Why Avada kedavra is a bad spell WAS: Re: I HAD A DREAM OR HOW I REALIZED

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 167118

Alla wrote:
> 
> The intent to kill is what IMO makes the spell so bad. Ugh, it all so 
> clear in my head :) I believe that the intent to kill is what powers 
> the magic of the spell. but definitely NOT in the mechanical sense, 
> strictly in the metaphorical one.
><snip>> 
> Same thing for me with Avada Kedavra. What makes it evil magic so 
> powerful for me is that the intent to kill is behind it, nothing more 
> mechanical than that.
<snip>
> 
> I also do not think I said that it is okay to use AK in self-defense. 
> Sorry if I did say that. I was saying that IF JKR thought it was Okay 
> to use that spell in self-defense, she would made DD drop some hints 
> in his talk to Harry and she did not.
> 
> I think that she may go with self-defense killing as excusable( 
> although I doubt she will).

Carol responds:

To some extent, I agree with you. That is, I agree that the reason the
AK is Unforgiveable is that it is used for killing and for no other
purpose, in contrast to spells such as Impedimenta, which could
conceivably be used to knock someone off a cliff and into the jaws of
a waiting shark but are not intended for that purpose. (There are,
BTW, other illegal spells besides the Unforgiveables, as Hermione
hints in HBP, and I think Sectumsempra would be in that category if
the MoM knew about it.)

But Avada Kedavra is *the* Killing Curse, the only one designed for
that purpose, and the Aurors were authorized to use it. (It was no
longer "Unforgiveable" in the sense of resulting in a life sentence to
Azkaban for the Aurors. It was still illegal for everyone else.) Why,
then, wouldn't the real Moody, who "didn't kill unless he had to," not
use the AK to do the killing? We know for sure that he killed Evan
Rosier. Wilkes, another DE who was part of the "Slytherin Gang," is
also dead, and if Mad-Eye didn't kill him, another Auror must have
done so. And what other spell would that Auror have used? The AK is
quick, efficient, apparently painless, and virtually fool-proof
(unless your aim is off, like the Big Blond DE's). Why not use it
rather than, say, conjuring a poisonous snake or a pair of hands to
strangle the DE or whatever other method you have in mind?

And I'm curious. How do you think that Mad-Eye killed Evan Rosier (and
possibly Wilkes) if he didn't use an AK? And why would some more
complicated, possibly painful spell causing, say, strangulation, be
better than an AK if you're fighting a known Death Eater who refuses
to come quietly? (Personally, I think Mad-Eye should have just
Stupefied him and tied him up using Incarcerus, but maybe Rosier was
good at deflecting curses as well as blasting chunks out of noses.) If
Mad-Eye really had no choice but to kill him, what better way could he
have chosen that the AK he was authorized to use? To me, the situation
exactly parallels that of a policeman faced with a dangerous criminal
and has no choice but to kill him. And just as the policeman uses the
weapon available to him, a gun, Mad-eye would choose the weapon
available to him, a Killing Curse (all other curses having failed to
subdue him). 

Harry didn't know the Killing Curse (and probably couldn't have
conjured it if he did) in the Shrieking Shack, but he intended to kill
Sirius Black (or thought he did). Exactly how was he supposed to do
it? Would it have been better to choke him to death with his bare
hands, as he tried to do? And Lupin and Black intended to kill
Pettigrew. Do you think they had some other spell in mind besides a
simple, quick, efficient AK? They would have gone to Azkaban (or back
to Azkaban, in Black's case) regardless of the method they used for
the murder. And if a murder of that sort, very much premeditated on
Black's part, would have split their souls (and I suspect it would
have because it was an act of revenge, not self-defense), it would
have done so in any case, regardless of the spell they used, just as
poisoning Hepzibah Smith to steal the cup and the locket split
Voldemort's soul.)

I think that this focus on the method Snape used to kill Dumbledore
misses the point, which is that he did (apparently) kill him (by the
most obvious and practical means available). As a DDM!Snaper, I'm sure
it's that action, the killing of his mentor, that's causing him the
mental anguish--not the particular spell he used or even the
consequences to himself (a possible split soul and definite infamy),
which he would suffer regardless of the chosen method. Would it have
been better to send Dumbledore over the battlements with, say, an
Impedimenta so that he died from the fall rather than from a killing
curse? Wouldn't that still be murder? Wouldn't it have been worse
still to use Sectumsempra and leave him to die of incurable wounds,
lying in his own blood? Or, heaven forfend, to loose Fenrir Greyback
on him?

Carol, who thinks that an AK is like a Muggle handgun, which is also
designed to kill, except that it's more efficient and can't be
confiscated (and, for the records, I don't like guns)