Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, virgin goddess.

Minerva McGonagall, professor, teacher, Dumbledore’s advisor, with no hint of sexuality past, present or future.

Minerva, the Roman equivalent of Athena.

Works for me.

Before making any decision about Narnia vs. Potter (either now or the long run), I really do need to read Ward’s book first.

Thanks for your follow up comments.

I have no problem with a criticism of Lewis. I have a few myself. I just thought the tenor of things was Lewis bad, Rowling good, to the total detriment of Lewis.

Lewis tends to get defined by Narnia, when there’s so much more out there by him, including some very perceptive & prophetic works.

As much as I love Harry Potter & admire Rowling’s work, the fact remains that her work is also not free from criticism & also, so far, she has no corpus of work to judge her by. Who knows, she may come out with something in the future that makes us go, Wow, what were we thinking that HP was her best work!

I doubt that’ll happen, but we’ll never know how to truly rank her work & her place in literature until she produces more. Until then, she remains a one hit wonder. And that’s not to say her work isn’t good or meaningful or successful, many one hit wonders are all those things. It just means they never were able to duplicate their success. I hope that is not Rowling’s fate as an author.

Just some thoughts, & I appreciate your thoughts as well.

I will take the blame for putting down Lewis. I will cheerfully take the blame for exalting Rowling (well, singing her praises at any event) but not at the expense of Lewis.

Here is my explanation.

I have only read two of Lewis’ works (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the Screwtape Letters). You will not hear me criticizing the Screwtape Letters – not only is its agenda clearly acknowledged, I met it under circumstances when I was looking for something to fill a need, and it served that need very well.

But I have found problems with the Lion et al and shared them on these posts. I won’t repeat them. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy the book. My seven year old asked me yesterday what I liked best about the book. With very little reflecton I said I liked the passages between Lucy and Mr. Tumnus, and the scene with Father Christmas. I find both scenes beautiful and magical, working both at the surface level and yet fraught with a deeper meaning. If it could all be like that, then I would consider Lewis a master magician indeed.

Being a boy, of course, my seven year old has his own favorite scenes. He loves Peter, loves the gifts that Father Christmas gives him, and loves the battle scenes.

But in any case, here are a few thoughts: Folks for a long time have agreed with Tolkien’s criticism of Lewis on this point. Tolkien would not make the same criticism of Rowling (even if he might have others), because Rowling does what Lewis does not: she translates/transforms the myth into her own story. I’ll have to read Till We Have Faces to see Lewis at work on this.

But again, I want to make the point that many, many Lewis scholars are calling Planet Narnia absolutely ground-breaking, scholarship-changing work. Ward argues that there always was a secret organizing principle to Narnia; it just hasn’t been discovered till now, because Lewis never let his secret out (a literary practice that he exonerated). I’m really looking forward to digesting Ward’s book when I have a little more time.

Which is why one shouldn’t judge Lewis based on the Chronicles of Narnia, which, while I love them dearly, clearly aren’t his best work. To see him do what Rowling has done, one has to read Till We Have Faces.

I know I keep harping on that book, but one can’t give a fair estimation of Lewis based solely on his children’s books. Till We Have Faces & many of his apologetic works are where to look to find the genius of Lewis.

I know you’re not doing that, Travis, but the tone of some these threads on Lewis & Rowling seems to be a constant denigration of Lewis & exaltation of Rowling.

you strike some interesting comparisons here, but I do not agree with all of them.

Voldemort as Hades ? How can Voldemort be as the god of Hades when he is trying to cheat and evade death ? I would equate him more with the God of war – Ares.

Dumbledore as Zeus ? Zeus might be the supreme God on Olympus but you do realise that Zeus is not that benevolent ?

McGonagall as Athena ? I’m just going to let you elaborate on that one before I comment….

Great, you’ve just struck gold with me

Cerberus as Fluffy.

Fleur as a Siren (or Circe?)

Harry as Odysseus?

Professor McGonogall as Athena?

Dumbledore as Zeus?

Voldemort as Hades?

Grindelwald as Hermes?

Sibyl Trelawney as Cassandra or the Delphic Sibyl (no brainer, I know)

reyhan, yeah, that was Tolkien’s complaint, too. And there is a difference even between Lewis and Rowling. Rowling pulls from a wide variety of mythologies as well, but she translates them into her own world. In other words, she doesn’t just plop Cerberus down at Hogwarts. She recreates him as Fluffy.

I’m told that Michael Ward’s Planet Narnia changes the way one reads Narnia altogether. I’ve gotten started on the book, but I didn’t get very far, having a crazy reading list.

I was trying to figure out why this old article was suddenly getting hits. Prince Caspian, the movie, comes out in a month.

I think you expressed yourself clearly: that it’s contradictory of people to accept Tolkien and Lewis without quibbling over their use of pagan symbols and characters, but to reject Rowling for the same.

However, I can see that if someone scanned your article, and perhaps carefully read only your second to last paragraph, they might get the impression that you were actually saying both Rowling and Lewis were encouraging children to become drunkards and dabble in occult practices.

I have noticed that it’s wise, when talking about red-button topics, to be as painstakingly clear and obvious as possible. This is because people bring a lot of emotion into those topics, and quickly jump to conclusions. It just goes with the territory.

Your writings are particularly vulnerable to misinterpretation because you are combining a degree in theology with a degree in literature. So be prepared to get it from both sides. The devout literalists will accuse you of ungodliness, while the literary intelligensia will accuse you of religious bias.

Being misunderstood will be the least of your worries.

BTW, I don’t think Lewis’ mishmash of mythical and pagan and Christian characters and symbology works. I don’t think Bacchus and fauns, and dwarves and giants and talking beavers and wolves, and Father Christmas and a Christ-figure work very convincingly together. But my dislike is due to stylistic reasons. Nothing wrong with everything but the kitchen sink style if you can make it work – like Rowling. I just don’t think Lewis carries it off very well.