Evil in Harry Potter's World and Ours

SPOILERS!

“Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!” Albus Dumbledore

With her books about the young wizard Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling has created a story containing timeless ideals. The Harry Potter series reaches beyond the children in all of us to leave us with thoughts that can’t be ignored in today’s modern world.

Each book successively takes on a darker tone as Potter matures. As Potter approaches adulthood, the innocence that he took with him to Hogworts dissipates. The young boy that first stepped into Hogworts is now becoming a man and as the sixth book ends, the battle line has been drawn between Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter. Upon the shoulders of Harry Potter lies the fate of the wizard community.

One thing has become obvious: the fear of Voldemort and the past war with him has left the wizard community wary of another war. No one even dares to say his name, except Dumbledore and Harry Potter. How can you talk or deal with evil if you are unwilling to name it? It is not apathy as much as it is fear of evil. It is easier to deny that evil exists than to deal with it.

Throughout much of the series, the Ministry of Magic has seemed intent on denying the possibility of evil exiting in the form of Voldemort, as opposed to stopping it from coming back. Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last writes, “Ms. Rowling's wizards, like the British of the 1930s, are exhausted from their last war and unwilling to believe that it's time to take up arms again.”

In the 1930’s, appeasement came as much of response to the bloodshed of World War I as anything else. Politicians in both Britain and France remembered the carnage that saw an entire generation nearly wiped out in the trenches of the Western Front. Every family member saw a relative dead or severely crippled as a result, so appeasement was a policy of hope against the reality of Hitler.

Ultimate evil is hard to digest or understand. It is hard to comprehend that if a man writes that he plans to kill all the Jews, or take over the world, that he actually means it. Mein Kempf detailed Hitler’s plan for the Europe and the rest of the world but few truly believed that Hitler meant what he wrote. There is a line that Hitler’s secretary muttered in the movie Downfall that supports this attitude. She tells Eva Braun how Hitler is so caring and kind in private but says just terrible things in public. It is as if Hitler’s words had no meaning.

Article Author: Tom Donelson

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