Harry's potential father figures /Religion in HP

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 131103

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" 
<dumbledore11214 at y...> wrote:

Alla:

> I do think that JKR is influenced by Christian ideas, BUT I also 
> think that she is influenced by MANY other ideas ( religious or 
not) 
> including secular humanism, etc.
> 
> What I would agree with Lupinlore though is not liking much the 
> ending, if 
> it will end up to be word by word allegory of the Bible, for 
example.
 
> The good example will be much brought up LOTR and "Chronicles of 
> Narnia"
> 
> I love LOTR. I don't think that anybody would argue that Tolkien 
was 
> very much influenced by Christian ideas, right?
> 
> But it is very subtly done in his book, IMO. To tell you the truth, 
> till I started reading books about Tolkien, I had no idea that he 
was 
> influenced by Christian ideas.
> 
> At the same time, I could not finish "Narnia", I just could not, no 
> matter how well it was written.
> 
> I felt that author was beating me over the head with the baseball 
bat 
> on where he stands, etc. I do not like that and I hope Harry Potter 
> will not end up like that.

Geoff:
I have commented on more than one occasion about JK Rowling, JRR 
Tolkien and CS Lewis in the context of their Christian beliefs.

It is a well documented fact that Lewis /intended/ the Narnia books 
to be allegorical. His first book "The Lion, the Witch and the 
Wardrobe" is a retelling of the Christian gospel for children, 
pitched in a magical, fantasy world. The later books diverge from 
this in that the direct allegorical references are much fewer 
although, in "The Last Battle", there is some fascinating writing in 
his description of heaven.

Tolkien certainly eschewed allegory - as I believe Jo Rowling has - 
but his Christian beliefs are well-known. He was one of the people 
instrumental in bringing CS Lewis to faith although, curiously, he 
was a Catholic while Lewis became an evangelical Protestant.

I believe that writers who create books which are labours of love are 
bound to incorporate their views, hopes and beliefs into their work 
and it is there to be recognised even in a covert form by those who 
search. I do not believe that writers such as these would produce 
results in their stories which went against the grain of their own 
world view, be that Christian or otherwise.

I think that characters such as Frodo or Harry Potter are the result 
of these labours of love; they are characters who are well fleshed 
out with whom we can relate. As any Christian worth his or her salt 
will tell you, our lives are like that. We have good days and bad 
days, do great things and crass things, things which we prefer, in 
hindsight, to forget about and I, for one, like to be able to see 
myself in a similar situation and maybe reacting in the same way.

There are many writers who almost employ assembly line techniques to 
produce strings of books which are, for example, thrillers or horror 
stories or crime stories which seem to be amoral and really present 
no ethical view of the world depicted in their pages. I tend to avoid 
this sort of book and much prefer a book which will take me into a 
different world than the often uninspiring real world of today which 
is why I enjoy the company of the characters from the Wizarding world 
so much as we journey through life together.

A starry-eyed view perhaps but it's one man's view - to pinch a tag 
from Steve..