Harry Potter

[CellPhoneSlave]

In July of 2005, I was working at a big name bookstore....

On the day that Harry Potter came out, I was working the register until 3 am.. It was fun, I am a big time harry potter fan and spent the time until the release chatting with other fans and amazing others with my knowledge of harry potter.

Around 10 that night, a woman came in, came directly up to me and started in a conversation about how Harry Potter is evil and is brainwashing our children.

I'm not one to judge, so I let her continue until she asked me what I thought about the books.

I then told her exactly what I thought, that I have read the books since i was in 8th grade, that I am also a christan and that I do not believe that they are evil.

When I asked her if she has ever read the books, she stormed up to my sup, demanded that they fire me because I was a witch, that I was evil etc....

My Sup, who was wiccan told her that she could get out of the store or have the police called on her..


We had a good laugh about it.

[AirHostess]

Why did that woman feel the need to tell you that? What a freak.

Ha ha your Sup sounds great.

[ShootMePlease]

Well, I hope you're ready for July 21st, the day Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows comes out. I am a fan of the books & the movies, so I am jazzed .

As far as the lady goes, that crap goes on all the time. I hate people who feel the need to push their beliefs on others. It should never matter what you believe or don't believe in.

Some people have no tact. Just do your best to ignore them.

[Chanlin]

Wow I just can't believe some people.

I hate how some people will take an extremelu prejudiced attitude toward a book series. I'm an avid fantasy reader, including Harry Potter. I just can't get how some people automatically think something is evil, especially playing a religion card like this. These holier than thou types really annoy the hell (pun intended ) out of me.

[iradney]

I always love how ranty religious types forget one of my favourite quotes from the Bible (No, I'm not religious, but I was raised Roman Catholic):
Judge not lest ye be judged.

And the best part is, they don't even READ the books. How can you know something is "evil" if you haven't read it? It's like saying "Ooh, I heard fire doesn't burn you" but not actually trying it for yourself to see if it's true. Simple fact is, that which people do not know, scares them. Rather than admit their fear, they'll denounce it and call it evil, and try to drive out and away. *sigh* And it's always the vocal ranty types who ruin religion for everyone else

[KaeZoo]

My older brother is like this. We had his daughter (10 yrs old) over and we were watching movies. My 6-yr old wanted to watch Harry Potter and my niece said, "Oh, I'm not allowed to watch Harry Potter movies or read Harry Potter books." Without missing a beat my daughter said, "Oh, don't worry--we won't tell your Mom". (Of course my wife and I didn't let them watch the movie; no point in picking fights where you don't have to).

Now, if his Harry Potter prohibition was the result of some kind of standards or principles, I could respect that even if I don't agree with it. But as far as I can tell she's allowed to watch or read just about anything else she wants...Winx Club, Series of Unfortunate Events, any other cartoons and programs of various maturity levels and values. That tells me that he's outlawed HP just because he heard somewhere that it's Satanic, and he didn't bother to put any more thought or research into it but just followed the herd.

[BusBus]

What I don't get is why the woman in the OP complained about it to a cashier. Like they have any control over anything.

[SuperB]

We visited a friends church one Sunday. I didn't care much for it, it seemed very self-righeous and fake. The preacher started in on "evil" things like Harry Potter......

... as my son sat there in the pew in his Hogwarts shirt.

[CrazedClerk]

What I don't get is why the woman in the OP complained about it to a cashier. Like they have any control over anything.

Yes but remember as far as SCs are concerned we are the gods of the retail world, they expect us to be able to ANYTHING.

[notthecook]

I had to take my mom's car in for service and took an HP book with me.

I was sitting there reading and a guy sat down next to me and started talking to me. I was friendly and chit chatted back and forth with him for a bit.

After a while, he asked me what I was reading. I told him HP.

In the middle of the service waiting area, he screamed "those books are evil and people that read them are evil! You are going to hell for reading Harry Potter!"

After I gathered my composure, I yelled back at him "Sir, I may going to hell, but it sure in the f*** ain't for reading Harry Potter!"

He was escorted out. I continued reading my book.

[DarthRetard]

I was always a little confused by such things as books and how they tend to "brainwash". Isn't the reason the Nazi's burned books was because literature breeds intelligent thought on a general regularity?

When I was in church years ago when harry potter first came out (yeah, man, that was a long time ago.), our pastor did a sermon on it, and numerous other cultural devices and how they were advised to be avoided. Our pastor, love him to death, he knows that a strong foundation in anything is hard to shake, so he wasn't going to tell us flat out to avoid it. Anyyyyyways, i digress. He told us that he would rather us read other stories, just as interesting, with still some more moral devices to them to foster a better foundation fo da chitlins. He mentioned Chronicles of Narnia, by Clive Staples (CS) Lewis, not because he was a known christian, but also because it's a classic and always a good read.

He closed the sermon with this, though, and I thought this was darned near profound:

"Remember, fiction, is fiction, and anything taken too literally and in the wrong hands can become a twisted device. Parents, just keep your kids grounded in reality and the difference between reality and fantasy, and they can read whatever they want."

[CellPhoneSlave]

The best part is, my pastor (I was going to a very small church at the time) also had a sermon about "how harry potter is evil) after the sermon, I went up to him and asked him if had ever read any of the books.. He of course stated no..

I asked him if he would be willing to read at least one of the books and tell me where it said anything about satan, or anything that would lead him to believe him that it was an evil book.

He agreed and I brought him the first book.

The next week he brought it back to me and asked for the second book because he thought it was a great piece of fiction

[Reyneth]

The next week he brought it back to me and asked for the second book because he thought it was a great piece of fiction

I love it! Both that he was willing to even read the book in the first place, and that we have a new convert.

I also got tired of people spewing their ignorant BS when they hadn't read the book - as my mom said when there was first major controversy (around the release of Book3 IIRC), "It teaches kids about the importance of friendship and standing up for what is good and right. Yeah, such bad messages for kids to learn!" *sigh*

And to all of those "magic is eeeevil" people who thought "Lion, Witch, Wardrobe" was any better because of the Christian themes.......it's still magic! There are still witches! *gasp*

[CellPhoneSlave]

Exactly!! My step dad tried to pull the whole, "but its about witches" thing.

But yet his favorite movies are Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.

I asked him, really, whats the diffrence?

The basis of the books are good vs. evil.

The same about Narnia, Star wars and Lord of the Rings.


After i had a debate about it with him, he shut up about it for a while

[BookstoreEscapee]

We visited a friends church one Sunday. I didn't care much for it, it seemed very self-righeous and fake. The preacher started in on "evil" things like Harry Potter......

... as my son sat there in the pew in his Hogwarts shirt.

that's funny

guess I'm going to hell too. I'm just deciding which store to reserve my copy of the new book in--the one closer to my house or the one where I have more friends working there.

-ams-