[HPforGrownups] Re: Perversion In the Graveyard/ Cruciatus Curse

[Richelle Votaw]

No: HPFGUIDX 40415

Elkins writes

>No, it isn't.  But if enough words with romantic, erotic or sexual
>connotations are used in seemingly incongruous contexts (for
>Voldemort to be "caressing" *anything* strikes me as fairly
>incongruous, really, because the word itself connotes gentleness
>and tenderness, neither of which are qualities that Voldemort
>possesses), then I think that they do create a cumulative effect on
>the reader.  In the case of the graveyard sequence, that cumulative
>effect is to make the scene seem, as so many people have said,
>"creepy."
>
>I would go a bit further, actually.  I think that its effect is to
>make the scene strike readers as not merely creepy, but as actively
>perverse.  We do, I think, tend to read what happens to Harry in the
>graveyard as something above and beyond a terrible ordeal. We read it
>as a *violation.*  A violation, and a profound loss of innocence.

I agree that whole graveyard scene was written such that you end up with the
feeling of Harry being violated.  A sort of mental/emotional rape.  And when
you come out of the graveyard through the portkey, he is violated again--he
trusted Moody/Crouch.  Then the whole scene after that, telling Dumbledore
and Sirius all of the painful details was reliving the whole violation, but
yet a sort of counseling session (post-rape so to speak).  Then you've got
him whisked off the the hospital ward, I suppose he needed to recover from
the Cruciatus curse amongst other things, but still it seemed to be more of
a mental and emotional need for sleep--pure, dreamless sleep.

I don't know about the rest of you, but at the end of this segment of GoF I
was so emotionally and mentally involved in the story I almost felt like I'd
been violated--robbed of innocence.  Come to think of it, I did go straight
to bed after reading it the first time, didn't feel like doing much else.

Cindy writes:

>Hey, here's a totally wacky thought, though.  Maybe, just maybe, the
>Cruciatus Curse makes wizards *more* powerfully magical than they
>would otherwise be.  That's why Voldemort dispenses these Cruciatus
>curses to his own DEs.  That's why the DEs tolerate this sort of
>abuse.  And that's why Avery volunteers for that Cruciatus Curse in
>the graveyard.  Oh, sure, it will sting a bit at first, but it is
>*so* totally worth it, because now Avery is stronger.  Avery isn't a
>SYCOPHANT; he's an overachiever!

I've just returned from church tonight, and I was reminded of this message
in something the minister said.  He said that pain unites the body.  The
entire body, mind, etc.  Which using that point of view would explain that
the Cruciatus curse could sort of focus the body and mind perhaps on
recovering, and then remain united and focused, thus stronger.

Richelle