HP and Sept 11

[dfrankiswork at netscape.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 27814

In the immediate aftermath, a number of list members suggested lessons from Harry Potter for the events of September 11.

In what follows, I have not inserted the phrases 'I think' and 'IMO' in every sentence - but I hope you will understand they are intended.  I also believe it is well on-topic - but please consider in any reply you want to make whether the HP focus is disappearing from the thread.  I subscribe to OT-Chatter (and recommend it to you all - the room with the comfy chairs in the HPfGU house) so anything you put there I will read.

In message 19670, I argued that the source of evil in Harry Potter is that wizards have trouble fully accepting both their human nature and their wizard powers.  I won't go into the whole argument again here but I do want to try to take it a little further.

On the human side, historical rejection has resulted in a rejection of relations with Muggles and, if not outright contempt for 'Mudbloods', at least the cultivation of 'Wizarding Pride'.  To accept that Mudbloods are wizards is to accept that wizards are part of the human race, and that the race that persecuted them - and could again - is the race to which they belong.  Voldemort tries to pretend that he is not human - but when it comes down to it, he has to acknowledge his father's bone and Harry's blood in order to carry on.

On the wizard side, wizards fear special magical ability, such as the ability to speak Parseltongue.  Tellingly, they tend to assume any particularly powerful feat of magic, including at one point the defeat of Voldemort, must involve the use of Dark powers.  Because Harry's scar is unusual it is an object of suspicion to Fudge, who more than anyone else is Mr Wizarding-average.  To accept the continuity of their nature with Parselmouths and wizards of great power is to take responsibility for the acts of a Voldemort and other Dark wizards.  It is to accept that there is ultimately no such thing as a special wizard who is Dark, there are just wizards, some of whom use their powers to do evil things.  Lockhart is one; Voldemort is another; and Skeeter is a third.  The differences between them are of degree, not kind.

We actually live in a world without wizards.  But the principle is the same: if human beings do terrible things, then we must accept that terrible things can be done by human beings.  Nobody can make themself into a non-human being, any more than Voldemort can.

And that means, however we respond to terrorist crimes, it should be on the basis that the people who committed them were and, if still alive, are human beings.  We can't cut ourselves off by saying that they put themselves outside humanity.

David, who does accept that JKR is not the final authority on questions like these


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