Harry Potter and the power of love

Commentary: "If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love."

At last, Harry Potter fans: All secrets have been revealed (and they'll be discussed in this column, so be forewarned). "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the final volume in J.K. Rowling's series about the boy wizard, has been on the bookstands for two weeks. It's time for the final verdict on Harry's long, painful struggle to be rendered.

Before getting to my own conclusions, I want to mention an opinion that is thoroughly wrong, in my view.

It was in the July 23 issue of Time magazine, by book critic Lev Grossman. He tried to make the case that Rowling has broken with the English fantasy tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Why? Because, he says, Rowling's books forsake the Christian foundations of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Chronicles of Narnia."

Here's Grossman, writing before the book's release: "If you want to know who dies in Harry Potter, the answer is easy God. Harry Potter lives in a world free of any religion or spirituality of any kind. ... What does Harry have instead of God? Rowling's answer, at once glib and profound, is that Harry's power comes from love. This charming notion represents a cultural sea change. In the new millennium, magic comes not from God or nature or anything grander or more mystical than a mere human emotion. ... (P)sychology and technology have superseded the sacred."

It's a pity that Grossman appears ignorant of the Christian tradition he says Rowling has forsaken, but I'll come back to that in a moment.

Foremost, the Harry Potter series is a triumph of deeply moral fiction. It succeeds in almost every way as an example of literature that is both compelling and, at its very root, a celebration of how the truest human virtues transcend the worst part of our nature.

This conclusion ought not to be a surprise, since it has been evident over and over again throughout the series. Courage, loyalty, humility, intelligence, honesty and resourcefulness are threatened and attacked, but they are victorious over pride, malice, greed, venality and cowardice.

It is significant that Harry, although he has suffered and been abused, does not respond in kind, even when he has the chance.

He may be a flawed hero, but he is a hero nonetheless, and he inspires others to follow him in the cause of fighting against injustice.

That sounds like a cliche, but Rowling convinces us of this through the power of her storytelling, the vividness of her characters and the ingeniousness of her plot.

My one quibble with the final book is that her imagination almost fails in the climactic scene. Harry's duel with Lord Voldemort is lacking any doubt about the outcome, and so although it's satisfying, it is rather anticlimactic.

And it is a serious oversight that we do not know the circumstances of so many major characters in the aftermath of Harry's victory. As strange as it sounds for a 759-page book, Rowling should have given us one more chapter.

As to Grossman's contention that God is absent from Harry's world, he is wrong precisely for the reason he thinks he's right.

Love in the Potter series is neither glib nor "mere human emotion," any more than it is in "The Lord of the Rings." The love that saves Harry from Voldemort as an infant and throughout is a love that is willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of another, and there is no more Christian notion than that, as both Tolkien and Lewis knew.

At the end, Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's lair alone, expecting he will be killed, because he is convinced it will save his friends. He has thought constantly about his mother's sacrifice, and now he imitates it.

As Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Voldemort sneers at this, and it is the reason he is defeated. In the very first book, Dumbledore tells Harry, "If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love."

If Grossman wants to read fantasy literature that truly rejects God, he should read Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, the first book of which, "The Golden Compass," is about to be released as a film.

No, far from being a departure from Tolkien and Lewis, Rowling has demonstrated she deserves to stand alongside them in the long and great tradition of moral fiction. Anytime good defeats evil by just means, we are all ennobled, and if Harry Potter inspires children - and adults - to emulate him, the world will be better off.

Cary McMullen is religion editor for The Ledger in Lakeland, Fla.