Dark Magic

[lizzyben04]

No: HPFGUIDX 176645

> Carol:
> 
> Well, I don't agree with you about the revenge theme, but I'm just as
> confused as you are regarding Dark magic in the series and, like you,
> still trying to explore the concept. <snip>
> Where we're running into trouble (or confusion) is the hexes and
> jinxes and so forth, because if they're Dark, then the Marauders are
> hypocrites as well as bullies. I'm perfectly comfortable in believing
> that they're both. (I noted how quickly and violently Lupin jumped on
> the anti-Snape bandwagon. Too bad he never learned *why* Snape cast
> Sectumsempra in in DH.) 

lizzyben:

That's really my focus here: the rampant hypocrisy. The Mauraders
insist that they *hate* the Dark Arts, all while using hexes & curses
against Snape & others. And they feel noble about this because they
are punishing Snape for being into the Dark Arts. Weird. Harry & co
are fighting against the Dark Arts, but still use hexes, jinxes and
Unforgiveable Curses. Sometimes to fight evil, sometimes just to get
back at people who annoy them (Ginny, I'm looking at you). It reminds
me of that original hypocrite - one Barty Crouch Sr. 

"And I trust you remember the many proofs I have given, over a long
career, that I despise and detest the Dark Arts and those who practice
them?" Mr. Crouch shouted, his eyes bulging again."

Of course, Crouch authorized his Aurors to use Unforgiveable Curses
(the darkest magic) to torture & kill, he sprung a fanatical Death
Eater from Azkaban, and he personally used the Imperius Curse against
his son for ten years. Oh, but Crouch just *hates* the Dark Arts, and
those who practice them. *eye roll* And that's what projection's all
about.

The one difference is that the text highlights Crouch's hypocrisy &
projection w/regard to his own use of dark magic. When it comes to the
good guys, the text works hard to hide the same dynamic - but it's
still there. That's what's fascinating. "Dark Magic" becomes a code
word for scapegoating & projection by the Gryffindors as their own
violent/vengeful use of magic is projected onto their Slytherin
scapegoats.

Carol:
At any rate, as I keep saying, most of
> Teen!Snape's hexes are no darker than those that Harry and Draco
> routinely use against each other in the corridors. And I certainly
> don't agree that Gryffindor = good. There's nothing admirable about
> MWPP in SWM; young Severus is a much more sympathetic character even
> when he's torn between Lily and the young DE wannabes, Avery and
> Mulciber. 


lizzyben:

Here I disagree. When Lily says that the Marauders don't use dark
magic, IMO we're expected to agree, not to think that she's being
hypocritical. We're supposed to see Snape's (undefined) defense of
Dark Magic as a slide towards evil & Death Eater-dom. And we're
supposed to believe that what Snape's Slytherin friends are doing is
*evil*, while the Marauders are just high-spirited pranksters.
Finally, we're assured that James just *hated* the Dark Arts. 

And that's what we're told. But that's not what we're *shown* -
instead, we *see* the Gryffindor good guys using curses, jinxes &
other dark magic to torment Snape. We see James using the same
humiliating tactics that a Death Eater used against Mrs.
Roberts. We see detention records of them swelling another student's
head to twice its size. We see them using (and misusing) restricted
magic. At the same time, we never see any evidence that young!Snape
used magic to bully or hurt people. There's a huge dichotomy between
what we are told (Slytherins as bullies & practitioners of Dark
Magic), and what we are actually shown (GRYFFINDORS bullying & using
Dark Magic). It doesn't make sense, and I love that it doesn't make
sense. Because it means that, far from a subversive reading,
Slytherins-as-scapegoats is what is actually going on here.

Carol:
(And JKR cared enough about him to give him a detailed
> backstory and a redemption scene, complete with spectacular magic from
> a dying but determined man.) 

lizzyben:

And leave him in the Shrieking Shack, killed by a symbol of his own
House. (unwanted, stuffed out of sight...) Snape's redemption is
somewhat less clear than it might have been.

Carol:
As for other "ungood" Gryffindors,
> Wormtail is the most cowardly character in the series, not to mention
> one of the most contemptible, selling his friends to Voldemort in
> exchange for his flea-bitten skin. Romilda Vane and Cormac McLaggen
> won't win any prizes for courage or loyalty or any other virtue,
> either 9though granted we don't see them in DH).

lizzyben:

Any ambiguity created in HBP evaporated in DH, so I'm not sure we can
extrapolate much there. And it's notable that it's easier to come up
with "ungood" Gryffindors than it is to come up w/"good" Slytherins.
In Harry's own generation, there's not a one. (Though Draco might get
a tolerable rating).

> Carol:
> Maybe, but I don't think so. Slytherin House wasn't created by
> Hogwarts (as opposed to JKR, whose intentions I don't want to guess)
> as the house of evil. It was created as the house Salazar Slytherin
> created for "pure-blood wizards of great cunning, just like him" at a
> time when Muggles were burning witches and he had at least some
> justification for looking at Muggle-borns with suspicion. (Placing a
> Basilisk in the CoS was, of course, going too far.) But there's no
> indication that early Slytherins were particularly evil or motivated
> by what posters insist on calling "racism," a concept that didn't even
> exist until the twentieth century. 

lizzyben:

This is coming from a big Slytherin defender here - Yes, I believe JKR
created Slytherin as the House of Evil. I agree w/Prepostrus-
everything, everything JKR associated w/Slytherin is bad & negative.
JKR also associates "anti-Muggle" & "pure-blood" prejudice
w/real-world bigotry (via over-the-top Nazi & Klu Klux Klan
references). That's the connection to racism. And then she creates a
house whose *founder* insisted on accepting only those "whose blood is
purest", and used a monster to kill Muggle-borns. No, I think it's
safe to say that Slytherin was bad from the get-go. Slytherin is evil,
so they are also associated w/"Dark Magic" as another sign of their
evilness. The houses came first, the bad magic came later. That's why
there's no real clear boundaries of what constitutes "Dark Magic" -
it's just what the Bad People (read Slytherins) do. 

Carol:
The one Slytherin we see from that
> early era, the Bloody Baron, was motivated to commit a murder/suicide
> by unrequited love and spent the next thousand years or so as a ghost
> wearing chains to symbolize his repentance. (BTW, the BB is surely a
> foil to SS, who wanted the woman he loved to live and chose *not* to
> commit suicide but to show his remorse for his role in her death in a
> much more constructive way.)

lizzyben:

Yes, the mascot of Slytherin House is a murderer. This shows
Slytherins aren't bad because...? I mean, their own ghost is "bad" -
a symbol of obsessive love, yet! I could go on a tangent here about
the implied connections between love, water emotions & Slytherins as
bad, but I won't. :)

Carol:
It seems to me that the
> corruption of Slytherin House into a breeding ground for Dark Wizards,
> or at least, potential DEs, begins with the admission of Tom Riddle,
> who corrupted some of his (male) housemates and their children (mostly
> sons) into becoming first- and second-generation Death Eaters. But
> only one student of Harry's generation, Draco, actually becomes a DE
> AFAWK, and he regrets that choice. (Two others, Crabbe and Goyle, are
> corrupted. Perhaps Goyle is redeemable by his stupidity and loyalty to
> Draco; Crabbe, of course, is burned by his own Fiendfyre.)

lizzyben:

Slytherin started out corrupted. I hate that message as much as
anyone, but that's what JKR did here. Slytherin himself was a "Dark
Wizard", anti-muggle, pro-deadly monster. It's a breeding ground for
bad guys because the founder was a bad guy. The contrast between
Slytherin and Gryffindor as the noble "defender of Muggle rights" is
entirely intentional. 

Slytherins are the scum of the earth, the racists, the thugs, the
sneaky, the mean, the damned - they are "beyond our help", and the
best thing we can do is stuff them in the dungeons where they can't
contaminate the rest of us. These are the "bad children", who were
born bad, and cannot change. Therefore, DD doesn't need to feel guilty
about sorting these children to a house of racists & horrible people -
that's where they belong. That's the overt message, and the only way
(IMO) we can make sense of the fact that the House still exists
unchanged at the end of the series. There is no help possible - they
are predestined to be the way they are.  The overt message is strict,
Calvinist, and pitiless. Slytherins *are* the unworthy, and deserve
what they get. 

> Lizzyben:
>  "Dark Magic" is seen as evil, so Slytherins are associated w/"Dark
> Magic". It's all a part of making sure this group is over-the-top BAD
> & hate-able. And distinguishing them from the GOOD, courageous &
> noble, tolerant, superior Gryffindors. <snip>
> 
> Carol:
<snip> (BTW, a Slytherin makes a Gryffindors eyebrows grow
> down to her feet, but it's a Gryffindor who gives Pansy Parkinson
> antlers. For a school that doesn't teach Dark magic, Hogwarts has
> some, erm, interesting stuff going on in its corridors. And which is
> darker, Serpensortia (easily "sorted out" with Snape's Evanesco) or
> Harry's hex that gives Goyle boils (intended for Draco)? Isn't the
> Potter calling the kettle "black" here?

lizzyben:

Exactly. Scapegoating & projection are all about the pot calling the
kettle black. 

Carol:
> Which "good, courageous, noble, tolerant, superior Gryffindors" are
> you referring to? The Gryffindors I know may be courageous, but
> they're rule breakers, often rude or tactless, sometimes arrogant, and
> intolerant of any House except their own most of the time. <snip>

lizzyben:

That's their self-image, and (IMO) how JKR has defined the House. You
must be *worthy* to be a Gryfindor - they are the house of the good,
the noble, the brave, the heroes. Of course they're intolerant of
other Houses; they are the Elect, and better than the other houses. I
don't like most of them either, though. Individual Slytherins may have
virtues, but their House does not. Whereas Gryffindor virtues are
extolled throughout the text.

Carol:
> Which brings me back to Slytherin and the Dark Arts. Despite an
> occasional reference to Dark Arts in association with Slytherin, we
> don't really *see* that association except in connection with
> Healer!Snape, who applies his knowledge of the Dark Arts to saving the
> lives of people who have been attacked by Dark magic (or trying to do
> so). 

lizzyben:

The two are connected from the first novel, and contrasted
w/Gryffindors. In the first chapter, McGonegal praises DD for being
too noble to use dark magic in the fight against LV. In the first
conversation w/Hagrid, Harry is told "There's not a single witch or
wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one."
Slytherin = bad wizards. It's symbol is the serpent - which we are
told in GOF are "often used in the worst kinds of Dark Magic, and are
historically associated with evildoers." Slytherin=Dark Magic=evil.
That connection is made from the beginning, and hammered in in every
subsequent book.

Carol:
> Where else do we see Dark magic, not counting Dementors and Inferi?

lizzyben:

As zgimigus points out, we see Dark magic in every DADA class. To
learn the defense, students must know the spell that they are
repelling. And in these classes, every kind of jinx, hex & curse is
defined as dark magic. The counter-jinxes & shield spells are DADA magic.

Yet somehow, mysteriously, we don't notice that. We don't think that
Harry & co. are using dark magic when they hex people, even though
that's exactly what they learned in DADA class. So readers are
*shocked* when Harry uses an Unforgiveable Curse, because we somehow
overlooked that he's been using dark magic all along. And IMO, it's
because "dark magic" has so successfully been associated w/the evil
"other" Slytherins that we can't even conceive of "our side" using it
- even though they totally are. The use of "Dark Magic" has been so
completely projected onto Slytherins that the Gryffindors, and the
readers, can't even perceive the truth about their own actions
anymore. It's a *perfect* example of how scapegoating works.

Carol:
> The first place we see anything associated with it is Borgin and
> Burkes, a shop that sells Dark artifacts first mentioned in CoS, and
> in more general terms, in Knockturn Alley itself. So maybe that's
> where we should look. What distinguishes Knockturn Alley from Diagon
> Alley and reputable magical merchants from disreputable ones? 

lizzyben:

The presence of Slytherins? 

Carol:
> Cursed objects, Hands of Glory, and poisons, to begin with--as
opposed to
> wands, brooms, robes, and books in Diagon Alley. Admittedly, some of
> the items sold in Diagon Alley, especially potion ingredients such as
> beetle eyes, seem rather sinister. <snip>
> Yes, we see Lucius Malfoy in Borgin and Burkes getting rid of
> suspicious artifacts, but he's a Death Eater, so it's no surprise that
> he and his wife are "bad, Dark wizards" as well in Dobby's words. Are
> we getting any closer? Or is "Dark" still just a label placed on
> Slytherins as "Other"?


lizzyben:

I'm going to vote for option B - "Dark" is just a label placed on
Slytherins as the "other". I can't think of another fantasy novel
where "Dark Magic" is as totally vague as it is here, & where the
line between "good" & "bad" magic is as changing & contradictory as
it is here. In terms of the overt message, the only consistent
definition is that "Dark Magic" is associated w/Slytherin House, Death
Eaters, and Bad People in general.

In reality, it seems like both sides, both Houses, have been using
dark (violent) magic all along. But we're not supposed to notice this,
because we're told that dark magic is just something those "other,"
AWFUL PEOPLE use. So the White Hats can use dark magic to punish the
Black Hats for using dark magic, and not see any hypocrisy there at
all. By projecting evil "dark magic" onto the other, the White Hats
can feel free to use violent magic for revenge, payback, & overall
nastiness, yet still not feel that this tarnishes their goodness in
any way. Because *we* don't use dark magic - that's what Slytherins
do! Even when they're using the same exact spells. The hypocrisy is
waist-high & pervasive. 


lizzyben