JKR, Harry Potter, and the Nature of Evil

[foxmoth at qnet.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19687

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Horst or Rebecca J. Bohner" <bohners at p...> 
wrote:
>
> Ron says in one of the books that if wizards hadn't married Muggles, they'd
> have died out.  Was Voldemort<snip> seeking to become the forerunner of a new"master race" of pure wizards?<snip>
	
> 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...

	Or maybe Snape discovered that Voldemort's immortality spells were 
a Ponzi scheme which depended on a constant stream of wizarding 
victims. Voldemort's followers love to bait Muggles, but a good many of 
those killed seem to have been wizards. And it seems to be very 
important that Nagini be fed a wizard or two now and then.
	The dependence on Muggles theory is a common theme in Irish 
folklore and in modern fantasy such as "Battle for the Oaks" by Emma 
Bull.

>  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. <<
	
	Some critics seem to think that evil should be shown as 'trivial' 
but I think JKR wants us rather to empathize with the  suffering of 
evil's victims and the faith and courage needed to resist. It would be 
hard to do this and show evil as "trivial" at the same time. I think 
the "wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight" formula of the 
Narnia books is too simplistic for the world JKR has created. 

Pippin