LV Inmortality (plus Predicting the future)

[antoshachekhonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 116439


> > Distaiyi responded:
> > 
<snip>
> > 
> > Now in Hogwarts they teach not to use the unforgiveable (sp?, sorry
> > tired) curses. But if a child, even a well trained child were to use
> > one, well eventually they would get over it. Maybe getting Harry to
> > the point where he can cast AK is exactly what Dumbledore wants?
> 
> 
> Carol responds:
> My original point was that the Unforgiveable Curses are evil and that
> Dumbledore is too noble to use such weapons. To elaborate, they
> require either hatred or cold indifference to human life, will, or
> suffering to be cast correctly, which is why Harry failed when he
> tried to Crucio. When an evil person casts them, he becomes even more
> evil--irredeemable like Voldemort, Bellatrix, and Barty Jr. Even when
> a person tries to use them for good, he is caught in his own net.
> Barty Jr., who authorized the use of the Unforgiveable Curses on the
> DEs, is Imperio'd and then Ak'd by the son he had tried to control
> through the Imperius Curse.
> 
> Barty Sr. shows the futility of using such weapons. Evil can't destroy
> evil; it only perpetuates the cycle. Dumbledore is too noble, and too
> wise, to use such weapons, and it would be utter hypocrisy to expcet
> Harry to use them. Remember what happened to Tom Riddle, who AK'd his
> own father and grandparents when he was the same age Harry will be
> when he fights the ultimate battle with Voldemort. Dumbledore can't
> possibly want that fate for Harry, or any of the young wizards and
> witches who will be on his side of the war. No matter how well-trained
> the children are, IMO, nothing can prepare them to use weapons that
> can only be mastered by someone with the will to do evil. There must
> be another way, a way to defeat evil through good. It's the difference
> between *Defence Against* the Dark Arts and the Dark Arts themselves.
> 
> Carol

Antosha:

Distayi, you're describing a book very much like Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. 

But I, along with Carol, don't think that's where JKR is leading us. I agree that Harry will 
delve into his dark side some more ("Turn to the Dark Side, young Wizard..."), but she has 
given us ample clues--the locked door in the DoM, the force that actually drives out LV 
when he attempts to possess Harry, Lily's Ancient Magic, and many more--that the final 
act that will defeat LV will be an act of love rather than one of hatred. Whether it is a 
selfless act of sacrifice, like Lily's, or a more complicated act of sympathy towards LV 
himself, with whom, as we know Harry shares so many "strange likenesses" (CoS, p. 316 
US ed.). Perhaps it will be an act of both sacrifice and compassion--that would seem to 
please the readers who are looking for a Christian message without stooping to the clunky 
allegory of the Narnia books (which, btw, I love dearly, clunky allegory notwithstanding).