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I've been reading a few discussions about that fandom favorite, who is good or bad in HP. I think the reason I always find this kind of discussion pointless is that "good" is not a state of being, like being asleep or awake, blond or brunette. It's an on-going struggle in which your past choices influence what your next choice is but don't guarantee your next choice will be right.
One thing that really made me think of it was a discussion I was reading recently that was comparing Lupin and Snape. Lupin's sticking up for Snape in the Pensieve was brought up as an example of why Lupin wasn't good and someone said it was ridiculous to judge someone based on something they did at 15. And I found myself thinking well...it's more complicated than that.
First, JKR's characters do tend to have their central struggle that comes up again and again, and that is Lupin's. He doesn't speak up for Snape, he doesn't tell Dumbledore about Sirius. So it's not completely strange to bring that up when judging the character as a whole--that moment isn't an anomaly, even if it doesn’t make him bad. But even beyond that I thought the whole exchange brought up how you can't really compare characters this way. This discussion, I should mention, also looked at places where Snape was seen as making the right decision, presumably over the one that was easy, or at least the one that came more naturally to him or appealed to his baser instincts. So naturally it came down to one side saying, "So Lupin wasn't as good as he could have been when he was 15--he's still with the Order, a nice guy, a good teacher, helped Neville, suffers a lot, doesn't torment and bully people and spies on werewolves!" And the other side said, "Sure Snape isn't nice but he realized Voldemort was wrong and committed himself to the other side and stuck with it, and he's probably done more for the good side than Lupin." Both sides think the other character's getting a pass. Both characters seem weak just where the other seems strong. So who's right? Is a good guy who does a bad thing still good? Is a bad guy who does good still bad?
I wound up feeling people just don't break down into good or bad that simply. The characters are what they are. Readers will probably be drawn to one character or the other based on his/her own challenges or beliefs about right and wrong. That’s why even when readers agree about a character’s actions they disagree. Faced with a scene where Snape is doing the "right" thing (a pro-Harry/anti-Voldemort thing) some people consider his action a better example of good if it seems to conflict with his own instincts--he's putting duty over his desires. Other people consider the actions a bad example of good for the same reason--he's not really a good person because he's not doing it because he wants to, just because it’s his job. It seems to me that a discussion about who's right there probably goes straight to the heart of ethics and philosophy and is a really worthwhile one to have. Shame it gets sidetracked with fandom character fights!
But then, that's probably always the problem in talking about ethics is people don't realize that different people base their ethics on different values--and sometimes when faced with that they dismiss it as "moral relativism," meaning that of course underneath everyone knows that they're values are the right ones, they're just not admitting to being immoral. They also, I think, sometimes ignore the obstacles another person has if they don’t share them. It’s always easy to avoid someone else’s vices and hard to understand why something that doesn’t seem like a big deal to you is a big deal to someone else.
I guess that often just gets me really frustrated because in this series every character seems to be on his/her own path of good and evil. In order to really understand what a character is doing most of the time you have to keep their actions firmly in context, understanding what's at stake from that character's pov. You can't just hold Lily up as proof Lupin could have stood up to Snape, or hold Sirius up as proof Draco could have rejected his family's values or hold Harry up as proof Snape could have been different.
So the question of whether a character is "good" or "bad" just has very limited use, imo. In a really generally way we get it--the baddies are the ones who want little Harry dead. But sometimes it seems that "good" gets defined as "characters whose bad moments don't count" and "bad" gets defined as "characters whose good moments don't count." I don't mean that in a whiny way, like "Wah! Nobody's recognizing that Snape/Draco could have been worse here!" I mean it as a straightforward question of: what's the point of seeing the character that way?
Like, even if you think Lupin's the greatest guy in the HP universe and you not only forgive him for not sticking up for Snape but sympathize with him, why should that action of his be seen as something outside his character? He did it, even though he didn't feel completely right about it, so isn't it more interesting to shine a bright light on that moment? To find the selfish reason for the action--selfish meaning the reason why that action was ultimately more appealing to Lupin than any other choice he could have made? What in Lily's character makes her stand up to James and Sirius (I don't see her making a sacrifice there--though even if she seemed to dislike confronting James and Sirius she'd still have a reason for doing it). Why does Snape ultimately choose DD's side (assuming he did) over the DEs?
I do think, too, that the whole good/bad character/moment argument is set up in the text as well. Like I said, I think Rowling's characters are often built around a central conflict, a conflict that their lives might very likely turn on, like a fatal flaw. Those conflicts sometimes stand out more because they contrast with the rest of the personality. So yes, one should look at Lupin's every day behavior and small acts of kindness in judging his character, just as one should look at Draco's every day behavior and petty acts of malice and bigotry in judging his character. But never to the point of overlooking the times Lupin doesn't do the right thing or Draco doesn't do the wrong thing. Like it or not, it was the times when Lupin saw the right thing to do and didn't that defined his life far more than his kindness to anyone. We don't know how Draco will turn out but his lowered wand in the Tower seems very important to what he is and is not—it certainly changed the direction of his fate from the way it had been going up until then. Snape may have wound up being trapped ultimately by his own honor more than his bitterness. It’s not unfair, it’s just more dramatic.
One thing that really made me think of it was a discussion I was reading recently that was comparing Lupin and Snape. Lupin's sticking up for Snape in the Pensieve was brought up as an example of why Lupin wasn't good and someone said it was ridiculous to judge someone based on something they did at 15. And I found myself thinking well...it's more complicated than that.
First, JKR's characters do tend to have their central struggle that comes up again and again, and that is Lupin's. He doesn't speak up for Snape, he doesn't tell Dumbledore about Sirius. So it's not completely strange to bring that up when judging the character as a whole--that moment isn't an anomaly, even if it doesn’t make him bad. But even beyond that I thought the whole exchange brought up how you can't really compare characters this way. This discussion, I should mention, also looked at places where Snape was seen as making the right decision, presumably over the one that was easy, or at least the one that came more naturally to him or appealed to his baser instincts. So naturally it came down to one side saying, "So Lupin wasn't as good as he could have been when he was 15--he's still with the Order, a nice guy, a good teacher, helped Neville, suffers a lot, doesn't torment and bully people and spies on werewolves!" And the other side said, "Sure Snape isn't nice but he realized Voldemort was wrong and committed himself to the other side and stuck with it, and he's probably done more for the good side than Lupin." Both sides think the other character's getting a pass. Both characters seem weak just where the other seems strong. So who's right? Is a good guy who does a bad thing still good? Is a bad guy who does good still bad?
I wound up feeling people just don't break down into good or bad that simply. The characters are what they are. Readers will probably be drawn to one character or the other based on his/her own challenges or beliefs about right and wrong. That’s why even when readers agree about a character’s actions they disagree. Faced with a scene where Snape is doing the "right" thing (a pro-Harry/anti-Voldemort thing) some people consider his action a better example of good if it seems to conflict with his own instincts--he's putting duty over his desires. Other people consider the actions a bad example of good for the same reason--he's not really a good person because he's not doing it because he wants to, just because it’s his job. It seems to me that a discussion about who's right there probably goes straight to the heart of ethics and philosophy and is a really worthwhile one to have. Shame it gets sidetracked with fandom character fights!
But then, that's probably always the problem in talking about ethics is people don't realize that different people base their ethics on different values--and sometimes when faced with that they dismiss it as "moral relativism," meaning that of course underneath everyone knows that they're values are the right ones, they're just not admitting to being immoral. They also, I think, sometimes ignore the obstacles another person has if they don’t share them. It’s always easy to avoid someone else’s vices and hard to understand why something that doesn’t seem like a big deal to you is a big deal to someone else.
I guess that often just gets me really frustrated because in this series every character seems to be on his/her own path of good and evil. In order to really understand what a character is doing most of the time you have to keep their actions firmly in context, understanding what's at stake from that character's pov. You can't just hold Lily up as proof Lupin could have stood up to Snape, or hold Sirius up as proof Draco could have rejected his family's values or hold Harry up as proof Snape could have been different.
So the question of whether a character is "good" or "bad" just has very limited use, imo. In a really generally way we get it--the baddies are the ones who want little Harry dead. But sometimes it seems that "good" gets defined as "characters whose bad moments don't count" and "bad" gets defined as "characters whose good moments don't count." I don't mean that in a whiny way, like "Wah! Nobody's recognizing that Snape/Draco could have been worse here!" I mean it as a straightforward question of: what's the point of seeing the character that way?
Like, even if you think Lupin's the greatest guy in the HP universe and you not only forgive him for not sticking up for Snape but sympathize with him, why should that action of his be seen as something outside his character? He did it, even though he didn't feel completely right about it, so isn't it more interesting to shine a bright light on that moment? To find the selfish reason for the action--selfish meaning the reason why that action was ultimately more appealing to Lupin than any other choice he could have made? What in Lily's character makes her stand up to James and Sirius (I don't see her making a sacrifice there--though even if she seemed to dislike confronting James and Sirius she'd still have a reason for doing it). Why does Snape ultimately choose DD's side (assuming he did) over the DEs?
I do think, too, that the whole good/bad character/moment argument is set up in the text as well. Like I said, I think Rowling's characters are often built around a central conflict, a conflict that their lives might very likely turn on, like a fatal flaw. Those conflicts sometimes stand out more because they contrast with the rest of the personality. So yes, one should look at Lupin's every day behavior and small acts of kindness in judging his character, just as one should look at Draco's every day behavior and petty acts of malice and bigotry in judging his character. But never to the point of overlooking the times Lupin doesn't do the right thing or Draco doesn't do the wrong thing. Like it or not, it was the times when Lupin saw the right thing to do and didn't that defined his life far more than his kindness to anyone. We don't know how Draco will turn out but his lowered wand in the Tower seems very important to what he is and is not—it certainly changed the direction of his fate from the way it had been going up until then. Snape may have wound up being trapped ultimately by his own honor more than his bitterness. It’s not unfair, it’s just more dramatic.
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I've been reading a few discussions about that fandom favorite, who is good or bad in HP. I think the reason I always find this kind of discussion pointless is that "good" is not a state of being, like being asleep or awake, blond or brunette. It's an on-going struggle in which your past choices influence what your next choice is but don't guarantee your next choice will be right.
Yes. This is why I often have a hard time accepting discussions of "good and evil". I mean, I can accept it to a certain extent when it comes to fairytales, fantasy, and other genres that tend to rely on a rather black-and-white character-gallery. Like, we often have the archetypical hero and archetypical main villain, who often are so consistently "good" and "evil" in their actions, that it almost becomes a state of being, and I can accept calling them such, in those cases. But as soon as the hero isn't flawless, or there are characters who seem more like human beings than "Evil Supervillains", I think the terms are too simplistic, and would rather avoid them.
What I prefer to use, when we're discussing their actions and morals, and such, is "right" and "wrong". It's never as easy to define "right and wrong", as it is to define "good and evil", but it's much easier to apply those terms to real life. Which, of course, makes the discussions more complicated, but also more interesting. Sometimes it's hard to know what is right and what is wrong, and you can do something wrong for "the right reasons" and vice versa, and as you say, it's an eternal struggle, you have to decide what you think is right or wrong, and if you want to act on it, again and again and again.
On a little side-note, however, I think I have an easier time engaging in "good and evil"-discussions in Swedish, because the Swedish word for "evil" is a bit interesting. The word "ond", means "hurting" and "angry" as well as "malicious". I find that interesting and surprisingly suitable, since villains -at least the ones with any debth to speak of- often seem to have a lot of anger, and hurt, that they handle by hurting others.
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From: (Anonymous)
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ITA about the part of "evil" being easier in Swedish as the word is more abstract to me...
and I feel that it can be talked about in more different ways
From: (Anonymous)
sorry....
>.< I meant to say more rounded and less condeming but...