Requiescat in Pace: Unforgivables

[Dennis Grant]

No: HPFGUIDX 174632

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "colebiancardi" <muellem at ...> wrote:

> colebiancardi:
> 
> Well, I call it torture. 
 
> words like writhed, drowning, thrashing, howling in pain, crumpled,
> insensible -  JKR picked those words and it certainly sounds like
> torture to me.

No, that's PAIN. Inflicting pain is not, in of itself, torture.
Torture is the act of inflicting prolonged pain, either as a form of
coercion, or for the sheer enjoyment of inflicting pain.

*This* would be torture:
 
> Harry shouted, "Crucio!"
> The Death Eater was lifted off his feet.  He writhed through the air
> like a drown man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a
> crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed into the front of a
> bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor.

"Oh no", said Harry, "you're not getting off that easily". He pointed
his wand at the unconscious Death Eater "Revivo!" 

Carrow's eyes flickered open. "That's better", said Harry, "I want you
to feel this"

"Crucio!"

Pinned by the beam lancing from Harry's wand, Carrow screamed a high,
piercing scream that chocked out his own pleas for mercy. He writhed
and twisted so violently that he seemed likely to snap his own spine.

Harry held him, screaming and gibbering, for a full five minutes,
stopping only when Carrow managed to knock himself unconscious by
pounding his head repeatedly on the hard stone floor.
 
"I see what Bellatrix meant," said Harry, the blood thundering through
his brain, "you need to really mean it"

See the difference? *That* is torture.

No matter what the spell itself is called, its effect is to inflict
pain. That's not enough to qualify as torture de facto - it depends on
how it is used.

Harry uses it to immobilize - in which, per canon, it is effective -
and he switches it off as soon as his target is down. That is not torture.

DG