Oh, and as an aside, I looked up Ariana. It’s a variant of the Greek “Ariadne”, which means: “most holy”.

I’m yet to hear of any verifiable evidence that proves Potter promotes paganism.
But as many have already noted about these critics, why let the facts get in the way of your argument?
Ethical Harry-haters should not take any royalties from their books because they are indirectly profiting off a work that is damning children to hell (ironic emoticon).

Scott–I don’t agree, not completely. It is possible for some seemingly innocuous things to be stumbling blocks for some people. I am thinking in particular of a young Satanist who was interviewed for our local newspaper. He proudly declared that he became interested in Satanism because of the television sitcom “Bewitched”. I offer that for what it’s worth; you can believe it or not as you choose. But understand that there are some things that will affect others adversely that do not have any effect on you, and vice versa. It’s a matter for individual parents to decide.

I also don’t agree that reading any book is better than playing any video game. Many video games exercise the imagination far more than some books do. Again, it’s an individual matter.

Everybody–clearly, it’s silly to condemn a book one hasn’t read. But aren’t we all, including O’Brien and Grossman, really beating a dead horse here? If they can’t admit they’ve been wrong, they can’t. I’m getting tired of the whole foolish argument.

It seems as if some of these critics read Rowling like the higher critics read the Bible. Oh, it can’t mean what it says here. They must’ve meant something else or they’re leaving something out. Or more crassly, like any Biblical miracles, miracles don’t happen so these Biblical ones are just made up.

But the highest duty of a critic is to actually deal with the text itself & not their preconceptions of it. And it goes without saying, although I’ll say it, to help understand the context & intent of the text, the best person to ask is the author!

So, the critics of Harry Potter seem to be going off the edge either way, whether reading it with their anti-God preconceptions or their Potter just promotes witchcraft preconceptions.

Scott, I agree completely. It appears that “serious” readers don’t read fantasy or science fiction. They’re missing out on a lot.

I was just watching a talk by a Christian preacher called “Aliens, UFO’s and the Bible”. His conclusions were pretty good but how he got there was not. “Evolution AND Science Fiction” are the tools that the enemy is using to increase the unbelief in the world.

Matthew

I can’t even talk to them about it, because I know it will end in a huge fight. They didn’t like DH because it didn’t fit with their idea of where the story should go and they don’t like the Christian aspects that they see–it challenges their beliefs (or lack of them), and after reading the series and talking for the last 5 or 6 years, they are finding themselves in a very uncomfortable position of having to admit that the stories do have a decidedly Christian theme. (Which is what I told them after Order of the Phoenix when they were annoyed that the answer to defeating Voldemort would be “love conquers all”.) I’ve actually had to quit talking to them altogether, as I find I really want to say “I told you so”, but that’s not very kind. The other problem they are having is that they are very tied to some fan fiction that one of them wrote–the first one and parts of the second were quite good, for fan fic. (I’m not trying to offend people who like fanfic, but most of it strays so far from canon that I just can’t read it.)

I think with people like O’Brien and Grossman they fall into the same trap–they are so tied to their own theories about what Rowling is writing that they have forgotten to read the stories with an open mind to see what is really there. It’s just not that hard to see unless the reader is determined to see something else.

Pat