The Trial of JKR for XC in HP (long)

[Mari]

No: HPFGUIDX 151811

Addendum to my previous post: set out below is the C.S 
Lewis 'watchful dragons' quote I mentioned if anyone is interested.

"I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past certain 
inhibitions which had paralyzed much of my own religion in 
childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one 
ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ?

I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An 
obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did 
harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices, almost 
as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all 
these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their 
stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them 
for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus 
steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could."


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Mari" <mariabronte at ...> wrote:
>
> <regretful snip of a wonderfully expressed and cogently argued 
post; 
> number 151730>
> 
> Tonks, thank you so much for setting all this out in such a clear 
> way. I am one hundred percent with you that JKR intends to 
reference 
> and re interpret events in the Christian story throughout the 
series.
> 
> I don't think everything in HP has a direct equivalent in the Bible
> (any more than everything in Narnia does), but your reference to 
the 
> Hogwarts motto and connection of it to C.S Lewis' remarks 
> about 'stealing past watchful dragons' had me grinning from ear to 
> ear. 
> 
> Can't help but wonder if JKR is hoping for a similar thing to what 
> C.S Lewis hoped (and in fact happened) with the Narnia series; HP 
> can be enjoyed as an exciting story, but at the same time 
indirectly 
> gets readers to think about moral and spiritual issues, which is 
> always best done by myth, story and parable rather than 
preaching :-)
> 
> Both Lewis and JKR try to get away from the 'stained glass window' 
> and 'churchy' associations of the Christian story. The tremendous 
> continuing popularity of both series suggests they have been 
> eminently successful.
> 
> Mari.
>