The Unforgivable Curses and killing

[Eric Oppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 58163

Frankly, I would far, far rather live in the USA as a Muggle than submit
myself to the "justice" on tap in the Wizard World.  Just for starters, we
know that people were thrown into prison without any pretense of a
trial---and I do think that this is a big, big time-bomb set to go off for
later in the series.  Frankly, if I'd spent years and years in Azkaban
despite being innocent, just because I was in the wrong place at the wrong
time (and from the wrong house at school?) or, worse, got on the wrong side
of a corrupt or incompetent Auror, and the DEs cracked me out of there when
they broke open Azkaban, I'd join the DEs in a red-hot second, and go for
some serious revenge.  Not to mention what they laughingly call "trials."

As for their moral superiority---it seems to me that the three Unforgivables
are Unforgivable because they're 'way too easy to misuse.  I can't think of
any _legitimate_ uses for the Cruciatus Curse, just for starters.  While
Avada Kedavra is the most _spectacular_ way to kill someone, it's far from
the only route available to a sorcerer.  (Tying someone up with magical
ropes, or Petrifying them, and then levitating them 'way up in the air
before letting them fall onto rocks; Petrifying someone and then holding
them underwater; Transfiguring someone into a slug and salting him---the
list goes on and on)  And the Imperius Curse is also much too easy to misuse
(not to mention, it would provide a goof-proof method of murdering someone
without leaving clues to what one had done, as long as there were no
witnesses---Imperius someone into committing suicide, or walking in front of
a train, and even the gang from the CSI shows would be well and truly
stumped).

For that matter---_are_ the Unforgivables _literally_ Unforgivable?  If,
say, the DEs were storming my little home, lusting for my blood, and I began
throwing AKs at them, would I _necessarily_ be thrown into Azkaban?  Every
legal system I know of, everywhere in the world, makes a distinction between
_murder_ and killing in self-defense, and excuses the latter.  To be sure,
you do have to go through some serious proving that you _were_ acting in
self-defense, but if this is proven to the satisfaction of the authorities,
you walk.

--Eric, who would love to be magical, but who doesn't like some things about
the Wizard World.