Good or Bad Symbolism Debate

I had mentioned in an earlier post one of the "takes" on symbolism among those who oppose the Harry Potter books on a religious fundamentalist basis. This most radical faction would see all symbolism as bad form in literature, imprecise and misleading in the moral realm, incoherent in any theological realm. I dub this the "Symbolism is bad" argument. While I believe there is a bit of this notion out there, the far more common objection would be the "Bad Symbolism" argument which acknowledges that there is a certain use for symbols in literature and that many great works use them well, but the use of symbols J. K. Rowling's makes in her writings fail to fall within certain generally accepted "guidelines" which in turn renders the books harmful especially to children. I also refer to this as the Michael O'Brien argument since he is probably the person who argues for it the best. In his piece from October 2004, "Harry Versus Frodo" he argues that in Harry Potter the symbols have undergone a "corruption" at the Hands of J. K. Rowling. This plays out mainly in that although magic is always suspect in the "good" symbolic literature of Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, magic is routinely shown as being used toward good ends in Harry Potter. After his selective examples to "prove" this from Lewis's Narnia books and LotR, he comes out with this statement: "Rowling has not inverted our symbology. No, she has done something more corruptive, which is to appropriate it and mutate it. She is telling us through her symbology that because there are good serpents and bad serpents, therefore there are good witches and bad witches, good sorcerers and bad sorcerers." Then he goes on to compare the use of magic in Harry Potter with a proposed use of fornication in a hypothetical novel. This seems to be a stretch at best and if you read the article, some of you would have been laughing at this point. But I want to point out that by this point he still hasn't proven that the use of magic by Harry or Dumbledore or Hermione is in any way bad. The biggest clue is he never mentions any actual spells and he is very careful to say that in LotR Gandalf's magic gifts are "are used sparingly, and then only so far as they help the other creatures". The fact is, Gandalf does use them; this seriously weakens his argument. Likewise Galadriel -- who the men of Rohan say is a devious witch and are sternly rebuked -- uses a magic, mirror-like pool which scares the pants off Frodo and Sam. Would this be like a hypothetical novel in which people engaged in fornication sparingly or when there was no other choice? Yes, the ring is bad magic but Galadriel's Phial is good magic and saves Frodo's like when he uses it. O'Brien continues to resemble the men of Rohan in their fear of Galadriel as he concludes the following from the lack of "theological foundations" in Harry Potter: "The Harry Potter series is a fantasy-projection of materialist man imagining himself to have god-like powers without any reference to the source of those powers, nor to any set of moral absolutes against which he can measure the rightness or wrongness of his actions. He is, in a sense, 'beyond good and evil.' He is the offspring of Nietzsche's 'super-man' and Camus' 'stranger', the outsider adrift in a cosmos without fixed moral reference points..." He goes on, believe it or not, but that's probably enough for sake of the point. I didn't "get" this lack of moral absolutes from the books -- please comment below if you did. At least he didn't scold her for her ultra-liberal abundance of adverbs. The only two real examples he gives of symbols being off in the books is (1) witches should always be evil (which I addressed with Galadriel) and (2) snakes should always be evil. I don't think that the "good snake" -- or neutral snake at least -- at the zoo in "Philospher's Stone" is a very good symbol for Satan, the ancient enemy of God and Mankind prowling the earth. He's cooped up, bored and yearning for the tropics. The entire scene is used as a plot device and I see no reason to set of the alarm and cry "Corrupted symbol! Evacuate the library!" After all, Christ is referred to as the "Lion of the tribe of Judah" whereas "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion" shows us the symbol of a lion with an opposite use. There is some subtlety in context and I think O'Brien is looking at the books with an eye pretty well jaundiced to begin with. As I said, O'Brien argues best for this "Bad Symbolism" view, but I think it's because he refuses to be too specific. Context can be very problematic for the anti-Harry crowd. To pick a more specific example of the "Bad Symbolism" argument other than O'Brien's: before I was "Harry-savvy", I once heard an anti-Harry screed which asserted the following: In "Philosopher's Stone", drinking unicorn blood is seen as a vicious, abominable act which damns the drinker. Since the unicorn is a Christ symbol, this is stating that communion with Christ's blood is a bad thing while to drink the Elixir of Life from the Philosopher's Stone is good in the book. So the message of the book is that the philosophers and sorcerers will get you farther than Christianity. Again -- hard to see how the person saying this got this from the book, and it seems to me they were working pretty hard at piecing this together. But let's formally analyze it. The Dark Lord was slaughtering the unicorns and then using their blood, which has magical properties in the books, to stay alive. In context what he was doing was evil on the surface and didn't resemble Holy Communion one bit. While it is true that the unicorn is a Christ symbol I don't see why the violent shedding of it's blood must equal communion. But what really slams a coffin lid on this argument can be found in John Granger's book "Looking for God in Harry Potter" (and please promise me you'll buy it, OK?) In Chapter 9, "Evidence of Things Unseen", Granger writes: "Historians of science, religion and literature agree on very little in my experience. However, they do agree that the philosopher's stone is a symbol of Christ. (26) There isn't anything else in the world that promises eternal life and golden (that is, incorruptible or spiritual) riches except Christ, so the connection is transparent. (p. 97)" His endnote 26 references Titus Burckhardt's book on Alchemy which I own; I'll dig it up some time. Then on the symbolism of the Red Lion: "The 'red lion' is the Elixir of Life coming from the philosopher's stone, a symbol of the blood of Christ received in Communion. (p. 99)" Reading these passages confirms what many realize intuitively already: Rowling isn't inverting or corrupting these symbols at all. A little lesson in alchemy from Professor Granger and a healthy dose of context sheds a lot of light on this misunderstanding. I'll close with these wise an sensible words from the conclusion of an article by Regina Doman: "The main problem with the books could simply be that they are new. When I was growing up, I was encouraged by serious Christians to avoid The Lord of the Rings because the book was thought to encourage interest in the occult. After all, it had spawned the occultic Dungeons and Dragons games. But now Tolkien's book is hailed as a Christian classic, simply because it has passed the test of time. If the Potter series ends in the same way as it has gone so far, then it could be true, paradoxically, that the best-selling books of the 21st century will have been Christian fiction in disguise." I can see this happening, after the "dust settles." I wouldn't use the phrase "Christian fiction" myself, just because it conjures up really cheesy kids stories, but I won't object to it -- not everyone wants to be weirdos like Merlin and Pauli, referring to books as "alchemically symbolic mythopoeic literature". [A couple more links pertinent: John G.'s "Should my kids read Harry Potter?" (audio). Also note Merlin's post on symbolism as participation, quite good.]