Imperio

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 176791

Laura wrote:
> OK.  So, yes, perhaps there are effective choices - I just
> am not as quick at thinking of them as other people are.
> 
> But the question still remains (perhaps only in my mind),
> is it really that horrible to do an Imperio?  So horrible
> that it is an Unforgiveable?  The person was not asked
> to do anything that would be damaging to him/herself or
> to others.  It didn't involve a matter of conscience that the
> person would regret if s/he had consciously performed
> the act.  The person was not rendered incapable of
> making other informed, conscious decisions.  The effect
> was very short lived.
> 
> It just doesn't seem that horrible to me.

Carol responds:

I doubt that I'll change your mind, but here's why I think that
Imperius, even if it only causes a student to hop on one foot around
the room, is horrible. It's an invasion of the mind (admittedly, so
are Legilimency and Obliviate) and it robs a person of free will or
self-control. Another person is controlling you like a puppet, making
you do things you wouldn't normally do and don't want to do. Barty
Crouch Sr. uses it for years to control his son and keep him from
running off to join Voldemort; Barty Jr. not only uses it on all his
students, ostensibly to teach them what it feels like but not really
teaching them how to resist it, but he later uses it to make Viktor
Krum Crucio Cedric Diggory. Mulciber, a DE who specialized in the
Imperius Curse, forced hundreds of people to do unspecified terrible
things, perhaps to murder Muggles or torture people.

The Imperius Curse can be used short-term, as Harry uses it against
Travers and the goblin Bogrod, but it can also be used for long-term
control, which makes it extremely dangerous. (Wormtail was supposed to
be controlling Barty Crouch Sr. to make him do his work from home, but
Crouch escaped.) Long-term use of the curse, especially on people who
resist it, seems to result in brain damage, as we see with the "mad"
Mr. Crouch and with Broderick Bode (although in his case the damage
was compounded when he picked up the Prophecy orb, as he was commanded
to do by Lucius Malfoy, who had Imperiused him.)

Maybe its use is justified in a real emergency, just as AKing an
intruder about to attack your children might be justified (though
Stupefying or disarming the intruder would be better). But the
invasion of another person's mind, especially with the intent to
control that person and force him to act against his will and even his
conscience, seems to me a terrible thing.

Which is worse, the Cruciatus Curse that Krum cast against Cedric
Diggory or the Imperius Curse that caused him to Crucio Cedric against
his will? I'd say the Imperius Curse because it violated Krum's will
and caused the Crucio, which he would never have performed had he not
been forced to act against his will. I consider Krum innocent and
Crouch guilty of both crimes.

Carol, noting that many of the crimes during VW1 were committed not by
Voldemort and his DEs but by people they had Imperio'd