Outrage?

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by lindil

Absolutely!, but as I pointed out, JRRT in a masterful way consciously revised LotR towards Catholic origins.

Ah, but you misunderstand. Not being overly religious myself, I do not find the lack of themes specific to any one religion to be a deficiency in JKR's works. My discussion with my children would focus more on the general moral messages to be derived from these works, and it seems to me that there is much common ground between the two in this regard.

While it's easy for me to say as I don't have any strong faith-based views, I would not seek to impose any specific system of belief (religious, political or otherwise) on my children. In this regard, they will have free choice. I am, however, concerned to encourage in them the same strong moral beliefs that I hold and I see both LotR and the Harry Potter books as being consistent with these.

[Encaitare]

Only in the spell used to repulse dementors, do we see anything approaching the real deal. And frankly I am very glad she was not more explicit.

I'm wondering what you mean by this, and what you mean by "the real deal," lindil. The only thing that sounds like something resembling the magic(k) you said you know exists is the high degree of concentration necessary for the spell to work.

In response to Kath's original question, I think LotR would have been much less likely to attract negative attention like HP has, since LR doesn't place magic at the forefront, and has none of HP's "swish and flick" business. And, as I believe someone stated before, Middle-earth is a different world where different rules apply. It's not some kind of secret magical state that exists side by side with the 'regular' world.

Maybe that's part of what causes outrage: when writers mess around with the present reality. The da Vinci code got a lot of negative attention because of the material it dealt with, and the suppositions made and theories raised about Christianity. Even so, what people fail to realize is that this and all fantasy/sci-fi/reality-warping books are works of fiction. There are always going to be aspects of the world from which parents want to shield their children. SpM mentioned violent video games (I assume you were talking about Grand Theft Auto?). Games like these are clearly not right for young children to be playing, since they glorify senseless violence and killing. Some people argue that HP glorifies magic, but it's not really the case. It is a part of the characters' lives, plain and simple, whether in everyday events or in battles. In the latter case, instead of shooting each other, they say a couple of choice words and exact their revenge that way. (Has anyone realized that this actually sounds more humane than riddling someone full of bullets? This thought just came to me.)

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, and I have to go take a math final, so I think I'll be quiet now.