Bang! You're Dead.

[arcum42]

No: HPFGUIDX 86286

<snip>
> Carol again:
>In GoF, Harry can't bring himself to use
> Avada Kedavra against Sirius, despite his rage, or
> against Peter Pettigrew, despite his cold contempt. He
> also persuades Lupin and Sirius not to use it, not to
> become killers. He knows, through reason or instinct,
> that they would be contaminating themselves by doing so.

In GoF, Harry has no reason to AK Sirius, and little
opportunity to AK Peter. If you mean in PoA, Harry hadn't
heard of Avada Kedavra yet...

> Kneasy: 
> > I'm pleased that you have no objection to Voldy being
> > smeared across the landscape; just the method used
> > causes you concern. Why? Dead is dead. 
> 
> Carol again: No. Dead isn't dead and killing isn't
> killing. There's self-defense and there's murder. There
> are legitimate and illegitimate methods. Unless Harry is
> made an honorary auror exempt from the laws of the WW or
> the law is changed in time of war, he should not break
> it. And the moral law still applies: the curses are
> unforgiveable. Why should he be forgiven for using them
> if no one else (except an auror when Crouch was in
> charge) can be forgiven for using one? 

While I think they'd probably wave the charges if Tom was
killed by AK, I feel it is more a matter of not stooping to
their level. A bit of dialogue I recall from PS/SS:

"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had
powers I will never have."

"Only because you're too -- well -- noble to use them."

I feel this would cover the unforgivables as well. You may
note that Harry has been called noble no less then 3 times
by Dobby, and was told he did a noble thing by Dumbledore
in PoA.

Interestingly, the only time he was called noble in OoP was
Phineas being sarcastic...

> 
> > Carol: You may be right about Bellatrix's comments
> > being a red herring, but I don't think so. She and
> > Voldemort appear to enjoy inflicting pain and death.
> > If, indeed, that feeling is required to make the curses
> > effective, then the reason they're "unforgiveable" is
> > clear. They can be cast only by someone who is already
> > cruel and well on his or her way to becoming
> > irreversibly evil.
> > 
> > Kneasy: Yes, Bella and her squeeze do enjoy inflicting
> > pain. Is that relevant to everyone else? Did the Aurors
> > empowered by Crouch enjoy it? Did they all irrevocably
> > become Dark Magicians with no redeeming features? I
> > suspect that generalising from extreme examples could
> > be misleading. Moody and his  confederates are
> > irreversibly evil by that argument and I can see no
> > evidence for it.
> 
> Carol again: I can see your point here and I've revised
> my theory (above) to include cold indifference regarding
> the AK. But the other two, especially Crucio, are
> probably never justified in JKR's view. There are plenty
> of other spells available to hinder an opponent, notably
> shield charms, Expelliarmus and Stubefy (correctly
> pronounced). I wouldn't mind seeing Harry hit LV with a
> combination of Expelliarmus and Tarantellegra (if Harry's
> wand will work against its brother). But Crucio is
> another matter altogether.

I'd like to point out that we have no canon of Moody having
used the unforgivable curses as of yet. While he didn't
manage to bring in all the DE's he fought alive, there are
many other ways he could have killed them. Keep in mind
that none of the unforgivables in GoF were done by Moody.
And I do think most of the Aurors using unforgivables were
bad ones. Keep in mind it wasn't limited to AK'ing. They
could also use Crucio and Imperio.

Also, I don't really think the whole bit with Bella was a
red herring. What she said seemed both consistant with what
Crouch has said about the unforgivables, AK in particular:

"Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic
behind it - you could all get your wands out now and point
them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much
as a nosebleed."

And it also seems consistant with the way the patronus
works. And why would Bella lie about it, anyways? She's
just been knocked off her feet, and is yelling a response
back immediately, just after firing a curse back at him.
She hasn't really had time to come up with a clever lie,
IMHO. You'll notice that the moment when he casts Crucio is
when she drops the baby talk and starts taking him
seriously.

On another note, why does most of the information thus far
about unforgivables come from DEs?

> Carol
> 
> P.S. Has anyone hunted up all the references in the books
> to the Unforgiveable Curses? Who's used them and in what
> circumstances and why they're unforgiveable? That's what
> I really need to explore before I take this discussion
> any further. C.

Not all of them, but here's what I can think of offhand:

They were introduced in GoF by name (Lucius in CoS is movie
contamination)

Chapter 14 of GoF - "The Unforgivable Curses" has the most
information. 
Chapter 27 of GoF has Sirius's info on their use by Aurors. 
Chapter 36 of OoP is where the infamous taunt by Bella is.

Tom has AK'ed his parents (unconfirmed), Harrys parents,
Bertha Jorkins, Frank Bryce, and undoubtedly others, tried
to AK Harry more then once, Imperioed him, Crucioed many of
his followers, and undoubtly done much more in the rein of
terror.

Peter AKed Cedric.

Umbridge didn't end up Crucioing Harry, but threatened him
with it, and started to cast it.

The Lestranges & Barty Jr Crucioed the Longbottoms. Barty
Jr has demonstrated all the unforgivables, and gets credit
for most use of imperio in the series (the entire class,
his father, Moody, and Krum). How his killed his father is
uncertain...

Krum cast Crucio while under Imperius. (which is
interesting, actually...)

Lucius claimed to have been under Imperio, and Imperio was
heavily used in the first reign of terror.

The only unforgivables specified in the graveyard were Tom
& Peter's, The DE's were instructed to *stun* Harry. In the
MoM, Bella cast Crucio & Tom cast AK, and so did the
baby-headed DE. There were several jets of green light from
unspecified DE's, and one from Bella. (I think the
unspecified ones were from Bella and Lucius, and possibly
Rookwood...)

I may have missed some, naturally...
--Arcum