Christ figures in literature (LOTR spoilers)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186181

Carol earlier:
> >No Christ figure can exactly duplicate the circumstances of Christ's death and resurrection because the Christ figure are fully human and in that respect no different from the people that they save. No one is claiming that Harry is God, a god, or the Son of God. But the act of willingly going to his death to save the WW from Voldemort (along with a near-death experience that simulates resurrection) makes Harry a Christ figure as that term is defined by (Western) literary critics. It also makes him a Christ figure in the view of the author who created him.
> 
> No.Limberger responds:
> Do you believe that firefighters are Christ figures?  They do rather heroic things like going into burning buildings to save others'lives.  This would make any firefighter who has ever died in the line of duty of Christ figure.  The same would be true for any policeman, soldier, paramedic, nurse, doctor, bystander, etc. who gave his/her life to save someone else's life.  

Carol responds:
A Christ figure is a *literary* convention or device in which a Christian author creates a character who in some way or ways resembles Christ. Firefighters are undoubtedly heroic and risk death to save others, but they don't generally save others *through* their deaths, nor have I ever heard of a firefighter who rises from the dead. Harry cannot save the WW by rushing into the (figurative) flames and bringing them with him to safety. He can only save it by willingly giving himself up to be killed. Only through his death (he thinks) can the Horcrux be destroyed. (And he would in fact have died if it weren't for that drop of shared blood.) Harry, unlike a Muggle firefighter, goes to the point at which he could choose to "go on" to the afterlife--an option not available to us Muggles. That experience serves in literary terms as a symbolic death and resurrection. Combine the self-sacrifice to save the WW and the "resurrection" and you have a Christ figure.

[Warning: LOTR spoilers follow. If you're that rare person who hasn't read the book or seen the film or "spoiled" by online spoilers, don't read on.]

It would be entirely possible for a Christian author to write about a heroic firefighter (or policeman or whatever) who has a near-death experience after saving someone, and I suppose that character could be depicted as a Christ figure, but probably not. The character would not be *consciously choosing death to save a whole group of people* as Harry goes to what he thinks will be his death to save the WW (or Frodo enters Mordor and struggles toward Mount Doom and what he believes to be certain death to save the Shire).

There's a difference in literature between a hero and a Christ figure.  Assuming that you've read LOTR, you know that Aragorn is a hero in the epic and classic sense and Frodo is just a little Hobbit. But it's Frodo, not Aragorn, who can be viewed as (or has characteristics common to) a christ figure. Gandalf is that rare beinf, a heroic figure who also sacrifices himself and is resurrected (as opposed to being saved from near-death, like Frodo), but he doesn't save the Shire and the Western World: Frodo does (with a great deal of help from Sam and a last-minute action by Gollum without which Frodo would have failed). At any rate, either or both of these characters can be (and have been) interpreted by literary critics as Christ figures.

No.Limberger:
Darth Vader can also be a Christ figure because he gave his life to save his son's from the evil emperor, <snip>

Carol:
I hate to contradict you straight out, but, no, he can't. Darth Vader is a failed Christ figure. He could have been the Chosen One saving thousands of people and beings. Instead, he slaughters hundreds of people for revenge. In the end, like Snape (who sins are much smaller), he repents and dies to save his son. But that doesn't make him a Christ figure any more than Snape is a Christ figure for dying rather than reveal that Draco is the true master of the Elder Wand. A Christ figure must do more than sacrifice his life (and, in most cases, be resurrected in some form). He must also be Christlike in other respects--showing great love or humility, for example.

If a hero is not a Christ figure (and most heroes aren't), a redeemed villain (or redeemed quasi-villain in Snape's case) certainly is not.

No.Limberger:
>   Of course, Harry never saw the face of Christ in toast, tortillas or seat cushions as some people in real life have claimed.

Carol:
How do such delusions relate to the depiction of Christ figures in literature? No Christ figure sees the face of Christ in anything. 

No.Limberger: 
> People perceive reality the way that they want to perceive it.  If someone wants to see HP as a Christ figure, then that is what they are going to see because they want to see it.

Carol responds:
Yes and no. To qualify as a Christ figure, a character has to have certain characteristics and the author who created him or her has to be a Christian. We can't call, say, Oedipus, a Christ figure for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which is that Christianity didn't exist yet when "Oedipus Rex" was written even if Oedipus fit the mold in other respects. We can't call Darth Vader a Christ figure, either, since he failed miserably to save the worlds he was supposed to save. We could probably call Luke Skywalker a Christ figure though I don't remember the original movies well enough to state that point definitively.

My point is that you can't simply impose your chosen reading on any piece of literature. I can't say, for example, that "Hamlet" is a feminist tract or that "Moby Dick" is an early example of the Save the Whales mentality. I can't read Voldemort as the hero of the HP books. I can only read and interpret what is actually there in the text.

Very few characters in literature can be classed as Christ figures. They may be heroes who die saving others or martyrs who die for a cause, but neither of those deaths is sufficient to make a character a Christ figure. In Harry's case we have a Christian author who says that she is exploring Christian themes and a protagonist who
1) chooses to sacrifice himself to save his world
2) figuratively or symbolically rises from the dead
3) demonstrates love, forgiveness, and other Christian values, having rejected hatred and revenge
4) is essentially a good person, not a redeemed villain

There are heroes throughout HP, along with one redeemed quasi-villain who is also a hero. But there's only one Christ figure. Unless, of course, you want to argue that Dobby is a Christ figure on a small scale, but I've already given my reasons for rejecting him for that role.

If you're not familiar with the concept of Christ figure in literary criticism (and I mean "you" in the general sense), I suggest reading a bit about the concept. Wikipedia, much as I hate it, will do for starters though it classes Aslan as a Christ figure rather than an allegory of Christ:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ-figure

For fun, here's a debate on whether Harry is a Christ figure:

http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Books/2002/11/Harry-Potter-Christ-Figure.aspx

For the record, I'm not saying that Harry *is* a Christ figure. I'm saying that he *can be legitimately interpreted* as a Christ figure as, say, Snape, Dumbledore, Lupin, Tonks, Mad-eye, and other good characters who die in the book cannot. ("Good" in this sense does not mean pleasant or loving; it means on the side of good.)

Carol, noting again that a Christ figure is a literary convention, not a blanket concept that can be applied to any character at will 
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