HP phenomenon a force for good or evil? CLOSED

I'll sign up for Gryffindor!

ill sign up for Gryffindor!!!!

ill sign up for Gryffindor!!!!

bad mione - double post lol

ill sign up for ravenclaw

agh! you've already got two grffins!

next time though...

I'll sign up for slytherin!!!

I'll sign up for Hufflepuff

Ooh I'll sign up for Ravenclaw

ok i'm here for Slytherin...~looks nervous~

I'll sign for Huffle as well ^^

yay! thats enough! So we should be able to start soon right? *is ready to debate* XD

The debate can now begin. Your sides are as follows:

For: Harry Potter phenomenon is good

Ilyria
MarieC
Cher-Rae
amberg93

Against: Harry Potter phenomenon is evil

Hermione_fan_207
Siriuslover102
Fated4HP
Mionie2

There is a maximum of 50 housepoints per person so think of your debate carefully.

Good luck

( For: Harry Potter phenomenon is good)

YAY!!!! I got the side I wanted again!

*steps up*

Harry Potter is deffinately good for the minds of children. No question about it, not only does it help childrens imaginations to further and become better, but it also helps their reading skills. These books help plenty of kids and further their education.

Harry Potter provides a fun and magical adventure for children sending their imaginations on the trip of a life time. Providing their imaginations with so much more then anything else we could give them.

Also Harry Potter, as we all know, is quite popular in America, and true they do make American versions of the book I know I have learned alot of British lanuage and some stuff about their culture through these books.

(For: Harry Potter is Good)

*clears throat as she steps up*


Harry Potter, like Amber said provides fun and magical adventure for children. It sends them into a world of their own. A world where you get so absorbed in, you forget the troubles in your life for a few moments.

Wouldn't you rather have your child read than watch the stuff they give on MTV?

I see nothing wrong with a child or teen wanting to get their hands on the next Harry Potter book. They are actually, enjoying what they read! and for adults to go back and say it's an evil sorce is really outrageous!

(OMG please forgive me for having to side on this side of the debate-For Harry Potter is Evil phonomenom but I am a true debater so I'm going to put up a strong argument here. Brace yourselves-Here I go!)

~takes a deep breath, whimpers, cringes and bites back tears a moment. Then forces himself to believe what he is about to say and speaks.~

My fellow debaters.

It is with a heavy heart that I allow the following painful phrases and speeches to spill forth from my mouth.

As of 8pm last night, I was awakened to the subliminal messaging within the phonomenon of the Harry Potter craze. Yes, there is subliminal messaging. And what is it you ask? Harry Potter is Evil. It promotes witchcraft and makes it seem like it's okay to "bewitch the mind, ensnare the senses, brew glory, and bottle fame!"

Ladies and gentleman, those phrases alone have an evil, underlying meaning! Let me break it down for you.

Bewitch the Mind- To take and brainwash the ones who are so willingly open to this nonsense of fiddle faddle witchcraft. Con men and frauds will use this to take advantage of these innocent beings.

Ensnare the senses- DRUGS! Drug-related paraphenelia! Ensnaring the senses means messing with the body, the senses can be numbed, dulled, manipulated, distorted, damaged, and destroyed by drugs.

Brew Glory- Another drug-related message. You "brew" ingredients together in potions classes. How are drugs made? From mixing, stirring and combining ingredients together. It is the same concept.

Bottle Fame- False promise of tricking people into believing they can be famous. Also, it promotes unmoralistic values and unsavory acts that are frowned upon in our society!

And THAT is only a small excerpt from the books. If I need to go on I will post on every single individual book with what kinds of messages are hidden in every book of that distateful series.

Harry Potter not only promotes witchcraft and unsavory acts of the like, but it gives us a false sense of security! It makes us believe we can pick up a stick and "Avada Kedavra" our problems away!

Harry Potter himself is just as evil if even not more than his so called enemy "Voldemort."
He allows himself to be brainwashed and corrupted by magic. Something that doesn't really exist.

A boy doesn't like that he lives with sensible, down-to-earth relatives. So what does he do, he leaves with a complete stranger-Hagrid- who he suddenly trusts in because the half-giant seems nice. This is proposterous! Does this mean that we should let our kids just go off with big hairy men? What utter nonsense! And another thing, that half-giant was rather rude and invaded the Dursley's property, damaged it and that would be a lawsuit right there! But not in this series.

In this series we are able to not only break the laws of ''the muggle world'' but we can damage property, and then there's the serious issue of promoting our kids to go off with some hairy stranger.
Also, Harry Potter may seem like an innocent boy but he's very disrespectful. In the second book, Harry can talk to serpents and in the many religions we find that the serpent is the symbol of evil. Harry may have been touched by a 'curse' but he uses the evil powers that voldemort installed in him to talk to snakes, and scare the students at Hogwarts.
Dumbledore is much too lenient of a Headmaster and favors Harry which breaks a decree of teachers/principals in the school systems! There are not supposed to be favorites yet the "trio" seems to get the best treatment while all the other Hogwarts pupils are shoved away and ignored. And then Moving on into Prisoner or Azkaban- This is truly disturbing. Not only do we have magic running amuck but we have now got Ron's beloved little pet rat turning into a bad guy. This promotes animal cruelty!

This makes it seem like all rats are evil and kids will go out trying to find "Wormtail" and will start being mean and cruel to rats-yes they are animals too! No matter how they are classified whether they be vermin or rodents, they are still living breathing animals.

Also there are racial issues in Harry Potter. Purebloods,Mudbloods and Half-bloods. This is completely inappropriate. It makes a gap and so it's wrong!

And now getting into Goblet of Fire- Oh where do I begin? Let's see what we can find right off the bat. The main theme in this one is death. The death of a young man who was trying hard to achieve his dream yet because he got close to Harry Potter, he lost his poor young life.

Necromancy is also in this book- Using human bone, human blood. This is clearly a sadistic disgusting and suicidal promoting story. How many kids will see this and then run off and try slicking open their arms cuz of what they read/saw in Goblet of Fire!?

~cringes~ This is only the tip of the iceburg.

Moving on to the Order of the Phoenix- To touch on some small parts

Umbridge- the one being with authority gets ridiculed and disobeyed.
There is also promoting of violence.
Harry runs over and starts beating up on Draco Malfoy. Whether Draco provoked him or not isn't the matter, it's simply that Harry is out of control. He is taking his anger out on hurting another student!

Then to touch on this subject: Fred and George don't like the way the school is run so what do they do ? They get on their brooms and fly off. This is clearly symbolizing dropping out of school is cool- and is a very bad thing to glorify. Yet when you read it, the twins fly off into the sunset as if dropping out of school was the best thing thing of all.
So, what does that promote? Finishing school isn't important and if you drop out you're cool??? That is the wrong message to send to kids. And with this catering to the teenage population how many "Freds and George's are we going to have dropping out of schools these days?

Half-Blood Prince- Just to touch on this a moment The things we find in this disturbing book.

More wicked wizardry, and an even worse death than before in Goblet of Fire! Now we have the Headmaster killed!
First, we have a student trying to kill him then we have another teacher-one who was trusted so much- show up and kill the Headmaster! So what does this say to us? It says "Okay kids, team up with your teachers against the principal and go kill him!"
That is what the message says.
For example, a student can read that and go "Well Mr P suspended me from attending a football game, so I'll get with my favorite teacher and we'll plot to kill that Principal."
This is my fear. Can't you guys see this?? All of these examples? All of these places in the books/movies that clearly show all of these unmoralistic values? Violence? Murder? Death? Witchcraft? Illusions? False Securite? Necromancy? Animal Cruelty? Disrespecting your family? the list goes on!!

I'm sorry but Harry Potter is Evil!!!!

(HP is good)

Dear dear Jesse... I'm sorry to say I won't even bother to read all that and I will only read the essential (which in my opinion isn't all that essential) because ARE YOU OUT OF YOU MIND!!! psst....

Okay. First of all, I think that putting drugs and potions in the same category would be completely ridiculous. What about chemistry which is regularly being studied all over the word? The things they make could be compared to potion, and now seriously I didn't know so many people dealed with drugs...

Also, the fact that witchcraft could bring someone to the side of evil is even more ridiculous. What is more dangerous? A woman who believes she can be a witch or a fanatic who want to burn her? Personnally I think the second option is much more brutal and... well, you kill someone, duh!

Reading Harry Potter does not encourage children to ill-behave, it doesn't even influence them. You won't become bad because you read a book, and if you do then the book is not the problem, you probably are. And in that case I think all litterature, even the Bible, could be considered as dangerous. And that is not true.

Harry Potter teach the children to dream and to believe. It doesn't make them stupid or mean, it only gives them the impression that the world may be more beautiful than what it looks like, and God knows children, and even adults, need to believe that! Reading develop skills, good skills, lots of children who had problems with reading books of 100 pages or less have become more and more good by reading those books! You wouldn't have seen lots of kids of 8 years old, a few years ago, reading a book of more than 500 pages.

Harry Potter is also full of valuable lessons. You must fight for what you believe is right, you have your rights. It shows to accept death and to live life. It teach you that there are more than one kind of people, that everybody have its fault and qualities and that you must accept them as they are. It shows that you can trust people but you must sometimes choose your friends carefully. It is a lesson of friendship and loyalty, and bravour ((*is that a word?*)) and cleverness, it shows that even when you are young, you can make a difference. You don't need to be 40 years old to know something and to help the world.

(For: HP is good)

*stand up and claps*

I completely agree with Marie, and I'd like to touch on some of the issues she didn't.

Quote :

Bottle Fame- False promise of tricking people into believing they can be famous. Also, it promotes un moralistic values and unsavory acts that are frowned upon in our society!

Where in the world did you come up with such ideas? A false promise of tricking people into believing they can be famous? That is not a bit true, people have been told all their lives they can be whatever they want. So does that not mean that they can't be famous also? About the frowned upon acts and morals in our society. In case you haven't looked around lately our society is one big thing that should be frowned upon and the acts and morals learned from the books are way better then some of the things kids learn from watching T.V. or listening to the radio.

Quote :

Can’t you guys see this?? All of these examples? All of these places in the books/movies that clearly show all of these un moralistic values? Violence? Murder? Death? Witchcraft? Illusions? False Security? Necromancy? Animal Cruelty? Disrespecting your family? the list goes on!!

Once more I wonder where you come up with this stuff. Put I shall touch on all of these things too.

Un moralistic Values- The values people learn out of these books are much more positive then negative. People learn about friendship, bravery, working together, and all the other things that you are taught to learn in a much more enjoyable way.

Violence- Is sadly a part of our everyday society. Its everywhere T.V., books, movies, online, video games. If you had to be completely honest most everyone here could NOT say that they don't read/watch/play something that doesn't have violence involved.

Murder- Another sad thing but murder happens everyday in fact in America there are on average 2 people murdered every HOUR that is 48 people murdered per DAY and an amazing average of 16,137 people murdered per YEAR, in America ALONE! It doesn’t ever encourage kids to murder people.

Death- Death is a normal part of life without it there would be no point to it. Kids have to know that someday life will come to and end and its not always so terrible.

Witchcraft- There has been stories of Witchcraft for YEARS before Harry Potter even came about. Almost all children know its not real! They aren’t going to go trying magic just because they read it in a book.

Illusions- Illusions are not so terrible. An Illusion is just an advanced form of someone’s imagination or is that evil now too?

False Security- Its another one of those things that if kids didn’t read it in Harry Potter it would be on T.V or some place else, its unavoidable.

Necromancy- (I had to Google this so I’m not sure I’ve even got the right meaning) Bring back the dead using black or demonic summoning in order to gain knowledge of future events? Well call me crazy but I don’t see anywhere in the Harry Potter books that people bring back the dead to gain knowledge of future events.

Animal Cruelty- It is also a part of life, no where in the Harry Potter books does it encourage animal cruelty so there is really no argument for that, as it is just a part of life.
Disrespecting your family- So your saying if your family did what the Dursely’s did to Harry you would still show them the up most respect? No child deserves to be treated the way that Harry was and so in some cases it is actually better for kids to disrespect their families.

Also I’d like to point out kids who read the books are going to have to be mature enough to understand what the books say in the first place. Kids who are old enough know better then to do those things not all kids just go and do what they see on TV. or read in books.

Murder info source- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/21/opinion/courtwatch/main1331685.shtml

(Against HP -For it being evil)


Marie, while I admire your strong desire for defending Harry Potter, I must disagree.

Harry potter has hidden evil meanings! To address your first statement, yes chemistry is broderline for drug/narcotic developement. And the phrases from the first book I pointed out are very very distinct. They're hidden meanings to brew evil things.

Well if the person wasn't doing witchcraft to being with, then there would be no need for conflict or 'brutality' of burning her, now would there?

Those with unstable minds who read Harry Potter will actually try to do the things as in the books/movies.
Children might be trying to jump off the roofs with brooms thinking they can fly!
They might even go as far as to go to cemetaries to dig up bones to think they can bring back their past family members also known as Necromancy!

Yes, Harry Potter may give us dreams but DREAMS Do not pay the bills. They do not solve anything and often times dreamers are unable to achieve their desired results because it's fine to dream but you must also do something to make yourself go forward.
And if they want something to believe in they can't exactly find comfort through Harry Potter. These books are evil, filled with so much negativity that one can feel the uneasiness radiating out of them.

Harry Potter might have a tiny bit of good, though one needs a microscope to find it as there is more evil than good in this series.

There's a lot of young readers yes, but these children shouldn't be reading 500 pages of nonsense, they should be reading about real life! The wars their country has fought to keep them free, the real life issues that go with our lives. The schools, the jobs, the growing up parts of life.

You can't just wave a wand and make your bills, house payments, and taxes go away. It'd be nice though in THIS 'muggle' world, there is no such thing as magic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To address Amber's issues.

First Amber that was all merely from one source and a supportive source of Harry Potter would of course influence the news media on the real life events.

Besides, much of the news today is rubbish.

And here is my research :

Quote :

Children as young as kindergarten are being introduced to human sacrifice, the sucking of blood from dead animals, and possession by spirit beings."

Courts have banned the teaching of Christianity in public schools but Wicca, which is recognized by the U.S. courts as a religion and given tax-exempt status by the IRS, is taught freely. As well, Harry Potter has become the method of introduction of sorcery to the very young.

Harry Potter materials have become much more than a hand full of children's fantasy books. Warner Brothers, Coca Cola, Minutemaid, and Mattel have used the Potter materials to launch games, puzzles, toys, backpacks, and every possible merchandizing product.

Scholastic, Inc., a major supplier of public school teaching aids has added the Potter literature to its line of curriculum materials. When the name "Harry Potter" is keyed into the Scholastic.com web site search engine, it returns 268 matches. "Jesus" returned only 23.

And now, a major movie is about to break on the scene called "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." Millions of dollars are being spent on pre-release hype.

Once introduced to the world of wizards, spells, and dark arts, readers of Harry Potter can advance their knowledge and skills in witchcraft and paganism by visiting the hundreds of web sites available on the internet.

Or, they can purchase more books on the subject from the well stocked occult sections in local book super stores. Or, they can find over a thousand volumes on witchcraft available at Amazon.com.

Harry Potter books have taken the world of children's fantasy literature by storm. Over 200 million have been sold in 40 languages. One study shows that over half of the children in the western world have read at least one of the Potter books. Many reported rereading each book several times.

But is it just fantasy literature like Snow White and Cinderella? In the Harry Potter video, cult expert Caryl Matrisciana points out that in the older stories, evil never prevails.

There are no absolutes in his world. What is right depends on the situation.

Witchcraft now has a complete package. Starting in kindergarten with Harry Potter and TV witch shows, children are led on to the horror movies and hundreds of Wicca and pagan web sites. When they thirst for more power, high school and college Wicca covens are available. In the adult world, corporations are hiring New Age practitioners to provide seminars in sensitivity training, stress relief, and self improvement for employees"

(source: http://www.chick.com/bc/2001/harrypotter.asp )

This article makes some very good points. Witchcraft is responsible for so much animosity among people as well. It is not just a harmless children's book either. Harry Potter is spawning more and more criminal activity as new things are introduced.

Quote :

There's a lot of young readers yes, but these children shouldn't be reading 500 pages of nonsense, they should be reading about real life! The wars their country has fought to keep them free, the real life issues that go with our lives. The schools, the jobs, the growing up parts of life.

Of course, they can find comfort in Harry Potter! Sometimes, children don't want to read up on basic facts all the time. That's such a bore! Harry Potter, I think, is way for them to escape the pressures for a moment and dive into a completley ficitional world! There is nothing wrong with that.

Quote :

You can't just wave a wand and make your bills, house payments, and taxes go away. It'd be nice though in THIS 'muggle' world, there is no such thing as magic.

Well, of course! But, these are children we are talking about! They have a long ways ahead before worrying about things like that! And I think that as they grow older, they will have enough sense to know that Harry Potter is just a ficitional character in a made up world.

To think Harry Potter is evil and wanting to ban it is outrageous! Why not target others as well? Such as Charmed or Buffy The Vampire Slayer? Kids are are watching and reading those how is Harry Potter any different?

(HP is Evil- Disclaimer: I do not believe any of this rubbish I am saying cuz Harry Potter is so awesome. )


Harry Potter that caters to young children is indeed evil! And even more so the many books that are sure to follow this series will be masking witchcraft as "Good" as well and corrupt these young children with even more nonsense.

As I mentioned, Harry Potter offers power, and everyone craves and lusts for power so therefore, this phonomenon is growing out of hand! Too much power leads to corruption. We're already seeing that Harry Potter is doing it's damage.

Instead of doing homework, kids want to just read or go online and chat about Harry Potter.

People all over are putting up Harry Potter related sites( Elfie you know i love ya heh) to corrupt our kids!
Instead of playing hide and seek outside, you see them on the video games or watching harry potter movies.

Not all fans of Harry Potter ARE Children. Many of them are teens to adults and this sends messages to them as well.

And with there being older fans of Harry Potter comes the danger of influencing kids as well.

The media glorifies the Harry Potter craze and ignores all of the big issues at hand. It's unfit and unsuitable for our youth.

(For: HP is good)

Quote :

People all over are putting up Harry Potter related sites( Elfie you know i love ya heh) to corrupt our kids!
Instead of playing hide and seek outside, you see them on the video games or watching harry potter movies.

So by saying that you are saying that ALL websites are corrupting our kids? That if there was no HP that kids would be outside playing hide and go seek? Wrong! They would just be inside and instead of reading a nice book they'd be playing grand theift auto or something terrible like that.

Harry Potter provides kids an escape to a magical and make believe place where thye don't have to worry about their own lives and problems. How could something like that ever even be thought of as evil.

The Harry Potter craze has not hurt our kids but instead helped them. Helped them to imagine, and know whats real and whats not. It has helped their reading tremdously because they actually want to be reading. is that really so wrong?

(For Harry Potter being evil)

And just HOW does Harry Potter help the children of this day and age? Are there no good morals left in this world or have they all been 'avada'd' away.

It's disturbing that children can't name a single US president yet they can name every one of the Harry Potter characters.

And why are we encouraging this dangerous series? It's evil! Harry Potter is completely evil and a book of nonsense.

We have a few special years to teach our kids the morals and values and instead we fill their heads with un-achievable dreams. They can never perform magic or fly on a broom or go to a Hogwarts. They shouldn't be exposed to this harmful, dangerous, unmoralistic story.

Yes there are a very very very few things in these stories that touch on the importance of friendships and traces that they talk about love.

But Harry cheats on everything, his schooling and there are no consequences for his actions. Were he in the real world, he'd of been in serious trouble.

It's sad how our youth of today are corrupted.
Yes there are a lot of things we could pick on but they don't do half as much danger to the kids as Harry Potter.

(For: Hp is good)

So Jesse what your saying is that Harry Potterhas corrupted our youth? given them hope and dreams that they can never reach? that it is a danger to kids everywhere?

I've got to ask how do you figure any of that? Dreams are meant to seem unattiable, that makes what seperates them from reality many a times.

Corrupted our youth? Jesse I hate to bring it up but the reality is our youth is far more curropted then its even been and its not from Harry Potter. Instead its from the media and music and other things that curropt our kids not simple books.

A danger to kids everywhere? Hardly! Its a helper to kids everywhere, it builds strong reading skills (which we all know we need to be successful in life), imagination (which is far more important then intellagence), and most of all hope.

Hope to kids who are different, who are always stared at. It helps them to not feel so different. To go into a book where being different is okay.

So I ask once more how can you even think that something that does all that could be evil in anyway?

(Oh God I cant believe it. Against: Harry Potter is evil)

To put it simply Harry Potter is evil, it encourages kids to try magic spells and kill each other.

They make kids believe that if they try hard enough they can magically get back at thier enimies.

It also discouarges Hard work, telling them that there is a magical solution to everything. THat they don't have to work hard

(For: HP is good)

Kalli my dear daughter I hate to say it but you are completely wrong. Harry Potter doesn't in the slightest discourage hard work, quite the opposite in fact.

It encouarges kids to work towards their goals and not to give up.

Also don't we all imagine getting back at our enemies? Of coarse and allowing them to imagine they could magically get back at their enimies doesn't hurt the kids at all, instead it helps them. If they can only imagine it it keeps them from actually doing something rash and idiotic.

(Against: HP is evil)

Harry Potter is clearly evil, it does curropt the minds of our poor innocent kids.

Those kids not need dreams of stuff that can never actually happen.

It will crush them, when they realize that it can't really happen

(For Harry Potter is good)

But all children need to go through that, wether there is a Harry Potter phenomenon or not going on. We all believed in magic when we were children, or we wanted to live in a fairy tale and we thought it was possible, it was magical and we believed in it, and I know when I was a kid HP didn't exist. Those thoughts belonged to me, I made them and I lived in a wonderful world. It had to be crushed at one point, that's the sadness of growing up, but it doesn't have anything to do with Harry Potter.

Kids will dream and imagine thing without books, it's in their nature, it will only develop a side of them which might help them to go through life. And Harry Potter doesn't, basically, influence those dreams, you can start having them before you know how to read, when your mother reads Cinderella to you.

Another point; are we going to forbid our children to read books such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty? There is magic in them. But you wouldn't keep kids from reading them, would you? Even if it could, as you say, crush them when they learn that there are no such things as magic wands and lovely spells and fairy godmothers and glass slipers...

Well done everyone for an interesting and well thought out debate! Your points are as follows:

Ravenclaw

Ilyria: Didn't post
Hermionefan207: 10

Hufflepuff

Siriuslover102: 10
MarieC: 48

Gryffindor

amberg93: 50
Mionie2: Didn't post

Slytherin

Cher-rae: 40
Fated4HP: 50