The Boy Who Lived and the Last Airbender: When Responsibility Clashes With Conviction
One thing — okay, one of the many things — that troubled me about J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is how it deals with murder.
In the third book, we learn along with Harry that there are three Unforgiveable Curses: the Imperius Curse, which forces the caster’s will upon another; the Cruciatus Curse, which tortures its victim with unbearable pain; and the Killing Curse, self-explanatory.
As the series progresses, we learn that none of these curses can be cast unless the wielder “means” it; we learn that meaning the Killing Curse, murdering another human being, is enough to split a soul in two. Taking a life irrevocably changes the taker for the worse.
What then, we wonder, is our hero Harry to do? His destiny is foretold: he cannot live while the evil Lord Voldemort, responsible for the deaths of hundreds and oppression of even more, survives. Sure, Harry’s all right seeking out and destroying inanimate fragments of Voldemort’s soul, but what about the man himself? Will Harry have to become a murderer?
Harry’s situation is similar to that of Aang, the titular character in the Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: the Last Airbender.
Like Harry, Aang’s destiny burdens him with responsibility for the lives and wellbeing of those around him. His duty as the reincarnated Avatar, master of all four elements, is to bring balance to the world. This means Aang must stop the Fire Nation, whose Fire Lord Sozin (ETA: whoops, I meant Ozai! Thanks for pointing it out, JB!) is bent on expanding their already-powerful empire through genocide, war, and violence. The only way to stop Ozai is to face him and best him in battle — a battle that, given the stakes, can end only in death.
Aang trains hard to fulfill his duty, but he has misgivings. Specifically, according to the teachings of his people, the Air monks, all life in all forms is sacred. One never has the right to take a life, no matter what one’s personal judgement of its owner.
Unlike Harry, Aang struggles deeply with his conflicting morals. On one hand, he believes to his core that killing is wrong, and that Fire Lord Ozai, despite his crimes, does not deserve to die. On the other, he knows that if he obeys his conscience on this matter, violence and destruction will overturn the world, and no one living in it will be safe.
Harry’s inner conflict isn’t quite the same. First, in his world, killing isn’t problematic because of the respect owed life; everyone agrees that Voldemort needs to die, the sooner, the better. Instead, we’re asked to worry about what killing Voldemort will do to Harry: will his soul split? Will he survive with his innocence intact?
Harry also never faces the possible repercussions of following his own conscience over his duty to his community. He’s able to turn down the corrupt Prime Minister’s request for assistance, unilaterally choose to sneak off into the forest to die, and, yes, refuse to aim a Killing Curse at Voldemort. Although there is no possible way Harry could have known these decisions would work out for the best at the time, following his heart leads him to success.
Harry is able to live up to his moral standards not through careful consideration but only because events happened to work out that way. He lives in a universe in which blind faith in a higher power — Dumbledore — is a sufficient moral guide. He can outsource his ethical dilemmas to someone else who knows better.
Aang, on the other hand, is spiritually alone. Even when canvassing the spirits of his former lives, the adult Avatars, even the ones who were also Air monks, advise him to embrace the untenable: sometimes you must contravene your own spiritual convictions for the greater good.
Where Harry defers to his mentor’s ethical judgement, Aang refuses to accept this. He searches for an alternative, knowing that if he fails to find one, he will have to face Ozai anyway. As his friends risk their lives fighting Ozai’s armies, Aang must forge his own path.
I don’t want to spoil how he does it, so let’s just say that although the key to the solution is given to him by a spiritual mentor, just like Harry’s, it’s up to Aang to apply that key to unlock his situation. Furthermore, the key is available only because Aang was already looking for it; he had to seek to find.
I find Aang’s story more moving than Harry’s in part because the world I see is like the four kingdoms of Avatar, not Hogwarts: I don’t believe that there is Someone infallible to guide us blindly through life’s ethical intricacies. Even if we aren’t alone, I am interested in choosing an ethical standpoint, not obedience to authority. To me, Aang’s decision is more meaningful for that reason: he explored every option and sought out the solution he refused to accept didn’t exist. In contrast, Harry never wavered from the personal ethics he’d already chosen to obey. His only consideration was how the situation might affect him, not what rights others, good or evil, deserve.
Although both Aang and Harry achieve the same results — villain defeated, world safe, peace restored — I’d choose only Aang as my role model. Learning the difference between right and wrong is important, but negotiating the difference between right and right is just as much so.
First a better title would be “The boy who lived and the boy in the iceberg” :)
Your point is well taken, the Harry Potter books don’t confront this tension head on the way Last Airbender did.
However, I’m a little worried by the way the post seems to suggest that somehow Harry lacks any agency in the story, whereas he does actually try and figure out what is going on and take action to head problems off, Harry does make mistakes and there are consequences, people die, he feels bad etc.. Similarly Dumbeldore is not perfect although the way the novels are constructed does make if feel like that sometimes..
I think the real accomplishment of Last Airbender is in making the case for killing the Firelord so compelling such that one feels the weight of the tension pushing Aang towards the option he ultimately rejects. Whereas when Harry decided to show mercy to Petigrew there are things that suggest a tension (he immediately goes off to team up with Voldemorte and cause problems), but I don’t think the reader finds it particularly compelling, we feel pretty sure Harry did the right thing and it will all work out, no doubt.
A real ethical dilemma to my mind is between two courses of action neither of which is obviously wrong. The choice between a bad option and a good one, may be hard to do the right thing and take moral courage and judgement etc. to deal with it, but the ethical question is straightforward, X is pretty clearly wrong. A dilemma where ethics does not rule out any option is a much more difficult question.
There is something very on the rails about the narrative of Harry Potter, it has some unconventional flourishes but it follows a pretty standard story. Last Airbender is often pretty conventional also, but it plays with conventions enough and has the characters second guessing themselves enough and the like that things feel freer and more contigent. So Last Airbender is better at conveying the sense that the issues are actual dilemmas rather than foregone conclusions.
Just to play devil’s advocate offhand I can think of at least one occasion where Harry does at least one major decision he has to make on his own without guidance and that is what to do with the elder wand. Harry decides to dispose of it, but he could have kept it around and used it for good. Now this dilemma is not really emphasized by the story. Also the theme of the three brothers and tbe deathly hallows, that the only victory over death is the acceptance of mortality is permeating the story and for Harry to keep the death stick given that would clearly clash with that. However that being said Dumbledore did keep the wand so maybe the choice is not so clear cut. Also, as Terry Prachett has taught us in Equal Rites not using can be the best magic of all. ;)
So to sum up it seems fair to me to say that Last Airbender demonstrates some aspects of ethical decision making in a far more compelling, insightful and informative way than the Potter series, but that does not mean that those elements are wholly absent from the Potterverse.
Allan, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write a real reply!
I agree that I found Aang’s story compelling me toward the option I didn’t want him to take a lot more than I did with Harry. Just as in your example, I never felt that Harry would or should kill Pettigrew — the “wrong” options didn’t have much weight. The consequences never seemed serious enough to justify entertaining the unethical choice.
I know we disagree on our perception of Harry’s agency. I think for me, if there’s a protagonist with agency in HP, it’s Hermione. To me, Harry often doesn’t feel like he even knows what problem he’s trying to solve. The things he does, like stalk Draco Malfoy and decide to infiltrate the Ministry, feel haphazard and not well thought through. I guess that might be what makes me feel like he doesn’t really want anything and is just doing whatever occurs to him in the moment.
I suspect there’s also an element there tied to Harry’s main action — allowing Voldemort to kill him because Dumbledore says so — being one of deliberate rejection of agency (which I suppose, one could argue, is a form of agency, but I don’t think that gets at the sense of motivated dynamism I mean). Aang’s main action is to go and do something specific that will have clear and particular result.
I didn’t feel like Harry was actually tempted by the Elder Wand, so his decision didn’t feel entirely like an ethical problem to me. It seemed more practical — what do I do with this thing that causes a lot of trouble?
All of which is to say, yes, I agree that agency and ethical questions aren’t completely absent from Potter, but I find their presentation? delivery? much less compelling than in other series. They don’t ask me to make the key moral decisions along with the protagonist or give interesting reasons why those decisions might be right or wrong.
One more thing, as far as thinking for yourself goes Aang and his story is the better model, but is thinking for yourself something you can have a role model for, there is a tension there.
Thanks for the comments, Allan! I’ve read them and will have to compose a proper reply after marking season ;) Until then, hope all’s well with you and yours!