When I wrote the post, “Shades of Evil,” I’d no idea Rowling had used that exact phrase in an interview with Entertainment Weekly in 2000. Here’s the quote:
You have a choice when you’re going to introduce a very evil character. You can dress a guy up with loads of ammunition, put a black Stetson on him, and say, “Bad guy. Shoot him.” I’m writing about shades of evil. You have Voldemort, a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people’s suffering, and there are people like that in the world. But then you have Wormtail, who out of cowardice will stand in the shadow of the strongest person.
I found the quote in the Borders’ release, The Great Snape Debate, which I’ll be reviewing in two parts once I’m done. We can officially add a fourth shade of evil to my initial post – the evil that results from cowardice.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Rowling’s writing a phenomenology of evil – there’s no doubt about that, this quote proves that point (as if OotP wasn’t enough proof). Thanks!
There’s a quote from John Steinbeck that may apply here (I hope):
“We have only one story. All scholarship, all teaching, all service, is built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.â€
I believe, this is the story Rowling tells, it’s a classic theme and one of the reasons why the books are so compelling. In presenting evil in all it’s different shades, instead of making it all black-and-white, it becomes clearer that the story is about us, not about some evil “out thereâ€. Rowling even casts a shadow on some of the good characters while there’s something sympathetic to the bad ones.
That’s why I like the books and Rowling’s way of writing.