I think it is a dreadful shame that you allow your beliefs to stop you even giving these books a chance, back in the '60s people made the same claims against Tolkien, despite his being a devout christian. And to be fair, the magic and "witchcraft" as you call it aspect, is much the same. It is a book free of religious doctrine, same as Lotr, and should not infringe upon your beliefs.As I already said, I think it's awful that you refuse to read something in case it upsets your beliefs. I for one am famously an atheist, but I have read both the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, a whole bunch of books on Zen and even the book of Mormon in my thirst for knowledge, surely you can give them a chance and not just blindly refuse to read them? Literature is literature, it's not about religion, just good stories, and decent morals (if you're lucky)
Okay, I don't think that was too religious was it? No, good, well I hope you take my advice #1Elijahlover, as it is a pity people so often dismiss things out of hand without giving them a chance.

Do I hear the cry of someone wallowing in their martyrdom?

Probably not, just someone frustrated that they can't read about Harry's friend Hermione, who is the smartest person in his class and while trying to keep Harry out of trouble, she also becomes involved in the conspiracy to thwart the evil doers in the series.

Yup, just like with Moby Dick, Herman Melville's novel about Captain Ahab and the great white whale. And in elementary school I learned to read from Dick and Jane Ridiculous isn't it, now the euphemisms have taken over and are crowding out their legitimate usage, while some of the older euphemisms have become so commonplace that they are no longer shunned by polite society.

I'm sorry if I ran #1ElijahLover off.

I'll email her requesting that she reconsider and suggest she just skip reading this thread, as its topic disturbs her. She still should be able to enjoy discussing things Tolkien in our other threads.

Later... Email sent.

[Edited on 13/7/2003 by Grondmaster]

From what I have read of HP (I have read the first four two times through) I would say even trying to compare it with LotR is just silly. They are on different levels and different realms of fantasy (I think). And I must say that children running muttering incantations of witchcraft is rather scary to me. And the books just keep getting creepier. The reason I read them twice is simply because they are good stories, with pretty good characters. JKR is an awesome postAuthorID, but I wish her talent could be put to better use than making a series about witchcraft--a topic so controversial in today's world.

I have heard several arguments that LotR has 'witchcraft' in it too. I must argue that there is a difference in Gandalf's magic and Harry's witchcraft. Gandalf is a servant of the Secret Fire, sent from Eru into ME to guide the world. Harry is a 11 year old kid sent to a school of wizardry to learn how do witchcraft. I personally can't see a similarity.

Thanks Elfy, you have saved me the trouble of sticking up for myself. Very kind.

As to the "witchcraft" thing, Witch is not used as a term as it was back in Salem, for these books, it merely delineates the males from the females, nobody seems to object to the wizardry in the books do they?

To me, it's really no different than Professor X's Mutant academy, in the X-Men comic books, which I don't think have ever been branded as evil or creepy. Super-Heroes, Mutants or Witches and Wizards, I see no difference, it's just fantasy, and certainly not evil.

Even so, it's a shame #1EL was unable to continue the conversation, and even more so that she has left the site, as I felt she was making a valid contribution here, and certainly sparked off a good conversation.

I think the following article is a level-headed discussion of our magic problem. It is long, but refers to LotR and Harry Potter films, books, and video games as well as a bunch of rougher stuff. My favorite paragraph from it is:http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/127/52.0.html

Thought that it was about time I posted my opinion here. I have just finished reading book 2 (Chamber of Secrets) of the HP series. I felt that as a writer, it was about time I found out what all the fuss was about.

Now, as a writer, I am an extremely critical reader. Unless a book is pretty darn good, I won't read it. I have read Rowling's first two books with pleasure. They are no great works of literary genius - but they don't need to be. They are a lot of fun and brilliantly imaginative.

One of the great positives of the HP phenomenon is that it gets people to read for pleasure, even people who do not normally like reading. This is a gift that should not be undervalued. Could Shakespeare or any of the 'classic' writers achieve the same thing? I find it dificult to imagine hundreds strong queues of children and adults waiting to purchase a newly-released, previously-unread novel by Dickens.

As to the issue of whether witchcraft is evil or not, I think that it comes back to secondary belief. It is one of those concepts that some people cannot seem to quite grasp. I personally liken it to meditation - some poeple just can't do it for some reason. Similarly, there are some adults (never seems to be children) who cannot accept secondary belief - to believe in something (like magic) that would normally be impossible in the real world, for the sake of the novel.

We know that wichcraft is not real. So do children. So why do we need to feel threatened by it?

I think that Rowling's books are very moral books. She draws clear distinctions between what is right (sometimes doing what is right can be agianst established conventions) and wrong, and she emphasises the importance of personal choice. As Grondy said earlier, it is our choices that make us good or bad, not who we are or where we came from.

Rowling also adresses other imporant issues like the importance of friendship and love, the importance of family, not judging poeple by their appearance or reputation and that what is most important is to be a good person.

I for one am a new-made Potter fan!

Yes, that seems to be true to form: the ladies seem to fall for the rogues and ignore the good guys for their being too tame; then they wonder why everything turns into tears in the end.

Dr. Spock or Science Officer Spock? I didn't think Leonard Nimoy was in the Harry Potter films, Alan Rickman played Snape in those. Or did he also replace Leonard Nimoy in the newer Star Trek movies?

Alan Rickman played the Spock-type character in the Movie Galaxy Quest, and d@mn funny he was too. I believe that that was the intended reference anyway.

What on earth was I saying? I didn't mean Leonard Nimoy, must have had a brain melt-down of some kind, or it's just been to long since I saw Star trek.. Oh well... they are both serious caracters with no smiling.

I just sent #1EL an email asking her to come back. I told her that I had not been around much this summer and when I returned that I was disappointed that she had left and hoped she would return.

I hope she will.

[Edited on 9/9/2003 by MelliotSandybanks]

Hmm.. you make a great point. I thought of the wormtoung thing too even though ones name is wormtalil. I think the name means traitor or something like that. Both wormtoung and wormtail are like that

Yes, I read the 5th Harry Potter book. Wasn't as good as it was hyped to be but yes the climax was excellent.

SPOILER ALERT IN SOME OF THE POSTS BELOW







Sad for Sirius. He was the only character I liked.

Tell u what, I think That Sirius will return from Sirius the "Black" to Sirius the "White".

[Edited on 8/10/2003 by Grondmaster]

[Edited on 9/10/2003 by lord_aragorn86]

Well,now I know that Sirius dies.

Please, when you give away secrets in movies or books you spoil the fun for those who have not yet had the opportunity to encounter them on their own.

If you feel you must give the secrets away, please add 'SPOILER ALERT' at the beginning so people can choose to stop reading before they encounter the secret info.

Thank you,

Grondmaster, on behalf of the Council

lord_aragorn86 posted on 30/9/2003 at 17:48 Similarities b/w Harry Potter & LOTR under The Prancing Pony Tavern Stonehelm posted on 30/9/2003 at 18:15 Andrea posted on 30/9/2003 at 19:47 Grondmaster posted on 30/9/2003 at 23:59 Arcormacolind’va posted on 1/10/2003 at 00:57 PlasticSquirrel posted on 1/10/2003 at 10:33 LadyFeawen posted on 2/10/2003 at 01:59 Wooffy_Elendil posted on 12/10/2003 at 03:11 lord_aragorn86 posted on 17/10/2003 at 07:18 Grondmaster has just moved them here at the end of this thread.

Your welcome. It took a while to cut and paste, but was well worth the effort.

You give up far to easily Ally, helpfull as I am I did a search for "Harry Potter for grownups", and I found just that.

"Welcome to Harry Potter for Grownups, a friendly, thought-provoking place for adults to enjoy discussion of the Harry Potter books. Come on in and join the fun!" http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/

But it's on yahoo and I didn't bother to sign up to see what it was about.

Also the people here http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/ are adults and have a connction the above link. No forums though.

I don't think so Aragorn,I feel the same way and am quite releived that there is a website that doesn't have witches following my cursor or anything.

Thanks, Amarie!

Well, some people don't think so. This is kinda old news but people from Scholastic who sells the HP books in the US made a new campaign to get adults to buy the books - by making adverts for adults. And no, it's nothing 'dirty' or anything like that, just some pictures of people who are least likely to read the books and some captions. You can check it out at this website :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/world/newsid_3140000/3140024.stm

Hi Morwen, welcome to PT!
There's a lot of things I think she "copied" from Tolkien too, and now after a year or so, I think she only did it for the money. Tolkien wrote from his heart, he had no publisher breathing down his neck or fans to please. Like you said, she can neer top him, but if it keeps people (even me I admit) amused and gets kids to read, then I see nothing too bad about it

First I want to say that I love Tolkiens world a lot more than I love Rowlings world, but I just have to say this, someone had to defend the poor girl!

Rowling wrote it from her heart too! She had written the last chapter of the last book long before she got anything published. She had the idea of seven books and seven school years when she lived in a cold flat with her baby daughter. She used to sit in the diner, the only warm place where she could sit and write, barely able to buy one cup of coffie so they would let her sit there. She went without food for days so she could feed her daughter and put a roof over her head. She couldn't afford to pay someone to look after her, so she wrote while her daughter sleapt and till she fell asleep herself in the evening.

She has lots of boxes with notes and drawings and stuff she has come up with about her caracters, places and things that might happen, which we will never see. Unless someone does a Christopher Tolkien and publish it. She herself has said that there will be seven books about HP and that's that.

Tolkien used several years on the trillogy, don't you think his fans where eager to find out what happens next? Don't you think if they had the possebility of complaining in chat rooms, post in forums and e-mail him and the publisher a hundred times a day, that they would have done just that? Do you think HIS publishers wasn't breating down HIS neck to get him to finish?! Don't you think Tolkien liked getting money?!

Rowling loves her caracters, she's been carrying then around for years. She even cried when she worte the chapter where umm.. the-person-who-dies-in-book-5 dies, 'cause she felt like she had killed a friend.

I makes me mad as when I see how you all treat Tolkien as a flawless saint and trash Rowling because some things look like something Tolkien wrote. I know this is a site for Tolkien-worshiping but open your eyes folks! Tolkien stole from everywhere and everything! We don't known all the myths and legends he knew, so we can't say "well that is taken from the legends of this-and-that for sure" when we read his works, but if Rowling adds a nice, longbearded wizard we all go "Oh she stole that from Tolkien, how dare she!!". Gandalfs name "wand-elf" is from "Volussp’", a norse poem, his appearences is from the finish "Kalevala" which he liked so much, where there is a wise sjaman with magical powers known for his long, wavy beard.

He is no saint, and I'm quite sure he'd get mad if he heard anyone thinking he was.

Oh yes, and does these names from one of Tolkiens favorite languages sound familiar?
http://www.behindthename.com/nmc/wel.html

Tolkien is one of a kind, but so is Rowling!