Unbreakable Vows

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 165607

> Bart:
> You aren't thinking about magic, here. In a world with Inferi, the
line between life and death is not quite that fine. Consider, for
example, a patient in a hospital whose system has pretty much shut
down; they will stay alive only as long as CPR is maintained. The
medical staff can't keep the CPR up forever, but, sometimes, if there
is a strong reason for the paitent to stay alive for a bit longer
(especially if the patient is conscious, such as saying goodbye to
his/her loved ones), the medical staff will work to keep the patient
alive. In other words, the patient is only alive because of
extraordinary efforts by others. Given this, consider that Dumbledore
was about to die from the ring, is only being kept alive by the
extraordinary efforts of Prof. Snape. Prof. Snape cannot keep this up
forever, and therefore Dumbledore, with Snape's reluctant cooperation,
has decided to stall his actual death until it would do the most good. 
> 
> According to this theory, Snape is as responsible for killing
Dumbledore as a doctor who ceases to give CPR to a patient with no
prognosis of recovery is of killing his or her patient. 



Neri:
Hmmm, an interesting analogy, although I'm not sure how accurate. I
think the situation you describe is mainly relevant to unconscious
patients who are not expected to regain consciousness before they die.
I believe that in most western states a doctor who deliberately stops
CPR to a fully conscious patient would be accused of something,
possibly murder.

But lets work with this analogy a bit, try to make it more relevant.
Suppose that the patient receiving CPR is the supreme commander during
a war, and that commander knows critical war secrets that nobody else
knows, and he's engaged in a critical war operation. Now, should we
stop CPR to such a patient while he's still fully conscious, and
capable of making critical decisions and contributing important
information? The issue now is much more than the life of that patient
alone. Maintaining him alive may save many other lives.

Now add another detail: That doctor who decided to stop CPR to the
above patient, several months previously he signed a contract to kill
him, with the understanding that if he doesn't, he'd die himself. The
doctor's reasons for signing this contract are very unclear. Perhaps
he was making the calculation that the patient is going to die anyway
so the murder wouldn't be necessary to save the doctor's life.
However, at the moment when the doctor actually decided to stop CPR,
the patient was still fully conscious and potentially helpful to the
war effort, yet because of that contract the doctor had to stop CPR in
order to stay alive himself. Now the doctor's decision to stop CPR
starts looking really problematic from the ethical point of view. Can
you say conflicting interests?

And to another complicating factor: it appears that the timing of the
doctor's decision to stop CPR was very dependent on the unpredictable
actions of a certain teenager who was connected with a certain terror
organization. Whenever that teenager would decide to call in the
members of the terror organization, the doctor would have to stop CPR
if he wants to save his own life, regardless of the status of the
patient and the war situation. The doctor's decision appears more and
more problematic.

Now to an interesting background detail (are you still with me?): the
distinguished doctor himself was a member in that terror organization,
and he's currently a double agent with somewhat questionable
loyalties. And he has decided to stop CPR without consulting any other
doctor and without any apparent examination of the patient.

Oh yes, and before I forget, the doctor's method of stopping CPR was,
ahem, somewhat unconventional: he shot his patient in the chest and
threw him off a high building. 

(There were a few additional ethical complications but I think this
should be quite enough for the moment). 

Now, if the doctor in this analogy is prosecuted, I really have no
clue if he'd be found guilty of murder, manslaughter, unethical
conduct, sheer irresponsibility, or just giving the jury a terrible
headache. But this isn't the point. We're not in court here, and this
isn't a university philosophy course discussing medical ethics. This
is a story, the last book in an adventure series, and it requires a
solution to a big mystery: is the "doctor" one of the good guys or one
of the bad guys? And the solution should be presented in a surprising
and engaging way, feel believable in the frame of the Potterverse,
make for a good story, shouldn't be too problematic morally,
preferably take less than three chapters to explain, shouldn't require
the reader to have a 150 IQ to comprehend, and hopefully answer some
other mysteries of the series. But it seems to me that the only real
achievement of the above theory is to (more or less) acquit Snape of
the guilt of killing Dumbledore. If I had the impression that JKR
really really likes Snape I might actually consider that she would go
to such length just to acquit him, but unfortunately I don't get that
impression from her at all. So, unless someone can come up with a
*much* less problematic DDM!Snape theory, I'm looking for the solution
in more profitable directions.   


Neri