Compare [Harry Potter to] Luke Skywalker, who has to conquer his own vanity, laziness and anger in order to earn his powers. Harry, like many of his generation, is the Cosseted One from an early age. He’s told that he’s special, that he’s got awesome gifts, that those who don’t understand this are blind to the plain facts. Deploying his powers involves no more character or soul-searching than following a recipe.
The whimsical creations and the narrative pull — making readers beg to know what’s going to happen next — are all Rowling offers. The great kids’ works strike deep, satisfying chords. “The Wizard of Oz” would be just a Technicolor fun ride without Dorothy’s discovery that everything she always wanted was right there at home. “Willy Wonka” isn’t just a funny freak-out. It’s also a near-biblical catalog of sinners and punishment. The Potter tales are built on nothing. Inside them is a deathly hollow.
Is there any children’s writer more dismissive of morals? A Rowling kid starts learning at an early age that principles are adjustable depending on convenience.
Rowling ignores ethics to the point of encouraging dishonorable behavior. Harry spends “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” — the film version of which is raking it in this weekend — cheating out of a textbook that has all the answers written in the margins, causing him to fraudulently win a luck potion that he uses to solve the central mystery.
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