What would you think if.....

[rgbmcl]

No: HPFGUIDX 93016

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
 
> The suggestion that Harry must commit murder or be murdered is 
Harry's
> own interpretation of the prophecy, and time and again, Harry has 
been
> wrong in his interpretations and predictions. I think he's wrong 
again
> this time. As for the Unforgiveable Curses, they're unforgiveable 
for
> a reason--they contaminate the soul (and the WW does believe in 
souls
> or the Dementors would be powerless). (I think Tom Riddle placed
> himself beyond redemption when he used them on his father and
> grandparents.) 

First of all, I absolutely agree with this.  Unforgivable curses are 
unforgivable for reason - yes they do contaminate, scar, etc..  But 
this is precisely why I think Harry should be made, by JKR, to use 
it.  I think you misunderstood what I was saying.  I want him to use 
AK, not because it's best for Harry, but precisely because it is 
not.  This isn't for any moral reason, but for an aesthetic one.  
Literarily, it works better.  If Harry, by the end of the series, has 
somehow found a way to remain completely uncontaminated, it totally 
saps the power from the evil LV has created in the WW.  If the one 
character in the story who is closer to LV than anyone else somehow 
manages to escape unscarred/uncontaminated, how powerful and how evil 
could LV have been anyway?  Literarily, a contaminated Harry works 
better - like Frodo in LOTR who can never go home again, or the 
goodbye between Pooh and Christopher Robin.  It provides a much more 
poignant ending than George killing the dragon, or whatever.  I think 
JKR has been slowing setting up over the last five books the 
seriousness of a kind of all-pervading plague that is LV.  If she 
just white-washes it away in Book 7, it undermines the potency of the 
evil he has brought about.  

> If it's absolutely necessary to kill, it can be done
> without using unforgiveable curses or other Dark methods such as
> poison or even more Muggle-like methods. Stabbing LV with Godric
> Gryffindor's sword would still be murder, just as it would have been
> murder for Sirius to stab Scabbers/Peter with a twelve-inch knife.

Understand, I don't even care if Harry actually uses AK, I just see 
it as the simplest means to give due gravity to Harry's act of 
murder, whatever the definition, and LV's reign of terror.  
(Incidently, Harry's already used an unforgivable curse, if a not 
entirely sucessful one, on BL in the MoM).

> Notice that Harry saves Peter (later) not because he doesn't think
> Peter deserves to die but because he doesn't want Sirius and Lupin 
to
> commit murder. I don't think JKR wants Harry to commit murder, 
either.
> There must be some better way, some more noble way, that would 
enable
> him to rid the world of evil's representative without resorting to
> evil himself. 

I think you're right.  I don't think anyone who wants what's best for 
Harry wants him to commit murder.  I don't think JKR does, but I 
don't think she wanted to kill Sirius either.  I don't even want 
Harry to commit murder.  But I do want what's best for the series, 
and in this particular case, I think the two interests conflict.  So 
three cheers for murderer Harry.