Hamish McShanks

Ham Shanks Secret Diary w/e 22^nd July 2007 (‘ish)

Pottermania [Pot-er-mey-nee-uh] – noun:

1. Excessive excitement or enthusiasm for final instalment of J.K. Rowlings wizarding heptalogy
2. The end of the world if you believe the media
3. Dangerous Pagan worship if you’re an Evangelical Christian
4. Fondness for working with wet clay

Well it’s finally out ‘Harry Potter and the deathly Hallows’ the last in a series of seven great books. Yes; I too am consumed by Pottermania. In fact I hope you appreciate the great effort I am making in putting down the book to write these 1200 odd words of inane drivel. Don’t you realise how much danger Harry is in? Hmmm? Do you? WEEEELLL!!!!

And relax

I got into the whole Potter ‘scene’ because of definition number 3 above. Funnily enough I am not in fact an Evangelical Christian, or indeed any form of religious devotee. My reasoning at the time was this; anything these narrow minded nutters object to is probably worth a gander. A bit like the sadly missed red triangle broadcasts you used to have on channel four. Ostensibly for their art-house ‘avant-garde’ films imported from European countries with slightly less neo-conservative views on television censorship. They were great; a wee red triangle displayed in the top left hand corner of the screen meant guaranteed bush and possibly even a glimpse of kipper if you were willing to sit through all the French drivel in between.

In fact I’d like to extend a big thank you to the evangelicals for introducing me into the world of Harry Potter. I was determined not to like the wee sh*te and if it hadn’t been for all those redneck bigoted zealots in the American Midwest having ‘book burning’ nights I’d have never opened a page in the first place. Now I’m a total Potter devotee; cheers ye insular intolerant narrow-minded raving whackos! (My therapist has recommended that I don’t bottle up my emotions)

Bloomsbury was probably rubbing their hands with glee at the news. Nothing like a good old medieval ‘witch hunt’ (how prophetic) to drum up some good publicity for your product. When you’re selling 300 million copies, a few hundred getting smoked on a religious bonfire is of little consequence. Especially as it occurred that they must have had to buy them in the first place! I can just imagine the shop keepers smile as he wiped the foaming spittle from his cheek after another righteous tirade against his selling of occult merchandise ‘thirty copies, that’ll be two hundred dollars please sir’ Oh how I laughed at that one; he’s putting the guys kids through college for him.

I couldn’t quite get my head round their objections anyway? There are some striking similarities between the main ‘characters’ in each set of texts. Harry was orphaned soon after his birth and never knew his parents. His mother died to save him thereby placing magical protection on the infant and of course thwarting Lord Voldemort in the process.

The old Immaculate Conception is a wee bit paranormal as well you’d have to say. Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit after Mary receives a nod and a wink from the Angel Gabriel that it won’t nip and she will remain unsullied in the process? Now c’mon! If that doesn’t sound like magic I don’t know what does.

Add the fact that his mum and his step-dad chose to follow a celestial object to the nearest barn rather than hailing a taxi to the hospital for the birth of their first, and in fact, the prodigal son and everything is starting to sound a little sinister to me. What have you got to hide Joseph? Hmmm? Dabbling in Astrology are we? Oooooh that’s practically devil worshipping that is.

The similarities don’t end there. Harry constantly has to defend himself against criticism that the Dark Lord doesn’t exist and he’s making it all up. The daily prophet are always having a dig and attempting to discredit him. Jesus is also doing his best to spread the good word about his dads business and he’s getting the cold shoulder plus no end of gip from the Romans. They could be twins separated at birth! Did Jesus have a big jagged scar on his coupon? ……. I think he might have

Not only that, but Harry was betrayed by a member of the order of the phoenix in the last book and as a result old Dumbledore was smoked in his own school. We all know what a turncoat that Judas lad was and how it didn’t end up so well for JC. Although unlike Snapes desire to reconcile with the Dark Lord apparently Judas did it for the cash. Thirty pieces of silver would go a long way in 32 AD; you could get yourself a nice hovel for that kind of money with en-suite slurry and off street parking for your Donkey. You’d be knee deep in raw human effluent before you could say ‘is that a spot on my face or a suppurating leperotic lesion?’

Basically the two texts tell the same story; good against evil and only one can conquer. It wouldn’t be so bad but the entire fecking premise of the seven book series is that we’d all really like good to win the day. After all the Republicans have been in power for two terms so evil has had a pretty good innings lately, it’s about time good got a look in and did some ….. well …. good.

Just because the main characters name is Harry and not Jesus; dry your eyes, get a grip and move on.

Personally I think the evangelicals are just p*ssed off that they didn’t think of the whole sequel thing first. The apostles have probably been kicking themselves ever since ‘Oh maaan why did we blow the whole gig in the first book’, ‘I know I know’ replies Matthew with his head in his hands ‘we could have stretched that story out like for eeeeever’ moans Luke ‘give it a rest man, I was sooo stoked with that first edition, it was sweet dude’ A third apostle bursts into the room carrying flagon of wine and a paper parcel. He surveys the morose scene in front of him ‘for Christ sake are you lot still going on about that? Give it a rest boys’, ’now who ordered the chicken tikka?’

I’ve a couple of suggestions for sequel titles, see what you think: ‘Bible II – The Wrath of God’ and ‘The Third Testament – The Bible bites back’ …… yeah you’re probably right, straight to DVD ……

Doei

# posted by Ham Shanks @ 11:29 pm