Moralising and preaching/Loose ends in Book 7

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 145828

I think this may depend on how you interpret moralising and 
sermonising.  We often draw comparisons with "The Lord of the Rings" 
and the Narnia books. In these stories, here and there are occasions 
when folk have suggested that Tolkien and Lewis were guilty of doing 
just this in their works. In the case of Lewis, it is probably true 
because he made it clear that he intended "The Lion, the Witch and 
the Wardrobe"  to be an allegory of the Christian way to faith.

If someone has a strong faith, then that is going to permeate and 
influence what they do and think and it will probably show itself in 
their writing unless they make a great effort to mask it or write 
from an opposite point of view for effect. It depends, as I said, as 
to how far you consider writing from your own world view and letting 
that underpin your fiction constitutes moralising and sermonising. 
Tolkien makes his points very subtly but if you look closely enough – 
not only in LOTR but in other books like "The Silmarillion" – you can 
see where he is coming from and what moral absolutes drive his 
characters.

Through Harry's eyes, we are made to examine people's motives and 
hence decide whether they are basically good or bad – not that they 
are angels or the opposite but what set of moral absolutes they use 
as their springboard. The great thing about the books is that most of 
the characters are like us. They give a mix of responses to what 
happens: sometimes measured; sometimes angry; sometimes sad; 
sometimes self-centred and sometimes altruistic. And that is how we 
are – or at least I am. As a Christian, I believe that I should be 
aspiring to the greater good and to walk in the way that Christ would 
have me go – but do I all the time? No way. My motives are often 
questionable and in this I find myself to identify with Harry and the 
others, even poor little rich kid Draco who finds himself at a  moral 
crossroads with his upbringing and his own conscience pulling in 
opposite directions. 

How the mechanics of how Harry brings down Voldemort I will leave to 
JKR to show but it often the case that tyrants are removed by people 
who do not do it for vengeance but because they truly believe that 
the world will be a better place without that person in place. Taking 
the 1944 Stauffenberg bomb plot against Hitler as an example, I 
believe that the group plotted against him because they realised the 
immense damage he was inflicting on not only the Allies but on his 
own country. Perhaps there was a selfish element present but they 
believed it would be for the future good of the world.

We see this as part of Harry's nature quite early:
`"I'm going out of here tonight and I'm going to try to get to the 
Stone first."
"You're mad!" said Ron.
"You can't!" said Hermione. "After what McGonagall and Snape have 
said? You'll be expelled!"
"SO WHAT?" Harry shouted. "Don't you understand? If Snape gets hold 
of the Stone, Voldemort's coming back! Haven't you heard what it was 
like when he was trying to take over? There won't be any Hogwarts to 
get expelled from! He flatten it or turn it into a school for the 
Dark Arts! Losing points doesn't matter any more, can't you see?  
D'you think he'll leave you and your families alone if Gryffindor win 
the House Cup? If I get caught before I can get to the Stone, well, 
I'll have to go back to the Dursleys and wait for Voldemort to find 
me there. It's only dying a bit later than I would have done because 
I'm never going over to the Dark Side! I'm going through that 
trapdoor tonight and nothing you two say is going to stop me! 
Voldemort killed my parents, remember?"'
(PS "Through the Trapdoor" pp.196-97 UK edition)

Although there is a hint of wanting to get revenge at the end, 
Harry's thrust is much more the need to stop Voldemort and he takes a 
very moral stance at this point. The idealism of youth? Maybe. But it 
is what the Wizarding World needs.

If I may move briefly to another issue which has been raised, namely 
that of tying up loose ends in Book 7.

I do not expect JKR to do this completely because in real life and 
also in fiction loose ends often remain. To take a real life example, 
I moved from London to the West Country 11 years or so ago. My wife 
and I often wonder what happened in certain situations: `Did A and B 
finally get divorced?'; `I wonder where C's daughter is working 
now?'; "Whatever became of Mrs. D?' and so on. I could cite a page 
full of real loose ends which have remained unravelled through my 
life.

So with fiction. Taking, as I did earlier, LOTR and Narnia, both the 
authors leave some loose ends. Within the LOTR books, we do not fully 
know what happened to Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn or the other hobbits in 
the canon of the story. OK, Tolkien did provide Appendices in which 
brief references are made, usually to who they married or what family 
they had but other parts of their lives remain shrouded in the mists 
of the Fourth Age. Even in Narnia, there is at least one loose end. 
When, in "The Last Battle", Tirian asks Peter: 
`"Sir" said Tirian, when he had greeted all these. "If I have read 
the chronicle aright, there should be another. Has not your Majesty 
two sisters? Where is Queen Susan?"
"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer 
a friend of Narnia."'
(The Last Battle, "Through the stable door")

We are told little other than she seems to have fallen into the 
pattern of teenage girls of her day. Why she has decided that Narnia 
is a thing of childhood, we are not told. And there are other loose 
ends in other author's books; one which comes to mind is the ending 
of Daphne du Maurier's novel "My Cousin Rachel" where we are left 
wondering what to make of the eponymous lady and her motives and we 
never know.

So, if Jo Rowling leaves a few loose ends around, it will be no worse 
than real life or what other writers have done. For answers, you can 
probably consult the fanfic sites. :-)