Challies has jumped onto the “Harry Potter is influencing people become witches” bandwagon, and The Fat Triplets have started a discussion about it. Challies hinted at a future post on the subject that would make a lot of people angry. It’ll be interesting to hear him tease out what he meant by his statement, since [...]

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So declares the wizard Arthur Weasley as Harry Potter explains to him the use of a telephone in Chamber of Secrets. Indeed, Mr. Weasley. Ingenious. But somehow, I fear, troublesome as well.

I recall very well the days when I was adamantly opposed to the Harry Potter series. The reason I primarily cited above all else was that in every interview I heard with little children, they always said their favorite part of the book was the magic. That was dangerous, in my opinion.

Now, truth be told, I had only seen one 30 second news segment, in which the 4 or 5 kids interviewed said that magic was their favorite part. But telling that part of the story wouldn’t help my rhetoric any. “Every interview I’ve ever heard with children” was a much more impressive thing to say.

It turns out that even if it is true that every child adores the magic in the Harry Potter books (and they do), my argument failed terribly anyway, as I would soon find out when I finally sat down and watched the first two movies and then plowed through the five Potter books available at the time. Now, I’ve got a new take on things: The problem is not that kids love magic; it’s that adults do not.

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