Good point. It'd probably be a lot easier to make a case for self-defense/justifiable homicide if you killed someone with a spell other than the killing curse. Given what we see of how the Ministry operates, I expect they rule pretty harshly on any self defense claims (barring corruption).

 

I'm of the opinion that there are two schools of thought concerning magic in comparison to our reality. 1) Magic is equivalent to weapons or tools and it is how people use it rather than how it uses the person. Or 2) Magic is more similar to drugs, in that there are good ones and bad ones and ones that cause side effects and ones that don't.

The interesting part is in both schools of thought what determines what is an illegal (or bad) weapon/drug is highly debated and determined by officials which may or may not have corrupt reasons for their rulings. The same thing can be said about magic in the hp universe. The ministry of magic determines what is dark magic and what is not but there are several characters that disagree on what should be considered dark.

This can lead to the situation of "gateway" magic, where by preforming some magic that is relatively harmless but is considered "dark" people can proceed to casting more and more ambiguous magic. And while it can be argued that it is the magic affecting the caster a psychological argument can also be made. Where since the supposed witch/wizard has already broken the law once they feel more confident doing it a second time. Not only that but it can also attribute to the feeling of the law no longer being on their side and feelings of prosecution and bitterness can lead to desperation or even rebellious motivations for resorting to more dark magic.

 

I think that certain types of people get addicted to the power that the dark arts can give you I don't think that it is necessarily the dark arts them selves that are addictive.

 

I think it is like heroin, you start using and it feels good. so you wanna do it again, but you need to do more to get the same high.

 

The Dark Arts give you the illusion of power over others, and that in itself is addicting, considering the fact that like all things that make you feel superior to others, the Dark Arts stimulate that very sense of superiority, and so, make you addicted to it. The cruciatus curse for example, is a curse that gives you the power to make someone/something feel pain, and because of it only working when you really mean to cause pain, it makes you addicted to it.

 

I don't understand the whole dark vs the light side kind of spectrum. I mean you can easily kill people with light spells so why would dark spells make you addicted? I guess bully's get off on the whole domineering/rush for power aspect with dark spells, since they are messier and stronger.

Still if you need to torture people to get off you don't need dark spells do you? I guess some dark art spells could get intoxicating. Like really, really evil rituals where you need to sacrifice 12 baby's or something like that to make you stronger or faster.

Maybe everybody get's this whole thing from Star Wars?

 

I'm just imagining Voldemort torturing people with The Tickling Charm. That shit needs to be an unforgiveable.

 

Yeah, the Light Magic vs. Dark Magic thing seems to be almost entirely a fanon creation. All we really see in canon is that The Dark Arts are a category of magic which have no purpose other than killing or inflicting severe harm harm upon other wizards/sentient beings, and are thus tightly regulated.

 

The sun is blue I honestly didn't know that. So yeah the dark arts aren't addictive it's just that some people are sadists and like to hurt others that's why some people like the dark arts.

 

So...? Thread locked?

 

Yeah, the only reason a thread should be locked is if it's descended into complete and utter idiocy, or if it was pure flamebait/trolling from the first post.

But back on topic, I can certainly buy that the Dark Arts are addicting in the sense that power itself can become highly addictive. If I had the power to casually mind control people into doing whatever I wanted, I'd be tempted to abuse it for things like never needing to pay for groceries again, or to make my boss give me a raise and promotion.

 

I think dark spells require more emotion and magic. This causing an after effect of europhia, something akin to a drug really

 

Yeah, the only thing remotely like that we have from canon is that we know the Unforgivables don't seem to work properly unless you really mean them. Which isn't anything addictive, unless you count "really wanting to murder people makes you good at murder spells" as a form of addiction.

Personally, I'll stick with my position that dark magic is only addictive in the sense that power can be one of the most addictive drugs around. Power-hungry sociopaths are generally gonna like the idea that they can murder, torture, and strip away free will with a wave of their wand.

 

I am of the opinion that Dark magic does not cause addiction because it is dark magic. The general intent of people that use those spells regularly poison their personality. If you cast in anger once, it's easier to do so again. If you hate once, it's easier to hate again. since most magic is intent based, you find frequent users of dark magic will more frequently be in a mindset to use dark magic than those people that don't use it.

(Though my phrasing is similar to the warnings against the dark side of the force, I believe that the force has sentience and takes control over dark side users, where magic lacks the sentience ascribed to the force in star wars)

 

This seems like a parallel of Dresdenverse magic.

Breaking the Laws of Magic in Dresdenverse deserves a death penalty for a reason. In order to use magic, users have to put their entire wills into casting spells. To modify someone's mind, for example, one would need to believe that it's perfectly okay to play with others' minds like play-dough.

It's the slippery slope argument.

It appears to be the same with the Unforgivables. As Bellatrix told Harry, "You need to mean it."

Killing, controlling people, and torture create mindsets that are completely malicious and entirely unbenevolent.

 

On the other hand, Harry himself used the Imperius and the Cruciatus. While I agree that his usage of the Cruciatus required that he really want to hurt his target, when he used the Imperius he wasn't exactly thinking about how great it was to exert his will over another person.

 

You seem to be under the impression that all dark arts = unforgivables.