Harry Potter and the Great Controversy

Harry Potter is a lightning rod book series. Some say it is harmless fun with an epic good vs evil tale. Others claim it is demonically inspired fiction that is sure to lead your child to hell. Growing up, Harry Potter was a book series I read and watched all the movies, the sixth was the worst. I will present my thoughts on the series and if I would recommend it for your library. 

Synopsis

Harry Potter is an unlucky boy. We meet him after he has lost his parents and is forced to live with his unpleasant uncle, aunt, and cousin. We are told that he will be famous in the wizarding world but he will have no clue since he is living with his nonmagical family. He grows up with his aunt and uncle being treated like a second-class citizen while his cousin is spoiled rotten. Eventually, he gets a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, a school of witchcraft and wizardry. His aunt and uncle refuse to let him see the letters until a half-giant called Hagrid, delivers the letter himself. Harry is then told the truth about his parents. They were murdered by an evil wizard called lord voldemort. He tried to kill Harry but it backfired on voldemort, killing him and leaving Harry with a lightning bolt scar. This begins Harry's many adventures in the wizarding world. Each year he faces a challenge that he attempts to overcome with his friends Ron and Hermione. Eventually voldemort returns, reigniting the old wizarding war, and setting up a final fight between Harry and voldemort.  

My background

I grew up when the books were published, being in seventh grade when the final was released. I attended the book releases with my friend and our mothers. I remember when my friend's mom ruined the end of the sixth book for everyone at the release. I watched all the movies and we would regularly attend the premiere nights. I still remember being afraid of looking at a water faucet after the second movie came out. I grew up being bathed in the Harry Potter hype. My aunt even said that I looked a bit like Harry. With that, I would say I am well-versed in the books and their lore. 

My Thoughts

To be upfront, I would not recommend this book and I do not plan to give this book to my children to read. 

I think there are some good aspects to the story. Harry is connected to the villain in an intimate way and has to wrestle with who he is. He realizes that love is stronger than evil and that it is better to build up than to tear down. The struggle plays out well and it is one that all of us have to face. I also like the ways that JK, the author, will set things up for a payoff later on. This does not apply to everything she sets up but the ones she does it is quite rewarding. The Harry Potter universe is not nearly as well thought out as the Lord of the Rings universe. 

Unfortunately, I have more concerns than I do praises. The first one I have is the arrogance, masked as self-sacrifice, that Harry possesses. He often breaks the rules to "save the day." This is something that I fell victim to. I often would look down on people in leadership and think that I had all the answers. I grew arrogant and looked to scheme as Harry did to accomplish what I thought was right. To combat this I had to pray for humility and God granted me those opportunities. 

The series can also foment anger between the reader and their superiors. The books often require the children to put themselves in peril because the adults themselves are blind to the danger until it is too late. This happens in the first book when Harry and his friends face great trials to save the sorcerer's stone. The adults they speak to dismiss the concern and so they keep to themselves and plot. This repeatedly happens throughout the books, especially in the fifth. In the fifth book, the adults are ignoring the return of voldemort. Harry is then forced to teach the other students how to protect themselves because the adults refuse to do so. The kids then embark on a perilous trip to save a prophecy from falling into the wrong hands. After these adventures, you are left thinking, "It is good that Harry did that, or else everything would have gone wrong." This can build resentment towards the adults in the story. This then bleeds over to how the reader views his own world. This view leads to arrogance and thinking that only you can know best, not the superiors that God has placed in your life. 

Finally, it is a book about witches and wizards. I do not want this to be the crux of the argument against these books because other books, Lord of the Rings, have witches or wizards. I did not see the problem with Harry Potter myself until I was teaching a religion class. During the class, I explained how witchcraft is forbidden in the Catholic Church. A student raised their hand and asked "So there are no good witches?" I then saw how these books, which are written for middle school to high school students, can cause students to form the wrong idea about witchcraft. It could lead to a bad curiosity as I talked about in my Coraline review. Also, some of the spells are completely evil, such as splitting your soul to preserve yourself at that point in time to cheat death later on. I had a friend tell me his family watched the first movie and it seemed like a good time. After explaining to him how dark they get, he reconsidered watching the rest of them. 

As I said, I do not recommend these books even though I grew up with them. If you want to have them, I would rate them as a PG-13/R book for your children. In my previous reasons, I did not even touch on the debate as to whether the spells are real, if demons were part of the writing, or if the demons' names were in the books. Some priests and exorcists claim these to be true. I have no experience with these phenomena and will leave it to those priests. 

What are your thoughts on the books? Did you read them? Would you recommend them?