Who killed Dumbledore? WAS: Re: Karmic justice in Potterverse again.

[juli17ptf]

No: HPFGUIDX 144963


>
> > Pippin:
> > Harry is not competent to determine the cause of death by an 
> > examination of the body, nor is he competent to determine whether
> > an avada kedavra curse has been effective. 
> > 
> > Harry, furthermore, wouldn't know the post hoc fallacy if it 
> > danced in front of him wearing a tea cozy. He has come to
> > faulty conclusions  even when no one was making
> > a deliberate attempt to trick him, that  Slughorn would be the 
new 
> > DADA professor, for example. 
> > 
> > Many wizards might reach the same conclusions as Harry, but
> > then, as we all know, a lot of wizards haven't an ounce of logic.
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I think he is absolutely competent to decided that Avada was 
> effective , as in  he sees "Avada" thrown at Dumbledore, the next 
> step - Dumbledore is dead.
> 
> Here is my hypothetical for  the RW.
> The person observes the murder, the person sees the killer take out 
> a murder weapon and shoot another person. Another person is dead. 
> The person who observes the murder reaches the conclusion that the 
> person who made the shot is therefore the killer.
> 
> IMO, this is the analogy that is pretty close to what happened on 
> the Tower, no? Keep in mind that I am leaving killer's intentions 
> completely alone for the sake of this argument.

Julie:
I don't think it's a very good analogy. If you see someone shoot a 
gun, there is very specific physical evidence that the gun hit the 
mark--i.e., a hole where the bullet entered, and blood from the 
wound. Additionally, the bullet can be removed from the victim and 
matched to the gun. 

In the WW it's a bit different. We hear Snape say "Avada Kedavra" and 
see Dumbledore thrown off the Tower. But we (and Harry) may not know 
enough about the dynamics of spell-casting to be as certain about 
what we (and Harry) saw as we would be with a gun. At the moment we 
do NOT know for certain if a two spells can be cast at once, or if a 
wizard can verbally speak one spell while casting another, nonverbal 
spell with his wand. We also don't know if there are specific 
physical reactions associated with the Avada Kedavra--the swishing 
sound, the open eyes, the dead drop rather than flying backward--that 
*always* occur (and didn't in Dumbledore's death), or whether each 
Avada Kedavra is different. 

Because of our lack of definitive knowledge about spells and their 
effects, there is some doubt inherent in that scene. And I think that 
is what Pippin is pointing out. Harry is still a student. He doesn't 
know all there is to know about what he is seeing, so what *appears* 
to be the truth may not be. 

Alla: 
> And you are saying that the most LOGICAL conclusion for the person 
> who observed  the murder would be to look for a posible trick? Why 
> would this person do it, if all evidence of the crime ( or whatever 
> everybody interprets it as) is right there?

Julie:
In real life the most logical conclusion is usually (but still not 
always) the correct one. In JKR's books, the most logical conclusion 
is quite OFTEN the wrong one. Therein lies the difference, and a very 
important one when we're theorizing about what may have happened on 
the Tower, rather than simply accepting Harry's most logical 
conclusion of what he saw.

Julie