Harry using Crucio -- my two cents

[Feng Zengkun]

No: HPFGUIDX 174163

bboyminn:
 
> I couldn't agree more. Harry is not in a field full of
> daisies and fluffy bunnies, he has stepped into the 
> depths of hell. There probably isn't any place on 
> earth that is more dangerous to Harry at that moment
> than Hogwarts.
> 
>(SNIPPED)
>
> These are the EXTREMEST of circumstances...(snipped)
> it calls for equally dark, dangerous, and extreme counter-
> measures.
> 
> Comparing this to real life, you can't give soldiers
> guns and send them off to war, then complain when they
> shoot people. That's just irrational. When Harry meets
> someone of unspeakable cruelty and disrespect, he feels
> he needs to take equally extreme measure to counter them.
> He may not have been right, but I'm sure that's how he
> felt.
> 
> I'm sure in later years, Harry had second thoughts about
> having used unforgivable, just as soldiers in wartime
> have second thoughts. But in the moment, you have to
> react spontaneously, without hesitation, if you want to
> continue living. Let the morals of it work themselves
> out later. 

Zengkun:

Hogwarts episode aside, there is the matter of the
Imperiuses in the Gringotts bank. But all of that
aside, I don't think anyone is disputing the
(possible) necessity of fighting evil with evil; I am
sure the debate over whether the Unforgiveables were
called for can go on forever. But that is not the
point in question: the point is why Rowling completely
ignores the moral quandary she sets up, by ignoring
the fall-out of their use by the so-called good guys.

I seem to remember one of the characters saying in an
earlier book that Barty Crouch Sr's Aurors were no
better than the bad guys because of the methods they
used in catching dark wizards, so it is not as if
there is no precedent for this moral quandary. Since
Rowling herself set up the dodgy Auror = dark wizard
parallel as a warning against the slippery slope
argument, for her to completely ignore her own
parallel in the last book is even more untenable. I
don't mind so much that McGonagall gets a free pass
for her U.C.s, since she's not the main character and
is substantially older, but for Harry to get one as
well? That's kind of disappointing, and harkens back
to Rowling's seeming myopia over Snape's attraction as
well, I think (she said in an interview that people
must like Snape because he's a 'bad boy', if I'm not
mistaken).

Finally: it is all very well to assume that Harry
later regrets his use of the Unforgiveables, that
there is fall-out that happens 'off-screen', but I
find that kind of defence to be little better than
fan-wanking, quite honestly. Especially considering
the Gringotts Imperiuses, where we were specifically
told of Hermoine's non-reaction, and especially since
this is not a nitpickety detail but one of the larger
themes of the series - "the world is not divided into
good people and Death Eaters" is another example, as
is an early chapter in DH itself, when Lupin confronts
Harry over the latter's Expelliarmus (as opposed to
killing curse). Doesn't Harry reject the 'evil merits
evil' argument then? All the more reason to address it
when he succumbs then, isn't it?