Harry using Crucio (was: Code of the Playground) And Other Stuff, Too

[Jim Ferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 174684

Va32h: "No, she didn't tell us. She put this act the end of the book,
when there was no time for any reckoning. I would say that JKR never
intended, or saw the need to address how Harry felt about using
Crucio, because it's a non-issue for her. When specifically asked in
her web chat "did Harry ever come to regret that choice" she ignored
the question and dismissed the entire topic with "Harry is not a saint.""

JKR is right. Harry isn't a saint.  Harry's a warrior who survived a
war, and wars are ugly, painful things where the things their
participants have seen done by others and done themselves have to be
put not only in perspective but in the past. Survival is at stake. The
fact the greatest evil in the wizard world is now destroyed is an
unambiguous good thing, and that is the answer to the lives that were
taken and the lives sacrificed. Could Harry have done something else
than use Crucio? Maybe, but he can't agonize about this endlessly.
He'd make himself crazy. The "wartime" Harry is put away, and the
Harry we have left is no danger to anyone. 

What I'm saying is that Harry has to take his experiences fighting
Voldemort [i]in toto[/I] and find a place to put them. He seems to
have done that. I say he needs no forgiveness for anything he did.

Jim Ferer