Is Harry Potter the Son of God?

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 171018

> Geoff:
> This raises the question, have you read JRR Tolkien or CS Lewis?
> 
> The Narnia books were written with the Christian gospel in mind 
> and LOTR, although set in a mythical pre-Christian era, contains 
> a great deal of Christian pointers.
> 
> I think there are many people who read the Harry Potter books, 
> enjoy them as stories and manage to avoid the Christian content 
> - either deliberately or by default - so, if this theory proves to 
> be correct, maybe you can still read them and tune out what JKR, 
> and many group members,  consider to be an important aspect  
> of these stories.

Magpie:
I suspect one could fnd "Christian pointers" in lots and lots of 
stories that aren't allegories. I would say that Christianity is 
important in understanding both of those authors. Aslan *is* Jesus in 
another world, and while people can read it and never get that, that 
is something in the text, a question raised that readers are supposed 
to answer. I find in LOTR things that Tolkien understands in 
Christian terms can be understood in other terms--but still, yeah, I 
think there are some things about his world that are best understood 
through Christian teaching. It's not necessary for understanding the 
story--some people might think it adds anything that important--but 
it's there. 

But I think Harry being Jesus being a "solution" to HP would be 
understandably unsatisfying. JRRT was very much a Christian, and he 
seems to have understood Frodo as having earned grace and helped by 
Eru at the end of LOTR, but he was wise enough not to suddenly have a 
hand come out of the side and give Gollum a push. And he despised 
allegory.

By contrast, I found this essay completely unconvincing and not 
really leading anywhere. I think one could make probably an even 
better case for Harry being an "allegorical" King Arthur--though I 
wouldn't do that either. The two stories (life of Christ and life of 
Harry) are tossed together and many of the connections unfortunately 
just get less sensical the more they're pushed. They wind up being a 
collection of things that don't really seem to go together and made 
me rather long for the better story in the books. In an allegory it 
would be more obvious, and understanding the Biblical story would 
bring deeper meaning to HP. Instead it just seems like stuff that 
could probably be found in plenty of other places--for instance, 
Harry faces an absurd trial in OotP (absurd trials occurring in many 
works, and also being a comment on the justice system and beaurocracy 
of the WW), and that's connected to Christ's trial. Only of course, 
Christ is sentenced to death and Harry goes free--and Harry's trial 
is part of a totally different and fictional political context. 

And since Harry has no Judas, Peter has to fill in...only he betrayed 
James (Harry's quite human father). And he's named Peter, which is 
ironic since the essay starts out talking about the importance of 
Biblical names to the point where "Potter" means Harry is Christ 
because there's an OT passage where God is referred to as a Potter. 
(And the whole "Voldemort's servant is in your debt" kind of falls 
away.) 

Harry is naturally made too Christlike, while I think his mother 
winds up being Petunia Dursley at one point.

There are definitely times in HP where I think of what Christ would 
teach in guessing which interpretation is correct, but I thought this 
essay made a great case for Harry not being Christ, and the stories 
not being an allegory of Christ's life. If that wasn't already kind 
of clear. Any reader could probably pick out a dozen different genres 
and outside things that Rowling's playing with.

-m