Theme Of Fate And Free Will In Harry Potter

J.K Rowling employs symbolism, literary techniques, themes and characters to portray the role Fate and Free will play in the Harry Potter series. The role they play is a reflection of how Fate and Freewill interact and overlap in the real world as well. They compliment one another!

“I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those wreckers of all but the best-laid plans. But I know better now. I understand those things that I did not understand before. I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be.” (Lord Voldemort). In one of Lord Voldemorts’ famous dialogues, J.K Rowling presents the role of both Fate and Free Will in her fictitious world. Lord Voldemort acknowledges Free Will when he says ‘best-laid plans’

She predicted “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches.” The course of Harry’s life is decided by the prophecy, Voldemorts’ choice of Harry over Neville, and Dumbledores’ guidance. Snapes’ accusation “ Raising him like a lamb for slaughter” weighs heavily as we see how Dumbledore played a key role in determining Harry’s Fate. The religious symbolism likens Dumbledore to a God-like figure and Harry to Jesus, whose role is to save the wizarding world. Examples of other people’s choices determining Harry’s Fate in the series are when Dumbledore leaves Harry with the Dursleys, Dobby stopping Harry from entering the platform, and Voldemort choosing Harry over Neville. However, the word chooses stands out here because it refers to other characters’ choices, but does that mean they had free will? Or was somebody/something influencing their choices as well? Moreover, do characters really have the liberty to make choices? Or do they just think that they

A terrible insult in the wizarding world is ‘Mudblood’ and we see families like the Malfoys and the Blacks take great pride in their pure blood lineage. This refers to having wizarding parents, and everyone in the family having the fated skill of magic. So magic is passed down through genetics, however in some cases like Hermione and Filch we see the magic gene skip a few generations! In Hermione’s case, her parents are non-magic folks and Filch case he doesn’t possesses the gift of magic. This shows the role of Fate in the series because certain things like genetics are out of everyone’s control. In the Deathly Hallows we see wizards with non-magic parents being tried for ‘stealing magic’; this sounds absurd and is used to show how desperate the Ministry of Magic has become because stealing magic is just not