Category Archives: Harry Potter

Sep 20 2008 2 comments

Gordon Brown and the £1 million donation

brown-rowling-£1m-donationJK Rowling, millionairess author of the Harry Potter books, has given Gordon Brown his one piece of good news in weeks: she has donated £1 million to the Labour Party.

And her reasons for this? Because Labour has, she claims, “reversed the long-term trend in child poverty, and is one of the leading EU countries in combating child poverty.” Yet that’s actually a load of complete bollocks:

Gordon Brown’s flagship anti-poverty campaign [has] received a triple blow… with news that a rise in both child and pensioner poverty had left Britain a more unequal country than when Labour came to power in 1997…

The IFS said inequality in Britain was equal to its highest level since figures were available in 1961. (The Guardian)

And because she opposes the Conservative proposals of tax breaks for married couples, ignoring the reasons for this to encourage couples to stay together where possible, rather than to financially reward them for breaking up.

JK Rowling has shown that even though she is a very good fantasy writer, she obviously hasn’t paid any attention to reality. In her fantasy world, Labour has ended poverty. In the real world, it’s worse than ever.

I’m not bothered by her donation - £1m isn’t much of either her fortune or anywhere near enough to help the financially-stricken Labour Party - but because of her fallacious reasoning. If she had really wanted to help end child poverty, she would have given her money to charity rather than the Labour Party, who have patently failed to do anything about it, even after eleven years.

A Facebook group has been set up by Tory Bear encouraging a boycott of her work. Even though I have purchased her work, I won’t be purchasing any more.

Click image for a larger version.

Gordon Brown, Harry Potter, Party Funding
Jan 16 2008 2 comments

Harry Potter and the Condemnation of the Vatican

The Vatican has condemned the Harry Potter books by JK Rowling because in the books “witchcraft is proposed as a positive ideal” and claim that Harry himself is “the wrong kind of hero.” The author says that the seven-book series has an “inverted and confused spirituality: a world where bad is good” and that they are characterised by a “vague, new-age philosophy.”

What a load of utter bollocks.

The Harry Potter books are no more characterised by a “vague, new-age philosophy” than any other fantasy series. It is a fictional belief system set inside a fictional world - and far less anti-Christian than a great many other fantasy series can be seen to be. Nowhere in any of the Harry Potter books is any god mentioned, and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry follows the traditional Christian-derived school term structure, with holidays at Christmas and Easter.

It is a fictional series set inside the fantasy genre. It is based on the traditional setting of that genre - good vs evil. Apart from the fact that the heroes use magic to save the world, there is absolutely nothing to set it apart from moral Christian teachings. That is what the Vatican should be focusing on - the parts with which it agrees, rather than the parts with which is disagrees, like the previous Pope had been.

Frankly, by picking on the Harry Potter books, the Vatican is creating a problem out of thin air. By demonstrating such a vehement dislike of them, it is shooting itself in the foot with young people - those who the series is aimed at - and predisposing them to disagree with the Catholic Church in particular, and the Christian faith in general.

Harry Potter, Religion
Oct 27 2007 1 comments

Is Harry Potter A Left-Winger?

Or so claims a French philosopher. Jean-Claude Milner says:

It must be said from the start that Harry Potter is deeply political and that the books speak of today’s England…
Reading it, one can see that J.K. Rowling — like many cultured English people — believes there was a real Thatcherite revolution, that it was a disaster, and that culture’s only chance is to survive as an occult science….
Harry’s uncle and aunt – Muggles par excellence – live like heroes of Margaret Thatcher’s world, in a neat little estate where all the houses are identical…
One can equally say that modern England is a world where the Muggles have indeed taken power, first with Margaret Thatcher and then with Tony Blair – a world where the omnipotence of the middle class is given free rein…
So we have on one side the Muggles, where oppression means power over things; and on the other hand Hogwarts, where knowledge enables one to resist the materialism of the Muggles — but also opens the way to power over people…

What a load of complete and utter bollocks.

I can also point out that Harry spends most of his time constantly breaking the rules of the school, about a clear allusion to the State as that Harry’s aunt is named Marge means that she is a reference to Margaret Thatcher, means that he - and thus Rowling - is opposed to the large centralised State that socialists so desire. Especially when this is added to by the absolute ineffectiveness of the Ministry of Magic, with an incompetent Minister, who yet is convinced of the correctness of his own opinion. Also, add in the constant references to the free-market, through the Weasley twins, and the way that the rule-fanatic Hermione becomes less and less straight-laced about obeying the rules throughout the seven books. Thus I can conclude that Harry Potter is in fact a right-winger.

Yet all of that is utter rubbish. My paragraph as well as the passage by Jean-Claude Milner. Harry Potter is a fictional character, the Harry Potter books are a fictional series. They are set inside a fictional world. And, most importantly, they are written primarily for children. They are no more politically motivated than any fiction series. They all follow the same basic patterns, with any political motivation of the author absolutely subsumed by the necessities of telling the story.

You can read anything you like into most fiction books. For example, now that it has been revealed that Dumbledore is gay, there is bound to be people who will read entire levels of gay sub-text into it. You can read anything you like into these sorts of books if you cherry-pick the bits and pieces which support your hypothesis. Harry Potter is neither a left-winger or a right-winger - or at all political. You can only possibly read these things into most fiction books, especially those primarily aimed at children, with much effort and by ignoring anything which does not support your hypothesis.

Harry Potter is not “deeply political”, but absolutely a-political.

Source: The Telegraph

Harry Potter, Politics
Oct 20 2007 2 comments

Fictional Character Outed As Gay Shocker

[T]here’s no limit to what gay and lesbian people can do, even being a wizard headmaster.

So say gay rights group Stonewall, after JK Rowling opens Professor Dumbledore’s closet and outs him as gay.

You do just have the wonder whether Stonewall actually thought that sentence through. After all, the Harry Potter books in which Dumbledore features is fiction. That means it is not real. I just get the feeling that they pulled out a stock press release and just added the profession in, and then neglected to read it through.

In the same article, Peter Tatchell is quoted as saying

I am disappointed that she did not make Dumbledore’s sexuality explicit in the Harry Potter book. Making it obvious would have sent a much more powerful message of understanding and acceptance.

It is a children’s book, and one in which sexuality is hardly fully explored. The nearest any of the characters get to sex is a few kisses. I hardly think that the sort of “explicit” addressing of Dumbledore’s sexuality that Tatchell wanted would have added anything to the series or, indeed, been particularly appropriate. To do this would have added an entirely unnecessary dimension to the books.

I can’t see that it really makes any difference that Rowling has outed Dumbledore as gay. It doesn’t change the story at all, or make the slightest bit of difference to the context. So why all the fuss?

via John Moorcraft
Source: BBC

Harry Potter, Sexuality
Jul 21 2007 0 comments

I wonder - has Gordon Brown been reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows today, like he said he would back at the end of May?

I’ve said what I thought of it - will we get to hear what Gordo thinks?

[Also, the number of visits since my last post on this has been phenomenal! More than 500 in less than two hours!]

Gordon Brown, Harry Potter
Jul 21 2007 2 comments

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Today was the day that the seventh, and final, Harry Potter book was published. One thing I did not do was queue to get the book - I went on my way back from the pub last night instead. There has been a lot of hype over almost all of the seven books, so is it possible for them to live up to it? Not really.

Some claim that the Harry Potter books are “children’s books” and look down their noses at any adult who reads it. But they’re wrong. Whilst it would be wrong to claim that they were great literature, they are good, readable, interesting, and engaging reads. They are certainly great stories, and were they not then they would not have generated the hype that they have.

Looking down on them, and their readers, shows a remarkable lack of thought. Reading is a good thing for people of all ages - it stretches and engages the mind, exercises the imagination, and is certainly a far superior leisure activity than watching the TV. A good book can be read anywhere, at any time, and requires nothing but you to work.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was a book extremely well hyped beforehand. The publishing date has been known for months, as has the cover designs. Shops, and especially supermarkets, have been competing for who can sell it cheapest. And we have known for a long time that various major characters would die - all adding to the hype. And does it match the hype? Yes, and no.

It was, as all the HP books have been, an engaging and entertaining read. But whilst some sections were stretched out, others seemed uncomfortably cramped in the space they were given. Several sections needed expanding to explain the characters reasoning’s and why such and such a thing was relevant. However, that is a peril of fantasy writing - when you introduce a new concept and background history to your readers, you have to explain it. What are the “Deathly Hallows”, for example? One of J. K. Rowling’s failing as an author in my mind is to not explain this sort of thing all that well considering it’s relevance to the story plot - a failing that is visible in all seven books, but not such a huge one, really.

I liked Book 7. I felt that there were bits that needed more explanation and description, but as the book is already 600 pages long, to an extent it is understandable. In the same vein, I would have liked to see more narrative that wasn’t focused directly on Harry, but more on the others around him. However, these are all relatively minor quibbles. Deathly Hallows is a good read and a nice end to the series, finished as it was in a way that means that Rowling can thus refuse to write any more Harry Potter books. And as much as I like them, that’s a good thing.

Harry Potter