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

[Horst or Rebecca J. Bohner]

No: HPFGUIDX 19682

Gah!!!  I just had an idea after reading Dave's (very excellent) message on
this topic.

Ron says in one of the books that if wizards hadn't married Muggles, they'd
have died out.  Was Voldemort trying to find a way to eliminate this
problem?  In attempting to make himself immortal, was he acting not just for
his own personal profit, but seeking to become the forerunner of a new
"master race" of pure wizards?

I wonder if there is some connection between wizards and Muggles that goes
even deeper than most people, Voldemort included, realize -- that one group
literally cannot exist without the other.  If so, Dumbledore surely knows
this, but also knows that it's not the kind of thing you can just *tell*
someone and have them believe it.  They have to find out for themselves.
But it may be that discovering proof of the wizarding world's total
dependence on Muggles for survival was what brought Snape around and
convinced him that Voldemort must be opposed...

And another thought, on a different topic:

> 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. <

This is very interesting, and ties into an objection my brother had to the
books -- that he felt evil was consistently portrayed in the books as being
more powerful and more potent (even though not more desirable) than good.
He couldn't see how JKR could balance that out, even with three more books
to go.  But I suspect (especially knowing JKR's fondness for the Narnia
books, and for the writings of G.K. Chesterton) that she *will* uphold the
potency of good, and show the ultimate banality and triviality of evil, in
the end.  It's just a question of how she's going to do it -- and I can't
begin to answer that question.  But I think she's done a very good job of
setting us all up to ask the right questions before she gives us her version
of the answers.
--
Rebecca J. Bohner
rebeccaj at pobox.com
http://home.golden.net/~rebeccaj