Harry Potter "leftwinger"

Because "left winging" and "right winging" are all the rage right now, and there are a lot of people out there desperate to get in on it.

People will always want to analyse books and give them all sorts of meanings and allegories which may or may not be relevent. Sometimes it's interesting, sometimes it's funny and sometimes it just makes you wonder "why"!

It's a British series written by a British author - so of course there's going to be a gay character and politically liberal at the very least. Our society, culture etc are different than what you may be used to, and literature tends to reflect the culture it is written in and for. So sorry if that bugs some of you!!!!

give them something to do, Why did rowlings come and start going on about about dubbledore is gay thing? i guess its just gives people something to do .

but really if had to think about, hmm i would see harry would be a young republican.
try his best for truth justance .

Lord voldemort would be someone that thinks the laws do not apply to him, Who only care is what voldemort wants. reminds me of bill clinton.

so this french guys kinda has things backwards

or it could be its just a book and people are reading more into it then what is there. lol

Lord Voldemort is the fictional equivalent of George Bush

I just think it is irrelevant to tell anyone what their sexual orientation is when it's not brought up in the books. Some people are just overly obsessed with this series and have to have a reason for every question that pops into their head.

I find that quite amuzing- but Clinton is in no way a widely thought hate figure in the UK, he wouldn't register enough for a literature 'baddie' to remind us of him or be based on him. In the past Reagan, and currently GW reach those sorts of levels of unpopularity here - but then it's not as if we don't have hate figures of our own to fill any baddie roles that arise

lol, True. SOme people here still love the ground bill walks on.
But i really dont understand why. he took million in funds from the chinese.
how at the same time giving or allowing to be stolen Very senistive data. I blame many of the issue we have now, back on bill. bill only cared about bill, allowed people to go to jail for him.

and now they are trying to bring him back in a different version, even sounds more like you know who to me

lol or it could still be just a kids a book lol

I think that someone just wrote this article/interviewed for it to put a little more bread and wine on his plate.

The way JK Rowling has her Harry Potter series lined up is sooooooo detail oriented that she could write several books. she even has characters associated with the witches and wizards that weren't even mentioned in the book, but played an intrical part to one of the book's characters. She created the Wizard World and its family tree long before the books were even published.

So until JK Rowling confirms that she purposely wrote the books based on Thatcherian Britain, I think its just one person's guess. Similarly I remember watching some program based on LoTR where many people claim that Tolkien's books were based on WWII and Mordor was Nazi Germany. Sure there are many parallels, but Tolkien flat out said that he didn't base his books on WWII or Nazi Germany.

It was brought up because the film makers working on the 6th film wanted to put in something about a long lost love of Dumbledore's and JKR put them right about the fact that he was actually gay. Presumably she didn't put that in the books because it wasn't relevent, but she's always had a full history written down for every character and may write a further book that's a sort of encyclopoedia of all the characters. I'm glad it wasn't specifically mentioned in the books as it wasn't necessary and would have just been there to be politically correct.

hmm naw,i would have to disagree. Much more in common with the left.
how the right would be trying to restore order to there world.

There are things like that written about most books. Colleges have classes about Harry Potter, you'd expect to see some lit crit about it, and it isn't necessarily right.

Personally, I think Rowling should have taken a hint from any number of other authors and refused to explain anything beyond what is actually in the books. Then again, she's a pop-lit children's author with no real literary craft. She's a good author, but not a great writer, so I'd expect her to keep up the controversy now that the books are done and keep "revealing" things. So much less fun for the professors.

i would not even say she is good,
and that last book is really bad.

I've never heard so much twaddle in all my life

lol you need to listen to the clintons talk

That's why i stay away from politics

I have to admit that I have never read a Harry Potter book. I was a bit surprised to hear on the radio that Rowling revealed a character was gay. Like Zissou'sMom mentioned above, I wouldn't be surprised if she eventually reveals all of the little secrets her characters may have. Just for comparison, there are a great many things in Tolkien's middle-earth that were never explained, either because he never got around to it or wasn't quite sure how or why someone or something came into being. For me this is one the things that make the world Tolkien created so beautiful- there is an air of mystery surrounding it. Even at his death he was still revising and reworking his earlier stories. I feel that Rowling possibly outing secrets from Harry Potter will take away much of the charm that Harry Potter fans have for the series. If everything is revealed, what is left to speculate, debate or discuss? IMO, the fantasy/fairy story is at its best when the unexplained is left to the imagination of the reader.

Bummer, Hope thinks I am bad.

Actually, I think it's kind of funny that anyone would think that an English writer of children's fantasy books would make subliminal reference to US politics. She probably couldn't care less about what any of them are doing.

When I read this, Tolkein was the first thing I thought about. Personally, as an "artistic" type, I wouldn't think that political satire would be the first thing Jo Rowling was thinking about. But that's just me...

Exactly!

I'm even an English major/graduate, and there were a lot of times that I thought that the symbolism that was claimed was just people ruining a really good story.

Why would she make a children's series about American politics? Are we seriously that egocentric to read ourselves into everything? (Don't answer that ) Besides, the first book was published in 1997. Bush came into office in 2001. She may have planned a lot into her characters, but I don't think that she could tell the future and see what left-winger and right-winger would come to mean in 2007 when the last book was published.

Honestly, I think it's just plain sad that we Americans especially have become so polarized politically that we see either side politically as inherently good or bad (referring to Hope's post). But I can definitely see how that is happening, considering the leadership on both sides of the aisle at the present time. On one side is Bush, who has been demonized by just about everyone. However, I really don't think that the majority of the Right holds to the exact same political beliefs, any more than the majority of the Left hold to the exact same political beliefs as Nancy Pelosi. And I know for a fact that not everyone who isn't a dirty politician (which is all of them, isn't it?), i.e. a private citizen, doesn't believe in everything the politicos do. Its the same on both sides, though. The left demonize the right, the right demonize the left. Which is also why I think that saying a fictional character in a children's book is one side or the other on the political front is just plain ridiculous!

I probably shouldn't have implied that ALL Right Wing people are mean villainous people. I don't believe they are. I think Bush has polarized this country to the point that there is a genuine distrust between people who are Conservative and people who are Liberal. My Mother was a Republican and she was one of the kindest most considerate people in the world. Of course I think she was Republican in NAME only. I think she had the heart of a liberal. She just followed the party of her parents.

To be honest, I actually like Rudy G., and wouldn't be in the least bit unhappy if he were voted in as President. Like I said, Bush IMO is the Evil Doer, as much as the people calls Evil Doers. He has polarized people to the point where I think most Liberals look as Conservatives as enemies. At least I have looked at them that way, when in fact the REAL enemy is George W. Bush.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!

I read HP very well, and re-read them. I did not get any of that out of them, nor do probably the majority that have read the books. I think all the controversy is beyond stupid.

And Dumbledore being gay does not a thing for the storyline. It was a moot point as far as the books go. The majority of readers did not know or even think about it. It would be a non-issue if tolerance wasn't such a hard thing. It never says or really hints anything about being gay in any of the books. Norm gender roles are pretty much strictly enforced. The main characters all get married and live happily ever after, there were many weddings. Harry's parents were married; mainly traditional values are all over those pages and weaved into the story.

These books have real morals, values, and are helping kids learn that reading is really fun! I can imagine how fun it would have been to read them as a child. The kids will not get the same message out of them that those types of adults do. Personally, I enjoy the mystery and hope she will save her secrets...at least for many many years.

And didn't someone mention earlier that the only reason JK revealed Dumbledore's sexual preference was because of something the producers were hoping to put into one of the films? It's not as if she just came out and said it for any ol' reason - just because she could.

Voldemort is a standard-stock children's lit villian. The books wouldn't get very far without a villian, and it isn't hard to draw parallels between fictional villians and real villians. As Fitzgerald said, there are two stories; Cinderella and Jack the Giant Killer. There's always an antagonist, and a fictional villian is a fictional villian is a fictional villian.