Dark Magic WAS: Re:help with JKR quote/ Children's reactions

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 176588

lizzyben wrote:
<snip>

> Could be. Or maybe he was telling the truth, or maybe making an
assumption. Is it possible Lupin was involved in dark magic? IMO, yes.
It's his area of expertise as a DADA professor, after all. But w/o a
real understanding of what dark magic actually is, it's no fun to
debate it. It becomes a personal, individual interpretation. <snip>
> 
Carol responds:
It's hard to tell, given that we only see Lupin teaching third years,
but his DADA specialty appears to be Dark creatures--not surprising,
given that he's one himself. He tell Harry, rather oddly, "I don't
pretend to be an expert on fighting Dementors, Harry. Quite the
contrary" (PoA Am. ed. 189). It's not even clear that he can cast a
Patronus himself since he only shoots "a silvery thing" out of his
wand to make the Dementor on the train go away (85). The unconscious
Harry doesn't witness it. Lupin also lies to himself and to Harry
about Sirius Black using Dark magic learned from Voldemort to get past
the Dementors when he knows perfectly well that Black is an Animagus.
There's no indication that he wrote detailed answers like Severus's on
his DADA OWL. In short, the extent of Lupin's DADA knowledge (aside
from the potency of chocolate as a remedy, which even we Muggles know
<wink>) is unclear. He can effectively teach a kid to repel a Boggart
or a Grindylow; as an adult, he has no qualms about sending a wad of
chewing gum up Peeves the Poltergeist's nose--the sort of thing that
quarreling wizard family members seem to do to each other at
Christmas, judging from the woman with the walnut up her nostril in
"Christmas on the Closed Ward," OoP--neither more no less "dark" than
Teen! Severus's toenail hex but probably more painful. But is he a
Dark Arts/DADA expert like Snape? Could he have identified and treated
the curses on the opal necklace and the ring Horcrux had he been in
Snape's position? I very much doubt it. At any rate, it's clear that
Lupin doesn't know the countercurse to Sectumsempra or he wouldn't
have viewed George's ear, cursed of with a specific form of Dark
magic, as incurable. And he couldn't have saved Draco in HBP had he
been the DADA teacher.

Again, I think that Snape uses the map's ostensibly being "full of
Dark magic" as an excuse to call in Lupin ("This is *supposed* to be
your area of expertise," PoA 288) without revealing to Harry that he
knows full well that Lupin is one of the makers of the enchanted
parchment, which he rightly suspects of showing Harry how to get into
Hogsmeade undetected. Since he knows more than Lupin about Dark magic,
I suspect that he's being no more straightforward than Lupin and that
both of them are talking over Harry's head in this scene. 

lizzyben:
> 
> No doubt, the diary is more *evil* than the map. But I'm talking
about "Dark Arts" as a supposedly separate branch of magic - w/special
spells, items, & techniques that can be taught in a class. And here
the map seems to have definite similarities w/the "Dark Magic" diary.
The items seem to work in a similar way, and were perhaps created
w/similar techniques & spells. It's certainly different than anything
Harry & co. learn at Hogwarts. The Map isn't made using
transfiguration, potions, DADA... so what branch of magic was it
created with? Dark Arts, maybe? :)

Carol responds:
I think that if the diary had merely been an interactive object which
allowed a person writing in the diary to converse with the memory of
Tom Riddle and enter his memories, it would have been little worse
than the Marauder's Map, which was intended as an aid to magical
mischief (such as sneaking into the restricted section of the library
under the Invisibility cloak to read up on Animagi or, later, sneaking
out to run around at full moon with a werewolf). Granted, Memory!Tom
was already a murderer who had framed Rubeus Hagrid for the death of
his victim, but what made the diary far Darker than the map was the
soul bit, which could possess a person who became emotionally attached
it and cause that person to release the Basilisk (or, ultimately, to
provide Memory!Tom with a host soul). IOW, the diary as interactive
magical object is pretty much on the same level as the Marauder's Map
and perhaps the Sorting Hat; the diary as Horcrux is another matter
altogether, and a genuine example of Dark magic. Malice; vengeance;
possession; cold, calculated murder of "unworthy" students;
soul-stealing--however mischievous the Marauders were, and I'm no fan
of any of them, they had no such purpose(s) in creating the Marauders'
Map or becoming Animagi. They just wanted to have their reckless,
unthinking, highly dangerous idea of "fun." (And, no. I do *not*
approve of endangering the citizens of Hogsmeade or tricking/daring a
classmate into encountering a monster who could kill him or destroy
his life; it's just not on the same level as murdering people, making
possible still more murders, and preserving a bit of your own soul in
a Horcrux created by murder.)

lizzyben:
> 
> I believe Lily meant what she said, but I'm still confused. JKR has
stated that hexes, jinxes & curses are "minor Dark Magic," and we see
the Marauders using hexes, jinxes & curses. So how can Lily say that
they don't use dark magic? Snape is confused too, & here I don't blame
him. Probably the young Death Eaters were more sinister, since they
became Death Eaters and all - but what would that mean? We don't even
know what the "Dark Arts" *are*. I see a lot of conflation here, where
James & co. are against dark magic & transfer that to Slytherins. They
hate Slytherins & transfer that to "dark magic". It all gets bunched
together as the "other" is associated w/everything evil.  

Carol:
I agree here (or I think I do). JKR's onsite definitions are no help
at all and don't fit with the text. James and co. seem from the very
first to be projecting Dark magic onto Slytherin and, by extension,
onto Severus (who, in contrast, sees Slytherin as a House for
"brains"). Only one of Severus's invented spells, Sectumsempra,
qualifies as anything worse than a hex (Muffliato is nothing but a
charm) and MWPP think nothing of using his own spells against him.
Would they do so if they thought they were Dark magic? If so, they're
consummate hypocrites as well as bullies. The Potions hints aren't
remotely Dark. It seems to me that the "darkness" of Severus Snape is
mostly in the minds of the Marauders--until he chooses to join the
Death Eaters and genuinely, if temporarily, accepts their philosophy.
But is what Mulciber tried to do to Lily's friend Mary really any
worse than choking a fellow student with soapsuds? We don't know
because we're not told what he tried to do, any more than we're told
what Grindelwald did to get expelled from Durmstrang(!). Nor do we
know how Albus or Aberforth could have accidentally killed Arizna.
(Surely, neither of them cast an AK.) The message I get is that *all*
magic is dangerous, and wizards in general tend to "hex people because
they can," like James Potter in the corridors, or wipe people's
memories to get themselves out of trouble. Altogether, very confusing.
Situational morality with a high degree of hypocrisy and perhaps some
mislabeling and no clear definition of what is Dark and what isn't.
Even Patronuses can be put to evil use, as we see in DH with
Umbridge's cat Patronus protecting her and Yaxley from the Dementors.
Maybe there *is* no good magic, only neutral magic and purely evil
magic. But then we're back to Snape's absolutely necessary AK and
Harry's use of a spell designed to torture. I see no clear moral
boundaries. I don't think we're meant to approve of James's and
Sirius's unprovoked attack on Severus (though Harry allows himself to
forget about it after Lupin and Black make their excuses, just as he
allows himself to forget the horror of nearly causing Draco to bleed
to death in HBP) and I do think we're meant to approve of self-defense
(the DA, etc.) but beyond that, the distinctions between good and
evil, Dark and Light, are blurred.

> lizzyben: 
> 
> So what is it then? If mean-spirited, violent, aggressive spells
aren't dark, if even unforgiveable curses aren't dark - what is dark
then? Why are we supposed to hate the Slytherins for using "dark
magic" when we don't even know what that is, or how it's any different
from what our guys are doing?
>
Carol:
At a guess, what Avery and Mulciber are doing in "The Prince's Tale"
is "dark" because Lily knows that they intend to be Death Eaters.
Severus, in contrast, sees it as amusing, the same attitude that James
takes toward using an illegal hex to blow up a fellow student's head
to twice its normal size. Who's right? I have no clue.

I'm not going to talk about the Unforgiveables, which somehow seem
okay once they are legalized, or no longer penalized, by the lawless
WW under the DEs. But clearly Horcruxes are the Darkest of Dark magic.
I would characterize the combined potion/incantation that resurrected
Voldemort as Dark as well, in part because of the cruelty involved
(forcing a servant to slice off his own hand) and in part because of
the unnaturalness of the spell. The potion that created Fetal!mort
(composed in part of venom from a Dark creature, Nagini, and in part
of unicorn blood) is probably Dark as well. Sectumsempra is
characterized by Snape himself as Dark, perhaps because it can result
in a painful death or perhaps because it's "incurable" (unless you're
Snape). Creating Inferi is also characterized as Dark by our resident
Dark Arts expert, Professor Snape, as is the curse on the Ring
Horcrux. The potion in the cave, which tortures mentally and
physically, forcing the victim to drink lake water and be murdered by
Inferi is surely Dark as well. Fiendfyre, seemingly unstoppable fire
taking the shape of monsters, also appears to be Dark.

Personally, I can't see anything that Mulciber intended to do to Mary
Whatshername on the school grounds as roughly comparable in Darkness
to any of this magic. Even Sectumsempra (in contrast to the little cut
that James received, which did not remain unhealed or we'd have heard
about it) would have led to his expulsion.

Darkness, with the exception of Dementor, Inferi, Horcruxes, the
resurrection of evil Dark Lords in the graveyard, and possibly
Fiendfyre, seems to be in the eye of the beholder. Those kids on the
school ground (MWPP, Lily, Severus, and even the wannabe DEs, Avery
and Mulciber) had no idea how evil Voldemort really was, any more than
Draco and Regulus did when they so eagerly joined up. I don't think
even Crabbe would have cast the Fiendfyre spell in DH if he truly knew
what Dark magic really was. I think that some of them (maybe all
except Severus, who was in denial about his friends' ambitions)
associated Dark magic with Death Eaters and Death Eaters with
Slytherin. The difference is that the Slytherins, like Draco twenty
years later, thought that the DEs and Dark magic were "cool" and the
Gryffindors saw them as "evil." All of those assumptions seem to have
been projected by both sides onto Severus Snape, who chose to see as
Avery and Mulciber did after Lily refused to forgive him.

None of which provides any enlightenment at all regarding what really
constitutes Dark magic, only what I think may be the underlying
assumptions by the Gryffindors and Slytherins (with the Ravenclaws and
Hufflepuffs for the most part remaining neutral).

Carol, wishing that Tom Riddle had never come near the school to
contaminate Slytherin House and ruin the lives of so many people