Faith in the Storyteller

For all the interesting or enjoyable things one can take from Harry Potter, partway through book six, I took a lesson about faith. I noted in the last post that "faithful" means, at least in one sense, "adhering to a covenant." A more common sense of "faith" would be "trust." Well, I think both of these work together when we think about stories.

At various points in the Harry Potter series, there are very intense moments, and I'm left wondering how good will survive long enough to face evil, and hopefully conquer it. Maybe I'm a lame reader, but I look for things to hold onto. I say, "Take a deep breath, we're only in book six. We know since there are seven books that Harry has to survive till at least the seventh." And that got me through those earlier episodes. As I've gotten to know the characters in the Harry Potter books, and more importantly for this discussion, JK Rowling's writing style, I have begun to feel like I can trust Rowling to do the right thing. I haven't finished the last book yet, so I can safely and speculatively say that I believe good will triumph over evil somehow. [Please no spoilers in the comments, for everyone's sake!]

Where is faith here? Obviously, I have faith in the storyteller. But why? Why is the storyteller faithful? There's an implicit covenant in epic storytelling that good will emerge victorious in the end. (I'm aware of the ironic twists in many of the most enjoyable and popular stories in which evil triumphs, if for no other reason than to avoid a Hollywood ending. But we're talking about a certain type of story here.) Rowling is making a good showing of keeping the covenant, at least as far as I've read. She's caused me to have faith that she will bring the story to a fitting conclusion.

[insert lame analogical tie here]

The faith lesson for me illustrates how YHWH, the Creator, sees good (his side) triumphing over evil. He tells a story all the way through the Bible where, at times, evil appears to triumph. But if he is as good a storyteller as I think he is, I know good will win. The difference between the Bible and Harry Potter is the story of the Bible is still happening. I find myself caught up in the story because I'm serving YHWH in my life today, and not declaring allegiance to Dumbledore/Harry vs. Voldemort. The story of the Bible continues; the storyteller is faithful; he will keep his covenant to restore the creation to its original good state; I place my faith in the storyteller and seek to be faithful to the covenant of his story.