Richard, if there is no good and evil, then there is no point to any dark or light definitions, or indeed to using the words good or evil or any of their ramifications as terms of praise.


Anyway, I think the guns analogy works, just not to magic in general but to certain dark spells. I think killing in self defense and in a just war is not morally wrong, and may in fact be the right thing to do. I think most people here would agree with me. I don't see why it should be the case that people should not use the most effective way of doing this. Even if the AK causes some sort of pain, as has been argued above, do you really believe that other curses which can kill wouldn't be even worse? Dolohov's curse cuts through the victims' internal organs. That's gonna make him suffer less than the AK? Please.

 

"Normal" spells need no special kind of intent to work, While Bad spells need
malicius intent to work. And Good spells need good intent to work.
Well thats my thoughts on the matter

 

The exact intent/state of mind required to cast the Killing Curse is a bit of an open question from the perspective of canon, and the required state of mind is a fairly important issue for the spell. If the Cruciatus Curse needs the caster to be somewhat sadistic in order to work properly, it doesn't seem that odd to posit the AK requiring something like sociopathic disregard for the value of human life in order to work. If that is the case then even if the Killing Curse is used in the context of legitimate self-defense the caster is going to be regarded warily at best, because only a fairly twisted mind could successfully cast the spell in the first place.

 

Good point. 'Good', as well as almost anything, is relative. If you say he's a good father than the word good is, well, good. But if he's a good cannibal, does the word good is actually good [where cannibalism is bad]?

I don't think that you need to have mental problems in order to use the spells mentioned. Do you need to be schizophrenic to cast obliviate?

Obviously the spell will be stronger when the intent is stronger, but even someone not crazy can kill cold-heatedly and thus preform the spell to it's fullest extent.

 

Given that Harry successfully casts the Cruciatus in DH without any kind of joy in his victims pain, I'm not even sure if we can trust what Bellatrix said about needing to enjoy it to cast it successfully.

Maybe being able to enjoy it merely means you'll have a tendency to hold the curse for longer, thus resulting in more pain for the victim. A non-magical reason.

Also, even if the Cruciatus does require a certain mindset to cast, this says nothing of the other two Unforgiveables, the same way that the fact that the Killing Curse being unblockable says nothing for the Imperius and the Cruciatus. The reason for this is that for all we can see, the Unforgiveables are only connected by a legal statute, rather than a similarity in their natures. A sociological, rather than magical, connection.

Further evidence towards this, beyond the fact that there's no evidence to the contrary, is that Harry cast the Imperius in DH with ease and no special mind set.

 

Fair points; the arguement that it a "normal" person wouldn't be able to cast the killing curse is admittedly based on a fair amount of speculation.

As for Harry casting the Cruciatus curse in DH, was it really all that successful? Going off the text description it didn't really accomplish much more than a normal stunning spell (don't have DH with me to check so I might be wrong); the description of the spell's effects certainly differs from what we seen when Voldemort or Bellatrix casts it.

Taure's probably right though; the Killing Curse isn't really any different from other spells by nature, it's just put in a special legal category.

 

What I've always wondered is why the Unforgivable Curses are unforgivable in the first place. There could arguably be many magical methods to replicate the effects of the Unforgivables. Just looking at potions, there must be countless poisons/killing agents, potions that cause extreme pain, and potions that can be used for mind-control. The same is probably true of curses. It seems to me that there are a lot worse curses than the Killing Curse (the only real difference I can see is that the AK kills without physically harming the victim, whereas another curse might explode a heart, etc.) I will grant that it's possible that the Imperius and the Cruciatus are the most extreme curses of their respective effects, but I still don't see what makes them Unforgivable and so much worse than similar curses. In fact, when going by the "Evilness Scale," (determined by the level of sadism demonstrated by the effects) the Unforgivables are relatively tame to any number of curses I can think of.

Regarding dark magic, I'm kind of ambivalent. I can understand the thinking behind "dark, neutral, light" as well as "normal magic, evil warping dark magic," so it's hard to say what is more plausible. Perhaps it is like the Force... I'll have to think more on this and post later.

 

The whole case with this is that we have to remember it's magic. I think the problem is that people try to look at magic through a non-magical perspective. I'm sure many have noticed the similarity between Occlumency and ancient meditation techniques, but there is a key difference in that occlumency is a tangible effect on the mind. In the same way, while intent is the main issue in any action taken in a normal circumstance, with magic the tangible effects must be considered. Power corrupts, magic or not, so it's not a huge stretch IMO to assume that the psychological effects of wielding magic with the kind of power over someone to inflict fathomless pain, control utterly, and over their very life itself would have serious mental effects. Look at Voldemort, Bellatrix, Lucius, or any other serious dark magic practitioner. Just as greed, power, and malice would warp a human mind, magical spells driven by those emotions would probably strip away someone's humanity in a very real way.

This is of course assuming the author is using real dark magic. I'm sorry, but the idea of a righteous AK always sounds stupid to me, because if people could really do that, it wouldn't be unforgivable. If it's intent that matters, then hating someone enough to kill them, to dominate their will, or make them experience such pain would of course be dark magic. As many have said in this thread, an AK fueled by dumb shit like hating the past, the current circumstances, or the way things have played out in your life is both ridiculous and a detriment to the spells meaning and significance. It's a cheap tool. Dark magic isn't a matter of intent in that the spells classified as such have intent built into the spell, and without that, there is no spell. The magic depends on the negative intent to fuel it, so any pure intent would in theory disable it or make it ineffective.

 

An interesting reason I've seen before is that they're Unforgiveable because of the ridiculous ease with which they can be cast compared to how powerful their effects are.

I mean, pretty much any adult wizard can cast them, it seems. Whereas with something like Fiendfyre - much more dangerous than the Killing Curse - the spell is incredibly difficult to control.

Afrojack: a spanner in your theory is JKR's statement that pretty much all offensive magic (with the exception of Charms and transfiguration that happen to be used in an offensive way) is Dark magic to a degree. So the "school boy jinxes" etc. are all Dark magic, albeit minor Dark magic.

I suppose this is understandable in a way. Petrificus Totalis may seem harmless to us as readers, but that's because we know it can be countered easily. If you cast the spell on a Muggle though, who had no friends to counter it for them, we can see that the spell can take a much Darker nature. After several days of lying unmoving in their own shit and piss, they'd die of dehydration.

So much of the magic we see as not Dark, we see as such because other magic happens to have been developed to block or reverse the effects. But really, should this matter in the definition of whether a spell is Dark magic or not?

An interesting idea about defining Dark magic is to take it away from morality/intent completely, and say that Dark magic is magic that actively resists being undone.

For example, the Sectumsepmra curse. With a sufficient knowledge it can be undone (Snape knew how), but as a spell its effects resist reversal with magic using traditional techniques (Molly couldn't).

In this way the "schoolboy jinxes" etc. would be the serious Dark magic of the past which had happened to have the counters pass into general knowledge.

Moving on from that idea...

With regards to intent, there is a way to connect intent and Dark magic in a way that doesn't make it a magical prerequisite of the spells. Let's use an example.

The Killing Curse. It kills. It does nothing else.

Thus, to cast the curse you have to have the desire to kill. Even if the curse has no magical requirement of this kind, it's simply a matter of cause. If you're casting a killing curse, then that means you want to kill something.

I can only think of one exception to this, which would be casting the curse for demonstration purposes.

 

Frankly, I enjoy well done rationalizations. When the character doesn't give a fuck that he's doing wrong, and wrong in accordance to his own definition, then the character is either a 2-D mess or a psychopath. The former is far too popular in those all out Dark!Harry stories, which really have no moral compass and give you little to nothing to relate with, and are basically pornographic orgies of death and gore. The latter is incredibly hard to pull off.

The rationalizations provide a gentler curve of decent, thus inviting the reader to discard his or her own moral conventions. Provided, this kind of story is rare to say the least, and more often than not the 'dark' is used to make Harry seem cooler for puerile enjoyment - the former does exist.

 

What I'd like to see is a story that uses the traditional indy!Harry arguments for learning Dark magic, but then the story develops a twist: it turns out that Harry didn't really know what he was talking about, and Dark magic really is unjustifiable.

So you've got a combination of the two: Harry's descent to Darkness is reasonable, in that he argues himself into it, but then later its revealed that these reasons were incorrect. Then you have Harry who is "using it anyway, despite knowing that he's doing some of the most atrocious things in life there are, despite knowing that he's no better than the Death Eaters -- and he doesn't give a fuck."

 

Or alternatively, it's for historical reasons [the Death Eaters used to use those spells in abundance and thus proclaimed unforgivable.]

Some light [supposedly] spells resist being undone as well. The spells keeping the broom in the air [first year] or the ancient love spell [Voldemort would have obviously broken it if it wasn't protected somehow.]

I agree with the idea, however I don't agree with the exception. Why does it matter if the caster wants to kill out of revenge, desire for money or to impress someone?

 

You could cast the curse at the sky. There's no desire to kill at all then, just a desire to cast the curse.

 

I think that begs the question that killing is always wrong (assuming we are working within our frame and not JKR's confused morals). Would someone casting a killing curse on someone who was trying to kill him necessarily be feeling any 'dark' feelings? Adrenaline can make even peaceful people have an urge to kill in extreme situations. How about an auror trying to bring a death eater into custody who is resisted? An executioner performing a lawfully given death sentence? Someone attacked by a wild animal?

 

I think that really hasn't got anything to do with what I said.

All I said was that there is a way to connect the necessity of possessing the intent to kill with the casting of the Killing curse, even if it is not a magical necessity, with one exception.

I offered no judgement as to the justifiability of said intent.

 

Who says you can?

Maybe Voldemort can, as he seems to be hating the world as a rule, but your ordinary Death Eater probably can't.

 

That's assuming that there's a magical requirement of hate to cast the curse, which is exactly the thing my suggestion was an alternative to.

 

Not necessarily. For the levitation charm, for example, I would imagine that you need a target. Same may apply here. Maybe not hate, but intent is probably a big factor.

 

I tend to to dislike stories where one of the main characters starts using "dark magic" to fight back, and everyone abandons him. Another one I've read is where Dumbledore turns grey and starts just throwing AK's at the death eaters.

Just to stir up more trouble I'd say there's a few differences. If you're talking about GOOD or BAD magic, it's entirely different from light or dark.

I consider it as light magic = weaker, but 'creative'. Creates things.
Dark magic = stronger, but 'destructive'. Destroys things. That's how I like to view it.

Would be interesting to see a story where some muggleborn jumps up after their friend was AK'd and said,

"Don't worry - I saw this on ER. It'll get his nerves firing again!" Before casting a crucio at his dead buddy, who miraculously comes back to life.

Chances are everyone will have their different opinions and views on magic, and intent, and nature vs nurture and all that crap. But the idea that my own ideas on gun laws etc based on HP and MAGIC?