This post carries on directly from my previous post about what constitutes Harry Potter Canon. I tried to explain there why I was discussing the subject in the first place and I hope my reasoning was clear, but if it wasn't, then I hope this post will do better!
Religion in the World of Harry Potter
I'd never really thought about religion in the context of Harry Potter much in the past. Obviously I had read that some people had burned the books (BBC article) and that the official Vatican newspaper had condemned the series (Telegraph article) because it poses a danger to children by promoting witchcraft. A more personal experience occurred when I was about 13 years old and was seen reading Goblet of Fire in school by one of my teachers (an American missionary teaching in Slovakia) - I was told explicitly that the book promotes devil worship and so I shouldn't be reading it.
I feel I should re-iterate here that the point of this post is not to talk about how religious institutions view the Harry Potter series, but instead to look at how religion is handled in the Harry Potter universe. The above paragraph just highlights the only occasions in the past that I has associated religion and Harry Potter.
So, what actually prompted me to write about this? Well, it was actually quite an innocent thing really. I was reading chapter 5 of Philosopher's Stone and noticed something that I had never really paid attention to before - the sign on Ollivander's wand shop:
Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.
This might go without saying, but just in case there are readers who have not come across this acronym before, B.C. stands for 'Before Christ'.
Why has JK Rowling chosen to use this particular acronym? Is it religiously significant? Even if it's not necessarily an allusion to the fact that the wizarding world is largely Christian, does it mean that the wizarding world are aware of who Jesus Christ was? Is he a figure from their history also?
I made the point to Corrie and Nikita the other day that she could have just as easily used, say, B.M. - Before Merlin. This might not make much sense to readers, but it would seem a natural numbering system for witches and wizards, as he has been described as being the most famous wizard of all time. And besides, JK Rowling has already introduced so many new things without explaining them (for example, what the heck is a Mugwump?) that it wouldn't seem so strange to readers, I don't think.
Or am I reading too much into this? Has she simply used this numbering system because it's so easily recognizable and is therefore the simplest way for her to tell us that Ollivanders is a really old place?
Whatever the case may be, picking up on this small detail made me pause and think really hard about other instances within the Harry Potter books that give clues as to which religion, if any, wizards and witches follow.
Religion is never specifically spoken about by any of the characters, as far as I can remember (please correct me if I'm wrong). However, we do see some traditions that are characteristic of Christianity:
Wizards and witches celebrate Christmas and they (sometimes) appoint godparents to their children. As I found out while doing some background reading for this post, the writing on Lily and James's tombstone in Godric's Hollow ('The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death') is also the direct wording of a passage from the King James Bible (1 Corinthians 15:26).
I had a discussion about this with Corrie and Nikita when we met up on Tuesday and Nikita made the point that (I'm paraphrasing here) celebrating Christmas, especially in the western world, isn't always indicative of someone's religious background as many people living in countries like the UK celebrate Christmas but are in fact of other religious denominations. Christmas, like Halloween and Easter, have become culturally characteristic of the western world and perhaps that is all JK Rowling is really getting at here. Everybody knows what and when Christmas is and would understand the significance of, for example, Harry receiving Christmas presents for the first time in his life at the age of 11.
Nevertheless, I find it interesting. And I find it even more interesting now, because I recently came across this:
Which brings me very nicely back to my previous post about canon. As I said, I am not a purist, I don't stick solely to the books. And so, these Tweets by JKR herself, perfectly answer the questions I've been having over the past few days. She may not have specifically spoken about the religious beliefs of the characters throughout the series, but here is confirmation that this is something that she considered when she created those characters.
Anthony Goldstein (a student from Harry's year) is Jewish and in fact, he is not the first or only Jewish student at Hogwarts (source). Would it therefore be reasonable to assume that the Patil twins are Hindus? Nikita informed me that Parvati is, in fact, a Hindu goddess (of love, fertility and devotion for those interested to know), so it seems this could be a safe assumption to make.
What about the witches and wizards from other countries? Viktor Krum, for example. Can we assume that, being Bulgarian, he is a member of the Orthodox Church (75% of Bulgarians subscribe to Eastern Orthodoxy)?
So which students are Muslim? Are there any Buddhists at Hogwarts? I leave these questions open to discussion.
Well, this has certainly been an interesting topic for me to ponder and write about. I'm really curious to see what other people think about this, so please comment if you agree or disagree with anything I've said!
Until next time,
Lucia
 |
| Ollivanders shop on Diagon Alley (picture taken at the Harry Potter Studios) |
Why has JK Rowling chosen to use this particular acronym? Is it religiously significant? Even if it's not necessarily an allusion to the fact that the wizarding world is largely Christian, does it mean that the wizarding world are aware of who Jesus Christ was? Is he a figure from their history also?
I made the point to Corrie and Nikita the other day that she could have just as easily used, say, B.M. - Before Merlin. This might not make much sense to readers, but it would seem a natural numbering system for witches and wizards, as he has been described as being the most famous wizard of all time. And besides, JK Rowling has already introduced so many new things without explaining them (for example, what the heck is a Mugwump?) that it wouldn't seem so strange to readers, I don't think.
Or am I reading too much into this? Has she simply used this numbering system because it's so easily recognizable and is therefore the simplest way for her to tell us that Ollivanders is a really old place?
Whatever the case may be, picking up on this small detail made me pause and think really hard about other instances within the Harry Potter books that give clues as to which religion, if any, wizards and witches follow.
Religion is never specifically spoken about by any of the characters, as far as I can remember (please correct me if I'm wrong). However, we do see some traditions that are characteristic of Christianity:
Wizards and witches celebrate Christmas and they (sometimes) appoint godparents to their children. As I found out while doing some background reading for this post, the writing on Lily and James's tombstone in Godric's Hollow ('The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death') is also the direct wording of a passage from the King James Bible (1 Corinthians 15:26).
 |
| James and Lily's tombstone in Godric's Hollow (picture provided by Corrie from the new edition of Deathly Hallows) |
I had a discussion about this with Corrie and Nikita when we met up on Tuesday and Nikita made the point that (I'm paraphrasing here) celebrating Christmas, especially in the western world, isn't always indicative of someone's religious background as many people living in countries like the UK celebrate Christmas but are in fact of other religious denominations. Christmas, like Halloween and Easter, have become culturally characteristic of the western world and perhaps that is all JK Rowling is really getting at here. Everybody knows what and when Christmas is and would understand the significance of, for example, Harry receiving Christmas presents for the first time in his life at the age of 11.
Nevertheless, I find it interesting. And I find it even more interesting now, because I recently came across this:
 |
| JK Rowling's Twitter posts about religion at Hogwarts |
Which brings me very nicely back to my previous post about canon. As I said, I am not a purist, I don't stick solely to the books. And so, these Tweets by JKR herself, perfectly answer the questions I've been having over the past few days. She may not have specifically spoken about the religious beliefs of the characters throughout the series, but here is confirmation that this is something that she considered when she created those characters.
Anthony Goldstein (a student from Harry's year) is Jewish and in fact, he is not the first or only Jewish student at Hogwarts (source). Would it therefore be reasonable to assume that the Patil twins are Hindus? Nikita informed me that Parvati is, in fact, a Hindu goddess (of love, fertility and devotion for those interested to know), so it seems this could be a safe assumption to make.
What about the witches and wizards from other countries? Viktor Krum, for example. Can we assume that, being Bulgarian, he is a member of the Orthodox Church (75% of Bulgarians subscribe to Eastern Orthodoxy)?
So which students are Muslim? Are there any Buddhists at Hogwarts? I leave these questions open to discussion.
Well, this has certainly been an interesting topic for me to ponder and write about. I'm really curious to see what other people think about this, so please comment if you agree or disagree with anything I've said!
Until next time,
Lucia
No comments:
Post a Comment