Christians & Harry Potter

It is no secret that J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series is a controversial subject among many Christians of all stripes. From a fierce defense of the series by Christian fans of the boy-wizard to an unflinching condemnation by Christians who perceive it a gateway to evil spiritual forces, people find themselves at various places on this spectrum. Even more relevant for our purposes is the Christian who doesn’t really know what to think and ends up being forced to decide for or against because of the pressure the culture exerts on him or her to take a stand. This dilemma becomes even more complicated when one has children who are asking whether they can read the books or watch the movies.

A reasonable and balanced take on this subject tends to be absent from the culture or it tends to be drowned out by the popularity of either conspiratorial or naive conclusions. The media-saturated culture we live in is undoubtedly a contributing cause of this superficiality—which leads to mob-mentality on different sides of the debate. In fact, our culture is one which increases in superficiality the more it increases in divisiveness. Granted, there have been some good articles, videos, and podcasts on the subject (for and against), but more often than not it is the extreme takes (for or against) which end up being the only ones to gain favor at large.

Some Christians point to the simple fact that the books are about sorcery, witches, and secret power. They explain that such things are evil in traditional storytelling, not to mention Sacred Scripture. Here defenders of the Potter books point to Tolkien as also having magic, spells, and the like. This is true, and requires a better presentation of the argument on the anti-Potter side of the debate. Some have responded well to this requirement by pointing to the fact that Tolkien’s magic and fantasy are different: unlike what appears in the language and images of Rowling’s books, he distinguishes between magic and sorcery, wizards and witches. (As we will see, this is because Tolkien has a supernatural world in his books, while Rowling does not). Of course, this initial observation already reveals a certain superficiality related to language: for Tolkien the witch-king of Angmar is a witch because he is evil, not because he is a woman. Gandalf is a wizard because he is good, not because he is a man. With Rowling, wizard and witch are the masculine and feminine of Tolkien’s monolithic term “wizard,” while “dark wizard” or “dark witch” in Rowling are the equivalent to Tolkien’s monolithic term “witch.” Of course, anti-Potter advocates will say that this cannot be reduced merely to language: there is folk-imagery in Rowling that does not always match the folk-imagery of Tolkien (although there is obvious overlap as well). Here two things emerge: firstly, Rowling does not intend to equate Harry with his nemesis Voldemort (one is good, one is bad); secondly, the language chosen—and the folk-imagery that goes along with it—seems to contribute to a shift at the level of traditional imagery. And this is precisely the crux of the criticism we are looking at: The argument is a larger argument which expands beyond Harry Potter to include a cultural trend of “values inversion.” In recent years this trend has taken wider strides in retelling traditional tales from the perspective of villains—attempting to humanize them by imagining their origin stories. We see this in stories such as Maleficent, Wicked, Cruella, or in the portrayal of supervillains as misunderstood heros such as with Loki and Venom. There are those who would trace this back to the emergence of subversive tales about dragons where the dragon is no longer a reminder of evil in its greedy and cunning monstrosity, but the powerful sidekick of a noble hero (ironically, unlike in the second Harry Potter book). Of course, someone holding up this valid criticism as a reason for avoiding Harry Potter would have to be consistent in condemning Eragon, How to Train Your Dragon, Pete’s Dragon, and Shrek.

In some cases—remaining within this criticism alone—such a consistency is thoughtlessly jettisoned for the easy opportunity of polemics or simply for an opportunity for Pharisaical self-justification. In other cases (more rare) such a consistency is logically espoused and zealously imposed on others in an extrinsicist and legalistic way. A mature awareness of this cultural zeitgeist without for that matter reacting with neurotic zeal sometimes seems rare. Such movies, books, and franchises—as with many other works in Western literature—should rather be the occasions for deeper reflection and fruitful conversation.

But the above criticism of “values inversion” is not so unambiguous after all: It turns out that many traditional tales share in this ambiguity. Potions-making, alchemy, spell-casting, and enchantments feature in past tales without being portrayed as evil (Tolkien’s imagery is not always as unambiguous as people claim). Much of Rowling’s attempt at re-enchanting the world through her stories has its origins in the Christian literature in Britain of the last century—especially G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and Elizabeth Goudge (Goudge was a close friend of Catholic theologian Louis Bouyer, and her book The White Horse is probably the source with the most influence on Rowling’s series). The fluidity of certain portrayals, of certain terms, and of language in general, is something Rowling did not invent, but that she inherited, although she clearly pushes it further. The fact that Rowling uses the terms wizard and witch as identical terms with different genders simply confirms this inherent (and inherited) ambiguity.

All this being said, it seems to me that the best criticism of the Harry Potter series is almost never mentioned in the public discussion. The criticism is more philosophical, but not, for that matter, more difficult to understand. It amounts to the fact that the Harry Potter books do not have any witchcraft in them… but they should. I will do my best to explain what I mean by this: Harry Potter was and is popular for many reasons, but one of the central reasons is that its publication(s) corresponded to a genuine vacuum within the culture: a need for re-enchantment. Our secular culture has been suffocating within the straight jacket of a radically immanent and scientistic frame. Rowling sought to offer a re-enchantment of the world through the magic of folk-imagery, through the language of spells and bewitchments, of the absurd and paradoxical, making the Potter books whimsical and funny, books which convey a sense of awe through myth and mystery. The issue is that Rowling’s re-enchantment is radically immanent (which is why she cannot distinguish between witch and wizard). The magic is natural, not supernatural. It is just as closed in as our own current experience of the world. Being a wizard is intrinsically associated with genetic heritage and mechanistic requirements. Although the “rules” of Rowling’s magic system are purposefully clouded in mystery in order to give the appearance of a “soft magic system,” it is clear that the books rely on an undefined “hard magic system” which she can use the better by defining it as little as possible. Granted, she uses this genetic heritage to her advantage as a plot line to criticize racism and nazism (and does so well), but the main issue is—once again—the fact that the supernatural is categorically closed off from the Potter books, unlike in Tolkien’s books. It must be admitted, however, that the literary traditions she draws upon, combined with the undefined mechanism of her magic, successfully give the reader a sense of mystery—although ultimately it is not fully satisfying, and sours with time. But once again, this criticism can be applied to most fantasy novels in circulation today: from Robert Jordan to Brandon Sanderson, and from James Islington to Patrick Rothfuss. It seems to me that this is why Tolkien’s writings have such a lasting influence: there is a depth there that cannot be matched within an immanent worldview.

Of course, as readers of the books know, this whimsical aspect of the Potter books is mingled with a more dramatic and complex storyline as the books advance. The seriousness increases and the themes of death and love take center stage. Just as these more mature themes are never absent from the beginning of the series, just so the whimsical aspect of her magic is never absent from the books up to the final installment. Because of the importance of “death” in the books, there is a darkness in the stories—Rowling’s own experience with the death of her mother is very evident. Nevertheless, this darkness never overshadows the twin theme that accompanies it: love. In fact, it is love which wins the day over death at the end. More on this later on.

At this juncture it seems fitting to mention the more sensational and conspiratorial criticisms that exist out there. Some claim that there are real spells in the Harry Potter books, that some of the characters are named after demons, that Rowling went to “witch school” and that some anonymous Wiccans have confirmed all this. Of course, simply denying this would never satisfy someone peddling this kind of slander since “a witch will keep the secrets of her coven!” How can a man prove that his wife is not a Russian spy if her simply saying so would be exactly the response a Russian spy would give! This last analogy comes from G. K. Chesterton, an author Rowling—once again—cites as an influence. J. K. Rowling’s schooling is available for all to look up, as are her studies, her life and her interests. She majored in French and classics, she loved literature, spent time in Portugal, experienced poverty as a single mother, and faced the death of her own mother as a defining experience. When looking through the spells in her books one easily and quickly realizes how she came up with them: they are invariably manufactured puns using a Latin base with forced endings taken from either French or Portuguese. Some of them are quite funny, and all of them are clever. One can easily create a chart of every single spell from the resources and technology available (as I’ve done) and see on full display the originality of Rowling’s word plays. As for the characters, the names vary from normal English names such as Fred and Cedric to mythological names such as Minerva and Argus (and also some clever word plays and alliterations). If the argument is that the gods of antiquity are demons, therefore the mythological names in Harry Potter are demonic… well, good luck with all of Greek literature (which, again, is a position that some few people adhere to with strange zeal).

Ultimately, my contention is that, while the zealous doomsayer bellows from the pulpit his condemnation of Rowling’s secret sources, the library calmly displays their public availability. Rowling makes no secret that she heavily drew from The White Horse, Tom Brown’s School Days, the animated film The Sword and the Stone, and Narnia. The amount of elements drawn from The Sword and the Stone is surprising: from nonsensical Latin spells making objects fly into one’s “Mary Poppins-like” bag to Merlin’s “Dumbledore-like” mentoring of the chosen boy Arthur, from the “Dursley-like” family of Arthur to the “Hedwig-like” owl of Merlin, and from a “Wizard’s duel” to the “Hogwarts-like” home  castle of Arthur, the parallels are unmistakable. Simply add in the various adventures of Tom Brown and you have yourself a boy-wizard learning magic in an old British boarding school: welcome to Harry Potter.

One could say more concerning the details of Rowling’s names and spells, and about the fear-mongering surrounding them, but that would exceed the scope of this article, and I have done so elsewhere. I mentioned how Harry Potter’s surface “values subversion” can be good fodder for fruitful discussion. Much more so can Harry Potter’s underlying “values affirmation” be fodder for fruitful discussion. In fact, the potential here is quite staggering. To summarize the main premise of the series, a boy who’s name etymologically means “heir of the Potter” vanquishes the evil snake-man that seeks to be “like God” through power over death. Harry beats Voldemort (the name is a French pun meaning “flight from death”) through a gift of his own life out of love for his friends. This gift saves his friends, and results in his own resurrection. Does it even need to be pointed out that the chapter on Harry’s death is titled “King’s Cross”? To Rowling’s credit, the one place where there seems to be a hint of genuine transcendence is in how she speaks of the magic (or the power) of love. The place where this magic is “studied” is depicted as locked behind a door at the “Ministry of magic” in the fifth book. We never find out what is behind the door. Harry proves himself worthy of the “deathly hollows” in book seven precisely by relinquishing the desire to use them for power, which is paradoxically how they work: they point beyond themselves by pointing to the powerlessness of man over death. It is in accepting this death out of love that Harry triumphs over it.

Additionally, it does seem to me that genuine criticisms can be levied concerning the manner of Dumbledore’s death in the books. However, other criticisms concerning Harry’s disobedience of school rules in order to save his friends completely fail to appreciate the Christian principle of the law-Gospel dialectic that runs throughout the books. In those instances where Harry and his friends are genuinely wrong, their actions are not depicted as good, but as set-backs in the trajectory they are supposed to be headed in. In fact, the protagonists learn valuable lessons from their mistakes.

A final criticism would be in terms of the author herself. One does wonder how the creator of “the boy who lived,” of moving portrayals of motherhood, of love’s defeat over death and raw power, could see abortion as a necessary way to secure women’s freedom from systemic oppression. As the books strongly illustrate with the idea of the horcrux, abortion is a foundation stone of the overly masculinized edifices of economic and technocratic oppression. But this inconsistency merely serves as a further defense of the books, although in this case against the author herself.

In conclusion, Harry Potter is a mixed bag of elements which makes for very thought-provoking conversations. At the core of the series is a Christian message stemming from the pen of an inconsistent author steeped in the imagery and imagination of our western patrimony. The inconsistency of the author does come through, but no… Harry Potter is not a ruse meant to expose children to secret satanic knowledge hidden in the subtext of the books. Rather, the author’s conviction is that love triumphs over death and that it stands athwart the tyranny of power and of the self-apotheosis of an overly masculinized culture. That has been the heart of Catholic Social Teaching for decades, which means Harry Potter serves as an excellent tool for evangelization on a myriad of fronts.