[HPforGrownups] Re: Why unforgiveable?

[No Limberger]

No: HPFGUIDX 189149

> Bart wrote:
> There's a current conversation about Harry's use of crucio and other
> unforgivable curses. Which means that it might be useful looking at the
> unforgivable curses in general. Here's my take:
>
> In the Potterverse, there are 3 curses which are considered
> "unforgivable". Yet, Harry performs two of them, and tries to perform
> the third.
>
> Now, of course, there is the bumbling bureaucracy in the Potterverse,
> and they have certain penalties for the three curses (rather than using
> the cutesy names, I'll use what the curses do: extreme pain, replacing
> another's free will with your own, and death). But let's look at the
> idea that the "unforgivable" came BEFORE the bureaucracy.
>
>
snip

> Add to this what we know about the unforgivables; they don't work unless
> you really WANT them to work. You need to really WANT someone to
> experience pain, to experience death, to impose your will upon theirs.
>
>
snip

> so, the addiction is permanent; once addicted, always addicted.
>
> And therein, once again in my opinion, lies the unforgivable nature of
> unforgivable curses. Because once you have cast them, the fact that you
> have becomes part of you. You are forever open to the temptation to cast
> them again,
snip>
>
> Bart
>

>Nikkalmati wrote:
>I rather like your take on the Unforgivables, but I have always held a
rather diffferent idea.
>I don't see the Unforgivables as morally reprehensible in all cases. Most
if not all
>spells require that you really want them to work. There are plenty of very
evil spells
>out there too (what about the evicerating spell?). I think these three
spells are just
>ones the bureauacracy has decided are worthy of Azkaban. Maybe they were
>considered a greater threat to society than others. Maybe they were
associated with
>Death Eaters. In any case, I don't think JKR intended them to be the
heighth of evil -
>just very severely punished by the Ministry.

No.Limberger responds:
In the Potterverse, there are various types of spells & enchantments,
including curses.
A curse is generally anything that harms, controls or kills the victim. The
so-called
"unforgivable curses" are, by their very name, curses, and are, in all
likelihood, the most
extreme examples of curses.

In the Potterverse, it could be said that magic is a natural force that can
be used
by those imbued with it to overcome the other, more common, forces of
nature. For magic
to work, the witch or wizard not only must be sufficiently trained, but must
possess the
will to cast a particular spell, enchantment, curse, etc. Thus, to perform a
curse, there must
be a deep desire within the caster to want to harm, control and/or kill the
intended victim; implying
that the caster is highly unethical and immoral. For an unforgivable curse,
the desire to
do harm must be very great.  Most people would probably never consider doing
any of them,
but someone in a heightened state of anger may attempt to do one simply out
of
anger, then never decide to reattempt it. Those that choose to regularly use
them are
not necessarily doing them out of anger, but for pleasure and/or to achieve
their goals
by any means. It is because of the regular users why I believe the Ministry
declared
them to be unforgivable.

Given that a spell is simply the means by which a witch or wizard learns to
use the magic
that is already available to him/her, it isn't so much that curses by
themselves are
unethical, immoral or evil; it's that the caster is sufficiently unethical
and immoral to
choose to use them against others.

-- 
"Why don't you dance with me, I'm not no limberger!"


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