Outrage?

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Anticipating the application of The Saucepan Man's question about "why Harry Potter, now", and not Neil Gaiman's, I'd say that it's an issue of popularity as well as timing.

I acknowledge of course that Rowling comes under particular scrutiny because of the current popularity of her works. As far as I am concerned, however, logic dictates that, if one is to criticise one body of work on the basis that it fails to meet certain criteria, then one should criticise all works that fail to meet the same criteria on the same basis. It is this lack of logicality in the approach of those who would seek to ban Rowling's works that I find unacceptable.

Davem - I find your distinction between tales set in "our world" and those set in an "other world" overly technical. Rowling's works are set in a world where wizards and witches live alongside muggles. That is a fantasy world, regardless of the familiarity of many of the surroundings. It is not real, any more than Oz, Narnia, Middle-earth or the world of the Brothers Grimm's tales are. The distinction between all of these worlds and the real world is a distinction which most young readers are perfectly capable of making. To the extent that they are not, then the failure lies in their upbringing, not in the authors of the books that they read.

This is why I find it both illogical and unacceptable that Rowling's works are singled out as being such a bad influence on young readers, when the multitude of other tales which similarly have no "theological underpinning" are not.

That said, I regard the lack of any "theological underpinning" as irrelevant, given that all of the tales that we are discussing here clearly have a strong moral underpinning. When one strips away the superficial devices of magic and wizardry, the messages that they are giving to their readers are good ones. I fail to see a problem.