Harry using the Cruciatus Curse (Re: Harry the Auror)

[Hitomi]

No: HPFGUIDX 89317

> Del: 
> I remember being quite disturbed when I read that scene, because 
it 
>  was such a proof that Harry had no control over his emotions. 
He's 
>  angry, he's got a knife, he tries to use it, period. I find it 
quite 
>  scary that the WW would put so much hope in someone who could so 
>  easily slip over to the Dark Side. Not to mention that he doesn't 
>  hold many regrets for attemping to use an Unforgivable Curse. How 
> can  he defeat LV if he uses the same weapons as he does ?

Me (Hitomi): 
This is an arugument that I have been following on this list, and to 
be perfectly honest, it has absolutely driven me up a wall.  And 
this is why:  Harry Potter is one of the most beautiful characters I 
have ever come across in any form of literature, and I'm an English 
Lit. student, so I ask you to bear with me on that opinion.  Look at 
that moment from Harry's view, because people love to judge, but 
they don't empathize enough.  Harry's friends are all injured, his 
father/brother figure has just inexplicably died, he believes it to 
be his fault, and Sirius' murderer (Sirius' cousin, no less) is 
getting away.  She worships the ground Voldemort walks on, the man 
responsible for killing Harry's parents and pretty much everything 
bad that has ever happened to him, not to mention she is also 
responsible for Neville's parents.  This woman is rather evil, to 
say the least.  Harry is in unimaginable pain, Bellatrix goads his 
feelings for Sirius, and in RIGHTEOUS ANGER, he retaliates in the 
only way he knows how.  He's HUMAN.  All humans, at one point or 
another, want some form of revenge; it can be as simple as wanting 
someone to be caught in a lie, or something as severe as capital 
punishment (which I DON'T personally believe in).  And most humans 
have never been faced with this type of situation, I don't care if 
Harry is only fifteen, I defy a fifty-year-old person to act more 
mature over the death of a spouse or child in such circumstances.  
And it was righteous anger, Bellatrix says it herself.  Harry, deep 
down, never wants to cause another human being pain.  No matter how 
much they may deserve it.  He doesn't even really want to ever kill 
Voldemort, he just wants him stopped.  But in that emotional state, 
he wants Bellatrix to feel some form of the pain she has caused him 
to feel, some form of fairness in all this chaos (RIGHTEOUS ANGER, 
remember?), but he doesn't TRULY mean it, which is why the curse 
doesn't actually work.  It knocks her off her feet, causes her pain 
for all of a moment, and then she's up and goading him again.  For 
heavens sake, Harry saved WORMTAIL'S life, Bellatrix is no better.

And because of this, Harry is probably ten times the person most of 
us will ever be.


>  ps : does anyone else find the parallel between Harry's anger at 
the 
>  MoM and his attempt to hurt Bellatrix, and Anakin's anger after 
the 
>  death of his mother and his murderous revenge, disturbing ? We do 
>  know that this mass murder is the single act that definitely 
>  precipitated Anakin's fall to the Dark Side after all...

Me (Hitomi):
Oh dear, Star Wars references.  Anakin is not a good example.  
Anakin desired power above all else, long before his mother's 
death.  More of a Slytherin type, neh?  Besides, Harry would never 
ever turn on his friends, much less his wife or future children.


> Barbara:
> As I read your post, I was also reminded of Star Wars.  I am still 
> trying to figure out if Harry is more of an Anakin or a Luke.  
Anakin 
> gave into the rage and killed the entire tribe of sandpeople.  I 
> don't know if Harry trying to torture Bellatrix is exactly the 
same 
> thing.  I see it more of how Luke acted.  He saw Vader kill Obi 
Wan 
> (almost like a godfather, you might say) and then fought Vader.  
And, 
> in Return of the Jedi, he chose to use his lightsaber against 
Vader 
> when tempted by the Emperor.  Harry is taunted year in and year 
out 
> by Voldemort and his followers.  Finally, he has had enough 
> and "strikes out with the hate in him" (or whatever the Emperor 
says 
> in Return of the Jedi).  However in the end, Vader turns on the 
> Emperor and saves Luke.

Me (Hitomi):
More accurate of my feelings towards things, though I still don't 
think Star Wars is the best example (though I do love the franchise, 
just not as much as Harry).  Luke is the hero, Anakin is the 
misguided one.  Last time I checked, this series was called Harry 
Potter.  He is the hero.  And honestly, if I had to place my future, 
my life in someone's hands, it would be him.  And that's precisely 
what the WW will have to do.  Not to mention the fact JKR said Harry 
would never be tempted by the Dark Arts.  And James was, apparently, 
not half the boy Harry is at fifteen, and he detested the Dark Arts 
as well.  And where is it said in canon that people who use the 
Unforgivable Curses are automatically attracted to the Dark Arts?  
Loads of Aurors used them sixteen years ago, Barty Crouch used them, 
we know, and yes, he was not exactly a good man, but he certainly 
wasn't a Death Eater.  Harry is a whole different concept, anyway.

In the end, I just trust in JKR.  And according to her (when asked 
by a reader at the Royal Albert Hall reading, soon after book 5 was 
released, which character she missed most when finished writing): "I 
really miss all of them, but I suppose I'm going to have to say 
Harry because he is my hero and there is a lot of me in Harry."  
Harry is human, meaning inherently flawed, and he was in pain, and 
he made a mistake he didn't actually mean.  But he's still my hero, 
too.