The Null Device

Harry Potter as Christian allegory?

A book titled The Hidden Key to Harry Potter claims that the Potter books are Christian literature in the Inkling tradition of Tolkien and C.S.Lewis, written to "baptise the imagination", and not the anti-Christian propaganda various religiots have been claiming them to be. The article points to a lot of Christian symbolism in the books (though how much of that is deliberate is another question; after all, the abovementioned religiots pointed to "symbols of evil" throughout the books). Interesting that it claims that Gilderoy Lockhart, the villainous charlatan, is modelled on the atheist author Philip Pullman; I wonder whether that was Rowling's intention or the interpretation of the author of the book. (via FmH)

There are 3 comments on "Harry Potter as Christian allegory?":

Posted by: Graham http://grudnuk.com/ Sun Jun 22 13:50:35 2003

Yeah, and there was a lot of Christian symbolism in _The Matrix_ as well. Big fucking whoopee.

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Sun Jun 22 14:10:26 2003

I was thinking today about the Lockhart/Pullman thing; if it is intentional, I wonder whether McPhail, the Scottish zealot who tries to hunt down Lyra in the His Dark Materials books, was Pullman returning the favour. Though that's probably a bit far-fetched.

Posted by: mark Mon Jun 23 04:49:00 2003

Hell, any story that includes an element of philosophy or fantasy is going to include some sort of Christian symbolism. It's infected the Western world to such an extent that what people think up as a way to add mystical elements (or whatever) to their stories will have some resemblance to what they were indoctrinated into thirty years earlier...