The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

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The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

So, I haven't had much to do today, and as often happens, my brain began thinking up crazy shit about fictional worlds I like. Hence this thread.

I submit that the single most immoral character (not evil, but immoral) in all of Harry Potter (that is, characters that are known to be alive during the books) is in fact the alchemist Nicholas Flamel. My reasoning is thus:

1. He is stated to be the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone (and have the only one in existence).
2. He is stated to be ~650 years old (I can't recall the exact number, but it's close enough).
3. The Stone produces the Elixir of Life, which grants the drinker immortality as long as it is regularly drunk.
4. This implies that the Elixir keeps the body perpetually healthy (and presumably does not cause someone's magical power to deteriorate). When the Stone is destroyed, Nicholas and his wife will live until their supply of Elixir is exhausted, and then will die.
5. It is reasonable to assume, IMO, that the Elixir has an effect comparable to Phoenix tears - healing diseases and injuries that would otherwise be mortal.
6. He has deliberately kept this supply of Elixir to himself. We have no indication it has ever been made available to anyone else. We learn from Professor Slughorn in book six that Draco's grandafather, Abraxas, died of dragon pox relatively recently - if Elixir of Life were available, surely a family as wealthy and powerful as the Malfoy's would have been able to obtain some - even if only to supply it to Voldemort.

Thus, Nicholas Flamel has had, for at least 500 years (since wizard's apparently live roughly twice as long as muggles), a potion available to cure any disease and heal any injury and has kept it to himself and his wife. In 500 years, how many untimely deaths could he have prevented?

It was pointed out to me by my other half that he may have done so to prevent evil wizards from staying alive longer than they otherwise would. However, this still doesn't help - in either case, Flamel has decided that not helping a relative handful evil wizards is more important than preventing the premature deaths of many tens of thousands of innocents - including children.

Am I missing something here or is this guy a monumentally selfish prick?
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Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."

Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by FaxModem1 »

To be fair, magic in Harry Potter seems to require a sort of price when constructing or making something, such as the effort and difficulty it takes to make a love potion or vial of liquid luck. The polyjuice potion from Chamber of secrets took a month alone to make a sufficient quantity for three teenagers. And it may require rare and hard to find ingredients, as Slughorn trades in hard to acquire potion materials in book six.

It may take Flame decades to get the elixir right, and only produce enough for two people.

This is all speculation though. For all I know, it is as easy as making Koolaid.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

Even if he can only produce small amounts, why hasn't it been given to other researchers to study? Someone like Slughorn or Snape, bastards they might be in their own ways, are described as genius potion researchers. Or even Dumbledore, who helped Flamel discover the 12 uses of dragon's blood.
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Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by FaxModem1 »

Only thing I can point to is lack of time or resources. The real question is not what it takes to make the elixir, but what does it take to make the stone in the first place. Assuming that the stone isn't the world's fanciest tea bag, and requires a lot more effort than known, the amount it produces could be limited and need to recharge over time or require a great cost. Maybe it's like the immortality serum from Babylon 5, and requires the cost of someone else's life? But that isn't public knowledge because Flamel doesn't want people hunting him.

Maybe he needs goblin brains, centaur heart, and house elf eyes to make the stuff and he doesn't want that knowledge known?

Maybe after 6 centuries of life he's gone senile and forgot how to do it?

Either way, Flamel's priority is keeping only himself and his wife alive.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Khaat »

Yes, he is.

But he's also wise enough to work out that the supply is extremely limited and that if made available to the rest of the world, it would only a) inflame hostility against not only himself but other "bidders" for the stuff (doubtless including those who had never even heard of it, or thought it was a joke, myth, or outright lie), b) invariably gravitate toward the most selfish, self-serving, or "evil" of the wizarding world before it even made it to Muggle circles. Voldemort was only the latest, what about Dumbledore's boyfriend Grindlewald a generation before?

In general, wizards are selfish pricks. Powerful wizards even more so.

There's also the undercurrent in (real-life philosophical) alchemy that it's a journey of purification, and that's inherently selfish: noone publishes the "unlocked secrets of alchemy" (if such things exist) to the Internet, "because it's a personal journey, no one can make it for you."
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

FaxModem1 wrote: Either way, Flamel's priority is keeping only himself and his wife alive.
This is the part that is the problem. He can help others, but chooses not to.

Even if, being an old fart and believes in pure-blood racism (as old people from different eras are wont to be) he isn't even helping pureblood families either.

As for keeping it to himself so people don't hunt him down, that can't be the case. He's written about in school library books, he's referred to on Dumbledore's chocolate frog card (how Hermione makes the connection), his existence, longevity and possession of a functioning Philosopher's Stone are, if not well-known, then at least open knowledge.
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Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."

Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Grumman »

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Am I missing something here...
Yes, you are. You are saying that it is more immoral to have the power to help people and not do anything than it is to have the power to help people and actively go out of your way to hurt people. That's stupid. If Nicholas Flamel's "crime" is that he only helped one other person find immortality and neither helped nor hindered anyone else (and even that is false, since just proving it can be done makes a copycat's job a lot easier), that makes him ethically neutral, not evil.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Gandalf »

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Thus, Nicholas Flamel has had, for at least 500 years (since wizard's apparently live roughly twice as long as muggles), a potion available to cure any disease and heal any injury and has kept it to himself and his wife. In 500 years, how many untimely deaths could he have prevented?

It was pointed out to me by my other half that he may have done so to prevent evil wizards from staying alive longer than they otherwise would. However, this still doesn't help - in either case, Flamel has decided that not helping a relative handful evil wizards is more important than preventing the premature deaths of many tens of thousands of innocents - including children.

Am I missing something here or is this guy a monumentally selfish prick?
I'm thinking it's a cultural thing. The wizards we see have the power to create water, make plants grow, and heal all sorts of wounds. How many hundreds of millions are dying unnecessarily because the wizards are turning a blind eye?

Weirdly, should a wizard step outside the wall to try and help this underclass, they're sent to scary wizard gaol.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

Like I said, given wizarding culture and attitudes towards muggles I can understand why he doesn't help them. The problem is that he doesn't help anybody, wizards included.
Grumman wrote:
Eternal_Freedom wrote:Am I missing something here...
Yes, you are. You are saying that it is more immoral to have the power to help people and not do anything than it is to have the power to help people and actively go out of your way to hurt people. That's stupid. If Nicholas Flamel's "crime" is that he only helped one other person find immortality and neither helped nor hindered anyone else (and even that is false, since just proving it can be done makes a copycat's job a lot easier), that makes him ethically neutral, not evil.


Did you completely miss the part where I said immoral not evil? I quite clearly said that in the OP. Yes, Voldemort, Grindelwald and other dark wizards are outright evil - this is not in question.

And no, knowing it can be done in this case does not make a copycat's job easier, otherwise Flamel wouldn't be stated to be the only maker of the Stone, and the titular Stone in the first book wouldn't be "the only one known to exist."
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."

Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Grumman »

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Did you completely miss the part where I said immoral not evil?
I'm fighting the hypothetical. To say he's "the most immoral character" if you exclude all the more immoral characters would be meaningless at best.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

I would argue there is a distinction between immoral and evil. Evil characters abound, but there are plenty of characters in the books who fall into neither "good" nor "evil;" perhaps as you said they are "neutral." Flamel is the greatest of these "neutrals," though since, as I've said, he has the ability to help innocents but chooses not to, he is the most immoral, but not evil.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."

Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Simon_Jester »

Grumman wrote:
Eternal_Freedom wrote:Am I missing something here...
Yes, you are. You are saying that it is more immoral to have the power to help people and not do anything than it is to have the power to help people and actively go out of your way to hurt people. That's stupid. If Nicholas Flamel's "crime" is that he only helped one other person find immortality and neither helped nor hindered anyone else (and even that is false, since just proving it can be done makes a copycat's job a lot easier), that makes him ethically neutral, not evil.
I would argue that this is not the case, because we generally believe that living is better than dying.

Unless there is a terrible price for making the Elixir of Life (and no one ever told us that), then not making the Elixir of Life is equivalent to, say, refusing to jump into a lake to save a drowning person. It is not an ethically neutral act. It is an act that shows deep contempt for the value of human life, and deep contempt for those who are dying for lack of your help.

Plus, it can have unintended consequences. For instance, Voldemort killed several people and tore his soul apart to make horcruxes. Since the only reason to even do that is to preserve your life in case you are killed, Voldemort did those things in the course of what amounted to a quest for immortality. He might well have been actively less evil had he not been so worried about dying. Moreover, he and his followers killed a a great many people who might have lived, had medical treatment with the Elixir been available.

The best argument for the way Flamel behaves is if the Philosopher's Stone has other, entirely unknown powers beyond just "make gold" and "make potions of health and longevity." If the Stone has other powers it might actually be a threat instead of being a source of unambiguous good, in which case keeping careful control over who has access to it, and living reclusively, start to make more sense.

For example, suppose that the Philosopher's Stone can also be used to control minds, or to make magical potions and devices vastly more powerful than they would otherwise be. Or to perform extremely risky magical feats that could imperil the world somehow.

In that case, Flamel would have to keep the location of the Stone concealed and guard it carefully. And going to its location regularly to make more of the Elixir would be dangerous: he might be attacked while doing so, and it would make it easier for someone to steal the Stone.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Grumman »

Simon_Jester wrote:Unless there is a terrible price for making the Elixir of Life (and no one ever told us that), then not making the Elixir of Life is equivalent to, say, refusing to jump into a lake to save a drowning person. It is not an ethically neutral act. It is an act that shows deep contempt for the value of human life, and deep contempt for those who are dying for lack of your help.
But he did. You damn him because he saved only one life - his wife's - and not ten. But then would you damn him for saving ten and not a hundred, a hundred and not a thousand?
Plus, it can have unintended consequences. For instance, Voldemort killed several people and tore his soul apart to make horcruxes. Since the only reason to even do that is to preserve your life in case you are killed, Voldemort did those things in the course of what amounted to a quest for immortality. He might well have been actively less evil had he not been so worried about dying.
None of which places any moral burden on Flamel. It is not the fault of the rest of society for not catering to sociopaths who will murder innocent people to get what they want, even if what they want is an end to their own mortality.
Moreover, he and his followers killed a a great many people who might have lived, had medical treatment with the Elixir been available.
That is just the first argument rephrased.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

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Grumman wrote:
Simon_Jester wrote:Unless there is a terrible price for making the Elixir of Life (and no one ever told us that), then not making the Elixir of Life is equivalent to, say, refusing to jump into a lake to save a drowning person. It is not an ethically neutral act. It is an act that shows deep contempt for the value of human life, and deep contempt for those who are dying for lack of your help.
But he did. You damn him because he saved only one life - his wife's - and not ten. But then would you damn him for saving ten and not a hundred, a hundred and not a thousand?
Suppose I save a drowning person once, saving the life of someone especially valuable to me. I then spend the rest of my life walking past beaches where people are drowning, and I do nothing for any of them. Am I a good man, or a bad man?

If anything, this makes it worse- you're willing to save someone who is special to you, but not to save people who are just as special and loved to others.

At the very least, a Flamel with any reasonable amount of empathy and ethics would be willing to, say, put in a forty-hour work week making Elixir of Life for desperately sick people. Arguably he should do more, but there's some limit to that, because he's not a slave.

He certainly shouldn't spend the rest of his life ignoring the problem.

Note that I already explicitly said there is an exception here if the Elixir comes at a higher price than we believe. For instance, if making even tiny amounts of the Elixir of Life takes huge amounts of time, and Flamel has to work like crazy just to create enough to keep himself and his wife alive, then it is certainly understandable that he can't just go making it for a third or fourth person. However, there is no evidence for that in the actual canon.
Plus, it can have unintended consequences. For instance, Voldemort killed several people and tore his soul apart to make horcruxes. Since the only reason to even do that is to preserve your life in case you are killed, Voldemort did those things in the course of what amounted to a quest for immortality. He might well have been actively less evil had he not been so worried about dying.
None of which places any moral burden on Flamel. It is not the fault of the rest of society for not catering to sociopaths who will murder innocent people to get what they want, even if what they want is an end to their own mortality.
Arguments about unintended consequences are never about blame. They are about consequences.

The specific incident of Voldemort is not something that Flamel could be expected to foresee, nor something he could have prevented. But the general pattern of people resorting to dark magic in order to preserve their lives, when there's a perfectly normal and darkness-free alternative that just happens to be hoarded by one man... that is predictable. Flamel's failure to deal with that problem has consequences, which he would know about by now with his centuries of experience.

And again, it's not JUST about dark wizards, it's about everyone. It's about the even more predictable and obvious consequences, like random innocent people dying when they could have been saved with a modest effort on his part. That too, is a consequence, and claiming it is "not his fault" is ridiculous.

It is deeply childish to claim that I (or anyone else) should be free to ignore the consequences of my actions. That it is somehow "not my fault" if the effects of my own decisions unfold in predictable ways, and bad things happen to others as a result. That is called "recklessness." We punish it, and judge people negatively for it, for a reason.
Moreover, he and his followers killed a a great many people who might have lived, had medical treatment with the Elixir been available.
That is just the first argument rephrased.
Yes- it is the first argument restated in the specific case of Voldemort, which I used as an example. On the one hand, Voldemort might have done fewer bad things if he hadn't first started doing bad things in order to prolong his own life. On the other, Voldemort might have done less damage, even if he were exactly as evil, had better means of preserving life been available.

You can say "oh, it's not my fault someone ELSE did something bad!" to the first... But even though it's a flawed argument, you really cannot say that to the second.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

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I then spend the rest of my life walking past beaches where people are drowning, and I do nothing for any of them. Am I a good man, or a bad man?
You do do that, unless you are some kind of altruistic robot. So does nearly everyone.
there is no evidence for that in the actual canon.
There's no evidence against it, either. It's purely speculative one way or the other. We know the stone could produce at least enough elixir for two people, plus a minor surplus, that destroying it was a last resort to keep it from Voldemort, and that Nicholas Flamel didn't make any more for whatever reason (and once the one was destroyed, he would not or could not make another). No one else we know of was able to create one, and Voldemort never seriously considered making one of his own. It seems pretty reasonable to infer that the elixir and/or stones are difficult to make (it might even be unique). That's still speculation, of course, but it remains in line with what we see.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

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Gandalf wrote:I'm thinking it's a cultural thing. The wizards we see have the power to create water, make plants grow, and heal all sorts of wounds. How many hundreds of millions are dying unnecessarily because the wizards are turning a blind eye?

Weirdly, should a wizard step outside the wall to try and help this underclass, they're sent to scary wizard gaol.
Would increasing the number of wizards be good for muggles ?
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Simon_Jester »

Kingmaker wrote:
I then spend the rest of my life walking past beaches where people are drowning, and I do nothing for any of them. Am I a good man, or a bad man?
You do do that, unless you are some kind of altruistic robot. So does nearly everyone.
It's a relative question.

There are distant people, unknown to us and living far from us, whom we could hypothetically save by our actions, but we do not. Sometimes you hear appeals like "your five dollar donation could save a life," but given the sheer volume of charitable donation on Earth, if five dollars were reliably capable of saving a life then all lives on Earth would have been saved from whatever the fate in question is. It would just not be that hard to raise fifty million dollars a year to stop ten million people a year dying from disease X in undeveloped countries, forever.

However, if we pick some number that makes the logistics more likely to be realistic (say, a hundred dollars), we can still talk about this intelligently.

This is why I used the example of "walking past the lake." What matters is not just that someone dies who might have lived. What matter is your proximity to the event. This is not some distant abstraction, this is a thing that is happening to you, where you have to make a calculated decision that allowing another person to die is better than taking some trouble to save them.

...

Suppose someone I knew personally said to me "I'm dying, I need a hundred dollars to save my life." And I knew they were telling the truth, and I refused to help them... you would be entitled to call me a heartless bastard. If they said "I'm dying, I need you to work for six hours on something or I'll die, please help me," likewise.

Refusing to spend a hundred dollars, or to work for six hours, to save the life of someone I know personally is unusual callousness. We would not say "well, you're under no obligation to save your friend or your old teacher or your cousin-in-law's life, it's just too bad that you'd have to work for six hours to save them, they're out of luck." We would not say "you're not a bad person for refusing to work six hours to save their life."

Let's be realistic here. If someone did that, we would call them a bad person.

...

Now, why do we do that? Why would we call me a bad person?

I mean, I COULD just break out the 'multiplication argument' and say "If I worked eighteen hours a day I could save no more than three lives a day, and I'd be working myself to exhaustion to do even that much, so it's unreasonable to expect me to spend all my time saving lives, do you think I'm a slave or something?"

But that's not quite reasonable. It doesn't sound valid, used as an excuse for not working six hours once to save one person. Why not?

Because while nearly all of us will say 'no' when it comes to giving up noticeable chunks of our own resources to hypothetically save complete strangers in a foreign country...

Very few of us will do the same when it comes to people known to us, who are in close proximity!

For humans it is normal not to give up nearly all of our resources to aid others we don't know and will never meet. We give up some, but not all.

But it is not normal to withhold our resources from people we do know and have met. The normal level of human empathy is enough that we're willing to do that.

Flamel does have friends and is a part of the larger wizarding world. We know he worked with Dumbledore, and presumably others, since as others have noted, his existence is a matter of public knowledge and people don't just forget about him. Since Flamel is immortal, he has presumably watched all these friends age and die. He explicitly does NOT give them Elixir of Life in order to prolong their lives.

This is why I compare him to a man walking past drowning people. It's not that someone else gives him a phone call and says "someone you don't know is going to drown soon a thousand miles away, run over and save them." It's not an abstraction to him. It's that his best friend is dying, and he presumably has the power to save that friend, and he doesn't. If he had a family when he was a young man... his whole family, all his relatives, are dead- he could have saved them. Only his wife remains, because he saved her. Only her.

That is like repeatedly walking past dying people you could save, and not saving them.

Merely 'failing' to donate all your money to charity is not like doing that. Not for actual humans.
there is no evidence for that in the actual canon.
There's no evidence against it, either. It's purely speculative one way or the other. We know the stone could produce at least enough elixir for two people, plus a minor surplus, that destroying it was a last resort to keep it from Voldemort, and that Nicholas Flamel didn't make any more for whatever reason (and once the one was destroyed, he would not or could not make another). No one else we know of was able to create one, and Voldemort never seriously considered making one of his own. It seems pretty reasonable to infer that the elixir and/or stones are difficult to make (it might even be unique). That's still speculation, of course, but it remains in line with what we see.
The Stone is clearly unique and difficult if not impossible to recreate, even for a person who already created it once*. But we have literally no idea how hard the Elixir is to make.

It could be that Flamel can make enough Elixir for himself and his wife to live for twenty years in a matter of an hour's effort. And he just didn't bother creating more than, oh, twenty years of extra reserve, figuring there would be plenty of time to get the Stone back if he ever lost it. In which case, if he worked an hour a day, five days a week, he could secure immortality for ten thousand people, or greatly prolong life and cure many diseases without securing immortality, for an even larger population. In that case, his refusal to do this thing that would cause so much benefit for others comes across as depraved indifference.

If I could keep ten thousand people alive forever by working one hour a day, five days a week, I would. I like to think most of us would too.

On the other hand, it could be that Flamel has to work fourteen hours a day every day of his life to make enough Elixir for himself and his wife. In which case no wonder he doesn't have much of a surplus on hand. And making enough to keep a third person alive would be nearly impossible.

...

The thing is, it is reasonable to suppose that Flamel isn't spending literally all his time and energy just making enough Elixir to keep two people alive. No other potion is that hard to make- even the ridiculously overpowered ones like 'Felix Felicis' and Polyjuice. We have no reason to assume that he is working that hard just for two people's immortality, there is no canon evidence to support the claim. So it is reasonable to at least make the conditional statement:

"UNLESS making the Elixir of Life is much harder than we have been given cause to expect, Flamel is being frightfully callous in withholding his immortality elixir from all others save himself and his wife."
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by The Romulan Republic »

We don't actually know that it heals all injuries and diseases, do we? I took it more as just preventing aging, and I guess Flammel just played it safe for several centuries (it seems he was living a fairly obscure and quiet existence by the time of Philosopher's Stone).

On the other hand, Voldemort thought it could restore him, so it must have curative powers, or at least he thought so.

But their are huge, huge problems with making it more widely accessible in any case.

First off, the usual problems with immortality- skyrocketing population (unless you introduce limits on the number of children and forced abortions, anyway- and that is, of course, a whole other moral outrage), increased social stagnation as the older generations never die (and is that really something the Wizarding World, of all places, needs more of?), and the risk (as illustrated in the series) of making a monster like Voldemort immortal.

Alternatively, it might be sufficiently expensive (I think this likely) that only the upper classes could afford it, in which case, congratulations, you've created an immortal aristocracy and expendable proles.

Then there's the fact that the means of producing it also can make limitless gold, apparently. That's going to play merry hell with the economy if it becomes widespread.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

The Romulan Republic wrote:We don't actually know that it heals all injuries and diseases, do we? I took it more as just preventing aging, and I guess Flammel just played it safe for several centuries (it seems he was living a fairly obscure and quiet existence by the time of Philosopher's Stone).

On the other hand, Voldemort thought it could restore him, so it must have curative powers, or at least he thought so.

But their are huge, huge problems with making it more widely accessible in any case.

First off, the usual problems with immortality- skyrocketing population (unless you introduce limits on the number of children and forced abortions, anyway- and that is, of course, a whole other moral outrage), increased social stagnation as the older generations never die (and is that really something the Wizarding World, of all places, needs more of?), and the risk (as illustrated in the series) of making a monster like Voldemort immortal.

Alternatively, it might be sufficiently expensive (I think this likely) that only the upper classes could afford it, in which case, congratulations, you've created an immortal aristocracy and expendable proles.

Then there's the fact that the means of producing it also can make limitless gold, apparently. That's going to play merry hell with the economy if it becomes widespread.
Did you actually read my initial post and my reasoning? Because I cover all of those. The Elixir only gives immortality when drunk regularly, so most of your arguments are invalid in this case.

As for it being very expensive, again, we know that the Malfoy family, one of the richest and most powerful, was not able to acquire any (either to prevent Abraxas's death, or Lucius buying some to give to Voldemort).

The Elixir must therefore have strong curative powers, it isn't a "drink once and never die" potion, or else Flamel and his wife wouldn't die after the Stone was destroyed and their supply exhausted. Moreover, not only did Voldemort think the Stone (and by extension, the Elixir) would restore him, Dumbledore believed it as well. While it is never stated to have curative powers, strong or otherwise, given the manner in which it apparently works, it is a very reasonable assumption.

The final point you make about producing lots of gold, and the economic problems that would cause also don't apply, firstly because the Stone turns base metal to gold and produces the Elixir, but I amongly contending Flamel is immoral for withholding the Elixir, not the Stone itself.

Also, in Harry Potter, gold doesn't hold the same economic role it does today (where value can fluctuate based on supply and demand); it is used directly as currency. Having a large supply of gold (as Galleon coins) doesn't reduce the value of each one or the gold it contains.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Eternal_Freedom wrote:
The Romulan Republic wrote:We don't actually know that it heals all injuries and diseases, do we? I took it more as just preventing aging, and I guess Flammel just played it safe for several centuries (it seems he was living a fairly obscure and quiet existence by the time of Philosopher's Stone).

On the other hand, Voldemort thought it could restore him, so it must have curative powers, or at least he thought so.

But their are huge, huge problems with making it more widely accessible in any case.

First off, the usual problems with immortality- skyrocketing population (unless you introduce limits on the number of children and forced abortions, anyway- and that is, of course, a whole other moral outrage), increased social stagnation as the older generations never die (and is that really something the Wizarding World, of all places, needs more of?), and the risk (as illustrated in the series) of making a monster like Voldemort immortal.

Alternatively, it might be sufficiently expensive (I think this likely) that only the upper classes could afford it, in which case, congratulations, you've created an immortal aristocracy and expendable proles.

Then there's the fact that the means of producing it also can make limitless gold, apparently. That's going to play merry hell with the economy if it becomes widespread.
Did you actually read my initial post and my reasoning? Because I cover all of those. The Elixir only gives immortality when drunk regularly, so most of your arguments are invalid in this case.
Irrelevant. People will drink it regularly if they can afford to do so, unless they are prohibited from doing so (and do you really want to give the government the authority to ration how much life people have?).
As for it being very expensive, again, we know that the Malfoy family, one of the richest and most powerful, was not able to acquire any (either to prevent Abraxas's death, or Lucius buying some to give to Voldemort).
Because only Flammel had it, and he wasn't sharing? If that changed, if Flammel did as you seem to think he should do, either everyone would have access to immortality (cluster fuck) or just people like Lucius Malfoy would (arguably an even bigger cluster fuck).
The Elixir must therefore have strong curative powers, it isn't a "drink once and never die" potion, or else Flamel and his wife wouldn't die after the Stone was destroyed and their supply exhausted. Moreover, not only did Voldemort think the Stone (and by extension, the Elixir) would restore him, Dumbledore believed it as well. While it is never stated to have curative powers, strong or otherwise, given the manner in which it apparently works, it is a very reasonable assumption.
Doesn't change my numerous objections to making it more widespread, and is rather tangential to the main argument.

Now, you could say its unfair for Flammel and his wife to have it when no one else does, hypocritical of them. But then the problem arguably is not that it isn't widespread- its that it exists at all.
The final point you make about producing lots of gold, and the economic problems that would cause also don't apply, firstly because the Stone turns base metal to gold and produces the Elixir, but I amongly contending Flamel is immoral for withholding the Elixir, not the Stone itself.
Having Flammel retain control of the stone might eliminate the gold issue, but it also gives him a monopoly on the most powerful resource in the world (and paints a gigantic target on his back).
Also, in Harry Potter, gold doesn't hold the same economic role it does today (where value can fluctuate based on supply and demand); it is used directly as currency. Having a large supply of gold (as Galleon coins) doesn't reduce the value of each one or the gold it contains.
I'm no economist, but isn't printing potentially nigh-limitless amounts of currency potential problematic?
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

The Romulan Republic wrote: Did you actually read my initial post and my reasoning? Because I cover all of those. The Elixir only gives immortality when drunk regularly, so most of your arguments are invalid in this case.
Irrelevant. People will drink it regularly if they can afford to do so, unless they are prohibited from doing so (and do you really want to give the government the authority to ration how much life people have?).[/quote]

That is a fair point. But (as Simon pointed out) the fact that it is indeed possible to live much longer may have lead to a very different outcome for Tom Riddle, and possibly other Dark Lords as well.
As for it being very expensive, again, we know that the Malfoy family, one of the richest and most powerful, was not able to acquire any (either to prevent Abraxas's death, or Lucius buying some to give to Voldemort).
Because only Flammel had it, and he wasn't sharing? If that changed, if Flammel did as you seem to think he should do, either everyone would have access to immortality (cluster fuck) or just people like Lucius Malfoy would (arguably an even bigger cluster fuck).
Others have already pointed out that using one stone to produce enough Elixir for everyone to be immortal is extremely implausible. And as I have said at least twice now, the Elixir doesn't grant immortality, but rather each dose keeps you healthy for an unknown, but most likely comparatively short period. Mass-producing immortality is bad, I don't question that. Not mass-producing, or even distributing, a panacea is the issue I have.

Yes, evil men and women may acquire the Elixir, that is always a possibility (and even in canon with Flamel keeping it to himself it almost happened with Voldemort/Quirrel), but does the risk of an evil man living slightly longer outweigh the lives of innocents you could otherwise save?
The Elixir must therefore have strong curative powers, it isn't a "drink once and never die" potion, or else Flamel and his wife wouldn't die after the Stone was destroyed and their supply exhausted. Moreover, not only did Voldemort think the Stone (and by extension, the Elixir) would restore him, Dumbledore believed it as well. While it is never stated to have curative powers, strong or otherwise, given the manner in which it apparently works, it is a very reasonable assumption.
Doesn't change my numerous objections to making it more widespread, and is rather tangential to the main argument.
It does change the argument, since you seem to be under the impression that the Elixir is a one-dose immortality drug which it isn't.,
Now, you could say its unfair for Flammel and his wife to have it when no one else does, hypocritical of them. But then the problem arguably is not that it isn't widespread- its that it exists at all.
True. Unfortunately, it does exist in canon. So we're stuck with either a) Flamel is an immoral man who willing lets people die when he could help them, or b) attempt to rationalise his choices somehow. Option B isn't looking very solid at present.
The final point you make about producing lots of gold, and the economic problems that would cause also don't apply, firstly because the Stone turns base metal to gold and produces the Elixir, but I amongly contending Flamel is immoral for withholding the Elixir, not the Stone itself.
Having Flammel retain control of the stone might eliminate the gold issue, but it also gives him a monopoly on the most powerful resource in the world (and paints a gigantic target on his back).
He already retains control of the stone, and a complete monopoly on the most powerful resource on the world. And since his existence is textbook knowledge, as well as both the existence and abilities of the Stone, he already has a big target on him - otherwise Voldemort wouldn't be after the bloody thing in book 1.
Also, in Harry Potter, gold doesn't hold the same economic role it does today (where value can fluctuate based on supply and demand); it is used directly as currency. Having a large supply of gold (as Galleon coins) doesn't reduce the value of each one or the gold it contains.
I'm no economist, but isn't printing potentially nigh-limitless amounts of currency potential problematic?
AFAIK, printing currency is problematic if the currency has no intrinsic value, like dollar bills or pound notes, as those are only promissory (indeed, the British bank notes actually say "I promise to bay the bearer on demand the sum of..."). Golden Galleons, however, have intrinsic value, because they're made of, well, gold. The Stone produces gold, or rather transforms base metals into gold, so it is creating value.

For instance, if I had one tonne of gold and I printed off 1000 dollar bills, each worth a share of that gold, each dollar would be worth one kilo of gold. If I printed off another 1000 bills without adding or removing any gold, then each dollar is only worth half a kilo.

In contrast, in Harry Potter at least (and with the Stone), I can have 1000 gold coins each with one kilo of gold. If I use the stone to create another thousand coins, each one is still worth one kilo of gold. Unrealistic numbers I know, but I think it illustrates the point.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Kingmaker »

Golden Galleons, however, have intrinsic value, because they're made of, well, gold.
Value (of the economic kind) isn't intrinsic. Metallic currency has the same problems as fiat currency; it's just harder under realistic circumstances to rapidly expand the supply. Not impossible, mind you

If you double the gold supply that you're using for money, you've just created inflation.
Simon Jester wrote: It's that his best friend is dying, and he presumably has the power to save that friend
The thing is, this is still a supposition. We don't know that he had that power; all we know is that he shared it with his wife and no one else (at least not consistently enough for there to be other super old associates that we hear about). It could very easily be that he has no power to produce more elixir, such as if the stone leaked out a certain volume of elixir per year and no amount of rubbing it will get you more. If he can't make another one (or it is prohibitively difficult), I think it is pretty reasonable to let him off the moral hook. I don't think it's justified to assume from the fact that he only shared it with one person that he's an asshole hoarding it; he may have been, but there are other possible explanations (and I'd note that his friend Dumbledore does not seem to think ill of him for not sharing it).

For that matter, he may not have even really had enough for two people, considering that the Flamels were physically old enough to die shortly after they stopped consuming elixir.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Grumman »

Eternal_Freedom wrote:AFAIK, printing currency is problematic if the currency has no intrinsic value, like dollar bills or pound notes, as those are only promissory (indeed, the British bank notes actually say "I promise to bay the bearer on demand the sum of..."). Golden Galleons, however, have intrinsic value, because they're made of, well, gold. The Stone produces gold, or rather transforms base metals into gold, so it is creating value.
The only intrinsic value gold has is due to its material properties. It has intrinsic value as a metal highly resistant to corrosion, but that intrinsic value is not (directly) why it is so valuable. It is valuable because of its trade value, and its trade value is high because it is rare. The Philosopher's Stone in a society that uses gold for everyday trade is like a printing press that produces perfect US banknotes.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

Hmm...ok, I will concede the point on the economic issues, but whether or not the Stone produces lots of gold isn't relevant to whether he's an immoral prick for not distributing the Elixir.
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Re: The Most Immoral Character in Harry Potter

Post by Kingmaker »

Why are you assuming the least charitable possible explanantion?
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