Imperius Curse: Pure Mechanics or Maintained Mindlink?

[Erin]

No: HPFGUIDX 93300

I retitled the thread in hopes of getting some more opinions.  It 
was "How LV can win the war in just 3 weeks".

Neri posed the chilling idea of the "Imperius virus", a devious plot 
in which any Death Eater can simply go out into the street, Imperio a 
hapless bystander wizard, and give him three simple commands.

1. Be a good servant of the Dark Lord.
2. Go and imperio other wizards.
3. Give them these three directions.

Others then pointed out that these directions needed a bit of fine-
tuning, but the general consensus was that, hey, this thing could 
work!  Just like a computer virus, it would quickly spread throughout 
the world....

And this was scary.  So scary that I (Erin) had to come up with some 
quick objections just so I could go to sleep at night. ;-)

 So I took a quick look at the chapter where we first see Imperius, 
and, based on the example of the spider who performs tricks without 
specific verbal instructions, posited that the Imperius is not a 
strictly mechanical spell wherin you can just order someone to do 
something and then forget all about it and send them on their merry 
way.  Instead (says I) the Imperius is a mind link which requires 
constant control.

Neri, who has tirelessly responded to every single response to this 
thread (for which she has my sincere admiration) answered, saying;

 > Neri: 
> When imposter!Moody practiced the Imperius on Harry and the rest of 
> the kids in his class, he seemed to first cast the spell, then gave 
> them verbal commands. Maybe the spider didn't understand English, 
so it had to be controlled by will. 

Erin responds:
Yes, but just the fact that the spider *can* be controlled by will 
alone, without verbal commands, is significant.

And does he actually give verbal commands to the students?  I don't 
believe that I can find any conclusive canon evidence that he does.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GoF, American 1st ed. Ch 15. pg 231

Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius 
curse upon them.  Harry watched as, one by one, his classmates did 
the most extraordinary things under its influence.  Dean Thomas 
hopped three times around the room, singing the national anthem.  
Lavender Brown imitated a squirrel.  Neville performed a series of 
quite astonishing gymnastics he certainly would not have been capable 
of in his normal state.  Not one of them seemed to be able to fight 
off the curse, and each of them recovered only when Moody had removed 
it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Erin:
See there?  No verbal commands shown.  Of course, the part you are 
probably thinking of is this one:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GoF, American 1st ed. Ch. 15. pgs 231-232

And then he heard Mad-Eye Moody's voice, echoing in some distant 
corner of his empty brain: *Jump onto the desk*...*jump onto the 
desk*...

Harry bent his knees obediently, preparing to spring.

Why, though?  Another voice had awoken in the back of his brain.

Stupid thing to do, really, said the voice.

*Jump onto the desk*...

No, I don't think I will, thanks, said the other voice, a little more 
firmly... no, I really don't want to....

*Jump! NOW!*

The next thing Harry felt was considerable pain.  He had both jumped 
and tried to prevent himself from jumping....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Erin:
See, to me that part is ambiguous at best.  The viewpoint is from 
inside Harry's head, and it's unclear whether or not Moody is 
actually speaking aloud.

Sure, it describes Harry as hearing Moody's "voice", but it also says 
that voice is coming from "a distant corner of his empty brain". It 
also characterizes Harry's own thoughts as a "voice", and  we know 
that they are not spoken aloud.  It reads to me as if the struggle is 
taking place *only* in Harry's head.

Not to mention that last "Jump! NOW!" from Moody/Crouch Jr. .  Would 
he really have snarled aloud like that at a student out where others 
could hear him?  I don't think so.  Too nasty for the guy he's 
pretending to be.

To reinforce this, one paragraph later Moody/Crouch Jr. has to 
explain to the class what just went on; "Look at that, you 
lot...Potter fought it!  He fought it, and he damn near beat it!"  If 
the class had heard Moody trying repeatedly *out loud* to force Harry 
onto the desk, this would have already been obvious to them.  


Neri: 
> The real Moody spent 9 months in a trunk with nothing to bind him 
but an Imperius curse.

Erin:
I would guess that the command most often given to the real Moody 
was "sleep".  Probably he was only allowed to wake up for feedings 
and to pump him for information about how he would behave in certain 
situations.  Keeping him asleep most of the time would have required 
only a very low-level mind link from Crouch Jr., freeing him to pay 
attention to his classes and school business.

 Besides which, the Imperius curse was *not* the only thing which 
bound him.  When he first discovers the real Moody at the bottom of 
the trunk, Dumbledore says "Stunned- controlled by the Imperius curse-
 very weak,".   So Moody is obviously kept stunned a good deal of the 
time as well, eliminating the need for any mental contact at all.

The fact that Moody has to be kept stunned and asleep much of the 
time would seem to be a point in favour of my argument that Imperius 
is a mind link.  If Jr. could simply have told Moody to "stay here 
and stay quiet" and trusted it to keep, then stunning him would not 
have been nessacery.


Neri: 
> Crouch Jr. was held in his house for 11 years by an Imperius curse 
> his father put on him. The father was not at home during working 
> hours, at the least. 

Erin:
Noooo, it's true that Crouch Sr. wasn't at home, and probably most of 
his attention was focused on his job while at work, BUT he had Winky 
there to guard Crouch Jr. 24/7 for him.  I don't think Winky would 
have been nessacery if Crouch could have just given one command in 
the morning and been confident of it sticking all day long while his 
attention was elsewhere.
 
Neri:
> Crouch Sr. himself visited Hogwarts twice under the Imperius curse 
> (in GoF, during the announcement of the champions and during the 
> first task), while his controller (LV) was elsewhere. His behavior 
> does seem suspicious in hindsight, but at the time even DD did not 
> uncover him. He made decisions that were directed to him by LV, but 
> he made them in the correct context as if they were his own 
> decisions. 

Erin:
Ah, you're assuming that the controller has to be close to the victim 
in order for the link to work.  Now your objections make a lot more 
sense to me.  But I don't see why that has to be the case.  What if 
the link worked regardless of distance?  What if the controller were 
able to see and hear everything that Crouch saw and heard and feed 
him appropriate responses over the miles?

Also I'd like to say that I don't believe LV was Crouch Sr.'s 
controller.  Wormtail was.  When Crouch escapes, Voldemort calls it 
Wormtail's blunder.  So even if the mindlink had required constant 
close-up supervision, Wormtail could have been in Crouch's pocket in 
rat form to do it.


Neri: 
> Lucius Malfoy, who performed many crimes during the first war 
> (probably including the Imperius curse), got off by claiming he was 
> under the Imperius himself. Although this was a lie, it wouldn't 
have worked as an excuse if it were known to be impossible. 

Erin:
You've lost me a wee bit on this one.  I'm not claiming that it is 
impossible to force people to commit horrible crimes under Imperius, 
quite the contrary; we have canon evidence that it is possible.  So 
most of the crimes he commited would be no bar to Lucius's Imperius 
plea.

I am saying that it would be impossible for one person to force 
another to cast Imperius while under Imperius themselves.  We have no 
canon that Lucius cast Imperius on anyone during VW1, it is simply a 
widespread fan assumption.  But even if he *had* (and as an Imperio'd!
Arthur devotee, I admit that I also believe that he did) that 
evidence could have simply not come out during his trial, or hearing, 
or whatever went on when he "got off" on the Imperius plea.



Neri: 
> To conclude: it is not necessary to guide imperio'ed people by 
> continuous remote control. They can operate as autonomous agents 
> based on verbal commands given in advance. 

Erin:
Sorry, but I remain unconvinced that this is proven at all.  But by 
the by, I've just noticed your name is mine in Pig Latin!  At least, 
I think it is.  It's been a while since I spoke Pig Latin :-)


  
Neri:
 Even excluding the idea of the Imperius virus, it seems a prudent 
precaution to devise a test that uncovers imperio'ed agents. Does 
anybody have an idea?
 
Erin:
Now that's a good one.  But given that the Imperius curse was a big 
problem the last time around and apparently this wasn't done then, 
perhaps the question we should be asking is "why not?  what prevented 
the WW from testing for Imperious?"  


Erin