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AtroposHeart

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The most outrageous part of the fundie idiocy over Harry Potter is that those books actually have a TON of Christian allusions. Harry/Jesus anyone? Prophecies about babies? MagicalMuggle, wait till you get to the last book. The inscriptions in the graveyard are powerful.

Everyone has books they like and books they don't. The problem with the fundie attitude toward HP is most of them have never read even one chapter in the series they insist is demon possessed. :roll:

Geeeze I'm sorry, I just repeated exactly what you said, I didn't read far enough. I shoulda just wrote YEAH, WHAT SHE SAID! ;)

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Geeeze I'm sorry, I just repeated exactly what you said, I didn't read far enough. I shoulda just wrote YEAH, WHAT SHE SAID! ;)

And I'm going to just say, 'What they both said!' :lol:

I've been somewhat active in the HP fandom since 2001 and have heard it all concerning the so-called 'evils' of Harry Potter. Some of my own extended family members think my house has a dense cloud of demonic possession over it (ohai Dark Mark! :o ) because I've got the books and HP merchandise all over the place. I used to try to explain the Christian symbology, the good triumphing over evil, the self-sacrificial love that permeates the story, but they just couldn't get past the wands and spells. So I gave up. They want to miss out on the most amazing children's literary phenomenon in history, that's their problem.

Ah, I love a bit of HP ;) Good choice!

She's putting out a novel soon about a parish council vacancy (do you have parish councils in America?) This one is for grown ups and not a speckl of magic appears. I know a lot of people have been saying they won't read it because they don't want their HP memories spoilt, fair play, but I will be reading it definitely. Woman's got some talent, this book is bound to be at least middlingly good!

I can't WAIT to read this! :dance:

I wonder do demons possess you if you read that one just cause it was JK who wrote it? :lol:

Probably. :roll: :roll: :roll:

:lol:

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I've been somewhat active in the HP fandom since 2001 and have heard it all concerning the so-called 'evils' of Harry Potter. Some of my own extended family members think my house has a dense cloud of demonic possession over it (ohai Dark Mark! :o ) because I've got the books and HP merchandise all over the place. I used to try to explain the Christian symbology, the good triumphing over evil, the self-sacrificial love that permeates the story, but they just couldn't get past the wands and spells. So I gave up.

They really are a "can't see the forest for the trees" kind of group, aren't they?

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I just finished "Defending Jacob". Very interesting character study and blind love by a parent for a kid who probably is a sociopath. It's not a light read but I recommend it.

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I'm reading an incredibly corny, poorly written book called Paradise House. Part of me wonders why I'm reading it as the entire thing makes me cringe but I'm flying through it and I have a Thomas Hardy lined up so I feel less bad about it :lol:

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I borrowed a book someone had written against Harry Potter, (the exact title has been blocked out) and after a few chapters I was convinced that the author hadn't actually READ the books, just skimmed them looking for certain key words indicating some bad character trait, "Harry lied" for example. Imagine my surprise (not) when I "met" the author on (of all places!) the Catholic Answers forum, and learned straight from the horse's mouth, er...fingers, that that's basically what he did. Granted, they read a lot of Bible verses out of context so why should regular books be any different?

I started reading HP back in my fundie-lite days - my sister got my Sorcerer's Stone for Christmas and I read it, loved it, let my 7yo daughter read it...THEN I was informed about all the negative press it was getting in fundie circles, and just shook my head at their ignorance, and bought the next book. (Another reason I say I was fundie-lite even though I was IFB. I didn't completely drink the kool-aid!)

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That they can't see or don't get the level of self sacrifice involved in that story or the fact that JKR herself has said the Christian imagery in it was obvious to her as she wrote it.........it's so obvious they just want to bury their heads in the sand and let someone else do all the thinking for them. Sad. I personally think those books have more true Christian ethic in them than all the fundie rhetoric put together.

Anyway......I'm so glad you read it and kept reading anyway!

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That they can't see or don't get the level of self sacrifice involved in that story or the fact that JKR herself has said the Christian imagery in it was obvious to her as she wrote it.........it's so obvious they just want to bury their heads in the sand and let someone else do all the thinking for them. Sad. I personally think those books have more true Christian ethic in them than all the fundie rhetoric put together.

Anyway......I'm so glad you read it and kept reading anyway!

All those buzz words about magic, spells, sorcery, wands, dragons, etc...make it near impossible for a die-hard fundie to even crack the cover, which is so sad. The ones that really chapped my hide were those that were okay with Narnia and Middle-Earth, but NOT HP. :roll: Hypocritical much?

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All those buzz words about magic, spells, sorcery, wands, dragons, etc...make it near impossible for a die-hard fundie to even crack the cover, which is so sad. The ones that really chapped my hide were those that were okay with Narnia and Middle-Earth, but NOT HP. :roll: Hypocritical much?

Their reasoning is pretty straightforward. The other two series were written by men. Harry Potter was immediately suspect just for having been written by a woman. If it's a woman, she MUST have an atheistic/liberal/lesbian/Wiccan/"anti-family" agenda. These same people think the Left Behind series is high literature. No concept of art, no concept of subtlety, no concept of beauty.

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Their reasoning is pretty straightforward. The other two series were written by men. Harry Potter was immediately suspect just for having been written by a woman. If it's a woman, she MUST have an atheistic/liberal/lesbian/Wiccan/"anti-family" agenda. These same people think the Left Behind series is high literature. No concept of art, no concept of subtlety, no concept of beauty.

Very good point, I never thought about that but you're right!

I have Deathly Hallows 1 on while I'm working, BTW. All this chat about the books made me think that might be a good thing to have running. My house is awful quiet now that school has started again. It's a little distracting because I want to watch --- not just listen -- but I look at it this way.....I'm getting work done and doing something fundies would disapprove :roll: of so really, it's a win / win. ;)

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Oh wait, I'm WORKING, I'm actually making more money than my DH does, my kids are in public school at this very moment AND I have HP on while I'm doing it. I guess I'm really going to hell! :dance:

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Their reasoning is pretty straightforward. The other two series were written by men. Harry Potter was immediately suspect just for having been written by a woman. If it's a woman, she MUST have an atheistic/liberal/lesbian/Wiccan/"anti-family" agenda. These same people think the Left Behind series is high literature. No concept of art, no concept of subtlety, no concept of beauty.

Even AS a fundie the Left Behind books irritated me - especially when it became clear they were purposely stretching things out to sell more books. While I think some may have rejected HP for the reasons you gave, I think (at least in the circles I ran in) it was more that HP was the new kid on the block and didn't have the "classic" status the other series have. Oddly enough, I see more parallels to Christianity in HP than Tolkein, but maybe that's because Tolkein is a bit too verbose about trivial things for my taste.

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Even AS a fundie the Left Behind books irritated me - especially when it became clear they were purposely stretching things out to sell more books. While I think some may have rejected HP for the reasons you gave, I think (at least in the circles I ran in) it was more that HP was the new kid on the block and didn't have the "classic" status the other series have. Oddly enough, I see more parallels to Christianity in HP than Tolkein, but maybe that's because Tolkein is a bit too verbose about trivial things for my taste.

Could also be because Tolkien was vocally against allegory and Catholic (so subtle doctrine differences :)

He'd be all hostile to fundies making religious parallels w/ his books.

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All this talk makes me think I need to pick up some Tolkein again. I haven't read any of them since I was around 11 or 12. My stepdad was a big fan of his. Frankly I don't remember anything about them except that I loved them, at the time. Might be time to visit Amazon......

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Could also be because Tolkien was vocally against allegory and Catholic (so subtle doctrine differences :)

He'd be all hostile to fundies making religious parallels w/ his books.

CS Lewis also insisted that Narnia was not allegory, using the academic definition, and I agree with him. There are some parallels, but a true allegory has a "match" for every character, and Narnia does not. I am quite surprised that so many fundies love Tolkien when he was *gasp* Catholic. I guess since it doesn't come through in an obvious-to-fundies way in his books, it's okay. :roll:
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I'm re-reading The Princess Bride at the moment. I'm also in the middle of Game of Thrones, Under the Dome, Interview With the Vampire, Insurgent...uhhhhhh...I think that's about it for now. I tend to read more than one book at once. :)

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I'm reading Rapunzel's Revenge, a graphic novel by Shannon and Dean Hale aimed 4-9th graders. It's good--very positive girl role model in the character of Rapunzel. In this version, she is the daughter of Mother Gothel, a rich and super powerful witch with the power to control plant growth and dryness (think Demeter-like powers) in a version of the American Southwest. When Rapunzel realizes she was stolen from her true parents who were enslaved to work in the mines, she rebels and Gothel sticks her in a tree. Rapunzel finally figures out how to use her 20 feet of red hair as a tool and weapon and escapes and takes up with Calamity Jack, a fellow on the run who's a bit of a thief and scammer. (Yes, it's a bit like Tangled--but it was published back in 2008.)

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I just finished Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo. It's the first book of a planned trilogy. I recommend it if you like fantasy books. It's an easy read, but a good one.

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I just finished Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo. It's the first book of a planned trilogy. I recommend it if you like fantasy books. It's an easy read, but a good one.

What kind of fantasy? Just curious. I'm reading the Sookie Stackhouse series, but I have to be honest, I'm not nuts about Charlaine Harris' writing style.

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What kind of fantasy? Just curious. I'm reading the Sookie Stackhouse series, but I have to be honest, I'm not nuts about Charlaine Harris' writing style.

Basically, she becomes a part of the magical elite in a war-torn country, with lots of deceit and a big plot twist. Here is the description from Amazon:

Amazon Best Books of the Month, June 2012: Alina Starkov has never been anything more than yet another orphan of her country’s on-going wars...until she channels magic not seen in centuries to protect her best friend, Mal. Her new-found powers attract the attention of the Darkling, the most powerful of the country’s magic-wielders. He tells Alina that her magic could heal the Shadow Fold, if she can only learn to control it--and if she agrees to trust the Darkling despite the mystery that surrounds his very existence. Leigh Bardugo brings a cast of well-defined characters and a unique magic system to her lavishly imagined world, where light doesn’t always conquer dark and deception runs so deep that it becomes truth. And yet, against all expectations, the bonds of sacrifice and friendship remain too strong to be severed in this thrilling debut. --Malissa Kent

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After the Eleanor of Aquitaine bit I checked "Here be Dragons" out of the library. Eleanor shows up but the story revolves around her offspring mostly John and his daughter Joanna. Did you know she had ten children???? Quiver full?hahaha.

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After the Eleanor of Aquitaine bit I checked "Here be Dragons" out of the library. Eleanor shows up but the story revolves around her offspring mostly John and his daughter Joanna. Did you know she had ten children???? Quiver full?hahaha.

I love Sharon Kay Penman's books. Here Be Dragons was her first, I think; it's been years since I read it but it was great. She's got two that are more strictly about Eleanor and Henry that you might like: Time and Chance, and Devil's Brood. Penman's a great historian; even though her books are fiction, her historical details are spot-on accurate. :)

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Sam Gunn Omnibus ... I really like it so far, which is good since it's a huge book. It's an anthology of stories about this sex crazed astronaut turned entrepreneur.

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