Harry using Crucio

[sneeboy2]

No: HPFGUIDX 174244

Bruce Alan Wilson wrote:
>

> 
> Do you honestly think that this was the first time that Carrow had done
> something like that, with Mc.G. forced to look on helpless to do
anything about
> it?  She wouldn't be human if she didn't exault at least a little
bit at seeing
> him struck down and the opportunity to get a little of her own back.
> There is an old Rabbinical saying: "Do not let the best become the
enemy of the
> good."  Many who would jump on any moral lapse by those designated
as heroes
> would remember that.
> 
> Bruce Alan Wilson
> 


Sneeboy2:

My beef is with the author, not the fictional hero. She has spent a
good bit of ink establishing that the "unforgivable" curses are just
that, that only the bad guys use them, that the effects of them are
horrible, and so forth. Then, at almost the end of the tale, where one
expects the moral of the story to be the clearest, she inserts a scene
that indicates that, under some circumstances, using an unforgivable
is OK, even gallant. There's no nuanced examination, as we're having
here, of precisely what those circumstances are. There's no indication
that maybe using the curse was a "moral lapse," as you put it. 

Personally, I don't think the scene is intended to show the
character's flaws, or to raise a moral debate. There would be no point
in doing either so late in the story. It seems designed solely to
elicit a little cheer from an audience that, having sat through six
books in which the good guys are rather painfully good, is hungry for
a little eye-for-an-eye justice. The scene is very Hollywood in that
way, right down to the punchline about having to "mean it" -- though
perhaps hot as Hollywood as Mrs. Weasley's "bitch" line, which felt
lifted right from "Aliens." I had to wonder whether JKR had the
movie-version of DH in mind when she wrote these scenes. Call me a
killjoy, but I felt pandered to in both cases.