Harry using Crucio.

[pattiemgsybb]

No: HPFGUIDX 174549

  eggplant:
>A fictional character has no duty to take the moral high
ground, his only duty is to be interesting. 

patricia:
JKR intends that we should see Harry as a particular kind of hero;
while flawed, he is not written as a dark hero.  As such he cannot
lightly employ the most evil (and unnecessary) of measures, even
against an enemy. Even in fiction there are certain "duties" -- based
on the author's characterization of each individual. And I believe JKR
would not agree that the sole purpose of her characters is to be
interesting.  


  eggplant: 
>I think it is entirely appropriate to be angry at someone who killed
and tortured your friends and is trying to kill you; and it is
entirely appropriate to use every resource you have to defeat that
person. 

patricia:
Torture in HP is performed for the sake of *sadistic satisfaction.* 
That's true when Bellatrix does it, and it's true when Harry does it.
As many others have pointed out, the use of this curse is not
necessary to *defeat* Carrow. 


  eggplant:
> Of course it's more realistic! If a writer insist that her
characters behave emotionally in ways no flesh and blood person ever
would it wrenches a reader out of an alternate reality and makes them
remember that they are just reading words printed on a dead tree; and
that's no fun. 

patricia:
Many flesh and blood people would never agree that torturing ANYONE is
ethically acceptable, even in wartime. Certainly there can be
great satisfaction in such vengeance against those who have wronged
us. And it's very easy to give in to the worst of our impulses, and
easy (while we're overwhelmed by emotion) to tell ourselves that a
given individual deserved that treatment.  But in HP we're supposed to
have this ethic of choosing what is RIGHT over what is EASY. 

I bet someone here has quoted this already as it's quite famous, but
in case they haven't: Nietzsche said, "He who fights monsters should
be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if thou gaze long
into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee." If we readily
embrace the tools of those who are evil with the excuse that this is
the only means by which we can defeat evil, then Good and Evil may
become words with no meaning. And we may find that once "evil" has
been defeated, we've learned to relish the power of those tools, and
have forgotten what goodness means.