The best chapter by chapter breakdown of DH I've seen yet

[gillieweed.livejournal.com]

"Dan Hemmens says a lot of hilarious (and very true) things about DH."


Thanks to valis2 for this!

Comments

[gillieweed.livejournal.com]

He's currently getting anonymously flamed on Mike_Smith's lj for some reason!

So the cult of Rowling has followed him there? I suppose the next step is F_W.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Possibly. The person seems absolutely furious at him for saying Rowling was "apparently" Calvinist when she's Episcopalian. (Which I believe she would call "Church of England...?")

[artystone.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, that's definitely F_W material. I've been reading mike-smith's DH recaps but not the comments, where's this little exchange happening?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's in the latest entry--if you look for the exchange where there's a bunch of anonymous comments, those are them.

Here's a direct link:

http://mike-smith.livejournal.com/159608.html?thread=1366904#t1366904

In the entry before that there's a long shipping conversation--I went through all of canon without really getting into any shipping debates, and now it seems like I'm kind of in one without meaning to be.

Church of Scotland =/= Church of England

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

She's not Episcopalian. Episcopalians are the American branch of the Church of England. JKR grew up in the Church of Scotland. One might be forgiven for thinking that was the Scottish branch of the Church of England, but it isn't. I looked it up as part of a recent discussion (I think it was on your LJ, actually!), and they are definitely Calvinist. The Church of England doesn't believe in predestination; the Church of Scotland does.

Re: Church of Scotland =/= Church of England

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

Also, I see the indignant mouse is claiming that JKR isn't actually a member of the Church of Scotland. But a quick Google search turned up quite a lot of sites, including the HP Lexicon, who say that she is a member (see the "Church of Scotland" entry here (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/muggle/encyc/muggle-c.html), for example).

Re: Church of Scotland =/= Church of England

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if you're disagreeing with me or the anon guy--what you're saying here is what I meant. I thought that the anon person was claiming that JKR was "Episcopalian" and it seemed to me that if she were that she would call it "Church of England" and not Episcopalian, because Episcopalian is, as you say, American. So just claiming she was that sounded wrong right off.

I didn't know what she'd actually grown up as but I believe you--Church of Scotland. Anon seems to be wrong both ways.

Re: Church of Scotland =/= Church of England

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm disagreeing with the anonymouse. Sorry if I was unclear! (I've gone over to post on the thread linked.)

Re: Church of Scotland =/= Church of England

[gillieweed.livejournal.com]

I'd heard or read an interview in which it was said she was a member of the Church of Scotland as one one of the posters finally pointed out. And as you found out, the CoS is most certainly Calvinist.

The reason I'm waiting for this to show up on F-W is because this is the exact argument antianell93 has been using for a long time now and has been routinely trounced for it.

The "anonymous" poster looks like a "wanka" to me--at the very least a wanka wannabe.

[(Anonymous)]

In further news, his evidence seems to be the entry on her nndm entry, which lists her religion as "Anglican".

-- Dan Hemmens

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's one of the craziest threads I've ever seen on Mike's lj. Having read your original essay and enjoyed it, I didn't remember the point being to prove Rowling's religion one way or the other. It was just looking at what seemed to be going on in the story and Calvinism coming to mind as a good way of describing it. Since I did find myself literally thinking of certain characters as "the damned" and "the Elect" by the end of the book, it was a comparison that worked for me!

[gillieweed.livejournal.com]

SHE WAS MARRIED BY AN EPISCOPAL PRIEST, DAMMIT!!!! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!

[ellecain.livejournal.com]

LOL, I love how the mouse in question is going "She's not a Calvinist so there! That automatically makes your analysis redundant," while Dan Hemmens never said she was, and simply theorised that it might have been an unconscious influence for the pre-determination notion in the HP series.

Way to miss the point, anonymouse!

Also, isn't it normal to look at an author's envioronment/cultural context to analyse their literary work? I mean if she was Shakespeare then a discussion of the culture of the times or their personal background is a valid form of analysing their work, right? I mean I don't know much about Lit. Theory, but I reckon that's an acceptable method... so I don't really see what Dan Hemmens would be doing wrong even if he did start off assuming she was a Calvinist. (Which he didn't, anyway...)

[(Anonymous)]

That's more or less what I was getting at. Jim Smith wrote an interesting but I think ultimately point-missing rebuttal (since I think he too was assuming that I was trying to prove that JKR was a Calvinist, rather than - as you say - using Calvinist doctrine as an analogy for the way HP character seem to be either saved or damned from birth).

Enjoying your recaps, by the way.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Yeah, I understanding the position of saying that without God it can't be Calvinist. It just still very much feels like the same idea, only here the good are those favored by the author as heroes.