Fanon's irritated me time and again with the overused ideas that using spells classified under the Dark Arts may/will somehow lead to corruption of the soul (making you lose your humanity, twisted and all that jazz) or an addiction.

I may be wrong, but I've never seen any canon evidence of the above occurring. As far as I'm concerned, the only magic in canon that has any sort of impact on the soul would be those involved in the formation of a Horcrux. I know this is also considered "Dark Arts" - in fact, if memory serves it's been described as the darkest of the arts - but just because creating a Horcrux would alter your soul doesn't mean most other spells considered "Dark" would have a similar decaying effect. I fail to see how this links to usage of the Cruciatus or the Killing Curse could cause one to lose his humanity.

Why would a wizard casting five Killing Curses to kill five separate people have his soul more corrupted than one who conjures a knife to murder the same five in cold blood?

I've noticed Bellatrix Lestrange being used more often than I could count as a prime example of how the "Dark Arts" can twist a person's soul. Bellatrix Lestrange is not drained of her humanity or had her soul corrupted or some other shit. She's simply insane. That's the end of it. As far as canon goes, she is a one of a kind among the Death Eaters, and I simply refuse to believe the other Death Eaters do not cast the same spells as she does, or use them as frequently.

Spells classified as Dark do not have any retarded in-built mechanism which causes the casters to become slowly addicted to it either. They are spells, not fucking drugs. If using the Cruciatus one too many times will cause a wizard to become "addicted" to using them and being unable to resist the temptation to keep casting the spell, the First Fall of Voldemort would not be followed by about a decade or so of peace. The Wizarding World would have to deal with Aurors going rogue after being unable to shake off their alleged addiction to the Unforgivables.

So what makes the Dark Arts different from other spells? Nothing except for their purpose. Spells are nothing more than magic shaped by intent. A Stunner is a manifestation of magic with the purpose to incapacitate another. Likewise a Killing Curse is simply magic, albeit one moulded by a wizard's intent to murder (Hence one needs to desire to kill a person before the curse can be successfully casted). Like I think Aekiel once mentioned, magic without intent or purpose will do absolutely nothing, hence firing bolts of "pure magic" won't do jack shit to an opponent.

The Dark Arts to me are simply spells used for malicious purposes, or with the intent to physically or mentally harm another wizard. Most spells serve a variety of purposes, such as the Levitating Charm or the Summoning Charm, but the so-called Dark spells serve no other purpose but to harm, which is why they are frowned upon in Wizarding Society and given their moniker as the Dark Arts. (Incidentally, I don't buy the bullshit about how the Unforgivables can be used for good)

I know this reeks of tl;dr, but I simply got tired of reading fics where Harry becomes unknowingly addicted to the Dark Arts or is warned by a gazillion people not to use them or they will corrupt his soul. Fact: Harry has used the Unforgivables a few times in canon and he is still the epitome of all things 'Light'.

 

You are probably right. I believe Dark arts can corrupt through, not because they make you insane ( we can see this on example of cruciatus curse - Bellatrix told us that in order to use it you have to mean to hurt, so it not the usage of curse that make you become evil, but rather your becoming evil makes you use it (and if you are not evil but angry ,it wont work for you)).
They corrupt you like every other power does - by tempting you to use it for bad purposes, for personal gain. And it's not like you can do something positive with all those curses except perhaps protecting yourself. It's like if one was allowed to always carry a gun with him, unrestricted - yes it will help him to save yourself in a difficult situation, but there is no grantee that one day he won't start threating people with it then they annoy him, or if he want's something from him. And dark art's can do a lot then maim ( as Imperius).
Sure you can say that "light" curses can be misused, but levitation charm is hardly as powerful or frightening. It's true that some people will never misuse the gun throught ,or Dark arts , people like canon Harry Potter possibly. But I think Dumbledore should have put a great effort in avoiding them.
However, this is just my opinion.

 

For Ye With Little Patience: Scroll down for summary. For Ye With Great Interest, Read On.

I agree with this description of the Dark Arts. There is one interesting point you brought on about Bellatrix Lestrange. The pro-Dumbledore faction probably points at her for demonstration of the nefarious effects the Dark Arts can have on you, and how she is evil and so on... (JKR included)

What these people need to consider is that Bella spent close to 15 years in lovely old Azkaban, enjoying fresh Dementor made goo and "Let's all scream our minds out as the Dementors stay outside our door", open from Monday to Sunday 24/7. We don't have any proof that she was an Animagus, we know for sure she was not innocent. I mention that to stop the people who would start screaming: "But Sirius was there too and he was not that bad!"

"How can you defend Bellatrix?" Well, for a start I don't think she started out as insane. Probably eccentric, definitely a Mudblood hater, but not bat shit insane. Put yourselves in her prison robes. You are on the wave, part of a movement that is looking as if it will gain dominion over magical life in Britain. You are young, presumably good looking and enjoy what you do. The hours are not great, but you are highly motivated. Suddenly, it all goes to hell and you get thrown into prison in the time most others spent enjoying their youth, and your life changes abruptly. You lose all power you had, all wealth, all human decency. Add in the dementors, who I am sure loved to spend the evenings with dear old Bella, since she had far more memories than the average Azkaban thug.

I am not surprised she turned out insane. Dark Arts had nothing to do with it.

As regards to Lord Voldemort, in my opinion the rebirth ritual, combined with the rather dumb act (in hindsight) of splitting your soul in seven, is what turned him to go batshit insane. Still, he is far saner in canon than in fanon, where to show how evil he is, the average writer has him torturing his supporters five times per chapter.

I agree the modern day Voldemort is slightly unhinged, but the original one had to be different if he was to charm his supporters. The Dark Arts didn't turn him insane, other issues did.

For TL;DRers:

In short, the Dark Arts don't do shit to make you insane/deranged. Lord Voldemort, Bellatrix Lestrange, to examples that come to mind, suffer from two flaws. First, JKR's desire to turn them into comic book villans (think, KOTOR, Malak's apprentice comes on the bridge of the Leviathan to receive orders and he kills two of his own soldiers, so that we, the dumb receivers understand that he is evil). I hate the concept, but then who am I to argue? The literary fantasy world is filled with comic book villains.

Second, if we analyse in universe, suspending disbelief, we can point out Azkaban, the rebirth ritual and the seven horcruxes as causes for insanity, not the Dark Arts.

As a final message, Lucius Malfoy has been using the Dark Arts since he was old enough to use magic, likely, and he is not insane.

 

A Class III Firearms License?

 

No, there isn't much evidence that shows using the "Dark Arts" makes you insane, but what about the other aspects?

Losing your understanding of whats good and bad by having it harm your soul? Everyone we know who uses Dark Arts is slightly off in doing what they believe is good, maybe using Dark Arts could in canon damage your soul and make you unable to see just what good is?

 

Harry Potter obviously didn't suffer from this. What makes using the Dark Arts to kill or wound someone so special as to corrupt your soul? What makes it different for a wizard to use a Dark spell to kill than for one who banishes a boulder at another, or who uses Transfiguration for murderous purposes?

It is one's murderous or sadistic tendencies that slowly corrupts a Dark wizard's soul, not the specific use of the Dark Arts.

 

My Article On Dark Magic

Hesitant about linking it, but it's relevant to the topic of discussion, so what the hell.

Since writing that article, I have remembered a single piece of information that I had forgotten about Dark magic: wounds caused by Dark magic are much harder to heal unless you have the specific counter, whereas wounds caused by "normal magic" can be healed relatively simply. Thus, maybe the definition of Dark magic could be that Dark magic works against and resists all other magic.

Harry used the Imperius to break into Gringotts, the Cruciatus to save McGonagall.

 

Lucullus, I don't believe that Dark Magic does much to ones persona either, I just figured I would bring in some conversation, as many before were arguing that the Dark Arts do not cause insanity, but nothing specific about slight alterations to ones personality.

 

The ultimate purpose may be for the victory against Voldemort, but he would have needed the intent to dominate another or to cause hurt in order to pull off those spells. The intent is still malicious, though, as Dumbledore would love to say, it's for the greater good.

Actually, my statement is in response to shit like using the Cruciatus to restart the heart of a patient (like a magical defibrillator), using the Killing Curse for euthanasia, or using the Imperius to aid the arrest of a criminal.

Edit @ Taure: And to think I thought my post was tl;dr...

 

Not entirely true. The Cruciatus is like that, but as far as we see there are no emotional requirements to cast the Imperius - when Harry cast it, he didn't have to really think about domination or anything like that.

I would adjust your statement thus:

"but he would have needed the intent to dominate another or to cause hurt in order to want to cast those spells in the first place"

The desire to dominate may not be a magical requirement of the Imperius, but it is a requirement - if you didn't want to dominate someone, you wouldn't be casting it in the first place.

 

The cruciatus-defibrillator concept is absolutely ridiculous. The heart-starting properties of defibrillators come from the electric current, not the pain.

 

Bellatrix tortured Longbottoms for information before she was in Azkaban, so she already had it started already. Through it's not as much because of dark arts, but probably some holy war against muggles issues (terrorists don't need dark arts, do they?).

My analogy was rather crude, I agree, it's not like a gun what lies in your desk can corrupt you into mass murderer, but if you are to imagine a gun that nobody can see if you don't show, what can alter people minds, memories, make them do things you want them to... and a lot more.


Imperius is exeption. Using most of the dark magic for good is hard to justify. As Harry probably could have stunned Carrows to protect MacGonogall. On the other hand Dumbledore could have transfigured Draco to a pebble and droped it in the lake forever saving everybody from a lot of troble.Hm.. I forgot why I wanted to include the last sentence. I will edit if I remember.

 

So you're saying it's the power of being able to use those sort of spells that corrupts, not the spells themselves. I can agree with that, after all, what would you do if you had the power to play God with just a bit of wood and your imagination?

 

It is the desire to murder or torture someone that might corrupt a wizard in the first place, not the magic itself. It doesn't matter whether you use a Dark spell or any other branch of magic to materialise these desires.

The only reason why some spells are labelled as Dark is because their sole purpose is to cause harm. There is no other justification for using them, except perhaps in times of war or other exigencies (cue...for the greater good)

 

Hehe. Actually, I made my post before even reading the thread. I was sleep deprived and feeling punchy.

 

It took me half an hour to answer it >_<. (includes understanding and translating)

 

I suppose most peple would subscribe to the idea that power corrupts and since magic is a source of power it could be thought of as a corrupting influence. Now all types of magic would fall under this category if the power of wizards over muggles is considered. Hence, the 'magic is dark/evil' attitude and witch-burning in the middle ages.

But among wizards, normal magic like Transfiguration or Charms would not fall under this category because they can be countered. Yes, Dumbledore could transfigure Draco into a rock and drop him into the lake (great idea by the way!) but Draco could actually counter him. It is fact that Dumbledore has so much more experience and skill than Draco that would allow him to succeed not the nature of the magic itself.

But if Voldemort was to cast the Killing Curse at Draco there is no magical barrier that Draco could conjure that would help him (I don't buy the summon a rock into the curse's path theory; if it was that easy, it would not be so feared). So the magic itself is so powerful that it simply cannot be blocked, and it would take one of extreme skill to avoid it (of course one could always simply duck...). Add to that the fact that one needs a true 'intent to kill' in order for the curse to work and you can see where the 'Dark Arts corrupt a soul' theme comes from.

Though it can also be seen that one has to be actually corrupt in the first place for him to be able to use the Dark Arts in such a way or with such an intent as for the Arts to be able to corrupt him further (the lure of power and such). So it would, in the case of pre-existing corruption, be a vicious circle that would be extremely difficult to break out of.

Edit: I think I am going to get reamed badly for this, but Snape seems to be the only character in canon who fell into the vicious circle but was able to break away from it.

Hope I can redeem myself by saying that Harry would never fall into that circle in the first place because he is not fundamentally corrupt.

 

Has anyone else noticed that there seems to be two concepts of Dark Magic?

The one is the thrust of this thread. The other is that there seems to be a political definition of Dark Magic that the Ministry changes at will.

A good example would be the biting tea cup. The spells involved more likely than not would not be considered Dark. Used by one wizard on another and it is just a silly, annoying prank. But let it fall into Muggle hands and it is now a Dark artifact.

Also, anything that is out of fashion, like the method Voldemort used to seal the entrance to the cave, seems to fall under the political definition of Dark. It didn't require someone to go out and kill anyone to gain entrance, just a little bit of blood and that can be freely given. But there is no problem using dragon's blood.

Also, didn't Crouch Jr. say that the Unforgivables were only such when used on people? Doesn't that also imply, that they are only 'Dark' when used on people, too? A sort of political definition?

If that is the case, goblins aren't people, so no crime/Dark Arts usage there.

As for uses of the Unforgivables for 'good', one that is never mentioned is using the Killing Curse to get food. Yes, you have to really want to kill. But seeing a deer across the field and wanting dinner should induce enough desire to kill to make it work.

Taure, your point about the intent of the spell creator is something I haven't seen before, but makes a whole lot of sense.

 

That would fall more under the standards of Missusage of Muggle Artefacts. However, in essence you are correct. The Ministry Double-standard often takes into account the receiver of the spell. I would believe using the Killing Curse on Garden Gnomes to be a perfectly normal, legal method of cleaning your garden.

Using it on Hogwarts students is obviously illegal, since it is the action that is in discussion not so much as the spell used. It is the nature of the law after all. Although there might be a social stigmata associated with a wizard standing in the middle of his garden firing Killing Curses at thin air, there is nothing illegal about it.

 

I agree with most of this.

The current administration and/or most politically powerful faction of the Wizengamot has the authority to classify magic as "Dark", and set specific punishments for usage of said magic.

It seems to me that the Wizarding world is much like the muggle world in that there is a paradigm shift every few centuries. Ethics and morality change with the times. If you compare biblical societies and modern societies, you will see the large change in public thought, morality, and what is acceptable behavior. It used to be perfectly acceptable to own slaves, put to death disobedient children, women entering marriage not a virgin, homosexuals, and heretics, cut off the hands of thieves (and similar mutilation for petty crimes), etc. You get the picture.

Today (in most cultures), these acts are considered barbaric. Back then it was perceived as the right thing to do. I imagine it is the same with magic and why certain magics and spells become classified as 'dark', and become socially unacceptable.

I really dig Snape's definition of the Dark Arts in HBP:

“The Dark Arts," said Snape, "are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible."