(continued)
| His justification for patricide offers clear evidence that Rowling’s novels actually affirm family values. Voldemort, like Crouch, was rejected by his father. He changed his name from Tom Riddle to Lord Voldemort in order to get rid of his “filthy Muggle [non-magic] father’s name,” “who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch.” Raised in a Muggle orphanage after his mother died in childbirth, Tom Riddle vowed to take revenge on the father who went back to live with his parents because “he didn’t like magic, my father.” At Hogwarts, he dedicated himself to becoming “the greatest wizard in the world,” in part so he could go back and kill his father and grandparents, who had been “rich, snobbish, and rude,” Tom’s father even worse than his grandparents. Thus the fourth book of the seven-book series, at the heart of the story, discloses that all the cruelty of Voldemort, all the desire for power and the merciless demand for loyalty from his followers, can be traced back to a sense of rejection by the father he never knew. Instead of love, compassion, and a sense of right and wrong, Voldemort chose power. “There is only power,” he tells Harry in their first encounter. Yet his very quest for power is motivated by a need to requite his sense of having been wronged! No matter how much Voldemort denies it, there is right and wrong. And of course there is love, which he chooses to deny, given the great void in his life of either a mother’s or a father’s love. Both Crouch and Riddle/Voldemort reject family values in order to justify their lust for power, evidence of what is wrong at the center of evil, as Dumbledore explained to Harry: “If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love.”
Just such lessons demonstrated in the story line of the Harry Potter
novels justify their being read and discussed. One more instance: the
Weasley’s only daughter, Ginny, becomes |
Voldemort’s victim in the Chamber of Secrets because, out of loneliness during her first year at Hogwarts, she writes in a diary magically controlled by Voldemort to gain her trust. This offers a chilling parallel to the Internet connections young girls are making in our own world, to their equally great peril. And that this girl could experience such a sense of loneliness in a family as affirming as the Weasleys reminds us that parents are not perfect either. But their very family ties are one reason Ginny is rescued from Voldemort’s control, her recovery also strongly aided by family support rather than judgment. So throughout the novels, these truths prevail: those characters who experience love, who believe in a second chance, who practice forgiveness and mercy rather than vindictiveness and cruelty, are offered to readers as models to emulate. Those who seek power at all costs, who substitute power for love, who are indulged rather than disciplined, represent false values, object lessons demonstrating why wrong is not right, no matter the appearance. Christians need not fear Rowling’s fantasies. In harmony with the central beliefs of our faith, they teach that love is critical to healthy personality, that actions have conse- quences, and that, as Dumbledore reminds Harry when he feels “fated” by inheritance or circumstances: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Such wisdom, demonstrated in the action of the novels, can hardly lead readers astray. James L. Hedges, Ph.D., is chair of the Department of English and a children’s literature expert. jhedges@apu.edu For additional perspectives on this topic, consult the following links:
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