DH as Christian Allegory (was Classical & Biblical Quotations)

[melrosedarjeeling]

No: HPFGUIDX 173140

Caius Marcius:
> There are two Biblical quotes in chapter 16, the Godrics Hollow
> graveyard.
> ....
> The second is the inscription of the tomb of James and Lily Potter.
>
> The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
>

Now Melrose:
I'm surprised that I'm not seeing more discussion on the various HP
boards of what seemed to me the very obvious allegory in this book of
the final days of Christ's life. I'm not a Christian now, but I was
raised in a protestant religion and I felt like the parallels were
almost painfully obvious. Someone who knows this stuff really well
could probably find even more, but these jumped out at me:

*Endless camping = 40 days temptation in the wilderness
*Resentment against DD = 'my god, my god why hast thou forsaken me'
kind of experience
*Snape cuts off George's ear = disciple cuts off ear of high priest's
servant during Christ's arrest
*Ron leaves the quest = disciples falling asleep in the Garden of
Gethsemane
*Malfoy denies the good side 3 times and is saved 3 times( 1 by
DD/Snape in HBP, 1 in the ROR, 1 by the trio under the cloak) = Peter
denying Christ 3 times and being forgiven
*The most obvious: Harry has to lay down his own life to save others
and (sort of) dies and (sort of) comes back to life = Christ death
and resurrection.

Everyone might not agree that *all* of these are intended as a
Christian allegory, but I suspect most would agree that the central
point of the book, and indeed the whole series, is Harry sacrificing
his life for others in a dead-on parallel to Christ's crucifixion. It
now seems clear to me that this is JKR's main theme in telling
Harry's story.

For me this theme is, meh, not so interesting, but it helps explain
why she made some of the choices she did, and that I, for one, found
disappointing (and that others have already pointed out in different
posts).

Curious to know what others think. If this was her goal, was she
successful?

-MelroseDarjeeling