The Overarching message

[Geoff]

No: HPFGUIDX 191584

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dorothy dankanyin" <ddankanyin at ...> wrote:

Otto:
> > OK, then from the mundane to the transcendent. What is the over-arching 
> > message Rowling is giving us in Harry Potter?
> >
> > And do your agree with it, can see it but have doubts, reject it?
> >
> > I will advance the proposition it's a metaphorical disquisition on 
> > humanity, that is, what it is to be human, and the essence of what it is 
> > to be human is love. Not just "a mothers love" which in its sacrificial 
> > form protects Harry Potter time and again, but love in many ways and 
> > levels which matures and broadens the individual and reaches adulthood 
> > through its engaging in "love" in various forms and styles between people. 
> > Humans, she says- love. There is a mothers love, but there is also the 
> > "Beatrice and Benedict" tack between Ron and Hermione, the romance of 
> > other students, including Draco and Pansy, and love of friends and 
> > institutions outside of the personal.
> > Voldemort is the ultimate love-less creature and loves no one but himself 
> > (and we're not even too sure about that). He is the eternal immature, 
> > always positing an ego of wants of the moment, and thus Rowling has case 
> > him in barely human form, such to suggest a book appropriately bound.

Dorothy:
>   I think the main message of the Harry Potter series is something 
> Dumbledore once said to Harry; "It's not our talents that make us, it's our 
> choices".  I'm not sure if that's the exact quote, but you all remember 
> that.
>   As for the other types of love and friendship, I think all the kids, then 
> as adults, had them, and obviously Voldemort had only himself, no matter how 
> many parts of him he spread around.

Geoff:
I have to admit that when someone starts a sentence with something 
like "I will advance the proposition it's a metaphorical disquisition on 
humanity", I become suspicious that this is going to be dancing around 
rather obscure words while trying to avoid saying anything too radical 
or likely to be life-changing. Years ago, my teaching college principal 
excelled in this; it sounded as if he were making great educational 
statements while in reality, there was little meat in the sandwich.

Like J.R.R.Tolkien and C.S.Lewis before her, J.K.Rowling is a Christian,
worshipping originally as an Anglican but now attending the Church 
of Scotland since she moved north of the border. She has said in 
interviews since the publication of DH that her faith has provided 
much of the foundation of her thinking in producing these books.

C.S.Lewis was very overt in the Narnia books - especially in "The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe", where much of the story points very 
openly to the life of Jesus. on the other hand, both JRRT and JKR have 
not made their foundation too obvious. Tolkien, in "The Silmarillion",
draws strong comparisons between the creation of Middle Earth in 
section "Ainulindale" and the account of creation in the Old Testament.

I think that Dorothy has put her finger on a very pertinent comment. 
The actual comment is:
'"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than 
our abilities."
(COS "Dobby's Reward" p.245 UK edition)

Speaking as an evangelical Christian, I could not concur more with 
these words. There is a second quote which I think is equally valid:

'"But why couldn't Quirrell touch me?"
"Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot 
understand, it is love. He didn't realise that love as powerful as your 
mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign... to 
have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is 
gone, will give us some protection for ever. It is in your very skin. 
Quirrell, full of hatred, greed and ambition, sharing his soul with 
Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch  
a person marked by something so good."'
(PS "the Man with Two Faces" p.216 UK edition)

This obviously can make sense to anybody, but particularly to a 
Christian, this comes close to describing the experience as we invite 
Christ into our lives and enter a relationship similar to the one JKR 
has pictured here.