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

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 176787

lizzyben wrote:
> <snip>
 
> The DADA classes are, IMO, our best clue to what dark magic actually
is. To learn a "defense against dark arts" spell, the spell has to be
defending against dark magic. And in these classes, unforgiveable
curses, hexes & jinxes are all seen as dark magic. In the Dueling Club
of COS, Lockhart is supposed to be showing the students a "DADA"
defense spell, while Snape attacks w/a presumed Dark spell. What spell
does Snape attack with? Expelliarmus, which later becomes Harry's
signature spell.

Carol responds:
I disagree that Expelliarmus is Dark magic. It seems to me to be the
quintessence of DADA--disarm your opponent and you won't have to hurt
him because he can't hurt you. That's why Harry uses it against Stan
Hunpike--to keep Stan from hurting him without hurting Stan in return.
As Harry points out, Stunning Stan from that height would probably
have killed him. 

As Snape's Expelliarmus against Lockhart shows the students in the
Duelling Club, without a wand, most wizards are as helpless as a Squib
or a Muggle. It's very much a defensive spell, IMO, as opposed to
Stupefy or Petrificus Totalus, which temporarily knock out or paralyze
an opponent anc can be used either offensively or defensively. In
fact, we see Harry's use of Expelliarmus against Stan Shunpike
criticized by Lupin as insufficiently aggressive. (The ostensibly
gentle Lupin has turned rather violent at this point, advocating
killing, whereas Harry is arguing that blasting people who are in his
way is Voldemort's job, DH Am. ed. 71.) 

We also see Harry use Expelliarmus at least twice against Voldemort,
who both times is using the Killing Curse. Even though Harry
technically doesn't disarm him either time, it still seems
symbolically significant that Harry's merciful spell wins. (Now
granted, even Expelliarmus could be used offensively, as Draco
attempts to do, disarming Dumbledore to make it easier to kill him, so
he thinks, but it seems to be primarily intended to disarm an
attacker.) Nothing Dark about it, IMO.

Now Serpensortia, which Snape tells Draco to use against Harry (as a
test to see whether Harry is a Parselmouth?) seems Darkish (and a bit
advanced for twelve-year-old Draco, but, oh, well). Nevertheless,
since Snape easily vanishes the snake with a silent Evanesco, it can't
be seriously Dark.

The only other quintessentially defensive spell I can think of is
Protego, which sets up a shield to protect the person it's cast
against, but even it can knock a wizard off his feet or cause a spell
to rebound against the caster.

lizzyben:

 I think, in this series, Dark Magic is simply a form of combat magic.
It's a weapon that can be used by all sides. As another poster has
said, it is a term for violent spells in general.

Carol:
If you mean offensive as opposed to defensive combat magic, I'd agree
with you. So something like the hex Harry tries to use against Draco
in GoF to cause painful boils is definitely somewhat Dark as it causes
pain and possible disfigurement, whereas merely blasting your
opponent's wand out of his hand, while it may send him flying onto his
back (as Protego also does in some cases) is not Dark in itself
(though it can be used for Dark purposes, such as killing your now
helpless opponent). Whatever that purple flame spell Dolohov used
against Hermione is seems pretty Dark considering that it took about
ten different potions to cure her. Sectumsempra, which could have
caused Draco to bleed to death, also seems pretty Dark (though not as
bad as we thought in HBP since the bleeding can be stopped without
Snape's complex countercurse, even if the cuts themselves can't be
healed or lost ears replaced). 

Lizzyben:
> Now, there's still differences in how deadly each jinx or curse is,
w/the most deadly curses are banned completely. But those are just
differences of degree - like the difference between a BB gun
(Jelly-Legs Jinx) & a bazooka (AK). "Dark Magic" is simply offensive
battle spells - all jinxes, curses, etc. This is also consistent
w/what JKR herself says on her website. 

Carol:
Okay, agreed here, with hexes like Ginny's Bat-Bogey hex being
somewhat worse than jinxes like Jelly-Legs (though I don't think the
HBP's toenail hex is all that bad). The distinction, IMO, hasn't been
fully thought out and the names don't always fit the category--isn't
the Conjunctivitis Curse really a hex rather than a curse and just
so-named for the alliteration, for example?

But I still think that defensive spells like Protego and Expelliarmus
are intended as DADA--defense against those other, darker, spells. As
for counterjinxes (mentioned by JKR several times in OoP in
particular), when have we ever seen one? Snape easily and silently
parries Harry's offensive spells in "The Flight of the Prince," but we
never see anyone else using similar moves. And countercurses seem to
be applied mostly after the fact (Liberacorpus, the countercurse to
Sectumsempra, Finite Incantatem), not in combat. 

BTW, not all jinxes are combat spells, as Hermione's jinxed parchment
and Voldemort's jinxed DADA position show. But, okay--anything that
knocks you out, injures you or disfigures you is to some degree Dark,
with perhaps some allowance for how easily it can be "sorted out."
Snape manages to end every single jinx or hex cast by the kids in the
short-lived Duelling Club with a single Finite Incantatem, but he
sends Goyle and Hermione to Madam Pomfrey for the boil hex and
Densuageo respectively. (Maybe he doesn't want to wast class time
dealing with them or be seen fixing Hermione's teeth <eg>). 

lizzyben:
> <snip>
> I'm liking a general definition that dark magic is magic that
involves causing violence or pain to others. So, poisons would be dark
magic. And the twins' ton-tongue toffees might be as well.

Carol:
Well, yes and no. Much as I dislike the Ton-Tongue Toffee incident,
Mr. Weasley easily sorts it out and there's no lasting damage. The
potion in the basin in the cave is another matter altogether. I'd say
that even with poisons, some are Darker than others. If it can be
cured by stuffing a Bezoar down your throat (the poison in the mead
that Ron drank), it's less Dark than a poison that causes mental and
physical anguish that can only be quenched by drinking water which,
when touched, will arouse Inferi to pull you under. As Hermione says,
some poisons have no antidotes and some curses have no countercurse
(like the curse on DD's arm that even Snape can only temporarily
contain, not cure). Those, it seems to me, would be almost as Dark as
the undead-related magic of Voldemort (Horcruxes, Inferi, resurrection
potions involving blood, bone, and flesh).

Speaking of potions, a potion that causes boils or a love potion that
involves controlling the will of another person would be Dark magic as
well, but not as Dark as poisons, with the relative Darkness of the
poisons depending on the amount of suffering they cause and whether
there's an antidote.

lizzyben:
> 
> It seems like the real division is between everyone else &
Voldemort. Everyone else can (& does) use jinxes, dark items, even
unforgiveable curses w/o being called a "dark wizard." The super-dark
magic of Inferi & Horcruxes are something only Voldemort could or
would do. 

Carol:
Again, I don't quite agree. There's Voldemort (and perhaps
Grindelwald, who contemplated creating an army of Inferi, according to
DD)at one extreme, yes. But, then, there are Death Eaters who throw
around the Unforgiveable Curses as if they were Toenail Hexes and, in
the case of Dolohov, use unknown but very dangerous curses like the
purple flames (the crimes that Karkaroff attributes to the various DEs
in GoF show that several of them specialized in a particular
Unforgiveable, with Mulciber being a specialist in the Imperius Curse,
for example). Then, there are routine "Dark wizards" like the Blacks
who keep jars of blood on their shelves and use troll legs as umbrella
stands and mount the heads of old house-elves on the wall but
nevertheless draw the line at murdering Muggle-borns (note that Blaise
Zabini is a pure-blood supremacist who nevertheless holds DEs in
contempt); then there are bullies like Teen!James and Teen!Sirius and
the Weasley Twins and pre-HBP-Draco and maybe Ginny, with her attacks
on Zacharias Smith; then there's Hermione, who blackmails Rita Skeeter
and jinxes the parchment without warning anyone and modifies her
parents' memories, always certain that she's doing the right thing but
so did Umbridge; then there are Harry and Ron and the other DA
members, who think that offensive magic is okay as long as they're
using it but rarely use seriously Dark magic like the Cruciatus Curse
and don't go around bullying people who annoy them as James did
(unless you count hexing Draco and friends on the Hogwarts Express);
then there's everybody else (the kids who don't duel each other in the
hallways; the parents who use magic at work or to do the laundry and
cooking; the teachers who use magic for teaching but not to punish
students, etc.).

I won't get into whether Transfiguring a hedgehog into a pincushion or
vanishing kittens is Dark magic. I think it's cruelty to animals,
myself, but that's just my opinion. Conjuring canaries out of thin air
probably isn't Dark, but ordering them to attack ("Oppugno!") probably is.

Carol, thinking about the degrees of pollution committed by Muggles
(with deliberate dumping of hazardous waste or an unregulated
coal-burning power plant on one end of the scale and driving your car
to work on the other) and suspecting that Muggles aren't that
different from Wizards, really