But it’s going to take me several more books to lay it out, so there’s no sense in ruining the fun. There’s something to be said on either side of the argument, in the strictest sense, though one side of the argument is definitely less incorrect than the other. Fictional people like Harry and Molly just provide more colorful examples.Īs for violating the laws of magic themselves turning you good or evil, well. The exercise of power and the necessity to consider the fallout from your actions isn’t something limited to wizards and gods. He’s fine (at least in the long term), you’re fine, and there are fewer repercussions–regardless of your hideous intentions. You might have made a stupid or morally queestionable choice, but it isn’t like anyone *died* or anything. Similarly, if you meant to drill that through the eyes, if you had every intention of murdering him outright, but you shot him in the hand and he survived with minor injuries, again the consequences overshadow your intentions. The consequences of those actions are /yours/, your doing, regardless of how innocent your intentions may have been. (Or if you DIDN’T know that, you were a freaking idiot playing with people’s lives, something really no less excuseable.) But you chose to employ the weapon anyway. You knew it was potentially lethal, even if you did attempt to use it in a less than fully lethal fashion. “I meant to shoot him in the leg and wound him, not hit the femoral artery and kill him, so I should not be considered guilty of murder,” is not something that stands up in a court of law /or/ in any serious moral or ethical evaluation. While I agree that the /intentions/ of the person taking action are not without significance, they carry far less weight than the /consequences/ of that action. There’s some old chestnut about good itentions serving as base level gradiant on an expressway that goes somewhere, but I can’t remember the specifics right now. It wasn’t my intention to screw up the name of Bianca’s personal assistant whose death had motivated her to go all power hungry to get revenge on Harry.” It wasn’t my intention to expose them to smallpox and wipe out hundreds of thousands of innocent people.” “I just wanted to get that book finished while working two jobs and finishing a brutal semester of grad school. It wasn’t my intention to destroy that particular species of flower in the rain forest that cures cancer.” “I was just trying to give those Injuns some blankets. Harry has some sinister leanings.īut if the substance of the consequences of the act itself does not have its own inherent quality of good or evil, then how can the /intentions/ behind it determine a similar quality? “Really, I was only trying to provide a better quality of life for my family and my employees. For that matter, the entire concept of “right” is tied in with the negative connotations to “left.”Īnd I agree.
In Islamic belief, the left hand is considered to be unclean. Left handed people were often viewed with suspicion during the middle ages. PS–“sinister” as in “bend sinister” or “bar sinister” is a general term originally meaning “left,” and not “evil.” However, there’s some overlap in traditional magickal terms, with references to the “left hand path” or black magic, and so on. It’s finding where they start or stop existing that’s the hard part. The consequences for breaking the Laws of Magic don’t all come from people wearing grey cloaks.Īnd none of it necessarily has anything to do with what is Right or Wrong. The Laws of Magic don’t necessarily match up to the actual universal guidelines to how the universal power known as “magic” behaves. A couple of (lengthy) WoJ on Black Magic / The Laws of Magic:
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