The morality question

[David]

Judy wrote:
 
> I must confess that the fact that Harry, Ron and Hermione lies -- 
with very little, if any, consequences -- still concerns me, 
though.  It seems to me that this is used as a story device so that 
Harry, especially, is in the position to "save the day".  

> The issue of lying is certain something I have wrestled with.  

First let me check: you seem to be concerned particularly with the 
issue of lying, as distinct from rule-breaking, which several of the 
responses to this post have discussed?

Assuming that to be the case, could you cite some specific 
examples?  You see, my take on this is that though Harry and his 
friends do lie and don't consider the consequences, on the whole I 
think the narrative does care about it.  In other words, if a reader 
were to take aspects of the story as providing a role model of some 
sort (I would love to know more about how this works in practice - 
it seems simplistic to me to suppose that children or adults 
think "it's OK for Harry so it must be OK for me"), wouldn't they be 
alive to the idea that Harry or other character is being a bad role 
model at that point in the story?

A classic example, often cited on the main list, is when Harry is 
being interviewed by Snape, and is eventually caught in his 
falsehoods by Lupin.   The overall effect is not, IMO, to make the 
reader feel that lying is a good thing.

This example IMO is not a very good one for your purpose because the 
lying is an incidental to the rule-breaking and risk-taking which is 
the real issue for Snape and Lupin.  Hence my request for examples.

Finally can I suggest you read
www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0001/reviews/jacobs.html
an article entitled "Harry Potter's Magic", by Alan Jacobs.  I think 
you will find it interesting (thanks to Derannimer for pointing it 
out)

David