mysisterisalittlesister Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 i don't know if there is already a thread about this, but i wanted to know what other peoples opinions about Harry Potter books were. i personally like the series because its, um, imaginary and really fun to read. it's supposed to be rediculous anyway because, look at the names: Dumbledore, Hogwarts, Diagon-ally...silly. that's just my oppinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rizz_loves_jesus Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 They're fantastic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 My thoughts on Harry Potter basically boil down to the essay at [url="http://www.decentfilms.com/articles/magic.html"]this link[/url]. It's a comparison of the magic in Harry Potter and the magic in Lord of the Rings, and in my opinion it's a very comprehensive treatment. It doesn't say "Harry Potter is perfect", nor does it say "Harry Potter is demonic". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 (edited) I forgot to add before: there was one thing that this article doesn't deal with that I suppose you could say disturbed me a bit in the books. I will detail that here. The Unforgivable Curses were a very coo[color=#000000]l[/color] concept IMO, but Rowling handed it poorly. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not on her part. When they were introduced I thought it was a strong concept. This was a clear case of objective morals. The curses are unforgivable- the idea then is that nobody can use them, that it's always wrong. This is a very Catholic concept; essentially it's how we view magic. I'd take this as an entirely acceptable moral caution. However, Rowling turned that on its head in later books. I believe starting in Order of the Phoenix, we now have the heroes using Unforgivable Curses. It still could have been turned around into a good lesson at this point. The Curses could have morally corrupted the heroes, showing the inherent danger in doing something objectively evil. In fact it would have been even more powerful this way; even when a good person does that which is inherently evil, it corrupts the soul and turns the hero into a villain. This didn't happen though; there were no consequences. The heroes frequently used the Imperius curse, Harry and some of the others used the Cruciatus curse, and if I'm not mistaken they occasionally used the killing curse as well. There were no consequences. The idea Rowling is communicating here is that moral rules are suspended during war. This is the same line of thinking that brings us firebombing, carpet bombing, nuclear bombing, killing of civilians, POWs, torture, hostage taking, you name it. Was it intentional or not? I'm not sure. But it was disturbing in either case. It undermined the strong potential of objective morals embodied in Unforgivable Curses. Edited November 29, 2011 by Nihil Obstat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Normile Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 Harry Potter, never read the books, took my son to see two of them though. I can see where they are works of fantasy. I seen kids dressed like the characters in the movie, many had neat little pentagram jewelry adorning their outfits. Several carried the little wands with them. The trouble I see with material like this is the avenues it could open up in the impressionable minded. Its sad to say but there are those without either a firm grounding in reality or no sense of self worth that can get caught up in such a fantasy with negative implications arising from it. We all know that sorcery, occult practises, astrology, fortune telling etc. are forbidden in christianity. Things like this that are aimed at children could lead them down these avenues. I see the same danger in TV shows like ghost hunters and the ilk so popular these days. Trying to contact a dead soul could never lead to any good, neither can a ouija board for that matter. If I believe, which I do, that God gave me a mortal soul and when I die I am judged and go to heaven or purgatory, or worse yet hell, then for me to even entertain the thought that some soul with unfinished business is reachable to either guide me or answer my questions or in need of my help I have just superceded the word of God, the truths in the Holy Bible and christianity in full with superstitious beliefs. Are we too assume that God judges our souls at death, but, He allows certain souls to linger, or to escape His judgement? With such a belief how can I honestly answer the priest, and with your spirit? We all know of cases where people foster beliefs they are vampires, drinking actual blood from each other, one such case started with some kids in N. Kentucky who formed a vampire cult of five mentally diminished souls who contacted a girl online from Mt. Dora Fl. and stole a family members car, killing her and then drove to meet the Fl. girl and ended up killing her parents. These are extreme cases and usually are engaged in by souls with no sense of self and no spiritual foundation to guide them. If God does judge us then what are those who seek ghosts or lost souls really trying to contact, it would have to be demonic in nature. Demons exist as certainly as God exists, its all in the Holy Bible for us to examine. If we call to the deceiver it will answer, and no good will come from it. How far a leap in the troubled mind of a lost or misguided soul would it be to accept the occult, afterall Harry Potter deals with sorcery which is an occult practise. I believe a child raised with a christian foundation allowed to see a popular movie such as the Harry Potter series accompanied by a parent who will explain the fantasy aspect of the movie would come to no harm from such an offering, but those who are lost or weak minded are prime targets for the deceiver. My son was 12 then 13 when he seen the movies, after that he lost interest in the movies as they were too childish for him. ed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaime Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 I don't think there has ever been any real controversy about Harry Potter around here. nope... not a big deal... *runs and hides Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luigi Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 I'll take Harry Potter over Twilight any day of the week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mysisterisalittlesister Posted November 29, 2011 Author Share Posted November 29, 2011 As I said, though, JK Rowling tried to make it sound rediculouse. And she said on Oprah that she was Christian because of writing the books because there was a big sense of good and evil. so she's not a witch. That being said, I do agree about the unforgivable curses. It started out with the death eaters only using them, but then it turned into Harry using them. So, yeah, but I still think that people take it way too seriously. It's a kid's book, for Pete's sake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papist Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 My wife read all the books. She noticed that they got darker with each book. As for me, I had no interest in reading Harry Potter. There are many better quality books I can read than Harry Potter, which is what I will be encouraging my children to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dominicansoul Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 i never had an interest in the books and when the movies came out, i was bored... I didn't really get too much into it, I guess I've lived too long and seen greater things that I'm like, "meh..." Twilight bores the poo outta me.... a friend forced me to go to one of their movies, not sure which part... it sucked, big time... I was like, "this wouldn't even make a good made-for-television movie...!!!"give me LOTR any day....over this poo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basilisa Marie Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 [quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1322539188' post='2341999'] I forgot to add before: there was one thing that this article doesn't deal with that I suppose you could say disturbed me a bit in the books. I will detail that here. The Unforgivable Curses were a very coo[color=#000000]l[/color] concept IMO, but Rowling handed it poorly. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not on her part. When they were introduced I thought it was a strong concept. This was a clear case of objective morals. The curses are unforgivable- the idea then is that nobody can use them, that it's always wrong. This is a very Catholic concept; essentially it's how we view magic. I'd take this as an entirely acceptable moral caution. However, Rowling turned that on its head in later books. I believe starting in Order of the Phoenix, we now have the heroes using Unforgivable Curses. It still could have been turned around into a good lesson at this point. The Curses could have morally corrupted the heroes, showing the inherent danger in doing something objectively evil. In fact it would have been even more powerful this way; even when a good person does that which is inherently evil, it corrupts the soul and turns the hero into a villain. This didn't happen though; there were no consequences. The heroes frequently used the Imperius curse, Harry and some of the others used the Cruciatus curse, and if I'm not mistaken they occasionally used the killing curse as well. There were no consequences. The idea Rowling is communicating here is that moral rules are suspended during war. This is the same line of thinking that brings us firebombing, carpet bombing, nuclear bombing, killing of civilians, POWs, torture, hostage taking, you name it. Was it intentional or not? I'm not sure. But it was disturbing in either case. It undermined the strong potential of objective morals embodied in Unforgivable Curses. [/quote] I think the point of showing the heroes using the Unforgivable Curses wasn't to make them suddenly okay, or that moral rules [i]should [/i]be suspended during war. As a reader, I felt quite uneasy when the heroes used them. I think it was more to show that her characters were still very flawed people, even in the middle of a war. JKR has Sirius tell Harry "The world isn't divided up into good people and Death Eaters." I think that's a very keen summation of her views of her heroes, as well as her villains. Her heroes aren't heroes because they do the right thing or make the right moral decision all the time. They're heroes because they eventually do make the right decision in the face of evil, because they make the right decision when more was at stake. It would have been easy to show her heroes making the right decisions in the war, and never doing anything wrong, since it's often clearer what the right thing would be. I think that showing them using the curses shows the reader that these are still very flawed people that don't always do the right thing. Although, I will agree that it would have been nice to have some (more) consequences for using them. But I just don't think there was "time" for that in the book. But maybe a throwaway line here or there would have helped. At the very least, this issue serves as a very interesting discussion point, and still does throughout the Harry Potter Fandom. The books do get darker, but she also knew her primary audience was growing up with the books as they were published. And after the books were published she said that she wanted to downplay her own specific religious beliefs to the press (she's an active member of the Church of Scotland, or something), so that predicting how she would end the series wouldn't be quite as obvious. She very much intended Harry to be a kind of a christological figure, in the sense that he sacrifices his own life for the love of not only his friends, but everyone who would be affected by the tyranny of Voldemort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatherineM Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 I have all the books on audio on my ipod right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BG45 Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 Hmm, back in 2007, Rowling did say they were supposed to be Christian allegory, and a [url="http://www.christianpost.com/news/harry-potter-author-reveals-books-christian-allegory-her-struggling-faith-29749/"]way to help her struggle with her own faith[/url]. I only read a few of them personally, they were well developed, but I just never finished the series. People were always rushing to tell me what happened anyhow, so I never saw the point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 Everything aside, I think they were great books, very strong movies, and a cultural phenomenon that only comes along a couple times in a lifetime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papist Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 I can't speak for the books, but I did see the first movie. And based on it, I did not see another. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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