The Harry Potter series of books captivated many people young and old, but especially the young. As I discussed back in 2005, the students at Hogwarts seemed to be well and truly heathens because the books had zero references to god and religion, with only a passing reference to Christmas (a pagan holiday anyway) and the name of a Christmas carol, while filled with stories of sorcery and witches and wizards and spells.
This undoubtedly caused problems for religious parents who worried about the effects such books would have on their children’s religious beliefs but were unable to fight the Potter whirlwind. It did not seem to matter to them that the books actually celebrated wholesome values like love and friendship and courage and honor and justice.
But now parents have another option. Someone has taken the idea of fan fiction and run with it and created an alternative Potter world in which Christianity is the dominant theme. Harry’s family are now a bunch of Dawkins-spouting, evolution-loving cretins and Harry is saved from them by a Hagrid who seems to be like a Jehovah’s Witness.
The catch with the new books? The author seems to have violated one of the cardinal rules of fan fiction which is to be intimately familiar with the details of the original. In fact, she does not seem to have even read them. And the writing is just terrible. John Prager has taken the trouble to read the new version so we don’t have to and gives us some excerpts. Here’s how the new book begins.
Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Harry Potter who lived under the stairs in a house on Privet Drive with his aunt and uncle. He was a good, obedient boy who did all his chores; but he felt that there was something missing in his life. Something big and special; but he could not quite name it. He stayed up every night; and wished for this special something; but then one day, there was a knock at his door-and everything changed.
“Answer the door, Harry!” his Aunt Petunia, a career woman, barked from her armchair where she sat with her feet up. She had short, curly blonde hair and never wore any makeup. Uncle Vernon nodded sheepishly from the kitchen; and put a tray of moist, chocolatey brownies in the oven.
Shouldn’t you be doing that? Harry thought; but he was a very obedient young boy, so he answered the door right away. He turned the brass, metal doorknob; and pulled open the heavy, wooden door.
On the porch was standing a huge, muscular man with a big, manly beard; and he was dressed in a plaid, red shirt, blue jeans, and sturdy, leather boots. His chest was covered in a thick, unruly carpet of coarse, brown hair. He wore a necklace that looked to Harry like a lowercase T. Just looking at Harry feel happy, peaceful somehow; but he couldn’t say why!
“Good morning, kiddo,” the man greeted amiably; and smiled at Harry. He had the peaceful, friendly sort of face you just knew you could trust. “My name is Hagrid. Could I speak to your mommy and daddy?”
“I don’t have a mommy or daddy,” Harry replied sadly; and looked at his raggedy, old shoes that were blue. Perhaps that was why he felt so lonely, he thought, not for the first time. Maybe that was what he was missing-a mommy and daddy. But no, that was not quite right.
“I am so sorry to hear that!” Hagrid uttered empathetically.
“You can speak with my auntie and uncle,” Harry retorted politely; and blinked his big, blue, childlike eyes.
“What do you want?” Aunt Petunia peered out the door with her narrow, suspicious eyes; and she was wearing a baggy, unflattering pantsuit.
“Hello, neighbor! I was wondering if you have been saved,” Hagrid exclaimed brightly; and tipped his wide-brimmed, straw cowboy hat.
Aunt Petunia laughed a gravelly laugh; and leaned forward on her sturdy, practical boots. “Saved? Don’t tell me you are you one of those Christians?”
J. K. Rowling can sleep easily. If the samples given by Prager are at all representative, this version is no danger at all to her franchise.
Someone has taken the idea of fan fiction and run with it and created an alternative Potter world in which Christianity is the dominant theme.
Like Twilight?
See, it’s always possible to take something bad and make it worse.
This baffles me. Although the HP books do not explicitly mention god, the story they tell is clearly christian in structure, motivation and philosophy. People who do evil things are, in the end, redeemed (Snape, Draco, and even Dumbledore). Harry dies and is resurrected. If that’s not enough, look at the inscriptions on the tombstones in Godric’s Hollow. I really don’t get why “Christians” are so upset about this.
david, #2: Although the HP books do not explicitly mention god, the story they tell is clearly christian in structure, motivation and philosophy.
Maybe Catholic, but not evangelical Protestant, certainly not fundamentalist evangelical Protestant. In fundamentalist Protestant theology, salvation is possible only by accepting Jesus Christ as one’s lord and savior. It’s not about some general philosophy, it’s all about acknowledging the Protestant’s very narrow, specific interpretation of the Gospels and their meaning.
Basically, if it doesn’t have someone go on their knees pleading for Jesus to save them, then it’s going to be considered anti-Christian.
Wait, wait, wait. Harry’s into bears? Isn’t he way too young for that?
————
Marcus Ranum @1,
Actually, there is a re-write of Twilight called Luminosity, which is much better. It gives Bella an actual personality, and she even makes decisions about her life.
Damn, there must’ve been a sale on commas down at Hack Writers Supply!
Shortly after the second book came out I ran into a woman I taught with. Her son, 8 maybe, was with her, and they were getting the book at the bookstore. As Anne and I talked her son found the book and began walking to us. A woman (whom we did not know) stepped between the boy and us and began lecturing him, loudly enough for us to hear, about the evils of witches, magic, and the threat it caused to good christians. Anne started to step up to move her, but the first time the woman stopped the boy said “But, but, don’t you know, these stories are all make believe. They aren’t real.”
Anne beamed with pride while I laughed out loud. The woman who was lecturing gave us a nasty look, a worse look at the boy, and stomped off.
Twilight? Best comment I’ve heard: “Soccer and Twilight are really the same thing. Everyone runs around for two hours, nobody scores, and the millions of fans all tell you that you just don’t understand it.”
An inate appreciation for torture devices?
A child with childlike eyes. Truly, this is the height of literature.
Zeckenschwarm,
Also can one retort politely? True, one meaning of retort is just to reply. But in usual usage it means a snappy comeback.
I guess the author doesn’t like Hilary Clinton.
What is this woman’s fixation with chest hair? She goes into icky depths describing all the adult men’s chesthair. It’s…odd.
I would expect a fairly detailed and firm cease and desist order to her and her publisher, along with a request for damages for copyright infringement.
Tsu Dho Nimh,
The issue of fan fiction and copyright is quite complicated.
what’s funny is that the ‘author’ will still have to get approval from Rowling to publish it. I’d bet the farm that those characters are as tightly guarded by copywrite law as you can get…My brother inlaw wrote the ‘Oragami Yoda’ series of books, and had to get the go ahead from Lucas to do so…But that was before Lucas sold to Disney, who I’m sure will be more ‘expansive’ in the francise
One of Rowling’s strengths as an author is that she made decisions on Page one of Book One that had repercussions not seen until book seven. I cannot say the same for this author.
Why does Petunia Evans Dursley hate wizards so much? Is it because she is selfish and hard-headed and doesn’t want to hear The Word? No. It’s because the only person who ever truly cared about Petunia was convinced by a bunch of wizards that she would be happier if she “convert.” Instead Lily Evans was tossed into a hive of racism and socially inept bullies, and finally slaughtered in cold blood in front of her husband and infant child, betrayed by the very man who convinced her to convert.
And why does Petunia neglect Harry? Is it because she’s a short-sighted jerk who loves her own son but can’t love her nephew? No, it’s because she knows that those selfsame wizards are watching Harry, that they’ve already claimed them as one of their own, and that they’ve already planned to have him murdered as part of their plan to trap the villain.
Let’s not expect to see any serious issues grappled in this one.
I think you mean “And the writing is just terribly AMAZING!” because that’s what this truly is. This is top notch comedy gold.
Fanfiction.net Link with 8 Chapters of amazingness
You’re welcome.
I think my favorite part is that Harry Potter doesn’t know what Christianity is but like knows the Sinner’s Prayer and quotes the bible immediately (I had to look up what a ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ was). The author literally cannot imagine someone who doesn’t know the Sinner’s Prayer or doesn’t know the bible.
They also just spit out random bible verses at dinner. Not just the big ones. Luke 42:13! Psalms 127:5! I really want to watch one of their family dinners now. Are there Christians that actually do that?
doublereed,
How could you do this to me! I started to read the chapters and they are gripping in the same ghastly way as watching a car crash. You just can’t take your eyes away. Chapter 9 is by itself a classic.
In an author’s note, she says that she has started taking beginning writers course at her local community college because of the criticisms she has received about her writing, from “Evolutionists, Feminists, and Romanists”.
The last one is new to me. Who the hell are Romanists? Roman Catholics? Have they become part of the devil’s empire too?
On the flip side, we have Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
I never claimed I wasn’t cruel.
Maybe Romanists is like the Roman polytheistic religion? Like it’s a weird slang for Christ-hater? Maybe it’s the religion of the Roma and she hates gypsies? That’s new to me.
@Mano, yes, a lot of fundamentalist/evangelical Christians hate Cathoics and Catholicism with a firey passion. They’re carefully brainwashed in their church to believe all sorts of lies about Catholics, just like the lies about Jews. Then there’s the fact that the Catholic church respects Mary as the mother of Jesus, which infuriates the uber-misogynistic fundagelicals.
This does have possibilities though.
1. A christian “Simpsons”.
2. A christian Star Wars. Darth Vader goes back to the faith right before he dies. Princess Leia joins a patriarchial xian breeder cult and has 14 children.
3. A xian Star Trek. The Enterprise converts the galaxy to fundie-ism. All the aliens stay home and make moonshine when not going to church.
4. A xian “Frozen”.
5. That is just the start. A xian Game of Thrones. They could christianize everything ever written. (This can only help…the atheists!!!)
raven, #22: A xian Game of Thrones.
Wow. Make them belong to different sects. Then it would end up even bloodier than Martin’s version!
BLUE eyes?!?!
Sinner’s Prayer, aka “heresy”.
Pretty sure that’s it. In this version, Ron Weesley (pardon any spelling gaffes, I listened to the HP audiobooks instead of reading) isn’t in Gryffindor, he’s in Slytherin. Slytherin members pray to God and Mary, and have “a book full of guidelines on how to be a good person, and a whole panel of Slytherin Hats to tell us what to do.”
Ron apparently has to go to Slytherin because he has red hair. I guess in crazy-Jesus-love-ville, red hair means Irish, which means Catholic. No exceptions.
Not a full book, but there’s also Ayn Rand’s re-write of Harry Potter. A sample: