And no, I'm not talking about the "burn the book" kind of evil. I just finished the last Harry Potter book last night (well, actually, about 2am this morning - I had to finish it once I found out my daughter did. She's not exactly good at not letting plot points out, so if I wanted to be surprised, I kind of had to stay up and finish it). One thing that struck me was the interesting way JK deals with evil in her books. I mean, ok, you have Voldemort, Evil with a capital "E" right? But there are many levels of evil explored in the books when you look at it. What about Delores Umbridge? As far as we know, she wasn't knowingly in cahoots with Voldemort, right? So then, was she evil? I think she was, but a far more sinister, human type of evil ... just an evil, power-hungry, bitchy person. No, she didn't support the big Evil, but what she did to Harry and the non-purebloods could definitely be described as evil, little "e". Even within the people who did support big Evil, there were varying degrees of evil - for example, Bellatrix vs. Narcissa. Could you classify them both as categorically evil? Was one more evil than the other? Can evil be mitigated? And what about people who are basically shown as good who have their evil moments? What about X. Lovegood? Was he evil? Trying to turn Harry and his friends over to the Death Eaters was definitely evil, no matter how understandable his circumstances. And what about Ron walking out on Hermione and Harry? Wasn't that 'evil' given the circumstances? Even Dumbledore had his evil moments.
That's really what I like about the books - they are at one level, a rolicking good read. But at another, they really do explore big concepts without shying away from the uncomfortable aspects of the issue. I like that there is some subjectivity to the situations (another great example is Kreacher - was he ever really evil or merely responding to his circumstances). It makes them fun to discuss with the kids (even if it does drive them nuts).
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Sorry, I can't really discuss HP as I haven't read it yet. BUT, I can say that I think this topic is an interesting one. And you're right, maybe we all have a bit of evil in us... to varying degrees. And I think we all have triggers; things that make us more "evil" some times than not.
No, I'm not saying that we're all spawn of Satan... but I think it's very HUMAN to have evil tendencies. I mean, without "evil", what is "good"? There must be opposition so we can intrinsically know the difference and be able to FEEL it if we hone our skills.
Maybe this is one for a more in-depth discussion at another time... thanks for the thought evoking topic!
One of the other aspects of evil addressed in the book is the evil of doing nothing, of not stopping something when you know it is wrong. I think it's great that she explores this, and though I'm sure a lot of folks are just reading it because it's a good read, I like that I can use it as a jumping off point with my daughter.
i think you're right on a lot of these points- umbridge, kreacher, bellatrix. i love how many levels there are in her books, especially now that i've read all of them. it sounds like there's not many characters you could leave out of this debate, either. look at what we find out about dumbledore in this book.
what i really found interesting was draco, actually. when he had the chance to totally turn harry, ron and hermione over to voldemort, and he hesitated. and in all of the other books, you get the sense that he'd LOVE the chance to burn them. and yet...he was really reluctant to do it in this book.
Draco and his family is exceptionally interesting. True, they have been portrayed as evil, but even here there is a gradation to the evil, from Bellatrix to Lucius to Narcissa to Draco. With the exception of Bellatrix, each one has something to redeem or grey them up. Keep in mind, JK is very moralistic. Truly evil characters tend to end up dead. Only the grey survive. And look at the lengths she went to to avoid having Harry kill anyone. Even at the end, it was Voldemort who killed himself - Harry was just aiming to disarm him.
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