Narnia and Harry Potter

The last post in a round about way reminded me about something. A few weeks ago I watched the two Narnia movies. While I remember nothing about the books from when I read them as a kid, except the title, I have to imagine there was a lot of story that was left out which may somewhat counter the point I'm about to make, but I don't think too much.

Spoiler alert on Narnia - although if you know the lion is Jesus then none of it should be much of a surprise.

Anyway, after watching Narnia I totally get what those Christians who were protesting Harry Potter were talking about (the ones complaining about how he solves problems by working with his friends - I already got the ones complaining about witchcraft). I totally disagree (with both types), but I get it now. The stories had reasonably similar build ups and magical worlds. In both the kids discover the world and build up their skills. In Harry Potter they use that knowledge and skills to deal with their enemies, but in Narnia it seems like they do a whole lot of stuff that doesn't get them anywhere or gets people killed and then end up just hoping the lion will show up and save their butts (and then act like they accomplished something). Now I see the general direction the protesters would have preferred - before I didn't really get what the alternative was. Hm, perhaps my own views colored the descriptions a bit.

Nothing that insightful or new, but the contrast really sunk in for me so I thought I'd share.

Oh and how true of a self sacrifice is it if you know you'll come back to life? And why wouldn't you tell people that you'll come back to life - does he just like making little girls cry (hm, guess I should specify I'm talking about the lion, not Jesus)? Maybe this is where the book fills in some of the details.

BTW this is post #300. If you've made it through all 300 of my ramblings you should get a prize or something (you don't, but you should).