Good & Evil in the Potterverse (was Harry Agonistes (

[naamagatus]

No: HPFGUIDX 99246

<snip> 
> I didn't explain that well. I don't mean that the  characters in 
> Tolkien, Lewis and Star Wars don't struggle with moral issues. 
> What I mean is that when Aragorn says, 'Good and ill have not 
> changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves 
> and Dwarves and another among Men,' nobody thinks he's 
> talking nonsense. And a similar sort of universal morality 
> prevails in the Star Wars movies: the Jedi have been upholding 
> one ideal of peace and freedom accepted across the galaxy for 
> thousands of years
> 
> But Rowling's world doesn't have that kind of unity. 
> 

Now it's my turn to ask, are we reading the same books. I don't see 
any ambivalence at all regarding Right and Wrong in the Potterverse. 
IMO, JKR holds a universalistic concept of morality, and Aragorn's 
quote, "Good and ill have not changed..." could easily have been said 
by Dumbledore. 
The complexity in the series (and like Neri, I think it is less 
morally complex than what some people here think (or hope?)), comes 
from the distance between the moral ideal (which is constant) and 
reality. 
When Lupin, for instance, fails to inform DD of Sirius' animagus 
abilities, he does wrong. But the fact that we have a basically good 
person doing something wrong doesn't mean that there is any doubt 
regarding what he should, ideally, have done. Right is right, whether 
people do it or not. 
Moreover, Right is right whether *people believe it or not*. In JKR's 
world, the fact that the Voldemort and the DEs have an ideology 
doesn't justify their actions. On the contrary, holding an ideology 
that justifies and glorifies evil is what makes them totally evil. 

The battle between the racial ideology and the ideology of equality 
begun a thousand years before - and what was right and wrong then is 
still what is right and wrong now. 
JKR shows us that different species have members who are good (Dobby, 
Firenze) and bad (Kreacher, Bane) - but good elves and good centaurs 
and good people uphold the same values, and in that sense are good in 
the same way.

I find JKR, in fact, remarkably similar to Tolkien in her moral 
views. Think of Frodo (who, by the way, Geoff, *completely* succumbed 
at Mount Doom) - he knew what he *should* do; the problem was that it 
was so difficult to do it. In the same way, DD makes it clear to his 
students that the crucial moral moment involves the choice of Right 
over Easy. 


Naama