I noticed a similarity between Star Wars and the Harry Potter series today that I found striking. Anakin and Tom Riddle are both powerful candidates who throw off massive red flags in every direction and yet the master of their school/religion/order of knights invites them in so they can learn to be even more powerful.

At first, this seems like a plot hole — like something a writer would do to force the plot in a particular direction instead of doing something that makes sense. Why would Gui-Gon and Dumbledore — both of whom are considered to be wise masters of their arts — choose to empower someone they know to be dangerous? Maybe they aren’t so wise after all.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized they did it because they had no choice. Both characters are lawful good so their options on dealing with powerful children who haven’t done anything wrong yet are limited.

The only other option would be to kill Anakin and Tom, something that’s out of the question as child murder is not acceptable within the constraints of their ethical context. The only option remaining to them is to hope that if the child can be trained to control their power they will eventually mature into someone who wants to control their power.

The attempt fails in both instances and a terrifying villain is released in the process. It’s the opposite of the hero’s journey where the chosen one is fated to be a monster instead of a hero. But there are times when this works and the kid grows up to be the hero or anti-hero of the story.

You could argue Bruce Wayne became obsessed with vengeance but turned his intellect and fortune to fighting crime due to the kind restraint of his butler Alfred. Superman is a baby with astonishing and deadly powers but is delivered into the care of the Kent family who work overtime to teach him the responsibility that comes with great power.

Conversely, Peter Parker doesn’t qualify for this analogy because he was a good kid to begin with. The loss of his Uncle Ben is due to him being a teenager more than any character flaw. We know he was a good kid before the spider bite because that one mistake becomes the guiding principle for the rest of his career as a hero.

We’ve seen what happens when a super powerful child doesn’t have empathy in “Evil Superman” stories. In Brightburn, for instance, it’s hard to tell if Brandon was programmed by the aliens who sent him to destroy human society or if the bullying in school played a significant part. Since the American education system has forever been a demented version of Middle-School Fight Club, it wouldn’t be a stretch to believe the aliens were counting on that bullying to be the trigger Brandon needs to “take the planet.”

While it seems like a failure in the writing, it turns out this choice to train the red flag boys was really the only one they had. “Fated to be a monster” elevates these comic book stories to a level of tragedy that’s practically Greek. It also migrates Gui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Dumbledore from naive victims to tragic heroes.