Right, Wrong & Unicorns

[foxmoth at qnet.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 25634

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., fourfuries at a... wrote:
> 
> Still on topic, the unicorns are seen as absolutely good (whether in 
> the Platonic sense or not, I do not know), and even the centaurs, who 
> read stars as a guide to destinies, are moved to disgust (and one to 
> action) by the destruction of a unicorn.
> 
> In the Potterverse, I say, there is absolute right and wrong, and 
> fate is determined by an unseen hand.

	The unicorns are not *good*; they are pure and defenceless. I 
think JKR is saying, and Dumbledore believes,  that goodness stems from 
love, not the other way around. Voldemort is not what we would be if we 
didn't have any moral code, he is what we would be if we had no 
capacity to love.
	What JKR wants to show us is that an absolute standard of good and 
evil does us no good if we apply that standard selectively. It's not 
that Draco lacks proper standards of right and wrong, it's that he 
doesn't see any reason to apply those standards to Muggles and Muggle-
borns.
	
Pippin