Wands and Wizards...Again

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 183614

Steve:
> He used Crucio against a dark and dangerous person...
(*snip*)
> There is no time to take the moral high ground.
> Desperate times call for desperate measure, and the one and
> only goal it to come out of it alive and victorious. 

Ceridwen:
Yup, winning is the point of engaging in warfare.  Lose, and the 
enemy tramples rough-shod over you.  They burn your fields, they take 
your women and children captive, they execute you for having 
resisted, and so on.

HOWEVER.  There are rules of war.  One of those rules today is not to 
torture.  We have more or less recently gone through a debate about 
torture and prisoners, and the verdict is, don't torture.  Rules are 
there to keep the conflict contained.  In boxing, you have the 
Marquis of Queensbury rules, in war you have the Geneva Convention.  
Soldiers on up to generals and admirals who engage in wrongful 
actions during war are tried under courts martial.  Disregard for the 
rules leads to anarchy and/or vigilante-style "justice."

Steve:
> So, do you want Harry to win, or do you want Harry to be
> smug in defeat know that while his world was lost, his
> life was lost, that thousands will live in misery and tyranny
> for the foreseeable future, at least he took the high road?

Ceridwen:
False dichotomy.  There are other options besides the Cruciatus.  For 
a couple there are Stupify and Petrificus Totalus.  Draco had Harry 
petrified and vulnerable without torturing him on the train in HBP.  
Hermione effectively gets Neville out of the way in PS/SS with 
Petrificus.  The high road doesn't wander through a graveyard.  There 
are other options.

Ceridwen.