MuggleNet | Free Will and Determinism in Harry Potter

In her five Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling’s characters are proponents of free will, or emphasizing choice over birth, yet there is a contradictory theme of determinism that undermines the words that her characters speak.

Time and again, characters make statements, such as when Dumbledore says “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities,” (CoS 333). Also, several characters buck their upbringings, there is a sense of being fully responsible for one’s own actions, and characters that are labeled one way sometimes show through their actions that they are different.

On the other hand, the characters couldn’t necessarily have chosen other than they did. The time travel model of the third book is only compatible with determinism, the books are littered with prophesies (which always come true in some way), and even the simplest thing like whether a character has the ability to perform magic or not is determined when he/she is born.

According to Jean-Paul Sartre, a French philosopher and advocate of free will theory, “existence precedes essence.” What he means by this is that man (as a race and an individual) first appears, then defines himself. He is at first nothing, and he only becomes something through what he conceives himself to be and makes of himself. In CoS, Harry is afraid that the Sorting Hat placed him in the wrong House. When he was sorted in his first year, the hat debated putting Harry in Slytherin, rather than Gryffindor. The hat only placed him in Gryffindor because he asked it to, based on what he knew of the Houses' reputations. That was when Dumbledore explained to Harry that it’s our choices that make us who we are. Harry wasn’t born a Gryffindor; he was a Gryffindor because of his choices. That is, he defined himself.

Along similar lines, several characters went straight against their upbringings to choose for themselves who they really are. Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather, grew up in a pure-blood wizard family that emphasized blood and dark magic, yet Sirius detested everything they stood for and took his life in the opposite direction. Dobby, a House Elf, went against the doctrine that House Elves are to always obey their masters in order to warn Harry of danger. Eventually, through Dobby's actions and Harry’s choices, Harry was able to set him free in CoS. These characters support Sartre’s notion of existence preceding essence.

Another free will notion of Sartre’s that applies to Harry Potter is that man is condemned to be free. Man did not ask to be created, but now he is and has free will, and thus is responsible for whatever he does. In OotP, Harry made a series of choices that ultimately led to Sirius’ death. In the aftermath, Harry felt wholly guilty and responsible. “The guilt filling the whole of Harry’s chest like some monstrous, weighty parasite now writhed and squirmed. Harry could not stand this, he could not stand being Harry anymore…” (OotP 822). Harry was thrust into life, and was marked by Voldemort when he was just a child, and now Harry is responsible for all of his actions, which affect everyone around him.

It makes it even worse for him because he knows that the fate of wizard-kind may rest on his shoulders. This is also an example of what Sartre describes as anguish, in which man realizes that since he is the person that he chooses to be, he has a feeling of “total and deep responsibility” in every choice he makes. This effect is compounded when man affirms his values through his choices, and thus chooses for all of mankind that these are the values they should hold. This is the type of anguish that Harry faces increasingly throughout the books when he realizes that more weight is on him personally to do the right thing, and the thing that will defeat Voldemort.

Another concept of free will is known as forlornness. According to Sartre, God does not exist, and we must face the consequences of this. Without a god, there is no prescribed morality: "everything is permissible if God does not exist." Man must create his own morality, and even morality tends to be a gray area. “If values are vague, the only thing left for us is to trust our instincts.” Acting on instinct is apparent in the rule-breaking that Harry and his friends commit throughout and at the end of each book, in order to achieve other ends that they find more important morally. For example, in PS/SS, Harry, Ron, and Hermione disobeyed Professor McGonagall in order to save the Stone from falling into the hands of Voldemort, who would have used it to obtain immortal life. In PoA, Harry and Hermione went against wizarding (and probably ethical) law on time travel in order to save Sirius’ and Buckbeak’s lives. These types of acts were committed all the time in order for some other good to be achieved.

A final part of Sartre's free will theory that is shown in Harry Potter is that there is no reality except in action. Man is not how he is on account of how he is on the inside; he is who he is because of his actions. A coward is only a coward if he does cowardly actions. Many Hogwarts students believe that Neville is a coward, yet he demonstrates through several courageous acts that he is not. In PS/SS, he stood up to Harry, Ron, and Hermione to prevent them from breaking the rules again, even though he was their friend. Much later, in OotP, he joined Harry and several other students on a rescue mission. On this mission he participated in breaking into the Ministry of Magic and facing down and battling Death Eaters, the most dangerous supporters of Voldemort. Similarly, Hermione has a reputation for being just a brainiac, but she shows in every book that she is just as brave as any Gryffindor.

Despite all of the instances in the Harry Potter books that promote free will, there is an undercurrent of determinism throughout the series. Determinism simply refers to the idea that all events are caused (it is kind of like fate, but without a cosmic force that predetermines things).

First of all, the minimum supposition of free will fails. According to Laura Ekstrom, the minimum is that we could, at least sometimes, have done other than what we actually did. The laws of nature and the universe, along with upbringing, do not necessarily cause a person to act a certain way: "If no human person can ever do otherwise than act precisely as he or she does act, then the minimal supposition of human free will is false." A good example in PoA is when Harry made the choice to spare the life of the man (Pettigrew) responsible for his parents’ deaths, which fulfilled the prophecy that Pettigrew would escape and aid Voldemort’s rebirth. Technically, Harry could have let Pettigrew be killed, but when you consider the type of person he is, he could not have acted otherwise. As Maline Fredén (North Tower columnist) eloquently pointed out, "Harry is, as Dumbledore remarked in CoS, a ‘true Gryffindor,’ meaning noble, courageous and good-hearted. He is also filled with empathy, the capacity of feeling for other people. He's not the kind of person who would consent to the murder of an unarmed man.'" Here Harry’s “choice,” which he could not have made otherwise, fulfilled the prophecy.

The very existence of prophecies in Harry Potter points to a deterministic model, rather than a free will model. Two prophecies were made: two were fulfilled, though part of one has apparently not happened yet (the “neither one can live while the other survives” bit). No prophecy is ever mentioned in the books that has not been fulfilled. This fits into causal determinism as Ekstrom describes it. Causal determinism states that when you take everything into account, there is only one path for the future to take. A person cannot do other than he does because of his nature. The characters’ choices always fulfill the prophecies. They could not have done otherwise. When Voldemort got the whiff of a half-overheard prophecy that a child whose parents had defied him three times would bring him down, he hunted Harry down. Other children fit the description just as well, but Voldemort chose Harry because he too was a half-blood wizard. Voldemort saw Harry as the threat because of his own background and his own issues, and was ruthless enough to want to eliminate a child (OotP 839-843). Voldemort could not have done otherwise.

As far as paths of the future go, the use of time travel in the third book supports the deterministic model, which visually looks like a straight arrow with apparent forks, over the forking-paths model, which resembles the branches of a tree. In the forking path model, a choice you make will take the future in one direction; if you had made the other choice, the future would have taken a completely different direction. In the deterministic model, there is only one way, given the past, that the future can proceed. PoA contains the incident in which Harry and Hermione traveled back in time in order to save Sirius and Buckbeak from certain death, and in which Harry also comes to save his, Sirius’, and Hermione’s past selves. The question is then whether or not Harry and Hermione changed the past through their “choices.” The answer is clearly no. When they lived through the time period originally, they did not see Buckbeak beheaded and they clearly did not die. Harry had thought that the one who saved them by casting a Patronus spell was his father, but really it was himself. At the last moment possible when he was back in time he performed the spell, effectively leaving the time line as it had always been. There is no paradox and no “time loop”; it was predetermined that Harry and Hermione were going to travel back in time and save Buckbeak, Sirius, and their past selves. Hermione does state that you should not reveal yourself to your past self, or you could end up killing your past or future self (PoA 398). This goes against the deterministic model, but it contradicts the way that Harry and Hermione time traveled, and can only be assumed to be a small error on Rowling’s part (and who doesn’t make mistakes occasionally?).

A major part of causal determinism is that behavior is the necessary outcome of genetic blueprint, environment, and social conditioning. People are “pushed” into doing what they do based on the past. Despite all the talk of characters defining themselves on their choices, such as Harry, Sirius, Dobby, Neville, and Hermione (as mentioned previously), there is a concrete genetic determinism in the Harry Potter novels. For one, a person is born a witch or a wizard; talents are inherent, as well as strengths and weaknesses. One cannot achieve wizard status through effort. When students first arrive at Hogwarts they are sorted into one of four Houses, each of which emphasizes different characteristics. They are placed according to their natural inclination, and in my opinion this reinforces the traits of their Houses. It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the future the students will make what they believe to be choices, but all of their “choices” are based on their background. Often students actually seem to inherit the traits of their Houses; every single Weasley child became a Gryffindor, as did Harry, all having had Gryffindor parents. Harry’s case reinforces genetic determinism here, because his parents did not raise him.

Finally, the nomenclature of many characters predetermines what type of person they will become. Draco Malfoy is an obvious example of this. “Draco” means “dragon” in Latin, and “Mal foi” means “bad faith” in French. Remus Lupin is a werewolf, and Remus was a Latin boy raised by wolves for his first few years, and “Lupin” means wolf-like in Latin. This makes Draco bound to go bad and Lupin bound to become a werewolf as a child; and these are only two examples of the elaborate meaningful names Rowling often gives her characters.

Really, it’s up for debate whether the Harry Potter series actually supports free will theory or determinism more, and whether it is intentional on Rowling’s part or not. A solid case can be made for either side. Though the text more often supports free will explicitly in the choices, actions, and responsibilities of the characters, the way that Rowling sets up her universe with prophecies, time travel, characterizations, and nomenclature also shows deterministic leanings.

Posted by: Sara

MuggleNet is an unofficial Harry Potter fan site. Please email us if you have any questions or concerns. MuggleNet's original layouts were designed and created by Navy. All subsequent layouts by Dylan Spartz.

1,682 muggles currently online

Free Will and Determinism in Harry Potter

An original editorial by Lauren Dworsky

Posted by: Sara

Discuss this editorial.