AK and guns- both unforgivable, and sometimes necessary!

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 167182

> Magpie:
> My thoughts here might not be helpful at all, but when I read it I chalk it 
> up to JKR having them use the thing that feels best for the scene. Hagrid 
> hunts with a crossbow because when she thinks of hunting, that's what she 
> thinks of, just as execution is done with an axe. It's not about being 
> humane, it's about what you think of when you think of hunting or execution 
> (if it were the most humane, it would undercut the drama).

> 
> And then, of course, when Hagrid goes into the FF first year, and when 
> Buckbeak is being executed, there is no AK that we know of yet, because it's 
> only introduced in GoF, so they kind of can't use it.

Pippin:
JKR is supposed to have spent ten years working out the story. Now some
people would have felt that they had to use that time on the math and
logistics of  world-building, but JKR's emphasis has always been  on 
that character who strolled into her head one day on the  train, and 
didn't know who or what he was. 

One of the things that Harry doesn't know about himself is whether he's
a killer. By default  he's not, but he hasn't yet *chosen* . I think the
rights and wrongs of killing are central to the story, and it's not a thing
JKR will treat as casually as she's treated  the number of students
at Hogwarts or the Black family tree (which is a fabrication anyway.)

Even though  we don't know about the killing curse in Book One, it's 
tied back to it when we discover how James and Lily died, and realize
how Quirrell must have meant to kill Harry in the Mirror room. If JKR 
was planning to show that the curse could be benign, then it would 
be odd for her to introduce situations where a benign killing is 
anticipated and not  explain why it isn't being used. She wouldn't
have to be explicit any more than she's explicit about the 'deadly
curse' that Quirrell was about to use.

I don't think Macnair got to choose the method he would use to
kill Buckbeak. I think the point is that in the minds of the WW an
axe is *less* sadistic than a killing curse. Buckbeak didn't seem
to know that he was in danger, (which undermines the idea that he
sensed Harry was in trouble in HBP) but animals threatened by the 
killing curse do.

I agree that Hagrid would be more comfortable with a cross
bow. But if he knew there was a more humane way of killing available,
I'd think he'd have left the job to someone else so it could be used.

> > Pippin:
> > "Always the innocent are the first victims" The victims of hatred
> > are seldom the ones who were its instigators.
> >
> > That is what Dumbledore was trying to explain, IMO,  when he said
> > that Sirius didn't hate Kreacher.
> 
> Magpie:
> But doesn't this sort of water down the idea of "hatred" until it's almost 
> meaningless, or just say only some people can do it? (Or is that the point?) 

Pippin:
I don't think JKR is trying to water down the idea of hatred as much
as to say we could make better headway against it if we  feared it less
and understood it more. What we demonize, we cease to 
understand.  Ron dreads garden spiders almost as much as
acromantulas. Harry's hatred and fear of Snape is now as great as
his hate and fear of Voldemort.

 But a garden spider is not even  potentially an acromantula,
and it may be that not everyone who hates  is a potential murderer.
I think it takes hate, and something more than hate, a kind of 
unreason, to use the AK. 

Dumbledore says that Voldemort has powers he will never have. It's
not only that he's too noble to use them, IMO, it's that he's too noble
to nurture the capacity to use them. 

Pippin
thinking this is a bit rambly, and hoping it makes sense