Harry Potter - a Christian morality tale? (SPOILERS)

[DinoDoc]

It'd be cooler if he said Potter was an incarnation of Vishnu.

[Wiglaf]

Harrry potter lol

[Traianvs]

More Potter threads? :hmm:

[Nikolai]

Yeah, they're popping up everywhere. Interesting, most of them.

[Elok]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
No, not really. We're a Christian culture. Even with that aside, the myth of the hero who dies for others and comes back to life is old and present in many cultures. One could as easily argue that HP is playing out the role of Quetzalcoatl in Mesoamerican myth.

No, one couldn't, because almost nobody in our culture knows anything about Quetzalcoatl. There's no indication that JKR does, and there's no particular affinity between HP and Q other than the universal theme of death and resurrection. If she were trying to reference Quetzalcoatl (the feathered serpent), she wouldn't have made Harry's enemy a huge fan of snakes, and snakes a general symbol of evil. There are also no obsidian mirrors, and Harry was never tricked into incest.

Most importantly, there's no ritual human sacrifice to prevent the sun from dying, or whatever it was the Aztecs believed. The morality and metaphysics at work in HP's universe is distinctly Christian; look at Voldemort's soul mutilated by evil, at the way Voldemort fails to understand the attributes of the good side. Voldemort is an originally brilliant, fallen being terribly weakened by the same process he believes strengthened him. Then there's the pre-eminence of love over all powers. Yadda yadda yadda.

As to owing more to Tolkien and Lewis...I hope nobody's silly enough to claim THOSE weren't blatant pieces of Christian symbolism. I doubt JKR set out to make HP an allegory of any sort, and it's not as strong as in, say, Narnia, but the influence is clear to me.

[Kuciwalker]

I think the influence is passive - these are symbols that the target audience recognize and interpret correctly, almost like conventions - rather than deliberate.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Yes, I know this was on page three and headed to oblivion, but i just finished the book and had to, um, resurrect it.

Just by coincidence, the last novel I (re-)read before Deathly Hallows was The Last Temptation of Christ. And it occurs to me that, far from being a Christ figure, Harry actually gives in to the Last Temptation that Christ resists in Kazantzakis' novel: he chooses life over death, domestic bliss over sacrifice, earthly comfort over martyrdom. I think it would be hilarious if Rowling was making a deliberate reference there.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
It'd be cooler if he said Potter was an incarnation of Vishnu.

"mecha-shiva mecha-shiva!"

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by aneeshm
I missed another glaring obvious part: the Resurrection.

Just like Christ, Harry dies, and comes back to life.

Just like Osiris and Achilles and Herakles. All died, then all come back to life.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Whoha


"mecha-shiva mecha-shiva!"

[snoopy369]

I would actually say the Jesus tale fits the older archetypes. Aneeshm, if you haven't studied literature in depth (no idea) you might not have come across this (or perhaps it's not as prevalent in Indian literature, which has had a much longer monoculturual history as compared to the west's constantly changing cultures for shorter periods).

Archetypes = common threads in plot or character that link stories, myths, legends across cultural boundaries and time. Tied in to Jung's collective unconscious, some argue that the archetypes come from said collective unconscious - ie, they're sort of in our genes, in a way (but with pysch terms). In any event, archetypes are easily seen in most epic stories or legends.

The most obvious, and easy, example, is "Star Wars". Luke = hero archetype, goes through certain stages in his life that are consistent with most heroes in most epics (not to be confused with tragic heroes like Tristan [& Isolde]). Hans = rogue archetype, not entirely clear if he's good or not but in the end helps out the good guy. Leia = lady in distress, etc.

http://www.spookybug.com/origins/myth.html explains this fairly well, and talks about Joseph Campbell whose work on mythology is, well, mythic, and invented a lot of this terminology (using a lot of Jung's psychology).

Anyhow, point is that if HP is following this, then it's really to be expected... the "myth" of Jesus followed the same lines as thousands - millions - of other stories before and after him. Whether he was or was not the Son of God, the story we wrote about him followed this pattern because it's programmed into our brains... or our collective unconscious ... or just because we're all untalented hacks when it comes down to it

[Kuciwalker]

Snoopy is on the money.

[Nikolai]

You might be right snoop, but have you ever thought of the possibility that Jesus might the the archetype everything else has been built upon? Since he created this world and the life he lived on Earth was planned for since before the world began, there are a slight possibility of that. If you believe what I believe, that is.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Nikolai
You might be right snoop, but have you ever thought of the possibility that Jesus might the the archetype everything else has been built upon ?

Unlikely if the Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Greeks flourished before the Hebrews and the beginning of Christianity.

The similarities between the Jesus 'myth' and the story of Baldur have been pointed out by others too, and other cultures unconnected with the Mediterranean have gods or demigods or heroes sacrificing themselves.

Which would seem to indicate that the heroic feat of offering oneself for the good of the community would seem to be a common archetype the world over.

The sacrifice need not always involve death either- Odin can lose an eye, Teiresias can be omnisexual, prophets and seers lose their natural sight for precognition or insight...

[snoopy369]

As I said, Nikolai, the Jesus story was most certainly based around archetypes that predated Jesus. Whether that is because we as humans fit Jesus' life into the archetypes because it was the natural thing to do, or some other explanation, it is clearly true nonetheless.