30 responses so far ↓

• 1 Laura // Feb 5, 2008 at 8:32 am

  My first thought was McGonnagal (I know I just murdered the spelling…it’s a little early in the am here). Which sounds weird, but she’s just so *stalwart* and yet knows the appropriate time to give Peeves direction in chandelier undoing. I love Minerva…she’s an unsung hero in the story in my opinion.

• 2 revgeorge // Feb 5, 2008 at 9:33 am

  I can’t really vote in the poll, because I think you left off the one character I’d vote for, Travis. Namely, Luna. Just so I’m not left out voting, though, I’ll put down Arthur Weasley.

• 3 Travis Prinzi // Feb 5, 2008 at 10:37 am

  Since there are only 8 votes so far, I’m adding Luna. This shouldn’t skew things too much.

• 4 Shane // Feb 5, 2008 at 11:10 am

  Luna, I can’t think of a single thing she’s ever done wrong.

• 5 revgeorge // Feb 5, 2008 at 11:31 am

  The only negative thing I can think of is Luna’s tendency to vehemently believe in stuff that is not real. Other that that, she just tends to float through life & takes things as they come. She also is willing to always help someone out. Now, is she a real person or could she be a real person? Or is she written to perfectly?

• 6 reyhan // Feb 5, 2008 at 11:38 am

  It’s an interesting question. There are a lot of good characters, who do a lot of good things. In fact, the competition is pretty fierce:

  Lily who sacrifices her life for her son.

  Harry, who deliberately walks to his death in order to save the world from evil.

  Hagrid, who nurtures wild creatures everyone fears, at considerable cost to himself (and sometimes others).

  Lupin, who is a good teacher, the kind of teacher many of us wish we’d had, who takes a difficult task and makes it fun for his students.

  Molly Weasley who peels vegetables and knits sweaters and generally nurtures anyone within scolding distance.

  Snape, who doggedly does the right thing and places himself in great danger for seventeen years and is ultimately killed, out of love and remorse.

  Hermione, who is the best and most loyal friend anyone could ever have, who is always, always there for Harry, giving him wise counsel and supporting him through thick and thin.

  Ron, who overcomes his insecurities and jealousy and fears to stand beside his friend. I actually think of Ron as the obverse side of Peter Pettigrew: neither is as good at sports and magic and in life general as the people they hang out with, but where Pettigrew turns against his friends, Ron fights his own dark side and is loyal to his friend.

  They are all compelling candidates. My vote would have gone to Harry because of what he does, and how he does it - without a whimper or a whine, because it is the right thing - if it weren’t for one small thing: Evanna Lynch.

  Luna is a wonderful character, free of most common human frailties; she is written as unearthly and spiritual, almost angelic in a kooky sort of way. But I wouldn’t have picked her over Harry, except for Evanna Lynch. I know it’s just acting, but the way Lynch moves and looks and speaks sends shivers down my spine. I think she’d be right at home at King’s Cross, or stations beyond. She’s not just good, she represents the essence of Goodness.

• 7 Melli // Feb 5, 2008 at 4:20 pm

  I would love to vote for Neville, Luna, and Lily… but having to narrow it down to a single character I would say: Luna. She has this ethereal innocence, contentment, loyalty, and love no matter what dangers arise.

  I don’t know enough about Lily to feel confident voting for her, and though Neville and Luna are ranked equally in my mind their virtues are of two aesthetically different natures. I could never decide between them.

  I agree with reyhan’s assessment of Luna: “the essence of Goodness” is a lovely way to define Luna’s somewhat unrealistic but endearing character.

• 8 revgeorge // Feb 5, 2008 at 10:30 pm

  Interesting to see how far Harry has fallen in the poll now. But I’ve never considered Harry the epitome of goodness. He’s got a lot of faults that make him quite an unpleasant person at times & not all of those faults are because he’s tuning into Voldemort.

  But I would consider him the epitome of faithful perseverance. Despite all that has happened to him & all that keeps getting dropped on him, he keeps slogging on, despite his sometimes fervent desire to stop being Harry & all that entails. And most of the time he does so in faith, not knowing the why until afterward.

  And in this he echoes the Christian life. For the Christian isn’t someone who’s necessarily good, but someone who lives by faith in God’s promises, even when we don’t know why or how.

  Luna may be more angelic, as reyhan rightly describes her, but Harry is more human.

• 9 reyhan // Feb 6, 2008 at 12:25 am

  If we go by the results to date, revgeorge, it looks like more people understand goodness as a state of being without sin, a state of purity and innocence, rather than the result of a successful fight against one’s demons. Thus Neville, Luna and Lily, the purest characters in the books, get a whopping 57% of the vote between the three of them.

• 10 revgeorge // Feb 6, 2008 at 1:37 am

  Quite right, reyhan. But I’m not disputing any of that. The poll asks who is the most good. I agree that Luna is the best choice. But I also don’t take her to be a model for the rest of us. Angels don’t make good examples for men. Harry may be less good, but he is more human.

  Lily is so beyond any reasonable critique that she comes off looking good just because of her sacrifice, but that’s really all we know of her. We see a little more in DH, but she never becomes as real as James sort of did. Neville is good but also a tormented character. Luna just floats above it all. Although I guess she doesn’t to some extent, because of her deep appreciation of friends, shown in DH.

  But I’m just rambling ’cause it’s late.

• 11 korg20000bc // Feb 6, 2008 at 5:24 am

  It looks like I blundered by omitting Luna from my list considering that she’s leading the field at the moment.

  I can see what people are saying about Luna but she never occurred to me. She is a ‘pure’ character but I hadn’t associated this with ‘good’ before.

  I voted for Dumbledore mostly for the reasons revgeorge stated. I think he exemplarises the qualities of Goodness that I would like to have in my life. To me Dumbledore = courtesy, self-restraint, not doing evil even when you could do it well (a very Sherlock Holmes trait as Watson often observes), approachable wisdom, encouraging, prtecting the defenceless, forgiving and a realistic understanding of your own weaknesses.

  Some of the comments above seem to suggest that goodness is not doing wrong. I see it more as actively doing right.

  Matthew

• 12 reyhan // Feb 6, 2008 at 10:52 am

  Different shades of good, Matthew, as your title for the poll acknowledges. And it’s not just more good or less good; it’s different types of goodness. I’m actually in your camp, I see goodness more as actively doing right (and doing more right than bad, in the case of ambivalent characters such as Snape) than not doing wrong. But then there’s Luna/Lynch.

  Remember the passage/scene at the end of the OotP where Harry, distraught at Sirius’ death, runs into Luna, who’s posting notices for her stolen belongings? It works very well in both print and film; the actors capture the sense of time standing still, time apart, a conversation during a temporary lull in the action, where they consider their losses and look to the future. It reminds me a lot of the scene on the bridge in PoA between Harry and Lupin. And it is a scene of imperceptible and yet deep healing. With her words, which give Harry hope that he may see his dead loved ones again, and her attitude of calm acceptance, Luna soothes, reassures, and heals Harry’s pain:

  “She walked away from him and, as he watched her go, he found that the terrible weight in his stomach seemed to have lessened slightly.”

  That is more than not doing wrong. But it’s doing right by how one is. That’s what I meant when I said she was Goodness personified.

• 13 reyhan // Feb 6, 2008 at 11:13 am

  I left out one important thing.

  If a strong part of the message of the series is about faith, and having faith that love will triumph over death, and if Harry’s example is that of a person who perseveres to keep his faith alive despite his losses and his confusion and his temptations, then what does that say about Luna’s example?

  She is the person - human but with unearthly qualities - who leads him through the darkness because her faith is unquestioning. She may wear radish earings and read newspapers upside down, but she understands that death is not the end, but just another step, that love abides beyond death. I wrote earlier that Ron is Pettigrew’s antithesis because he stays loyal to his friends in the face of personal disappointment. I think Luna is Voldemort’s antithesis because she is not afraid of death.

  One might make the argument that she shares that quality with Dumbledore. But there are big differences: while they both lose a loved one, Dumbledore tries to undo death via the Resurrection Stone, while Luna accepts it because she knows death is not the end.

• 14 revgeorge // Feb 6, 2008 at 12:18 pm

  Excellent comments, reyhan. I had forgotten the part about Luna talking to Harry about death. “Anyway, it’s not as if I’ll never see my mum again.” I don’t think that line made it into the movie, which is a pity.

  Still, though, I think Harry’s faith is more accessible to regular people who struggle with doubts & fears.

  Yet, excellent thoughts about Luna, especially in contrast to both DD & LV.

• 15 korg20000bc // Feb 6, 2008 at 5:49 pm

  Good points about Luna. It makes me think about virtue. Luna is amazingly, but gently, courageous- especially in the face of losing a loved one. I suspect that this type of courage is something that Rowling sees as one of the highest virtues. She has definately said that she thinks that courage is the greatest virtue. In this situation Luna is a teacher to Harry and has gone before where he is going now.

  Do you think that “Virtue” is a good way of understanding Rowling’s take on “Goodness”?

  Matthew

• 16 Mark-Anthony // Feb 6, 2008 at 6:19 pm

  I voted for Dumbledore, because I agree that to be good is to actively pursue goodness. I think Harry, Snape and Dumbledore are the people who dedicate a portion of their lives to this, but Dumbledore is the one who does it politely and with a smile on his face. The later Dumbledore anyway.

• 17 reyhan // Feb 6, 2008 at 7:55 pm

  Now that is an interesting question, Matthew. Because the word “virtue” it seems, has its roots in the Latin word “virtus” which means manliness or courage.

  Wikipedia goes on to say:

  “Taken in its widest sense virtue refers to excellence, just as vice, its contrary, denotes the absence of such. In its strictest meaning, however, as used by moral philosophers and theologians, virtue is an operative habit essentially good, as distinguished from vice, an operative habit essentially evil. The four cardinal (hinge) virtues are Justice, Courage, Wisdom, and Moderation. These were enumerated by the Greek philosophers. The three supernatural virtues of Faith, Hope and (unselfish) Love are part of the tradition of Pauline Christianity, Judaism and Islam”.

  The Greeks believed virtue to consist of temperance, prudence, fortitude and justice, although Plato believed the four to be interlinked - i.e. they couldn’t exist separately from each other.

  Aristotle had another take on it altogether; he believed in the Golden Mean:

  “In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes every virtue as a balance point between a deficiency and an excess of a trait. The point of greatest virtue lies not in the exact middle, but at a “golden mean” closer to one of the extremes than the other. E.g.:

  courage is the balance between cowardice (deficit of courage) and foolhardiness (excess of courage), lying closer to foolhardiness;

  proper pride is the balance between undue humility (deficit of pride) and empty vanity (excess of pride), lying closer to vanity;

  generosity is the balance between miserliness (deficit of generosity) and prodigality (excess of generosity), lying closer to prodigality.”

  Anyways, it goes on and on, with each religion proposing its own set of cardinal virtues. I notice that the Eastern philosophies are not as big on courage, while Nietzche seems to sneer at the whole concept, God bless him.

  Taking Justice, Courage, Moderation, Wisdom, Faith, Hope and (unselfish) Love as a commonly agreed upon set of virtues, we can see that each of the characters in the Poll embodies a certain subset of virtues.

  Hermione, for one, seems to embody Justice and Wisdom, and of course, Love. Harry seems to embody Justice, Courage and Love. For Dumbledore it is Wisdom and Hope (and perhaps, later in life, Moderation). And for Luna, it is Faith, Hope and Love, the three “supernatural” virtues.

  Perhaps we find a character “most” good when that character’s virtues match what we value ourselves.

  But if so, I would be my own first exception to the rule. I value Wisdom and Justice and Courage. But still I see such a simple and pure and transcendant goodness in Luna that I can not help but be moved by it.

• 18 Sandra Miesel // Feb 6, 2008 at 9:33 pm

  After all, Luna’s last name is “Lovegood.”

• 19 reyhan // Feb 6, 2008 at 11:18 pm

  So it is.

  A coincidence? Or is the author trying to tell us something?

• 20 revgeorge // Feb 7, 2008 at 1:27 am

  reyhan wrote:
  “A coincidence? Or is the author trying to tell us something?”

  Why don’t we ask her & that’ll settle the question?

  Sorry. Feeling a little loopy after Ash Wednesday services. So, I’m not trying to start up an old controversy but perhaps make a bad joke.

• 21 korg20000bc // Feb 7, 2008 at 3:26 am

  Funny, Though!

  I have spent some time studying “Martial” virtues as I am interested in martial arts. This article is very good, if your interested too.
  Also, George Silver’s ‘Admonitions’ section in his work ‘Brief Instructions Upon My Paradoxes of Defence’.

  Maybe the virtues that Harry needs as the main fighter of the series are different to what Luna, for instance, needs.

  Matthew

• 22 reyhan // Feb 7, 2008 at 4:12 pm

  You’re right of course, Matthew; the qualities that make for a good warrior are different from the ones that make for a spiritual mentor, or for a military strategist, or for an advisor.

  But I think you’re talking about virtue as excellence, rather than virtue as an essential goodness.

  And I’m thinking that defining goodness in terms of virtue has its drawbacks. I’d like to go back to defining it in terms of actions: helping others, healing, nurturing, defending the weak, fighting evil, fighting for justice, fighting for what is right. And all of the people in the poll have done that. Who has done the most?

  And what does that mean, to have done the most? To give all that you can give, or to inflict the most damage upon the enemy?

  Lily and Harry knowingly gave all they had to give: their lives. Snape certainly assumed that risk everytime he went undercover. And Sirius, Lupin, George, Mad Eye and Neville’s parents were all killed (or worse) in action. Snape too, although quite senselessly.

  Most damage? Dumbledore certainly plotted and planned and outmanouevered Voldemort. And destroyed one horcrux. And Ron, Hermione and Neville each destroyed a horcrux. And Lily almost destroyed Voldemort once. But Harry confronted Voldemort face to face six times, and countless times in his mind. I think for sheer going hand-to-hand with evil, Harry has to take the prize.

• 23 korg20000bc // Feb 8, 2008 at 6:33 am

  Reyhan,
  Perhaps I am blurring excellence and goodness. In terms of virtue I’m not saying that the ‘good’ warrior is opposite to the ‘bad’ warrior but rather the ‘evil’ warrior.

  If someone was described as virtuous I would think- exemplary, honourable, a pillar of goodness. I don’t know where I going with that.

  Also, I don’t see the “most good” character as being the one who racks up the most good deeds or scores the most points against the Washington Generals. I think what I’m trying to get at is that we would have a much shorter list and more easily recognised criteria if we were looking for the most evil character in the books.

  Do you think its harder to define good than evil? And is it because if we nail down what is good we realise that we don’t abide by our list?

  Matthew

• 24 reyhan // Feb 8, 2008 at 12:55 pm

  I agree with you, Matthew. I think being good is more than chalking up the most points against evil. I just ran that one by because I’m considering different perspectives.

  I don’t know if it’s harder to define good than eivl.

  Look at the poll: even without a commonly accepted working definition, one third of the respondents (including myself) have elected Luna or Neville. Although brave, neither of these two is particularly heroic (although Neville finds his inner hero near the end, leading the students at Hogwarts).

  Now it’s possible that the people who voted for Neville did so for entirely different reasons than the people who voted for Luna, but I tend to see similarities in the characters: they are both honest, unassuming, loyal, loving people. They are both unusually free of malice or envy or spite or any of the baser emotions. All they ask is to love and to be loved by their friends. They each are more than this - Luna with her unearthly calm and Neville with his last-minute leadership qualities - but as people they are just a couple of very, very nice people.

  So maybe many of us do see goodness as the absence of badness. Or common human weaknesses. Or sin.

  Which is quite interesting, if you think about it. How many people have we heard of who were born without Sin? Just one, that I can think of.

  This would be supported by the fact that Lily, another character who is commonly viewed as being without sin, is third. The three “sinless” characters have more than half the votes.

  BTW, there was a poll, earlier, about the character you most love to hate. Umbridge won hands down, as I recall - Voldemort was a distant third. So yes, it was easier to pick the “baddest” guy. Perhaps evil is easier to shoehorn than goodness. Perhaps there are more shades of goodness than evil.

  What I would find particularly interesting at this point is to hear from people who did vote for Neville. That would help confirm or disprove my theory that the majority of us see goodness as the absence of evil (in all its manifestations, including sin).

  I am so not cut out for this kind of discussion!

• 25 korg20000bc // Feb 10, 2008 at 3:52 am

  A question for those who voted Luna. How much of your vote stems from the portrayeal of her in the film?

  I haven’t seen the Order of the Phoenix movie but I hear that Lynch was excellent.

  Which make me wonder how much we base our perceptions of a character on someone elses perceptions.

  Matthew

• 26 revgeorge // Feb 10, 2008 at 10:01 am

  Matthew,

  Just what have you been doing with your time?! Get thee to a theater hence & see it or a DVD!

  You act like you just had a baby recently!

  Anyway, my vote for Luna is based solely on how she’s portrayed in the books. Although the way Lynch nails the character in the movie doesn’t hurt either. But I voted for her based on the books. Because a character on the screen, no matter how well they’re portrayed, will never have the nuances of the written character.

• 27 reyhan // Feb 10, 2008 at 11:46 am

  Another interesting question, Matthew.

  Some actors inhabit a role so completely or impose their interpretation on it so totally, that it becomes hard to separate the character from the actor. Or vice versa. I’m reminded of Colin Firth and Mr. Darcy, Audrey Hepburn and Holly Golightly, Alec Guinness and George Smiley (and Obi Wan Kenobi too, much to Ewan McGregor’s disadvantage), Ian McKellan and Gandalf, George C. Scott and Patton, and Anthony Hopkins and Hannibal Lecter. I think that Lynch / Luna is another such pairing.

  revgeorge, while in general I agree that the character in print has more nuances than the character in the movie, I would say that Luna / Lynch is an exception. JKR’s descriptions of Luna are mainly physical (scraggly hair, protuberant eyes). She gives her great dialogue, but she doesn’t really describe how she talks and looks. The actor brings all that to the character. And brings her to life.

  How about this: Luna as written is an intriguing, enchanting and loveable character. Lynch takes all that and goes to the next level with it, bringing her to life.

  Anyways, as I said earlier, I voted for both. If it hadn’t been for Lynch, I would have voted for Harry who fights for the good throughout the seven books, and goes the distance and beyond.

• 28 Mrs. Weasley // Feb 10, 2008 at 12:18 pm

  Reyhan, I voted for Neville, although I think Luna is a close second. But I chose Neville because we know a lot more about him, and we see him make more choices than we do Luna. Both have suffered great sorrow with losing their parent(s) in one way or another, but I think Neville had the worst deal there as well, yet it doesn’t defeat him. He wasn’t afraid to stand up to Harry, Ron and Hermione to try to prevent them from losing more points for Gryffindor in Sorceror’s Stone, and he tries and tries in his studies, even with Snape’s constant putdowns. Of course, we don’t know what he thinks, but I would say given what we do know, he seems to exemplify goodness.

  And I do believe it is harder to define good than evil, simply because of our fallen nature. God is all good, but because of original sin we can never be all good (the exception being Mary, whom Catholic Tradition holds as being born without original sin). So we have to be content with mostly good (sort of like mostly dead, eh Matthew?), and that’s a lot harder to see in people sometimes. I think we can recognize evil more clearly at times than good.

• 29 reyhan // Feb 10, 2008 at 12:35 pm

  Thanks, Mrs. W. Your explanation sort of goes along with what I believe: that we see Neville as good not so much because of his last minute heroic qualities, but because of his innate decency, perseverence and steadfastness.

• 30 reyhan // Feb 17, 2008 at 9:09 pm

  Got to laugh.

  Snape is outscoring Dumbledore in the poll of who’s the goodest.

  It’s certainly not a statistically significant margin, and could change with the next vote cast, but still. Those of us who watched in horror as Dumbledore revealed Harry’s destiny (raised ‘like a pig to slaughter’ was Snape’s inelegant but accurate choice of words) feel some kind of bitter joy at the vindication of the Half Blood Prince.

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