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Originally Posted by EatingPie
Actually, I can answer the other question honestly. Prior to the final book, I felt that Harry wasn't really setting the best example as a heroic figure. It seemed to me his character faults (his general anger, his hatred of Malfoy) sometimes outweighed his virtues. But, then again, I could credit Rowling with creating a very realistic young boy! My view of Harry largely changed when he sat in the train with Neville and Luna and wanted to be there, which I think was one of my favorite moments in the whole series (along with Harry discussing Sirius' death with Luna).
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We'll, yes. I knew people reading the series partway through who wanted to slap Harry into next week for being an immature little jerk. But when they thought about it, it was realistic. Harry was a teenager, going through the angst and hormonal swings associated. He was in the process of growing up the hard way. For parts of the series, he
was an immature little jerk.
He certainly wasn't an example of a heroic figure. But then, heroes generally don't seek the role: they find it thrust upon them, and either rise to meet the challenge and become a hero, or fail and perhaps die. (And sometimes being a hero requires dying, which is another matter entirely.)
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I think what makes that a good point of discussion is that Harry shows both sides of humanity, and that's a great catalyst for a discussion. Sadly, we get hung up on the word "witch" for female wizards, and that's all she wrote. No discussion possible. I don't think this is endemic to Christianity in particular, but humanity as a whole. It's easier to view art purely from the surface, knee jerk reaction, rather than put the time and thought into truly exploring it.
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It is, and a good deal of the hysteria applied to the term "witch" seems misplaced. The textual genesis of it is mostly the Old Testament. But by the standards of the hysterics, a "witch" is a woman who sold her soul to Satan for power or other advantages. Some of the biblical proscriptions, like "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", likely date from
before Christianity, and from before Satan became accepted in Christianity as the Great Enemy of God. You have to ask what that phrase meant to those who coined it.
Yes, Harry shows both sides of humanity, but so do may others in literature and real life that aren't considered in any way "Christ like", and merely doing so is no evidence in literature of Christian theme. What I'm actually asking is how much the presence of Christian themes is necessary to your ability to appreciate the books. I can understand that finding evidence of such themes will make the book more acceptable if you belong to an evangelical sect that disapproves of them. But if you
didn't find such evidence, would that have made the books unacceptable?
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Dennis