Requiescat in Pace: Unforgivables

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 174911

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Lee Kaiwen <leekaiwen at ...> wrote:

<massive snip>

> Dennis is attempting to judge and to justify events in the books 
> based on a set of rules that, as far as I can see, do not exist IN 
> THE BOOKS. And he appears to be so intent on doing this that he's 
> making points that are directly refuted by the text itself.

I have to disagree here.  I think that we're all bringing an apparatus
of assumptions and arguments to the text, so it's very difficult at
best, extremely presumptuous at worst to come up with a hard and fast
"this is in the text, this is not" rule, in this case.  (There are
more cut and dried cases out there, but as Pippin beautifully pointed
out, the books do not come with an answer key at the end.)

> Thanks again. You've made some good points. I just see a different 
> set of basic issues here, to wit: is it or is it not in the canon?

We all make canonical 'extensions' of sorts all the time.  Or, more
accurately, we all interpret canon constantly, working from the base
of "the same thing".  I don't think your hypothetics about Stupefy are
any more 'strictly canonical' than Dennis' arguments about the noted
effects of the curse used.

-Nora enjoys a sunny morning before descending into the depths of fiche