Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! (Long)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 151084

Laurel Lei wrote:
<snip>
> > But, over that last year or so, I have read many posts that have
touched a nerve, so to speak. They mention that Harry is NOT a 
murderer or NOT a killer or that he is not capable of it or that they
hope he doesn't have to succumb to the murder of Voldemort via the
prophecy or even that they would throw their copies of the entire
Harry Potter series away if J.K. turned Harry into a murderer in book
 7... i.e. someone in Harry's stead would carry out the murder (via
the veil, another person does it for him, or by other freakish events
he  just dies...) <snip examples of Harry's supposed murders>
> 
Geoff responded:
> You've brought us back onto an interesting discussion subject
because we have had some threads about this in the past. I would
personally start with a strict dictionary definition of "murder".
> 
> Mine defines the word as:
> "The unlawful premeditated killing of one person by another."
> 
> This, in my opinion hinges on the word "premeditated". <snip>

> Harry is not contemplating killing Quirrell - he is trying to stop
him performing the killing curse by the only way he can visualise.
> 
> This is self-defence.

Carol responds:
Excellent. I wonder if the word "premeditated" might be used in
Snape's defense as well.

I've snipped most of Geoff's excellent response regarding Quirrell,
andhis exemplary canon support. I would add that Voldemort himself
says that Quirrell died when he, LV, left his body, exactly like the
many animal hosts that LV left to die when he had used up their life
force. (Also, lest we forget, Quirrell was a victim of the DADA curse.
He had drunk unicorn blood and he had tried to kill Harry. The curse
would, IMO, use both of those things against him.) The idea that Harry
killed him is, I believe, movie contamination. Harry was unconscious
when DD found him and would have been killed himself had DD not
arrived at that instant. But the key point is the one that Geoff made:
Harry was trying to prevent himself from being killed, not trying to
kill Quirrell (or LV via Quirrell).

Geoff (re the soul bit in the diary):
<snip canon support>
 
> If anyone is likely to fulfil the definition of murder here, it is
Tom Riddle. He has already indicated that Ginny is dying and he is
quite prepred to let Harry die - either by default or, if necessary,
by casting a curse. Harry acts instinctively, probably not knowing
precisely why. I certainly would consider this within the parameters
of self-defence again.

Carol adds:
Moreover, Harry is stabbing an object that he knows to be filled with
Dark magic, a diary, instinctively acting to destroy the *memory* of 
Tom Riddle. Diary!Tom is not a real person; he tells Harry that he's a
memory and that he is stealing Ginny's soul. By destroying the diary,
Harry destroys, not Tom himself, who no longer exists as a teenage
boy, not Voldemort, who is presently Voldemort, but a memory preserved
in a diary as a means of freeing the Basilisk to Kill Muggleborns. At
the same time, he is freeing Ginny's soul to reenter her body.
Destroying the diary is the only way to save Ginny's life. That Harry
is also destroying a Horcrux doesn't enter his mind. He doesn't know
what a Horcrux is, or that Voldie has preserved a bit of his soul
(torn off through an act of murder) in the diary along with a memory.
And, as I have noted elsewhere, the soul appears to be immortal,
indestructible. Rather than "murdering" a soul bit, I would argue that
Harry is (inadvertently) freeing it to go beyond the Veil. (Voldie
puts his soul bits in objects to chain himself permanently to the
earth. He wants earthly immortality; he is afraid of what lies beyond
the Veil. But each destroyed Horcrux brings him nearer, not to death,
but to the human mortality that all of us naturally face and that he
has unnaturally tried to prevent.) Destroying the diary, or any
Horcrux, is not an act of murder. It is simply undoing the evil magic
that binds Voldemort to earthly existence and making it possible for
him to die like everyone else.
> 
> Laurel Lei: 
> > Wouldn't Harry's soul be torn by his involvement in the death of 
> Quirrel or the "death" of Voldie's soul bit...???
> > 
> > This has bothered me for quite some time...
> 
> Geoff:
> I think not. <snip> > Since the examples you quote are not
premeditated killing - murder - I believe that no soul-splitting occurred.

Carol note:
I agree. Harry has no hand in Quirrell's death. He is only fending off
being murdered in the only way possible. And a soul bit is not a
person and cannot die. (A soul can be sucked into darkness and
oblivion by an Dementor, but even then, I think, it isn't "dead."
Death is "the next great adventure," the journey beyond the Veil. And
that, IMO, is what happens to the soul bits in the destroyed
Horcruxes, very different from killing a person, particularly through
an act of premeditated murder for, say, revenge or to acquire a
desired object like a locket or a golden cup.) In the case of the
diary, no murder occurred. In the case of Quirrell, if there was a
murder, it was committed by Voldemort in fleeing Dumbledore and
abandoning the body of his mortally weakened host.
 
Laurel Lei:
> > I also believe that Harry would have killed Sirius if Lupin hadn't
arrived. Harry had stated as much. (Obviously Sirius dying at that 
time wasn't in J.K.'s plot-line). 

> Geoff:
> Here, I might be willing to agree with you. Although, I wonder if
Remus hadn't arrived, Harry might have had a similar epiphany to Draco
at the end of HBP and realised that cold bloodedly killing someone was
perhaps nto as easy as it first seemed. <snip canon support> 
> 
Carol responds:
I agree that Harry was angry enough to kill, or thought he was. But
note how long he stood over Sirius Black, who was lying wandless on
the ground, and did nothing. And there's also the small matter or his
not knowing the killing curse at that time and quite likely not having
the ability to cast it even if he knew the incantation. Note
Crouch/Moody's comment in GoF that he doubted if the entire class of
Gryffindor fourth years could have given him so much as a nosebleed by
pointing their wands at him and shouting the incantation. Bellatrix
later says that you have to mean an Unforgiveable Curse to cast it,
and though she is speaking specifically of the Cruciatus Curse, which
Harry attempts but fails to cast properly, I think it applies to Avada
Kedavra and Imperio as well. Note that Harry later *prevents* Black
and Lupin from killing Pettigrew, whom he knows to be a traitor and a
murderer. I don't think he could have killed Black, even in righteous
anger, even knowing the spell.
> 
Laurel Lei:
> > And I believe that Harry would have killed Bella in the MOM 
during/post battle.
> 
Geoff:
 
> In the case of Bellatrix, Harry is beside himself with grief, fear
and rage.
> 
> But.... Notice....
> 
> He does NOT try to cast an Avada Kedavra spell. He has a go at
Crucio. That is an attempt to hurt - not murder. Even when canon tells
us: 'Hatred rose in Harry such as he had never known before...' <snip>
Harry does NOT attempt to kill.

Carol responds:
Exactly. And we see the same thing with Harry and Snape after Snape
kills Dumbledore (for whatever reason). Harry is furious and driven by
revenge, but he doesn't attempt to kill. (I am, BTW, concerned about
this desire for revenge, which I think could be potentially damaging
to the soul and which I see as the reason that Harry must forgive
Snape, whether or not Snape deserves it. If Love is Harry's weapon
against Voldemort, he can't be hampered by hatred and anger and the
desire for retribution. His motives must be pure. And I believe that
the Unforgiveable Curses are so-called for a reason. Snape is right:
Harry must not use them. They are, to use Tolkien's language for a
moment, the weapons of the Enemy.

<snip Sectum Sempra example, where I agree with Geoff.>

Again, I'm concerned about Harry's willingness (which is not the same
as ability) to use the Cruciatus Curse as an instrument of revenge,
but I don't see him as capable of murder.

Carol, who thinks that Harry acquired the power of possession from LV
at Godric's Hollow and that his defeat of Voldemort will somehow
involve that power