Harry Potter's God complex

I had never read a Harry Potter book when an editor buttonholed me with a plea: Would I, a newspaper religion reporter, write about religious imagery in the series?

A force-feeding of all six books ensued. After 3,362 pages and weeks of late nights, I can say I like the series.

I even understand the intrigue that's leading people to bet on the ending — specifically, on whether the young wizard Harry lives or dies in the last volume, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," which comes out next Saturday.

It's true, Agence France-Presse has reported: Gamblers wealthy or odd enough to wager on fiction put down money with bookies. The prevailing bet? Potter to die.

Harry's death would show that his character's path is modeled on the Gospel accounts of Jesus', and, that the link between him and wizardry-school headmaster Albus Dumbledore is patterned on the most essential relationship in the Christian Bible — that between Jesus the Son and God the Father.

Critics have long enjoyed noting similarities to Jesus in fictional characters. By the second Potter book, I began to think that was the case here: that the relationship of Harry and Dumbledore was underpinning the narrative in a supernatural, and distinctly Christian, way.

That author J.K. Rowling's series is based on a battle between good and evil is obvious.

A more profound, if subtle, moral interplay is found between Harry and Dumbledore, who effectively lead the joint forces of good. Harry is a boy wonder, revered and reviled for his special powers by the respective forces of good and evil at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Headmaster Dumbledore is the best wizard there is, a seemingly omniscient force for good who rarely reveals his full powers and who closely observes others.

Dumbledore knows Harry plays a unique and indispensable role in the battle against evil, and outwardly helps him from time to time. Yet for most of the series, Dumbledore keeps Harry unaware of their relationship's depth. Harry often feels Dumbledore is ignoring him.

A well-known, heart-wrenching passage in the Bible, from an anguished Jesus on the cross, captures their relationship well: "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?"

When Jesus says that, he feels abandoned by God. At that moment, it's as if he feels separated from God or doesn't comprehend the metaphysics of God's plan to redeem the world through his sacrifice.

Harry Potter, too, knows he is special — he is the only good wizard or person ever to survive a curse from Voldemort.

He has followers who are devoted even if they don't always understand him, and other fair-weather fans who probably don't know what to make of him half the time. And, of course, enemies.

Sound familiar?

Dumbledore, for his part, is a benevolent, godlike presence at the school. Yet he often doesn't impede others' freedom of choice, in some cases allowing satanic, Voldemort-inspired forces to maneuver at will. Ultimately, though, Dumbledore believes in the eventual triumph of Harry.

The most poignant part of the series, in this regard, is a chapter in Book Five in which Dumbledore divulges to Harry vital information about Harry's own background and about the battle ahead with Voldemort. Ultimately, Dumbledore says, either Harry or Voldemort will die at the other's hands.

My analogy is imperfect, I admit. Harry sometimes seems un-Jesuslike. He is not immune to selfish thoughts and gets some bad grades.

Dumbledore, for his part, seems to invest wrong-headed faith in evil wizard Severus Snape, and actually dies in Book Six when Snape casts a dreaded killing curse his way. Could he be on the losing side of such things if he were such a heavenly presence?

Actually, maybe he could. After all, Dumbledore said death is not the worst fate that can befall someone. And perhaps his own influence can transcend his death: "I will only have truly left this school when none here are loyal to me," Dumbledore says in Book Two.

But what about Dumbledore's trusting Snape, and allowing Snape access to Harry? Well, in the Gospels, Judas is allowed access to Jesus, and is allowed to alert the authorities to his whereabouts. God the Father didn't prevent this. In fact, Christianity teaches that the crucifixion after Jesus' capture was necessary to redeem the world. Dumbledore repeatedly says he trusts Snape, but what does he mean? Might Snape's apparent evil success in Book Six prove necessary to save the world?

Could be. In any case, here's why legions of Harry Potter fans are betting Harry will die, according to Agence France-Presse. They believe Book Seven will reveal Harry's body is a "Horcrux," an object that mystically helps Voldemort survive. Harry's letting himself die or be killed, the theory goes, would thus help defeat Voldemort. In death, then, he would save the world.