killing voldemort/ dumbledore cold & calculating?

[naama_gat at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 14459


Since the posts are so long, I'll not quote anything here but just 
comment on the general argument. 

First, I don't think there is any questin that Harry will use AK to 
kill Voldemort. It's an Unforgivable curse, and from the disapproving 
way that Sirius said that Crouch allowed using Unforgivable curses on 
DE, I gather that it's not considered a legitimate way to fight evil -
at least by Sirius and probably by all the "really good" guys 
(Dumbledore, Sirius, Lupin, James, Lily, .. etc.). If Harry somehow 
gets to learn how to use the curse, the only reason I can see for it 
to happen, is to show him *not* using an Unforgivable curse, no 
matter what the stakes are.
BUT, that's not to say that he will not destroy Voldy by other means, 
that are considered legitimate. But then, unlike Kimberley and Scot, 
I do not have a problem with killing in self defense. 

In parenthesis I'd like to add that I've always found it hard to take 
pacifist positions seriously. Would you really not kill an enemy that 
threatens your life and the life of your family or friends? I would. 
I don't even see the moral dilemma of it. I might feel terrible 
afterwards, I might not recover from having killed a human being, but 
a moral dilemma? No. 
When I do take pacifist position seriously, they seem to me like an 
evasion of the responsibility of actually dealing with reality as 
part of that reality. To a-priory refuse to kill anybody, including 
those who wish to kill you, you avoid the really difficult part of 
living as a moral being - actully looking reality in the face, and 
deciding, in each particular case, what the right moral choice is. 
But that's just another kind of fear - the fear of making mistakes. 

To return to HP - I don't think there's any moral dilemma in Harry 
killing Voldy in some legitimate way (not via an Unforgivable curse). 
However, IMO it will resonate better with the books so far if Voldy 
will destroy himself through trying to destroy Harry. It ties in with 
Voldy's first encounter with Harry and provides closure. It also 
makes more sense technicaly, in that Voldy is so powerful, it's 
hard to see how anybody's powers but his own can harm him.

Naama