Fact #1: Harry Potter is a fictional character. He is not real. None of the other characters or events in the books or movies are real either.
Fact #2: Magic is not real. Sorcerers and Wizards are not real. If you think otherwise, then your doctor gives you better prescriptions than mine does.
----- Corollary to Fact #2: Children are not stupid. They can understand that magic isn't real. They don't think that they can really cast spells or fly on a broom.
Fact #3: In the Harry Potter stories, the nice people "win" at the end. Harry succeeds by making friends and working hard (i.e. good virtues).
Fact #4: Harry Potter is a children's story. It is not a religious doctrine.
Most of the complaints about Harry Potter that come from the fundamentalistic, conservative religions claim that the stories' use of sorcery, magic, etc. will "tempt" children into joining satanic cults or trying to practice "black magic." Have these people never heard of C.S. Lewis? Lewis was one of the greatest Christian writers and theorists of all time. Clearly a man truly devoted to God. He was also the author of the Narnia series - "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."
OH MY!!!!
MAGIC!!!!
Not to mention witches, talking animals (must be possessed by Satan!), time travel, spells, and more.
What most people forget is that the Harry Potter books are getting kids to READ instead of rotting their little brains out with TV. If you can get a kid to read one book and really enjoy it, then you can get them into another book, and another. Have you people SEEN what crap is on TV lately? Drives me nuts that the same close minded twits that won't let their kids read Harry Potter because he's "evil"
don't carefully monitor their kids' TV watching (or internet use, for that matter).
There is no sex in Harry Potter. No one gets their head blown off and brains splattered on the wall. No nuclear bombs are dropped, no airplanes crash into buildings.
I say, I hope there are 1,000 more Harry Potter books! The world will be a better place for it.
...retiring the soapbox for the evening...
G8Ralphaxi, Grand Defender of All Things Literary