Requiescat in Pace: Unforgivables

[littleleahstill]

No: HPFGUIDX 174680

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Dennis Grant" <trog at ...> 
wrote:
> That's the dictionary definition of the word, not the legal or 
moral
> definition of the act; there is a difference.

Leah: 
I don't want to get into a prolonged discussion on the semantics of 
the definition of torture, because I don't think that's what is 
important here, but I don't want to ignore your long reply.  I do 
note that the legal definitions used by the United Nations and the 
International Criminal Court both refer to the infliction of severe 
mental or physical pain - again there is nothing about it having to 
be prolonged.  (They would not see Harry as a torturer however, 
because those definitions require the pain to be inflicted by 
someone in a position of authority over the victim).  Moral 
definitions, as we can see from these postings, will differ between 
individuals.  I used the dictionary because its definitions will 
give what it believes are the accepted definitions of a particular 
word.

> But in both cases, you're being racked as a form of coersion. The
> purpose behind it COUNTS. (snipped)

>> Harry doesn't torture Carrow; he incapacitates him by inflicting
> intense pain on him.

If I saw someone applying a lit match to a kitten, I wouldn't check 
out their purpose, I'd yell at them to stop torturing the kitten.  
But I'm happy to agree that Harry at least  inflicts intense pain on 
Carrow. His purpose is not to save his own life or McGonagall's 
life, it does not at any rate have a defensive purpose.
 
> The choice of methods is perhaps a little unusual, and perhaps 
Harry's
> intent included elements of chastisement or poetic justice. Would 
some
> other technique have worked as well? Who can say; it's easy to
> second-guess decisions made in the heat of battle by people who
> weren't there, and in this case we are talking about fictional
> weaponry which may have other considerations of which we are not 
aware (snipped)
> The use of Crucio vice some other spell is quite literally 
inarguable,
> as there is no way to know if an alternative would have worked, and
> the Crucio he *did* use was demonstratively effective. Carrow was
> eliminated as a threat, and he still had his life - that's a mercy 
in
> my book.

Leah:  Would any other technique have worked as well?  Possibly, 
possibly not.  But Harry had never used Crucio before.  He had no 
way of knowing that he would be able to use Crucio successfully, 
whereas he knew other spells which he had used and which had 
worked.  The fact that the Crucio was in retrospect effective 
doesn't seem to be a logical argument for using it untested in 'the 
heat of battle'.  In the heat of battle, I would like to 
incapacitate an opponent with a small gun I knew worked, rather than 
a huge one I had never fired before.  In any event, Harry was 
not 'in the heat of battle' when he Crucio'd Carrow.  He was 
retaliating because Carrow had spat on McGonagall, the Crucio was as 
you say above, probably part reprisal, part Harry's own justice, 
part he just 
wanted to hurt Carrow.  Since Carrow lives, he is not eliminated as 
a threat; perhaps stunning might have eliminated him for longer. 

(snipped)

> It is entirely possible Harry spent more than a few nightmare-
wracked
> nights agonizing over that decision; we don't know. JKR doesn't 
tell us.
>

Leah:  I don't question you on the remorse felt by soldiers, the 
whys and wherefores and when it occurs.  We are not however reading 
a manual on warfare.  We are reading a novel which has set out what 
seemed to be a certain way of behaving, which seemed to say that 
some things were acceptable and some weren't. These also seemed to 
reflect things which the readership knew about the storyteller- for 
example that she supported the work of Amnesty.   If these actions 
remain unacceptable, and the hero carries one out, I would like to 
see some remorse or self-justification from him during the story.  I 
would not actually want Harry to be wracked by nightmares for his 
treatment of Carrow,  I would just have liked some reflection.   If 
these action have  however suddenly been deemed acceptable, I would 
like some acknowledgement in the text other than the hero simply  
carrying out the action.    

Ceridwen  puts this very well:

<The tone of the books  themselves informs me that I should be 
appalled at the use of these 
> curses.  Voldemort uses them.  Bellatrix revels in them.  Crouch 
Jr. 
> uses them to psychologically torture his students.  These are 
> shocking things, by the tone of the narration, until DH.
> 
> Another moral issue, which is tied up with the law, is that these 
are 
> illegal curses with a mandatory sentence to Azkaban for using 
them.  
> Given that, and the horror which these curses have struck 
throughout 
> the books, I think it was out of character for Harry (or any Good 
> Guys) to use them and not at least reflect on them later. (snipped)
> To have this turned on its head, with the after-canon mention that 
> Harry isn't a saint, doesn't do anything for me.  There was no 
> reflection, no fear of legal reprisal, nothing to show that this 
was 
> extreme measures in wartime.  Whether Harry meant to inflict 
lasting 
> torture to the point of insanity, or to just give Amycus a heads-
up, 
> the Unforgivables have been presented as beneath the Good Guys, 
„« period, full stop.



Leah, thinking she has nothing more to add to Ceridwen's points