Hogwarts made of matchsticks! This is fascinating. (HT to Blogging Harry Potter).
A Lutheran is after Harry now. Another school mom is working on a Harry Potter ban. Among her many predictable, but abysmally wrong, assertions:
She doesn’t object to other magical stories, such as “The Wizard of Oz,” “Snow White,” and “The Chronicles of Narnia.” She said the difference is the witch is not the hero.
How many times have we heard this?
Which leads me to the last Common Room notice: PubCast #3 is written, and it should be recorded and uploaded by the end of the weekend. The first segment will be dealing with the whole notion that Narnia is edifying, but Hogwarts is not.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
meep
09.16.06 at 7:19 am
Does she object to The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings? Gandalf is a real wizard with real magic. He’s not the main hero, but he’s a very important character.
Also, there is a good witch in the Wizard of Oz, and the Wizard, a character, is thought to be a real wizard until he reveals his chicanery. But he’s not portrayed as an evil person.
Travis Prinzi
09.16.06 at 8:42 am
meep, good points, all. It really is amazing, the double standard that exists here. But Christians did the same thing with Narnia and LotR as they’re doing with Potter now. It’s almost like the only reason Potter is bad is because it’s new.
Phillip
09.17.06 at 1:22 am
Really, I’m not worried about people hating the books. They’re entitled to what they want to say and believe, and while I don’t agree with them, I also just dont think its a big deal.
Travis Prinzi
09.17.06 at 7:45 am
Phillip, in general, I agree with you. My difficulty comes because of two things:
(1) The Christians who oppose the books oppose as them as though it’s the only logical Christian position. But they’re not speaking for all of us; they’re not even speaking for most of us.
(2) The problem gets exacerbated by the fact that the media tends to like covering those folks more, so then we get a reputation, as Christians, for hating the books for silly reasons.
So when I bring these things up, it’s not because people aren’t allowed to have their own opinions; it’s because, as a Christian and a Harry Potter fan, I want to let folks know we’re not all of the same mind on this.
Dana C.
09.22.06 at 9:56 am
Travis,
Do you of anyone who has responded specifically to Richard Abanes’ criticisms of Harry Potter? I’d like to read it if it’s out there. Thanks!
Travis Prinzi
09.22.06 at 10:22 am
Dana, I don’t know of a book that’s dealt point by point with his criticisms. On this site, there are four posts that comprise a sort of informal debate that I had with him:
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.
I don’t have it in front of me, but if I recall properly, John Granger took on some of Abanes’ work in The Hidden Key to Harry Potter, but I’m not sure that’s an easy book to come by anymore. From what I understand, he’s re-publishing a lot of that work again fairly soon, but I don’t know if he’ll include the Abanes stuff.
Dana C.
09.23.06 at 2:34 pm
Thanks!