The Role of Religion in the Potterverse was Magical Latin

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 186194

> Shelley:

> I said you missed the point of sin/salvation in the Christian story, and I 
> said that in specific reference to Harry being a Christ figure in DH, in 
> particular. If you know that the point of having one's sin's removed is 
> restoration and freedom, then you understand what Harry was dying for as a 
> Christ figure, what he was giving back to the WW. He wasn't dying for 
> anyone's sins, but the restoration of the WW back to a time when they didn't 
> live in terror of one Wizard, back to a time when they were all free to have 
> relationships, marry and have kids, have shops and open commerce without 
> manipulation, control or bondage from Voldemort. He was dying for 
> reconciliation. Rowling didn't have to explain all that post-Voldemort 
> liberation, because if you understand that liberation from sin, you 
> understand the JOY that would have been the WW's without Voldemort. Rowling 
> then didn't have to fill in all those details for us- they would have been 
> easily understood.

Magpie:
I feel compelled to put in here that I saw Harry as a Christ figure in DH but didn't see any reason to fill in any of those details. Voldemort was one villain and Harry killed him (or caused him to be killed) and so the WW went back to the state it was in before. I didn't see anything on the level of what a Christian would consider the freedom one gets through Christ, nor, frankly, the great joy that would be associated with that. Harry, I thought, was a Christ figure since he went out to intentionally die and that put a spell in motion that protected people magically and he also seemed to come back, but the Voldemort threat seemed purely secular to me. Much more like defeating Hitler than defeating sin.

-m