Image Credits : Kate Farrar via Flickr

Two years ago at Minnesota Youth in Government Model Assembly, there was a widely debated bill. Bill #1107 had been approved by the House and Senate, was vetoed by the Youth Governor, and finally passed with a 2/3 override veto.  The topic was legalizing euthanasia for extremely ill people. If you look at it one way, you are taking away the life of an innocent, not necessarily with their direct consent. Look at it another way and you are putting them out of their misery and not making them live their last days in suffering.

Evil can be good if one has a different perspective. This premise is applied to a very wonderful Harry Potter fanfiction Lady of the Dark by Straight-Outta-Hobbiton (I highly recommend it; feel free to give it a read). It puts every single character in a different light, by allowing the characters to find out a few things about themselves in the summer between the fifth and sixth books. (Also, they all have different appearances which I feel is important to mention.) As the characters change quite a bit, here is a brief description of each one:

HERMIONE GRANGER

Or should I say, Hermione Prewett? She discovers she is in actuality a half-blood child of Mrs. Granger and Aurelius Prewett. She joins the Death Eaters shortly after finding out her true heritage, causing her to realize the Light side is actually the evil side (more on that later).

FRED & GEORGE WEASLEY

Our favorite pranksters… children of Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange? Their real names are Arcturus and Orion Lestrange and they embrace the ‘darkness’ within. Bellatrix becomes sane once more when her children are returned to her after 18 long years of mourning for her supposedly dead children.

VOLDEMORT (AND THE DEATH EATER AGENDA)

Turns out that whole snakey creepy paleness was just a glamour charm (basically he changed his appearance with a spell). In this realm, he is a very good looking man whose goals are not to kill all mudbloods but merely to remove them at a young age from the muggle/no-maj world and integrate them into wizarding society. This would make the muggleborns not wish to ruin wizarding culture by making it into muggle culture. All the other killings (James and Lily Potter, Bertha Jorkins, the groundskeeper, etc.), to use a quote from Robert E. Lee, were a “necessary evil”.

BILL AND CHARLIE WEASLEY

Surprise surprise- they aren’t Molly and Arthur’s! Bill is Bastian Rockwood, son of Augustus. Charlie is Nikolai Avery, new Lord of the House of Avery. They join the dark side as well (Darth Vader and all that). Other than that, not much to say about these Weasleys.

STOP! WAIT A MINUTE

Since I am sure you all are reading this and thinking- What?? I thought…but then…oh dear… So I shall catch you up on some background. Turns out Dumbeldork had been taking the children from the various Dark families, putting glamours on them and passing them off as Light children. Not so nice now, is he?

GOOD AND EVIL

Do these words even hold any merit? As evidenced in this fanfiction, good/evil is simply the way YOU look a something- and can be entirely different than someone else’s views. You might not even know the whole story. When it comes down to it, I believe good versus evil is more along the lines of whoever is morally right versus whoever is morally wrong. Think about this the next time you read a book- is the character actually a ‘good guy’? Or perhaps you are only seeing them through the author’s rose tinted (or black as the case may be) lens.

Image Credits: Xenopulsaevisfan on Deviantart

REAL LIFE HARRY POTTER UNIVERSE

Whoopsie daisy- I always get the two mixed up. Back to canon (what happened in the books for you non-fanpeople). Let’s take a look at good old Albus. Is he actually all he appeared to be? Or perhaps he had an ulterior motive. I noticed throughout the books that he appears to be holding back information from Harry- ALL. THE. TIME. We learn about everything only when Dumbley wants us to. I mean- Severus Snape? So many readers hate him whilst reading the first six books and it turns out he’s actually a good person?? Thanks for the memo Dumble! Even his bullying of Longbottom is understandable although still inexcusable. Not to mention Sirius Black- I’m positive Remus would have had enough faith in his friend to attempt to get him a trial (which is required by law!!) after the incident of mass murder. It would make sense for him to go to Dumble for aid in getting this trial because who else would listen to a werewolf? But no, Dumbledore just went off leaving an innocent man in jail for what? The greater good? So his savior would be an abused humbled child with full faith in Dumbley? If Harry had grown up with Sirius or even been a ward of the school, he would have killed Voldy and been back in time for tea.

I hope my point has been made. Look at things in a different perspective and you too will be rethinking your life as you realize that authors aren’t gods and aren’t always right *gasp*.

You’re welcome.

Creds: Benjamin D. Esham via WikiCommons