****This book contains Harry Potter spoilers****
Today I got to go back down to school so I could meet with my academic advisor. I was pretty excited to go back to campus because I absolutely love my campus. Going back kind of felt like being back home in a way, and it was great.
I got a job application for the Barnes & Noble on campus, (and bought a few $1 books to swap) and while we were there, they played TWO of my favorite Florence + the Machine songs: Hurricane Drunk and Dog Days are Over. Now, I have never EVER heard Florence on the radio before, so I was super excited to hear two of her songs on the radio within 20 minutes.
The Spill Canvas (my favorite band) has released a new album called Formalities. I bought it today and although there a quite a few songs from their earlier EPs, Abnormalities and Realities (which I already have), there are also some acoustic versions of those songs and a few new ones that I really like. I bought the album on iTunes today and I'm pretty excited. =)
And I just got home from my cousin's youth group. We watched "To Save a Life," which I saw when it was in theatres in February, but I was really glad to see it again. It's such a great movie. Check it out if you get the chance; it's out on dvd now and a really fantastic and inspiring movie.
And now, I'm going to rant a bit. I'm sorry for this, but I need to get it out, so here I go.
My mom is actually LECTURING ME FOR HAVING A BLOG, if you can believe it. Because it "doesn't matter if I'm putting up personal information or not, because I'm putting my life story online and that never gets deleted." She hasn't even read it and it really upsets me that she doesn't take the time to look at my life and what I do and what I enjoy because she's always too busy looking for reasons why it's all wrong.
Take the blog thing, for example. She has not looked at or read my blog, and yet she can tell me exactly why I shouldn't have one. All I want to do is have something where I can write about how I feel and I thought BEDA sounded like a fun thing to try.
Another example is Harry Potter. I come from a Christian family and am a Christian myself, and I think there are so many wonderful things about Harry Potter. But many Christians, like my mom for example, hear "Harry Potter" and think "witchcraft." That's all they need to make a judgment on it and say that it's bad. My aunt won't even let her kids read or watch Harry Potter. Maybe if they took the time to read it and see all the good things about it and how it's affected so many people, including me, in such a great way, and see the things that have resulted from it, like the Harry Potter Alliance (a charity group inspired by Harry Potter and created by fans), they would feel differently. In the end, doesn't love win out over dark magic? In the end, don't you see how love- James and Lily's love for Harry, Harry's love for his friends and his school, Snape's love for Lily, just to name a few examples- is what ends up keeping Harry alive and destroying Voldemort? In the end (and throughout the whole series), don't some really good people give up their lives to protect the people they love? As Christians, we're taught that Jesus gave up his life to save us, and that his love for us is going to win out over Satan and his evil in the end. How is that so different? How can you say Harry Potter is a bad thing when you haven't given it a chance? I've seen so many good things come out of this series. A month ago, the Harry Potter Alliance was entered in a contest to win $250,000 for charity. If we won, we would use the money to promote literacy, fight for LGBT rights, and a lot of other great things. I have never seen so many people come together and work so hard and take so much time out of their summer for a charity. It was amazing what everyone did, and we ended up winning. And Harry Potter fans are some of the nicest, most fun and most accepting people I know. How can something that has turned out things like this be labeled just because it contains magic?
I'm just so sick of people judging things that they don't take the time to know enough about, and being closed-minded about things.
Sorry again about ranting, but that's something that's been bothering me for a while. But I've got 40 minutes to get my vlog up, and this is quite enough for tonight.
Good night, and good luck.
Song of the Day: Make it Mine- Jason Mraz
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It wasn't much of a rant to me, I agree with everything you just said, there's no reason not to like the book because of this, it's like the saying "never judge a book by its cover," it's no evil series. You can say that Voldemort and his death eaters are the evil, but good wins in the end, because the main theme is that love is the most powerful force in the universe :)
ReplyDeleteJustine- Haha well it started out as a rant about my mom and ended up as something I've been needing to say for a while. And it's still directed partially towards my mom, so in my head I was still ranting at her. But yeah. =)
ReplyDelete:( I'm sorry Nikki...if your mom still needs convincing, check out John Granger--he's an awesome Harry Potter scholar who talks about the Christian imagery present in the series.
ReplyDeleteOh, awesome, Marigrace! Thanks, I will. =)
ReplyDeleteY'know, some time ago I asked my mom why she and my dad weren't against the series (we're Christians too, and let's just say that when the church had a bonfire to get rid of "evil things", a few Harry Potter books saw the flames :( ), my mom said that it was the overall theme of the series, that it was about love and friendship. And one of the things that she mentioned was something that they said in the fifth movie: that everyone has good and bad in them, and that it's the choices that we make that define who we are. And personally, I think that this whole series has helped shape my mindset. And I will tell you, I'm very religious still. If anything, Harry Potter has made me even more so, because of that.
ReplyDeleteAnd just last week I read this book, The Princess and the Hound (Mette Ivie Harrison) that had a similar message: that even though you have magic, doesn't mean you're evil. That it's your choices, how you use it. (Likewise in Harry Potter; if you just look at the comparison between Voldemort and Harry.)
And just, another thing that my mom said: that it's the principle of the thing. It's the intent, the message. (And I'm not sure what else to say without being too repetitive, and this thing is getting kinda long, sooooo....)
These are my two cents. :)
I agree exactly, Claire. I just finished re-reading Chamber of Secrets the other night and there was something Dumbledore said that was just like that. It was "It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." Just because you have the ability to do something bad doesn't mean that's the path that you'll choose.
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