Very good essay. I have lots of thoughts, but I'll give you just three, because I don't think I've seen them anywhere.
1. What is the meaning of magic in the series? From the very first book, I've seen magic as just a stand-in for Rowling's ignorance of science. Virtually every magic device she mentions has scientific counterpart, in actuality or theorized. I never thought it had an actual "meaning" other than that and I don't think I've seen anything to disprove that.
2. Rowling's Christianity. I'm a practicing Catholic. But I don't think Rowling's predestination themes even match with Calvinism. I honestly think she's doing the same thing with her relgious symbolism that she is doing with all of her other mythologies -- in other words, whether she means to or not, she is treating Christian themes like another myth (in the sense of a story that is not factually true -- I know there are much deeper meanings to the word) or fairy tale, and giving it a "twist."
* Rowling is familiar with stories about werewolves -- well, let's take that and make the nicest Gryffindor we know a werewolf.
* Rowling knows the story of the elves and the shoemaker. Let's base house-elves on that, adding the twist that they're ugly instead of beautiful, and enslaved.
* Rowling is acquainted with Calvinism. Rowling takes the "idea" of predestination, and uses it to show that some characters are "destined" to be good and some are "destined" to be bad. As Hemmens points out, Calvinism's point with predestination is NOT that some people are "born good", it is that some people are "born saved" even though they ARE NO BETTER than the people who are not "born saved." That's hard enough to come to grips with, but it's still not the same as what Rowling is saying.
* Frankly, Rowling is so conversant with various mythologies and religions, that I wouldn't be surprised if there were also twists on Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism and other religions that we're just missing because we don't know enough about those faiths (or at least, I don't).
3. As for the "show" vs "tell" aspect of JKR's books: I think JKR is an excellent observer, but not so good at reading people's motivations. She does an excellent job describing Snape as a little boy because I think she's *seen* someone like that. That's why her characters are so real: she's describing *real* people.
But I think she can only imagine other people having the same kinds of motivations she would have under similar circumstances. If a person does something that would have meant her motivations were not good, then that shows that person is not good. Maybe what we're seeing in her treatment of the "bad" characters are people who habitually act from what JKR would consider "bad" motivations. For example, it's quite obvious from the books that JKR cannot imagine any "good" motivation for ambition.
In the first books, which were tightly edited, she mainly "showed" us, and she was really good at it. She made the characters real. But then in the later books, she started "telling" us, and that's where we started seeing the disconnect between how *she* viewed what she was showing and how many others did.
magic, christianity and show vs tell
1. What is the meaning of magic in the series? From the very first book, I've seen magic as just a stand-in for Rowling's ignorance of science. Virtually every magic device she mentions has scientific counterpart, in actuality or theorized. I never thought it had an actual "meaning" other than that and I don't think I've seen anything to disprove that.
2. Rowling's Christianity. I'm a practicing Catholic. But I don't think Rowling's predestination themes even match with Calvinism. I honestly think she's doing the same thing with her relgious symbolism that she is doing with all of her other mythologies -- in other words, whether she means to or not, she is treating Christian themes like another myth (in the sense of a story that is not factually true -- I know there are much deeper meanings to the word) or fairy tale, and giving it a "twist."
* Rowling is familiar with stories about werewolves -- well, let's take that and make the nicest Gryffindor we know a werewolf.
* Rowling knows the story of the elves and the shoemaker. Let's base house-elves on that, adding the twist that they're ugly instead of beautiful, and enslaved.
* Rowling is acquainted with Calvinism. Rowling takes the "idea" of predestination, and uses it to show that some characters are "destined" to be good and some are "destined" to be bad. As Hemmens points out, Calvinism's point with predestination is NOT that some people are "born good", it is that some people are "born saved" even though they ARE NO BETTER than the people who are not "born saved." That's hard enough to come to grips with, but it's still not the same as what Rowling is saying.
* Frankly, Rowling is so conversant with various mythologies and religions, that I wouldn't be surprised if there were also twists on Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism and other religions that we're just missing because we don't know enough about those faiths (or at least, I don't).
3. As for the "show" vs "tell" aspect of JKR's books: I think JKR is an excellent observer, but not so good at reading people's motivations. She does an excellent job describing Snape as a little boy because I think she's *seen* someone like that. That's why her characters are so real: she's describing *real* people.
But I think she can only imagine other people having the same kinds of motivations she would have under similar circumstances. If a person does something that would have meant her motivations were not good, then that shows that person is not good. Maybe what we're seeing in her treatment of the "bad" characters are people who habitually act from what JKR would consider "bad" motivations. For example, it's quite obvious from the books that JKR cannot imagine any "good" motivation for ambition.
In the first books, which were tightly edited, she mainly "showed" us, and she was really good at it. She made the characters real. But then in the later books, she started "telling" us, and that's where we started seeing the disconnect between how *she* viewed what she was showing and how many others did.