Sacrifice: How Fantasy Heroes Reflect Jesus

Sacrifice how fantasy heroes reflect Jesus
Picture by Adare Elyse using photos from Unsplash by Jon Tyson, Sean Thomas, Judeus Samson, and Artem Maltsev.

Jesus makes the best YA fantasy hero. Don’t believe me?

Let me ask you this: what do Harry Potter, Eragon, and Inkspell have in common with the story of Jesus? These popular young adult fantasy books aren’t Christian stories, but they share some themes pertinent to this season of Easter. I’ve dug up one of my short college essays exploring this topic (please pardon the academic tone), so check it out to see why Jesus is the model hero for our favorite types of stories!

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT for the following books: Inkspell, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Eragon
This article is not an endorsement of any book or series. Please exercise your judgment in selecting your reading material.

The Secular Sacrifice of Christ

Introduction

Even outside the society of Christian adherents, no greater example of goodness has been found than Christ’s self-sacrifice for the salvation of humanity. On the contrary, many of the greatest heroes of secular literature are actually called “Christ-figures” and achieve their greatness through self-sacrifice. Three popular examples of young adult fantasy literature—Inkspell by Cornelia Funke, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, and Eragon by Christopher Paolini—highlight different aspects of the beauty of Christ’s work on the cross by presenting their own Christ-figure heroes, with parallels of Christ’s deliberate self-surrender, His assumption of all sins to defeat death, and God’s fatherly love for His wayward children.

Inkspell by Cornelia Funke

In Cornelia Funke’s Inkspell (the sequel to Inkheart), a fire-eater named Dustfinger takes the role of the Christ-figure. When Farid, Dustfinger’s teenage apprentice, is killed in a skirmish with an evil king’s henchman, Dustfinger decides to bargain with the White Women, who serve as angels of death taking souls from this realm to the next. Although the White Women are attracted by his magnificent fire dance, he knows that they require more for the return of a life. Dustfinger determines to trade his life for Farid’s, knowing that he must once again forsake his beloved family, with whom he has just been reunited after about a decade of exile.

Dustfinger’s example parallels the deliberate determination of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane: He was fully aware of the difficulty and pain of the ordeal, and yet chose that suffering to redeem those who are spiritually dead. Dustfinger forsakes the joy of his family and present life, just as Christ left the harmony of heaven and “humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8 NIV). Dustfinger is fully aware of the lore of the White Women, and understands in advance the price they require; likewise, Christ had full knowledge of the Scriptures and, being God, knew the price necessary to redeem fallen humanity to satisfy God’s justice. Dustfinger’s sacrifice emphasizes the deliberateness of Christ’s choice to obey the rules of death and ultimately overturn death itself.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Overturning death is key in the sacrifice of the title hero in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. As in the rest of the series, the theme of this seventh and final installment is love. In the last battle against the evil Lord Voldemort and his army, Harry is given the choice of watching more of his beloved friends and classmates die or surrendering himself to the Dark Lord. In an ethereal state between life and death, Harry learns that because he gave himself up, he has killed the part of Voldemort’s soul that had lodged itself in him. Furthermore, he now has the chance to return from the dead to defeat Voldemort once and for all in a final duel.

The connection between Harry and Voldemort mirrors Christ’s sacrifice from the perspective that Christ, who was without sin, took upon Himself all sin in order to defeat it. Because of Christ’s sacrifice, the bondage to sin and death was broken. In both cases, death was necessary to overcome the reign of evil, whether in the wizarding world or the human world; nothing less would have been sufficient to destroy the Dark Lord’s rule or the enslavement to sin. Furthermore, the victory is over death itself, since death was the price, and the force behind that triumph is love: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13 NLV). Harry acted on behalf of his friends, and because “God so loved the world[,] he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NIV). Harry’s sacrifice reflects that of Christ in the assumption of evil unto death, so that death itself is overcome—and all for love.

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Such sacrificial love is further refined in Christopher Paolini’s Eragon. Here, the title character pursues his uncle’s murderers, the Ra’zac, with his dragon and the village storyteller, Brom, who trains him to fight and use magic. Just when they think they have their quarry, the Ra’zac instead capture them. Then, as the Ra’zac in turn are attacked by a mysterious archer and are forced to flee, they attempt to kill Eragon, and Brom takes the hit of the dagger instead. Although Eragon does not know it at the time, he later learns that Brom was his father.

Christ’s sacrifice shows the vastness of God’s love for humanity as a father: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1 NIV). Christ’s sacrifice not only redeems us from death, but adopts us into his family. Like Eragon, who did not know his father but was focused on his own desire for vengeance, humanity has gone each to his own way without recognizing God’s love, and yet “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8 NIV). Brom’s instinct and split-second reaction to Eragon’s peril at the hands of the evil Ra’zac is to take that death instead to spare Eragon. Although humanity fell to the serpent’s temptation and so earned the consequence of death, Christ has taken that blow of death upon Himself and spared us the pain of an eternal spiritual death (Genesis 3:15; John 10:10). Brom giving his life to spare his son echoes the love of God the Father in Christ’s death so that mankind may live.

Conclusion

In each of these three secular fantasy novels, the heroic sacrifice of the characters reflects Christ’s greater sacrifice. Although each approaches this surrender of life in its own way, the differences between the stories merely draw out more and richer aspects of Christ’s work on the cross, together creating a fuller reflection. The deliberate and knowledgeable decision from Funke, the assumption of evil to defeat death in Rowling, and the fatherly life-giving love of Paolini testify, if unintentionally, to the highest and greatest good that mankind has heard or can conceive, a sacrifice that is no less than divine: Christ’s sacrifice for humankind.

P.S.

Even the greatest fantasy heroes merely reflect the heroism shown by a real savior—Jesus. For further (non-academic) reading, you can get a glimpse into his story, see how he saved the world and why that’s a big deal in the fantasy genre, and find out how he inspires us to be the heroes in our real lives. Happy Easter!

What other fantasy books have you read that have Christ-figures in them?

Works Cited

(Because that’s what you do in school.)

Biblos.com. Biblos.com, 2011. Web. 26 Nov 2011.
Funke, Cornelia. Inkspell. New York: Chicken House, 2005.
Paolini, Christopher. Eragon. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York: Arthur A. Levine, 2009.

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2 Comments

  1. Howdy! This blog post could not be written much better!

    Looking through this article reminds me of my previous roommate!

    He always kept talking about this. I am going to send this information to him.

    Pretty sure he’s going to have a good read. Many thanks for sharing!

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