I HAD A DREAM OR HOW I REALIZED THAT I MAY HAVE BEEN WRONG./ PART 2 sort of

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 167077

Magpie:
> Actually, even acknowledging that's true, I don't know if it's 
really that bad. I mean, Crucio seems like it should be pretty bad 
too, but Harry almost uses it. Granted, I think there is a difference
between what Harry (and imo Draco) are throwing at their enemies and
the true use of Crucio, which is why Harry's doesn't work.

Carol responds:
I think it's clear that the Cruciatus Curse *is* Dark. Bellatrix, an
expert on the subject, says that to cast it successfully, you have to
enjoy causing pain, which is why Harry's righteous anger resulted in a
failed curse. And he *wanted* to hurt Bellatrix, to punish her for
killing Sirius Black, just as he *wants* to hurt Snape (but doesn't
get the opportunity because Snape deflects the curse). Much as he
hates Snape and wants revenge on him, I don't think he would have
succeeded in Crucioing him because, unlike Bellatrix and Voldemort and
the DE who cast the Crucio that Snape stopped, he doesn't *enjoy*
inflicting pain. It's a sadist's weapon, altogether evil (IMO), which
can have no good uses that I can think of. (There are other ways, less
cruel and more effective ways, to punish criminals, for example.) IMO,
Harry needs to get beyond the temptation to use the Cruciatus Curse on
anyone, for any reason. (I could be wrong, of course, but I'll be very
disappointed if it turns out that JKR thinks it's acceptable for the
good guys to torture an enemy--and very surprised as well, given what
we know of her politics.)

Magpie:
> But I don't think AK in itself is necessarily something the good
guys would just never use. JKR uses it sparingly in the narrative, but
I don't know whether that's because she's saying the good guys would
never use it. Iirc, Moody is described as always trying to take people
alive, so he didn't always do it, and while Barty's allowing them to
use Unforgivables led to bad things, I don't think it made Moody
necessarily bad.
> 
Carol responds:
I agree regarding Moody, but the case with Mr. Crouch may be
different. He's the one who authorized the Aurors to use the weapons
of the Death Eaters against them and who kept his own son under the
Imperius Curse for years after helping him escape from Azkaban. And
that same son had used the Cruciatus Curse to help torture the
Longbottoms into insanity and later had no compunction at all about
demonstrating all three Unforgiveables to his student (torturing the
spider in front of Neville is an act of supreme cruelty, IMO),
Imperioing his own students, Imperioing Krum to make him Crucio
Cedric, and AKing his own father. The Crouches *seem* to illustrate
Alla's perspective that the Unforgiveables are altogether evil and
corrupt the soul. Certainly, Barty Jr. was irredeemably evil and his
father, though he repented, did so too late and paid the price. But,
still, there's Moody, who only killed when he had to and only, it
would seem, in self-defense against DEs like Evan Rosier, who put up a
good fight. (Why Rosier didn't just kill Moody is unclear; maybe he
wanted to maim and mutilate him rather than kill him. Or the story
required him to blow a hunk out of Moody's nose before Moody killed
him.) It's all very confusing, at least to me.

Magpie:
> It gets back to that question of Dark Magic again, what it is, what
it does to you. Is it like Star Wars where we should worry that Harry
tried to throw a Crucio? I thought it would be in OotP, and then in
HBP I thought oh no, it's not. 

Carol responds:
I *do* worry about Harry throwing Crucios, not so much because they're
the weapon of the Dark side (cf. using the One Ring against Sauron,
which would be folly of the first order) but because of the sadistic
intent required to cast a successful Crucio and the clearly evil
nature of the successful casters (Voldemort, Bellatrix, Barty Jr.). I
can't imagine Moody casting one, or Dumbledore, either. I think that
Harry is passing through a phase that he doesn't even recognize as the
temptation to use the Dark Arts against the Dark side, to hurt them as
they've hurt him. (And, of course, he sees Snape as being on the Dark
side, whether he really is or not, and wants revenge against him.) But
that temptation is, IMO, an obstacle to be overcome along the road to
confrontation with the Dark Lord. The desire to inflict pain is, I
think, antithetical to the Love magic he needs to be focusing on.
Rather than thinking about revenge, maybe he should put that "saving
people thing" to good use.

Magpie:
> Sectumsempra was a deadly curse the way Harry used it in HBP, yet a
few chapters later he's reaching for it again--granted, against the
Inferi, but if it's Dark Magic and it had horrific results should he
be using it at all? Yet it doesn't seem like it's a big deal that he did.
> 
Carol:
I think using Sectumsempra against animated corpses is different from
using it on a living enemy. (The Inferi can't feel or bleed and
they're already dead.) Harry's horror at the results when he used it
on Draco is surely the appropriate response (unfortunately rather
short-lived). But, of course, it's hard to think properly or worry
about ethical implications when a horde of Inferi is coming at you.
Expelliarmus isn't going to work. I'm not sure that Stupefy would,
either. (Shooting flames from his wand, though . . . )

I think that Snape is right, though not for the reasons he gives (not
his real reasons?), when he says, "No Unforgiveable Curses from you,
Potter," and when he expresses disapproval of Harry's use of Dark
magic, even a curse that he, himself, invented at the same age: "Where
did you learn such Dark magic, Potter?" Sectumsempra, as he knows all
too well, is intended to cause pain and bleeding and death. The only
thing better about it than about the AK is that Sectumsempra can be
cured by a wizard who knows the countercurse (quite possibly, only
Snape himself).

Magpie:
> So I don't know. I can imagine that Snape knows that in this 
situation he ought to kill Dumbledore and that AK isn't any worse way
to do that than anything else. 

Carol:
Not to mention that it's quick and efficient and doesn't require
preparation or administration as poisons do, and it's what the DEs
would expect, and, unlike Sectumsempra, it's apparently painless. (The
terrified expressions on the Riddles' faces did not result from the AK
itself or Cedric would have had a similar expression. Maybe Tom
tortured them before he killed them. Hepzibah Smith's death from
poison was probably more painful than theirs or Frank Bryce's or
Cedric's. If you're going to be murdered, better to die instantly from
a shot through the brain than suffer the agony of being cut up with a
chainsaw and left to bleed to death. Or that's my view.) Which is not
to say that Avada Kedavra is *good*, by any stretch of the
imagination. But I think it's Dark (and Unforgiveable) because it's
intended for killing and no other purpose and because there's no
countercurse (in contrast to Sectumsempra, which is Dark but might or
might not be classified as Unforgiveable if the MoM knew about it). 

*If* Snape was forced by circumstances to kill Dumbledore (and really
did kill him rather than letting the poison or ring curse do so), a
quick and painless AK is better than leaving him to lie in his own
blood and bleed to death. (Snape, of course, would not be able to wait
around and save him as he saved Draco.) And an AK seems to me less
cruel than having Dumbledore die from the fall. (If Dumbledore is
dying from the poison and/or the ring curse, the AK is also a coup de
grace though that in itself doesn't justify it, I admit.)

It seems to me that Snape is faced with a choice between two evils.
Which would be worse from DDM!Snape's and Dumbledore's perspective,
having Snape kill DD or having him die in some other way (assuming, as
I do, that DD's escape from the Death Eaters is not an option)? And if
the answer is that "dying in some other way" is worse, for whatever
reason, then Snape has to kill him. And, if that's the case, AK is the
obvious method, the one that would be most efficient and least painful
and arouse least suspicion. (If killing DD splits Snape's soul, I
don't see why an AK would tear it but some other method wouldn't.
Hepzibah Smith's murder by poison seems to have torn LV's soul quite
efficiently.)

Magpie:
The way it's written in the scene it actually seems like a pretty good
way to go. I mean, it's dignified...it's more like Snape just saying,
"You're dead now." I don't meant to underestimate it--that's part of
why the scene's so dramatic. But it's dramatic because what AK is is
just the wish for someone else to be dead spoken aloud. 

Carol responds:
Well, yes and no. Dignified, yes (at least by comparison with
Sectumsempra), but mainly because Snape sends DD's body over the
battlements and prevents Fenrir Greyback from having it for "afters,"
which would have been considerably worse than undignified. Also, DD
has just that fraction of a second to prepare himself, to close his
eyes and compose his features (I'm assuming a real AK here though I'm
open to other possibilities). If we can judge from the peacefully
sleeping portrait, this is the way that Dumbledore wanted to go, given
the limited possibilities now available. Dying peacefully in his sleep
fifteen years later is not an option.

Magpie:
>  <snip> But I don't really get the feeling that AK as a spell stands
alone from other spells or from other ways to kill. I think it's just
that the intent to kill is a big deal; using it has effects on you and
using it a lot has severe effects. I think the big deal is that Snape
is killing, and the AK symbolizes that intent itself, which is more
formidable than any of the almost-murders throughout the books.

Carol:
I don't entirely agree. I don't think that Snape intended to kill
Dumbledore (much less wanted to do so, though I know that's not what
you're implying). I think he had no choice, or rather, had only
Hobson's choice (he had to kill DD himself because not to do so would
have even more devastating consequences), and he chose the only spell
that would serve that terrible necessity without additional pain and
degradation for Dumbledore. 

What's terrible for Snape, IMO, is that he had to kill Dumbledore, the
only man who believed in him and trusted him and saw the good in him.
And that--the killing rather than the intent to kill--is, IMO, why
he's suffering such anguish when Harry calls him a coward. If I'm
right, it has nothing to do with having used an AK per se and
everything to do with having been forced by circumstances to choose
between killing his mentor or dying himself, and with having chosen to
kill DD rather than die himself because that was what Dumbledore
wanted him to do. He has chosen what was right (or what DD thought was
right) over what was easy and no one, he thinks, will ever understand.
It's almost as if, rather than Snape betraying Dumbledore, he feels,
at least for the moment, as if Dumbledore has betrayed him. (Draco,
who has no close relationship with Dumbledore, could not possibly feel
what DDM!Snape must feel, whether he killed DD at a distance through a
cursed necklace or poisoned mead or murdered a weak and disarmed old
man that he sees as foolish and deluded. He would simply know what
Wormtail knows, how it feels to kill someone you don't care about on
Voldemort's orders.)

Carol, wondering whether JKR has fully thought out the implications of
the Unforgiveable Curses but fearing that plot takes precedence over theme