This sounds funny, but let's think about it for a second, seriously.
A young girl, lonely and ignored, finds solace in confessing to an unseen friend via an anonymous communication medium.
The older friend deliberately befriends her, his intentions shady.
When the girl grows attached to the unseen friend, she begins to pursue him--he takes advantage of this and lures her into danger so that his true intention can be carried out.
When they meet in person, he tries to kill her.
Basically.
And honestly, I didn't think of this while I was first reading it--though that may have been because I was seven years old at the time. But the more I think about it, the clearer it is. After all, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published in the late 1990s when the internet was in it's early stages and security was minimal, especially for children and teens.
So, was the beautiful and magnificent J. K. Rowling drawing on the mysterious new world of Internet Pedophilia for a plot line? And was this an abuse of the trauma of many, many children? Or was it a well-intentioned subliminal message meant to protect the children it reached?
I prefer to believe the latter; however, it still gives me chills to think of Rowling's experience and how awful it must be to have motivated her to include a warning in her story.
A young girl, lonely and ignored, finds solace in confessing to an unseen friend via an anonymous communication medium.
The older friend deliberately befriends her, his intentions shady.
When the girl grows attached to the unseen friend, she begins to pursue him--he takes advantage of this and lures her into danger so that his true intention can be carried out.
When they meet in person, he tries to kill her.
Basically.
And honestly, I didn't think of this while I was first reading it--though that may have been because I was seven years old at the time. But the more I think about it, the clearer it is. After all, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published in the late 1990s when the internet was in it's early stages and security was minimal, especially for children and teens.
So, was the beautiful and magnificent J. K. Rowling drawing on the mysterious new world of Internet Pedophilia for a plot line? And was this an abuse of the trauma of many, many children? Or was it a well-intentioned subliminal message meant to protect the children it reached?
I prefer to believe the latter; however, it still gives me chills to think of Rowling's experience and how awful it must be to have motivated her to include a warning in her story.
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