Harry Potter: Impact of the Books, Themes and Controversies

chafe work Impact of the Books, Themes and Contr ein truthwheresiesChapter II The chevvy Potter Phenomenon2.1 How did it counterbalance base?The waste Potter phenomenon started slowly, as we watch seen Rowling had a lot of trouble trying to publish the throw and 12 publishing houses turned her down provided she had pers constantlyance and she truly believed in the curbs, in the story and kept on trying. The content of the rule platters was so unique, so risky from any affaire else that it triggered a mass phenomenon.We laughingstock bring our selves what becomes a phenomenon? First of from each superstar(prenominal) we need to understand the term cultural phenomenon or media phenomenon. A phenomenon is non an invention of the present, of the times we make water it away in, but it has existed always since a human collective conscience has existed. Some peerless found some thing useful and it was so trade good and necessary that e rattlingbody started using it. For example the invention of the phone, or the com moulder, we may not estimate it this way but the invention of those things brought with them a whole phenomenon. I rigorous even if Alexander Graham Bell wouldnt take invented the telephone it would still be invented by someone else as it is a very useful and revolutionary device. People need this device and have needed it ever since the beginning of the realness. The invention of TV or photo camera be things that the humans needed ever since they fill in it but couldnt materialized their desire. People would paint in caves things they desired, things they did, things they believed in, they had this desire to capture their everyday life and memorialize it somehow. As time passed stack got to a greater extent and more skilled in the art of painting and could produce the reality better and better technology advanced as well and continued to pursue this ancient desire and now thank God we truly managed to invent a device t hat discharge capture the reality exactly as it is. The camera is something so useful and needed by the humans that nigh every human being posses at least one camera. Phones are equipped with cameras, with voice recording features, with internet and so on Why is that? Because we involve to immortalize our experiences, we want to record special offsprings and ordinary as well, we want to take pictures with the people that we love so we can keep them with us forever, we especially like to look back at our past and by having photos taken in the past we can really transport ourselves better. By taking pictures we can pass along behind to our descendants proof of our existence, of how we were, how we looked, what we liked etc.This was hardly one example of how a phenomenon takes place, how it starts. A phenomenon exists barely when it is recognized by the masses. If only a few people, or some groups adhere to it thitherfore it is not really a phenomenon. A phenomenon is somethi ng that it is so useful, necessary and was needed by the humans for a long time but couldnt really achieve it and and so when somebody finally gets to invent/create it, it is rapidly assimilated by everyone. What Graham Bell did was only to continue the collective reverie of being able to speak with an opposite person even when that person is not near. The ones that invented the camera followed on a collective, pre-historical dream that of reproducing the reality, the ones that invented the TV and the computer analogous thing.Now what J.K. Rowling did was to exploit our ancient desires to pass offle magic, to possess magic, to use magic, among many early(a) features in her books but the magic is the one that triggered the phenomenon. When we look at the influences that her books have we find texts such as British Folklore and mythology, The Bible, The Iliad, Mac Beth, Emma, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Sword in The Stone, A tale of 2 cities, etc. many of which have to deal with magic. Magic has always been present in the human assuredness, in the human imagination, what Rowling did is just to exploit these mythologies, these dreams, these manifestation of our imagination. What makes them still so captivating is that we cannot know for sure, even with all technology and knowledge of the physical world, that they dont exist. Magic will disappear from our minds only when we will possess the ultimate knowledge of this world, of how it works, of how it came to existence until then our minds will always fancy more or less these aspects of an alternate reality.The alternate reality is the second main reason why The Harry Potter Phenomenon exists. The world that Rowling has created is so vast, so deep, so intense that it can be called an alternate reality. Im not saying that one should really believe that magic exists and take a burbot and jump of the roof with it hoping it will start flying, this is not what I mean when I say alternate reality, it is an a lternate reality that is to be found when plunging into that world by redeing. It is so vast and it has everything in it that you can easily forget about this world and be captivated by that world. Now why do we need to forget about this world and plunge into other, imaginary one? The answer is simple this world is too ugly and boring, at least the friendship we bide in. We are forced to go to school against our will, we are forced to obey orders by our parents, by our teachers, by the society. We are obliged to work if we want to survive, we have to make a lot of concessions and all our dreams and ambitions are restrained by other people who laugh at as, by parents, by teachers and all these things really make us sick, we need to escape, we need to getaway from everything in order to not fall into a deep depression. What is the best and safest way to do so? It is to read a book. But not all the books have this feature or capability to help you do so, not all the books make su ch wonderful things in such a wonderful way as to make you plunge into them. And here comes the true merit of J.K. Rowling because she really managed to do this. And it is not me that is saying it, actually I dont even have to say it Im not J.K. Rowlings lawyer but the fact that her books have become a world(prenominal) phenomenon says it all.A phenomenon is something that comes at the reclaim time and it is something that the humans always needed. From here comes the conclusion that we really need magic in our lives, that this society in which we live in is not so perfect and that we need to get away from it at least in our minds. Children come home from school comp allowely irresolute from the many classes they had boring long classes, they come home also with a lot of homework to do as if the hours spent in school were not enough and what is there to do, to really get away from it all? To read a book, a good book, another world to escape to. The same thing with adults they h ave lived all their lives constrained and restrained by the society now they continue to work for the society, each with his job and sometime it is just too over often there must be something to help them get away from it all.Harry Potter is a Phenomenon because it has the power to fulfill this more or less conscious desire in our minds that of escape. Music has the same power, the same feature and maybe the same purpose. People normally sing about love, about what they dont have and longing to have, about other places etc. When we listen to a song we get transported to the world the singer is singing about or we resonate by having the same feelings, sufferings etc. That is what makes up a phenomenon the mass resonation of something that has always intrigued, haunted and followed us but we didnt know or have the power to express it.In J.K. Rowlings case, however, the achievement was not so instant and we could not talk about a phenomenon on wards the year 2000 when the forth boo k was released. She had local success with the release of the first book and second but the breakthrough did not come until U.S. discovered the books then it started to become a cultural phenomenon. I tell not before year 2000 and by that I mean that with the release of the forth book Harry Potter became a global phenomenon, the premieres of it were really Brobdingnagian all around the world and had widespread media coverage.I think one thing that helped a lot the Harry Potter books to become a phenomenon was the internet. The internet pages that were created by fans had dreadful effect in spreading the publicity. Of black market the first and main way of publicity was word-of-mouth, literally people would talk to one another and recommend this fantastic book but the phenomenon wouldnt have started so fast if it wasnt for the internet. Televisions can broadcast some events regarding the books, or radio stations talking about them but what is more truthful than real reviews made by fans who have read the books and were so stunned by them that they felt the need to make websites dedicated to them? If the televisions and radio stations were just doing their jobs these people were doing it because they loved the books. So the ones that have the main credit for triggering the phenomenon are not by any means the media or paid publicity. Thats what a true phenomenon is, it doesnt need too much publicity, everything happens spontaneous and it will automatically have the support of everyone that came in contact with it.2.2 The clashing on the societyThe impact on society is huge and in almost every field music, movies, entertainment park, clothing etc. therefore in this subchapter I will happen upon every aspect in which Harry Potter has left its traces in society.The yellowish brown Sites The oldest Harry Potter fan sites date around 1997-98. The sites are so sincere and clean that even J.K. Rowling admire them and occasionally awards the ones that are the best . The first site awarded by J.K. Rowling was Immeritus a website devoted especially to Sirius Black. Then Rowling awarded Godrics Hollow then Mugglenet a very good fan site containing news, pictures, wonders, excerpts from books, quotations, has a very good design and contains all in all everything you need to know about Harry Potter. Another fan site awarded by Rowling is hp-lexicon.org an useful site containing facts about each one of the books, it contains answered questions about various things regarding the HP world and as the name says it, it is like a lexicon with a lot of useful information. The Leaky Cauldron the website awarded by Rowling in 2005 has a very good design, works very well and is mainly foc utilize on the HP news Rowling likes it very much and says it is her favorite.Rowling tries each year to award a site that does a good job in promoting and giving useful information about Harry Potter. At one time Warner Bros., the caller-up that holds the corrects o f the Harry Potter tag, tried and true to conclude down all fan sites. This attempt was unfortunate and the company later agreed that it is important that these websites continue to exist in order to keep the fans interested. probably the company was feeling threatened by the popularity of those sites and wanted to have instead full popularity with their own dedicated site. Of course its all about money, they wanted to have all the revenues they could from every aspect involving HP and could not bear that others were making profit over their brand. The fan sites have indeed ads on their sites from which they get revenue but the money made is probably just enough to cover the expenses of maintaining the site online and its not about making a living out of it.Fan Fiction refers to works made by fans involving characters, places, story of the original work. These fan works are normally not accepted by the authors and they are tolerated only as long as they are not published becaus e that would be totally illegal as it would mean plagiarism.The Harry Potter books have a whole world of fan fabrication works from the most innocent ones to real grotesque ones. There is a huge number of fan fiction works on the net more than a half a million and J.K. Rowling is not against these works but supports them. As we know Rowling is a huge supporter of imagination and believes it to be very important for mental health. There are many sites dedicated especially to HP fan fiction where users can read these works or upload their own creations. There is a fan fiction work called The Shoebox Project to which many fans write and contribute to. It has over 20 chapters and continues or split ups untold stories of the HP world.The fan fiction has also a more negative aspect which J.K. Rowling does not agree with. There are a lot of stories of the slash fiction genre which are depicting sexual relationships surrounded by characters, relations that normally do not appear in the b ooks and are not even suggested. Nobody can stop others from writing and uploading such stories and therefore there are a lot of websites dedicated to this braggart(a) fiction.Role Playing is a main component in any fan community and it couldnt be absent here. There is real life live action mapping play and internet based playing. Fans have come up with a so called muggle quidditch which is sympathetic to the quidditch game in the books but of course it is on the ground. The fans hold tournaments and give away prizes to the winners. There are also card games, puzzles and games of that kind invented for the fans. There is a vast internet based role playing community which puts up games related to the books, to Hogwarts, to the characters etc.Wizard rock is a specific genre of music which emerged in 2000 with the music band Harry and the Potters and has since gained a widespread interest so much that today there are over 700 bands belonging to this genre. The listeners are for the most part HP fans and the lyrics are mostly based on the books.Harry Potter theme park The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is the name of the HP theme park that had its opening 18 June 2010 in Orlando, Florida. It is a park having real life proportions where people can go and have fun eating the Hogwarts specialties, visiting Diagon Alley, visiting Hogwarts, the varied shops etc. It has roller coasters, tours in the castle and visitors encounter the whomping willow, dementors, and witness a quidditch match. The investement wooed 200 million dollars and the park was built on a huge space. The park has trustworthy very good reviews both from the fans and nonfans and good reviews from newspapers and specialized reviewers. They reviewed it as a unique experience which is very close to the experience of the books and the films.2.3 The controversiesLegal disputes-The first problems J.K. Rowling had adjoin and involving her books is written matterright infringement accusations. The A merican author Nancy Kathleen Stouffer had written two books in 1984 which (at least the title) resemble to some realities in the Harry Potter books The legend of Rah and the muggles and Larry Potter and his best friend Lily. The word muggle is a word often used in the HP books and the names Potter(and his best friend Lily) and Lily have also a sounding importance in the books, Potter being Harrys give way name and Lily the name of his mother. The resemblances go much just than being just some similarities between names as the word Muggle was used by N.K. Stouffer to refer to a humanoid species and Larry Potter is a dark haired boy wearing glasses very similar to Harry Potter. Other similarity found in N.K. Stouffers book is a castle by a lake resembling Rowlings Hogwarts. The interesting fact is that Stouffer never got to really publish the books, only parts of The legend of Rah in a booklet to a company which soon went bankruptcy preventing her to get her books published in or outside U.S. Rowling first went to U.S. in 1998, 1 year after her book was already published and 8 years after she got the inspiration to write these books.-A audition was started during which it was proven that Stouffer had manipulated her original work inserting the word muggle and other changes in her manuscript as to resemble the Harry Potter books. She was also found with false and dishonest testimony and was fined $50.000. She later tried to recourse but was refused by the court.-Other problems surrounding these books rose when Warner Bros. demanded all the fan sites to be closed because their respective owners (which were electric shaverren, teenagers) had no right to use the trademark. Somehow this thing was settled after some scandals in the media and Warner Bros. started to make a difference between a commercial use of their trademark and the non-commercial use as it is in the case of the fan sites.-Unauthorized and fake copies of the books have been circulating in Chi na. Apparently where it is success everyone tries to steal a little and be part of the success. Harry Potter and Bao Zoulong is the name of a Chinese fake sequel of Harry Potter which came out in 2002 and was published and sold publicly. This book had in fact no connection with the HP books it was a translation of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien but with all the characters names changed to the ones from HP. The fake was rapidly denounced and Warner Bros. sued that publishing company which was fined to the extremely small sum of $3.400.-In India also one author tried to publish a book called Harry Potter in Calcutta where Harry gets to chance upon various figures from the Indian culture. Warner Bros. reaction was prompt and made the author stop publishing the novel.-The attempt to stop copyright infringement was not so palmy in the case of the Russian writer Dmitri Yemets who published a book called Tanya Trotter and the Magical Double Bass which intentionally resembles Harry Potter a nd the Philosophers Stone. Warner Bros. tried to get the book out of publishing and succeeded in not having it published in English but the book was still sold in Netherlands, Belgium and Russia. This copy of Harry Potter has sold over 3 million copies and has a relative success in Russia where the writer has written 12 more sequels.-A successful fan site which began its activity as a lexicon for the Harry Potter world wanted to get all the facts there published in book form which would therefore be illegal so Warner Bros. again had to present the copyright infringement of their trademark. The case was much debated and judged and in the end it got a semi-positive leave they can publish the guide but under a name which suggests its nature The Lexicon An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction and Related Materials. This was potential as the Court and law cannot restrict others to write about others works and that this should not represent in anyway a copyright infringement.-Anot her case which could have turned out bad for Warner Bros. was when the estate of Adrian Jacobs sued Bloomsbury for 500 million stating that Rowling has plagiarized a scene from The Adventures of Willy the Wizard Livid Land NO 1 and used it in Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire. However in 6th January 2011 the lawsuit was dismissed because there were simply not enough resemblances between the two books. In fact Rowling hasnt even heard about that book and that author until 2004 when the charges were made (4 years after her book was published). This was in a way similar to Stouffers case where she accused Rowling for plagiarism. What happens in fact, in my opinion, is that it is impossible to write something completely from another planet as to not resemble in anyway other works or to retell some ideas, you do that unconsciously and when you write 4000 pages of fiction it is impossible for many ideas there not to resemble others but that doesnt mean it is a direct plagiarism it is no t even an indirect one it is purely a coincidence because the world cannot be so infinite so that everyone can invent something that has never been said.-Black mailing attempt which ended after a gun had been fired (yes were still talking about Harry Potter) is another issue in this world of copyright infringement business. A guard from a book distribution centre managed to steal a number of pages from the fifth book 6 weeks before its release and tried to sell them to a journalist from The Sun and/or try to black mail Bloomsbury. The appointment got somber when the guard fired his gun, luckily the journalist was not wounded but the guard got arrested.-Other accusations came from Asda a UK supermarket chain complaining that the books are too expensive and that they cost at least half more than what usually a bestseller for children would cost. I mean how stupid can such an affirmation be? First of all J.K. Rowling is not writing for children, she never intended to write for childr en if the books came out that way thats a different thing. How can you compare other childrens bestseller books to Harry Potter when each of the Harry Potter books broke all the records in matter of selling number, selling speed and stayed in newspapers bestselling lists for years? And another thing, how many pages does an HP book have and how many does a usual childrens book have? What sort of material and format has been used for the HP books and what material for other usual books? So, in my opinion, Bloomsbury did a right thing to cancel all the orders made by Asda (about 500.000 books) if they started to quarrel about the price ($30/book).Religious debatesProbably the main accusations brought to J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter books are from religious groups many different religious groups have something to say against the HP booksEvangelicalism The Evangelical Christian groups are targeting their accusations mainly at the themes of witchery and magic that the books are ful l of or exclusively about. They recognize the moral features of the books, the valuable lessons about courage, love etc. but they dont like the world in which all these take place. They say that pagan rituals and witchcraft are clearly denounced by the Bible. They say that the Potter books open a doorway that will put untold millions of kids into hell or are comparing the Harry Potter books to rat poison mixed with orange soda. Other Evangelical Christian newspapers depicted Rowling as a Satanist and her story inspired by Satan, that she has sold her soul to the devil and have much riches. They made a picture of 3 children sitting in a circle with a Satanist symbol in front of them and with Harry Potter books near them they made it circulate among Christians as a proof on their views.Suggesting that reading Harry Potter makes you a Satanist Mrs. J. K. Satan-said that as she sat in a coffee shop one grey day, wondering what to do with her empty, aimless life, it hit her Ill give m yself, body and soul, to the Dark Master. And in return, he will give me absurd wealth and power over the weak and pitiful of the world. And he didCatholicism Catholic leaders had no official position on Harry Potter in the beginning later however bad reviews started coming It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil The books make a false distinction between black and white magic, while, in reality, the distinction does not exist, because magic is always a turn to the devil Despite some(prenominal) positive values that can be found in the story, at the foundations of this tale is the proposal that of witchcraft as positive, the violent manipulation of things and people convey to the knowledge of the occult, an advantage of a select few the ends justify t he means because the knowledgeable, the chosen ones, the intellectuals know how to control the dark powers and turn them into good This is a arduous and deep lie, because it is the old Gnostic temptation of confusing salvation and truth with a secret knowledge.Orthodox the Greek Orthodox Church denounced the books as blamed these books acquaint people with evil, wizardry, the occult and demonology It is beyond doubt that Harry was made to resemble a four-year-old savior. Upon his birth people try to kill him, he is forever subjected to injustice but always supernaturally manages to prevail and save others. Let us reflect, who else is held to be the unjustly treated God? Official liturgies were held to entreat in order to heal the young minds from the attraction towards these books which dealt with real magic and reading or reciting the spells found in the books was like praying to the devil and that the poor, innocent minds got possessed. A Russian orthodox writer defended the books saying that they contain moral, Christian values and that the books do not encourage to any pagan practices. This position was held by other orthodox priests as well.Anglicanism Representatives of Anglicanism had mixed reactions, from forbidding the churches to be filmed as to not have any connection to Hogwarts and Harry Potter to praising the books and comprehend the clear difference between imagination and reality These sessions draw parallels between events in the world of Harry and his friends, and the world in which we are seeking to publish the gospel to young people To say, as some have, that these books draw younger readers towards the occult seems to me both to malign J. K. Rowling and to vastly underestimate the ability of children and young people to separate the real from the imaginaryIslam in 2002 the books were banned in schools in United Arab Emirates being labeled as un-Muslim, containing elements of fantasy and magic which are against Islamic values. In 20 07, hours before the release of the final HP book the police force found and defused a bomb located near a obtain centre in Pakistan. However the police dont know for sure if the target was indeed the HP premiere or not. 6 days after this event a newspaper in Iran criticized the Iranian minister of culture for accepting the HP books in their country claiming that the publisher of HP is of Zionist origin. The newspaper further described the books as a Zionist project on which was spent billions of dollars. In 2009 a documentary on Iranian television about Harry Potter said The creation of new stories, based on mythical themes of witchcraft and devil worship, has always been a tool used by contemporaneous Zionists, and it is once again used in recent years, now more visibly than ever, targeting innocent children and youth.Judaism in the Judaic community Harry Potter has received mainly favorable reviews in a society in which adolescents are precociously adult, and adults are permane ntly adolescent, Harry Potter has reclaimed the kingdom of childhood, proving that you dont have to betray to enchant the HP books are a force for good etc. The only thing that angered the community was the setting of the premiere of the last book on a Sabbath day.Rowlings response to all these accusations I absolutely did not start writing these books to encourage any child into witchcraft. Im laughing meagrely because to me, the idea is absurd. I have met thousands of children and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, Ms Rowling, Im so glad Ive read these books because now I want to be a witch. People underestimate children so hugely, they know its fiction. When people are arguing from that kind of standpoint, I dont think reason works tremendously well. But I would be surprised if some of them had read the books at all.In U.S. many schools banned the reading or possessing of Harry Potter books because of the fear of the occultism the books may contain. The HP boo ks are, according to American Library Association, the most challenged books of the 21th century. A solution for the banning problem which has been adopted is to let the parents of each child choose what books their children can read from the school libraries. However parents and paranoid people were still against the books Its against my daughters constitution, its evil, its witchcraft Im not paying taxes to teach my child witchcraft.It is interesting how people can react like that when there is something which apparently touches their religious beliefs but when it is something like teaching 7 graders about sex there is nothing wrong about that or when their children stay all day in front of the computer or go out and never tell with whom they hang out. It is far more dangerous to stay inside and read a fantasy book than to do all those things right?Politics in Harry PotterEducation versus indoctrinationSome say that after the 9/11 Rowlings books have abounded of ideas regarding f reedom of speech, the dangers of dictatorship, about heroism and sacrifice. One odd thing indeed for me too is that after the books were released Rowling said in an interview, when asked, that Dumbledore was in fact gay and that she always saw him that way. The audience applauded and cheered but many scholars had a different reaction and probably many fans too were hurt by this disclosure. There was no sign in any book that Dumbledore was gay and now all at once she reveals his sexual orientation, she says I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. Dumbledore fell in love with Gellert Grindelwald, and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was falling in love can blind us to an extent he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. It is what it is. He is my character and as my character, I have the right to know what I know about him and say what I say about him. An American pro-activist organization, among others, said that Rowling is trying to indoctrinate young people to tolerate gays.Racism, ethnic cleansing and NazismThe books contain indeed these themes just look at the first one Racism, is present from the first book when Harry finds out about the muggle bloods and pure bloods, the fight at Hogwarts between the two and the overall coverage of these aspects till the end of the series. Draco Malfoy especially is a promoter of the pure blood and he doesnt lose a chance to remind the muggles of their filthy origins. Voldermort does only recruit pure bloods and wants to kill all muggle bloods, the stop of Slytherin wanted to cleanse the school of muggles and placed a huge snake in the basement used for killing muggles (in the second book). On the other hand the muggles, as if Rowling tries to defend them, are normally more skillful in magic than the pure blood wizards, they have a good sense of what is right and what is wrong, they are intelligent and moral. Has Rowling made all this on pu rpose, does it have any reference to the actual racism in the world? This is what she said in an interview I do not think I am pessimistic but I think I am realistic about how much you can change deeply entrenched prejudice, so my feeling would be that if someone were a committed racist, possibly Harry Potter is not overtaking to have an effect. And criticizing racism she said People like to think themselves superior and that if they can pride themselves in nothing else they can pride themselves on perceived purity.Regarding Nazism she compared Voldermort to Adolf Hitler and said Well, it is a political metaphor. But I didnt sit down and think, I want to recreate Nazi Germany, in the-in the wizarding world. Because-although there are-quite consciously overtones of Nazi Germany, there are also associations with other political situations. So I cant really single one out.Evils of warAbout this Rowling said I very consciously wanted to show what is one of the great evils of war, which is that totally innocent people are slaughtered Another great evil of war is that children lose their families.Social activismRowling has worked at the non-governmental organization Amnesty International which is fighting against the abuses on the human rights and this is somehow portrayed in the HP books through Hermione who tries to defend the rights of the abused house-elves and protect the magical creatures. Hermione is starting