Dark Book, was Re: Dark Magic (+ a little Marietta)/Karma and the Twins

[lizzyben04]

No: HPFGUIDX 176919

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> lizzyben wrote:
> > 
> > Yes. That moment is the moment when Hogwarts almost descends into
> mob violence & massacre. And no one, including the author, seems to
> realize it. I honestly think we are supposed to cheer there. 
> > 
> > Here we have a situation of extreme stress & tension - the Death
> Eaters are about to attack. And here are the Slytherin students, the
> "other", associated w/Death Eaters, Dark Arts, EVIL in general, and
> one just tried to point out our hero to the bad guys. And the new
> headmaster has just threatened to kill any Slytherin student who
> opposes their side. And 3/4 of the school has just risen and pointed
> their weapons at the table of Slytherin students. And every single one
> of those children has learned and practiced Unforgiveable Curses. <snip>
> 
> Carol responds:
> 
> I agree with you to some extent--McGonagall [the interim headmistress,
> not the new "headmaster"--I thought for a moment that you meant Snape]
> is assuming the worst of the Slytherins based on one student's (Pansy
> Parkinson's) behavior, and she has become rather murderous here, ready
> to kill even first-years, apparently, if they side with Voldemort.
> (The likelihood of their doing so, given Slughorn as their HoH and no
> known DE parents other than Malfoy, Nott, Crabbe, and Goyle, is rather
> slim, however.) 

lizzyben:

It depends, we don't know. Parkinson did. The point is not so much the
likelihood, but McGonegal's seeming willingness to hold Slytherins as
a group responsible for the actions of any one individual. She has
ceased to see them as individual human beings, as sees them instead as
a mass of "them", indistinguishable & dehumanized.

Carol:
I dislike Mcgonagall's behavior from the moment she
> calls Harry's Crucio gallant. Her behavior--dismissing the entire
> House and allowing the other students to point wands at them--suggests
> that, in her view, the Slytherins are guilty until proven innocent.
> Whether the reader is supposed to approve of her conduct or not is
> another matter. I certainly didn't and don't. The best that can be
> said of it is that it allowed all but three Slytherins to escape from
> the battle without choosing a side, along with the younger students
> from all the Houses and the older students from G, R, and H who were
> either cowardly or uncommitted.

lizzyben:

They were very, very lucky. In that moment, when the entire school
points their wands at the Slytherin kids, they have the support of an
authority figure to kill traitorous Slytherins. They have been totally
desensitized to violence thanks to the torture & beatings they've
seen. And they all have a deep-seated rage against the pain &
injustice they've suffered, a weapon pointed, and a table of
scapegoats right in front of them. And really, those kids are awful
people anyway, evil, monkey-like, barely even human. Wouldn't it be
better to just get rid of them now before they can get us? McGongegal
seems to agree, when she forces the Slytherins to leave the school -
it was an exorcism of the demons. 

I know a little bit about the psychology of mass violence, and while
reading this story, I could tick off each of the stages of genocide in
my head. (Separation, symbolization, dehumanization, demonization...).
When McGonegal threatens to kill the Slytherin students, & the entire
school aims their wands at the Slytherin table, Hogwarts
teeters dangerously on the brink of the last stage - extermination.
So, I was totally horrified by that point - she *wouldn't* endorse
killing Slytherin students, she *wouldn't*... would she?
 
Carol:
> But I think you're assuming a bit much in stating that "every single
> one of those children has learned and practiced Unforgiveable Curses."
> After all, Snape has been the headmaster for the entire year and he
> has promised Dumbledore that he'll protect the Hogwarts students. He
> would do as much as he could to control the Carrows. He would, for
> example, make sure that the curses that the new "DADA" teacher, Amycus
> Carrow, taught were "age appropriate," just as Umbridge had tried to
> do at the opposite extreme the previous year. Learning *about* the
> Unforgiveable Curses was supposed to be reserved for the sixth year
> (see GoF), so, under Snape (hired by the new Ministry, which still
> includes Umbridge as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, actually
> *learning* those curses would probably be reserved for sixth and
> seventh years. After all, Snape is attempting to maintain a
> respectable front and at the same time, avert the suspicions of the
> DEs that he's undermining them.

lizzyben:

Let's listen to Neville's report about what was going on at Hogwarts:

"(The Carrows) are in charge of all discipline. They like punishment,
the Carrows. Amycus, the bloke, he teaches what used to be DADA,
except now it's just the Dark Arts. We're supposed to practice the
Cruciatus Curse on people who've earned detentions - "
"WHAT?" ...
"Yeah," said Neville. "That's how I got this one," he pointed to a
particularly deep gash in his cheek. "I refused to do it. Some people
are into it, though; Crabbe and Goyle love it." ...
"They don't want to spill too much pure blood, so they'll torture us
if we're mouthy but they won't actually kill us."
"... then Micheal Corner went & got caught releasing a first-year that
they'd chained up, and they tortured him pretty badly."

So, students are being forced to use Unforgiveable Curses against
other students that are in detention. Neville says that this is part
of their new "Dark Arts" class. He doesn't indicate any division by
age or class, but says that all students are learning Dark Arts. If
you want to, I guess you could assume that maybe he only meant other
seventh-years were learning Unforgiveable Curses, but there's no
indication of that in the text. 

Carol:
> At any rate, there's no indication that Neville, for example, has
> "learned and practiced Unforgiveable Curses." 

lizzyben:

Only because Neville refused to do it! And he was then tortured
himself as punishment for refusing. How many students are going to
have Neville's courage to stand up to the Carrows? Students were
REQUIRED to practice the Unforgiveable Curses against other students
as part of their class. 

Carol:
Not even Draco, who has
> been forced by Voldemort to use the Cruciatus Curse outside of school,
> is accused of using it on fellow students. Only Crabbe and Goyle are
> mentioned as doing so. 

lizzyben:

That's misleading. Only Crabbe & Goyle are mentioned by name. But
Neville says that "we" in general are being forced to use the
Cruciatus Curse as part of their Dark Arts class, and that "some
people" are really into it - including C&G. C&G are not the only
students using these curses. All sixth years, at least, are being
forced to practice these curses against people - w/some actually
enjoying it. The Carrows are sadistic Death Eaters - would they really
restrain themselves in which classes they teach these Dark Curses? I
really doubt it.

Carol:
Also, Fake!Moody tells the fourth-year
> Gryffindors that Avada Kedavra requires both power and the will to
> kill and doubts that all of them saying it together and pointing their
> wands at him would result in so much as a nosebleed. Harry, after
> performing his first successful, says that "you have to really mean
it." 

lizzyben:

Harry manages one w/o practice, Draco apparantly does so (even against
his will), C&G do, & apparently the entire Dark Arts class is being
forced to do so.
 
Carol:
> So, yes, I can understand your being upset by McGonagall's attitude
> and I can't disprove your assumption that we're supposed to approve of
> it. But let's not exaggerate. Snape is a good guy. He's not going to
> let the Carrows teach the Unforgiveable Curses to underage students.

lizzyben:

At that point in the book, I stopped caring whether Snape was a good
guy or not. Whichever side he's on, if students are being tortured by
Death Eaters, he's not doing enough. And we KNOW the Carrows were
teaching the Unforgiveable Curses's to sixth years, who are mostly
underage students. I think it's reasonable to assume that they were
teaching other classes the curses as well.


Carol:
> Just as he found a reason to get Carrow to stop Crucioing Harry and
> get all the DEs off the Hogwarts grounds in HBP, it stands to reason
> that he would argue that it was undesirable to teach students with
> wizarding blood to kill and torture one another in the corridors. If
> nothing else, he might suggest that the other three Houses would gang
> up on the Slytherins.

lizzyben:

Except, according to Neville, students were learning just that. It
only stands to reason to think Snape would prevent that if there's
nothing to the contrary in canon. But here, Neville states flat-out
that students are being taught to torture one another (and actually
forced to practice doing just that). 

Carol:
> We have no evidence that any student other than Crabbe and Goyle used
> the Cruciatus Curse on any other. No one states that they used the
> Imperius Curse. And until the scene in the RoR, there's no indication
> that even Crabbe has attempted to kill anybody. No one has been killed
> on Hogwarts grounds during Snape's time as headmaster, and most of the
> torturing has been done by the Carrows.

lizzyben:

See above, contradicted by canon. We hear directly about the Cruciatus
Curse, and also know that Carrow is teaching a Dark Arts class.
If he's teaching one Unforgiveable Curse, stands to reason that he'd
teach them all. We don't know one way or the other. Maybe *most* of
the torturing is done by Carrows - but if the Dark Arts classes are
being forced to torture other students, that's a lot of other students
who are torturing people. I do give Snape some credit for preventing
any deaths at Hogwarts.

Imagine how McGonegal felt, watching all this, watching her students
being beat up & tortured, as the Head of Slytherin House oversees it.
Watching DD's murderer take over w/his DE friends. Wouldn't she be
filled w/rage at Snape? Wouldn't she start to hate Slytherin House in
general? She does try to kill Snape, uses an Unforgiveable Curse, &
then threatens the entire Slytherin House w/death. She's lost it,
pushed beyond the brink by the stress & anger she's experienced. And
she's lost the ability to distinguish Slytherin students as
individuals, but instead totally associates them w/the Death Eaters,
Snape, murder & evil. She's fallen perilously close to approving of
killing Slytherins in general as revenge on the Death Eaters. 

Carol:
> Carol, reading "we duel to kill" as applying only to staff and "of
> age" students

lizzyben:

You can read it that way, if it makes you feel better. But she refers
to "ANY of you" Slytherin students. I think McGonegal had reached her
breaking point.

Clearly, at least seventh-years had practiced Unforgiveable Curses,
and the entire school had taken Dark Arts classes. IMO, the Carrows
were probably teaching all the students these Curses, & that isn't
contradicted in canon. Even if you want to assume that only
seventh-years knew Dark Curses, that doesn't really affect my
point. The Slytherins are at a huge disadvantage, no
matter what. My point wasn't really about how many levels learned
Unforgiveable Curses, but that all the students had been taught Dark
Arts, all of them had witnessed or suffered torture, all of them were
afraid & angry & on edge. 

They had suffered a year of hell, under a Slytherin Headmaster, w/2
Slytherin Death Eaters. And there's the table of Slytherin students -
one of whom has just betrayed their savior. The Slytherins have been
dehumanized, even demonized, until they don't even seem human anymore
- and they all can be considered guilty by association. It wouldn't
take much for one student to feel enough anger, fear or hatred in that
moment to fire off a curse at the Slytherin table - and the firefight
begins, a firefight the Slytherin kids could not win. It *would* be a
massacre & it was only narrowly avoided. 

They're good people, McGonegal is a good person, but they could've
committed an atrocity. And that's how mob violence works. 


lizzyben