The great irony is that many of the same groups which claim to support family values see this book as some satanic overture designed to ensnare their children. Yet what are the Harry Potter books if not steeped in christian mideval alchemy? Christmas and Easter are celebrated by name. People have eternal souls and death is inevitable. Good always trimuphs over evil through perseverance and self-sacrfice. I am reminded of my mother forbidding me to watch the Ghostbusters movies or subsequent cartoons because they were "satanic". Just pure silliness.
Flipping through the AM dial while driving home an evening last week I came upon a minister admonishing his flock not to let their children read Harry Potter, but to get them some more holy fantasy. Then he went on to suggest C. S. Lewis (no surprise their - magic and strange creatures are okay if you're a christian apologist) and J. R. R. Tolkien. Which made be bust a gut laughing to realize that this man had probably never read any of the books he was condemning or recommending. Tolkein explicitly set out to create an English mythology to replace the foreign influence brought by the invasion of 1066. I can easily imagine some future minister recommending the Harry Potter series over the newest literature dubbed satanic a few decades hence.
Sad though I am that the series has ended, I thought she was streching the story quite a bit to put it in seven books anyway. The ending, despite the excitement of all the wizards battling, was something of an anticlimax. But perhaps we were expecting too much of Rowling; she has, after all, written the story of Harry, Ron and Hermione solving a mystery which eventually leads to a showdown with Voldemort 7 times now. Sure, they were enchanting stories, but so were Michael Crichton's.
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