Violence in Harry Potter

I was talking the other day with a friend who was concerned about the violence in the final Harry Potter book. "I understand that there's a war going on between good and evil," she said, "but I just don't know if nine-year-olds should be reading such violent scenes."

I found myself flashing back to my days as a drama major at the University of Georgia when Matt Williams came to talk to the students about the film industry. Williams is probably best known for creating and producing hit shows like Roseanne and Home Improvement, but at the time I met him he was still writing for The Cosby Show.

Williams told us a story about a screenplay he was very proud of but couldn't seem to sell. He saw it as a heartwarming story about the close relationship between a boy and a dog, but nobody wanted to make the movie because it was "too violent." Williams couldn't believe it. He'd written a sweet story about a dog who dies, but it was considered too violent to commit to film, even though the most popular show on TV at the time was Miami Vice, which featured a weekly body count higher than that of the average Shakespearean tragedy.

We measure violence, Williams concluded, by how much we care about the victims. Every week, Miami Vice casually dispatched scores of villains we'd made no investment in, so their passing was unimportant, even comic: "BAM! BAM! Cancel this man's dinner reservation. Come on, Tubbs, let's go." But the death of one dog was meaningful because Williams had spent an entire screenplay developing the audience's relationship with this character.

Is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows violent? Yes, no question. There are ambushes, attacks, duels, and at least two major battle scenes I can think of. But Rowling is never, EVER casual about death, even when it comes to characters who aren't particularly likable. The violence is never random but always placed in the larger context of war between good and evil. As Harry learns in Order of the Phoenix, it is not easy to use an Unforgivable Curse to kill or torture another living being; you have to mean it. Only completely evil characters, like Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange, are careless about inflicting pain.

On the other hand, characters demonstrate their courage and nobility by the way they respond to pain and suffering, and most of those who die in this series are prepared to accept this consequence for their actions. Rowling herself has said that each of the characters is defined by his or her attitude toward death. For example, in Prisoner of Azkaban, when Peter Pettigrew protests that he had no choice but to betray Harry's parents because Voldemort threatened to kill him, Sirius Black thunders, "Then you should have died!" In a quieter moment in Order of the Phoenix, Sirius insists again, "There are things worth dying for," which gives the readers some comfort in his death. Sirius dies as he surely would have chosen to, defying Voldemort and protecting Harry. It is significant that the character who fears death most is the supreme villain.

There is no question that the Harry Potter books contain violence; no series so preoccupied with death could avoid it. But Rowling has worked hard to develop a completely believable world peopled with characters we know and love (or love to hate). When death comes to characters in whom we have made such a great investment, we can't shrug it off. We have to grapple with the concepts of mortality and grief, but also with the necessity of courage, the power of love, and the persistence of hope.

By confronting young readers with death and challenging them to think about its meaning, Rowling does not glorify violence; instead, she celebrates the significance of each individual life.