The Unforgivable Curses

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 95072

> Marianne wrote:
> I have just one tiny quibble here. I believe what we were told about 
> the Aurors being given permission to use the Unforgivables was as a 
> way to defeat or capture the DEs to bring them to justice, not to 
> inflict punishment.

Carol:
You're right. Point conceded. :-)

Marianne wrote:
In a time of war, this could have had great appeal to the public at
large in the sense that the "good guys" could now use the same
powerful weapons that the "bad guys" used with impunity.

Carol:
Yes. And therein lies the danger. A complete lack of distinction
between good and evil. Again, making an Unforgiveable Curse *legal* in
certain circumstances doesn't make it *forgiveable* in a moral sense.
Look at the slow deterioration (or whatever the best word is) of Barty
Crouch Sr.--the difference in his appearance over just a few years of
months in those scenes in the Pensieve. He seems to have aged ten
years in less than two years (I'm not sure at what point the
Lestranges and Barty Jr. were captured, but I don't think it was too
long after the Longbottoms were tortured.) And look at the *hatred* he
directs at his son. Yes, young Barty has helped to Crucio the
Longbottoms, but his father, who himself has performed or at least
authorized Unforgiveable Curses, rejects his pleas. (I wonder what
would have happened if Barty Jr. had admitted his guilt, accepted his
punishment, but asked for his father's forgiveness.) As I said in
another post, Crouch Sr. receives poetic justice. The tables are
turned on him and he receives what he gave. His Imperio'd son Imperios
him--because neither he nor his father is capable of forgiveness. And
Barty Jr., having used all three Unforgiveable Curses (AKing his own
father, like Voldemort before him, as I forgot to mention in my
previous post) receives the worst punishment possible in the WW--the
Dementor's Kiss--not as a punishment meted out by the Wizengamot, but
because Cornelius Fudge, in his cowardice and stupidity, brought a
Dementor into the presence of a helpless man. Fate moves in strange
ways in the WW.

Marianne wrote: 
> But, I agree there is a whole moral component to this that has not 
> been fully discussed. Giving the Aurors permission to use these 
> spells doesn't seem to have sit well with Mad-Eye. Of course, he may
 have simply been such a superb Auror that he could get his job done 
> most of the time without having to use an Unforgivable. But, what 
> about an Auror who is not so talented or experienced? Certainly
there is the risk of a "shoot first, ask questions later" scenario
where an Auror, by killing a DE with AK, loses any potentially
important information that person may have been willing (under Crucio
duress?) to reveal. There is also the horrible possibility of innocent
people being killed by an Auror mistakenly thinking they were DEs.

Carol:
Yes, but to me that's not the central question. If Bellatrix is right
and an Unforgiveable Curse can only be performed by someone who enjoys
inflicting harm on others or is at least indifferent to that person's
autonomy or right to life, then the spell is evil in itself. It's not
like a gun, which is as easy to fire in "righteous anger" as in cold
blood. It can't be mastered except by a very powerful wizard
(Crouch!Moody's information) who has acquired or cultivated a desire
to kill. I'm assuming that, if a Patronus spell must be practiced and
mastered, so must an Unforgiveable Curse--which is why Harry's Crucio
didn't work, and IMO, can be "forgiven" by whoever does the forgiving
in the case of these curses.

> Marianne wrote: 
> 
> Unforgivable may not (or perhaps should not) be synonymous with 
> illegal, but that's exactly what it is in the WW. Whether JKR wants 
> to use these curses and the naming of them and the punishment meted 
> out for using them to illustrate a certain morality is, I think, 
> somehwat muddled at this point. She has shown a simple cause/effect 
> for the use of these curses - use an unforgivable and earn yourself
a trip to Azkaban.  That automatic punishment of instant jail puts 
> those curses on a higher level of wrong-doing.
> 
> But, JKR has been mute about the moral underpinnings of this.  God 
> and religion? Not terribly evident other than mentions of Christmas 
> and the hints about an afterlife.  Were the uses of Unforgivables in 
> previous wars eons ago so horrific that society as a whole decreed 
> that not only must they be illegal, but they should be deemed 
> Unforgivable?  That sounds pretty energetic compared to current 
> wizard society where the vast majority seem happy to swallow any
bull the Ministry chooses to spew out through the Daily Prophet.  

Carol:
Maybe automatic punishment of instant imprisonment is part of the
problem. It reinforces the confusion between right and wrong and legal
and illegal. It's like a child defining right and wrong by what he can
get away with without being punished. It's "wrong" to break your
sister's toy because you'll get a spanking (or, in today's world, a
time out). Maybe that's why Percy is so dead set against rule
breaking--and so confused about where his loyalties ought to lie. And
kids hex each other on the Hogwarts Express because no teacher is
present. Automatic imprisonment in Azkaban for Unforgiveable Curses
may be the only deterrent that works in the WW. But that doesn't mean
that illegal and Unforgiveable are the same thing. It only means that
the WW as a whole has lost its sense of moral direction, if it ever
had one. They avoid wrong-doing (as defined by rules or laws) out of
fear of punishment, like Percy, or they do evil and expect to get away
with it, like Lucius Malfoy, for whom the concept of "Unforgiveable"
has no meaning whatever.



> Marianne wrote:
<snip> This gets back to the muddle I was talking about above. You
mentioned yourself about physical harm.  People have all sorts of
things happen to them that must cause pain, but then are healed quite
rapidly in the WW.  Lockhart made the bones in Harry's arm disappear.
 No problem, we'll just grow them back overnight.  Not a big to-do.  
> People [on this list] express horror that Sirius broke Ron's leg in
PoA. Well, this is the wizard world.  Sure it hurts at the time, but
presto-chango! it'll be fixed by morning. Not to worry.
> 
> Does WW society de-value physical pain or injury because, in many 
> cases, it can be fixed quickly? And,if so, where is the line beyond 
> which the injury done by one person to another becomes less a matter 
> of curing the physical ills than imposing punishment on the injurer?
> Is everything allowable up until one chooses to use an Unforgivable?
> <snip>

Carol:
Yes. I'm almost certain that they devalue physical pain (and tolerate
hexes that cause antlers to sprout from people's heads and the like)
because they're so easily fixed (though you'd think they'd do a better
job with nonmagical ailments like poor vision, crooked teeth, and
colds). They also can't be killed as easily as Muggles, who, unlike
James and Lily, can be killed in a car accident, and unlike Alastor
Moody, could not survive ten months in a trunk. They can even survive
being "splinched," with their heads separated from their bodies. They
can't, however, survive an AK, unless they're Harry or Voldy, which at
least explains why *it's* unforgiveable. And the excruciating pain of
a Crucio, even though it isn't permanent (and only causes insanity
when it's sustained to intolerable lengths) must be beyond tolerable
limits. Either that, or the will to inflict such pain is what matters.
Which brings us back to intention and the level of cruelty or cold
calculation required to master these spells.

Carol, who suspects that she has not been completely consistent in
this post but is still looking for answers