A defense of the Harry Potter novels against charges that they are spiritually harmful by Catholic writer (and prominent blogger) Mark Shea. The later portion of the article is a lovely analysis of some of the moral complexities of the book.
One of his points is that Dumbledore is not supposed to be seen as morally infallible, yet I (and I suspect many other readers) find myself predisposed to look for one character who is the moral authority in the book--perhaps I should call it the Gandalf Syndrome-- and Dumbledore is the logical character to fit the bill, which makes some of his actions rather disturbing. Shea points out that Rowlings makes sure that there is plenty of evidence in Book 7 showing that Dumbledore is not the moral center of the universe. One of the things that impressed me about the books was that Rowlings made each of her characters (at least the protagonists) well-rounded: no one was perfect, everyone had flaws, no one was a messiah. But the heroes tried to do the right thing despite their own shortcomings (and sometimes they didn't succeed).
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