is harry potter good for the world

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1 Is Harry Potter Good for the World? Perhaps no other work of fiction in the last century -- and arguably in all of history -- has captured the hearts and minds of adults and children alike more than the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. “The Boy Who Lived” has shaped a generation of readers and defined the first part of the twenty-first century; but is this a good thing? The story of Harry Potter has been ingrained in the imaginations of millions of fans both young and old, but what is it leaving them with? What message does the series teach and what effect does it have? Is Harry Potter actually good for the world? I firmly believe the answer to this question is yes: the story of Harry Potter is indeed good for the world. In addition to the books’ central conflict of good versus evil, the reason for this lies in the story’s themes regarding the dangers of prejudice, the importance of our choices, and -- most importantly -- the defeat of death through sacrificial love. The Dragon in the Room Before jumping deeper into the reasons I believe Harry Potter is good for the world, I should first explain why the story isn’t bad for the world. To do this I must address a

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Is Harry Potter Good for the World?

Perhaps no other work of fiction in the last century -- and

arguably in all of history -- has captured the hearts and minds

of adults and children alike more than the Harry Potter series

by J.K. Rowling. “The Boy Who Lived” has shaped a generation of

readers and defined the first part of the twenty-first century;

but is this a good thing? The story of Harry Potter has been

ingrained in the imaginations of millions of fans both young and

old, but what is it leaving them with? What message does the

series teach and what effect does it have? Is Harry Potter

actually good for the world?

I firmly believe the answer to this question is yes: the

story of Harry Potter is indeed good for the world. In addition

to the books’ central conflict of good versus evil, the reason

for this lies in the story’s themes regarding the dangers of

prejudice, the importance of our choices, and -- most

importantly -- the defeat of death through sacrificial love.

The Dragon in the Room 

Before jumping deeper into the reasons I believe Harry 

Potter is good for the world, I should first explain why the

story isn’t bad for the world. To do this I must address a

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misconception regarding one of the central elements of the

series: magic. For many Christians, this issue has been what a

friend of mine has referred to as “the dragon in the room” (due

to the fantasy setting of the stories).

Some Christians stand strongly against the Harry Potter  

books because of its use of magic, since the Bible explicitly

condemns the use of witchcraft and sorcery. And while the series

does use those words to define what the young witches and

wizards learn at Hogwarts, the entire issue is grounded in a

misunderstanding of the terms magic and witchcraft.

Before addressing this misunderstanding, there is an issue

with the first book that should be cleared up. When arguing

against the magic of the series, Christians sometimes point to

the title of the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s

Stone, to make their point. The Bible condemns sorcery, and this

book has it in its title. However, the original title was not

Sorcerer’s Stone, but Philosopher’s Stone. Arthur Levine, the

American publisher, changed it from Philosopher to Sorcerer

because he thought no American children would want to read a

book with the word “philosophy” in it.

The misconception regarding the magic in these stories is

that it is the same as the magic in the real world. But while

biblical real-world magic and the fantasy magic used in Harry 

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Potter (as well as many other fantasies) use the same terms,

they are entirely different. Real-world magic centers on

communication with spirits, praying to them and summoning them

to do man’s bidding. This magic is invocational -- literally,

“to call in” -- and this is what Scripture forbids. An example

in the Bible of invocational magic is in 1 Samuel 28, where King

Saul meets with the witch of Endor and asks her to call up the

spirit of Samuel to speak with him. She obeys (and seems

surprised that it worked) and Samuel’s spirit converses with

Saul. The Bible is very clear that this kind of magic is evil.

In contrast, the fantasy magic of Harry Potter is

incantational, meaning in Latin, “to sing along with,” and has

nothing to do with invocational magic. Unlike invocational

magic, incantational magic does not exist -- it is just fantasy.

There is absolutely no invocational magic in Harry Potter .

Not even the villains use it. The magic of these stories is

purely incantational. A clear picture of this is in The

Magician’s Nephew , when the great lion Aslan sings the land of

Narnia into existence.

The magic in these stories is nothing to worry about. In

fact, the argument could be made that it is actually another

positive aspect of the series, as it speaks so strongly against

the materialist creed of our culture, which is that only what is

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material and measurable exists. The idea that there is more to

the world than what can be measured is incompatible at the core

with such a creed.

The Cosmic Battle

Christian children are taught from a very young age that

there is much more going on than what they can see. A great war

is being fought between the forces of good and evil, the

servants of God and the servants of the devil. The best stories,

arguably, are the ones that give us glimpses of this ultimate

battle that otherwise we may not notice but still understand

instinctively.

Does the story of Harry Potter portray this ultimate battle

between good and evil? The answer is yes, and it uses obvious

biblical symbols to do so.

The conflict in the Harry Potter novels largely hinges on

the Gryffindor/Slytherin divide, the two most prominent Houses

at Hogwarts. The Gryffindors are known for their bravery and are

symbolized by a red lion. The Slytherins, on the other hand, are

a bunch of racists whose House symbol is the serpent; they look

down on anyone who isn’t a “pure-blood.” Harry, the hero of the

series, comes from Gryffindor House, as does his mentor

Dumbledore, the great opponent of Voldemort and the only one the

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dark lord ever feared. Voldemort is not only from Slytherin

House, he’s the heir and descendant of Salazar Slytherin, the

House founder.

A lion versus a serpent -- sound familiar? In the Bible

Jesus is called the Lion of Judah, while Satan is portrayed as

the great serpent. Though not without flaws, Dumbledore is the

leader and champion of the Good in this war. Voldemort can

obviously be seen as a stand-in for the devil -- he has

serpentine features, he can speak to and control snakes, and he

is the master of a basilisk, a giant serpent, hidden deep under

Hogwarts.

The image in this story of a battle between the lion and

the serpent and their servants provides an insightful glimpse

into the cosmic battle being waged throughout the centuries in

the spiritual realm. As Perry Glazer of Baylor University

writes, “Children need more than a set of virtues to emulate,

values to choose, rules to obey, or even some higher form of

reasoning to attain. They long to be part of a cosmic struggle

between good and evil. And that’s why children want to read

Harry Potter.”

And not just children -- adults, too.

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Pride and Prejudice 

As a writer in a postmodern age, we can expect to see many

of today’s cultural battles being fought in Rowling’s books --

namely the battle with prejudice and racism.

The series is filled to the brim with prejudices, and

Rowling depicts for us just how dangerous and destructive they

are, not only in the form of Voldemort and his conquest, but

also among the good guys, who are not only victims of prejudice

but oppressors as well. But Rowling does more than simply show

us prejudice and its consequences -- she reveals it in

ourselves.

All the lingo concerning tolerance, open-mindedness and the

like can turn Christians completely off to postmodernism’s

concerns, largely because we are the ones often labeled as

“intolerant, narrow-minded, and judgmental.” But if we examine

the issue more deeply, we realize that their concerns, if not

right in most regards, are at least partially valid at the basic

level. We are just over a decade out of the twentieth century, a

time largely defined by prejudice and racism. The Nazis have

become the stereotype of absolute evil and it makes sense that

we should strive to be as unlike them as possible. While this is

obviously not the only reason for the postmodernist’s values

(the predominant belief in relativism plays a large part as

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well), I do think this is one reason for it. As a result,

prejudice in any form is viewed as the ultimate evil.

Harry is surrounded by prejudices in the wizarding world --

and even holds a few himself. The villain Voldemort seeks to

subject the muggles (non-magical people) to slavery, seeing them

as little more than animals. Racism abounds in the wizarding

world, with those of all-magical descent priding themselves on

being “pure-blood” while those with muggle parentage are

disdainfully referred to as “mudbloods.” Those of mixed ancestry

are known as “half-bloods.”

Besides the racism against muggles and witches and wizards

of mixed parentage, the wizarding race as a whole also looks

down on other magical races, viewing them as less intelligent

(even when this is not true). The house-elves are forced to be

slaves for wizards. In Order of the Phoenix , book five of the

series, Harry sees a fountain in the Ministry of Magic called

The Fountain of Magical Brethren, which portrays how wizard kind

sees other races: it depicts a house-elf, a goblin, and a

centaur staring up adoringly at a beautiful witch and wizard.

Harry mentally notes that a goblin and a centaur, at least,

would be very unlikely to gaze at a witch or wizard with such an

expression. The majority of the wizarding world, however,

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believes that they should be adored by the rest of the magical

world.

It’s not just the characters who are prejudiced though. In

every single book Rowling introduces us to characters, and we

naturally draw assumptions about them based on what they look

like and how they dress, talk, and act. Snape is the prime

example, as he looks like a stereotypical villain: hook-nosed,

greasy hair, always dressed in black, and always in a foul mood.

In the first book we, along with Harry and his friends,

naturally assume that he’s the bad guy, the one after the

Philosopher’s Stone hidden in the castle. But Rowling shows at

the end of the book that we are wrong: Snape is innocent. The

real culprit not only appears cowardly on the surface, he

teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts, a class meant to teach

students how to fight against Dark magic. When Harry realizes

this, the professor (named Quirrell) also reveals that he has

allowed Voldemort to share a body with him.

Snape, on the other hand, is not only innocent of the crime

we and Harry suspected him of, he actually did all he could to

protect the Stone from Quirrell and even saved Harry’s life

earlier in the story without him knowing.

Rowling repeats this process in almost every book -- she

makes us think something about someone, and then shows us that

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we have it completely backwards. No one is who they seem to be

in the world of Harry Potter. Surface appearances reveal next to

nothing of what the character is really like, yet we continue to

fall into her trap every time she sets it. We are the prejudiced

ones. We judge people based on their outward appearances and

know nothing of who he or she really is until it’s blatantly

obvious.

In warning her readers of the danger of prejudice, Rowling

not only reveals it in ourselves but also gives us the cure:

love. Prejudice grows from a lack of love. Harry had no love for

Snape -- in fact, he hated him until after Snape’s death. It is

only after this Harry learns that Snape had been in love with

his mother Lily since their childhood, and after her death had

lived his life to protect her son. Snape had sacrificed every

day of his life to keep his love’s son alive and safe, and

continued to do so even when every person alive was convinced he

was a traitor to Dumbledore and loyal to Voldemort. Years later,

Harry names one of his sons after him.

Dumbledore repeatedly pleads with the wizarding community

to put aside their prejudices and to love each other despite

their differences. His advice is tragically ignored by the most

of his listeners, but Rowling holds up love as the solution to

prejudice, an idea that should not be foreign to Christians.

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Jesus said that the world would know we are his disciples by our

love for one another (John 13:35).

Revealed by Our Choices

What is it that makes us who we are? Culture gives us an

answer: our appearance and our abilities. Who we are is defined

by what we look like and what we can do. The better you look and

the more you can contribute to society, the more you’re worth.

As Christians we know that this answer is not the right one

-- physical attributes are not what make us who we are. What,

then, is the alternative?

Harry’s mentor Dumbledore gives us the answer: “It is our

choices, Harry, that show who we truly are, far more than our

abilities.”1 Rowling repeatedly shows us in every book that it is

one’s choices that matter, not one’s abilities, looks, or

background. Her characters range from rich and poor, old and

young, slave and free, magical and non-magical, black and white;

and people from every group choose to join together against evil

while many also choose to join evil.

In creating characters from so many walks of life, Rowling

argues against the secular belief that our choices are

determined by our background and thus we are not truly

1 Chamber of Secrets, p. 333.

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responsible for them. Harry and Voldemort, the hero and villain

of the story, both come from very similar backgrounds. Both were

orphan and raised without love, often neglected, and in Harry’s

case possibly abused by his relatives, the Dursleys. If

background circumstances determine who we will become, Harry and

Voldemort should have ended up as very similar people. But this

could not be farther from the truth.

Voldemort, who was raised in an orphanage without ever

being loved, grew into a monstrous person who couldn’t

understand love and therefore hated it. He murdered without any

regard for his victims, using their deaths to create Horcruxes

to protect pieces of his soul so that he could be protected from

physical death, which he feared above all else.

Harry, though sharing much the same beginning as Voldemort,

became his opposite. Though he never felt love from the family

who raised him, he still chose to love, sacrificing himself over

and over again for his friends. According to Dumbledore, love

was Harry’s great power that Voldemort couldn’t understand and

that would enable him to defeat the Dark Lord. And in the end,

when Harry discovered that the only way for Voldemort to be

defeated was for himself to die, he followed through. Out of

sacrificial love for his friends he walked calmly into the arms

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of that which Voldemort feared, and in doing so he was finally

able to vanquish him.

Some might argue that because of the prophecy implicitly

naming Harry as the one who could defeat Voldemort, he really

didn’t have a choice. Though raised in similar circumstances to

Voldemort, Harry was also born with the prophecy hanging over

his shoulders, saying that he would have a “power the Dark Lord

knows not” and that “either must die at the hands of the other

for neither can live while the other survives.” Because of the

prophecy, it seems that Harry really had no choice but to

confront Voldemort -- it had to happen. It was his destiny. His

choices had no relevance in the predetermined outcome.

This is a view that Harry himself held for a while,

believing that he had no choice in the matter. After learning

about the Horcruxes and voicing this belief, Dumbledore explains

to him the difference. Because of Voldemort’s obsession with the

prophecy, he will stop at nothing to kill Harry, the only one

who supposedly has the power to defeat him. As a result, it is

almost certain that one of them will end up having to vanquish

the other, but not because of the prophecy . It is because

Voldemort had chosen to act upon it and had marked Harry “as his

equal” the night he tried to kill him as a baby, unwittingly

pouring his own powers into the infant. Neither of them were

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forced to do anything, but because of Voldemort’s actions, he

made Harry the only person who could defeat him, and so he will

stop at nothing to destroy this threat. Harry’s choice matters,

then, in deciding how to meet this destiny.

He understood at last what Dumbledore had been

trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference

between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to

the death and walking into the arena with your head held

high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was

little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore

knew -- and so do I, thought Harry with a rush of fierce

pride, and so did my parents -- that there was all the

difference in the world.2 

Though Harry does indeed have a destiny, it is his choices

that will determine how it will play out, whether it will be

realized in his victory or defeat. One of the reasons I think

Harry’s story is so popular is because deep down people know

that they too have a destiny that their own choices are moving

them toward. We all have a part to play in the Story.

2  Half-Blood Prince, p. 512.

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We live vicariously through the characters we read about,

and as Harry learns how to choose right when faced, as

Dumbledore says, “with a choice between what is right and what

is easy”3 we learn as well. As John Granger writes in his book

How Harry Cast His Spell, “By reading these books and

identifying with the hero’s good choices, readers get a boost

via their imaginations to do the right thing in difficult

circumstances themselves.”4 

While we all have an ultimate destiny, it is still our

responsibility to choose what is right over what is easy. Though

another man’s actions have locked Harry into a kill-or-be-killed

relationship, it is his own choice how to confront situation,

and that, he believes, makes all the difference in the world.

Love’s Triumph over Death

As I have already hinted, the Harry Potter stories revolve

around death. They begin with a double murder and death is never

far from sight. Rowling says as much in an interview: “In fact,

death and bereavement and what death means, I would say, is one

of the central themes in all seven books.”5 When Harry visits his

3 Goblet of Fire, p. 724.

4  How Harry Cast His Spell, p. 90.

5Malcolm Jones, “Harry ’s H ot,” Newsweek (July 17, 2000) : 56 and David B. Caruso, “Harry Po tter Case Illu strates Blurry

Line in Copyright Law,” Associated Press (April 19, 2008). Qtd in John Granger, How Harry Cast His Spell , p. 63-64.

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parents’ grave, he finds an inscription on the headstone that

reads, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” This

line is a quotation from 1 Corinthians 15:26, and Rowling says

that it, along with another Bible passage (“Where your treasure

is, there will your heart be also”6 written on the Dumbledore

family tomb) basically sum up the entire series.

Every book develops this theme. Throughout the series

Rowling teaches us not only about the nature of death, but also

that it is not the end, that there are things much worse than

physical death, and that ultimately, death is conquered by

sacrificial love.

In Order of the Phoenix , Harry and his friends travel to

the Ministry of Magic to save his godfather Sirius, who Harry

believes is being tortured by Voldemort. The rescue mission is a

disaster, resulting in Sirius’s death, but while they are in the

Department of Mysteries, Harry and his friends find a room

called the Death Chamber. In the middle of the room is an arch

with a curtain hanging from it, and Harry and Luna are sure that

they can hear voices coming from “the other side” of the

curtain, even though when they walk around the veil to look

there is no one there.

6Matthew 6:21

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After they’ve returned to Hogwarts and Harry is reeling

from his godfather’s death, he meets Luna in one of the

corridors. During their conversation, she tells Harry about her

mother’s death, but then adds that “it’s not as though I’ll

never see Mum again, is it?”

Harry questions this, to which Luna responds,

“Oh, come on. You heard them, just behind the veil,

didn’t you?”

“You mean ...”

“In that room with the archway. They were just

lurking out of sight, that’s all. You heard them.”

They looked at each other. Luna was smiling

slightly. Harry did not know what to say, or to think.

Luna believed so many extraordinary things ... yet he had

been sure that he had heard voices behind the veil

too....7 

Harry remains uncertain concerning life after death until

he kneels in front of his parents’ grave nearly two years later

and reads the words written on the stone.

7 Order of the Phoenix, p. 863.

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Harry read the words slowly, as though he would have

only one chance to take in their meaning, and he read the

last of them aloud.

“‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death’

...” A horrible thought came to him, and with it a kind

of panic. “Isn’t that a Death Eater idea? Why is that

there?”

“It doesn’t mean defeating death in the way the

Death Eaters mean it, Harry,” said Hermione, her voice

gentle. “It means ... you know ... living beyond death.

Living after death.”

But they were not living, thought Harry: They were

gone. The empty words could not disguise the fact that

his parents’ moldering remains lay beneath snow and

stone, indifferent, unknowing.8 

Harry reads the Bible quotation and dismisses it as “empty

words.” The evidence he’d seen in the Death Chamber of a life

after death is forgotten, and he continues to hold this belief

until he is walking to his own death a few months later. There

in the forest he is at last able to get to the Resurrection

8  Deathly Hallows, p. 328.

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Stone -- a mythical object with the power to bring loved ones

supposedly back from the dead -- hidden inside the Snitch.

And again Harry understood without having to think.

It did not matter about bringing them back, for he was

about to join them. He was not really fetching them: They

were fetching him.9 

He uses the Stone and at once he sees his father, mother,

godfather, and favorite teacher, all dead, standing around him

and smiling. They are “neither ghost nor truly flesh.... Less

substantial than living bodies, but much more than ghosts” and

Harry understands that they were not really gone, at least not

in the way he had believed. Though dead, they were still alive,

and as Harry moves closer to his own death, they feel more real

to him than his still-living friends he left at the castle.

When at last Harry confronts Voldemort and willingly dies,

he “wakes up” in a place that seems to him like King’s Cross

station, where he meets his late mentor Dumbledore, and Harry

learns beyond the shadow of a doubt that death is not the end.

Dumbledore tells Harry that if he so desired, he could “board a

train” from King’s Cross that would take him “on.” Harry instead

9  Deathly Hallows,  p. 698.

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chooses to return to the world of the living to defeat Voldemort

once and for all.

Voldemort feared death. His entire identity was wrapped in

his desire to escape death. His name is French for “flight from

death” and he tells his followers (called Death Eaters), “You

know my goal -- to conquer death.”10 He sought to make himself

immortal by creating Horcruxes, objects in which he could

conceal a part of his soul. To do this, he had to tear his soul

apart so as to separate part of it from his body, and the only

way to do this was by murder. Voldemort, by seeking to escape

death, became an instrument of death so that he wouldn’t have to

die. Even if his body was destroyed (which is what happened when

he tried to kill Harry as a baby) he would continue to survive

as a spirit-like being as long as his Horcruxes survived.

The word “Horcrux” means “horrible cross.” Rowling’s point,

I think, is that Voldemort put his trust in these objects to

defeat death, rather than in the Cross that was the real

instrument of death’s defeat. During the duel with Dumbledore in

Order of the Phoenix , Voldemort shouts, “There is nothing worse

than death, Dumbledore!” Dumbledore replies that he is wrong.

10 Goblet of Fire, p. 653.

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“Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much

worse than death has always been your greatest weakness.”11 

What is worse than death? Rowling, through Dumbledore,

tells us that what is worse than death is an absence of love:

“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all,

those who live without love.”12 Love has the power to conquer

death, and it is the power that Harry possesses that “the Dark

Lord knows not.”

“There is a room in the Department of Mysteries,”

interrupted Dumbledore, “that is kept locked at all

times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful

and more terrible than death, than human intelligence,

than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most

mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside

there. It is the power held within that room that you

possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at

all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That

power also saved you from possession by Voldemort,

because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of

the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that

11 Order of the Phoenix, p. 814.

12  Deathly Hallows, p. 722.

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you could not close your mind. It was your heart that

saved you.”13 

Earlier that night, Voldemort had tried to possess Harry

and felt extreme pain as a result. A similar thing happened four

years earlier, when Quirrell, whom Voldemort was possessing at

the time, tried to kill Harry. Every time his skin made contact

with Harry’s, it would burn. Dumbledore later explained the

reason for this to Harry:

“Your mother died to save you. If there is one

thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He

didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s

for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible

sign ... to have been loved so deeply, even though the

person who loved us is gone, will give us some

protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell,

full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul

with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason.

It was agony to touch a person marked by something so

good.”14 

13 Order of the Phoenix, p. 844.

14 Sorcerer’s Stone, p. 299.

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Lily Potter’s sacrificial love for her son provided him

with a protection unlike any other. After her death, Dumbledore

moved Harry to her sister’s home and cast an enchantment so that

as long as Harry could call the place where his mother’s blood

dwelled home, Voldemort would be unable to reach him. Dumbledore

called this the “bond of blood.” He also states, “Her blood

became your refuge.”15 

Sixteen years later, when Harry lays down his life

sacrificially at Voldemort’s hands, the same thing occurs:

Harry’s friends are immune to Voldemort’s curses. When he

returns, Harry explains, “I’ve done what my mother did. They’re

protected from you. Haven’t you noticed how none of the spells

you put on them are binding? You can’t torture them. You can’t

touch them.”16 In epitomizing sacrificial love, Harry defeats the

man who embodies spiritual death.

Throughout Deathly Hallows, Harry struggles with his faith

in Dumbledore, the man he looked up to and trusted during his

lifetime. At times it seems that Dumbledore has left Harry to

grope in the darkness, never having shown him a clear way.

Rowling has, in fact, said that her struggle with belief is

15 Order of the Phoenix, p. 836.

16  Deathly Hallows, p. 738.

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evident in this book. Despite his doubts, Harry chooses to

follow the path that Dumbledore had laid out for him even though

Harry doesn’t have all the answers. When Harry learns that the

headmaster’s ultimate plan was for Harry to sacrifice himself

and die willingly to destroy the Horcrux inside him, he follows

through and lays down his life.

Dumbledore explains in King’s Cross that in doing this,

Harry has done what Voldemort failed to do: “You are the true

master of death, because the true master does not seek to run

away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands

that there are far, far worse things in the living world than

dying.”17 Harry, through his death, has become its master. He has

defeated it. Voldemort is a piece of cake after that.

Love triumphing over death, refuge in blood, defeating

death through death -- these are all ideas that should be very

familiar to Christians. Throughout the series Rowling weaves

this theme, and in Deathly Hallows, in quoting from the Bible,

she becomes explicit. In discussion about the series Rowling has

even called the Christian content of her books “obvious.”18 The

last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

17  Deathly Hallows, p. 720-21.

18Granger, The Deathly Hallows Lectures, p. 128, n. 13.

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The Verdict

After exploring these themes in the Harry Potter novels

concerning prejudice, choice, and love’s defeat of death, the

answer to the question, “Is Harry Potter good for the world?”

seems obvious. The twenty-first century began with a worldwide

publishing phenomenon unlike any other in history. These books

are arguably the most popular works of fiction ever written, and

they instruct us on how to overcome prejudice, how to make the

right choice over the easy one, and they show us firsthand how

love vanquishes death.

Though this learning experience happens in our imagination,

it plays out into and affects our real lives, what we believe

and how we interact with one another. That is the magic of

stories, and it is another message Rowling delivers to us. Just

before leaving King’s Cross, Harry asks Dumbledore, “Is this

real? Or has this been happening inside my head?” The headmaster

responds, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry,

but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”19 As John

Granger writes,

The real [magic] of Harry Potter is in our

identification with Harry’s struggle to believe and, via

19  Deathly Hallows, p. 723.

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this suspension of disbelief, our transformation with him

into a hero of sacrificial humility and love who is

cleansed of his interior failings and thereby changes,

even “saves,” the world. It all happens inside the

reader’s head, of course, but the reality of this

experience is so great, so foreign, and so near to our

spiritual beings that, though only imaginative, it has

the power to turn us right side up and orient us to that

Light that shines in the darkness and in whom is our hope

of eternal life.20 

Is Harry Potter good for the world? Yes. It is very good.

Arguably no other series of fiction has had this much impact on

the world, and what better way to begin the twenty-first century

than with a series that “smuggles” into our hearts the values

that are distinctly Christian and yet at the same time can speak

to the spiritual needs of people from all different beliefs.

Readers of all different ages, languages, and races are united

in our love for the story of The Boy Who Lived and conquered

death -- a story that resonates with the Story of another who

died, conquered death, and lives still.

20  How Harry Cast His Spell, p. 243.