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

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 174466

> >>Carol:
> Betsy, I understand exactly how you feel. I didn't want Harry to   
> cast Unforgiveable Curses.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Honestly, by the time Harry started throwing Unforgivables around I'd 
ceased caring about his immortal soul.  His mind-numbing stupidity 
earlier on in DH had killed him dead for me as far as I was 
concerned.  (I can deal with a ruthless hero, I'm not so forgiving of 
a stupid one.)  So for me the easy use of Imperio and Crucio said 
more about JKR's consistency as an author and the overarching morals 
of the book.

> >>Carol:
> If he [Harry] 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.

Betsy Hp:
I disagree.  It was a Gryffindor versus a Slytherin.  So the 
Gryffindor *had* to win, because *that's* the overarching moral.  
Harry didn't need to be intelligent or compassionate or loving or 
even all that interested in justice.  What he had to be was a 
Gryffindor.  So the battle was won way back in PS/SS with Harry's 
Sorting.  Just as Snape was doomed at his Sorting.  

And honestly, it's not even that Harry and Snape made a choice.  The 
Hat just stated who they were.  It's all pre-determined.  Bit boring, 
really, IMO.

> >>Carol:
> 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.

Betsy Hp:
I won't reject it out of hand.  My beef with JKR isn't really about 
the Unforgivables, it's about the designated "other".  You know, the 
whole codified bigotry thing. <g>

> >>Carol:
> 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?
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
For this to work we'd have to accept that Harry didn't love Sirius 
and was not all that affected by his death.  That somehow McGonagall 
getting spit on made Harry angrier than Sirius being killed.  Plus, 
there has to be text backing this up.  Some sort of verbiage 
indicating that Harry is not in complete control when he casts his 
Unforgivables.  And that language is simply not there.  There's 
nothing to indicate that Harry is acting under an influence not his 
own.

I *wish* your take on it was correct because it would have given 
Harry an interesting moral stuggle.  But Harry is Gryffindor so he's 
automatically moral.  No need for a struggle.

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

Betsy Hp:
Unfortunately, I think to get the books on their "own terms" you have 
to wrap your head around the rather ugly idea that people are 
determined to be either "good" or "bad" pretty much from birth, and 
at the very lastest, at age eleven.  (I lean towards birth, since we 
see Slytherin children interested in Slytherin before their Sorting, 
and our one exception, Sirius, was rebelling against his Slytherin 
family before the Sorting too.)

Once you've got that bit of philosophy in place everything else 
clicks because it's not about actions at all.  So no matter what 
the "good" guys do, it's good.  And no matter what the "bad" guys do, 
it's not good enough.

Betsy Hp