[HPforGrownups] Requiescat in Pace: Unforgivables

[Christine Maupin]

No: HPFGUIDX 174605

Lee Kaiwen:
>I think this discussion has run its course. It's been several days at 
>least since anything substantive has been added to the debate, and nor 
>is there likely to be in the future. So before it devolves into endless 
>rehashings of the same points, I'm going to make a few general comments, 
>then bow out.
[snip]

I agree -- this discussion has run its course -- I'm exhausted trying to keep up with the posts...  I responded in the very beginning of the discussion with my simplistic two cents and pretty much stayed out of it since then because I had nothing to add that hadn't already been said.

I think you make excellent points in your lengthy, well-referenced, and well-constructed discussion, most of which I agree with.  I would like to respond to two small things that, while small, I think important to make distinctions...

Lee Kaiwen:
>In "The Seven Potters" Harry fights a desparate battle, outnumbered four to one >by AK-wielding DEs, passing within millimeters of death with his friends 
>risking their own lives on his behalf. Yet he never succumbs to a UC.
>We're supposed to believe that Harry Potter, who had seen death a 
>hundred times, who had demonstrated time and again, in the most dire and 
>perilous of circumstances, a level-headed coolness well beyond his 
>years, was, in the Ravenclaw Commons, pushed beyond the snapping point 
>by a -- Death Expectorator? A Salivating Slytherin? A Loogie Launcher? A 
>Hocking Henchman?

First, I wouldn't use the words "level-headed coolness" in connection with Harry  during the escape from the Death Eaters and Voldemort after leaving Privet Drive.  I was exhausted after reading that chapter -- the tone was one of terror, and panic, and desperation and I saw Harry reacting in terror, and panic, and desperation.  The closest thing I can think of that we can relate to in a similar fashion is avoiding a horrific traffic accident or other life-threatening situation -- one might instinctively take the evasive maneuvers necessary to remove oneself from danger but the panic is always there.  Except for using Expelliarmus on Stun, I think he acted on instinct alone, not thought, up until the point he realized he was safe at the Tonks's home; and that feeling of safety didn't come until he cognitively accepted that Andromeda wasn't Bellatrix and therefore not a threat.  Only then could he began to relax.  He ran on adrenaline, not "level headed coolness" throughtout
 the entire escape.

Second, Harry is affected and shaped by the events of this book just as he is affected and shaped by the events of the first six books.  He is not the same person in the Ravenclaw Commons as he is leaving Privet Dr (nor is he the same person confronting Dumbledore's portrait as is in the Ravenclaw Commons).  I don't point this out to argue for or against Harry's morality, I point it out only to acknowledge that events and experiences affect us -- and Harry has a heck of a lot of experiences between the chapters where the examples you cite take place.

Lee Kaiwen:
>Harry's outrage at Amycus' act is supposed to excuse his use of the 
>Cruciatus. But then what of the duel in the Room of Requirement? With 
>Malfoy, Crabbe and Doyle furiously battling our heroic trio, with spells 
>ricocheting off every wall, with Malfoy and Crabbe throwing AKs at his 
>two best friends, with Harry's mind white-hot with fury over Hermione's 
>near-death experience, what spells does he choose? Expelliarmus and a 
>couple of Stupefys. It's Carrow's spittle, in the end, not Crabbe's AK, 
>that earns a UC in reply.

>From a tactical standpoint, Cruciatus or Imperius would be poor choices and Harry is smart enough to know that.  He needs to disable his opponent as quickly and effectively as possible -- esp. knowing what that opponent is willing to do.  Even if he did want to use Cruciatus (and he might have wanted to for all we know), he doesn't have the time to hold Cruciatus long enough to permanently neutralize his enemy so he must use spells that will.  And, I could never see Harry using Avada Kedavra, even knowing he had to face Voldemort eventually.  I still felt that way after he used Cruciatus on Carrow -- that was a line I could never see Harry cross. 

If even wonder if Harry would have reacted differently if Carrow had used a spell against Minerva.

Christy, who truly was distressed to see Harry use Cruciatus, esp. when Stupefy or any number of other spells or a even a physical blow would have sufficed; but who acknowledges that he is flawed and forgives him because she thinks she can understand what drove him to do it

       
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