Sep

3

The end of Harry Potter

Filed Under Books 

The Harry Potter books have taken the youth culture by storm. For this fact, one must give some credit to J.K. Rowling for her iconic creation. But like most cultural icons, the books have sparked a lot of controversy. Literary critics deride the style of the books, and with some good reasons. Many Christians object to the witch/wizard themes and the use of “magic.”1 Another criticism of the books is their moral tone. To me, this is a much more interesting criticism and has better arguments behind it. In this review I plan to examine the moral tone of the Harry Potter books and the last book in particular.

I have read all of the HP books and have thought for some time that the last book would be very important to the moral structure of the previous ones. The seventh book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is one of the better-written of the series. It is long. 759 pages to be exact. It also includes a lot of explanation. In the previous books the explanations can be tedious, but in HP7 they actually advance the story reasonably well. Importantly, however, they also provide some insight into the moral structure of Harry’s world.

Many have critiqued the HP books using an argument that essentially boils down thus: Harry’s world is not like ours. Needless to say, this argument fails to impress. But Rowling’s fantasy world lacks a clear moral standard. In a story about the conflict between good and evil, the absence of a moral center is a serious flaw. Commendably, good wins in the end (don’t worry; I’m not going to spoil the whole plot for you). But it isn’t clear at the end what we mean by “good.”

There are a couple of ways that an author can identify a moral structure. For one, he can explain it directly. This approach rarely works. A more common approach is to create a character who represents good—everything he does is good or is clearly justifiable. It is possible to never have a single good character and to still have a consistent moral standard, but to do so the author must make a consistent judgment about something. Unfortunately, Harry Potter doesn’t do any of these.

In the early books, certain actions were bad and the bad guys were bad because they did them. They employed “dark magic” or the “dark arts” and the “unforgivable curses” among other things. As the series progresses, the “good guys” start employing some of these same things. For example, in the seventh book, a Hogwarts teacher (a good one) uses an unforgivable curse.

In the middle of the series there is also a suggestion that certain kinds of people are bad. They are usually identified by certain attitudes toward other people rather than mere actions. Instead of being bad for using dark magic, they are bad because they try to hurt other people. The Death Eaters operate on this principle.2 These people are also bad because of the way they treat those whom they perceive as lower in status (such as house-elves and mixed-blood wizards and witches). Again, however, even the good guys occasionally slip into these mindsets and actions.

A careful reader may suggest that Rowling is trying to introduce moral complexity to the story. The characters can be more realistic if they don’t always act perfectly. Complex characterization is a good thing, especially in a long series of books. However, Rowling has introduced so much complexity that there is no clearly identifiable Good. The good guys do the same things as the bad guys and not all the bad guys are always bad. In fact, even some of the best of the good guys still make (and have made) plenty of mistakes—and not just in ignorance.3

So how does Rowling explain what is good? She doesn’t do it eliminating the bad options—at least probably not. We do not identify good by finding the opposite of evil anyway. Aristotle observed that there are many ways to go wrong; there is the opposite of the good, but there is also the distortion of the good. In fact, the worst evil often employs many prominent features of the good.

In the earlier books, Dumbledore defines the good. But in the last book (spoiler alert), he reveals that he has his share of mistakes and even suggests that he cannot be the standard of good. Rowling leaves a moral vacuum. The one character that was complex enough to define a standard states that he is not good enough. Interestingly, the only “good” person left is Harry. Of course, Harry has messed up a lot. We cannot allow Harry to be the standard because we have no way to determine whether his various actions are good or bad.

In spite of the lack of a clear standard, there are a few implications about what makes people (and their actions) good. Some of them almost seem biblical. Throughout the series the idea of sacrificial love has been significant. Harry is alive because of his mother’s love. At the end of the story, he is willing to sacrifice himself for his friends. This sounds really good. Maybe Rowling is on to something. But the biblical standard is not that we should sacrifice ourselves for our friends—it is that we should sacrifice ourselves for our enemies. There is never restitution or forgiveness in Rowling’s moral world. It isn’t refused, per se, but it is never mentioned either. Harry fights to win, to defeat evil, to save his friends; but that is all.

A thoughtful reader might also observe that the Bible never really explains what evil is. Quite so. The Bible speaks much more about what God is doing about evil.4 But in the Bible, God is a rather flat character morally. He never makes a mistake. We can base our entire moral system on His character and actions. We can trust that He is doing all things righteously and in accordance with His perfect wisdom. Harry Potter’s world has no such character. No one knows everything and no one always does what is right. We can understand much from the Bible about the nature of evil by considering what God has done and is doing about it, as well as what He has said about it. Rowling offers us no such standard.

As a story about the fight between good and evil, Harry Potter is fine. The books are entertaining and often quite creative. I am not trying to suggest that I despise them. But Harry Potter’s world is very post-modern. The line between good and evil is very fuzzy in some important places. Some see interesting parallels between HP and the Bible. I tend to think that these parallels might arise from the nature of great stories than from some kind of intentional allusion on Rowling’s part. Rowling’s creative world doesn’t actually use the same moral structure as our world. This feature of her world is not a good reason to reject her books outright, but the discerning reader should take care to recognize the differences and to position his mind accordingly. We can learn some things from the Harry Potter books and even enjoy them, but we must carefully examine what they teach.

I would be very interested in your thoughts and interaction on this topic.


  1. It seems, however, that the vast majority of Christians who accuse the HP books of ungodly witchcraft haven’t actually read the books. One could make a very good case that the magic in HP is no different than the magic in any other fantasy. I do not have space to explore this point here, but others have already done so. back↩
  2. In book 4 the Death Eaters are introduced as those who would torment anyone without pure wizard ancestry. back↩
  3. For an example of a good guy who isn’t really all that good, consider Sirius. The previous books suggest that he was certainly no angel, and the later books confirm it. He was not someone worth imitating, but he is constantly treated as a good guy. back↩
  4. For a fascinating exposition of this idea, read N.T. Wright’s little book Evil and the Justice of God. back↩

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