Muggle Practices/Religion

[ioogooi]

No: HPFGUIDX 79001

Wanda wrote:
> I have no 
> problem with the small amount of "decorative" Christian influence 
> she's introduced so far; "God bless you, merry Hippogriffs" just 
> struck me as a joke, and the references to Christmas and Easter 
> vacations, it seems to me, are just methods of carrying over Muggle 
> normality into the WW.  If she called them "Solstice Holidays", 
we'd notice it too much and think that she was making some serious 
point about wizard beliefs and worship; this way, it just points up 
the similarity between the two worlds.  They have holidays just like 
we do.  C.S. Lewis did this in 'The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe', 
> where Narnia was a land imprisoned by a witch so that it was always 
> winter, "but never Christmas".  One just accepts this; if you try 
to figure out how a world that doesn't know Christ can have Christmas, 
> the whole story just comes to a stop. >>>


Hi Wanda,
It's funny that you mentioned C.S. Lewis, because he's a writer that 
was very interested in Christianity.  He might be the exact opposite 
of JK Rowling in terms of putting religions themes and values into 
his stories.  While Rowling doesn't go extensively into religion, it 
does reflect certain modern attitudes to religion.  And I don't think 
it's all that fatal to talk about religion in the Harry Potter 
books.  I think it makes the story more interesting and indepth, even 
if it's only extraneous speculation from the reader's end.

Liz