[HPforGrownups] Harry, Crucio, and emotion in Spellcasting

[Lee Kaiwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 181646

Steve:
> "Ready prisoner, we are going to torture you?"
> 
> "OW!"

One wonders where, on a continuum running from a stubbed toe through 
listening to Twisted Sister, Amycus might rank his experience:

"He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling 
in pain...."

Doesn't sound like "OW!" to me. On the contrary, it sounds like pretty 
much every other Cruciatus we've ever seen.

And Harry is intimately acquainted with the effects of a Cruciatus, 
having been on the business end of more than one himself. What he 
himself experienced is, by his own admission, precisely what he intended 
to do to Amycus (the fortuitous intervention of a bookcase notwithstanding).

A Cruciatus is *not* a defensive spell -- it's a pure act of sadism, 
performed for the sadistic pleasure of the caster. The shortness of 
duration is incidental, and cannot excuse this from the realm of torture.

> As to the war aspect, do you really think for one second
> Carrow would not have immediately incapacitated Harry and
> later without question subjected him to PROLONGED torture,

What Carrow *may have* done to Harry is irrelevant. We don't under any 
circumstances deal out justice based on potential future acts (read 
"Minority Report" for Philip K. Dick's take on that). If Harry had 
simply been trying to remove Carrow as a future threat, he had many (and 
more reliable) tools available which would not have involved torture. 
There is just no way to explain (let alone justify) Harry's use of the 
Cruciatus aside from a sadistic desire for retribution, and JKR's desire 
for a Rambo!Harry moment.

> in war, you don't wait for the enemy to make a move against you.

Nobody is arguing Harry was unjustified in taking action against Carrow. 
But saying action is justified is not saying *any* action is justified.

> What separates Harry's action, in my eyes, from real torture is
> that Harry didn't sustain it.... If Harry had in anyway attempted to 
 > sustain the Crucio Curse...

It was the bookcase, not Harry, that put an end to the torture. Nothing 
in the canon indicates either that Harry's intent was simply to 
incapacitate (to the contrary, I think there's plenty to suggest 
otherwise), or that he didn't intend to prolong the torture. You seem to 
be deriving both assumptions from the shortness of duration, but that 
appears to have been purely accidental.

 > If he had punched him in the nose, and Carrow had gone unconscious
> from hitting the wall, would you still call it torture? He
> still caused pain in an effort to punish, isn't that your
> definition of torture?

Not even close.

Dictionary.com defines torture as "extreme anguish of body or mind; 
agony", and "the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or 
revenge".

An uppercut to the schnozz isn't even in the same game.

CJ