Oh, and speaking of morality, I see Virginia has decided to opt out of it entirely.
Heh. Well put.
As for moral center -- I like the way you work out the implications of the term, though I don't know enough about the X-files or HP to be able to speak to your examples. But the term is tricky because it's usually deployed as a form of disparagement in disguise; the moral center of a narrative is distinctly a second prize compared to, say, the center of readers' attention. If there's a moral center that implies there's also a moral periphery, and that's the space inhabited by the interesting characters, the exciting ones, the ones who are curious and who break and test the rules. The moral periphery is where people have adventures, and when you're out to have adventures it's awfully convenient to have your moral center located elsewhere, where she can do little more than give wholesome advice.
Perhaps this accounts for why women are so often characterized as moral centers, but female characters aren't the only ones subjected to this insidious form of marginalization. As it happens the last time I saw the term used, it was being applied to Jim in Huckleberry Finn. He's the moral center, Huck is the exciting periphery. It's true that Huck learns from Jim, but when Twain is all done with the morally challenging bits of the story and trying to end the damn book somehow, a narrative logic that makes moral centers disposable takes over, and all of a sudden it's okay to subject Jim to a series of baroquely silly adventures dreamed up by Tom Sawyer.
Don't get me wrong; I love the book, but some parts of it are troubling, including this attribution of moral excellence to a character who for various reasons isn't thought of as quite a moral agent in the same way that the young white hero is. If you can't vote, you can be a moral center (boatloads of sentimental novels written in the same period pull this same trick on female characters; Hermione and Scully seem to be the descendents of these heroines).
Erm, sorry if that got OT; the concept fascinates me, but I can only dream about knowing HP in enough detail to respond to this post as it deserves.
no subject
Heh. Well put.
As for moral center -- I like the way you work out the implications of the term, though I don't know enough about the X-files or HP to be able to speak to your examples. But the term is tricky because it's usually deployed as a form of disparagement in disguise; the moral center of a narrative is distinctly a second prize compared to, say, the center of readers' attention. If there's a moral center that implies there's also a moral periphery, and that's the space inhabited by the interesting characters, the exciting ones, the ones who are curious and who break and test the rules. The moral periphery is where people have adventures, and when you're out to have adventures it's awfully convenient to have your moral center located elsewhere, where she can do little more than give wholesome advice.
Perhaps this accounts for why women are so often characterized as moral centers, but female characters aren't the only ones subjected to this insidious form of marginalization. As it happens the last time I saw the term used, it was being applied to Jim in Huckleberry Finn. He's the moral center, Huck is the exciting periphery. It's true that Huck learns from Jim, but when Twain is all done with the morally challenging bits of the story and trying to end the damn book somehow, a narrative logic that makes moral centers disposable takes over, and all of a sudden it's okay to subject Jim to a series of baroquely silly adventures dreamed up by Tom Sawyer.
Don't get me wrong; I love the book, but some parts of it are troubling, including this attribution of moral excellence to a character who for various reasons isn't thought of as quite a moral agent in the same way that the young white hero is. If you can't vote, you can be a moral center (boatloads of sentimental novels written in the same period pull this same trick on female characters; Hermione and Scully seem to be the descendents of these heroines).
Erm, sorry if that got OT; the concept fascinates me, but I can only dream about knowing HP in enough detail to respond to this post as it deserves.