Harry Potter Theology Conference, sort of

Update: here's the programme. Looks fascinating. Lots of seminars on death, myth and morality.

Hot on the heels of the Journal of U2 Studies, Harry Potter is the latest popular phenomenon to gain academic interest. A 2 day conference at St. Andrews University starts today, with 50 lectures covereing different aspects of the Potter saga:

Topics include the role of paganism, British national identity and how death is dealt with in the book series. An anthology based on the conference is planned for publication in 2013.

The conference has been organised by Prof John Patrick Pazdziora from the University's School of English and Father Micah Snell from the University's Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts (ITIA).

The ITIA's aims are:

to advance and enrich an active conversation between Christian theology and the arts — bringing rigorous theological thinking to the arts, and bringing the resources of the arts to the enterprise of theology. As part of this, it seeks to explore the role of the imagination in the arts, as part of a wider theological interest in the imaginative aspects of our humanity.


So I'm guessing there'll be some theological lectures in amongst the 50, though the full programme isn't available online. More details from St. Andrews here.

In an intense series of almost 50 lectures over two days, experts on the series will discuss how they deal with death, the role of empathy and the influence of writers such as CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. Other papers will deal with paganism, magic and the use of food and British National Identity.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall, though there's always the chance Hermione would spot me and trap me in a jar. There are strong Christian themes, amongst all the others, in the Potter series, and you couldn't really get a more overtly Easter finale than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Review

After a break long enough that most of us have forgotten the plot of Book 6 of the Potter series, the delayed HBP is now upon us. But from the moment a giant slate-grey WB (Warner Brothers) emerges through storm clouds as the haunting minor key refrain begins, the memories start to return.

Despite a recession-busting opening, and positive reviews, life has changed since the days when life stood still for a new Potter book or film. This one is very much part 1 of a 2-parter, a scene setter for the monster that will be 2010/11's Deathly Hallows. That said, it's a very good film. Well over 2 hours long, but apart from regretting how much coke I'd just drunk in Pizza Hut, the time zipped by.

Wisely, the film has filletted Rowlings book down to three main plotlines. The first is Dumbledore and Harry's pursuit of the key to Lord Voldemort's downfall. This happens to be a memory possessed by Professor Slughorn (Jim Broadbent on great form, reminded me of a former philosophy tutor), who Harry has to spend most of the school year winning over. The second theme is a secret mission entrusted to Draco Malfoy by the evil Voldemort, which we discover at the end of the film, and the third is teenage romance, of which more later.

In a welcome bucking of Hollywood trends, HBP resists the urge to get 'darker'. Even the stunning opening sequence, as black-trailed Death Eaters swoop through London, has a tremendous visual gag as the Millennium Bridge gets zapped and we see it wobbling alarmingly as pedestrians cling on to the handrails. Yes the weather seems defiantly grey throughout, but there probably hasn't been a funnier film in the franchise since Kenneth Branagh's superb turn as the vain Gilderoy Lockhart in Chamber of Secrets. In early films, much of the laughs came from the magic, here it comes from the characters. The acting across the board has gone up a notch or two, none more so than the comic acting, especially Rupert Grints Ron (thankfully banned from the slapstick gurning of earlier films), and Daniel Radcliffe himself. At one point the Coen brothers almost take over, as a tearful Hagrid, a stoned Harry (he's been drinking potions again) and faux-sincere Slughorn give a eulogy for a dead giant spider.

The action sequences are few and short - the arresting opening shot through London, an attack on the Weasleys hideaway, and a short duel between Harry and Malfoy. The final battle from Rowlings book has been removed completely. This seemed to give the characters more room to breathe: from the tortured Malfoy as he wrestles with his moral dilemma, to the ever-excellent Alan Rickman as Professor Snape. Dumbledore's relationship with Harry is allowed to pose questions it never answers - is Dumbledore using Harry as bait? Is he, like Voldemort, another adult using his power and influence to coerce a student into doing his bidding?

Like the work of Philip Pullman, there is a deep moral and spiritual core. At the beginning of the school term Dumbledore's brief and sombre message to the students warns them that evil is trying to infiltrate the school, and that it's chief weapon is the students themselves. That put me in mind of a question recently asked in our church 'is evil just the absence of good, or does it have a real existence?'. The answer here is both/and - Voldemort is real, but he works in and through people, some more willing than others. So Draco Malfoy wrestles with his conscience - if he kills Dumbledore his family will be saved, but his half-hearted efforts and knotted brow show that, however little he rates Dumbledore, he can't bring himself to kill. In fact Harry himself comes closest to crossing that line when he uses a mystery spell on Malfoy during a fight and - unwittingly - nearly kills him. Is ignorance an excuse? Is coercion? Is evil? Is anything? Discuss...

There are various religious hints too*, with a Moses-like parting of the waves (waves of fire in this case) to cross a cursed lake, and language seemingly lifted from CS Lewis about the need for the blood of a willing victim. Harry is, in pseudo-Messianic terms, repeatedly called 'the Chosen One', though being chosen is both a privelige and a burden. His final quest is to find and destroy the 7 pieces of Lord Voldemort's soul - with a strong and very clever visual hint late in the film that one of those is actually Harry. The repeated theme of sacrificial death to overcome evil (Harry's mother, Dumbledore) will become even more pronounced in the finale, as it finally intersects with the Chosen One himself.

With plenty of stunning scenery, and the teen angst angle played with much more subtlety than before, there's plenty to enjoy. In fact, add in a few Orcs and horses and you've nearly got Lord of the Rings Part 1, with a band of young but faithful friends, a mystery quest, an elderly wizard, black-clad forces of death, and Gollum's extended family in a spooky cave. But there's less snogging in Tolkien.

This is a cross-post from Touching Base, a regular column at the Wardman Wire.

*There was some Latin with the word 'Deus' carved on the birdcage, but I didn't catch the rest of it. If you happen to see the movie, let me know!

Deathly Hallows discussions

If you don't fancy trawling through the 10,000 or so comments on places like Mugglenet or Leaky Cauldron, there are other Potter discussions going on exploring the Christian allegory aspect of Deathly Hallows, and a whole bunch of other things too:

Harry Potter, Catholic Boy looks like it was posted a while ago, but is v helpful in getting into the symbolism of the books and what some of the Latin stuff really means. Lupin as St. Francis? Enlightening.

http://hogwartsprofessor.com/ has some pretty profound discussions going on, which get a bit beyond me once folk start talking about the parallels in Greek mythology, but plenty to chew on and respond to here.

Hollywood Jesus, who do a lot of good stuff on film and culture, posted this article after book 6 on Harry as a Christ figure, makes interesting reading in the light of book 7!

a thread from the 'sword of griffindor' blog explores whether HP experiences parallel temptations to those of Matthew 4. In fact, once people have drawn the conclusion that Rowling is a new Tolkien/Lewis they seem to see allegories of Jesus everywhere... There's also this article http://swordofgryffindor.com/2007/06/08/loving-lupin-dumbledore-harry-and-jesus/ which also looks at the Christian angle.

Is JK Rowling a Christian? is explored here. This blog, http://beholdaphoenix.blogspot.com/ is dedicated to Christian themes in Harry Potter and has links to similar sites elsewhere. The author posted on the site, 2 days before the book release, a speculation that HP would die and rise again. 10 points.

soon I'll just start posting about normal stuff again.

HP Source

Have just been emailed by someone asking me to stop mentioning H**** P****r as they've not finished the book yet. Apologies to people who's enjoyment my blog has ruined, can I ruin it some more? MORE SPOILERS FOLLOW, BEWARE!

Interesting to see that the Harry/Jesus/Aslan connection has been picked up in the discussion threads at Leaky Cauldron and the other main HP fan sites. Some of the tone seems to be 'couldn't Rowling think of a better way to wrap things up?', and maybe the fact one of the most creative and original storytellers of her generation falls back on the death/resurrection motif says that really, you can't top the old old story.

Another theme which has been buzzing around for me in the last day or two, of the absent saviour. For most of the book Harry is pursuing his own quest to destroy Voldemort in secret, hiding away for fear of discovery and capture. His absence creates space for others to step into leadership and to grow into their potential. One small group starts up a pirate radio station, another trio takes on the leadership of the resistance at Hogwarts. We see a significant stage in the growth of one character (Neville), who in book 1 is portrayed as a wimpy weakling, into someone who is strong, courageous, and a leader of others. He's got there through the encouragement of friends (Harry and co), and his own hard work at overcoming his weaknesses, as well as discovering what he is good at. By the end of the book, he is a professor at the school.

Lots of links there to how the disciples are challenged to keep faith with Jesus even when he wanders off, or does things they don't understand, and how God's people as a whole before, and after Jesus, face the challenge of keeping faith with a saviour who we don't see, but have to trust. We carry on doing his work, in the hope that he will return and complete the job. In the meantime, the very absence of the saviour creates space for God's people to grow into their full potential. 'You will bear much fruit, because I am going to the Father'.

Deathly Hallows 2

Tried and failed to get onto some of the discussion boards at the best known Harry Potter sites on the web, so here's a few reflections, now I've finished the book. They're fairly random, from unanswered questions to bits of the plot/Rowling worldview which struck me.

Plot spoilers follow.

1. Question: why is Snape's picture not on the wall in the headmasters study when Harry goes there at the end of the battle, given that he's a deceased Hogwarts headmaster?

2. Question: how does Griffindors sword end up in the Sorting Hat, given that it was last seen in possession of a goblin, or does it belong to the school and just magically turn up when it's needed.

3. Families valued: there are virtually no broken families in these books. There are orphans aplenty, or people in single parent families because parents have died, but I can't think of a single major character who is from a divorce or broken relationship. I don't know whether this is significant, given Rowlings experience as a single parent and her advocacy of support for single parent families.

4. Bruce Almighty: if you've seen this film, Bruce dies, goes to a white place, talks with God, gets sent back. Harry 'dies', goes to a white place, talks with Dumbledore, is given the choice to go back. Maybe the difference is the significant thing here, because all along in HP it's about the choices you make. Harry's choice first to die for his friends (which protects them) and then to go back to finish the job (which delivers them), are key.

5. Cross and resurrection: a hero offering his life to save others, or someone back from the grave (or near certain death) to save everyone, are such regular motifs in film, book and drama that we often hardly notice them, or the way they play on the Christian roots of our imaginations. I'm struggling, though, to think of a single piece of work which has both the substitutionary death and the 'resurrection' working together as they do in Deathly Hallows. Both of them are crucial to Deathly Hallows, just as they are crucial to the gospel - Jesus atoning death is not complete without his resurrection, which vindicates him, makes him Lord of all creation, and is a precursor to the same power of resurrection being at work among his followers.

6. Choice of tactics isn't always just about tactics: Harry faces a choice at one point between 2 ways of defeating Voldemort: one is the way he's been asked to take by Dumbledore, the other is a way he's uncovered, with clues left by Dumbledore, which would seem to make him invincible to death. In the end Harry chooses the path of obedience (and also the path with the greatest cost). Choice of tactics is also about obedience, integrity, and character - Harry's greatness is that he never seeks power for it's own sake, his focus is on doing what is good and right, not on accumulating weaponry to do what is good and right, but which itself will corrupt him. He gives up the Elder Wand at the end because he's not interested in power or greatness. Rowling makes the point in the book that it's those who have greatness or leadership thrust upon them, rather htan those who aspire to it, who are most suited to greatness. Not sure if that's always true - Churchill seemed determined to be great, and achieved it, but was also the right leader at the right time.

7. Friendship and community: Harry has recognised at the end that going it alone doesn't work - he leaves instructions with Neville to finish the job if he's not able to do it himself. Shades of Jesus commissioning Peter? He recognises that there has to be a team of 3, whether he is part of that team or not. Rowling never highlights it, but by the time all the Horcruxes are destroyed, Harry has only every destroyed one of them (Riddles diary), and even then didn't really know what he was doing. Every horcrux is destroyed by someone different - Dumbledore, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Crabbe (unintentionally - bit of a deus ex machina that bit), and Voldemort himself (if I understand the last bit right). On one level it's a solo quest, but actually it's a team effort.

8. Great magic: some cracking imaginitive stuff here. I particularly like the bit in Gringotts, the goblin bank, where to protect stuff from being stolen any treasure which is touched instantaneously multplies into dozens of worthless replicas and becomes scorching hot. Great parable on money there, though now that Rowling is worth millions, I wonder if she'd agree with her own prose. I guess it's more about the desire for treasure and what it does to you and your attitude to money, rather than having money per se.

9. Human behaviour - the sense of anticipation of people wanting to get the book and know how the series ends caught me up as well. I got my book at about 7am on Saturday and finished it last night. What's this all about? Something to do with secrets (witness the massive amounts of online speculation about the plot and what might happen) being revealed, something to do with wanting to be the first to know what's going on (aren't we all?), and something to do with the gripping nature of the novels themselves. The cliffhanger ending is a stock part of any serial, soap etc., all the more so a cliffhanger which leaves you waiting for 2 years.

10. Not in front of the children. My 4 1/2 year old wanted to know all about this book that Daddy was reading, and asked me to read her some of it. Given that someone dies, or is maimed, in just about every chapter (the wikepedia article on the book suggests something like 50-60 deaths), I searched in vain in the section I was in to find something that wasn't either too nasty, or too much about spells and wizards, to read to her. This is a different book, for a different audience, from book 1 - the writing has grown up with the audience, and this is more of a horror book in some places than a childrens fantasy adventure. It would be interesting to re-read the Narnia books, before I get too squeamish, to see how they compare for content and levels of violence.

11. Following on from the last posting on the book, the Bible quotations aren't followed up, though musing on 'where your treasure is, there will your heart be also' in the light of Harry and Voldemorts actions is, in some senses, the subtext for the finale of the book.

finally, clever way of closing the book, which takes us to an adult Harry and an intervening 19 years where nothing has happened, is a good way of shutting the door on any 'what's going to happen to him now' stuff.

if you read it, what did you think of it?

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Back to 'Deathly Hallows' in a post or two, meanwhile, time for a film review.

The director of 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' faced the unenviable task of condensing a massive book into a watchable film. At the same time given the almost unremitting grimness of the book, there was a need to keep at least a bit of humour, to make sure that the seam of humour in JK Rowlings juxtaposition of a wizards world right next to 'normal' society kept being mined.

In fact, the main problem in the film is that there are too many key characters. The cast list is now such a roll call of top drawer British actors, with new ones being added every film (Helena Bonham Carter and Imelda Staunton in this one, among others), that it's hard to give them all screen time. Characters such as Robbie Coltranes Hagrid, or Alan Rickmans fantastic Severus Snape, only get a couple of minutes each, sometimes in chapters which don't seem to move the plot forward much.

The biggest amount of screen time goes to the loathsome Dolores Umbridge, wonderfully played by Staunton, as a sadistic and legalistic teacher, imposed by the Ministry of Magic to bring Hogwarts into line. Otherwise, it's mainly about the children, and the good news is that they act well, and we're spared some of the more sentimental bits which spoiled the previous film. Stand out is the ethereal Luna Lovegood, a great bit of casting and playing.

The plot itself - if you don't already know it: Harry has seen the evil Voldemorts return (at the end of the last film) but nobody else has, so he spends most of the film trying to persuade a sceptical school/wizarding world that V is alive and active. At the same time he starts seeing into V's mind, but his mentor, Dumbledore, seems to be avoiding him. The first chink of light is the formation of 'Dumbledores Army', a group of students who recruit Harry as their teacher in Defense against the Dark Arts, as the school curriculum has been changed so that they no longer learn anything of practical value. Some of the Army accompany Harry on his main mission in the book - to find and save his godfather Sirius in the depths of the Ministry of Magic. Cue battles, lots of stuff breaking, a big showdown between Voldemort and Dumbledore, and the death of Harry's last family member, Sirius.

The films, as everyone says, have been getting progressively 'darker'. They are no longer stories about children playing and the wonder of discovery, tainted by the shadow of darker things. The absence of any Quidditch games is symptomatic of the transition to High School angst, and the discovery of the harshness of the adult world. Playtime is over. Harry, having seen death, now has new insights, but also new burdens. The student who seems to offer most understanding is Luna, who's also witnessed death - 'we comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have recieved'. He also feels betrayed by the adults: Dumbledore seems not to care, Hagrid is absent without explanation, and Umbridge seems to delight in making him suffer for 'lying' even though he's telling the truth.

One question the film raises is: how much truth can we bear to hear? Dumbledore claims he is trying to shield Harry, and Harry's insights into V's mind, through which he saves a life, eventually put him and his friends in great danger. As Umbridge is being taken off to her come-uppance by the centaurs, she calls to Harry 'tell them I mean no harm', and he responds, in the words of the lines she has made him write (into his own skin) 'I must not tell lies'.

How much a young person can be burdened with, and how much they need to be trusted, is a fine line which is walked all the way through the Potter series. In our own society, it's a big issue too: our young people are peppered with war, violence, pornography, messages about their bodies and appearance, the full weight of adult capitalist society bearing down on them - how do we support their struggle to tell the truth, to have integrity, to be loyal to friends, to take risks out of the courageous pursuit of great goods rather than simply out of boredom.

2 more films to go, though how they're going to make Deathly Hallows into anything less than a 4 hour epic I have no idea.....

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

There, that title should ensure a few more hits.......

286 pages down, 320 or so to go, have taken a break because it's an exhausting book to read. So much seems to be happening, and in contrast to the mix of fun and peril in the early HP books, its pretty much all peril now we're in the finale. All sorts of things are being seeded in - Dumbledore, Harrys mentor and hero, is gradually having mysterious and questionable bits of character revealed, a sense that we're being softened up for something darker later on. Still no resolution of 'is Snape good or bad' yet, I guess that's waiting for the last section of the book, given that it was one of the major unanswered questions at the end of book 6.

2 things which have stuck out so far. First is a couple of Bible verses inscribed on gravestones, one on Harry's parents grave ('the last enemy to be destroyed is death') and one on the Dumbledore family grave ('where your treasure is, there will your heart be also'). Not only is it interesting to find anything religious from the 'real' world turning up in Potterworld, which has, up to this book (see below) studiously avoided anything representing real-world spirituality, but that the source is never mentioned. The words are there, but there's nothing in the text to tell you they come from the Bible, and I wonder how many readers will know that that's where they come from. Waiting to see with interest whether they are clues or significant bits of plot which come back later.....

But the gasp out loud moment so far is this, from page 89. Key to the plot of Deathly Hallows is that Lord Voldemort (the baddy) has split his soul into 7 pieces, called Horcruxes, so as to make himself immune to death - each Horcrux is well hidden and well protected, so that the likelihood of all 7 being destroyed is virtually nil.

Hermione: "It warns in this book how unstable you make the rest of your soul by ripping it, and that's just by making one Horcrux!"

"Isn't there any way of putting yourself back together?" Ron asked

"Yes", said Hermione, with a hollow smile "but it would be excuciatingly painful."

"Why? How do you do it?" asked Harry

"Remorse", said Hermione. "You've got to really feel what you've done. There's a footnote. Apparently the pain of it can destroy you. I can't see Voldemort attempting it, somehow, can you?"

Well, it riveted me anyway. Voldemort creates these 'horcruxes' by killing, but we know in reality that any act of sin rips the soul, and that repentance is the path to healing. The further down the path of evil you've gone, the harder it is to turn, but the way to be an integrated, whole, healed person again is, in part, remorse, though it can't stop at the feeling. I don't know if the choice of 'excruciatingly' in this passage is deliberate - if not, then I'm smiling to myself at how close Rowling is to understanding how redemption really works, through the cross.

However, judging by the quotes just before the start of the book, and other comments within it, Rowlings spirit world is more akin to ancient Greek paganism, and Greek thinking generally, with an immortal soul sheltered within a mortal body, which is released on death.

The spirituality of Potter is effectively the same as that of Star Wars: the force/magic is an impersonal power which can be used for good or ill, and what matters is how we choose to use it, and the decisions we make. The key characters even mirror one another: Vader/Voldemort, Dumbledore/Obi-Wan, Harry/Skywalker. In this world within each of us is a mixture of good and evil, there are mentors to guide us, but ultimately we are responsible for what we do or what we become. This is spelt out in no uncertain terms in the latest Harry Potter movie (saw it last night, review in the next couple of day) by Harry's godfather, Sirius Black. The internal good/bad mixture is getting a good workout in book 7 - already we are seeing the smudging of pretty much everyone's reputation - Dumbledore's is not as good as we thought, and the nasty Malfoy's are starting to have doubts over their choices too.

Oh yes, and I really do hope Snape turns out to be a good guy.........