I continue to read Harry Potter
I keep chipping away, one book each month, 25–50 pp. most days. I’m now reading book 5 of 7 (The Order of the Phoenix). What I like best is the satire of ambition. Children really could profit from this. Look, kid, don’t do like Guilderoy Lockhart. Don’t do like Lucius Malfoy. Or Cornelius Fudge. Or Percy Weasley. And so on. Voldemort isn’t even cool. Look what a pompous windbag he is at the end of book 4. Too many people reach adulthood not having absorbed these simple lessons.
Also, the books are so obviously Christian in spirit, it’s a mystery to me how anyone who’s read them could think the wizards – the good ones, anyway – were batting for Team Satan.
Although I have no desire to get caught up in the spinoffs, fan theories, fan fiction, etc., I did buy two “Harry Potter and philosophy” anthologies to read after I’ve finished the series. Let’s see if the philosophers get Harry Potter right or if they muck it up. I can’t say I’m looking forward to the chapters on metaphysics. How is it possible to apparate (levitate, time-travel, etc.)? How could someone be a man and a dog? How do potions work? So far, there isn’t much to go on in the texts. The really pressing question, for me, is what the Sorting Hat’s basis is for grouping people into these four character-trait clusters – whether these clusters are bogus like those of the Zodiac or whether they really exist (I suppose they could be stipulated to exist just in the world of the story, but that wouldn’t be very interesting); also, why people who belong to supposedly different trait clusters must inhabit different parts of the castle and ceaselessly compete against one another. The best justification I can come up with is based on the utility of some sort of Millian “experiment in living”; but the danger, here, is that the Slytherins will absorb or destroy the other groups no matter what. Anyway, it’s no surprise that so much has been written about the politics of Harry Potter. (The Wikipedia article I’ve just linked to doesn’t even mention the hilarious number of articles about Harry Potter in the National Review, whose writers seem obsessed with the topic.)
Also, the books are so obviously Christian in spirit, it’s a mystery to me how anyone who’s read them could think the wizards – the good ones, anyway – were batting for Team Satan.
Although I have no desire to get caught up in the spinoffs, fan theories, fan fiction, etc., I did buy two “Harry Potter and philosophy” anthologies to read after I’ve finished the series. Let’s see if the philosophers get Harry Potter right or if they muck it up. I can’t say I’m looking forward to the chapters on metaphysics. How is it possible to apparate (levitate, time-travel, etc.)? How could someone be a man and a dog? How do potions work? So far, there isn’t much to go on in the texts. The really pressing question, for me, is what the Sorting Hat’s basis is for grouping people into these four character-trait clusters – whether these clusters are bogus like those of the Zodiac or whether they really exist (I suppose they could be stipulated to exist just in the world of the story, but that wouldn’t be very interesting); also, why people who belong to supposedly different trait clusters must inhabit different parts of the castle and ceaselessly compete against one another. The best justification I can come up with is based on the utility of some sort of Millian “experiment in living”; but the danger, here, is that the Slytherins will absorb or destroy the other groups no matter what. Anyway, it’s no surprise that so much has been written about the politics of Harry Potter. (The Wikipedia article I’ve just linked to doesn’t even mention the hilarious number of articles about Harry Potter in the National Review, whose writers seem obsessed with the topic.)