Something I'd like to see in the Books

[junediamanti]

No: HPFGUIDX 83074

When I first started reading the HP books back in 1997, when
dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was instantly struck by a comparison
with one of my (other) favourite books: The Earthsea Trilogy (now a
tetralogy) by Ursula le Guin.


Let me stress, I believe the comparison is slight, but there's a
central tenet in the Earthsea stories that I personally feel is
understated in the HP books and could possibly do with being touched
on.

Responsibility and magical power.

Where precisely does the magic come from in the Potterverse? Yes we
know that there are "wizarding families" who generally, though not
always, produce wizarding children, and there are instances of a
kind of genetic mutation (for want of a better word) where non-
wizarding families (such as the Grangers) produce a magically
talented child. But does magic per se have a source - a wellspring?
Is it like "the force" in the movies that must not be named? Is it
finite - both as a general force of nature and are there finite
quantities of magical powers in the wizard?

The basis of magic in Earthsea is the name of things. Everything
has two names at least and in the case of humans - three. There is
the name you are called by your mother until you come of age,
your "true" name which is a secret you may wish to divulge to those
VERY close to you, and your use name by which most people know you.
Your true name actually defines you and if someone calls a wizard by
their true name - the wizard may be incapable of any
transformation. Knowing the real name of things is the cornerstone
of magic.

The other major point made in the Earthsea books is that magical
power carries great responsibility - because when a magical spell is
worked it can have unknown repercussions on the general balance of
nature, thus:

"A mage can control only what is near him, what he can name exactly
and wholly. And this is well. If it were not so, the wickedness of
the powerful or the folly of the wise would long ago have sought to
change what cannot be changed, and Equilibrium would fail. The
unbalanced sea would overwhelm the islands where we perilously
dwell, and in the old silence all voices and names would be lost."

Indeed, the wizard who trains the central character rarely works
magic at all because although he is an undeniably powerful wizard,
the central lesson is do not do anything magically unless it is
necessary.

Here he is:
"When you know the fourfoil in all its seasons root and leaf and
flower, by sight and scent and seed, then you may learn its true
name, knowing its being: which is more than its use. What after all
is the use of you? or of myself? Is Gont Mountain useful, or the
Open Sea?...To hear, one must be silent."

Now while enjoying these books (both sets) I am not for a moment
advocating that JKR sits down and takes the line that ULG does.
Plagiarism notwithstanding, I find some of the concepts that
Earthsea puts across would be quite challenging for younger readers.
However, there seems to be little taught to the budding wizards at
Hogwarts the very central idea that with great power comes great
reponsibility.

Is it me or is everyone just wand happy? There seems to be the
minimum of restraint on the entire wizarding population - right,
every underage wizard risks serious educational penalties if they
break the underage rules, but where does that leave the adult
wizard? Pretty much in the middle of a free for all. Now there may
well be considerable rules that are in place and that we are just
not aware of - and that's quite possible because there's an awful
lot of information that we don't have about the WW yet, and that
would hold up the story unbearably if JKR were to constantly go on a
major narrative digression to sort this out for us.

All the same, I would have liked to see some ethical training in the
Hogwarts curriculum. When it isn't appropriate to use spells, when
it is. Is there any other effect of spells apart from the obvious.
For instance, if you used magic to push some clouds away because
they were raining on you, what is the effect of those clouds raining
somewhere else and is it a good effect?

It might be argued that the existence of such psychos as Voldemort
is enough of an example for budding wizards to see that there are
and have to be limitations to magic practice. However - it's only
certain wizards who really get to see this, like Harry, Ron and
Hermione because of their adventures. Other Hogwarts children may
well be able to draw certain conclusions from what their parents
have told them about the last Wizarding War, but it's by no means
certain. And in any case, surely this is not going to be the case
in families such as Malfoy's where we can probably be certain that
regular parental chats about the ethical use of magic are NOT part
of the vacational agenda.

So what does anyone think? Am I just a stuffy spoilsport moralist,
have I missed entirely on some fairly explicit treatment of
responsibility by JKR, or does anyone agree that there should be
ethics classes?

June