Disarming spell WAS: Re: Wandlore and more

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 185456

> Montavilla: 
> > I don't think that I would have agreed with Harry about why Stan 
> > was there, but it's clear that *Harry* believes that Stan is an
> innocent.
> 
> Carol responds:
> 
> Not to get farther off track, but I have mixed feelings about Stan and
> would be interested in your reasons for thinking that Stan is not
> innocent. (Okay, I do want to discuss people rather than wands, and
> Stan's guilt or innocence is a promising topic.)

Montavilla47:
I'm always glad to get off-track. :)

It's not that I think Stan is guilty, it's more that I don't see why he's
innocent just because Harry says he is.  Harry's insistence on Stan's
innocence is based on having seen the guy exactly twice and having 
heard that Dumbledore has talked to the Minister of Magic about 
the Stan situation.

Well, that's hardly proof of anything.  I'm all for Harry insisting on 
some due process of law regarding Stan.  Guilty or innocent, he 
should be represented and have a hearing.  But, insisting that he 
be let go based on... basically... Harry's feeling and not on evidence
is as silly as locking him up in the first place.

In DH, Harry sees Stan's blank face and assumes that the guy is
under Imperius.  Really?  How does Harry know what someone 
looks like under Imperius?  (Maybe he knows from the D.A.D.A.
class in GoF, but we don't see any reference to a "blank" face look
in his classmates under Imperius, only that they do stupid things.
And Harry seems to spend more time under Imperius than 
observing his friends during that year.)

And... now we stray into my negative feelings about Imperius as 
a device.  It's cool when we learn about it, because it seems like 
something that ought to be unforgivable, along with torture and
murder.  But in execution, the thing is a mess.  How is it that Rosmerta
is Imperiused for *months*?  At long distance?  Imperiused to take 
orders from a coin?

And, if you can tell from someone's "blank" face that he or she is 
Imperiused, how is it that no one else ever notices when someone 
is under that spell?  Remember, Rosmerta is under Imperius for 
*months,* while she sits around waiting for her coin to tell her 
to hand over cursed packages, poison wine, and so on.

It's plain nutty.


> Carol:
> But the idea that Harry is unwilling to kill may come from his
> interpretation to the Prophecy, that he must either "murder" Voldemort
> or be murdered by him. And in the end, he chooses to be murdered (and,
> the second time around, relies on luck, the Elder Wand, and
> Expelliarmus to avoid "murder.") Possibly, he doesn't want to use the
> spell that killed his parents (and Cedric and Dumbledore and many
> others) because he associates it with Voldemort, much as Neville
> refuses to use Crucio, the spell that drove his parents to insanity,
> on anyone, even though the penalty is suffering its effects himself.
> (Even in the battle, Neville prefers plant warfare to using his wand.)
> At any rate, Harry has no aversion to using, or attempting to use
> Crucio, even though he's felt its horrific pain himself, nor to using
> Imperio when Griphook suggests it and the occasion seems to call for
> it. But we never see him trying to kill anyone, not even Bellatrix
> after she killed Sirius or Snape after he "murdered" Dumbledore.

Montavilla47:
Until he used that Crucio on Amycus, I would have thought that 
the Dark and Unforgivable nature of the spell would be enough of
a deterrent for reasonably moral person.  Really, most people are 
plain reluctant to kill whatever the method.

But I don't think we have any evidence that Harry was influenced because 
the A.K. was used to kill his parents.  It seems simplest to assume that
Harry was reluctant to use the A.K. because he didn't want to kill someone.
Especially given his reaction to the incident in HBP when he nearly
kills Draco by accident.

But on the other hand, he does put people into deadly danger without
any qualms.  Which is exactly what any action hero does when we get
an exciting chase.  If the hero is being chased by, say, ten bad guys in
four cars, we know that by the end of the chase, the number of cars is 
going to be down to either one or none.  The three+ cars that crash
are going to be filled with dead or injured bad guys.  But the audience
never thinks about that--and those bad guys deserve it anyway for 
being bad.

Unless they are misguided policemen, in which case, they will be 
miraculously saved by their seat belts when they crash into the fruit
cart...
 
> Carol:
> (Besides, I think JKR had her child readers in mind when she made sure
> that Harry didn't use a Killing Curse to defeat Voldemort. Killing him
> with an Expelliarmus is rather like David killing Goliath with a
> slingshot.)

Montavila47:
That seems like an odd comparison to me.  I never thought that 
David was somehow more innocent for using a slingshot to kill Goliath.
(As opposed to bashing his brains out with a club?  Goliath is always
shown with a bad-*** club.)  I always thought the point of David
and Goliath was that David was physically weaker, but made up for 
that with his skill at slinging stones.

Not that David was pure.  Or even that anyone cared if he was
pure.  All they cared about was that the nasty giant with the bad-***
club was dead.


> Montevilla:
> > As a story point, the reason to set this up is either to have Harry
> prove the better man than Lupin *because* of the pacifism, or to have
> Harry get over his wussiness at a crucial moment.  I think JKR was
> setting up the former, because during the ultimate duel, Harry wins by
> casting Expelliarmus.  But, we also get the moment when Harry
> overcomes his wussiness by Crucio'ing Amycus.  So, she does both, in a
> way.
> > 
> > But by doing both, it really comes off (to me, anyway), that she's
> having her cake and eating it too.  There's really no reason for Harry
> *not* to cast an AK at Voldemort at the end.  He would have won either
> way, because of the wand mastery.  So, Harry's way is not better than
> Lupin's... it's just a way to keep him appearing to follow the Hero's
> code of winning without getting his hands dirty.
> 
> Carol responds:
> I don't quite agree. I think that Lupin *is* wrong and that it's
> important to JKR and her child readers that Harry win without, as you
> say, getting his hands dirty. Certainly, using an AK on the first
> confrontation would have ruined everything. Harry had to "die" to
> destroy the soul bit and sacrifice himself to activate the Love magic.

Montavilla47:
I wasn't really talking about the first confrontation, but the final one.
And, in the first confrontation, it wasn't Harry's wussiness that caused
him not to cast a killing curse.  It was Dumbledore's instructions to 
commit suicide (by Dark Lord) that informed Harry's actions.


Carol:
> Using an AK after that would seem contradictory and hypocritical, not
> to mention the other reasons I've already given for Harry's apparent
> aversion to that spell. 

Montavilla47:
I'm not convinced that Harry had an apparent aversion to the spell.  I 
would be more convinced had, say, a good guy (besides Snape who 
doesn't count) had cast an A.K. and felt the wrath of Harry for doing
so.

I would be more convinced if someone had suggested he use or 
practice the spell and he had refused.  

Lupin doesn't tell Harry that he ought to cast an A.K., he tells Harry
to stop using Expelliarmus all the time.  There's a good dozen 
alternate spells to those two.

I'm not suggesting that Harry ought to have cast an A.K. in that 
final confrontation.  But what strikes me as hypocritical is holding
Harry up as being purer for not casting an A.K. when he's praised
for casting Crucio by a character we're supposed to view as a just
person, and when his use of Imperius is excused by both 
characters and readers.

Carol:
>In any case, the Expelliarmus gives him the
> Elder Wand at the same time letting the wand choose to backfire on
> Voldemort, duplicating the original attempt to kill Harry when his own
> AK rebounded on him through Lily's accidental Love magic (and
> Voldemort's broken promise to Snape). Having Voldemort die in that way
> brings the story full circle and also deflates him. He's not a
> powerful opponent destroyed by Harry's killing curse. He's a frail,
> shriveled body with a deformed and undeveloped soul, killed by his own
> wand and his own curse, the weapon he has so often used on others in
> either rage or cold blood. It's fitting that he should be hoist with
> his own petard. It's poetic justice. And it works both thematically
> and in terms of plot structure to bring the story full circle. (what
> would have happened had Harry used an AK, I don't know. He might have
> been killed himself if the spells collided in midair. This way, he
> trusts as always to luck (including the luck of being chosen as master
> by the Elder Wand). Harry remains Harry, without the burden of having
> cast an AK on his "pure" soul.

Montavilla47:
I agree with pretty everything you said here.  But I think Harry getting 
to kill the bad guy without the cost (or burden) of that kill is having your
cake and eating it, too.  Not that JKR is unique in this.  Plenty of heroes
get a free ride during the ultimate confrontation in terms of how the 
villain dies.  It's usually caused by the villain doing something stupid
like falling off a building or setting a match to a line of gasoline that 
to the gunpowder barrel standing right next to him...