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One Fine Potion – the literary magic of Harry Potter

Reviewed by Philip Joy.

Martin Luther once said that the most important factor for understanding the Bible was a knowledge of literature, by which he meant an acquaintance with a rich variety of literary conventions. It is my long held belief that the Harry Potter books, which I have read and followed avidly, along with their big-screen adaptations, are only rejected by Christians who do not really understand the conventions of story telling, who can’t see past Latin incantations to the story beneath. Greg Garret would agree with this, and his treatment of the entire Potter phenomenon breathes with the ebb and flow of fairy-tale conventions, and the distinguished British tradition of children’s writing (C S Lewis, J R R Tolkien, etc) which involve magic, a struggle against good and evil and a profoundly moral and sometimes explicitly Christian message. I must admit I began by feeling the blurb overstated when it claimed the Potter series possessed a “...deep abiding Christian faith animating the epic...” yet, by the end, I was ready to agree.

Little needs to be said regarding the immense following these books have received, although Garret begins by devoting a whole chapter to enlarging our awareness of this and the extent of the controversy surrounding J K Rowling and her work. He reminds us that the purpose of story is to allow us to locate ourselves in the moral sphere in relation to other individuals and to society, and his chapters proceed to outline the breadth of wisdom themes whose strands extend throughout the entire Harry Potter tale. I can only outline these - to detail each one would be to re-write the book - so I must trust that bells will start ringing as you read.

First there is the question of power amongst individuals and systems - its uses and abuses, which is explicitly stated by Quirrel in Book 1: “there is no good or evil, only power...”. Then there is the issue of community and its ability to shape the individual for good or ill - compassion and solidarity or hatred and division, whether in the Wizarding communities or the Muggle world, for both contain good and evil and both are inextricably entwined.

Then there is the question of choices - how it is these that define us, and not our history, whether we choose the path of self-sacrifice and love - particularly of outcasts such as Luna Lovegood, House Elves, etc. - or whether we choose the path of harming others, from merely ‘collecting’ them, to controlling, torturing and killing them.

What I like about Garret’s treatment of these issues is the way he highlights the complexity of human moral existence in the Potter world - how J.K. Rowling makes the heroes, not just the villains, subject to the temptations these themes throw up.

Wisdom goes further than this in the Harry Potter series, however, for explicitly Christian and indeed Gospel wisdom permeates the narrative. This goes deeper than simply calling Harry by the messianic epithet ‘chosen one.’ We see shapes such as sacrifice-death-resurrection-redemption in Harry’s life. We see an eschatological approach to redemption where Harry’s self-sacrifice enables the restoration of a better world where old school enemies like Draco Malfoy are reconciled, contradictory characters like Snape turn out to be “the bravest man I knew” and ‘weeds’ like Neville Longbottom achieve personal renewal and growth. We see substitutionary atonement in the final book. We recognize in Dumbledore a God-figure and observe Trinitarian behaviours among the three central characters - Ron, Hermione and Harry.

I admit that I found the Trinitarian bit a little far-fetched, but there is so much to agree with here, so much that resonates with our contemporary world, whether it is torture in Iraqi jails or racism from the Ku Klux Klan. Rowling’s personal Christian faith is a matter of public record, and, right down to the last words of Book 7, we are in a Christian-informed world: “all was well” with its echoes of Julian of Norwich. For the preacher, the parent and the fan, this is an analysis well worth buying, reading and discussing. Open up to the common literary conventions of magic stories and you will find not a gateway to the occult as many have dubbed it, but a masterpiece of children's writing and a treasure-trove of Christian moral and theological themes.