this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2025
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While I get the desire for escapism, I've never understood how the topic of magic had such a strong appeal to so many, anyway. I want an escape that might actually happen. Everyone should know that magic isn't real, and it's at best just science you don't understand. At worst it's just lies, misdirection, and slight-of-hand - the preference for which so many people have is what's ruining everything in the real world as we speak.
Just to be clear, you won't read things like T.H. White's The Once and Future King?
I get the hate for Rowling, and I'm old enough that I grew up on Narnia instead. I never read Rowling's books, given that I was an adult, but I lived with a woman a decade younger for a time, and she was all about Harry Potter, so I slogged through all of the movies. Great acting, good production values, but I had a hard time figuring out why to care.
Worth noting, though, is that as a kid, I had no idea when the first two books were read to me in bed that C.S. Lewis was a Christian apologist. I started reading from there. I'll frankly take someone who seems to have espoused the actual teachings of Jesus over a TERF any day.
I will say that Lewis helped get me through a rough patch via Mere Christianity as an adult suffering my first marriage falling apart ... while I remain an atheist, he made compelling arguments. Rowling really has nothing of substance to say through her works.