Dark Magic was Re: Snape's Psychology

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 187476

Carol earlier:
> > <snip> But, like most of the spells in the books other than Dark curses, it can be abused. <snip>
> > 
> > Carol again:
> > 
> > Sorry to be unclear. I meant that most spells can be either used or abused. With Dark magic, it's different. Those spells, with rare exceptions like Snape's evil-seeming but necessary AK, can't be put to good uses. 
> 
> Pippin:
> 
> I don't think it's that black and white. In ToBtB, Dumbledore writes that  Cruciatus, Imperius and Avada Kedavra were designated as Unforgivable and strictest penalties attached to their use in 1717. At the time that Beedle was writing, he says, cruciatus was not illegal. 
> 
> So this is not ancient prohibition. 
> 
> That makes anti-Dark measures more like gun control than a religious taboo. I think that's part of what the war is about, with some of the older wizarding families still resenting the loss of that freedom. Meanwhile, people coming from a Muggle background would be more inclined to frame it as we do, as  a moral issue.
> 
> I think there still is no broad consensus in the WW about which spells, if any, are too terrible to be used. IMO, that is why Dumbledore was so desperate to keep the existence of horcruxes a secret. I think he feared that many wizards  would consider the murder of  a faceless, nameless Muggle a small price to pay for immortality.
> 
>  In any case, I think the point of canon is that no matter what spells you consider dark or what actions you consider unforgivable, it is easier to hate and punish your enemies for doing them than to prove yourself a better person by not doing them yourself.
> 
> Pippin
>
Carol responds:

I'm not talking about legality. I'm talking about the uses to which these curses can be put. It's conceivable that Imperius can be used for good, but it has a huge potential for abuse. Snape's AK was a necessary evil--he had to give DD a quick, painless death that the DEs would not question--but under normal circumstances, a spell that can't be blocked and is designed for killing and only killing, would be regarded as evil, a spell that good wizards don't use (except, I suppose, in war). Even the Auror Moody never killed unless he had to, as with Evan Rosier. But with regard to the Cruciatus Curse, it's designed solely for torture and can't be used for anything else. Of course, it was legal until ca. 1717. Muggles also used torture. (I'm not sure when they stopped cutting off people's hands for theft.) But that doesn't make it right or in any way justifiable.

We don't get a clear definition of Dark Magic, true. But it seems to involve either the potential for abuse (Imperius), cruelty (Cruciatus; the potion/incantation used to restore Voldemort using the flesh of a servant and the blood of an enemy), inescapable death (AK), or something like necromancy, abuse of the dead (Inferi, "bone of the father." Snape considers his own spell, Sectumsempra, Dark magic, apparently because it inflicts damage that can kill and requires a special, complex countercurse to undo. The curses on the opal necklace and the ring Horcrux are also Dark Magic beyond Madam Pomfrey's skill to undo or heal; even Snape can only remove them from the respective objects and confine them long enough to send Katie to St. Mungo's or give DD a year to live. Hermione mentions potions with no antidotes. The potion in the cave, which cause excruciating pain, burning thirst, and unendurable hallucinations, can't be vanished, transfigured, or poured on the ground; its only antidote is the water that will cause the Inferi to drown the victim. Neither Dumbledore nor Voldemort can change its nature; DD has to drink it and LV forces Kreacher to do so; later he makes it transparent so he can see that the Horcrux is gone but that would not make it any less evil. And, of course, Horcruxes themselves require murder to create and mutilate the soul, making them the Darkest of all Dark magic just as Dementors, who suck the souls of humans are the Darkest of Dark creatures.

IOW, as far as I can see, Dark magic is either cruel or in some other way evil and either difficult or impossible to reverse. Legality has nothing to do with it.

Carol, whose point was that it's difficult to "abuse" Dark magic, which is intended to abuse the victim or desecrate something sacred in the first place