[HPforGrownups] Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 38317


> ARE GOOD AND EVIL BOUND CLOSELY TOGETHER 
> 
> 1. Characters
> In Post 23737, Pippin wrote, succinctly, "In Rowling's world we have 
> met no character who personifies the forces of good as thoroughly as 
> Voldemort personifies evil."
> 
> Voldemort personified evil, that is clear. We have never seen him, 
> in any of his incarnations, do anything that could be deemed 
> deliberately good or helpful (although an argument can be made that 
> he was inadvertently helpful to the students of Hogwarts back in the 
> 40s, when he managed to get Aragog out of the castle).
> 
> Have we, however, met no character who thoroughly personified the 
> forces of good?
> <snip>

> 2. Actions & Words
> On a smaller level, what determines whether an act is "good" 
> 

 <snip>

> How does someone's movitation affect whether an act is good or evil?
> <snip>

> 3. Themes in Literature
> One of the oldest themes in literature is the triumph of good over 
> evil. While the HP canon is still open, and at this juncture, it's 
> impossible to tell where good and evil stand on the continuum of 
> each character (other than perhaps Harry and Voldemort), what 
> factors do we, the readers, use to determine whether a character or 
> an action is evil or not? 

I'm not going to answer these questions individually, but they are the areas 
that I'm going to discuss.

Over Christmas, I was visited by my cousin and our elderly aunt (an 
ex-educationalist). The topic of conversation turned to the HP series which 
my aunt compared unfavourably to Tolkein and C.S. Lewis, on the grounds that 
the contrast between good an evil wasn't as clearly portrayed.

I didn't argue the point then, but it led me to consider whether this was a 
fair criticism, and indeed whether it is a good or a bad thing in children's 
literature for good and evil to be clearly characterised, or whether the 
ambiguity which we might find in HP is in fact a strength, being both more 
relevant to the real life situations that we find ourselves in and in leading 
children (and the rest of us) to think more deeply about these concepts. 

As some of you know, I have a bit of a problem with a dualistic view of 
absolute good and evil and wonder how relevant it is to the Harry Potter 
series, which seems to me to go beyond this simple characterisation of the 
choices to be made in life.

One of the indicators of this is, as Pippin has pointed out, that we have met 
no character that personifies undiluted good in the way that Voldemort 
represents undiluted evil. The nearest we seem to have to a personification 
of good, at least in the sense that he seems to be representative of the 
higher moral view, is Dumbledore, who himself is a highly ambiguous 
character, whose motivation is frequently unclear and whose actions sometimes 
seem questionable. 

It is tempting to draw analogies between Dumbledore as God and Voldemort as 
Satan: we could even argue that Dumbledore, as one of Tom Riddle's teachers 
(and one who knew his true nature) had a hand in creating Voldemort, as 
Christian mythology teaches that Satan is one of God's creatures. But for me, 
at least, the similarity between Dumbledore and God lies not in his goodness, 
but in his ambiguity. As I have said before, he seems perhaps to be a 
metaphor for the problem of evil. (This touches on things we have discussed 
at length in regard to Dumbledore's attitude to the Marauders and Snape's 
decision to join the DEs, and is not something I intend to expand on here.)

Another problem we face is the placing of good and evil within any kind of 
frame of reference within the Potterverse. Good and evil, right and wrong are 
moral absolutes, but in the Potterverse, what is their basis? There is no 
religious basis, as the Potterverse appears to be godless. If we have no 
religious basis for our values of good and evil, then we need a coherent 
philosophical basis and again, this, so far is missing.

How are these issues referred to within the books? I don't have time for an 
exhaustive search, as I'm really supposed to be writing an essay about 
something entirely different (but this is more interesting), so this is 
largely simply thinking out loud, from memory, which may be incomplete. Here 
are what I think are the relevant points.

First of all, we are presented with a conflict between two opposing ideals, a 
conflict in which Voldemort and Dumbledore are presented as the chief 
protagonists, so there is a dualism of some kind represented.

What we characterise as evil seems to be the province of what the Potterverse 
calls 'Dark Magic'. Exactly what this entails, we don't really know. It is 
implied that there are some forms of magic which are inherently 'Dark', but 
we have also discussed that Dark Magic probably also involves the use of 
spells which in other contexts may be innocent. In other words, motivation is 
an issue.

The series' emphasis on personal choice, on it being our choices and 
therefore our ensuing actions, that define us, suggests that the place to 
look for these moral values, however we term them, is in people's deeds.

This is perhaps confirmed by Dumbledore's speech at the end of GoF, where he 
further defines the choice as being between doing what is 'right' and doing 
what is 'easy'. Not 'good', but 'right'; not 'evil', but 'easy'. In other 
words, in a situation where there is a choice to be made, there is a 'right' 
choice and, by implication, that 'right' choice has nothing to do with what 
may be best for us in the short term, at least. However, as we all know, 
circumstances change, and what may be the right choice in one situation may 
be the wrong choice in another.

Interestingly, the only place that I can recall real emphasis being given to 
the words 'good' and 'evil', is at the end of PS/SS when Quirrell enunciates 
Voldemort's credo,
that there is no such thing as good and evil, but only power and those too 
weak to seek it.

I am now in the dangerous and rather unexpected position of being about to 
say that perhaps he is right, up to a point. The universe that many of us 
inhabit is relativistic. We recognise, as I pointed out above that actions 
which may be right in one situation may be wrong in another. All around us, 
every day, we see examples of this. Even issues that seem at first completely 
black and white become confused according to circumstance and personal belief.

Similarly, in the WW the AK is Unforgivable, yet under extreme circumstances 
the Aurors had permission to use it. The use of Cruciatus is Unforgivable - 
but imprisoning people in Azkaban where the mental torture of the Dementors 
send most mad is acceptable. 

And power? Well, that seems to be pretty important in the WW, doesn't it? The 
power and influence of people like Fudge, Crouch and Malfoy is what 
ostensibly makes the WW tick. But there is another type of power, power which 
is not self-seeking, which does not seek to dominate others and perhaps this 
is what Dumbledore personifies.

Power, and those too weak to use it....
I believe that much of the evil in the series will be perpetrated (or 
allowed) by those who are too weak to use their power for what is right. 
Fudge, for example. Will he choose what is right, or what is easy? (That's a 
rhetorical question BTW!)

Dumbledore, OTOH, has great power which, we assume, he will choose to use in 
the pursuit of right. He has eschewed the temptations of high office. 
Voldemort would no doubt castigate him as being weak for so doing, although 
from the 'Light' side, we can argue that Dumbledore is showing greater 
strength through not exploiting his power.

Which brings me back to where I came in, and to the argument I proposed back 
on Feb. 21 when we were discussing Snapetheories. (I'm sorry, I can't 
reference this as there seems to be some kind of malfunction which won't let 
me search the archive at the moment.) It seems to me that the dualism which 
the Potterverse is not so much between 'good' and 'evil' per se, but between 
a world view that recognises such moral values (that of what we tend to call 
the 'Light' side) and one which does not (that of the 'Dark' side). 'Good' 
and 'evil' are not absolutes to the 'Light' side; motivation and circumstance 
dictate whether a particular action is right or not. OTOH, 'good' and 'evil' 
are concepts which are simply irrelevant to the 'Dark' side. Power is 
something which to the 'Light' side is to be used wisely and for the general 
good; for the 'Dark' side, power is something to be exploited for personal 
gain.

This then allows for the 'greyness' of the 'light' wizards, it allows for 
moral ambiguity to creep in as they struggle to make the right decisions and 
sometimes make mistakes or do things which we can't understand. It means that 
our heroes *don't* have to be saints. It means that someone as nasty as 
Snape, whom we can in no way categorise as a conventionally 'good' man (not 
without the extensive use of apologetics, anyway), can fit into the role of 
'light wizard'.

It also accounts for the one-dimensional way in which the 'dark' wizards tend 
to be portrayed. There isn't much room for angsty decision making here. If 
you don't believe in morality, but only in self-promotion within a framework 
of obedience to a master who's creed is the domination of the weak, decision 
making is a whole lot easier.

Eloise




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