My son hates evil because of Harry Potter.
On a cold January night, Jack and I sat by the fire. He was immersed in a Harry Potter book. I watched him turn pages, eyes racing, shoulders tense. He was near the end. He’s almost there…I thought. Almost at that part….
He put the book down. His eyes were wide and disbelieving.
Whispering, he told me of the grievous wrong he had read in the story.
“I know, Jack. Voldemort is evil, and evil is evil.”
He stared at me for a long time.
“Mom,” he said at last, “I hate evil.”
“Me too, son,” I answered, my heart bursting.
Over the years, many parents have looked at me askance when I share that in our home we seek out stories with dark elements. In addition to the Harry Potter series, a few favorites are The Lord of the Rings, The 100 Cupboards series, The BFG (and others by Roald Dahl), The Chronicles of Prydain, and original fairy tales. We are not sadists who enjoy sadness and fear, nor are we careless with the fragile inner worlds of our little ones. We simply believe that children need to experience darkness in order to love the light.
Children and adults respond differently to moral dilemmas, which is an opportunity to orient children’s affections to God and truth. To adults, glory and fallenness can appear hopelessly mingled, leading to complex dilemmas. To children, however, it is simpler. Good is good, and bad is bad. Far from being a time to shelter them, this is an opportunity to form their souls. When we fail to impart the nature of “bad,” we withhold what they need in order to reject “badness” when it is not so simple anymore. In our home, we have always taught our son the dangers of evil, but it was a story that made him hate it. Through the story, he engaged with truth through an experience of loss, which knit that truth to his soul. Now it is his. He owns it. Why? He loved the character who died and therefore hated the darkness that marred him. His grief caused him to reject the evil that caused it. Our kids’ reactions against darkness in a story gives them, in a sense, skin in the game. If grace inclines, they become invested in goodness by the time the choice between good and evil becomes more complicated in their lives.
When children feel the depth of dark elements in a story, they more fully experience the glory of redemption, which influences how they experience the gospel. Superior authors employ darkness purposefully, in order to generate satisfaction in the resolution. As gatekeepers of our children’s stories, we choose worthy stories on their behalf and then trust the story. Kids feel the weight when Voldemort murders Harry’s parents, when the giants steal children from their beds to eat them in the night, when the ring degrades Gollum to a scheming, crawling wastrel, when Judas senselessly betrays Our Lord to a bloody execution on a Roman cross. Like their heroes in the great stories, they hate the darkness that appears to conquer, and they choose, alongside their heroes, to participate in the light that defeats it. Only then do they viscerally rejoice when Harry defeats Voldemort, Sophie and the BFG imprison the evil giants, Gollum and Frodo destroy the ring, and Christ rises in triumph from the grave.
From this perspective, I look askance at the parents who attempt to hide darkness from their children. I worry for them. It is far more dangerous to hide reality than to reveal it. On a hot July day, I can attempt to protect my children from sun damage through didactic or experiential means. I can lecture my children about the dangers of heat stroke and command them to stay inside, or I can slather them in sunblock and take them to the pool to play. Probably only one of those choices will teach them to love summer. I have the same choices with their spiritual and moral imaginations. I can inform them about the wages of sin and forbid them to engage it; I can also read them a gripping story in which grace and goodness overcome evil. Wise parents do both. What I cannot do is convince them that the heat, and the darkness, do not exist. I will be lying to them, and they will get fried.
- How Dark Stories Can Lead Our Children to the Light - July 11, 2016
Interesting that the Bible doesn’t hide evil.
I really enjoyed this article, Heidi, and resonate with much of your perspective. I would like to add two thoughts, and would love to hear your feedback. As the “gatekeepers” of our children’s stories (love how you expressed that!), we have put Harry Potter and several others on the to-read-someday list. Not because of the darkness, but rather because the hero of the story accomplishes much good by continuously deceiving and rebelling against authority because he ‘knows better’. This is contrasted with the protagonists in Tolkien, Lewis, the Wingfeather Saga, and many others we gladly embrace. I would love to hear your perspective on this. Secondly, God’s original and perfect plan was to teach Adam and Eve about good and evil, not by exposure to or experience with evil, but rather by flooding them with the polar opposite, Himself and the ultimate good of a relationship with Him. Evil was simply some lack of this until experience came and affected everything. Thoughts as to how this may relate to literature selections?
I think the distinction between authors and series is a little less black and white than that. For starters, there are always consequences when Harry and his friends are deceitful or rebellious, both for them and others. Even when that rebellon and deceit is aimed at unjust authority(which is a whole other layer). And the characters live with and are often haunted by those consequences.
But I also think it is a false dichotomy to say it doesn’t exist in the other authors. Certainly Bilbo accomplished much good through deception. Sam is spying and eavesdropping, going to councils he’s no invited to, etc. But without him Frodo would have been lost. Faramir defies the decree of his Father the Steward and allows Frodo and Sam to go on their way. Eomer similarly defies the king under Wormtongues spell and Eowyn not only defies a just king, but comceals her true identity. Without those actions the Witch-King would never have been defeated.
There is similar action, that while it had consequences, also furthers the quest in The Wingfeather Saga. There is no family reunion if Kalmar didn’t first lie to his family and defy the laws of The Hollows, etc.
As to your other question, I do think God intended teach its about Good and Evil, though I think any idea of what that was going to look like can never really be known. But, I do think evil was already in the world. Existing in Satan and demons before the fall, so I would say that it was already in.a form that is not JUST some lack of God
Thanks for such a well-thought out reply. I find Harry Potter (having read them all myself) and the other books mentioned to be very different ‘animals’, and remain unconvinced that they can be compared to you did. My husband has read Tolkien at least 15 times, and also finds them to be very different types of literature. However, we found your remarks to be thought-provoking. Thanks for taking the time to respond.
Thank you. I appreciate that you are seeking the best for your own children and I want to honor anyone who is being sensatively obedient to the Holy Spirit’s leading.
I would argue that they are different animals in many ways. Certainly the tone of Rowling is more modern, but so is Peterson to some extent(by his own admission he is part Tolkien part Princess Bride).
Moreover I think Tolkien is singular in many ways among modern writers. The level of mythos in a completely fabricated world is incredible. It reads much more Greek. Peterson works in a whole new world, but it more whimsical and while I love it doesn’t have the deep history that Middle Earth is embued with. Rowling and Lewis are both dealing in the real world and the “unseen” just beyond the veil.
But while different in many ways I think you have to acknowledge they are all fantasy or “fairy story”. I and think it is perfectly fine to think they way the elements are used by one author are more problematic or less edifying than another. But I think we can tend isolate singe elements, because of how their used, and miss that someone else uses them too.
I didn’t mention it before, but the child protagonists in 100 Cupboards are continuously secretive even when they acknowledge they ships tell the adults. Yet again they achieve success and reward through that, albeit with sometimes high consequences.
All that said, we as parents are responsible for our own children. We know them, we know best what they’re ready for. What themes they can separate and recognize ava which ones they need to mature more for first. I had a while different issue with HP as the kids start beginning romantically entangled add dealing with hormones and jealousy etc. And I had be sure my son was at an age to have those age appropriate conversations. I know he child handle the evil, I knew he was perceptive enough to see the consequences of deceit and rebellion. It was a little longer before he was mature enough for me to address the “shnogging”.
So no matter what I.or anyone else says follow the leading of the Spirit for your children. You’ll answer for them and it won’t be to me! 🙂
Love it, Heidi. We just finished Dandelion Fire as a family and before this series we were in LOTR. And Kobi reading Potterv in morning time!
Concerning Harry Potter, did your son grieve at the use of sorcery by the “good guys”? Marcia Montenegro makes some really good points about the series and what Christian parents should address if they read it with their children.
Montenegro draws singe pretty strict lines setting the use of magic in literature(explicitly calling even Lewis and especially Tolkien).
Based on her lines you couldn’t contentiously dead either of their works for use magic, pagan creatures presented as good, talking to the dead(Aragorn), etc. And that’s fine if that’s the line you want to draw. But you can’t single out Rowling in that respect.
In fact you’d be hard pissedr to find any well written fantasy that would comply, with the exception of sci-fi. And that is only if you don’t dwell too long on the idea that technology simply replaces magic in those stories as the way we manipulate nature.
You’ll also be out of all the Greeks, Romans, Authorian Legend (and surrounding knights stories) as well as big chicks of Shakespeare, etc.
There is nothing wrong with deciding what use of magic, pagan practice, etc. you ate comfortable with for yourself or your children. You have give weight to that. But her lines carve our huge chucks of the canon of western civilization.
This is excellent. Thank you.
Heidi, I always enjoy reading your pieces because I know they will make me think and they will resonate somewhere in my soul. This was no exception. I kept saving it to read on a quiet day… Now, three months later, it is a cricket-quiet evening giving me some time to chew on your words and digest them. I especially love your closing lines. We cannot pretend (to children or ourselves) that evil does not exist, we cannot leave others unprepared…nor should we shrink from facing evil if we do know it exists. A very timely word.