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Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
davem, you are directly contradicting things you said on three different threads I can think of: "What breaks the enchantment", "And Eru Smiled", and "Emblems of Religion don't belong in fantasy - or do they".
Do you hold with your most recent post, or with what you said earlier?
As you said, it's a work of fantasy.
Does religion now belong in fantasy?
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Probably am. But I think there's a difference between what Tolkien was doing & what Rowling is doing. Tolkien set his story in what is effectively another world - for all he suggested that it was
this world in the ancient past. Rowling has deliberately tied the HP world to this one. HP lives in this world. No-one can go to Middle earth & become a Wizard - that world is gone forever. That is why we are so moved by the story.
Its because Rowling has linked the HP world so closely to this one that it is valid to make connections between the Witches in her book & the Witches in our own world. Rowling does not even seperate the 'magical' from the mundane worlds - as does Lewis. The worlds 'bleed' into one another - probably the reason for a lack of a spiritual/philosophical background, now I think about it. There is only this single 'reality', this one world. The HP universe exists totally 'within the circles of the world'. As such it is closer to a 'realistic novel' than the kind of fantasies produced by Tolkien & Lewis. Therefore, one can criticise the way the contemporary world is presented in HP, & the extent to which it is presented correctly. If a writer wishes to set his/her story in the contemporary world they should get their account of that world correct, just as a SF writer is expected to have a working knowledge of science & not get the basics wrong.