Cruciatus and insanity

[elfundeb at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 39082

Marina suggested, regarding how Cruciatus could cause insanity:

> Cruciatus causes great pain without producing any injury that would
> explain it -- no bruises or burns or broken bones or anything.  So I'm
> guessing the spell affects the brain and the nervous system directly. 
> If that's true, then prolonged exposure might cause actual physical
> brain damage.  To someone unfamiliar with modern medicine (like
> wizards, for example) the outward systems would look like madness.
> 
I had given some thought awhile back to the question of how various curses -- 
not just the unforgiveable ones -- act on their victims some time ago and the 
best explanations I could come up with all involved direct action on the 
brain.   

With respect to Cruciatus, I came to the conclusion that Cruciatus must 
affect the part of the brain that controls pain (and perhaps the nerve 
endings as well).  After the curse is stopped the victim takes some time to 
recover in order to let go of the residual feeling of pain.  So the spider 
continued to twitch, as did Harry.  If the pain is intense enough I can see 
the victim blocking out the memory of the curse, or have short-term memory 
lapse, or have post-traumatic stress reactions, but not general memory loss.  
If Cruciatus affects the pain sensing part of the brain, it should not in and 
of itself cause other parts of the brain, such as the part controlling 
memory, to become damaged.  I'm also thinking here that curses generally have 
to be clearly targeted otherwise the effect could be catastrophic.  This is 
what in my mind distinguishes Cruciatus (which I don't see as likely to cause 
one's memory to snap) and breaking a memory charm, which caused Bertha's mind 
to be broken.  By acting on the part of the brain that controls memory, her 
torture might have affected that part of the brain.

The Longbottoms' symptoms seem to go way beyond the damage likely to be 
caused to the pain-sensing portion of the brain, that in that they no longer 
have the capacity to recognize their son no matter how many times Neville 
comes to visit them, which is what led me to the conclusion that Cruciatus 
might not have caused their insanity at all (and to cook up all those Memory 
Charm'd Frank scenarios).   Although I don't find the explanation that the 
Longbottoms were driven insane by Cruciatus very realistic, I've seen it in 
literature and film enough to recognize that it's not necessarily true that 
the story is intended as a combination of clues and misdirection.

ameliagoldfeesh then asked:

> Two of the three Unforgivables seem to work fairly directly upon the
> mind of the victim.  So it makes me wonder if perhaps the Avada
> Kedavra does too in some way perhaps.  

Avada Kedavra also seems to work directly on the brain.  My explanation 
(which is perhaps too scientific for the Potterverse) is that AK causes all 
brain activity to cease, including activity that controls automatic functions 
like the beating of the heart, with the result that the person dies instantly.

Grey Wolf suggested the following, which I like for its emphasis on the soul 
as the essence of the person (though I'm going to nitpick at it anyway):

> In case of AK, 
> I think that the green beam separates the soul from the body (in 
> Potterverse, the soul is known to exist: look at the ghosts - note that 
> it may have nothing to do with the Christian idea of soul...). When 
> that green beam (charged with inmense magical energy) hits a person, 
> that person inmediatelly knows what's happening to him: he (or she) can 
> feel his consciousness leaving his body, which imprints a horrified 
> 

Well, I think the victims (in particular the Riddles) died with horrified 
expressions on their faces because they were terrified by Tom's appearance 
and in their last moment saw that green flash coming at them.  Not only that, 
he probably berated them at length before doing them in, as he did with 
Harry, so they had no doubt he intended to kill them.

   Once the soul is removed, that same spell totally anhilates the soul, and 
certain 
> amount of energy goes back to 
> 

I like the idea of the shadow, though I don't think it is inconsistent with 
the continued existence of the soul.  If you think about it, this is very 
much like what Riddle accomplished by preserving a memory in his diary.  
However, Riddle himself continued in existence (presumably with his soul, 
because he had precious else left after Godric's Hollow).  Likewise, I think 
that what was preserved in Voldemort's wand was the memory of its victims' 
deaths.  But like Riddle in the diary, the memories have form and a ghostlike 
substance and are able to act like themselves, as ghosts are.

> That's why no-one turns into a ghost after being AK-ed (no canon to back 
> this last idea 
> up, or to reject it, so it's IMO), and why images of the dead people 
> 

I thought I read in an interview somewhere that JKR suggested that Cedric 
will reappear as a ghost (sorry, can't do searches right now to find it).  If 
so, as he's already been seen as a presence in Voldemort's wand, I don't 
think the shadow and the ghost are necessarily mutually exclusive.

Other examples of curses and charms that seem to work directly on the brain 
(besides Imperius, which, I think, activates the part of the brain that 
controls emotion and produces a "happy" contented feeling that deprives the 
person of the desire to think so they just do what they're told because it 
feels good)  include the Cheering Charm, the Tickling Charm, the Jelly-Legs 
Curse, and of course the Memory Charm.

In fact, if you think about it, all magic seems to involve mind games.  When 
it's something like a Summoning Charm, Alohamora, or Mobili (arbus, corpus, 
or something else), the wizard exercises mind control to manipulate inanimate 
objects.  On the other hand, with the Patronus Charm, the wizard uses his own 
thoughts and feelings and embodies the thought in a form (the Patronus) that 
will repel the dementor.  With the unforgivables and other charms and curses 
that act on other people, the wizard exercises mind control over another 
person's mind.

Now I wonder if Transfiguration works by simply putting something in the 
transfigured object that makes the mind and the senses (of both the target, 
if the target is a sentient creature, and anyone else who can see, hear, or 
touch the  characteristics of the transfigured object) rather than those of 
the real object.  If so, Transfiguration would seem to be extraordinarily 
difficult.

This mind-game theory doesn't explain everything, of course.  I can't imagine 
how the combination of Jelly-Legs and Furnunculus curse, used on Crabbe at 
the end of GoF, could have produced tentacles on his face.

Debbie


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