarity ends.  After reading the first book in the Potter 
series, reading The Hobbit, and brushing up on The Lion, the 
Witch and the Wardrobe, I see a tremendous gulf between 
Rowling and the other two writers.  

Well, this has been said before but I just wanted to underline it: It's _impossible_ to draw reliable conclusions about an entire series after having only read the first book in each. If all the important aspects of the story could have been told in one book alone, the author would have done so. It's rather like trying to draw conclusions about marine life after wading up to one's waist at the beach.


<snip>

Second, Rowling leaves the option of lying up to the individual, 
and even glorifies it.  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.  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.  Does Dumbledore never lie, or maybe 
he'll just never lie to Harry, or maybe he just won't lie to Harry at 
this time, or maybe this is itself a lie....  Rowling sometimes 
glorifies lying, and other times doesn't  consider it as an option.   
Rowling appears confused on the issue of lying.


As does Tolkien, even in "The Hobbit"--remember, Bilbo not only steals the Ring from Gollum and then deceives him in order to escape, but he lies to all his friends about it too. And yes, this does become an important plot point in "The Lord of the Rings"--but Bilbo doesn't get the instructive moral comeuppance your interpretation would seem to demand. "LOTR" is a far more morally complex (and hence, if I dare say, realistic) story than "The Hobbit"--that's in good part why it, and not "The Hobbit," is considered Tolkien's masterpiece.

>Finally, concerning the adult world, or those who would be in 
authority, there is only derision.  Fred tells his mother, "Honestly, 
woman, you call yourself our mother?"   And another time, "All 
right, keep your hair on."  All the teachers at Hogwarts are either 
dirty, deranged, deceitful, or all three.  

Fred and George have a relationship with their mother that allows them to tease and goad each other. They do respect her and love her very much, but it's also in their nature to be pranksters and test the limits constantly (as is normal among very bright adolescents). She understands this, it exasperates her, but she loves them of course anyway (and they know this). It's a very realistic portrayal of a truly loving family dynamic in which the parents do their best to set limits while at the same time not quashing their children's passions and talents (they don't do this perfectly of course--who does?). As opposed to the Dursleys, who are rather loathesome, shallow, uptight child abusers (and a very grimly funny caricature). Regarding the chaos of the Weasley household--how could any household with seven bright, troublesome children and an eccentric father be otherwise? What matters most to Rowling isn't order, it's love, and the Weasleys have no shortage of that--whereas the Dursleys have none.



"Honestly, Hermione, you 
think all teachers are saints or something..."   and when referring 
to late notices for library books, Rowling writes:  "He [Harry] 
didn't belong to the library, so he'd never even got rude notes 
asking for books back."  Is it really `rude' to remind a person of a 
commitment he has made?  When presenting the adult human 
world, Ms. Rowling presents it in such a ridiculously negative 
light that it becomes completely unrealistic and even offensive.  
All adults are foolish, bungling, stupid and boringly 
unimaginative.  Why would a child ever look up to them or need 
them in any way?


I think this is really stretching it here. First off, there's nothing at all wrong with McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, Hooch, Madam Pomfrey, or presumably Sinistra or Vector. The adults at Hogwarts who do have something or other "wrong" with them (very different things in each case--I'm thinking of Quirrell, Filch, Hagrid, and Snape) are that way for reasons that serve the plot, and for characterization, which are things that good authors take into consideration far and away above moral instruction. No child would believe for a second in a fictional world in which all the adults were kind and wise, because they already know for a fact that that would be absurd.


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.  

Does it, in Tolkien's world?
Remember, first off, Lewis and Tolkien knew each other, were close friends, and critiqued each other's works in progress.

Also remember (BIG ASS SPOILER ALERT) that "LOTR" does NOT really have a completely happy ending. Frodo, the heroic everyman who submits to his destiny nobly, ultimately at the very end FAILS the quest--were it not for the selfish, treacherous, corrupted Gollum acting completely out of greed and *accidentally* doing the right thing, the ending would be grim indeed.


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.


So the ending of Tolkien's greatest work does not support your thesis. Frodo is indeed a good man at heart, but NO ONE is immune to the corruptions of evil. All along, good and powerful characters like Gandalf, Galadriel, and Aragorn are offered the Ring, and refuse because they know their very goodness is subject to corruption and would not survive the temptation of absolute power. A good thing for adults to remember when they have children in their charges (and not a bad thing for children to be aware of as well)--power corrupts. For that reason, authority figures are to be trusted only insofar as they can resist that corruption. Back to HP, Dumbledore resists it very well (his sense of humor and childlike qualities serve to _diffuse_ the effect of his power, to shrink himself back down to human size, to not place himself on a pedestal above others--Gandalf does something very similar, although he himself is not actually human); Quirrell crumbles; Snape has oscillated; Voldemort embraces the corruption (and the power) eagerly. So readers are provided with a spectrum of possibilities here, and examples of how different people might react.


>Second, respect for order is a part of a Judeo-Christian world 
view.  

Is it? Consider the general anarchy Christ provoked when he went around causing chaos in the Temple, preaching against the established order, forgiving criminals, and healing people willy-nilly.


>Chaos versus order.  Which one draws out the best in us?
That's open to question. One could easily argue that people show their true colors in chaotic situations (I believe someone pointed that last year, sometime in the fall, we saw numerous examples of people being at their best in chaos. Some no doubt acted their worst as well), and in fact, that heroism is only possible when there is something to strive against and a need for individual wise decisions to be made.


Finally, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the adults 
either have integrity and nobleness, or they stoop to deceit and 
treachery.  There is no ambiguity in their integrity or lack thereof.  
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.  


Ah, but compare Dumbledore's speech at the end of Goblet of Fire....oh wait, you haven't read that. Nonetheless, I still fail to see how having a sense of humor is somehow associated with moral weakness.

>Although there are many more avenues that can be explored--
including witchcraft versus mythology--

Rowling's notion of witchcraft is drawn almost entirely from mythology (pop-cultural as well as classical and medieval); she uses many of the exact same historical and mythological sources as Lewis. (Tolkien is a special case, because he truly invented his own--which, incidentally, he did as an outgrowth of his professional study of linguistics. He invented his fictional languages first, and _then_ created the worlds and cultures that would speak them.)

>In handing any book to a 
child, one must know if the child can discern the world views and 
not be swept into a view that is counter to the truth being instilled 
in him.

Ah, but in my experience, if kids really love books, no one "hands" books to them. They just take 'em!



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