Malum in prohibendum vs. Malum in se, was Re: Harry using Crucio.

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 174420

Betsy Hp:
> JKR definitely makes the rules.  And she's changed them here. 
Because what made the Unforgivables wrong in her other books is that
you had to *mean* them.  IOWs, you couldn't throw a Crucio at someone
you just wanted to punch in the face.  You had to want to pull their
fingernails out.  You had to want to see them writhe in pain.  And it
had to be for the pain's sake, not just your own "righteous" anger.
You had to get in touch with your inner sadist.  We had an explicit
example of that in GOF.
> 
> It was reasonable to infer then, that to successfully cast an 
Imperius you had to *want* to fully subjugate someone to your will, 
make them your complete slave.  And that to successfully cast an AK 
you had to *want* someone's death.
> 
> So being able to successfully cast an Unforgivable meant that you 
were in a dark and cruel headspace.  You weren't torturing for a 
purpose other than enjoying seeing someone in pain.  You controlled 
with the joy of controlling, you killed with the joy of killing.
> 
> Of course in DH, things have changed.  Just as polyjuice now lasts 
for as long as needed, Crucio has become the equivalent of punching 
someone in the face.  Imperio has been watered down to a nicely 
effective Confoundis.
> 
> Mainly because JKR doesn't want us to judge her characters by what 
they *do*.  She needs us to judge them by what they *are*.  Anything 
Harry does is, by definition, good.
>
Carol responds:

Betsy, I understand exactly how you feel. I didn't want Harry to cast
Unforgiveable Curses. I thought that his inability to cast an
effective Crucio was a sign of his goodness and that his repeated
attempts to do so were a sign that the desire for vengeance, first
against Bellatrix and then against Snape, was starting to control him
and that he would need to lose that desire for vengeance--would need
to stop hating Snape, against whom he had channeled most of that
desire for vengeance--need to understand and forgive him before he
could perform the act of Love, the willing self-sacrifice, that
ultimately destroys Voldemort. And I think that's exactly what
happened. If he had confronted Voldemort hating him and seeking
vengeance and willing to kill him using an AK or any other deadly
curse, he would have failed.

I still see the arguments that the moral relativism (it's okay for the
good guys to use the weapons of the enemy as long as it's for a good
cause, and Crucioing anybody, even Amycus Carrow, seems inexcusable)
but consider for a moment that possibly the Unforgiveable Curses are
not what we thought they were.

Bellatrix says that "You have to mean them," and in the case of the
Cruciatus Curse, that means you really want the person to suffer. But
in the case of Avada Kedavra, we see even with the spider and with
poor Cedric Diggory and with Bellatrix's fox that hatred is not
necessary. So Snape's use of Avada Kedavra, which Dumbledore has told
him may not damage his soul ("Only you know whether etc.    ) amounts
to an act of mercy. He's saving Draco's soul, he's granting a dying
man a dignified death and a quick end to suffering, and, in the end,
having bound himself with a UV, he's saving his own life so that he
can continue to work with Dumbledore to protect Harry and the students
at Hogwarts. (Snape as headmaster has to have been part of DD's plan.)
Snape has to will Dumbledore's death, but he doesn't have to hate him.
(I would, though, at that moment, and he surely also hates himself.)
He doesn't *want* DD's death. He just has to steel himself to
figuratively pull the trigger and give DD a quick, painless death
vastly preferable to being torn apart by Fenrir Greyback's teeth. On a
side note, I don't know what curses either the good guys or the bad
guys are using in the Battle of Hogwarts, but we're seeing duels, not
both sides firing AKs at each other. A Killing Curse is the quickest
and most efficient of the curses, but it's not the only one for either
side. Moe confusion, I agree.)

As for Imperius, I think there's a difference between a sustained
Imperius like the ones used by the Crouches on each other, on Bode in
OoP, and on Pius Thicknesse (who seems to be treated as a bad guy even
though he's Imperiused, another source of confusion for me) in DH and
the quick, short-term Imperius Curses that Harry uses on Travers and
the goblin Bogrod in DH. Expediency seems to justify Harry's use of
the "unforgiveable" but no longer illegal curse in JKR's view (not
mine, Betsy!), and certainly, Harry has to steal the Horcrux by some
means. As he tells Griphook, he doesn't want it for himself (shades of
the Philosopher's Stone in the mirror); he wants to destroy it to help
defeat Voldemort. I think it matters, at least to JKR, that neither
Travers (a DE who's already tried to kidnap Harry at the Lovegood's)
or the innocent Bogrod is permanently Imperio'd. A confundus Charm
would not have served the purpose. They have to be temporarily
deprived of the power of choice "for the greater good." Travers, given
free will, would turn Harry over to Voldemort and kill his friends.
Bogrod would simply protect the Lestranges' treasure, letting the
thieves be killed by the dragon or his fellow goblins. I don't like
it, but it seems that Imperius is acceptable in an emergency, in
self-defense, for the greater good. And now we see that Dumbledore
(fallen from his pedestal) probably *did* authorize the man he thought
was Mad-Eye Moody to use the demonstrate the Imperius Curse on his own
students. I don't like it, but maybe we should have seen this coming.

Harry's use of the Cruciatus Curse on the despicable Amycus Carrow is
for me much more troubling, especially given McGonagall's view of it
as gallant and Harry's remark that Bellatrix was right about having to
mean the curses. Carrow has, of course, done more than spit on
McGonagall. He has used that same curse to punish students in
detention and taught Crabbe and Goyle, at least, to use it on other
students. though Harry may still think that it was snpe who tried to
Crucio him in HBP, the torturer was almost certainly Carrow. JKR
probably approves of the use of his own favorite curse as Karmic
justice. At least she didn't have the still noble and innocent Neville
using it on Bellatrix. But Harry's use of it still seems like
excessive force since Carrow presents no danger at the moment. It
certainly smacks of revenge--from the same boy who prevented Lupin and
Black from murdering Pettigrew in PoA.

Here's my theory, which I hope you won't reject out of hand because
you object on principle to the use of Unforgiveables and feel that JKR
has betrayed us by having Harry use them. What if the soul bit, which
Dead!DD refers to as "parasitic," is getting control, causing Harry
from OoP onward to seek revenge, confusing it with justice like Lupin
and Black in PoA, making him want to punish first Bellatrix and then
Snape? Harry still has the soul bit in his scar when he Crucios
Carrow, and none of the other good characters follows his example.
(I'm ignoring McGonagall's Imperius Curse, which her defenders can
argue for me.)

Somehow, Snape reaches out beyond the grave to Harry. Somehow, the
soul bit stops influencing him and Harry not only forgives Snape but
accepts the need to face Voldemort without fighting, without seeking
vengeance, doing nothing but offering himself as a willing sacrifice
to destroy the soul bit that he now knows is in his scar.

That renunciation of vengeance, that act of self-sacrificial love,
changes everything. Voldemort's magic no longer holds. He can't
prevent the wandless Neville from destroying Nagini, his last and most
horrible Horcrux.

Does that explain it or help at all? The Harry who Crucios Amycus
Carrow has not yet chosen to substitute vengeance for love. Snape's
memory, which tells him that he must walk willingly to his death, also
enables him to substitute forgiveness and understanding for vengeance
and even to extend a chance for remorse to the third of the "abandoned
boys," Tom Riddle. From that point on, having had his epiphany, Harry
casts no more Unforgiveable Curses.

I realize that JKR seems inconsistent, particularly since her
depiction of the Crouches shows where ths constant and unjustified use
of the Unforgiveable Curses leads. I realize that she seems to be
saying that the end justifies the means.

But I wonder whether this renunciation of the Unforgiveable Curses is
 the penultimate step in Harry's journey. He has already renounced the
Hallows. Now he has chosen to sacrifice himself like Lily thanks to
Snape's memory, renouncing vengeance or even self-defense. He has two
more choices to make: to return, facing death yet again, or "go on,"
and to fight Voldemort or merely do what he did in the graveyard,
using Expelliarmus, and relying on the wand to choose its master.

But once Harry steps into Snape's memory, we see no more Unforgiveable
Curses from Harry. The soul bit is destroyed and he has had his
epiphany. Voldemort, not having learned any sort of lesson, is again
hoist on his own AK.

Carol, still struggling with the book but trying to understand it on
its own terms