Harry and the Unforgivables
Sep. 19th, 2007 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snorkackcatcherNo, 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?
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?
no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 10:10 pm (UTC)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.