Is Harry Potter Good for the World?

Perhaps no other work of fiction in the last century -- and arguably in all of history -- has captured the hearts and minds of adults and children alike more than the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. The Boy Who Lived has shaped a generation of readers and defined the first part of the twenty-first century; but is this a good thing? The story of Harry Potter has been ingrained in the imaginations of millions of fans both young and old, but what is it leaving them with? What message does the series teach and what effect does it have? Is Harry Potter actually good for the world? I firmly believe the answer to this question is yes: the story of Harry Potter is indeed good for the world. In addition to the books central conflict of good versus evil, the reason for this lies in the storys themes regarding the dangers of prejudice, the importance of our choices, and -- most importantly -- the defeat of death through sacrificial love.

The Dragon in the Room Before jumping deeper into the reasons I believe Harry Potter is good for the world, I should first explain why the story isnt bad for the world. To do this I must address a
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misconception regarding one of the central elements of the series: magic. For many Christians, this issue has been what a friend of mine has referred to as the dragon in the room (due to the fantasy setting of the stories). Some Christians stand strongly against the Harry Potter books because of its use of magic, since the Bible explicitly condemns the use of witchcraft and sorcery. And while the series does use those words to define what the young witches and wizards learn at Hogwarts, the entire issue is grounded in a misunderstanding of the terms magic and witchcraft. Before addressing this misunderstanding, there is an issue with the first book that should be cleared up. When arguing against the magic of the series, Christians sometimes point to the title of the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, to make their point. The Bible condemns sorcery, and this book has it in its title. However, the original title was not Sorcerers Stone, but Philosophers Stone. Arthur Levine, the American publisher, changed it from Philosopher to Sorcerer because he thought no American children would want to read a book with the word philosophy in it. The misconception regarding the magic in these stories is that it is the same as the magic in the real world. But while biblical real-world magic and the fantasy magic used in Harry
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Potter (as well as many other fantasies) use the same terms, they are entirely different. Real-world magic centers on communication with spirits, praying to them and summoning them to do mans bidding. This magic is invocational -- literally, to call in -- and this is what Scripture forbids. An example in the Bible of invocational magic is in 1 Samuel 28, where King Saul meets with the witch of Endor and asks her to call up the spirit of Samuel to speak with him. She obeys (and seems surprised that it worked) and Samuels spirit converses with Saul. The Bible is very clear that this kind of magic is evil. In contrast, the fantasy magic of Harry Potter is incantational, meaning in Latin, to sing along with, and has nothing to do with invocational magic. Unlike invocational magic, incantational magic does not exist -- it is just fantasy. There is absolutely no invocational magic in Harry Potter. Not even the villains use it. The magic of these stories is purely incantational. A clear picture of this is in The Magicians Nephew, when the great lion Aslan sings the land of Narnia into existence. The magic in these stories is nothing to worry about. In fact, the argument could be made that it is actually another positive aspect of the series, as it speaks so strongly against the materialist creed of our culture, which is that only what is
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material and measurable exists. The idea that there is more to the world than what can be measured is incompatible at the core with such a creed.

The Cosmic Battle Christian children are taught from a very young age that there is much more going on than what they can see. A great war is being fought between the forces of good and evil, the servants of God and the servants of the devil. The best stories, arguably, are the ones that give us glimpses of this ultimate battle that otherwise we may not notice but still understand instinctively. Does the story of Harry Potter portray this ultimate battle between good and evil? The answer is yes, and it uses obvious biblical symbols to do so. The conflict in the Harry Potter novels largely hinges on the Gryffindor/Slytherin divide, the two most prominent Houses at Hogwarts. The Gryffindors are known for their bravery and are symbolized by a red lion. The Slytherins, on the other hand, are a bunch of racists whose House symbol is the serpent; they look down on anyone who isnt a pure-blood. Harry, the hero of the series, comes from Gryffindor House, as does his mentor Dumbledore, the great opponent of Voldemort and the only one the
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dark lord ever feared. Voldemort is not only from Slytherin House, hes the heir and descendant of Salazar Slytherin, the House founder. A lion versus a serpent -- sound familiar? In the Bible Jesus is called the Lion of Judah, while Satan is portrayed as the great serpent. Though not without flaws, Dumbledore is the leader and champion of the Good in this war. Voldemort can obviously be seen as a stand-in for the devil -- he has serpentine features, he can speak to and control snakes, and he is the master of a basilisk, a giant serpent, hidden deep under Hogwarts. The image in this story of a battle between the lion and the serpent and their servants provides an insightful glimpse into the cosmic battle being waged throughout the centuries in the spiritual realm. As Perry Glazer of Baylor University writes, Children need more than a set of virtues to emulate, values to choose, rules to obey, or even some higher form of reasoning to attain. They long to be part of a cosmic struggle between good and evil. And thats why children want to read Harry Potter. And not just children -- adults, too.

Pride and Prejudice As a writer in a postmodern age, we can expect to see many of todays cultural battles being fought in Rowlings books -namely the battle with prejudice and racism. The series is filled to the brim with prejudices, and Rowling depicts for us just how dangerous and destructive they are, not only in the form of Voldemort and his conquest, but also among the good guys, who are not only victims of prejudice but oppressors as well. But Rowling does more than simply show us prejudice and its consequences -- she reveals it in ourselves. All the lingo concerning tolerance, open-mindedness and the like can turn Christians completely off to postmodernisms concerns, largely because we are the ones often labeled as intolerant, narrow-minded, and judgmental. But if we examine the issue more deeply, we realize that their concerns, if not right in most regards, are at least partially valid at the basic level. We are just over a decade out of the twentieth century, a time largely defined by prejudice and racism. The Nazis have become the stereotype of absolute evil and it makes sense that we should strive to be as unlike them as possible. While this is obviously not the only reason for the postmodernists values (the predominant belief in relativism plays a large part as
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well), I do think this is one reason for it. As a result, prejudice in any form is viewed as the ultimate evil. Harry is surrounded by prejudices in the wizarding world -and even holds a few himself. The villain Voldemort seeks to subject the muggles (non-magical people) to slavery, seeing them as little more than animals. Racism abounds in the wizarding world, with those of all-magical descent priding themselves on being pure-blood while those with muggle parentage are disdainfully referred to as mudbloods. Those of mixed ancestry are known as half-bloods. Besides the racism against muggles and witches and wizards of mixed parentage, the wizarding race as a whole also looks down on other magical races, viewing them as less intelligent (even when this is not true). The house-elves are forced to be slaves for wizards. In Order of the Phoenix, book five of the series, Harry sees a fountain in the Ministry of Magic called The Fountain of Magical Brethren, which portrays how wizard kind sees other races: it depicts a house-elf, a goblin, and a centaur staring up adoringly at a beautiful witch and wizard. Harry mentally notes that a goblin and a centaur, at least, would be very unlikely to gaze at a witch or wizard with such an expression. The majority of the wizarding world, however,

believes that they should be adored by the rest of the magical world. Its not just the characters who are prejudiced though. In every single book Rowling introduces us to characters, and we naturally draw assumptions about them based on what they look like and how they dress, talk, and act. Snape is the prime example, as he looks like a stereotypical villain: hook-nosed, greasy hair, always dressed in black, and always in a foul mood. In the first book we, along with Harry and his friends, naturally assume that hes the bad guy, the one after the Philosophers Stone hidden in the castle. But Rowling shows at the end of the book that we are wrong: Snape is innocent. The real culprit not only appears cowardly on the surface, he teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts, a class meant to teach students how to fight against Dark magic. When Harry realizes this, the professor (named Quirrell) also reveals that he has allowed Voldemort to share a body with him. Snape, on the other hand, is not only innocent of the crime we and Harry suspected him of, he actually did all he could to protect the Stone from Quirrell and even saved Harrys life earlier in the story without him knowing. Rowling repeats this process in almost every book -- she makes us think something about someone, and then shows us that
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we have it completely backwards. No one is who they seem to be in the world of Harry Potter. Surface appearances reveal next to nothing of what the character is really like, yet we continue to fall into her trap every time she sets it. We are the prejudiced ones. We judge people based on their outward appearances and know nothing of who he or she really is until its blatantly obvious. In warning her readers of the danger of prejudice, Rowling not only reveals it in ourselves but also gives us the cure: love. Prejudice grows from a lack of love. Harry had no love for Snape -- in fact, he hated him until after Snapes death. It is only after this Harry learns that Snape had been in love with his mother Lily since their childhood, and after her death had lived his life to protect her son. Snape had sacrificed every day of his life to keep his loves son alive and safe, and continued to do so even when every person alive was convinced he was a traitor to Dumbledore and loyal to Voldemort. Years later, Harry names one of his sons after him. Dumbledore repeatedly pleads with the wizarding community to put aside their prejudices and to love each other despite their differences. His advice is tragically ignored by the most of his listeners, but Rowling holds up love as the solution to prejudice, an idea that should not be foreign to Christians.
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Jesus said that the world would know we are his disciples by our love for one another (John 13:35).

Revealed by Our Choices What is it that makes us who we are? Culture gives us an answer: our appearance and our abilities. Who we are is defined by what we look like and what we can do. The better you look and the more you can contribute to society, the more youre worth. As Christians we know that this answer is not the right one -- physical attributes are not what make us who we are. What, then, is the alternative? Harrys mentor Dumbledore gives us the answer: It is our choices, Harry, that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities.1 Rowling repeatedly shows us in every book that it is ones choices that matter, not ones abilities, looks, or background. Her characters range from rich and poor, old and young, slave and free, magical and non-magical, black and white; and people from every group choose to join together against evil while many also choose to join evil. In creating characters from so many walks of life, Rowling argues against the secular belief that our choices are determined by our background and thus we are not truly
1

Chamber of Secrets, p. 333.

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responsible for them. Harry and Voldemort, the hero and villain of the story, both come from very similar backgrounds. Both were orphan and raised without love, often neglected, and in Harrys case possibly abused by his relatives, the Dursleys. If background circumstances determine who we will become, Harry and Voldemort should have ended up as very similar people. But this could not be farther from the truth. Voldemort, who was raised in an orphanage without ever being loved, grew into a monstrous person who couldnt understand love and therefore hated it. He murdered without any regard for his victims, using their deaths to create Horcruxes to protect pieces of his soul so that he could be protected from physical death, which he feared above all else. Harry, though sharing much the same beginning as Voldemort, became his opposite. Though he never felt love from the family who raised him, he still chose to love, sacrificing himself over and over again for his friends. According to Dumbledore, love was Harrys great power that Voldemort couldnt understand and that would enable him to defeat the Dark Lord. And in the end, when Harry discovered that the only way for Voldemort to be defeated was for himself to die, he followed through. Out of sacrificial love for his friends he walked calmly into the arms

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of that which Voldemort feared, and in doing so he was finally able to vanquish him. Some might argue that because of the prophecy implicitly naming Harry as the one who could defeat Voldemort, he really didnt have a choice. Though raised in similar circumstances to Voldemort, Harry was also born with the prophecy hanging over his shoulders, saying that he would have a power the Dark Lord knows not and that either must die at the hands of the other for neither can live while the other survives. Because of the prophecy, it seems that Harry really had no choice but to confront Voldemort -- it had to happen. It was his destiny. His choices had no relevance in the predetermined outcome. This is a view that Harry himself held for a while, believing that he had no choice in the matter. After learning about the Horcruxes and voicing this belief, Dumbledore explains to him the difference. Because of Voldemorts obsession with the prophecy, he will stop at nothing to kill Harry, the only one who supposedly has the power to defeat him. As a result, it is almost certain that one of them will end up having to vanquish the other, but not because of the prophecy. It is because Voldemort had chosen to act upon it and had marked Harry as his equal the night he tried to kill him as a baby, unwittingly pouring his own powers into the infant. Neither of them were
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forced to do anything, but because of Voldemorts actions, he made Harry the only person who could defeat him, and so he will stop at nothing to destroy this threat. Harrys choice matters, then, in deciding how to meet this destiny.

He understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew -- and so do I, thought Harry with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents -- that there was all the difference in the world.2

Though Harry does indeed have a destiny, it is his choices that will determine how it will play out, whether it will be realized in his victory or defeat. One of the reasons I think Harrys story is so popular is because deep down people know that they too have a destiny that their own choices are moving them toward. We all have a part to play in the Story.

Half-Blood Prince, p. 512.

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We live vicariously through the characters we read about, and as Harry learns how to choose right when faced, as Dumbledore says, with a choice between what is right and what is easy3 we learn as well. As John Granger writes in his book How Harry Cast His Spell, By reading these books and identifying with the heros good choices, readers get a boost via their imaginations to do the right thing in difficult circumstances themselves.4 While we all have an ultimate destiny, it is still our responsibility to choose what is right over what is easy. Though another mans actions have locked Harry into a kill-or-be-killed relationship, it is his own choice how to confront situation, and that, he believes, makes all the difference in the world.

Loves Triumph over Death As I have already hinted, the Harry Potter stories revolve around death. They begin with a double murder and death is never far from sight. Rowling says as much in an interview: In fact, death and bereavement and what death means, I would say, is one of the central themes in all seven books.5 When Harry visits his
3 4

Goblet of Fire, p. 724.

How Harry Cast His Spell, p. 90.

Malcolm Jones, Harrys Hot, Newsweek (July 17, 2000): 56 and David B. Caruso, Harry Potter Case Illustrates Blurry Line in Copyright Law, Associated Press (April 19, 2008). Qtd in John Granger, How Harry Cast His Spell, p. 63-64.

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parents grave, he finds an inscription on the headstone that reads, The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. This line is a quotation from 1 Corinthians 15:26, and Rowling says that it, along with another Bible passage (Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also6 written on the Dumbledore family tomb) basically sum up the entire series. Every book develops this theme. Throughout the series Rowling teaches us not only about the nature of death, but also that it is not the end, that there are things much worse than physical death, and that ultimately, death is conquered by sacrificial love. In Order of the Phoenix, Harry and his friends travel to the Ministry of Magic to save his godfather Sirius, who Harry believes is being tortured by Voldemort. The rescue mission is a disaster, resulting in Siriuss death, but while they are in the Department of Mysteries, Harry and his friends find a room called the Death Chamber. In the middle of the room is an arch with a curtain hanging from it, and Harry and Luna are sure that they can hear voices coming from the other side of the curtain, even though when they walk around the veil to look there is no one there.

Matthew 6:21

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After theyve returned to Hogwarts and Harry is reeling from his godfathers death, he meets Luna in one of the corridors. During their conversation, she tells Harry about her mothers death, but then adds that its not as though Ill never see Mum again, is it? Harry questions this, to which Luna responds,

Oh, come on. You heard them, just behind the veil, didnt you? You mean ... In that room with the archway. They were just lurking out of sight, thats all. You heard them. They looked at each other. Luna was smiling slightly. Harry did not know what to say, or to think. Luna believed so many extraordinary things ... yet he had been sure that he had heard voices behind the veil too....7

Harry remains uncertain concerning life after death until he kneels in front of his parents grave nearly two years later and reads the words written on the stone.

Order of the Phoenix, p. 863.

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Harry read the words slowly, as though he would have only one chance to take in their meaning, and he read the last of them aloud. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death ... A horrible thought came to him, and with it a kind of panic. Isnt that a Death Eater idea? Why is that there? It doesnt mean defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it, Harry, said Hermione, her voice gentle. It means ... you know ... living beyond death. Living after death. But they were not living, thought Harry: They were gone. The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents moldering remains lay beneath snow and stone, indifferent, unknowing.8

Harry reads the Bible quotation and dismisses it as empty words. The evidence hed seen in the Death Chamber of a life after death is forgotten, and he continues to hold this belief until he is walking to his own death a few months later. There in the forest he is at last able to get to the Resurrection

Deathly Hallows, p. 328.

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Stone -- a mythical object with the power to bring loved ones supposedly back from the dead -- hidden inside the Snitch.

And again Harry understood without having to think. It did not matter about bringing them back, for he was about to join them. He was not really fetching them: They were fetching him.9

He uses the Stone and at once he sees his father, mother, godfather, and favorite teacher, all dead, standing around him and smiling. They are neither ghost nor truly flesh.... Less substantial than living bodies, but much more than ghosts and Harry understands that they were not really gone, at least not in the way he had believed. Though dead, they were still alive, and as Harry moves closer to his own death, they feel more real to him than his still-living friends he left at the castle. When at last Harry confronts Voldemort and willingly dies, he wakes up in a place that seems to him like Kings Cross station, where he meets his late mentor Dumbledore, and Harry learns beyond the shadow of a doubt that death is not the end. Dumbledore tells Harry that if he so desired, he could board a train from Kings Cross that would take him on. Harry instead
9

Deathly Hallows, p. 698.

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chooses to return to the world of the living to defeat Voldemort once and for all. Voldemort feared death. His entire identity was wrapped in his desire to escape death. His name is French for flight from death and he tells his followers (called Death Eaters), You know my goal -- to conquer death.10 He sought to make himself immortal by creating Horcruxes, objects in which he could conceal a part of his soul. To do this, he had to tear his soul apart so as to separate part of it from his body, and the only way to do this was by murder. Voldemort, by seeking to escape death, became an instrument of death so that he wouldnt have to die. Even if his body was destroyed (which is what happened when he tried to kill Harry as a baby) he would continue to survive as a spirit-like being as long as his Horcruxes survived. The word Horcrux means horrible cross. Rowlings point, I think, is that Voldemort put his trust in these objects to defeat death, rather than in the Cross that was the real instrument of deaths defeat. During the duel with Dumbledore in Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort shouts, There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore! Dumbledore replies that he is wrong.

10

Goblet of Fire, p. 653.

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Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness.11 What is worse than death? Rowling, through Dumbledore, tells us that what is worse than death is an absence of love: Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.12 Love has the power to conquer death, and it is the power that Harry possesses that the Dark Lord knows not.

There is a room in the Department of Mysteries, interrupted Dumbledore, that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that

11 12

Order of the Phoenix, p. 814. Deathly Hallows, p. 722.

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you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.13

Earlier that night, Voldemort had tried to possess Harry and felt extreme pain as a result. A similar thing happened four years earlier, when Quirrell, whom Voldemort was possessing at the time, tried to kill Harry. Every time his skin made contact with Harrys, it would burn. Dumbledore later explained the reason for this to Harry:

Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didnt realize that love as powerful as your mothers for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign ... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.14

13

Order of the Phoenix, p. 844. Sorcerers Stone, p. 299.

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Lily Potters sacrificial love for her son provided him with a protection unlike any other. After her death, Dumbledore moved Harry to her sisters home and cast an enchantment so that as long as Harry could call the place where his mothers blood dwelled home, Voldemort would be unable to reach him. Dumbledore called this the bond of blood. He also states, Her blood became your refuge.15 Sixteen years later, when Harry lays down his life sacrificially at Voldemorts hands, the same thing occurs: Harrys friends are immune to Voldemorts curses. When he returns, Harry explains, Ive done what my mother did. Theyre protected from you. Havent you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You cant torture them. You cant touch them.16 In epitomizing sacrificial love, Harry defeats the man who embodies spiritual death. Throughout Deathly Hallows, Harry struggles with his faith in Dumbledore, the man he looked up to and trusted during his lifetime. At times it seems that Dumbledore has left Harry to grope in the darkness, never having shown him a clear way. Rowling has, in fact, said that her struggle with belief is

15 16

Order of the Phoenix, p. 836. Deathly Hallows, p. 738.

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evident in this book. Despite his doubts, Harry chooses to follow the path that Dumbledore had laid out for him even though Harry doesnt have all the answers. When Harry learns that the headmasters ultimate plan was for Harry to sacrifice himself and die willingly to destroy the Horcrux inside him, he follows through and lays down his life. Dumbledore explains in Kings Cross that in doing this, Harry has done what Voldemort failed to do: You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying.17 Harry, through his death, has become its master. He has defeated it. Voldemort is a piece of cake after that. Love triumphing over death, refuge in blood, defeating death through death -- these are all ideas that should be very familiar to Christians. Throughout the series Rowling weaves this theme, and in Deathly Hallows, in quoting from the Bible, she becomes explicit. In discussion about the series Rowling has even called the Christian content of her books obvious.18 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

17 18

Deathly Hallows, p. 720-21.

Granger, The Deathly Hallows Lectures, p. 128, n. 13.

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The Verdict After exploring these themes in the Harry Potter novels concerning prejudice, choice, and loves defeat of death, the answer to the question, Is Harry Potter good for the world? seems obvious. The twenty-first century began with a worldwide publishing phenomenon unlike any other in history. These books are arguably the most popular works of fiction ever written, and they instruct us on how to overcome prejudice, how to make the right choice over the easy one, and they show us firsthand how love vanquishes death. Though this learning experience happens in our imagination, it plays out into and affects our real lives, what we believe and how we interact with one another. That is the magic of stories, and it is another message Rowling delivers to us. Just before leaving Kings Cross, Harry asks Dumbledore, Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head? The headmaster responds, Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?19 As John Granger writes,

The real [magic] of Harry Potter is in our identification with Harrys struggle to believe and, via
19

Deathly Hallows, p. 723.

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this suspension of disbelief, our transformation with him into a hero of sacrificial humility and love who is cleansed of his interior failings and thereby changes, even saves, the world. It all happens inside the readers head, of course, but the reality of this experience is so great, so foreign, and so near to our spiritual beings that, though only imaginative, it has the power to turn us right side up and orient us to that Light that shines in the darkness and in whom is our hope of eternal life.20

Is Harry Potter good for the world? Yes. It is very good. Arguably no other series of fiction has had this much impact on the world, and what better way to begin the twenty-first century than with a series that smuggles into our hearts the values that are distinctly Christian and yet at the same time can speak to the spiritual needs of people from all different beliefs. Readers of all different ages, languages, and races are united in our love for the story of The Boy Who Lived and conquered death -- a story that resonates with the Story of another who died, conquered death, and lives still.

20

How Harry Cast His Spell, p. 243.

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