Religion and Canon, Part 1

I mentioned in a previous post that there was a topic I would like to cover, namely religion. This can be a sensitive topic to discuss for obvious reasons and so I am putting a disclaimer right here in the introduction promising that all views expressed here are my own and that this post will discuss religion as portrayed (or perhaps not portrayed?) in the Harry Potter series.

So, as it turns out I completely underestimated my ability to keep things concise and so have had to split this post into two parts...

Harry Potter Canon

Before I tackle religion, I'd like to take a quick detour and discuss another topic entirely - canon (I promise these two are related and there is a reason why this post encompasses both!).

Firstly, what does the word 'canon' actually mean? Wikipedia tells me that canon, when applied to fiction, 'is the material accepted as part of the story in an individual universe of that story.' There is actually a whole MuggleNet Academia podcast episode dedicated to this topic, but I won't go into too much detail here. If you're keen to know more, I urge you to listen to the aforementioned episode as well as the rest of this podcast series as it has some interesting topics.

When applied to the Harry Potter series, deciding what is and what is not canon can be a bit tricky, because there is so much source material outside of the books available to us:

• The movies
• The Tales of Beedle the Bard
• Quidditch Through the Ages
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• JK Rowling short story written for charity
• Pottermore
• Interviews with JK Rowling herself about the books

There are those readers who believe that only that which is specifically written in the books themselves is canon, and anything else is just extra information that doesn't really add anything to the story. And, in some respects, they may be right. A lot of the information JK Rowling has revealed through other media is certainly fun and interesting, but it is not necessary for the understanding of the books.

Probably the most famous example of this was when, asked in an interview after the release of Deathly Hallows if Charlie Weasley was gay, JK Rowling stated simply:

Dumbledore is gay...I always thought that Dumbledore was gay.

Is this piece of information important for the books? Yes and no, I think. One can certainly get through the whole series not knowing this about the character and nothing would change - this is what I mean by information not being necessary for the understanding of the books. However, knowing this information does give readers more of an insight into the character and his relationship with Grindelwald. For some readers, it adds a new depth to the stories.

I am not this kind of fan, I am not a purist in that sense. For me, whatever JK Rowling says, be it in the books or on Pottermore or in an interview, be it today or twenty years from now, is canon. This is why I enjoy Pottermore so much - I love finding out about the wizarding world and the background stories of some of my favorite characters. She is the creator of this world and so, to me, her word is final.

On a side-note - we had our first London blog meetup last night and together with Nikita we spent a portion of the evening convincing Corrie she needs to get back into Pottermore. There is much to learn about characters such as Draco Malfoy, Remus Lupin and Minerva McGonagall, as well as information about the magical qualities of the different wand woods and cores, and much much more!

Join Pottermore to learn more about the magical world JK Rowling created (source)

One can at this point argue that if JKR felt it necessary to share this information with us, if she truly felt it was important, she should have included it in the books. Again, this is a perfectly valid argument. However, I would say that this would logistically have been impossible. Anyone who has been on Pottermore and read all of the new writing by the author herself will know that it is a lot of material. Including it all in the books would have made them too long.

So why have I chosen to talk about canon at all? Well, precisely because I am not a purist. I set out to write what I thought would be a pretty straightforward post about the depiction of religion in the Harry Potter series and then I did some background reading, found some quotes from JKR and had to completely re-think my strategy.

I will leave you here as it's getting quite late. I will hopefully have the second part of this post ready this time tomorrow.

Until next time,
Lucia