Moral Simplicity - a New Perspective.

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 121307


Wow! Touchy subject ...morality.

Let me start by saying that after long quiet nights of pondering the
meaning of life combined with the experience of having lived my own
long 'so-call' life, I have condensed all moral, life, and religious
philosophy down to six little words. Quite unbelievably, those six
simple words do not comprise a sentence, but two equally simple
sentences of three words each.

Guide to a Good and Moral Life-

1.) Do no Harm.
2.) Do some Good.

Is there really more to know than that?

As much as that might be a simple philosophy to aspire to, we are all
human, and sadly but surely will fall short of that goal, as will the
characters in the books.

I think JKR does make fine use of the Moral Grey Ground. Harry does
things that are wrong, but on the average, over the course of time, we
must ask how close his action come to successfully fulfilling the
rules of the 'Guide to a Good and Moral Life'. When it really counts,
Harry tried to keep others from harm, and even though he must break a
few rules, he most often acts for the greater good. 

In addition, when Harry does cause harm, as when on occassion he
curses Draco, he does not seek out Draco with the intent or
willingness to harm him. Draco on the other hand does seek Harry out
with the malicious intent of provoking him. Harry can be provoked into
causing harm, but he does not seek to harm.

Snape is not nice, and certainly causes student emotional and
psychological harm, or at least, pain. But, since his redemption (ie:
truly joining Dumbledore or so we assume for now) have any of his
actions truly been evil? Has he acted with the willfull and spitefull
intent of causing harm? Not that I see. He's been really nasty, his
methods are definitly not very nice, but his broader objectives are
for the good (at least we assume so for now). 

Voldemort is clearly as cold and callous as they come. He harms people
both in the short term and the long term, and without reservation,
fatally, and never gives it a second thought. His actions are totally
self-serving; no cost is too high if it brings him what he wants. It's
also clear he assigns no value to any human life other than his own. 

Lucius, while we have very little information, I suspect is not a very
compassionate or forgiving person. I suspect he conducts his business
afairs in a ruthless and self-serving way. He is not forgiving of
people or debts under any circumstance that does not serve him. I
suspect Draco would/will grow to be the same type of ruthless 
business and unscrupulous man that his father is. Everything he does,
every decision he makes will have no regard for the effect it has on
other people, only for how it serves his own good.

Harry on the other hand is compassionate, he is concerned about other
people, and I think for someone his age, he is very forgiving. For
examples, I think in he will eventually, perhaps begrudgingly, forgive
  Marietta and Percy.

Percy is another grey character. I firmly believe that Percy is a good
guy, even if, like Snape, he is not always a nice or pleasant guy. In
addition, Percy is a good guy who, do to circumstances, made a bad
choice. I believe if the circumstances had been handled better by
Arthur, Percy would never have made the choice he did. So, let he
among you who is without mistakes cast the first electons. 

I think across the full arc of the books, we will see Percy's true
'good' nature. I think he will redeem himself from his mistake.
Although, I'm hoping for a method of redemption that is humorous for
us and embarassing for Percy. 

So, I don't think JKR is painting Black and White characters, nearly
all the characters are humanly flawed, and prone to bad actions and
mistakes. But if we look at the broad picture rather than focus on
specific events, we will see that there is a sense of good and bad,
right and wrong, moral and immoral in the these books.

Characters we preceive as good, are preceive that way because they
probably are. Characters we preceive as bad, probably are bad. Other
characters like Snape, to some extent, are both good and bad. 

Finally, being bad doesn't make you evil. Take Draco for example, he
is a very very bad person, but so far, he isn't evil. His actions have
not escalated to the level of Voldemort where he causes pain and
snuffs out life as if it were nothing. Draco, as a character, is on a
threshold; he has the potential to stay annoyingly bad, or to turn
truly evil. Only time will tell. Side note: even if Draco does turn
'good', it's unlikely that he will ever turn 'nice'.

When we evaluate the character of characters, I think it is important
to make sure we make the distinctions between...

Nice and Not Nice
Good and Bad
Evil and Not Evil

You can be a person who does bad things and is not very nice, and
still not be an evil person.

Just a few thoughts.

Steve/bboyminn (was bboy_mn)