Selfish versus selfless. Those were the stakes in Harry Potter. Sure you can call it good versus evil, but those are weighty and imprecise terms.
Selfish. Voldemort was selfish to the core. His motivations were self-promotion and self-preservation. He had no friends, and his followers were simply tools. Sounds like some people I know.
Selfless. Harry Potter was willing to sacrifice himself to give his friends, his fellow students, the rest of the wizarding world a chance to defeat Voldemort permanently. Harry was the ultimate hero for choosing a path where the satisfaction of helping others was the only reward, and one he was not likely to live to see.
An entire generation has grown up with Harry Potter. They’ve seen him as a boy walking into a magical world for the first time. As a preteen in agonizing grief as his new world rips apart just as he was creating the family he never had. As an awkward teen trying to figure out how to ask a girl out. And finally as a young man, facing the realization that the people around him have not always made the right decisions, but their imperfections don’t matter for his choices.
Perhaps Harry Potter has left a bit of a generation gap in its wake – a good one. My generation didn’t have lots of selfless heroes. Jaws – not really. Animal House – uh… no. Even Star Wars. The selfless act in Star Wars: A New Hope was by Han Solo, and he wasn’t the main character. Perhaps that’s a reflection or even the cause of my generation having a “what’s in it for me?” mentality. With Millennials and GenZ, I see more selflessness. Taylor will drop everything in a heartbeat to help a mangy kitten abandoned by the road or the kid down the hall whose computer just failed or someone who is just badly in need of some fresh baked brownies. Andrew spent the summer working for not one, but two non-profit organizations – assisting them in fulfilling their missions to improve inner-city life.
Sure, they’re still young. Very few people have abused or manipulated their generous natures. Those days, unfortunately, will come. But perhaps this generation learned something from Harry Potter: It doesn’t matter what other people do themselves or to you. It’s your choices that determine who you are: Harry or Voldemort. Be the hero.