Unforgivables - from a different angle

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 174561

> Magpie:
> 
> > I consider Bellatrix and Barty perfectly credible 
> > witnesses for this information, there's no scenes 
> > where somebody disproves it, iirc Harry himself 
> > verifies it once he's done a Crucio successfully. 
> > So why would it be wrong?
> 
> houyhnhnm:
> 
> Well, there is the scene Harry witnesses through 
> the Voldemort connection of Rowle being crucio'd by Draco. 
> (Scholastic, p.174)
> 
> Draco doesn't seem to be enjoying it very much.  
> His face is described as white and terrified, petrified 
> and gaunt. His motivation seems to come from the fear 
> of having the same thing done to him if he doesn't comply.

Magpie:
I was thinking of that scene actually, though I didn't bring it up. 
It's one of the scenes (along with the kids being made to do the 
curse in class) that indicates that JKR just needed it to be 
different for the plot in DH and didn't think through the 
implications completely to explain them to us. Clearly you can do 
them without wanting to do them given what we see of Draco and the 
implications that normal students are being forced to do them, and 
yet in the same book we've also got Harry saying his little quip and 
the other implication that Crabbe and Goyle are good at them because 
they're naturally sadistic.

In the end I wind up with a similar idea about them as you do, that 
like the Patronus there are times when how you do it is important and 
times when it isn't. Basically, Rowling has a lot of torturing going 
on in the story, and she needs it to be different metaphorically at 
different times. Sometimes it's about connecting with whatever makes 
you do it. Other times she's showing the evilness in people in 
forcing others to do it. That the two things don't completely fit 
with each other doesn't seem to be a problem for her. Apparently you 
can do a Crucio while being repulsed by what you're doing, because 
that scene is about a different kind of torture, in a way. A kind 
more focused on in DH, where the DEs are forcing everybody to be like 
them.

This is maybe doubly noticable since we have a bad character, Draco, 
being the one not wanting to use the curse while Harry's being all 
Errol Flynn about it. The implications seem to be that the author has 
little trouble with the actual act of hurting someone to the extent 
Crucio hurts them, but sees differences in when it's being used and 
why and against whom. And also the series has a pattern of changing 
how it presents pain in general. I mean, I personally not only get 
the impression that Draco is reluctant and Harry is happy to do their 
Crucios, but that Ollivander is portrayed as someone being given 
painful electric shocks that should make us all wince while Carrow's 
getting the equivalent of a punch in the face, all due to the people 
involved and the context.

-m