Deathmatch: Rowling vs. Lewis!

But first… happy Father’s Day, Dad!

Well, if J. K. Rowling’s not done with Harry Potter, then neither am I. (Stop that groaning!)

So I mentioned in passing in my review of Prince Caspian that, despite appearing more liberal and progressive, the Harry Potter series gives me the ICKY!s much more than the Chronicles of Narnia ever did. Because I don’t have more interesting things to write about today, I thought I’d expand on that.

While I prefer J. K. Rowling’s overall take on things like, say, gender and racial equality to Lewis’s*, I find her conception of these things to be somewhat superficial; where Lewis knows darned well what he’s implying, Rowling seems to be slightly oblivious to the fact that what she’s showing doesn’t quite match up with what she’s telling. Furthermore, if I had to pick either Lewis’s or Rowling’s version of Christianity, as expressed in their books (both have metaphorical Christ-figures, in Aslan and *DH spoilers* Harry respectively. I guess you could argue that Lily Potter is a Christ-figure, too, what with the sacrificing herself out of love resulting in the protection of the one for whom she did so), I would pick Lewis’s in a shot. Why? Well, two reasons.

1. Repentance. In both Hogwarts and Narnia, there are characters who join the bad side (or at least leave the good side) for selfish reasons but return to the side of the Light by the end of the story. In the Hogwarts corner, we have Percy Weasley, the Malfoys (sort of), and, of course, Severus Snape. On the Narnians’ side, we have Edmund Pevensie and Eustace Scrubb. Now, for Percy, the Malfoys, and Snape, apologies are a one-way street. Each sinner must return to the people he or she has wronged and beg forgiveness on bended knee, sometimes literally. It doesn’t matter how badly they were treated before (the twins tormenting Percy; Draco having been attacked by a mob of DA members on the Hogwarts Express and nearly killed by Harry’s Sectumsempra; Snape having been tormented by the Marauders throughout his schooldays with either the disinterest or tacit approval of the faculty, nearly culminating in his murder): whatever they did wrong is enough to make them deserve whatever the good guys did to them. They must acknowledge that they are inferior to Harry, Dumbledore, and the rest of the good Gryffindors, and they are not entitled to receive apologies in return, acknowledgment of the legitimacy of their feelings, or even forgiveness. The stigma of whatever they have done will stick with them for the rest of their days, and punishment for their crimes will never cease. In particular, Snape seems to have spent the rest of his life in penance for the sins of his youth – not one moment of dignity or pleasure or even a hint that he’s allowed peace after death: the Wandering Jew of Hogwarts**. Harry never has to face him and wrestle out a truce or admit he was wrong.

In Narnia, Edmund betrays his own brother and sisters to the evil White Witch, convincing himself she’s right because he wants to believe she’ll make him king over the others. He indirectly causes Aslan’s own death. Eustace is a giant pain in the butt from the day he arrives in Narnia, insisting things be run his way, avoiding work while interfering with other people’s, and treating Narnians with rudeness and disdain. Both Edmund and Eustace see the folly of their ways when it is too late and must be rescued by Aslan and those they harmed or hated. (Which isn’t to say that they play no part in their own repentance – Aslan helps them both on the way to it, but they must choose the path themselves.) And, like Percy and Snape, both boys beg the forgiveness of those they betrayed or wronged.

However, while this is where the Hogwarts scene ends, the Narnia scene continues with understanding and forgiveness on both sides. Edmund shakes hands with each of his siblings and says he’s sorry, but they each reply that it’s all right. And, Lewis informs us, far from continuing to be angry with Edmund or blaming him or each other, all four siblings want to “say something which would make it quite clear that they were all friends with him again”. In fact, earlier, when the three remaining Pevensies report Edmund’s defection to Aslan, “something” makes Peter say: “That was partly my fault, Aslan. I was angry with him and I think that helped him to go wrong”, for which, according to Lewis, Aslan neither excuses nor blames him. For Lewis, the reader can surmise, though no one ever bears the full responsibility for someone else’s sins, neither is anyone excused from considering how his or her behaviour affected that person. Later, Edmund is allowed to be a war hero (he shatters the White Witch’s wand) and to grow up into wise and thoughtful King Edmund the Just – he’s done penance and been forgiven, and, since he’s changed his ways, the past is behind him.

Similarly, when Eustace returns from having been de-dragonified and meets Edmund, Edmund’s first reaction is to be overjoyed that Eustace’s suffering is over. (“My dear chap -” “I say, I am glad to see you – er – looking yourself again.”) He allows Eustace to tell his story, and it’s only at the end, in a matter-of-a-fact way that Eustace suddenly adds that he’s sorry for behaving in such a beastly way. Edmund not only forgives him but comforts him with his own story: “You were only an ass, but I was a traitor.” Throughout the rest of the story, Eustace sometimes have relapses but is still allowed to be a hero who behaves in admirable ways. The others listen to his complaints and praise his achievements the way they do anyone else’s.

Compare Edmund and the Pevensies’ reactions to the return of their prodigal kin to Dumbledore’s reception of Snape: “You disgust me.” Or maybe that’s too harsh – maybe Snape really doesn’t seem sorry in that scene. So let’s move along to the point where Snape has dedicated his entire miserable life to the Order and is supposedly Dumbledore’s right-hand man: “You know, I sometimes think we Sort too soon.” Ouch. Thanks, Albus. (I assume that after this scene, you go tell McGonagall that she’s just as good as a boy and Kingsley Shacklebolt that sometimes you even forget he’s not white.)

Now, I see that someone’s motivation in repenting offers us a good reason to treat one returning sinner like Eustace and another like Snape: sure, we do want to recognize that someone repenting out of true recognition of the error of her ways and desire to correct her mistakes is doing something “better” than someone who repents for selfish reasons like doing evil things can’t get him what he wants***. But, in real life, we have no way of distinguishing the two; in fiction, the only people who should be able to make this kind of judgment are the author and any divine avatar (like Aslan). Furthermore, is the way to move a sinner or traitor to “real” repentance by making their lives with the “good” side a living hell where they receive no reward, suffer for their past crimes, have their feelings ignored, and must constantly accept their own inferiority? I’m no management consultant, but I think probably NOT.

2. Accountability. Rowling’s heroes and heroines, to be frank, get away with murder, often almost literally. The Gryffindors are mean to people they don’t like, blackmail, hide information, bully, play nasty pranks, use the Unforgivable Curses, think nothing of actions that endanger others’ lives as long as those others “deserved it” (ie disagreed with Harry Potter), and scar people for life, just to give an incomplete list.

Lewis’s heroes and heroines do some pretty dumb stuff, too, but it almost always comes back to bite them in the butt. Caspian tries to abandon his responsibility to his kingdom so he can go sail off the Eastern edge of the world; his crew threatens to tie him to the mast, and Aslan gives him a dressing-down. Lucy says a spell to eavesdrop on her friend from school, and, in doing so, she wrecks the friendship that might have been. Digory hits the gong that wakes Jadis even though he knows he shouldn’t and ends up responsible for her when she follows him first to London and then to Narnia. And, when Aslan gives Eustace and Jill four Signs to follow to find the lost Prince Rilian, their selfishness and stubbornness leads them to screw up all but the last one, messing up their whole quest.

Let me here pause to differentiate between characters doing things that go against my morals and characters doing things that go against the morals of the story. In Lewis’s Narnia, while it’s wrong to be mean to your sister or show off your “good head for heights” by dancing around near the edge of a cliff, it’s okay to look down on people who are unfortunate enough to have darker skin than you or the wrong sort of genitalia. Peter, Susan, and the rest of them don’t get their comeuppance for acting in accordance with the latter attitude (behaviour I think is wrong), but they do get schooled for the former crimes. Because neither Narnia nor Hogwarts really meshes with my own political sensibilities (gee, ya think?), what I’m looking at for a sense of accountability is whether the characters are punished for violating the moral code the author seems to have set down.

Using the Cruciatus Curse is wrong in Hogwarts, and Harry and his friends agree with this: when Harry accidentally almost kills Draco Malfoy, he and his friends whole-heartedly accept the rationalization that it’s justified since Draco was about to use the Cruciatus Curse on Harry. So, we can conclude, Harry must believe that casting crucio is very wrong indeed. Yet when Harry tries to use that same curse, first on Bellatrix, then on Snape, and finally (successfully) on one of the Carrows, there are no consequences, despite the fact that the Gryffindors themselves believe that such a deed is justifiably punishable by death – “Unforgiveable”, if you will****.

Contrariwise, Aslan makes it quite clear that to use excessive force, even to do something good, is in principle just as bad as doing something that warrants the use of force. When Caspian, Eustace, and Jill are to teach a lesson to the Experiment House bullies, he reminds them to use the flats of their swords because they’re punishing kids, not warriors*****. When Aravis’s plan to escape from Calormen causes her servant to be whipped, Aslan claws the same wounds onto Aravis’s own back in punishment. In a more patronizing, racist, and colonial vein, Aslan accepts the deeds of Emeth, a noble Calormene who’s been doing good deeds in the name of the evil god Tash as his own; while this is no better than Dumbledore’s “Sort too soon” comment, it does underscore the fact that, in Narnia, it’s what you do and not who you are or why you do it (or *cough* which House you belong to) that has moral worth******.

In any case, while Harry and co. seem blissfully free to disdain, mock, or hurt anyone who disagrees with them, despite their stated belief that this sort of behaviour is wrong, the Narnians are never permitted to commit actions they’d condemn from others without it coming back to haunt them.

I guess I can see how number one relates to number two: if heroes aren’t held accountable for their actions, then why should they have to consider how they mistreated repentant sinners? Likewise, if heroes are never accountable – if their goodness supposedly comes from somewhere deep in the soul and innate and therefore renders any account of their deeds that emphasizes their actions irrelevant – then there doesn’t need to be any resilient system for repentance, because only bad people are ever going to have to do it.

In other words, while Lewis’s illustration of repentance and accountability point to an idea of goodness as something you do Rowling’s implied idea is that goodness is something you are. Lewis does seem to feel that certain types of people (*cough* white, Anglo-Saxon Christians) are more naturally inclined to do good things, that different types of good things are appropriate for different types of people (eg. men fight and are brave; women heal and have faith), and that he and the rest of Anglo-Saxon society are the only ones who know what good things are, all of which doesn’t exactly float my boat. However, I’d rather cling to his seeming conviction that EVERYONE always has the potential to do good*******, no matter what their past or origin, than throw myself at the mercy of Rowling’s universe where Harry and Dumbledore are “naturally” good people whose only evil impulses come from other agents (Voldemort’s soul and Grindlewald’s corrupting love) and Snape is “naturally” a horrible person whose only good impulse comes from his love for “good” people like Lily Evans.

* Um, but, believe me, I’d rather not have to pick either, thanks very much.

** According to medieval Christian stories, the Wandering Jew was a Jew who made fun of Christ on his way to the Crucifixion. Because of this, he was cursed to wander the Earth without rest until the Second Coming.

*** BTW, is it not somewhat ironic that Dumbledore is disgusted with Snape for not caring about other people’s suffering or feelings when Dumbledore himself a) is clearly never considerate of Snape’s feelings – certainly not in this scene, and b) is happy to sacrifice other people for the greater good? Which, by the way, would make me like him a lot as a character IF it didn’t seem like the author wishes me to hold him as an epitome of goodness regardless. I like Edmund and Peter even when they’re dicks because I know Lewis thought they were dicks, too; if Lewis had been all like, “Peter was really angry at Edmund and called him a name, and, later, he said to Aslan that that might have contributed to Edmund’s betrayal, but Aslan was totally, ‘Don’t sweat it, man. You can get really angry and call people names ANY TIME YOU WANT because you’re MORALLY SUPERIOR and RIGHT'”, then I might feel differently.

**** Rowling seems to fall prey to this sort of moral relativism often: what is Dark magic? Well, duh, it’s when someone you don’t like (a Slytherin) uses a spell to do something to which someone you do like (a Gryffindor) is opposed. It’s not Dark magic to turn a mean classmate into a giant bag of pus or give a traitor permanent facial scarring; it is Dark magic if a boy being bullied uses a spell that cuts someone’s face, despite the fact that magic seems to instantly heal said cuts. Oh, but only if the bullied boy is ugly and friendless and a Slytherin.

***** Yeah, I know: so many problems with this scene. Oh the evils of co-ed schools! And treating girls the same as boys! What were they thinking? What those bullies need is a good whipping with a riding crop!

****** To me, although Aslan’s and Dumbledore’s comments are both disgusting, they embody subtly different philosophies: Aslan is saying that a person can “rise above” his or her culture (implying that it’s wrong to despise all Calormenes because some really are as good as Narnians) while Dumbledore is suggesting that anyone who “rises above” his or her background actually can be discounted as belonging to that background in the first place (implying that, yay, it’s OK to despise Slytherins, because real Slytherins are evil). But they’re still both about denying the idea that cultures and people who aren’t like you can have a type of worth that’s different from yours but no less admirable.

******* Which you need if you want to hold onto both the existence of Divine punishment and the idea that people only deserve to be punished if they could have done otherwise but didn’t. If people are born bad or good, then there is nothing a bad person can do to avoid being a bad person, and he or she doesn’t deserve to be punished for it.