With the Harry Potter movie series now finished, we’re getting the last round of extensive discussions of the series. The Catholic writer Michael O’Brien has been very hard on the books, a position he explains in an interview with LifeSite News.
Some of it’s a bit much, as when he says “There is practically a universal characteristic in the way people defend Potter, and that is vehement anger.” I’m sure he gets angry letters, but as a generalization, this seems to me untrue, given how I’ve heard and read some critics speak of the stories. Alan Jacobs would be one prominent Evangelical admirer of the books (see below) and clearly not angry, not even a little.
And some of it makes you wonder if he read the books, as when he claims
J.K. Rowling is a talented storyteller, but she has also used the style and technique of modern television and cinema media, which seizes the imagination by pummelling it, bombarding it with powerful stimuli, in a rapid pace, with plenty of emotional rewards. So, in the matter of style alone she has made a major change in the way stories are told, and how they are read.
This is not true, and unfortunately so, as the later novels got bigger and bigger and could have used some trimming and tightening. There is a lot of down time in the stories. In any case, the style he’s criticizing is at least as true of the Narnia Chronicles as of the Harry Potter stories.
And there is his description in the interview itself of the climax of the series, which completely misreads it, as the commenter “Jane” points out in a comment on Patrick Madrid’s blog. Here as elsewhere O’Brien reads the books as prosecuting attorney to an extent that seems to me to fatally distort his descriptions and therefore his critique.
Readers interested in the subject should enjoy Alan Jacobs’ Harry Potter’s Magic, which we published, and (if you subscribe to Books and Culture) his review of the last book of the series, The Youngest Brother’s Tale. The last concludes, I think far more sensibly than O’Brien:
What do we choose to imagine, when we choose? The answer is always revelatory, which is one of the reasons Chesterton was right to say that “the simple need for some kind of ideal world in which fictitious persons play an unhampered part is infinitely deeper and older than the rules of good art, and much more important.” The Harry Potter books remind us of this, and they can be, if we read them rightly, both a delight in themselves and a school for our own imaginings. They have many flaws, but I have not dwelt on them here because I forgive J. K. Rowling for every one. Her seven books are, and thank God for it, always on the side of life.
I don’t, by the way, think as much of the books as does Alan Jacobs. A critique I’d commend, though I don’t agree with all of it — for one thing, it seems to me clear that the magic in the stories is a technology or natural ability and not an occult power — is Steven Greydanus’s Harry Potter vs. Gandalf. And here is a recent story from the Wall Street Journal that may be of interest: How Christians Warmed to Harry Potter.
July 28th, 2011 | 3:42 pm
I disagree that one can argue against Mr. O’Brian’s statement about Rowling’s style on the basis that the books are large. I have read them all myself and tend to agree with O’Brian in this regard, although I don’t see Rowling’s rapid and engaging style as a substantial criticism against the books.
As an aside, I do think it should be obvious that O’Brian’s criticism is at least more applicable to Harry Potter than to Narnia, if only for the simple fact that for Rowling the “style and technique of modern television and cinema media” has been available for her to learn from and compete with, while it didn’t even exist in Lewis’ time. This is evident in their books.
July 28th, 2011 | 5:41 pm
Those interested might also enjoy this from Fr. Robert Barron’s Word on Fire blog
July 28th, 2011 | 8:00 pm
Some of it’s a bit much, as when he says “There is practically a universal characteristic in the way people defend Potter, and that is vehement anger.”
LOL this guy needs to hang out with a better class of people – most of the people I’ve ticked off with my criticisms only get anxious and defensive.
July 28th, 2011 | 9:14 pm
Wow. Say what you want about Potter, someone who misunderstands the climax (as well as what O’Brien terms “the fundamental premise”) as badly as O’Brien does (per the interview) should not be taken as a credible critic.
This isn’t a quibble over interpretation — it is a complete misreading, or even non-reading, of what is clearly stated about the source of Harry’s victory.
July 29th, 2011 | 5:12 am
One thing that’s always irked me about the stories is that Rawling makes too much use of what is probably one of the most annoying plot devices possible; the conflict that exists almost entirely because all of the main characters inexplicably refuse to share what they know with each other until the end of hte book.
The author’s criticisms of Potter seem, well, disjointed to me. If the magic is ‘technological’ then the fact that Potter uses it as well as the evil characters means very little. Hitler used bombers in WWII and so did Churchill. Unless you’re willing to take a Ghandian like view of war, that is not all the same thing. Likewise Potter does sometimes defy authority but authority that is of questionable legitimacy in many cases. I guess he also breaks rules, but mostly minor ones. I guess the writer wouldn’t care much for Calvin and Hobbes either. This demonstrates that he is mentally unhinged and deserving of our pity.
In the 1980′s I, like many other boys, fell in love with Star Wars. I think I saw Return of the Jedi 40 times in the theaters. It’s not unusual for children to find some piece of fiction and grasp it with full force and intensity. O’Brian doesn’t seem to get that since he is probably learned to become quite cynical as an adult. But one thing he should keep in mind about the obsessions of youths, they go both ways. We loved Star Wars but we also loved nitpicking them to death….which carries into adulthood I haven’t followed the Potter stories intensely but I would bet that the ‘Potter generation’ will use the stories as a template for intense examination. The same thing happened with Star Wars (see, for example, counterintuitive theories that the Imperial Empire was actually good and that Anakin’s slaughter of the Jedi children (yes I apologize for bringing up the newer movies!) was actually a positive thing….which can be easily found online)
July 29th, 2011 | 8:43 am
I also think O’Brien overplays matters by reading Potter as theology. Harry may have some Christ-like qualities but that doesn’t make him Christ. Potter falls in the category of heroic fiction and should be properly analysed as such. Getting upset then that Potter sometimes acts less like a God and more like a person then is seen clearly then as folly. Do we get upset that Ulysses wants to return home to sleep with his wife? That he engages in a war of very dubious morality and very far from any Catholic doctrine of a just war? Or do we accept him as the hero of a heroic story? Heros are human and like a human Harry gets angry, goes into rages, sometimes acts selfishly and sometimes breaks the rules to have some fun.
The anti-anti-Potterites would also do well to not overplay their hand. Harry Potter is not great religious fiction nor is Harry a allegorical retelling of Christ’s tale. There are, though, some really good and deep aspects to the tales. For example, there’s a lot of sympathy for Voldemolt’s unhappy childhood. There’s also a lot of sympathy, if I recall correctly, for many of the ‘evil characters’ such as Malfoy who at the end clearly doesn’t want to do evil but can’t bring himself to really reject it. There’s also an excellent eye for human weakness. Nominally good characters behave cowardly when confronted by fear. Authority figures corrupt, victims are blamed rather than confronting those who are guilty. Those who are weak take their fear out on those who are weaker than they are.
July 29th, 2011 | 9:55 am
“LOL this guy needs to hang out with a better class of people – most of the people I’ve ticked off with my criticisms only get anxious and defensive.”
I think he’s making the rather obvious error of using the mentality of people who send hate mail to judge the reactions of an entire camp. Of all the people who think X, the people who bother to argue about it are going to be more vehement than the people who smile and silently disagree, the people who post on public Internet sites are going to be more vehement than those who argue in real life only, and the people who send letters or e-mails directly to the “offender” are going to be more vehement still. I mean, in the aggregate — plenty of nice mellow people engage in each strategy, of course.
July 29th, 2011 | 11:50 am
It is, of course, all a waste of time and bandwidth. The folks who like Harry Potter aren’t going to care and the folks who don’t care one way or the other about Harry Potter are just going to dismiss the objections as the ravings of lunatics. I vividly remember on time, about ten years ago, when the Concerne Women for America were objecting to something or other and the local media put a camera in the face of someone part of what they were objecting to and asked him what he thought of it. His response was simple, and devastating.
“These are people who get weird about Harry Potter.”
July 29th, 2011 | 11:58 am
f the magic is ‘technological’ then the fact that Potter uses it as well as the evil characters means very little. Hitler used bombers in WWII and so did Churchill.
Well, of course. But my point is that it is not the occult power O’Brien insists it is, and with that recognition much of his criticism falls apart.
It is, of course, all a waste of time and bandwidth.
Just curious: then why do you read it?
July 29th, 2011 | 2:26 pm
David, he mentions that, actually:
“All my critique is about the potential. Nobody whom I know is saying that those who read Potter are destined to plunge into actual witchcraft or sorcery. However, studies conducted by the Barna research group revealed a twelve percent increase in occult activities among Christian students in the U.S.A. after reading the Potter series, and which the students themselves attributed to the books. Serious critics also raise concerns about other effects of saturating the mind in symbols of evil and adventures in which evil and good are redefined.”
I think people are forgetting he is saying this in relation to specifically Christian questions about the book, and he has a point about acculturation. Similar to what Boonton says, HP is not a Christian book, and there is a point about letting the world’s recent craze become a large part of your kid’s thinking.
July 29th, 2011 | 6:34 pm
“Dblade”: No, he doesn’t. I wasn’t talking about the stories potential to do harm, but about O’Brien’s belief that the magic in them is occult rather than, for lack of a better term, technological. That’s one of the bases of his critique and he seems to me to have missed the point entirely.
July 29th, 2011 | 11:01 pm
Ah. That’s sort of a finesse argument, and one I don’t think I’d have the space to go into. My belief is that once magic has its own moral weight regardless of use, it isn’t tech. There’s no “good” use of a Horcrux, and the Cruciartis curse seems to vary based on the evil of the user. For the opposite, there’s no bad use of the Sorting Hat.
Rowling doesn’t really make a coherent magical universe though, so it’s hard to say. Harry uses two of the three unforgivable curses though, as well as other dark spells without any real ill effect to himself. Hermione uses time magic for something as silly as doing more classes. It’s very muddled.
July 30th, 2011 | 10:49 am
I’ve seen Michael O’Brien discussing this subject on TV; I followed the conversation on ZENIT some years ago; I’ve perused this interview; and I’ve read a fair amount of O’Brien’s fiction, as well as his non-fiction “A Landscape of Dragons”.
I concur with the suspicion that O’Brien has not actually read the entire Harry Potter corpus as, honestly, not all of his assertions make sense — at least, not to someone like me who has read all the books at least twice through.
I agree that there seems to be a publishing phenomenon in teen literature geared toward the supernatural and that much of such literature (if one can even use the term “literature”) is spiritually or morally problematic — but one can say that about much of teen literature which is not supernaturally based.
I also felt that it was a bit disingenuous of O’Brien to link, however obliquely, the Harry Potter books with Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” — a series which is deeply anti-Christian by the full admission of the author.
Like others, I question O’Brien’s assertion that his opponents are universally vehemently angry. This seems to be a gross exaggeration — at best.
Finally, I agree with the suggestion that the weapons with which O’Brien attacks the Harry Potter books could equally be applied to CS Lewis — and here’s the little secret: In “A Landscape with Dragons” O’Brien suggests that Lewis’ “That Hideous Strength” crosses the line with regard to what is “appropriate” for Christians — and opposes Charles Williams’ novels completely.
Is there possibly more to O’Brien’s objections than immediately meets the eye?
July 30th, 2011 | 3:39 pm
Dave “Dblade” — is there any genuinely good use of mustard gas? Or a nuclear bomb?
I suppose you could argue that defensively, the latter could be at least comparatively good, and the former might have some good non-military application, but if you split things that way, you could then ask whether the magic involved in creating a Horcrux could have some “good” use, and it’s only the specific “application” that’s bad — just like “nuclear fission” more broadly. Is the Horcrux the technology, or the application?
It seems you could split things either way.
July 30th, 2011 | 8:48 pm
Pentamom:
The Dark Arts aren’t neutral though. The entire category is linked to evil, and use of it is considered to damage the soul. In a direct and physical way that is, not due to the type of use. Love and happiness are often the things that power the magic to fight it, like the Patronus.
It’s sort of like this: if your mage casts a spell to cause a fire by tapping into an elemental ley-line, and anyone can do so for good or evil, the magic is tech. If fire magic is cast by focusing on hatred or the desire to burn, while water opposes it and is summoned by the desire to soothe and heal, it’s not technology any more.
HP’s world is odd in that a lot of the normal magic is tech, while dark arts and defensive spells against the dark arts are aligned to morality. Even down to the creatures sometimes. It’s muddled though, with no real theology behind the magic.
July 31st, 2011 | 10:12 am
Ah. That’s sort of a finesse argument, and one I don’t think I’d have the space to go into. My belief is that once magic has its own moral weight regardless of use, it isn’t tech. There’s no “good” use of a Horcrux, and the Cruciartis curse seems to vary based on the evil of the user. For the opposite, there’s no bad use of the Sorting Hat.
But then doesn’t technology itself carry its own moral weight? The ‘cruciartius’ spell is basically torture. Is it different from water boarding? That Harry uses it in a moment of intense anger may not be forgiveable from a character whose a stand-in for Christ but is at least understandable for a character whose a human.
Similar to what Boonton says, HP is not a Christian book, and there is a point about letting the world’s recent craze become a large part of your kid’s thinking.
well I also think it not being a Christian book is a plus. Harry is NOT interchangeable with God or Christ the way Aslan is in Narnia. He is more akin to Odysseus, a heroic figure but not necessary perfect.
pentamom
you could then ask whether the magic involved in creating a Horcrux could have some “good” use,…
Lets take a note that in the story the only character to create a Horcrux is Voldemort and there is never any question about it being evil. whether there might ever be some justification to create a Horcrux that is not evil is a purely academic question that is never addressed in the actual stories.
Dave
HP’s world is odd in that a lot of the normal magic is tech, while dark arts and defensive spells against the dark arts are aligned to morality. Even down to the creatures sometimes. It’s muddled though, with no real theology behind the magic.
I think you have a valid point. Some magic seems to be simply tech, while some of the magic seems to require some type of emotional stance in order to cast. I’m not quite sure that is the same as morality though. Because a dark spell may require anger by itself does not tell me its evil…. Just as the patronus spell requiring feelings of happiness does not mean to me that its automatically good (although I suppose you might make some theological argument that happiness is intrinsically linked to moral good, anger to moral bad in a Yodaish hate leads to the dark side approach…
July 31st, 2011 | 2:11 pm
Boonton:
Technology is based on the application of the laws of nature. When the laws themselves differ due to moral action, it’s magic as magic. The disarming spell can be used to kill someone in HP’s world, if you knock them off a cliff. But the Dark Arts are categorically different, and it’s not explained that they are like the Force, in that it just amplifies what’s in you for good or ill. They’re linked to evil.
You have a point about emotional states, but what’s odd about HP’s magical world too is that there are no Light Arts. The good magic is neutral without any reinforcing feedback-using a Patronus doesn’t make you more good while using Dark Arts does seem to make you more evil.
As for why anger is bad and peace is good, it’s tricky. If magic is an impersonal force, it should have impersonal expressions. Anger is just a strong emotion. But if magic works personally, if that certain magic only works with anger or a pure heart, you suspect that the force itself is personal in some extent. Why would it matter to gravity if the affected or the user was good or bad?
Most authors use magic for effect though, and don’t really think about it. Giving Hermione an artifact that lets her alter time, for example. I don’t think the magic system in HP is that objectionable, but it isn’t neutral tech entirely. This is only an issue because a LOT of HP fans tend to romanticize people like Draco Malfoy.
July 31st, 2011 | 5:50 pm
Boonton, my question is more like this:
mixing a poison in order to kill some innocent person is unequivocally evil.
Now, we can all agree that in Potter-world, making a Horcrux is unequivocally evil.
But when you say “the magic used to make a Horcrux,” are we talking about the whole process of creating the Horcrux from beginning to end, or are we talking about the component parts of the magic (e.g., saying the spell, assembling certain tools) that, if used for another purpose, could be good? Just as the process of “assembling chemical” and “following a formula” could also be good?
So I’m just asking how far you break it down between what is the “technology” (mixing vs. chanting, forumula vs. spell) and what is the “application” (poisoning vs. Horcrux-making) in deciding that the “magic has a moral weight of its own.”
I know this sounds like hair-splitting, but if you’re going to make the assessment that “the magic has a moral weight of its own and therefore it is problematic,” I think it behooves the one assessing to define what the content of the word “magic” is.
And that’s not to say that I dismiss Dblade’s point out of hand. He may well be looking at it properly and raising a valid concern. I just wonder if it’s necessary to look at it that way.
July 31st, 2011 | 10:30 pm
All in all, I think HP has as a positive that he is NOT a stand in for Christ or God or Ultimate Truth or Goodness. He is a hero and O’Brien correctly picks up that readers like to associate themselves with him but he fails to realize readers do so because he is NOT something like ‘the one’.
With that in mind, everything O’Brien says falls totally flat. The villian died not because Harry used ‘the tools of evil’ against him, but for the same reason Gollum died in Lord of the Rings (and, for that matter, Sauron himself). Dumbledore did not ‘euthanize himself’ to avoid suffering at the hands of evil, he let his double agent kill him as an act of charity because he didn’t want Draco to have the sin of murder on his soul because he sensed Draco was not fully committed to evil even though he had joined Voldemort’s army (and also as a strategic necessity to avoid Draco being able to claim Dumbledore’s wand which would have provided the enemy with a powerful weapon). On top of that, by seeking to destry the Horcruxs, Harry wasn’t trying to ‘destroy Voldemort’s soul’ but was trying to destroy the base upon which Voldemort was launching his attacks on the world.
Harry Potter may not be Narnia but unlike the last Narnia movie I saw, HP is a story of what is essentially a ‘just war’ under Christian doctrine. Which brings me back to my point that Harry Potter shouldn’t be read as Christ just because he is Christ-like in some regards (in particular his willingness to die if that’s what it would take to stop evil from winning). I think that much of the HP stories are more Christian than either CS Lewis or Lord of the Rings. IMO both those works are great but they get a pass as being Christian because their authors were so explicitly Christian. But HP explicitly depicts love for one’s enemy as essential and necessary in a way that neither of those other stories did. In both those stories evil is evil simply for the sake of being evil and at the end there is no real moral question about hating the enemy and using violence against him. The enemy is evil simply for the sake of being evil and there’s nothing that merits even a glimmer of hypothetical redemption.
In HP, at least, multiple ‘evil’ characters are able to turn away from evil (Draco, Snape) and just as importantly they are able to get forgiveness (if reluctantly) from those who were ‘good’. Even the ‘ultimate evil’ character himself is ultimately entitled to at least sympathy and offered a chance at choosing a different path. If you wrote the biography of Voldemort it would essentially be multiple attempts by Dumbledore to get him to rise above the abuses he suffered as a child and reject evil and later Harry’s attempt to convince him to do the same…even after he had killed so many people that were so close to Harry’s heart starting with his parents.
For all the greatness of Tolkein, let’s face it Sauron and Sauraman are evil for the sake of being evil and never really regreat it or care for anything different. A while ago I recall reading a character in some cartoonish story line being described as ‘Pure Evil(tm)’ to indicate how unrealistic such fictional creations are. I think that gentle mocking nicely illustrate an advantage HP has as a series over supposedly ‘more Christian’ stories.
That does not, IMO, contradict my assertion that HP is not a Christian story by which I mean HP is not some attempt to retell the story of Christ with wizards as Narnia was with talking lions and stuffed animals. If you insist on reading HP as the Bible, you are going to miss the point.
August 1st, 2011 | 8:36 am
Tolkien is the master artist; why waste time with Lewis, Rowling and O’Brien, none of whom are in the same league with Prof. T?
August 1st, 2011 | 8:48 am
Well actually his understanding of evil IMO is not very masterly compared to Rowling. In Tolkien’s world evil is, for the most part, a type of rabid animal which simply has to be put down by brave fighting. Yes there is some subtle and complex stuff going on, such the way the Ring degenerates Frodo’s will and there is real pity for Gollum. But at the end of the day Evil exists as justification to get your sword as bloddy as you want.
It seems to me in Rowling’s world, every evil character has a very real soul. When they are killed, it may be necessary but its also at least partially tragic. Even Voldemort himself had something in him that didn’t have to be evil. In contrast, I recall a wikipedia entry on Tolkien’s orcs as saying that orcs have no souls therefore there’s no moral issue with killing them. What a nice shortcut to resolving the just war issues that Christian philosophers have wrestled with for centuries…just assume your enemy has no soul!
August 1st, 2011 | 10:47 am
LitCrit — Because we have time to read more than four books in our lives?
Besides, Tolkien was great in his way, but to hold him up as so great a master that we shouldn’t ever bother reading another Christian fantasy again is to ignore the vast swathes of self-indulgent tedium in his writing. Tolkien WAS great, but he had his weaknesses.
August 1st, 2011 | 2:02 pm
Pentamom:
Magic is the force, not the technology or application of it. You’re assuming the force is neutral and impersonal, and using only application and intent. But it’s the force behind it which has the weight.
You cannot do good using the One Ring, because it was made by Sauron and it’s an extension of his power. No matter what you do or how moral you are, eventually the Ring wins. Gandalf wont even touch it for that reason. The Ring itself has a weight to it that attaches to everything. Even using it weakens and speeds you along to becoming a nazgul, and Galadriel is quite eloquent on how her very good uses of it would be twisted.
Boonton:
How many Death Eaters aren’t from Slytherin?
Rowling SEEMS better, except that no one ever changes in the book. Everyone is in the alignment they were “sorted” into: at best they don’t become worse. I’m not sure about Harry trying to convince Voldemort of anything either, but it’s been a bit since I’ve read the books. But it’s pretty bad, although not Redwall-level bad.
HP though isn’t more Christian than either. You are looking at peripherals like the just war, but not sin, redemption, and atonement.
Litcrit:
A lot of Catholics are fixated on him as a acceptible fantasy writer, including ironically Mr O’Brian in his book “Plague Journal.” It’s not so much quality, as even modern epic fantasy and science fiction writers have made more in-depth and coherent worlds, and have had better writing.
It always pains me that all the people who like Tolkien ignore Cordwainer Smith or Gene Wolfe, both creative writers with extraordinary world-building skills. Even Robert Jordan made a better world than Tolkien before it collapsed under the weight of 12+ books.
August 1st, 2011 | 7:49 pm
Dave
You’re right a disproportionate amount of Eaters are from Slytherin. One wonders why the Wizarding world even tolerates Slytherin? But then why are the Jedi tolerated in Star Wars? Every good one seems to sooner or later produce one who turns to the ‘dark side’. Superheros too. Invariably the only thing you can be sure of if a Spiderman/Superman/Batman/Xmen show up in your city is that after one or two petty criminals go down a ‘supervillian’ will show up. IRL I suspect most cities would pass zoning laws keeping Jedi, Superheros and Wizards out.
I’m not sure about Harry trying to convince Voldemort of anything either, but it’s been a bit since I’ve read the books.
At the end Harry offer’s Voldemort a chance at redemption which he rejects in an attempt to kill him again. Voldemort dies in a like manner as Gollum. By insisting on doing wrong he causes his own death. Potter is technically innocent.
In terms of whose more Christian, though, note that HP had every reason to wish him death. Keep in mind he not only killed many of Harry’s friends and teachers directly or indirectly, he also killed his parents which haunts Harry throughout the stories. If you cheered the death of Bin Laden in even the slightest manner, you have no business chiding Harry Potter for not being ‘Christian enough’ when it comes ot his enemies.
You cannot do good using the One Ring, because it was made by Sauron and it’s an extension of his power. No matter what you do or how moral you are, eventually the Ring wins.
Yes but here is where I think Rowling has an edge over both Lewis and Tolkein. Like a lot of fantasy, they use Pure Evil(tm) as the plot device. Rowling’s Evil is pure choice. Every evil character is a person capable of good who chooses not to do it and many good characters nonetheless fail in the face of evil.
I haven’t read Smith, Wolfe or Jordan (but I do like R. Scott Bakker) yet. I’m sure you’re right on the technical abilities of Rowling versus more ‘professional’ fantasy writers. As I said I think a major plot issue she has is making the drama of nearly every story hing upon the main characters inexplicably keeping vital information from each other until the very end.
August 3rd, 2011 | 10:17 am
Rowling, Lewis and O’Brien, simply in terms of knowing what the English language is capable of (sentence structure, descriptive effects et al., i.e. the technical end of it) are simply not in the same league with Tolkien. I haven’t read a lot of fantasy, except for the four I’ve mentioned, and the first three I mention here are really boring writers. Technically, that is. I don’t much like their content, plots, characters etc. either, but that’s another matter. Maybe it boils down to taste. Technically Shakespeare has it all over John Osborne, right?
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact