Requiescat in Pace: Unforgivables

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 174720

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

[on the AK in HBP being real or not]

> Really?  Because you state so?  This particular issue, which was a
> *hotbed* of discussions before DH's, is no longer an issue?

I'd say it's no longer an issue because there was no actual textual
payoff.

Those of us who have been around for ages remember the MAGIC
DISHWASHER, which went through several incarnations, but the basic
argument of at least one form of the theory was that Dumbledore had
explicitly set up the events in the Shrieking Shack, with Snape as his
agent, to ensure Wormtail's life-debt.

Well, the DISHWASHER was right about Dumbledore having spies, but we
never got any information about the details of this event transpiring
in the way that it argued.  Ergo, with canon closed, there's nothing
more to say.

The "Snape didn't *really* use an AK!" argument strikes me the same
way.  IF we had gotten any overt indication that something was up
here, then it would still be open; I don't consider Snape's avoidance
of the curses elsewhere to be overt.  (If anything, "No Unforgiveables
for you" could point the other way).  Now, with canon closed, I don't
think there's any reason to keep constructing arguments that have to
work so hard against canon.

-Nora takes a break from assembling other kinds of canon