Random observations on your article, cedars - hope you don't mind.
Yes, it sounds less measured and more 'ranty' than your usual style. It's over the top to call the video "abhorrent" and use other (imho) sensationalist sounding language (e.g. "brutal manner"). Maybe a couple more days would have allowed some of your fury to die down and a less impassioned piece would have resulted. The DVD has obviously pressed your buttons. Churning up memories of your own upbringing?
I said in another post that there were other uneasy feelings I had with the DVD but couldn't pin them down at the time. Perhaps it's the memories - or rather, the feelings I (and you too?) had as kid when the very same reasoning was used on me (us?). The wizard toy conversation is typical of how it went in our home (although it has to be said, Scriptures were consulted). Being little, I didn't see the harm in the toy I was playing with or with what I made/drew in school or with what I picked out at the library - usually innocent stuff that other little kids routinely did. My parents (and sometimes it wasn't them but others, über-JWs) would see a problem, a terrible danger with cosmic implications, and the toy/drawing/whatever was taken away and thrown out. My parents were doing what they thought was right. But the feelings I was left with were sadness (if I was fond of the thing or had worked hard on it) and guilt (I'd disappointed my parents and God), and occasionally anger if my little head thought it wasn't justified (the anger was always internalized - probably explains a lot :-) ). The long-term effects included lack of confidence, uncertainty and low self-esteem, naturally. Now we know that much of what was seen as harmful actually wasn't and a huge fuss was made over nothing but we're still having to live with the long-term baggage.
Also I grew up in the era when JW paranoia centered on demon influences. If somebody was given an object that had connections to the occult, it brought in a spiritistic air to the home and the owner would likely experience demonic attacks. Eye-witness accounts and second/third-hand anecdotes abounded. So it wasn't simply a matter of 'making Jehovah sad' but 'you're inviting a satanic s***storm if you don't get rid of it' (loose paraphrase) and 'don't give the object to another person or they'll come under the influence too.' That's probably why Caleb's mommy throws the wizard toy in the trash.
The toy's character, "Sparlock", is evidently the lead character of a forthcoming movie, and we all know that toys connected with children's movies are hardly ever cheap. This was therefore a generous gift from a virtual stranger, yet nowhere is gratitude expressed to this person for their kind gesture, neither is any thought given to what will be said to this friend when Caleb turns up at school the next day empty-handed.
It wouldn't necessarily have been expensive. More likely it came free with a promotional McDonalds meal. If it was an expensive new toy, there's no way Caleb's friend would have given it him - not without his parents going berserk and demanding it back. I agree it was very bad mannered to throw it away rather than give it back to his friend, but a possible reason has been given above.
That's all that comes to mind for now.
**Edit: Just to say, I like your new Owning a wizard = being a wizard? section
