Unforgivables.

[Charles Walker Jr]

No: HPFGUIDX 173434

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Lee Kaiwen <leekaiwen at ...> wrote:
>
> Charles Walker Jr blessed us with this gem On 27/07/2007 05:47:
> 
> CWJ> So we're to believe that the ministry got it right here?
> 
> In a word, yes. Why is that such a problem for you?
> 

Charles:
Are you kidding? The Ministry got pretty much everything wrong
throughout the entire series, and I am supposed to accept that they
got this right? These are the folks who think that murder is a normal
crime as long as you don't use this one curse, that making someone do
something is fine as long as you don't use the imperius, and that
torture is a great way to make schoolkids serve detention. And you
wonder what my damn problem with trusting the Ministry's judgement is?
Where the hell have you been for the last three books?

> In your comments you have mashed together a number of issues which 
> clearly need to be disambiguated. But rather than addressing them point 
> for point, I think it really boils down to one question:
> 
> Is there any act, or category of acts, so barbarous that it cannot, 
> under ANY circumstances, be justified?
>
Charles:
I can only think of one, and it does not get dealt with in the books-
that act being rape.
 
> If, as I would hope any clear-thinking person would, your answer is
yes, 
> then really this whole discussion boils down to whether the UCs belong 
> to such a category.
> 
> It is clear to me that, in the Potter universe, the UCs were, for most 
> of six books, clearly consigned to such a category. You may disagree 
> with that consignment, but the main problem is JKR's inconsistency on 
> this point. Up until the end of HBP, the UCs were, well, Unforgivable. 
> But then at the end of book six we have Harry attempting to cast an
AK – 
> though you might argue he was confused by anger and grief – and
suddenly 
> in book 7 the "good guys" begin throwing them around so casually they 
> may as well have been conjuring up ice cream cones for their friends. 
> Even my ten-year-old picked up on the shifting moralities.
>
Charles:
The UC's were "unforgivable" because of ministry proscription. Whether
that stemmed from morality or not is not actually explored in the
books. The UC's were named UC's because the use of them on a human
earned a life sentence in Azkaban.

I suspect your ten-year-old, learning from you, is also incapable of
distinguishing legality and morality.
 
> As to Harry's use of the Cruciatus against Carrow, the question is 
> neither what crimes Carrow committed in the past nor what acts he might 
> commit in the future. Even wars have rules (just read the Geneva 
> Conventions), and the only relevant question is whether Carrow
presented 
> a clear and present danger at the moment Harry ambushed him. Clearly he 
> did not.
>
 
> Even if, for the sake of argument, you DID manage to successfully 
> prosecute the clear and present danger test, you still have to 
> demonstrate that Harry's responsive was not excessive. With so many
less 
> drastic but equally effective options available to Harry – well, I can 
> only say good luck.
> 
Charles:
And now you are trying to insert real world legality into the
discussions of morals in a fictional universe. It doesn't fit. This is
part and parcel of what I keep asserting and you keep skirting. We're
talking about morality not legality. I think I'm done with this
subject. I've made my points, and they keep getting ignored.

Charles, still proud of Harry.