DH as Christian Allegory

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 173345

There are three authors who, over the last fifty years, have 
given me continuing satisfaction and to whom I return time 
and time again. If you have been a member here for some 
time and have read my ramblings, you will not get any merit 
points for guessing that I refer to JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and 
JK Rowling. :-)

My back story is that I allowed certain members of my church 
to persuade me for some years that Harry Potter was bad: there 
was witchcraft, magic and so on. I accepted this view without 
investigating for myself. Then, by chance, I saw COS just after 
it hit the cinemas at the end of '02 and then saw PS on satellite 
the same week. This launched me into the Potterverse and I 
realised the dangers of jumping to conclusions. The outcome 
was I came to HPFGU (where I celebrated my "fourth birthday" 
yesterday). Long-time members may know also that I am an 
evangelical Christian belonging to a UK Baptist church and 
have posted fairly frequently on matters Christian.

Getting to the point, I wanted to add my twopennyworth to 
the current discussion on DH. Of the three authors mentioned 
above, the only one I consider to have used allegory is CS Lewis. 
He made it very clear that "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" 
was intended to present the Christian faith to younger readers. 
There is quite definite allegory that Aslan equates to Christ in 
Narnia. He is a being beyond humanity and, in Narnian terms, 
is God. In "The Magician's Nephew" he is seen creating the 
world of Narnia and in "The Last Battle", ending it. The creatures 
of Narnia refer to him as the Son of the Great Emperor-over-sea. 
This corresponds to the Christian belief that Christ is God in 
human form; that he was involved in the creation of the world.

I do not think that Tolkien or Jo Rowling have set out to write 
morality stories. Tolkien originally started the material which 
became "The Silmarillion" during the First World War because 
he wanted to create a vehicle in which he could use his created 
Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin. JKR had said that Harry 
came to her fully-formed as a scrawny bespectacled boy who 
did not know he was a wizard. However, I believe that their 
own personal belief may then have coloured their writing 
unintentionally. I think that astrong, true faith will display 
itself in all manner of ways in a person's life and actions.

Tolkien demonstrates this, although Middle-Earth is intended 
to be in a pre-Christian era. Although he said that he disliked 
allegory, perhaps he approached nearest to it at the beginning 
of "The Silmarillion" where his account of creation and his 
cosmology of Ainur and Maiar reveals his Catholic background 
fairly clearly.

What about Harry? JKR has indicated that she is a Christian 
worshipping with the Church of Scotland who came from an 
Anglican background having been born and brought up near 
Bristol. She has said that after the last book, her views will be 
more obvious. I have staunchly maintained that I do not believe 
that Harry is a Christ figure; no human can be. To a Christian, 
Jesus is God in human form and is sinless. We can be Christ-like, 
which is what Christians are urged to be. In Philippians 2, Paul 
writes "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus
" 
but Harry is like us, an everyman making his way through life
although not a Christian as far as we know. He is basically good, 
he wants to see good things happen to himself and can be 
altruistic towards others but he has flaws – he can lash out in 
anger, he can rush into things rashly, he can carry hatred in his 
heart. So can we. For me, the thing that draws me to him is I see 
so much of myself at that age in him.

Although, like JKR, I see the chapter "The Forest Again" as one 
of the best in the book, I do not see this as Harry being suicidal 
or even mirroring the crucifixion. It is another example of what 
Jesus said in John 15:13 "Greater love has no-one than this, 
that he lay down his life for his friends." He sees his death as 
the only way to get rid of Voldemort once and for all. It is the 
altruism that leads people to risk their lives to rescue others in 
disasters or on the battlefield; the courage that led Captain Oates 
to walk out of Scott's tent in the Antarctic.

Summing up, I believe that Harry's story has a Christian foundation 
because it was written by a Christian who incorporated her personal 
belief into it, maybe unknowingly. It is not meant to convert others 
to that faith although it may help seekers after faith but it was 
meant to be a great story – which overall it is.

Briefly digressing onto a different thread, I believe that "never 
tickle a sleeping dragon" may have occurred to JKR as a variant 
of a Tolkien comment rather than CS Lewis. In "The Hobbit", 
Bilbo confronts Smaug and after a conversation with him, makes 
a silly remark as he goes which makes the dragon breath fire 
after him and burn him. Tolkien writes:
`"Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!" he said to himself 
and it became a favourite saying of his later and passed into a 
proverb.'