On the perfection of moral virtues

[Gary]

No: HPFGUIDX 168707

This is sort of a generic response to a number of earlier posts (some
going back many years, since as a newbie to this group I have been
exploring the archives all the way back to the turn of the century
when members were still speculating on who would be cast in various
roles in the first movie.)

On a fairly regular basis people will argue that this or that
character is morally flawed, or of weak character in some way or
another, as if such flaws were in any way unusual. If we expect a
novel to be believable then we must expect to have it populated with
believable characters, i.e. characters whose attitudes and behavior
would not seem out of place in the real world of our daily existence.
If these fictional characters were to be perfect, with unerring
judgment and unwavering moral compass, we would find them quite
unbelievable.

Imagine yourself walking down a dark city street when a mugger jumps
out in front of you waving a pistol in your face. You feel terrified,
in fear for your very life. Suddenly a police officer steps out of the
shadows and disarms the mugger. He is your hero. He has saved your
life. He arrests the bad guy, gives you a ride home, and expresses
sincere concern for your emotional well being. He can do no wrong. You
don't want to know that when he goes home at night he kicks the puppy,
snarls at the kids, and neglects his wife. You don't want to know that
he has a gambling problem. But that's the way it is, whether we like
it or not. When Hermione does something we think of as morally
questionable, or Harry judges someone unfairly, or Hagrid exhibits
some prejudice or another, that's just the way it is. That's just the
way real people are, and like it or not, we're stuck with that in the
real world, and we would probably not accept Harry's world as genuine
if we didn't find the same human flaws there as well.

In fact, if the people of Harry's world were too perfect I'm sure we
would have dismissed the whole series of books as being "juvenile" and
written for children, but of no interest to mature adults. Young
children very often complain "it's not fair" of some real-world event,
and expect their stories either to be fair from the outset, or to
punish those who are not fair and set things right by the end of the
story. 

Teens, on the other hand, are getting used to the idea that "life's
not fair", but they still think they can do something about it. The
ages 12 to 16 or so tend to bring out a kind of hyper-vigilant
morality in many kids. This is the age when "moral outrage" is first
born. 

A little later the cliché of the idealistic college student who is out
to change the world because they believe themselves to be the first
generation to realize that there is injustice, and that they (so they
believe) have the power to set things right.  

By full adulthood most people adjust to the reality that the real
moral compass of real-world human beings can, for many individuals, be
very loose and flexible, or downright broken. Adults have learned to
live with the facts that 1) nobody is perfect, 2) nobody can "fix" the
fact that nobody is perfect, and 3) we can function somewhat
effectively in spite of that.

The very reason that there is a HPfGU group to begin with is that the
series portrays people "warts and all", just as we would find them in
the real world. It shows us moral ambiguity, character flaws,
injustice and just plain "it's-not-fair"-ness. If the series showed us
only that life IS fair it would appeal only to children. If it
displayed a perfected hyper-morality, it would appeal only to teens.
If it showed us that idealism alone can change the world then it would
appeal to young college-age adults. The fact that it avoids these
less-than-mature clichés is the very reason that a crusty old senior
citizen like myself can still find the books engaging and believable.

--gary