Why unforgiveable?

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 189017

Bart:
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.

So, what would make a spell unforgivable? The first part of this would 
be the question: who does the forgiving in the first place? In 
Christianity, the answer is generally God or Jesus. But that aspect of 
religion appears to be absent in the Potterverse, at least explicitly (a 
reason why many Christian groups who are willing to go beyond labels 
still oppose the Potter books). But a major theme of the Potter novels 
is how the choices we make shape who we are.

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.

So, for your consideration: once you act on feelings like that, you 
create permanent pathways in your brain, no matter what your motives 
were. Consider what happened to Dumbledore. He was merely prepared to 
use his powers to impose his will on others, for the greater good. And 
he became a power addict. Part of his background manipulations can be 
blamed on his belief, probably correct, that if he assumed too much 
power, he would not be able to stop using it. So, normally, he acts in 
the background, giving people choices, but steering them into the choice 
he wants, rather than just saying, "Hey, go do this!"

For a real world example, consider two classes of drug addicts (note 
that I am not excluding the existence of other classes). The first, the 
most common, is those who used the drugs for the "good feeling" it gave 
them, and used them to the point where they needed the drugs just to 
feel normal. The second, also quite common, are those who were given 
drugs by physicians because they were in great pain, and were given them 
to feel more normal in the first place. The people in the second class 
are every bit as addicted as the people in the first class, but they are 
much more likely to seek out help before they "hit bottom", or to 
recognize the fact that they are addicted in the first place. But even 
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, and the motivation required to cast them becomes less and 
less. Which means that those who have cast them become a danger to 
society, and, even if they resolve never to cast them again, need to 
remain vigilant, not only over casting those particular curses, but of 
casting anything even similar, or to getting into situations where they 
would be tempted to cast those curses.

Harry had to live a relatively quiet life afterwards (I am of the belief 
that the work he did with the Aurors was more of the nature of 
consulting than field work). Regardless of the motive, casting the 
unforgivables has put him in a position where he has to be careful, 
because it becomes that much easier to cast them again.

Please note that the reason for I put in all those qualifications is to 
ensure that people realize that I am putting out ideas for 
consideration, with the hope that those who disagree don't get overly 
emotional about it. It's certainly not because I may have cast a few 
unforgivables myself, right?

Bart