Harry, Crucio, and emotion in spellcasting (WAS: Re: Blowing his cover)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181631

Mike:
> > But these aren't simply Latin words, they are incantations to
cause magic to happen. <snip> As an incantation they cause an action
and that action can vary by other factors, including intent, aim (what
the curse hits), magically ability of the caster, and compatibility of
the wand, to name a few. What I'm trying to say is that translation is
not enough to define Harry's Crucio as torture, imo. Nor is the fact
that it translates as torture mean that it was used to torture, again imo.
> 
> 
> a_svirn:
> Yes it is. It means torture and is used for torture. By Harry in
this instance. Intent, aim and the ability of the caster all have
their place in the grand scheme of things, but neither of those things 
> alters the fact that Crucio is the torture curse. <snip> Harry used
the torture curse with the express intent to punish – which is what
torture is about. He also indicated that he meant it this time around,
so we can be reasonably certain that his intent was torture. 

Carol responds:
Don't faint, a_svirn. I agree with you. JKR chose the name of the
Cruciatus Curse and its incantation, Crucio ("I torture") carefully,
IMO. For readers who are alert to etymology, the words call to mind
such related terms as "excruciating" and "crucify."

A bit of etymology:

Main Entry:
    ex·cru·ci·ate 
<snip pronunciation, etc.>
Etymology:
    Latin excruciatus, past participle of excruciare, from ex- +
cruciare to crucify, from cruc-, crux cross

I'm pretty sure that JKR was aware of this derivation, her etymology
being considerably better than her math and science.

Harry knows quite well what the Cruciatus Curse feels like, and it is
not mere pain like, say, his broken arm in CoS or his broken nose in
HBP or even his bleeding hand in OoP (though that, perhaps, come close
to torture, administered as it is by the sadistic Umbridge). 

I'm going to quote the narrator's description of two Crucios, one
administered by Voldemort and one by a DE, probably Amycus Carrow
(Harry thinks it's Snape):

"It was pain beyond anything Harry had ever experienced; his very
bones were on fire; his head was surely splitting along his scar; his
eyes were rolling madly in his head; he wanted it to end . . . to
black out . . . to die" (GoF Am. ed. 658, ellipses in original).

"Before he could finish this jinx, excruciating pain hit Harry; he
keeled over in the grass. Someone was screaming, he would surely die
of this agony, Snape was going to torture him to death or madness"
(HBP Am. ed. 603).

Snape, of course, *stops* the agony rather than causing it. But note,
in this second passage especially, "agony," "excruciating," "torture."
In the first passage, he wants to die; in the second, he thinks he'll
die of the pain or be driven, like the Longbottoms from prolonged use
of the same curse, into insanity. Pain, yes, but excruciating pain
beyond anything that Harry, who already knows what pain is, has
experienced. He has also seen other people Crucio'd, notably Avery in
the graveyard, heard them screaming and seen them writhing on the
ground, not in mere pain but in the same agony that he himself has
suffered.

In OoP, after the Crucios that he receives from Voldemort in the
graveyard (I didn't quote the second one, but it's on page 661 of the
American edition of GoF and involves "white-hot knives piercing every
inch of his skin"), Harry responds to Ron's remark about Voldemort's
"weapon, " Maybe it's some particularly painful way of killing people"
with "He's got the Cruciatus Curse for causing pain. He doesn't need
anything more efficient than that" (OoP Am. ed. 100). "Pain" here
means excruciating pain of the type described in the previous
paragraphs. IOW, it's synonymous with torture. If Harry (or Snape or
Narcissa or any other witch or wizard) wants to cause someone ordinary
pain, as opposed to torturing them, they can quite efficiently throw a
stinging hex (or whatever the spell is that Snape uses on Harry right
before Buckbeak chases him off the Hogwarts grounds in HBP). But
Voldemort doesn't need a means of torturing people. He has one
already, the Cruciatus Curse.

Mike:
> > I never said that Harry doesn't "mean it", I did say that I
thought Harry fully intended to hurt Amycus, and hurt him badly. It
just doesn't rise to the level of torture for me.
> 
> a_svirn:
> Well, to "hurt badly" in order to punish means torture. 

Carol:
I agree with a_svirn. "Hurt badly" and "torture" are the same thing
here. Harry has had a lesson in casting this curse from the sadist
who, with her friends or followers, Crucio'd the Longbottoms into
insanity. She has told him that he has to *mean* it. "You need to
really want to cause pain--to enjoy it--righteous anger won't hurt me
for long" (810). If he wants his victim to writhe and shriek with pain
as Neville did when Bellatrix Crucio'd him rather than scream and get
back on his or her feet as Bellatrix did when Harry tried to Crucio
her, he has to mean it and enjoy it and want to cause (excruciating) pain.

While I'm at it, here's a definition of "torture":

1 a: anguish of body or mind : agony b: something that causes agony or
pain 2: the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or
wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure

I'd say that definition 2, inflicting intense pain to punish, coerce
or afford sadistic pleasure, fits the Cruciatus Curse exactly. As its
name indicates, it was designed to torture, and that's exactly how its
used in every successful instance that we see. (It clearly doesn't
work well as a weapon in a duel, as both Harry and Draco demonstrate.)
Voldemort uses it to punish and to satisfy his sadism; Bellatrix and
Co. used it as a means of coercion on the Longbottoms and for sadistic
pleasure on Neville; Umbridge intneded to use it for coercion and
sadistic pleasure on Harry; Amycus (or perhaps Alecto or Thorfinn
Rowle) used it on Harry for pure sadistic pleasure. Harry is not in
good company here. While his victim (whom he doesn't even know and has
only seen once before) certainly deserves a taste of his own medicine,
the problem is that the medicine requires sadism--meaning to cause
pain and enjoyment of that pain--to administer successfully (as Harry
knows: "Bellatrix was right. You have to mean it"). And he knows
exactly what a Cruciatus Curse feels like. It is not simple pain. It
is burning, tearing, agony that causes people's eyes to roll up inside
their heads as they writhe, shrieking, on the ground. Lest you argue
that Harry's Crucio, which somehow, uncharistically, lifted Amysus off
the ground, had no such effect, here's the description: "He *writhed*
through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain"
before his cries were stopped by hitting a bookcase and being knocked
insensible (593). As Harry says that he sees what Bellatrix meant, the
blood is "thundering through his brain." He meant that curse, and he
knew what Amycus was feeling, and he feels not the tiniest drop of
remorse for his "gallantry." (It's one of those moments when all I can
do is shake my head in wonder that JKR evidently sees nothing wrong
here, nothing inconsistent with the system of morality that she has
previously established. My only consolation, or hope, is that Snape's
Pensieve memories, in particular the one in which he criticizes DD for
sending Harry as a "pig to the slaughter," and the subsequent decision
to sacrifice himself for love of his friends and the WW, removed all
traces of sadism from Harry--that and the death of the soul bit, the
bit of Voldemort in Harry.

And here's a thought. If the drop of Harry's blood in Voldemort could
give him the chance for remorse, maybe the bit of Voldie!soul in Harry
made him seek or desire revenge, first against Sirius Black, then
against Snape, and then, briefly, against Amycus Carrow, a stand-in
for Voldemort and the DEs in general. And, of course, he intended to
kill Voldemort out of revenge for the deaths of his parents and others
that he loved; Snape's Pensieve memory changed that goal, and Harry,
still bearing the soul bit inside his scar, chose not revenge but his
own death. Maybe that was the end of his desire to inflict pain, to be
like Voldemort, as well as the end of his desire for revenge. Until
and unless JKR tells me otherwise, I choose to believe that Harry's
ill-chosen act of vengeance or retribution on Amycus Carrow was his
last Unforgiveable Curse.

Oh, and, Mike: Thanks for your kind words on Snape's motivation on the
tower. I didn't mean to sound as if he was solely concerned for his
soul, but I did think it was one of his concerns. I like your nobler
description of his motivation better. :-)

On a completely unrelated note (but I have to keep to the five post
limit!), Alla quoted from PoA:

"Yes, indeed," said Lupin. " It took them the best part of three
years to work out how to do it.
********
Finally , in our fifth year, they managed it. They could each turn
into a different animal at will." - p.259

Alla:

> So wait, does it mean that they started to try [to become Animagi]
in their second year?

Carol responds:
Oh, dear, maths! By my calculations, they would have started early in
their *third* year and continued through the entire fourth year and
most of the fifth, until about March or so. Certainly, they'd had at
least one full moon run by mid-May of their fifth year (SWM), probably
about a week before when they pulled the so-called Prank. I'm guessing
that wasn't their first time. They've been doing it long enough for
Sirius to wish for a full moon (unlike Remus) and for Sirius to know
that they'll be safe from the werewolf (and Severus won't be). At any
rate, all or nearly all of the third year, all of the fourth year,
and, say, seven or eight months of their fifth year would add up to
"the best part of three [school] years." Going back to second year
would make it *more than* three years. (I read "the best part of" as
somewhere between "more than half" and "nearly all.")

Carol, who can't believe how much time she's spent composing this post
and hopes it's worth the effort!