May 20, 2004
ONLY ONE STORY:
No Wizard Left Behind: Harry Potter and Left Behind are more alike than you might think. (Steven Waldman, May 18, 2004, Slate)
The series seem to live in parallel universes, as different as books could be. But as we absorb their latest milestones (the upcoming release of the third Potter movie, the recent release of the climactic Left Behind volume), I have bad news for both camps: The two have a lot in common.Most obviously, in both cases, we see not a fight between individual good guys and bad guys, but a Manichean struggle between good and evil. That's the case in Left Behind from early in the first book. Harry Potter starts out as a more limited skirmish between Harry and the evil sorcerer Voldemort. But by the fifth book, the number of combatants has increased, with the entire wizard cadre the Order of the Phoenix battling a vast conspiracy of Voldemort-worshipers and death-eaters.
More correspondences:
The good guys are not believed. Heroism is doubly admirable when the protagonist has to not only fight his enemies, but convince his friends. Harry's classmates don't believe that Voldemort is back, and non-believers don't believe that the Antichrist has arrived.
The evil one cannot stand on his own two feet. In both series, the bad guy must occupy a human "shell." In Left Behind, the devil takes the body of Nicolas Carpathia, the charming Romanian politician who becomes head of the United Nations (natch), creates a world government, unifies religions, and promotes abortion. In Harry Potter, Voldemort possesses the body of the stuttering professor Quirrell. [...]
Corrupt authority figures. Liberal Rowling and conservative LeHaye both distrust the government. Harry spends as much time in The Order of Phoenix battling the hapless (or wicked?) Ministry of Magic as he does Voldemort himself. In Left Behind, it's a takeover of world government by the Antichrist that puts the world at peril. In Harry Potter, the adults can't be trusted; in Left Behind, it's the non-Christians.
Political agendas. As the Harry Potter series progresses, it becomes clear that Voldemort and his death-eaters want power for a specific purpose: wiping out Muggles (non-magical families) and mudbloods (mixed families). The books become a plea for tolerance and against the nostalgia for ethnic purity. Hermione's campaign to liberate the house elves is even more transparent in its power-to-the-little-people message.
Left Behind presents a comprehensive conservative Christian agenda. The Antichrist is the secretary-general of the United Nations. He promotes a hit parade of classic liberal causes, including family planning, abortion, global disarmament, amniocentesis, Third World development, assisted suicide, and higher taxes. Yes, the Antichrist is a tax-and-spend liberal. "We will further finance our plans to inject social services into underprivileged countries and make the world playing field equal for everyone," Carpathia declares. Scarrrrrry.
What a curious mixture of the obvious and the purblind. Religious conservatives have embraced the Harry Potter series since book one and their author, a card-carrying member of the British Weights and Measures Association, who the Brits have no trouble recognizing as profoundly conservative. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 20, 2004 9:41 AM
Referring to the review of Potter...
Is there anything liberals hate more than
the lower middle class? The Dursleys are
awful people because they are stupid and
superficial, not because Mr. Dursley sells
drills or because they wish for a Summer home
in Majorca. Unless I read Rowling wrong?
Hermione's parents are not discussed but one assumes that those muggles would have similar
class standing as the Dursleys.
I wouldn't say all religious conservatives have embraced the series. Joe Farah still hawks books and videos condemning Rowling at WorldNetDaily, and I've had to correct a few family members here about it. Fortunately, I made some copies of an article written by an Orthodox bishop to set them straight.
In the second book, J.H., Hermione's parents are treated sympathetically.
I've got this theory about the Harry Potter series.
It's a little crazy, I know, but here goes:
I think it's a children's story.
Posted by: Brit at May 20, 2004 10:30 AMBy the way, I have yet to read a crique of
the Eugenic aspects of the "Harry Potter"
world/worldview, what with all the
Muggles/Pures/Mud's etc.
One also get's the sense that the world of H.P.
is somehow Anarcho/Aristocratic if there is such
a thing.
Brit,
Do you think the books we read as children (at least the first "literature") generally have a subtle but meaningful effect on our outlook?
Posted by: J.H. at May 20, 2004 10:33 AMJH
Certainly. I still shiver at the mention of the name 'Bilind Pew'. But if there's one thing we don't need more of it's tenuous political interpretations of children's books.
I haven't yet read the feminist, marxist, freudian, nazi or kabbalist interpretations of Harry Potter, but I've no doubt they exist somewhere.
Posted by: Brit at May 20, 2004 10:45 AMWasn't there some weirdo American group who tried to get the series banned because it allegedly promoted witchcraft?
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at May 20, 2004 11:51 AMWasn't there some weirdo American group who tried to get the series banned because it allegedly promoted witchcraft?
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at May 20, 2004 11:52 AMBrit,
I don't disagree. However my opinion about
a particular novel could change if the author
made some explicit statement about some
allegorical framework (which almost never happens).
Hurray for Brit.
However, I can't see OJ's claim that the religious conservatives have embraced Harry Potter when I distinctly remember when various religious conservatives denounced Harry Potter because it endorsed witchcraft.
And as everyone knows, OJ thinks witches should be burned. Maybe its because...
OJ is secretly a witch!
Posted by: Chris Durnell at May 20, 2004 11:59 AMChris:
Wiccans should be burned--they're real. Harry Potter is fiction and thinly veiled Christian allegory. If you follow the links such stalwart publications as First Things and Christianity Today rave about it.
Posted by: oj at May 20, 2004 12:07 PMBrit:
No one's ever learned anything except from children's books.
Posted by: oj at May 20, 2004 12:15 PMWaldman's caricature of the Antichrist is smarmy and flippant. The AC doesn't promote a "hit parade of classic liberal causes" -- that term is especially obnoxious because to me classical liberalism is something else entirely.
In LeHaye's book once the Antichrist has control the UN is dispensed with; he demands that he be worshipped as God, with a temple and a priesthood. Anyone found on the street not bearing the Mark confirming their worship of him is summarily executed on the spot. His bon-mots of preaching 'social justice' on his WorldTV network (as quoted in the article) are cynical to the core, and he chuckles as soon as the cameras are turned off.
Posted by: Gideon at May 20, 2004 1:02 PMIf you read the Newsweek cover story on the Left Behind series, were you struck that the author referred to the Lord of the Rings trilogy as "secular"?
Posted by: AC at May 20, 2004 2:36 PM"Blind Pew" -- I shiver, too!!
And Brit, there have indeed been Marxist / post-modern / blahblah critiques of Rowling's work. I've read a few. They were mind-bendingly asinine.
Posted by: Twn at May 20, 2004 5:48 PMPerhaps someone who's read the series can inform me, why haven't the Muggles been wiped out already ?
Seems as though they'd have a tough time competing.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at May 21, 2004 4:27 PM