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karriezaiI was reading an article about faith and/in Harry Potter. Watch for spoilers, but the link is here. People were talking about how JKR includes too much or too little religion. Complaints were about how she gets into issues like Death and souls, but not religion, even though these are very religious topics.
Personally, I don't think so, not necessarily. Especially not any one religion, you know. She didn't put in anything about any one faith; everything in the books was broad enough to be about faith in general without contradicting with the beliefs of Muslims or Christians or some other faith. I thought religion was avoided because the books were about a broader theme: doing good versus doing evil, not being perfect but still trying to do right.
My comment is there, so I won't go into everything I said. But I did mention how nothing she put in the books about the afterlife is written so that the reader has to believe it's a part of the world and how it works. What I mean by this is that Luna mentions the afterlife in OotP, that she'll see her mother again, but that's the character opinion. And King's Cross doesn't have to be taken as strictly and literally real or true. It is implied that it is, but again by character words and opinions.
That's something a lot of people seem to have trouble with when it comes to characters. It's in the prose, too, particularly with first-person narrators. I think that in first person it's important to remember that everything we read is according to the character, and the character could assume something, state it as fact, and be wrong. It's a powerful literary device and a powerful truth, because people often believe things or think they know things that are wrong.
For instance, I posted the first thirteen lines of Moonfall for critique on a writing forum on Orson Scott Card's site, and I was told by a couple people that the words in bold violate POV:
***
Reen loves the mageglow that accompanies strong magic. It terrifies me. I’m the one who sits with her, later, through the shakes and tremors; the white-as-snow, cold, clammy skin; the vomiting; the hoarse cries and tossing and turning of nightmares. These times are rare--it’s hard to use such great magic that it causes withdrawal. So most of the time, it’s mageglow. Her skin glows radiant, her spirit is high and floating in beauty. The world doesn’t seem quite real to her--it’s as if for a time she’s no longer truly a part of it.
She isn’t mine, then. She belongs to the magic.
I know nothing of magic--I have none of it myself. But I know her. And I can feel when a withdrawal is coming. I can sense her limitations. But she won’t listen to me when I warn her.
***
Now to me, because this is first person and particularly because it is present tense, that is the narrator's thought. In her mind, she 'knows' that Reen feels the way described. That doesn't mean she's right, but people make assumptions like that all the time and state them as fact. "She thinks I'm stupid." "He just wants to get laid."
I like using it as a literary and plot device because when the character is wrong, it can be a more powerful form of characterization than most others you'll find. I also like the idea of characters giving each other information that's wrong. For instance, if a legend becomes important to the plot later on, take into account the way stories change as they pass from mouth to mouth. The actual events the legend was derived from could have been very different.
Personally, I don't think so, not necessarily. Especially not any one religion, you know. She didn't put in anything about any one faith; everything in the books was broad enough to be about faith in general without contradicting with the beliefs of Muslims or Christians or some other faith. I thought religion was avoided because the books were about a broader theme: doing good versus doing evil, not being perfect but still trying to do right.
My comment is there, so I won't go into everything I said. But I did mention how nothing she put in the books about the afterlife is written so that the reader has to believe it's a part of the world and how it works. What I mean by this is that Luna mentions the afterlife in OotP, that she'll see her mother again, but that's the character opinion. And King's Cross doesn't have to be taken as strictly and literally real or true. It is implied that it is, but again by character words and opinions.
That's something a lot of people seem to have trouble with when it comes to characters. It's in the prose, too, particularly with first-person narrators. I think that in first person it's important to remember that everything we read is according to the character, and the character could assume something, state it as fact, and be wrong. It's a powerful literary device and a powerful truth, because people often believe things or think they know things that are wrong.
For instance, I posted the first thirteen lines of Moonfall for critique on a writing forum on Orson Scott Card's site, and I was told by a couple people that the words in bold violate POV:
Reen loves the mageglow that accompanies strong magic. It terrifies me. I’m the one who sits with her, later, through the shakes and tremors; the white-as-snow, cold, clammy skin; the vomiting; the hoarse cries and tossing and turning of nightmares. These times are rare--it’s hard to use such great magic that it causes withdrawal. So most of the time, it’s mageglow. Her skin glows radiant, her spirit is high and floating in beauty. The world doesn’t seem quite real to her--it’s as if for a time she’s no longer truly a part of it.
She isn’t mine, then. She belongs to the magic.
I know nothing of magic--I have none of it myself. But I know her. And I can feel when a withdrawal is coming. I can sense her limitations. But she won’t listen to me when I warn her.
Now to me, because this is first person and particularly because it is present tense, that is the narrator's thought. In her mind, she 'knows' that Reen feels the way described. That doesn't mean she's right, but people make assumptions like that all the time and state them as fact. "She thinks I'm stupid." "He just wants to get laid."
I like using it as a literary and plot device because when the character is wrong, it can be a more powerful form of characterization than most others you'll find. I also like the idea of characters giving each other information that's wrong. For instance, if a legend becomes important to the plot later on, take into account the way stories change as they pass from mouth to mouth. The actual events the legend was derived from could have been very different.