A Defense For Twilight and Harry Potter

If you know me well, then you probably know that my two favorite book series right now are Twilight and Harry Potter.(although twilight does beat h.p.) These two book series are very controversial among Christians because of their content. Harry Potter is all about witches, wizards, and of course magic, while because Twilight is also a love story it has been described as "Harry Potter with sex appeal". If a Christian thinks is wrong to read these books I can see where they are coming from, BUT I, of course, disagree. Let me tell you why.

I will start off by saying that the Twilight series changed my whole perspective on reading. Before reading the books, reading was pretty much only something I did because I had to. It wasn't that I absolutely hated reading, I just didn't really enjoy it. Once I started reading them, I couldn't put them down. I read all three of them in about 2 weeks and they are between 500 and 600 pages each. After this, all I wanted to do was read so that's when I picked up Harry Potter. After just a few weeks, I'm on the fourth out of seven books. Then I started actually enjoying the stuff I was reading in school. The last book we read was To Kill a Mockingbird and it is now one of my favorite classics. So my point is that before these books reading was boring, now I even enjoy required reading for school.

Since Harry Potter is better known, I will start with that. Legalistic Christians would argue that Harry Potter is bad because it teaches that magic is real and it can overpower anything. Well, maybe it does, but so what? Its called fiction, meaning that it isn't real. I read the books, but it hasn't changed me to think that there is no God and our world is really just full of magic. So as long as you don't let yourself fall into that stupid way of thinking, then you'll be fine. Also, it contains good literature. If you pay attention to the details, then you could find a lot of symbolism. The scar on Harry's face is major, because it symbolizes Voldemort's presence. Book three, which is so far my favorite, has a lot to do with animals and the different animals symbolize the different characters of whom they represent. Also, there are a lot of things in Harry Potter that can represent the Christian worldview. I could go on about this forever, but I'm not going to bore you. I did, however, find a website about this that I thought was interesting. Here is the link if you want to check it out: http://www.mugglenet.com/editorials/editorials/edit-amandah01.shtml

Now, on to Twilight. This is a three book series(soon to be four) full of action, romance, and suspense. There are two major things in this book that many people find to be bad. The first is the fact that it is a book about vampires and werewolves, hence the magic. I guess people think that any kind of fantasy thing with magic that isn't real is inherently bad. Of course, I tend to disagree. I think that sometimes reality gets a little boring, and our minds and souls need something to focus on every once in a while to bring us back up to speed. This probably doesn't make any sense, but just bare with me. I don't think there is anything wrong with getting emotionally involved in fantasy stories, as long as you know it's not real in the end. Again, I think there is a lot of symbolism in these books too. Even Christian symbolism. In the story, the Cullens are a family of vampires. They are not what you think of as the typical vampire though, they stand out for something different. The don't feed on humans, which in the story is kinda a big thing. The Cullen family in the vampire world is kinda like Christians in our world. They are fighting against their own nature to stand out for something different. Something they believe in, which is morality, and not killing humans. It is the same for us. We are fighting against the world, which tries so hard to pull us in. But we resist and do our best to fight the temptation. This is hard for the Cullens, because it really is their nature to live off the blood of humans. But to the best of their ability, they don't.

Another major argument in Twilight is that the romance is a little too graphic. I can defiantly see where this argument is coming from, but the thing to remember is that it is done the morally right way. Edward has this whole thing about saving Bella's morality, therefore, they will not have sex before marriage. So, although it is talked about a lot, I think it's talked about in a good way. It doesn't encourage anything bad, in fact, it looks down on it. Morality is a key thing in Twilight. And I don't mean throwing your morality down the drain, I mean preserving it. Living life out the right way.


So if you think that Harry Potter and Twilight are evil because of their magic, then what about all the fairy tales we watched when we were little. Almost every one had magic, and they also had witches and all that kind of stuff. What about the Little Mermaid? Mermaids aren't real, magic isn't real, witches aren't real. But when I was a little kid, I remember to a certain extent actually believing in this stuff. Oh, and then there is the love. The love was pretty screwed up if you ask me. Cinderella met Prince Charming at a ball one night and suddenly they were madly in love. Umm....that doesn't seem like the real idea of love. If you are a Twilight/Harry Potter hater, then I challenge you to look at it from a different light. You get out what you put in. So if you go in thinking that these books are bad and they go strictly against Christian beliefs, that's what you will get out. But if you go in thinking that there might actually be something more to these books, then that is what you will get out.

~*Elizabeth