Moral messages Re: The religious content of Harry Potter

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 128733

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

For example, the Weasleys have seven children and there
are seven books because seven is "well known" to be a magical number
(seventh son etc.), not because of seven chakras or seven levels of
existence and so on. (Okay, and of course there are generally seven
years of secondary education in the UK.) 


Tonks now:
OK, now I must add for the record, the number seven is an important 
number in the Bible. It is not just in magic. And JKR could have 
started Harry in the equivalent of 7th grade instead of 6th. I don't 
know how the boarding school system is in the UK. In the US Junior 
High starts with the 7th grade and it would make more sense to me 
that a boarding school would also begin then instead of with the 6th 
grade. But maybe the UK is different. Does the UK consider 6th grade 
to be part of secondary education, or primary??

Catkind said:
For the record, I don't see anything deeply moral or religious in the
books so far. So there are good guys and bad guys. This goes for an
awful lot of books. To me, the best thing they do morally is to ask
questions that get us all thinking about the differences between good
and nice, or good and "on our side".

I'm not even sure if this was deliberate in the earlier books: Hagrid
is good, (etc.) (snip)


Tonks now:
Hagrid is also referred to as the *keeper of the keys*, a reference 
IMO to St. Peter who is the *Keeper of the Keys*. I think that JKR 
chooses her words carefully, and therefore what often go unnoticed 
are these little symbols. The teaching of DD are very profound words 
of wisdom as well as moral theology.

As I have said before, I think that JKR is writing on multiple 
levels at one time. Either intentionally or not, it is coming out 
that way. For those with no religious training it is a nice story 
about the morality between good and evil. But for those with 
knowledge of the Christian religion the symbols just scream out at 
you. And I wonder if that is true for any other religions as well. 
(I know that someone once wrote a good argument for Harry being the 
Lamed-Vovnik of the Jewish religion.)  I think that the symbols are 
indeed there, but it is not necessary for someone reading the story 
to see or understand them in order to both enjoy and get something 
important out of it. 

Tonks_op