In all great fiction, adventure, fantasy books, there is always something infinitely powerful, ethically forbidden, and usually a story told to kids that later ends up being significant. Of course, the villain of the story discovers the value of the story and wants the strong, forbidden object for him/herself in hopes of becoming the biggest and baddest wolf in all the land. And so we must ask ourselves, is it the potential of the object or the person who wields it the actual danger and problem?
In a world rife with death, killings, and danger, where school shootings happen every other month and a story about a murder is heard every other week, this question is one that we must ponder: is it the gun or the shooter the problem? I believe and have always believed that it is the shooter who is the problem. The gun, or the object in consideration, has an immense amount of power, yes, but that power could go either way, it could be good or it could be bad.
In the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, we see this issue with the three Deathly Hallows, particularly the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand in all of creation. The wand that can only be wielded by the person that has killed its previous master, and the wand that could either cause so much danger and strife, or the opposite, depending on the wizard or witch that holds it.
Power is said to corrupt, and is it ever good for a person to have that much power in their hands? Power that can rob life, bring pain, destroy? Is it, in any way, fair or okay for someone to have enough power to be able to play God? Because that’s what either of these two examples invites its owner to do. The gun can take away life, can destroy realities, ruin lives; the Elder Wand could have been used by Voldemort to remake the wizarding world in his horrendous image.
And so, the idea of temptation has to be factored in. Even if someone had the best of intentions at first, by possessing a gun or the Elder Wand, it is easy to fall for the temptation of testing the limits of your newfound power; bringing to mind the classic story of Adam and Eve. Eve fell for the temptation of eating the only thing that she was forbidden to, testing the limits of God’s mercy, causing the Fall. Succumbing to the temptation of testing your limits with the potential imbued in the objects, would cause nothing else but a theoretical ‘fall from grace’ for the owner and wielder of the objects. One always has a choice, and it is not the object’s fault of the decision you make, but solely your own, and so the consequences are as well. It is not the powerful objects that are a problem, but the people who wield them.
In the case of Voldemort, regardless of whether he possessed the Elder Wand or not, he’d still be as evil as ever, the power of the Elder Wand simply allowed him to approach or even reach his potential for evil. This not only illustrates that the objects are not the inherent problem, but also that the objects aren’t the ones that make people ‘bad’, showing that it is people like Voldemort that should be stopped not the objects themselves. Removing them from the equation is nothing more than sticking a band-aid on a huge, leaking, infected, life-threatening wound.
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