Harry and the Unforgivables

[snorkackcatcher]

No, not a wizard rock band (at least, not as far as I know) -- just some speculation based on discussion at this post.

One of the things about the latter HP books in general, and DH in particular, that has attracted reasonable criticism is the way Harry uses Unforgivable Curses without any sign of in-book payback; people seem most shocked by his successful Crucio on Carrow for spitting at McGonagall, but that's understandable as the straw that broke the camel's back, and it's not like he hadn't tried it before -- it was his use of Imperius at Gringotts that shocked me, personally. And Harry's not the only one -- we see Draco use Crucio in his fight with Harry, but although Harry gets chewed out by McGonagall for using Sectumsempra, Draco's attempted Cruciatus Curse is never so much as mentioned.

There are, I suppose, two main ways to read this.

One is that it's another example of a sort of concept inflation that often appears in series, and which JKR has occasionally been prone to -- McGuffin X is introduced in a particular book or episode as something new, surprising, and momentous for the characters as well as the audience. By the next one, the author knows that it's lost its surprise value for the audience, and suddenly at the character level too everyone and their dog know all about it and it's no big deal. An example in HP would be Polyjuice -- in CoS it sounded like something only described in a rare and restricted potions text, with expensive and hard-to-obtain ingredients. By HBP it's in the standard NEWT textbook, and it seems to be readily available by the cauldronful. I think there's an element of this in the use of Unforgivables too -- they are first introduced as something 'enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban', but there's no sign of anybody actually being arrested for using one.

The other is to wonder whether this isn't just another example of the 'life debt' -- something that JKR herself never thought of as being quite as earth-shattering as the fandom made it out to be. After all, even in GoF, we're shown Fake!Moody using Imperius on the students, and later find out that his dad authorised Aurors to use Unforgivables on suspects (not even convicts), so they're obviously not treated as all that Unforgivable even in the book in which they were introduced. I suppose we probably should have guessed this was the case by the way Harry tries Crucio in both OotP and HBP without any agonising on his part afterwards. The point being made seems to be the simple one that good people do bad things in war, and sometimes have to, and the thing which shows moral fibre is not enjoying it or letting it become a habit.

It's a moot point why these three curses are labelled as so much worse than any other curse anyway, except for effect in GoF ... Memory and Confundus 'Charms' are almost as creepy as Imperius (possibly more so -- at least Imperius can be fought). Cruciatus is an idealised 'clean' form of torture that doesn't leave physical damage (and can thus be used extensively in a book aimed at children without too much worry). And as for Avada Kedavra -- well, murder is murder whether a wizard uses that or Sectumsempra or simply bashes someone over the head without using a wand at all.

Oh yes, the speculation -- I wondered if the fact that Harry was using Draco's wand is meant to have any significance to the relative ease with which he uses Imperius and later Cruciatus? Draco had successfully cast both curses with it, and we had Ollivander talking about 'the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand'. It was the phrasing of the description of Harry's feelings when he uses Imperius that made me wonder: 'a feeling of tingling warmth that seemed to flow from his mind, down the sinews and veins connecting him to the wand and the curse it had just cast'. Of course, this could well be just me reading more into the text than was intended. Any thoughts?

Comments

[belladonna1986.livejournal.com]

I agree with your view on the unforgivable curses, when Moody told his class during GOF that just saying the curse didn't harm him and that it would take more to use a killing curse, I also thought that this applies to the other curses as well. And yet we see Harry using the imperius curse or the cruciatus curse in DH without ever learning or practicing it, just confused me, when I read that first.
I expected some kind of effort or practicing to use that meaningful spell, remember when Harry couldn't use accio, he practised with Hermione and it worked ... sometimes I think logic isn't JKR's strength.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

sometimes I think logic isn't JKR's strength
Ditto for me. I've kind of half given up on asking these questions of the series, because by themselves, the books don't quite hold up under this sort of examination. I think JKR just forgot why she introduced certain elements- Polyjuice, the Unforgiveables and so on, AND never bothered thinking about her original reasons for using them later. And so she proceeded to use them in a jarring manner, confusing the heck out of us.

[snorkackcatcher]

Sadly, in some cases I think you're right. She's certainly said that she sometimes just made up random potions (and spells?) where necessary for a lesson scene, so the degree of difficulty in any given year seems to be uneven. Mind you, as I know from experience continuity errors are easily done -- the problem might be that her editors don't have as encyclopedic a knowledge of the books as the fans. :)

[snorkackcatcher]

Good point. I suppose the handwave is that he's older now and has his magic fully developed, so is able to pick things up more quickly -- not just Unforgivables, things like Episkey, the HBP's spells, and so on?

[dharmavati.livejournal.com]

I agree with your points, especially about the desensitization that we as readers experience with the Unforgivables. t the same time, I think JKR tries to address this issue indirectly in the book itself. The world of Deathly Hallows is no longer one in which the Ministry of, say, Barty Crouch Sr. has any impact. It is no longer that world. In DH, there is the simple matter of the "good guys" versus the evil puppeteering DE's. With Harry at the forefront of this, he has the duty of doing what he needs to in order to carry out Dumbledore's orders. At this point, he's no longer a vigilante in using Unforgivables... he's working for the "greater good". When confronted with Dumbledore's past, he himself feels uncomfortable with the possibility that he might be employing the same principles (e.g. tricking Griphook), but as he tells Aberforth, sometimes you must work for the greater good.

[snorkackcatcher]

Yes -- I thought he was agonising a bit too much with over 'tricking' Griphook anyway (a 'stick to the letter of the agreement' deal sounds exactly what goblins would do themselves, cf the refusal to pay out on Bagman's bet on Harry winning the Triwizard). I quite like the fanon idea that the problem with Unforgivables is that they draw a lot from the caster themselves, and 'feed back', and could tend to become addictive and promote psychopathic behaviour if used too often. The description of Imperius when Harry cast it sounds that way.

[lazy-neutrino.livejournal.com]

'a feeling of tingling warmth that seemed to flow from his mind, down the sinews and veins connecting him to the wand and the curse it had just cast'

Could this have anything to do with the shard of Voldemort still inside Harry? I've seen a discussion somewhere about the locket's effect on Umbridge, and we saw what happened with Ron in the forest.

I haven't yet reread the book, so these are half-memories. Like you, I found the Imperius shocking: it's one of the spells I really dislike.

Hermione's tampering with her parents' minds is another thing I was deeply uncomfortable with, although I could see why she felt she had to do it. (Although I can't recall any evidence that Voldemort ever looked much further than England's Wizarding World for his empire: he always comes straight back as soon as he can, both as Riddle and after 1981).

And I hated the fact that Harry did not intend to keep his promise to Griphook.

Both those last points reinforce your 'good people, bad times' argument, though. Ironic that that's one of the things Harry opposed so fiercely when talking to Scrimgeour.

[snorkackcatcher]

Yeah, the bit of Voldemort's soul could certainly have made a difference -- after all, it's after Voldy returns to full strength that Harry starts casting the nastier stuff. (That's the main reason why, although I could see evidence for the 'Harrycrux' theory in books 1-6, there was always one key stumbling block -- if he's had the soul fragment since he was a year old, why hadn't it done the same to him as the diary fragment did to Ginny? I suppose the argument could be that that was a bigger soul fragment and Ginny poured her hearty out to it, yada yada, but it still strikes me as a bit iffy.)

Hermione's casual plot-device Confunding shocked me, too, although as I said above, the exact-words weaseling with Griphook is pretty much the same sort of thing a goblin would do (cf Bagman).

[house-illrepute.livejournal.com]

Unforgivables aren't unforgivable because of anything moral... i think that's something that we have attached to it. It was made 'unforgivable' by the Ministry, just as they label what is and isn't considered 'dark magic' in britain. I never read anything 'moral' about Unforgivables in HP, altho' certainly they are morally suspect.

IF i did, however, i would view any spell that invades the mind and forces someone to do something as being far more reprehensible than a pain spell. In fact, I never understood why a pain spell was so bad, when there are other spells that could do far worse to someone if used in multiple successions. Don't believe me: take a person, tied him to a wall, and fire off rapid and repeated EXPELLIARMUS blasts. so, whereas the spell itself isn't dangerous, it's STANDARD USE is.

and, of course, there's nothing strange about that. our laws (everyone's) are riddled with things that are made illegal because of rampant USAGE, from guns to P2P sits, etc..


Seeing as the Ministry had been taken over by the baddies, and it was a time of war, i don't see the problem with using Unforgivables.

In fact, what is Unforgivable is that Rowling -- among other things -- didn't discuss how INTENTION should play a part in labeling anything 'dark' or 'unforgivable'.

[snorkackcatcher]

Yes, after all Harry was proposing to kill Sirius in PoA. (Although as he didn't know of AK at the time, it's not exactly clear how. I suppose Serpensortia would do it.) And as I said, Cruciatus seems like a relatively 'clean' torture spell -- both Harry and Hermione recovered from it relatively quickly, which they wouldn't have from (say) having fingers removed with Sectumsempra or whatever.

As for Imperius, I've never liked even the casual use of Memory and Confundus Charms -- I can see the necessity for them to make the plot work, but there are implications there that were never treated. I suppose the intention thing is something the reader is supposed to decide upon themselves.

[marcella-riddle.livejournal.com]

I still think Harry could have used something different to Crucio, such as Stupefy, which seems to be a favourite. However as we know he's quite hot-headed and rather likes to charge ahead without thinking properly. Hence act first, think later. I would've been more horrified had he used Avada Kedavra, to be honest. But you're right, that end could still be met without the use of that particular curse. I do think you're onto something with the wand thing.

[snorkackcatcher]

He seems to use Crucio on bad guys when his hatred for what they've done to other people comes out, which is something he needs to watch! Although as lazy_neutrino suggested above, this could also have been something to do with the fragment of Voldy's soul he's lugging around.

[masterofmystery.livejournal.com]

I don't get why people have argued that it's wrong for Harry to use any of them. Even Jo explained (in that webchat she did with Bloomsbury a week after DH came out), that Harry is no saint and, basically, why can't he use one? Besides, he ended up being top Auror, and I'm sure that mastering the Unforgivables 'just in case' is something that's mandatory for them. Just because he's the hero doesn't mean he hasn't done a bad thing in his life. I never liked that people put Harry on such a pedestal because he's done a lot of fucked-up shit since he was a kid, so... yeah.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

Have you considered the writing angle here at all? Personally, I've got nothing against flawed heroes. What I've got a hate-on for is inconsistently characterised heroes whose actions aren't examined properly. The main problem with Harry's rampant use of Unforgivables for me is how no one says a word about it, how no one notices. JKR named these spells (they're called Unforgivables, for god's sake), shrouded them in warning signs and repeatedly pointed to The Baddies' use of them as a sign of True Evil. And then had Harry sprinkle them about the place during Book 7 without drawing the same kind of notice as she did to Voldemort's use of the various Unforgivables.

Now, Harry's (mostly failed) attempts at them in HBP, I bought. Dumbledore had just died at Snape's hand. But now, I realise that even then, no one remarked on those. No Baddies jeered at him for being less than a saint ("...and crap at it, too, Potter. Can't even pull off a decent Crucio, christ..."). He certainly didn't seem to think much about it, despite all his introspection about Dumbledore's shady past and past actions. The idea of Harry using Bad Spells^TM doesn't bother me in the slightest; the fact that he does so and it has near zero effect on the world, on his friends, on how people see him, on how he sees himself...well.

[snorkackcatcher]

Well, to be fair the baddies (or supposed baddies) did sneer at him -- both Bellatrix and Snape. :) I wasn't too worried that no-one else commented on them because the only people who saw them were escaping DEs, but it surprised me that Harry himself didn't. The thing that really surprised me was when Harry tells Ron and Hermione that Travers and Bogrod are Imperiused, and neither of them bats an eye. All right, they're terrified and they've recently encountered DEs flinging Cruciatus at Hermione with abandon, but even so ... I suppose it has to be put down to habituation with the idea of their use.

Come to think of it, people actually don't even seem that shocked when the bad guys use them, do they? Let's handwave and say that the spells were named a long time ago, but attitudes have drifted since. I can put up with Harry's use of them not being examined on grounds of keeping the story focused, as with several other things, although I'd have preferred to see some examination of them, obviously.

[snorkackcatcher]

Yes, I think fandom fixed on the label and ignored how the books were developing -- I was still expecting some kind of comeback in DH, even so. Harry isn't a saint, it's just that his good points outweigh the bad.

As for Aurors, I'm not sure -- could be either way. Apparently it wasn't until Crouch Snr became head of law enforcement that they were authorised to use them -- maybe it's a wartime-only emergency measure?

[snorkackcatcher]

Yes, that's probably what JKR had in mind -- and that heady sensation might be why it's considered so dangerous (in principle, Imperius could be reasonably used to control a dangerous criminal, I suppose, as Harry did there).

Sectumsempra probably isn't approved -- I can't really see Snape submitting it for approval given what it does. Mind you, it's surprising that there wasn't already a curse that does the same thing.

The trouble with Obliviate and Confundus is that JKR really needs them, to provide a rationale for how the wizarding world has managed to stay unnoticed since they went into hiding, but no-one worries about the ethical aspects. It just seems to be one of those things we're supposed to accept the handwave with -- fair enough most of the time, but it's still worth raising the point (I'd like to see someone ask it at one of the Q&A sessions).

[melusinahp.livejournal.com]

Hmm. This did make me think.

It's true -- Harry had tried to use the CC twice before in the series. Both times, however, he'd just lost someone he loved and he was casting the curse on their murderers. I didn't think twice those two times as Harry lashing out under those circumstances seemed very in character.

In DH, however, Amycus had only spit on McGonagal. Sure, Harry was already under a lot of stress and had reason to hate Amycus, I just don't think it was a Crucio type of moment. It might have worked if he'd done it immediately after Remus or Tonks had been killed, or at the very least, if Harry had expressed some shock or regret afterwards.

[snorkackcatcher]

Hmm. I can see your point, actually, although I suppose there wasn't much chance for Harry to consider the matter afterwards -- as he's doing this he can see Voldy going to check the cave Horcrux, and Alecto had already summoned him via the Dark Mark. I suppose it has to be put down to Harry losing it temporarily -- at least he doesn't use any more Unforgivables in the rest of the battle.

[melusinahp.livejournal.com]

I think it would have hurt a lot less if he hadn't quipped, "Bellatrix was right, you have to mean it," right afterwards, lol. That arelly lessened the power of the moment for me.