#john granger

[lunamusings]

2024 vs.

2019

Had to remind myself I am improving even when it feels like I’m at a standstill.

Still cracking up over how John’s expression came out. He is having a time of it, since this scene included a serious threat but the man couldn’t concentrate on that for two big reasons.

[joannerowlingfans]

Was 2020 A Bad Year for J. K. Rowling? Nominated for 3 British Book Awards

Hogwarts Professor’s (John Granger’s) blogspot about Jo’s past year. ❤️

[imagitory]

Hi, everybody! So tonight, I thought I’d try something different. I’ve grabbed an old book off my shelf that I haven’t read in a long time, and now I’ll reblog this post with short updates as I read, giving you a play-by-play review of the subject! Depending on the response, maybe I’ll do these with movies or other things too!

The book I’m rereading is one of several “Harry Potter analysis” books that my dear mum bought for me over the years, to encourage not only our shared love for Harry Potter, but my budding fascination with critical reading, fan theorizing, fantasy, mythology, and writing! It’s also the only one of these books that I actively remember disliking upon first reading it -- The Hidden Key to Harry Potter, written by John Granger!

[mugglenet]

The ring structure of the “Harry Potter” series is reflected by the connections between the Christmases in the books.

[lunamusings]

I keep forgetting to post this but I drew a thing because I missed my comic babies so much and haven’t been able to do much with it do to the Dumbest Day Job™️.

So have John with a broken leg, Ageha about to be badass and a Minotaur who has zero clue what’s about to hit him.

[lunamusings]

Just me drawing a dumb thing because I want to regain my enthusiasm for my comic, so drawing John and Ageha with Joot and Lith seemed like a good idea.

Good lort, John looks sooooo tired.

( @mrsnijimura this is the dumb thing)

[imagitory]

The irony is that HP does contain a lot of Christian imagery--Rowling is Christian, culturally if nothing else, and she's not exactly prone to examining her own biases and assumptions. She put in a lot of what she must have considered "normal" or "natural" symbolism and plot beats, and that wound up being Christian (e.g. snakes being evil, heroism via self-sacrifice, etc.). But she's no C.S. Lewis--she's not doing it on purpose, and the allegories are far from elegant.

Oh, absolutely! J.K.’s Christian faith most definitely influenced her books -- I think anyone would be foolish to argue otherwise. And I personally think that there were times where it was more purposeful than others -- sure, maybe her choice of associating the villain’s Hogwarts house, Slytherin, with snakes could’ve been inspired by the Bible, but snakes being associated with evil in the Western World isn’t just because of the Bible, it’s a trope that has become part of our cultural osmosis, like the tropes of Beauty and the Beast or love conquering all. Yet it’s pretty clear that Harry dying and then returning to life after selflessly sacrificing himself for everyone else was influenced by the Christian tradition, even if the J-Man was not the first or only deity to do that. But I maintain that it is still only one influence of many on J.K.’s work -- other things were the books she loved as a child, historical events and figures, traditional folklore and fairy tales, and even her own life. And that is what makes Harry Potter feel so personal and unique -- if it was just a beat-for-beat rehash of Biblical tradition, I don’t think it’d be half as popular as it was. Even The Chronicles of Narnia, which are more blatantly about Christ, do more than just “smuggle Christian theology” -- they were also likely affected by C.S. Lewis’s experiences during his service in the first World War, his love of creature comforts, his love of European fairy tales and folklore, and the people in his life. Aslan may = Jesus, but there is a lot more to Narnia’s appeal than just him. (I also must laugh at Granger listing The Lord of the Rings as a book that “smuggles Christian theology” as if it was Tolkien’s intention -- Tolkien apparently despised all forms of allegory like the kind Granger proposes. Even if you could read Christian faith or anything else into his work, Tolkien insisted that one never presume it was done purposefully by him.)

[imagitory]

This Granger dude (pity he shares a surname with Hermione) seems like he's grasping at any straw he can find to justify his enjoyment of HP despite it being neither the literal Bible nor overtly Christian fiction (which is supposed to be the only kind of fiction conservative Christians are allowed to read and enjoy). HP has gotten especially slammed by fundamentalists who think magic = Satan and that Rowling wrote it that way on purpose, so he has his work cut out for him. Dude needs to relax.

Yeah, I have to agree. (Especially on the name thing! Poor Hermione!) I must respect that he wanted to prove those Christians who criticized Harry Potter in bad faith wrong by writing a book that proposes a Christian reading of Rowling’s stories, but at the same time, I can’t be happy about how he framed it as “the hidden key” or “the real secret” behind the series’ success. If you want to write a book proving that Harry Potter is for Christians too, more power to you, but be upfront about your intentions. Don’t act like your analysis of the books holds much value for non-Christians or is the reason behind why the books are popular with everyone (including those aforementioned non-Christians).