[HPforGrownups] Re: JKR, Harry Potter, and the Nature of Evil

[Horst or Rebecca J. Bohner]

No: HPFGUIDX 19553

> So what characterisics do V. and Lockhart share? The most obvious is
> greed. People often misunderstand the Bible passage that says money
> is the root of all evil.

They often misquote it, too.  <grin>  It's "the love of money", not money
itself, that is "the root of all evil" according to the King James version
of the Bible.  Some other versions have "...a root of all kinds of evil,"
which is perhaps an even better translation.  </pedant>

But of course your point is, as you said below:

> I do believe that the overwhelming desire for anything,
> money included, can lead us to evil acts.

Which raises an interesting question in my mind.  We know, from the Mirror
of Erised, that Harry's deepest desire is to have a real and loving family
around him, and Ron's deepest desire is to be a "star" and set himself apart
from his brothers.  Okay, so Ron's more likely to get in trouble than
Harry -- I'm having a hard time imagining how Harry's desire could lead to
evil, but it's not hard at all to imagine how Ron's could.  (This is NOT to
say I expect Ron to go that route -- as I've said here before, I love Ron
and I think he'll be just fine.)  But I wonder what the deepest desires of
the other Hogwarts crew -- teachers and students -- might be and how they
might be twisted to evil if taken to excess.

Hermione's greatest desire, I think, would be to know everything.  But
sometimes people with an insatiable desire for learning aren't always too
discriminating about what they learn or where they learn it.  I don't really
see Hermione going this route, but she *could* get sucked into dark magic if
she doesn't watch herself.

Obviously Lockhart's deepest desire was for personal fame, and he went about
doing whatever he had to do in order to get it -- including lying, cheating,
and casting Obliviate right, left and centre.  (I really hate Obliviate.
Have I said this before?  I think it's evil.  The whole thing with Mr.
Roberts in GoF actually made me feel ill.)  And Voldemort's deepest desire
is for immortality -- we all know what THAT has led to.

Some people might think Snape's greatest desire is for personal glory, like
Ron's -- but I think this is a red herring, like the rumour that Snape wants
the DADA job.  I think Snape's greatest desire is to redeem himself,
frankly:  to somehow atone for the things he did as a Death Eater.  He seems
to be obsessed with finding and stopping evildoers, or those he perceives to
be evildoers (Quirrell in PS/SS, Sirius in PoA), and the most passionate
we've ever seen him was when he thought Sirius, that evil murderer, and
Remus, that vicious killer werewolf, were in league with each other and had
confunded Harry, Ron and Hermione into helping them.  We've already seen how
Snape's zeal to hunt down evildoers can actually lead him to judge people
too harshly and hastily and not give them a chance.

Any more thoughts?
--
Rebecca J. Bohner
rebeccaj at pobox.com
http://home.golden.net/~rebeccaj