Requiescat in Pace: Unforgivables

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 175143

I had intended on posting this last week, but RL got in the way, 
sorry for the delay. Although I am sorely tempted to point to Steve's 
post:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/174969
say "me too" and be done with this topic, I'm just going to be anal 
and float one more response post. So here's my, hopefully, last post 
on the Crucio/UC debate, a week late, with my apologies.


-Legal vs Moral-

In http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/174663
> Ceridwen:
> 
> I'm not interested in the Ministry making moral distinctions, 
> actually.  The Ministry is presented in the books as either weak or 
> corrupt on some level.  They still have the duty to enact laws and 
> see to the execution of those laws, but to me, government is not 
> there to make a moral distinction, even if it was a wonderful 
> government.

Mike:
And I agree with you Ceridwen. I don't think anyone gives a damn for 
the Ministry's official or unofficial position on morals. The point I 
was always making was that the UCs got their name as a legal 
determination from the Ministry, by my read of canon. *After* they 
were so named, were they then assigned a moral component by the WW at 
large?

In http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/174577
Lee, everything you quoted from Barty Jr as Moody spoke to the legal 
position of the UCs, as I averred myself. " mulitiple references to 
their legality: "illegal Dark Arts curses", "most heavily punished by 
wizarding law", "earn a life sentence in Azkhaban", and so forth. " 
Yet somehow the lack of moral discussion has implied this moral 
distinction? The fact that the students are scared of these scary 
spells does not show me anything about their moral rectitude. And I 
don't understand why you brought up Hermione in OotP, since you admit 
she also doesn't speak to the moral implications of Crucio.

> Ceridwen:
> I agree with (I think it was) Mike saying that it's odd the 
> curses are made illegal separately from their effects.  Murder, is 
> wrong, so I would expect the AK to fall under a law against murder, 
> for instance.  This is not how these laws are presented.  They are 
> presented as illegal, and Unforgivable, in and of themselves.

Mike:
Yep, it was me. I also postulated that wizards make their laws based 
on magic instead of crimes. i.e. the spells and not the act are made 
illegal. Bass ackwards, imo, but there you are. It's still just a 
name (unforgivable) not a quality (immoral). It's still up to us to 
decide upon the morality.


-Sirius' Assessment from GoF-

Many have brought up Sirius, what he thought of the UCs. But Sirius 
brought up the UCs as one of several things he had against Crouch. 
And let's not forget the passage that sent Sirius down the road to 
discuss Crouch. 

"Sirius face darkened. He suddenly looked as menacing as he had the 
night when Harry had first met him, the night when Harry still 
believed Sirius to be a murderer.

'Oh I know Crouch all right,' he said quietly.'He was the one who 
gave the order for me to be sent to Azkaban -- without a trial.'"

This is obviously personal to Sirius. This sets the stage for his 
comments about Crouch.

Later Sirius enumerates Crouch's shortcomings - authorized the aurors 
powers to kill, handing people over to the dementors without a trial 
and authorized the UCs.

Yes, Sirius' assessment of Crouch was spot on. But does that speak to 
his hatred of Crouch rather than his moral assessment of the UCs? And 
didn't he include more than the UCs as a basis for his expression of 
revulsion, particularly including how others had received the same 
treatment that he got vis-a-vis Azkaban? The thing that caused him to 
become quite repulsive a page earlier?

Certainly Sirius doesn't approve of the UCs, that's why he included 
them in his list of Crouch's detractions. But the list also included 
the power to kill for the aurors and him issuing the 'go directly to 
jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.' IOW, Lee, "ruthless" 
and "cruel" were not based solely on the UCs and arguably, coming 
from Sirius, may easily been based more on the Azkaban angle.

Sirius is the only example in canon I've found that speaks of the UCs 
in a moral context. So we must catalog him as the character in the 
series that directly promotes the Unforgivables as immoral.

-The Crucio manifested-

In In http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/174577
> > Mike previously:
> > I will also add that Crucio seems to be an efficient and 
> > effective way to stun.

> Lee:
> When the WW already has an effective Stunning Spell? C'mon, Mike, 
> you're reaching.

Mike now:
No, Lee, I wasn't reaching, I was merely noting the effect of the 
Crucio that Harry used on Carrow. It flung him up in the air, crashed 
him down and knocked him silly, i.e. it *stunned* him (with the added 
benefit of a magical punch in the face). I never claimed that it was 
the only nor the best spell to use to stun, only that it worked.

I have put myself into the rather difficult position of claiming that 
the spell caster's intent (along with his magical ability) is 
germaine to the spell's manifestation. That is, if Harry wants to 
stun Carrow with his Crucio, he can cast it to do that. My only canon 
is the different outcomes of the various Crucios we've seen. 
Admittedly not an infallible conclusion to reach.

However, the one example that noone has explained to my satisfaction 
is the Crucios that Voldemort uses on the supposedly dead body of 
Harry. Setting aside the lack of pain (Elder Wand dichotomy infuses 
itself here), why does Voldemort even use a Crucio in the first 
place? If Crucio is only for torture, what's the point of using it on 
a dead body? Unless, the spell caster can effect the spell's 
manifestation with his intent. IOW, Voldemort can use this same 
spell, Crucio, as a molestation curse to throw around Harry's body 
because that is his intent of the curse, this time.

> Lee:
> You're also, apparently, forgetting your Latin: "crucio" (from 
> "cruciare" (v.)) -- "I torture"; "cruciatus" (n.) -- "torture, 
> torment".

Mike:
Well, I never took Latin and I don't know Arabic. But JKR gave many 
spells names with origins in these two languages and at the same time 
told us that she was using her *own* bastardized interpretations. So 
I don't hold with your non-canonical "I torture" in place 
of "Crucio". Although I understand it is your interpretation. I have 
still not been convinced that what Harry did was "torture". What 
Bella did to the Longbottoms, that was torture.

Carol explained to me that "Sectumsempra" means "cut ever". So if you 
don't have Snape's specific countercurse you are not going to stopper 
this cut. Yet Molly staunched the blood flow for George in DH, and I 
feel confident that she never asked Snape for the countercurse. So it 
seems the fanciful Latin name was not strictly translated. In any 
case, there seems to be several possible translations, of which 
torture is only one.


-In the Ravenclaw Tower-

In http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/174663
> Ceridwen:
> 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.

Mike:
Although it would have been nice to have seen this type of 
reflection, JKR didn't seem to want to extend the last chapter, nor 
write a another chapter before the epilogue. And there really wasn't 
any place to fit it in logically before the end of "The Flaw in the 
Plan".

I admit to having a fist pumping moment when Harry hit Carrow with 
the Crucio. And upon entering this discussion, I was really intent 
upon exploring whether we had missed a few things before we condemned 
Harry for using the UCs. I would say that I took the same position as 
Steve in his post 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/174969
Steve:
I would never say Harry's actions were right, only
that in context, they were understandable and
forgivable...but none the less still wrong.

Mike now:
And that's the way I looked at it, except I was not ready to concede 
that Harry's use was wrong. But, never close one's mind to alternate 
interpretations. Because, this one swung it for me:

> Ceridwen:
> <snip>  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.
> <snip>
>
> 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.

Mike:
And you are right Ceridwen (and you too, Magpie). And I've changed my 
mind. It is like seeing a bone-crunching hit in American Football. 
I've cheered when it happened, but when the guy didn't get up and the 
replay showed the other guy speared him with his helmut, you stop 
thinking it was such a good play after all. Harry didn't need to 
spear Carrow, he could have played fair, put a descent hit on him and 
knocked him silly with a good guy spell, and there wouldn't have been 
anything to regret.

*************************************************
On a personal note, part of the reason I felt compelled to finish 
this post was to bow to Ceridwen's superior postition. But another 
part was to respond to Lee and in particular this comment from 174577:

"I think this discussion has run its course. It's been several days at
least since anything substantive has been added to the debate, and nor
is there likely to be in the future. So before it devolves into 
endless rehashings of the same points, I'm going to make a few 
general comments, then bow out."

I thought it was quite rude for Lee to dismiss the immediate 
preceding posts as not having "anything substantive" and equally 
arrogant to proclaim that there would be none in the future. But most 
appalling was his declaration that he would bless us with one of his 
gems then bow out before the discussion devolved into endless 
rehashing. I thought about Lee's paragraph this past week and 
decided that I would not let sleeping dogs lie, because some things 
deserve a response, even if it comes late.

Mike