In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling, the theme of agency has a major impact on the development and perception of the characters. Rather than relying on the outward appearance, personality, or intelligence of the characters to determine their respective virtue or evil, Rowling instead reveals the inner nature of the characters through the decisions they make when faced with difficult choices. Rowling conveys to the largely young audience that where you come from or what you look like doesn't predestine you to be a certain kind of person, rather its the decisions you make that determine the quality of your character.
The first and most consequential example of this is Harry's rejection of Malfoy's friendship in favor of Ron. Malfoy is popular, handsome, rich, and intelligent; he possesses the superficial qualities that might fool one into believing that he is better candidate for a best friend than Ron, who is poor and average. Despite this disparity in appearances, Harry surprisingly turns down Malfoy in favor of Ron: "'[y]ou don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.' He held out his hand to shake Harry’s, but Harry didn’t take it" (Ch. 6). This decision to remain with Ron despite his superficial inferiority to Malfoy reveals Harry's character better than any amount of dialogue or description. Harry's decision is so important because of the fact that he had a decision in the first place: if Malfoy never offered friendship and was a villain from the beginning, then Harry's virtue would never have been put to the test and his character would be weakened accordingly. But because he was faced with a choice and made the right decision, the audience has a much better understanding of who Harry is deep down.
The second example of agency is Harry and Ron risking their lives to save Hermione from the troll in the bathroom. At this point, Harry and Ron don't like Hermione all that much, but still willingly brave immense danger to help her: "'[i]t's the girls' bathroom!' Harry gasped. 'Hermione!' they said together. It was the last thing they wanted to do, but what choice did they have?" (140). The line 'but what choice did they have' is the most important part of this section. Despite them clearly having the option to return back to safety, it didn't seem like a choice to them to risk their lives to save an acquaintance. Harry and Ron believe that their responsibility to help Hermione supersedes even a thought of self-preservation, which clearly displays their virtuous character to the audience. If they had been forced to help Hermione for whatever reason instead of choosing to help her, that would have greatly diminished the importance of their action and revealed nothing about their inner characters. But since Rowling provided them the agency in this moment to make a choice, the audience understands that only someone with an honorable character can make such hard decisions.
I agree that Rowling uses a character's actions to demonstrate their tendency for good or evil and that they have a certain agency to themselves. However, I believe that with some, Rowling relies heavily on outward appearance to convey whether a character is good or bad. For example, with Draco, he's described as being pale with pointed features, and icy grey eyes. These traits together with his icy personality portray him as a cruel and cold character. Draco's actions are certainly in tune with how he is portrayed. Another example is Dudley, who is very mean to Harry, and is described as piggish and grubby. He is described by Rowling in an ugly manner because his character is selfish and bad. Thus she uses his appearance to enhance the feelings of dislike the reader has for him. Throughout the novel, I feel as though she uses a character's outward appearances and names to give the reader an automatic sense of how that character operates, which is later reinforced by their actions. Rowling uses their personalities, appearances, and actions in tandem to emphasize their goodness or evilness, but they do have a certain agency to them (e.g. Harry always choosing the 'right' choice) that really confirm their goodness/evilness.
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