Harry Potter and His Controversies

Everyone has the fantasy that some day they will escape their horribly boring lives and their horridly unfair parents, as every child thinks their parents are unfair, to find a world of their own creating. A world where they are special, in control, and maybe, just maybe, they can be a hero. This is perhaps the biggest draw that people, young and old alike, have to the Harry Potter series.

The Harry Potter series was written by J.K. Rowling, the first book being released in 1997 while the seventh and last book was released in 2007. In that decade the books had been translated into sixty-seven languages and had sold over 400 million copies. It also quickly became one of the most controversial, and most often banned, book series in my lifetime (so far). It is also one of the few books I’ve encountered that incurs a very wide range of opinion. It has been both condemned and praised for everything from content to writing style. It’s been brought to court many times, as well as featured in conventions and local literary events.

The American Library Association states the reasons most people have for banning the Harry Potter books is for occult subject matter, religious viewpoint, violence, and anti-family content. However, other criticism has been made of the book series based on the quality of the writing. The most common criticism on the books have been plagiaristic qualities, sexism, nonsensical plot, lack of character development, and even on Harry Potter’s portrayal in general. That being said, Harry Potter has also been a favourite (or at least a well liked) book for many years. Many people have said that it has good character development, a brilliant plot, is well written, and is a mirror for our society. Taking into account that these opinions are completely contradicting, it is only safe to say that Harry Potter has had a big effect on our culture.

The most publicized flack the Harry Potter series has gotten is it’s featuring of witchcraft. Not only have many Christian groups been outspoken on this issue, but also Islamic (though strangely enough not Jewish). They claim that because the bible says that “thou shall not suffer a witch to live” and denounce working with devils and spirits as evil that this book series must also be. They say that children reading this book will be tempted and confused, making them become Satanists or Wiccans and therefore damning their souls. Some complainants go so far as to say that J.K. Rowling’s work is much worse that C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien because J.K. uses actual occult concepts like numerology, astrology, and clairvoyance. Ignoring the blatant religious intolerance involved in that claim, a rebuttal often used has been that nowhere in these books are demons or any type of spiritual being even mentioned with the usage of “magic” in the Harry Potter world. There is no spirituality or theory involved in Harry Potter’s wizarding world, just vague mythological references and pseudo-Latin. As to the subject of the occult subjects featured at Hogwarts, most of them are just mentioned in passing, none of which are actually explained in any great detail. Yes, if children were actually interested in such subjects they could research them but last time I checked the pseudo-mathematic belief that there is a relationship between numbers and physical objects and living things (numerology) or the belief that celestial bodies have an effect on our personalities and lives (astrology) had nothing at all to do with either demons or Gods.

Even J.K. Rowling herself has stated that she is a Christian and that she has no identification whatsoever with Wicca or Satanism. In fact, quite a few people have drawn parallels between the last Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows, and The Bible. A good example of that (spoiler alert) is Harry dying, meeting some sort of God-like figure, and then being reborn to go on and vanquish the evil. J.K. Rowling also commonly puts in what could be called Christian values; good triumphs over evil, treat others with kindness, and gaining courage to do what you know what is right even though the way may be difficult.
Although some criticize how the children are allowed to break rules, and lie and defy elders, for the most part all of the heroic characters are very moral. They only break the rules to save people’s lives or if rules were created by people who didn’t have their best interest in mind. There is a common theme of authority figures, in the form of the Ministry of Magic, being corrupt and destructive towards Hogwarts and the students there. Even quite a few teachers are portrayed in a slightly evil light, ironically usually those who teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. Some people might be afraid their children will rebel against teachers they didn’t like or even their own parents because of Harry Potter’s example. However, in the books there are adults who the children may dislike earlier on and then come to find that they are very admirable. Teenagers are going to rebel, that’s a given, but Harry Potter shows that one must be careful to make sure that the people you don’t like are actually bad people. The lines between good and bad are shown to be blurred and sometimes hard to recognize.

One of the greatest things about this book series is it grows up with the audience. In the first book, there is very little violence and no talk of relationships or really much of any adult issues. Harry Potter has a brush with the antagonist of the series, but it’s very short and not all that graphic. The fact that Harry’s parents are dead, and we learn they died in a not very pleasant way, isn’t cause for alarm when you take into account that many children have family members that have died. The abuse he suffers at the hand of his aunt and uncle is also startlingly common for kids, and it would be good for them to know that they aren’t the only ones going through that. In Star Wars, one of the most iconic movies of our parent’s generation, both of the main character’s parents “died” and we see the family he grew up with die too. The first movie is ahead in the inappropriate department already and we haven’t even gotten to the incest yet! The books later on in the Harry Potter series do get more graphic, and romantic relationships do develop, but fight scenes aren’t really described in my detail and displays of affection are limited to “snogging”. There isn’t any talk of STDs, drugs, or gang activity, so as far as graphic material it is kept pretty PG. As far as controversial material goes, many people may have a problem with Dumbledore being revealed as a gay character. However, this is NEVER talked about within the book. Very few adults are shown to be romantic in any way except for married couples, and there is no talk about sex at all. The only indication that Dumbledore is gay is a quote from J.K. from an interview saying “My truthful answer to you … I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. … Dumbledore fell in love with Gellert Grindelwald, and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was.” Besides that there is no proof he is gay, and there is no other gay character despite this being a boarding school with boy and girl dorms being kept separate. The fact that this school is filled with hormonal teenagers with little to no adult supervision; I am greatly surprised by the lack of any sort of mature behavior. This school must be filled with saints.

Parents aren’t the only ones unimpressed with this series, many critics and authors also have added their two cents. It is worth mention that at the beginning of the series Harry Potter was at a fifth grade reading level and by the end it had been put at a seventh grade reading level. This is about at the same level as The Prydain Chronicles, The Oz Books, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, The Earthsea Trilogy, The Chronicles of Narnia, Anne of Green Gables, the series of Tamora Pierce, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Little House Books, Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Lord of the Rings and many other books that were personally important to my childhood. Like most books in this age bracket, it is not overtly verbose, it’s easy to understand, and it isn’t the most developed book in the world. It left a lot unsaid, and it wasn’t overly detailed. The characters weren’t overly complicated, some would say they weren’t developed but others would definitely disagree. The fact is that they are iconic characters, of that there is no disagreement. They aren’t necessarily new characters, boy wizards are a dime a dozen (even British boy wizards with white owls), as are know it all girls, fraidy-cat best friends, school bullies, wise old men, and ultimate evils. Harry Potter has the occasional plot hole (Like why did Harry spend most of The Order of the Phoenix trying to find a way to contact Sirius when he had been given the two-way mirror for that exact purpose?) but a lot of books do. It has been known to have a few errors that had to either be corrected in later printings or ignored all together. This is pretty common for books though, editors just aren’t perfect.

As far as content that’s come under fire by critics, it’s most usually based on the characters themselves. Some claim that Harry Potter is sexist, basis for that claim being lack of female characters and the fact that a lot of people in power were male. While it’s true that many main characters were male; Harry Potter, the school bullies, teachers, the leaders of the baddies, and of course many of Harry Potter’s friends and classmates, there are quite a few female characters. Hermione is pretty much the smartest student in Hogwarts, although it does take her quite a while to be respected by Harry and Ron. For the first couple of books she is greatly made fun of and picked on, but later on she proves to be quite the bad ass. Professor McGonagall is second-in-command of the school, and the students often come to her for help. Other strong female characters include Fleur Delacour, Bellatrix Lestrange, Luna Lovegood, Narcissa Malfoy, and Nymphadora Tonks. Although strong male characters may outnumber them, that’s actually quite common in literature. It’s difficult to strike a perfect balance between strong female and male characters, especially when you have more important details to attend to (like plot). Also, we ourselves live in a patriarchal society so it is difficult to see fault in J.K. Rowling for making her imaginary world patriarchal as well. In fact, she even shortened her pen name to J.K. Rowling to appeal to more male readers.

Sexism isn’t the only thing Harry Potter’s been accused of. Some people have accused him of being a very two dimensional character. Some people have found him to be always right, without enough flaws, and to be either loved or hated with no one being neutral about him. Some have even gone so far as to call him a Mary Sue, (a slang term used by fanfiction writers to describe a character who is just a wish fulfillment of the writer). Of course, he is the hero of the story and a celebrity of the wizarding world, so it does make sense that he would be loved or hated by many. However, any writer will tell you that it is very important to make sure that your hero has flaws and can be questioned. This makes the character easier to identify with and to feel emotions for. It seems though, that this is not a problem for many people, since the book is popular and many have been known to get (even overly) emotionally involved in the books.

As I mentioned earlier, Harry Potter has been brought to court quite a few times. A few of those have been on the bases of plagiarism. One was brought up by an author named Nancy Stouffer who has written such books as “The Legend of Rah and the Muggles” and “Larry Potter and his best Friend Lilly”, both of which being written in the ‘80s. However, this was soon dropped because some paperwork had been found faulty. After that, Adrian Jacobs claimed that J.K. had stolen from his book (also written in the ‘80s) “The Adventures of Willy the Wizard: No 1 Livid Land”. He stated that both books included subject matter on wizard contests, wizard prisons, wizard hospitals, and wizard schools. However, many books include such subject matter including Ursula K LeGuin’s Earthsea Trilogy (featuring an extremely gifted boy going to a school for wizardry and then going on a quest of self discovery and vanquishing the ultimate evil who has a strange connection to himself), and Neil Gaiman’s Books of Magic (in which a young British boy finds out that magic really does exist and he himself is a gifted wizard who is fated to save the world from another ultimate evil). Boy wizards are definitely no new concept.

Harry Potter encompasses many genres including fantasy, a coming of age story, boy wizard, and British boarding school. It has themes of death, good vs. evil, prejudice, oppression, education reform, class distinction, child abuse, and friendship. It is full of references to many myths and stories both old and new. It may not be the best piece of literature in existence, but for many years it has been one of the most talked about. I’m sure it will be talked about, and frowned upon for many years to follow.

ALA's Top Banned Books Summer Read

Earlier this year, I stumbled upon the American Library Association's list of the 100 most banned and challenged books of 2000-2009. I quickly decided to make this my summer reading list, as I usually take the opportunity in warmer weather to sit outside and read my little heart out. Earlier today I realized that I should invite others into the fun when a facebook status about one of the books on the list prompted a discussion. I realized that although reading these books would be fun, reading them with others and being able to talk about them would be much more entertaining. I quickly jumped onto the ball and created a facebook event and group asking people to read these books with me and setting up discussions for them.
The plan is to go down the list of books and have a discussion about each one. After the discussion I'll post a new blog about the ideas and opinions we've shared. This will bring a kind of conclusion to each book. Hopefully we'll be able to get a lot of people to join in, to get opinions from different age groups, genders, and backgrounds and all of us learn more about censorship.

Links:
The book list
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedbydecade/2000_2009/index.cfm

Event
http://www.facebook.com/DiDiDia?v=wall&story_fbid=125581684121975#!/event.php?eid=120610661300600#wall_posts

Group
http://www.facebook.com/DiDiDia?v=wall&story_fbid=125581684121975#!/group.php?gid=119333881423181&ref=ts

Please feel free to join the fun!