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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 167084

Alla wrote:
> 
> How about the strongest personification of the intent to kill? 
> <snip>
> But when I think of depression in Potterverse, I think of dementors
first and foremost as strongest metaphor for that.
> 
> Same thing for me with AK. AK means to me that person intends to 
kill, period.
> 
> Of course there are other situations when person can intend to kill
 and use other means ( we do not see any of them by the way being used
by good guys, no?), but to me when author wants to stress how bad it
is, she will use AK first and foremost.

Carol responds:
I understand your feelings about the AK and to some extent, I share
them. I certainly don't want Harry to find himself in DDM!Snape's
position, forced to use an AK because no other means is available. But
I don't want him to push Voldemort off a cliff or use a gun, either.
So I'm holding out hope for the Veil or the Love Room.

But DDM!Snape's position is different. He has to kill DD and I fail to
see why using an AK would be any worse than using any other method.
(I've already presented reasons why it's actually better, at least for
the victim, than other methods of murder that we've seen. DD certainly
suffered much less from Snape's AK, if that's what it was, than from
drinking the green potion in the cave.)

I'm not sure that we have any evidence that an AK requires an intent
to kill beyond Bellatrix's words, "You have to mean them, Potter." But
then she focuses specifically on Crucios, which require the
*enjoyment* of the victim's suffering to be cast correctly. Righteous
anger, or even the simple (not so righteous) desire to get revenge for
pain that the victim has caused you, doesn't work. To sustain the
Crucio, you have to be a sadist. (And presumably, to sustain an
Imperious Curse, you have to want to control the person, to force them
to do your will against their own wishes.) But an AK is not sustained.
If you cast it and it strikes the victim, the victim dies instantly.
Hatred isn't required, as we see when Wormtail kills Cedric, a boy
he's never seen before and cares nothing about one way or the other.
So intent to kill, if that's what's required to cast an AK, doesn't
require either hatred or premeditation. It only requires an intent to
kill on a level with pulling the trigger of a gun. Nor, if Snape
really is DDM! does it require the caster to *want* to kill his
victim. Apparently, it can be cast against the will and desires of the
caster. All it requires, in Snape's words, is "the power and the nerve."

I think what makes the killing curse Unforgiveable is that there's no
countercurse, no way of saving the victim once he's struck by the
curse. But in other ways, it's no worse than other ways of
deliberately killing a victim--loosing a Basilisk on them, poisoning
them, beheading them, causing a bridge to collapse so that the people
in the cars on the bridge drown.

If we're looking for a metaphor for murder--the horrific act of
killing for personal gratification--I think we see it in the revolting
person of Fenrir Greyback. There's a person for whom the intent to
murder requires neither wand nor spell.

Carol, who does not want Harry to find himself in anything like
Snape's position and yet thinks that, for DDM!Snape in his terrible
predicament, AK was the best if not the only option