THe nature of the Unforgivables(was Re: [HPforGrownups] Re: Bang! You're dead.)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 86580

Carol: 
"Never used an unforgiveable before, have you, boy?" she yelled. . . . 
"You need to *mean* them, Potter! You need to really want to cause
pain--to enjoy it. . . . I'll show you how it is done, shall I? I'll
give you a lesson---" (OoP 810 Am. Ed.)
 
Bellatrix herself especially enjoys using the CC, but she indicates
that *all* of the unforgiveables, even the Imperius curse, require a
will to harm the other person. <snip>
 
Angel:
<snip> 
But this raises an interesting question. In Moody's lesson he talks
about using AK, and said he wouldn't get a nosebleed if the whole
class did it. If Neville had had the torture of his parents uppermost
in his mind and all the hatred at Crouch, could he have killed Moody,
at that point, because of it?
 

Carol:
First, of course, he'd have to have known that Imposter!Moody was
Barty Crouch Jr. and that Crouch had helped the Lestranges Crucio his
parents. But even if he had known, I don't think Neville could have
AKd (or Crucio'd) Crouch, even if it had occurred to him to do so,
because he *doesn't* enjoy inflicting pain even on those who drove his
parents insane. There's also, of course, the problem of lack of skill,
lack of confidence, and the wrong wand, but the main thing missing is
the will to do evil, the will to deliberately inflict cruelty for
cruelty's sake or to kill for the sake of killing. Righteous anger, as
Bellatrix says, is not enough. You have to enjoy inflicting pain or
killing or controlling other's wills, as she does, to make the
Unforgiveables work. You have to be evil. And that Neville will never be.

Another point regarding the Longbottoms: Other people, including Harry
and Neville himself, have survived the Cruciatus Curse relatively
unscathed, horrible as it was while they were enduring it, but the
Longbottoms were driven insane. This extreme reaction seems to me to
require intense, prolonged, and repeated CCs, maybe even from all four
Death Eaters at once. That would explain why they, unlike other
victims of that particular curse, have spent fourteen years in St.
Mungos unable to recognize their own son. I don't think we need to
find someone who is continuing to use memory charms on them to keep
them in that state. The fact that they were tortured beyond human
endurance in the first place is enough to explain their insanity
without Evil!gran or Lucius Malfoy or Snape or anyone else giving them
poisoned gum to maintain their insanity. (I don't see how a memory
charm could be put in a piece of gum, anyway. It's not a hex like the
ones that the Weasley twins put on their candy. It presumably has to
be placed directly on the person him or herself.)

Carol