Harsh Morality - Combined answers

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 121068


Lupinlore wrote: 
"Is JKR trying to say something about complex morality in the HP saga?
 The more I think of it the more I think she is saying something in
exactly the opposite direction.  She seems to be implying that
morality is harsh, Good and Evil are real, and human ideas about
justice or reason or individual worth or even the right to be loved
and comforted are not very important in the great scheme of things. 
You either support the good principle or the evil principle, there is
no middle ground and there is no quibbling.  JKR has said she doesn't
care if she has only six fans when she is finished.  I think a lot of
people (including me) have assumed that means things will come to a
very confused, complex, and possibly grey conclusion.  I am starting
to believe that, on the contrary, we will see an end that is shocking
in its harshness and clarity."

Del replies:
You make way too much sense for my liking :-(
I didn't like OoP, and I'd been wondering whether or not I wanted HBP
to come out because, well, there would be only one after that and then
game over and I didn't want the game to be over. But now I have
another, even more compelling reason for not wanting to get to July
16. I guess HBP, being the next-to-last book, will take us down the
road to the final resolution. If you're right, then this harsh
morality will probably become much clearer than ever before. And then,
I would definitely not want Book 7 to EVER come out...

Alla wrote:
"Nevertheless, does it really MATTER if she believes in grey areas or
not? IMHO, she surely shows those grey areas in the books.
Therefore I am not sure that we are missing the heart of her
morality, when we discuss grey areas of characters' behaviour.

Regardless of author's intention they are were, IMO."

Del replies:
I agree. But then the problem becomes separating our personal
judgement from that implied by the books, which is not only a
difficult thing to do, but also something many readers might not be
inclined to do (as it is their right, I'm not saying this as a criticism).

Salit wrote:
"I think that JKR models her WWII much after our own WWII. And that one
without a doubt was a black and white affair. Either you supported the
pure evil personified by Hitler (aka Voldemort) or you did not."

Del replies:
I beg to differ. The majority of civilians in France chose a middle
position. The proportion of French civilians who became either
collabos or resistants is small, because many didn't feel very
involved in what was happening. They didn't in any way see it as a
huge Good vs Evil battle. They didn't care much about Hitler, they
cared much more about the local German leading officer. In short, they
cared about their own lives and how to accomodate the occupying armies
without infringing too much on their own comfort, both physical and
mental.
For the collabos and the resistants, it was very much a
black-and-white matter. Not so for the majority of the population.

Salit wrote:
"During more peacefull times people can proceed without making real
choices, but not in war. Then you are either for me or for my enemies."

Del replies:
It's very interesting that you should say this, because I see the
situation of the WW in OoP and of France during WWII as quite similar,
in that there was no war going on officially, and the enemy wasn't
easily definable (is that a word?). France capitulated in 1940, and
after that it officially wasn't at war anymore. The Germans
established a *French* government, which rendered the "me or my
enemies" issue meaningless. From then on, being an official French
patriot meant supporting the Nazis, and being a "real" French patriot
meant being an insurgent against the French government. And it's only
History, it's the outcome that determined which of those two groups of
patriots ended up being the "true" ones. If Germany had won the war,
the resistants would have been deemed traitors, and the collabos would
have been celebrated.
Similarly, the Fudge administration in OoP is a non-DE group leading
the public into a pro-LV situation, and those who want to fight LV end
up having to fight their own government. If they win, they will come
out as the true heroes, but should they lose, they would be marked as
traitors to their country.
In both cases, there's the real enemy, and the intermediate enemy,
which makes the situation a very *not* black-and-white one.

Salit wrote:
"He thinks he did the right thing based on the information he had on
hand at the time. That's the best any of us can do..."

Del replies:
Ah, but this is not enough, is it :-) ? Many characters in the
Potterverse do the best they can based on the information they have,
but if they make a choice that doesn't lead them to follow DD, then
they are wrong. That's basically what Lupinlore was explaining : it
doesn't matter that people do their best, it's what they end up doing
that matters, no matter how honest they are or how good their
intentions were.
As for DD, since he is the epitome of goodness, he *cannot* do wrong.
Whatever he did was necessarily right and good. In theory.

Tonks wrote:
"The black and white ending.. is the ending that we are told God will
judge each of us by at the end of our life. Only one.. the one that
JKR has mentioned over and over... LOVE."

Del replies:
That's interesting, but I fail to see how this applies to the
Potterverse. Love doesn't seem to me to be a leading principle in the
WW, far from it. And I know that Harry is supposed to be full of love,
but I just don't *see* that.
Could you elaborate on this, or refer me to a past post on that subject?

Tonks wrote:
"We are told that Lord Voldmort... Never loved... this is what makes
him the evil principle."

Del replies:
Whenever I think of this, I get stuck into a logic trap. If LV never
loved, that means he was always evil, which in turn means he was born
evil. But JKR said that nobody is born evil. So I'm confused. Can you
help me out?

Nora wrote:
"Do we want to consider courage to be a form of love, as it's the
virtue that JKR has said she values most highly?"

Del replies:
How would this square with what we know of LV's courage? LV is a very
courageous wizard, because as far as we know, he's afraid of only 2
things (well, maybe 3 now) : death, DD, and now Harry too. And yet LV
doesn't know anything about love...

Jen wrote:
"Lupin shows signs of cowardice, he makes poor
choices at times, he rationlizes his choices. He doesn't always
choose what is 'right over what is easy', therefore he is evil. For
those who believe Lupin is evil, it's not a moral dilemma. But for
the rest of us..."

Del replies:
If I understand what Lupinlore explained about the Platonic concepts
of Good and Bad, it doesn't matter that Lupin shows those bad signs,
because he always remains loyal to DD, which is the moral compass in
the Potterverse, and so Lupin is good.

Jen wrote:
"And Harry does seem to struggle with complex moral issues like why
a 'good' person such as Seamus doesn't believe his story. And why
Dumbledore would trust a 'bad' person like Snape. And how the once-
sainted James can be a good person and a bully at the same time. His
moral complexity grows with his character."

Del replies:
I don't see him as struggling very much. He readily classified Seamus
as bad for not believing him. He refuses to accept that DD has good
reasons for trusting Snape, he refuses to consider that the man might
not be completely evil. As for James, Harry doesn't struggle for very
long, and he lets Remus and Sirius convince him quite easily, which
again is congruent with a Platonic view : since James ended up
fighting LV, he was good, and it doesn't matter that he did some bad
things.

In fact, I get a feeling that, far from getting more complex, the
morality presented in the HP books is getting more simple : if one is
on the side of Good, then one's faults don't matter, but if one is on
the side of Evil then one's qualities, honesty and good intents are
irrelevant.

Pippin wrote:
"You could argue that Snape ought to perceive what Harry (and
James) were really like, but how, if JKR is as good at hiding
things from him as she is from us?"

Del replies:
I loved your comparison between Draco and Harry :-)
Could Snape see James for who he was? Of course he could. But there
*is* the little matter of 7 years of mutual hatred. There's also the
fact that James died very shortly after he and Snape started working
on the same side. Honestly, if the war was to least for several more
years, and Draco joined the Good side a couple of years after
graduation and then got himself killed shortly after, I doubt that
Harry (who is supposed to have a much better heart than Snape) would
*ever* see Draco in a good light. And if Harry was confronted to
Draco's son a decade later, and that son looked very much like Draco,
I'm not sure Harry wouldn't instinctively dislike the child right from
the beginning.
Now, could Snape see Harry as he truly is? Of course he could. But
there *is* the little matter of Harry acting very much like Snape
thinks Dirty!Harry would act. Of course, *we* know that Harry reacts
poorly to Snape because Snape himself conditioned him that way, but
Snape doesn't see that. We also know that Harry often has good reasons
for breaking the rules, but again Snape often doesn't know that. What
he *does* know is that Harry acts very much like the brat Snape
imagines him to be would act. Again, if Harry was confronted with
Draco's son someday, and that son cheeked him, and often broke rules,
I'm not sure Harry wouldn't see him as a reincarnation of Draco and
wouldn't act towards him accordingly.
I'm not saying that Snape *cannot* change his views on James and
Harry, but I do think that it would require a major change of his
paradigms, and he has no *reason* to change them. DD liking Harry is
no better a reason for Snape to like Harry, than DD trusting Snape is
a good reason for Harry to trust Snape. Both Harry and Snape are
entrenched in their opinion concerning the other, just like James and
Snape were in their time, or like Draco and Harry are now. The
Occlumency lessons were starting maybe to change that, but the
Pensieve disaster put a premature end to it.

Del