WHEN did you last see the hero of an action movie wearing a cardigan? It’s not exactly Bruce Willis gear, is it? Bulging pecs and ripped vests tend to be the norm, not hand knits.

Let’s hear it, then, for Neville Longbottom, who, for my money, out-classes the eponymous Harry Potter in the final showdown at Hogwarts, standing up to Voldemort and his pet python with a bravery that had the cinema audience whooping and applauding (lead by yours truly, in Class A Embarrassing Mother style), all the while remaining buttoned up.

Luckily, I was wearing waterproof mascara the night we went to see Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2, though I think I cried as much for the sense of closure on my soon-to-be-14 year-old daughter’s childhood as I did for the characters we lost.

Our children have been contemporaries of Harry, Ron and Hermione all the way through the wizarding saga and the characters and the stories are so much part of their own upbringing that the trio could arguably be called role models.

On the big screen, their battle against the forces of evil, unswerving even in the face of death, has an inspirational quality. Henry V it ain’t, but the playing out of the moral values at the heart of the story – truth, integrity, loyalty, courage – is, for 21st century audiences, arguably as stirring as Shakespeare. Trudging home afterwards, I got to wondering whether a movie with such massive reach really could have the power to influence modern values. Churchill asked Lawrence Olivier to fashion the 1944 film of Henry V as a morale-booster to British troops in the Second World War. Could The Deathly Hallows prompt us to get up off our dimpled derrieres and stand up against today’s ‘dragons’?

Talking about morality is something we seem to fight shy of these days. It’s seen as “do-gooding” or “religious”or – worse – an infringement of personal choice. Appeals to action are as often on pragmatic grounds as they are to intrinsic values, as if to talk about doing something because it’s the socially responsible thing to do sits somewhere between “old-fashioned” and “offensive”.

So does moral language still have a currency?

A researcher at Newcastle University who studied the messaging used by “climate champions” – volunteers responsible for promoting sustainable practices in the workplace – found that the champions sought to influence others with quick and easy actions that fed self-interest, such as “it will save you money”, even though their own motivations were very different.

The champions had all opted to take on the role for moral reasons: they wanted to “make a difference” or to save the planet for future generations. It was their “neo-Liberal” programming – this “What right do I have to try to persuade people to care?” – that stopped them applying the same motives to others.

And the result? The “quick wins” made a difference, but did not bring about lasting change. Ironically, the appeal to people as moral agents may ultimately be of more use.

This isn’t such an outrageous conclusion as one might think. The public reaction to the phone-hacking scandal has proved there is a moral tipping point, even if most people are obsessed with doing their own thing most of the time.

As a journalist, I had my own moral dilemma about what path to take. I began my career on a free paper and was head-hunted by The Sun. I went to Wapping, thinking how fantastic it was that I’d “made it”, and was told that my job would be not writing but “doorstepping”. (This was how one invaded people’s privacy before mobile phones were invented.) In retrospect, it was my own Sorting Hat moment: I could have accepted and joined Slytherin, but the voice inside my head told me that a Fleet Street career was not worth the price of my conscience.

I turned them down and walked out. I thought it was brave at the time, but it hardly makes me a Gryffindor. Still, on a bad hair day I can pass as Professor Sprout…