I don't want to build character. I want it pre-fabricated.



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Copyright © 2001 Roy M. Jacobsen

 
Hey! An update! Yeah, get off my case.

We've been wallpapering our dining room, and it's amazing how much detail a "little" job can entail. While you're at it, you need to repaint the trim, you know, and the ceiling is looking a bit shabby, so you better repaint that too. And then there's the old walpaper paste that has to be washed off, and cracks and nail holes to patch, and...

You get the picture.

Anyway, there's an article over at the OpinionJournal's Taste page that compares Harry Potter to The Lord of the Rings. This one looks at the treatment of Good vs. Evil in both, and finds HP to be a bit simplistic.

Well, HP is a bit simplistic in it's treatment of Good and Evil, especially as compared to Tolkien's work. But I think this article sells Rowling a bit short. The evil in HP is more than just the nastiness of Voldemort; it includes the biases exhibited by some against muggles and muggle-born wizards. And the good as portrayed by Lilly and James Potter's sacrificing themselves in order to save the people they love is also of a very high order.

Also, the book (can't say about the movie; haven't seen it yet) does get into a bit more about the moral ambiguity of the power of the Philosopher's Stone, when Dumbledore tells Harry that Nicholas Flammel decides to destroy it. Maybe that's a stretch, but IMO, the danger of the Philosopher's Stone is at least implied in that conversation.
posted by Roy Jacobsen at 11:05 AM