“What a tale we have been in”: Emplotment and the Exemplar Characters in The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter Series

Milbank, Alison

Abstract

Linda Zagzebski's theory of moral exemplarity emphasizes the importance of admiration in developing ethical behavior. This essay argues that admiration involves wonder and distance and is best evoked by mixed or flawed characters; it demonstrates this through discussion of the characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Using Paul Ricoeur's taxonomy of prefiguration, configuration, and refiguration in narrative work, it discerns a self-reflexivity in the protagonists of these fantasy novels, which is echoed by that of the readers, who are brought to realize their own emplotment in larger narratives. Features in Tolkien and Rowling that aid this exploratory reading include the length and depth of the novels, the decentering of the reader's own reality, and their open endings, which offer an invitational role to further interpretation. Virtue is viewed more teleologically than in Zagzebski, for moral realism is woven into the metaphysics of these novels, which allows mimesis of flawed characters to be ethically productive.

Citation

Milbank, A. (2023). “What a tale we have been in”: Emplotment and the Exemplar Characters in The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter Series. Educational Theory, 73(5), 782-796. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12601

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 10, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Dec 5, 2023
• Publication Date: Dec 18, 2023
• Deposit Date: Dec 19, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 19, 2023
• Journal: Educational Theory
• Print ISSN: 0013-2004
• Electronic ISSN: 1741-5446
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 73
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 782-796
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12601
• Keywords: Emplotment; moral realism; Paul Ricoeur; J. K. Rowling; J. R. R. Tolkien
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/28707672
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/edth.12601
• Additional Information: Received: 2023-11-10; Accepted: 2023-11-10; Published: 2023-12-05. © 2023 The Author. Educational Theory published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Board of Trustees, University of Illinois. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.