JKR, Harry Potter, and the Nature of Evil

[dfrankis at dial.pipex.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19670

"If you're choosing to write about evil, you really do have a moral 
obligation to show what that means." --J. K. Rowling

Ebony asked:
What *is* evil, and how is it expressed in the Harry Potter books?
Conversely, where's the "good" in the series?
Is it always diametrically opposed to "evil"... or do they sometimes 
exist in the same context, the same scene... even in the same person?

I'm going to cheat a bit and only answer the question What is the 
meaning of evil in the Harry Potter books.  The open question, What 
is evil?, I will not attempt.

I would say there are three main strands to evil in the books.
The first strand is Voldemort's personal motivation and actions.  At 
first sight, he is almost a cartoon figure of evil.  A number of 
people have remarked that he has in effect lost his humanity, and 
this makes him especially evil.  I'm not sure I agree.  First I think 
that Jo Rowling has introduced the idea that he is not human, (`dunno 
if he had enough human left in him to be killed' – Hagrid, and `I am 
more than a man' – Voldemort himself) but she has done this in a very 
finely balanced way, using unreliable witnesses, and insisting on 
essentially human elements (bone, flesh, and blood) in the 
resurrection (or, rather, re-incorporation) spell.  Second, I think 
that to deny Voldemort's humanity may actually reduce the degree of 
his evil.  Isn't it the fact that Voldemort is actually a human that 
makes him so especially evil?  Which is worse, a sort of natural 
force that goes round destroying all good things, or someone who 
still has an inkling left of what they are doing, who still knows on 
the inside what the pain he is inflicting must be like?

The roots of Voldemort's development have been fairly fully discussed 
on the group in terms of childhood abuse.  Note that one negative 
statement we can venture here is that there is apparently no inherent 
Star Wars style attraction to the `Dark Side' for its own sake, and 
so no Manichean view of evil.  The only other point I want to make 
here is that he was abandoned (through death) by his wizard mother 
and rejected by his Muggle father, so that his relationship to both 
sides of his ancestry is deeply fractured.

The second strand is the devotion of the Death Eaters to Voldemort.  
I have not checked all the back-posts, but I don't believe this has 
been very heavily discussed.  Barty Crouch Jr. is a curious mixture 
of vindictiveness and selfless devotion.  He clearly loves Voldemort 
and has enormous faith in him.  In another cause, his singleminded 
pursuit of his goal and willingness to sacrifice for the sake of 
another would be regarded as exemplary.  It is clear that Voldemort's 
hold on him is not one of fear alone.  Of course, he is an unusual 
case among the Death Eaters, but it is still worth asking what it was 
that Tom Riddle was able to offer his followers in the first place.  
We don't yet really know, but two possibilities spring to mind: 
immortality, and a new relationship to Muggles (and mudbloods).

The offer of immortality implicit in the name Death Eater, together 
with Voldemort's apparent resurrection (but he was never really 
dead), his unique claims for himself, his absolute demands for 
devotion, his promises to honour his faithful followers, and the 
acceptance of all these by the Death Eaters gives a strongly 
religious atmosphere to the Death Eaters chapter of GOF.  I believe 
that they are susceptible to all this because they are uncertain of 
who they are, and this brings me to my third strand: wizarding 
identity in relation to Muggles.

It is apparent that the wizarding community is very insecure, and 
subject to many prejudices and fears. Wizards have an apparently 
unreasoning fear of, for example, giants and Parselmouths.  I believe 
their view of house-elves is coloured by fear too.  But their deepest 
fear is of their own powers and how they play out in relation to the 
Muggle world.  When some particularly powerful feat such as opening 
the Chamber of Secrets is envisaged, it is assumed that this requires 
dark magic.  At one point the Hogwarts pupils infer that Harry's 
ability as a baby to defeat Voldemort must mean that he is a powerful 
dark wizard – nothing good could be that strong.  This is a very 
negative outlook indeed.  Likewise, only the horrible Dementors are 
regarded as having the capability to keep Voldemort's remaining 
supporters in check.

The root of this fear is the fragility of wizarding identity.  They 
believe, not without reason, that if they declare themselves to the 
Muggles, they will be rejected and persecuted.  To justify their 
separation from the rest of humanity they try to give themselves a 
separate identity as `purebloods' – Fudge's `wizarding pride'.  The 
existence of wizards with Muggle parents however negates this, unless 
they too can be characterised as `mudbloods' and excluded from the 
community (represented in the books by Hogwarts).  They then 
underscore their special identity by demonising the giants, 
rationalising house-elf enslavement, and putting Merpeople and 
centaurs at a distance.  Although most ordinary wizards can be 
assumed, for example, not to go along with the extreme views that 
Muggles should be reclassified as Beasts, they still take comfort in 
the easy assumptions of a Rita Skeeter.

But none of this works.  At bottom they know they *are* human.  But 
the cutting out of a separate `wizarding' identity that tries to deny 
this causes them to fear their own magicality, and to characterise 
unusual powers such as Parseltongue as dark.

I believe that it is this uncertainty of identity that fuels wizard 
prejudice, the devotion of the Death Eaters to Voldemort, and 
ultimately the quest of Voldemort himself to be no longer human.

I would suggest, therefore, that the essence of evil in Harry Potter 
is to refuse to admit to being human, in the case of wizards, to 
being a Muggle who happens to have some interesting and useful gifts.

I'd better stop here, but I'll just point out that the counterpoint 
to all this is Harry's self-discovery, in which his identity starts 
out from his humanity, but embraces his wizarding powers and his 
(extended) family.  Goodness is therefore integrity.

The post is long but big questions require big answers.

David