Harry Potter

   I read the Harry Potter series over winter break and fell in love. In fact, I enjoyed so much that I wrote a little theme analysis type thing I will share here. Brace yourselves, it's pretty long! :)

Caroline’s Summary of the Ideas Found in 

Harry Potter

   It’s not up to us to get revenge. We must stay safe through innocence and with no opposition of the same kind, evil in forced to turn on itself because it is never satisfied, it must continue to hurt and destroy in order stay alive. If our hands are clean and our hearts pure then we have created an impenetrable shield of love and sacrifice that evil cannot break because it lacks understanding. The pure of heart do not understand evil but that doesn’t matter because the pure of heart never wage war. In their purity, they are led to sacrifice through love which binds all things together in perfect harmony and because evil is the opposite of both love and harmony it has no choice but to kill itself. The pure hearts cannot kill because only evil knows true death. 

Explanations:

• It’s not up to us to get revenge (if we say that someone is evil then commit a deed equal to that of which we have condemned them for, our deeds are equal and so is the measure of our evil.)

• We must stay safe through innocence and with no opposition of the same kind (This is not to say we should not fight back against evil. It simply means that we should not fight to harm but to save. When we choose to fight evil by inflicting pain and fear then we are fighting evil in the exact same way it is fighting us therefore we are trying to conquer evil with evil. If instead we retaliate by trying to prevent the infliction of pain and fear on others, then we are fighting to save rather than harm and we remain innocent and free of blame.)

• evil is forced to turn on itself because evil is never satisfied, it must continue to hurt and destroy in order to stay alive. (Evil cannot continue to exist without people who are willing to harm others for selfish gain. If we remain innocent and unwilling, evil cannot grow. Because blame and selfishness are found in the foundation of all evil, those who are corrupt will often try to excuse themselves by blaming those around them and evil wages war against itself. They do this because they want to avoid the pain of remorse, not realizing that it is only through that pain that they may feel true joy later on.)

• If our hands are clean and our hearts pure then we have created an impenetrable shield of love and sacrifice that evil cannot break because it lacks understanding. (When we allow evil to enter into us and control how we behave, we become evil’s prisoners. Remorse (as afore mentioned) is the key which unlocks our prison. However, we can skip all of that by not allowing evil to enter into us at all. When our deeds stem from love and sacrifice, we strengthen the shield that protects us from evil but selfish motives that are often part of our nature create kinks in the armor.  They allow passage for evil to slip in, often without us recognizing it for what it is. We must remain close to Jesus in order to recognize and expel evil from ourselves. Without selfish motives, our shields are impenetrable. In war, an army cannot successfully attack against the opposing side if they don’t understand the other sides defense. Because love and sacrifice have no place with fear and destruction, evil doesn’t understand our defense, if it did, it would no longer be evil.)

• The pure of heart do not understand evil but that doesn’t matter because the pure of heart never wage war. (The innocent cannot understand the appeal of hurting others therefore do not understand evil, but because the innocent don’t want to hurt others, they do not wage war against others and their lack of understanding of evil keeps them pure.)

• In their purity, they are led to sacrifice through love which binds all things together in perfect harmony (Just as Jesus, who was completely pure, sacrificed Himself for us due to His love for us, we can do the same for those around us. Love leads us to sacrifice our own interests for that of others and the joy and blessings that come from our sacrifice creates a life much fuller than if we followed our own hearts because to listen only to your heart is selfishness at its finest.)

• and because evil is the opposite of both love and harmony it has no choice but to kill itself. (Evil cannot coincide with love and harmony so it will leave any place in which love and harmony reign. If our shields are working and evil has no where to go it will turn on itself (as is its nature) and destroy itself instead of us defiling ourselves in our attempts to destroy it).

• The pure hearts cannot kill because only evil knows true death. (Those of pure hearts are those who know Jesus and, consequently, are given eternal life after earthly death. In the end, only evil will truly die/be forced into nonexistence. Because the pure of heart don’t know death, we cannot dish it out and remain untouched.) 

I hope you enjoyed my spiritual and thematically connections and will think of them(e) whenever you read these wonderful books!

Library's are pretty awesome and you'll probably be able to check them out any where but if you would like to own this wonderful series click HERE to buy them.

To visit J.K. Rowling's website click HERE.