Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Good vs. Evil

Bwahahaha.

(Sorry.)

This is an obvious one. Well, at least we hope it's obvious. We mean, except when it comes to figuring out Snape. The battle of good vs. evil has been at the heart of the whole series, so we're pretty sure you aren't shocked to see us calling out this theme in partic.

Unfortunately, evil definitely seems to be winning out at this point in the story. And it's making us very, very nervous. Like, by the end of Half-Blood Prince, Death Eaters have breached the walls of Hogwarts. Gah. It seems like there are just a few minutes left in the fourth quarter, and the good guys are down by a lot...and we're just praying for a comeback.

Think they have a chance?

Questions About Good vs. Evil

1. We've been familiar with Voldemort's super-obvious "I want to kill everyone" evil for a while now…do we see any other types of evil in this film?
2. Based on what we see of his early years, did Tom Riddle start out totally evil? Or is something else going on?
3. What do we learn about Draco's place on the "good vs. evil" scale? Is he a good witch or a bad witch?

Chew on This

Sorry, Slytherin fans: Draco outs himself as decidedly non-evil in this film. Despite his best efforts to play ball with the Dark Lord, he's just unable to bring himself to kill Dumbledore. Which means deep inside, there's some goodness and morality in there.

Slughorn's refusal to tell the truth about his past with Voldemort is definitely on the evil spectrum, even if he's not trying to be bad. Passively refusing to do what's right is just as evil as trying to harm people, since he's allowing Voldemort to keep on keeping on with his bad ways.