My opinion is that the Dark Arts aren't a shortcut but rather a specialized form of spellcasting. Some like the Horcruxes can change the caster completely while others like Sectusempra don't have much of Ann effect if any. It's my opinion that it depends on the mind of an individual. Look at Snape or Lucius, they were Dark practitioners yet they knew nothing about Riddle's cheat to death. I think it takes a lot of time, dedication, and skill to reach the depths of the Dark Arts just the same as any other magical field be it warding or potions brewing. It kind of seems very suspect that one of the most awful Dark practices, the creation of Horcruxes just requires murder. If that were so all Death Eaters would be immortal. I think this murder has to be of a very specific type of person, maybe the most innocent, followed by very gruesome rituals. But that's just my opinion

 

I could be confusing canon and fanon here, but isn't it stated that the killing needed for the horcrux must be of an innocent person? Rituals would make the most sense, otherwise random killing of innocent people would mean that every trigger happy wizard would be unable to die.

But the talking about an "innocent" person opens a whole new can of worms. Who classifies as innocent? Does one bad act in your life classify you as now immoral or guilty?

 

In my opinion the Dark Arts don't corrupt. The Dark Arts is simply a means to an end that is much easier to take. As of now, it has never been stated that magic is completely sentient and as such it is completely impossible for it to corrupt someone. My belief is that using dark magics invokes a feeling of euphoria similar to that of drugs, drugs are addicting and once used a couple of times you subconsciously wish for more and more; so dark magic does not corrupt you, but you become addicted to the feeling it brings about due to consistent use.

 

As I recall, horcruxes do require some sort of special ritual and other deliberate acts. The only reason Voldemort accidentally made Harry a horcrux was because his soul was already torn to bits from making so many other horcruxes.

As far as the moral component of who/how you have to kill to make a horcrux, I don't recall any firm canon on it. My personal headcanon would be that you have to commit a murder specifically for the purposes of creating a horcrux. It avoids the thorny issue of deciding who qualifies as an innocent victim, and keeps the act appropriately evil. Even if the victim is someone who deserves to die, there's no pretending the caster isn't committing a cold-blooded murder purely to gain personal power.

 

I always thought, as well, that it had to be a "cold-blooded murder," in the sense, not so much that the person killed is innocent, but that you killed them solely for the pleasure/profit to be gained from killing them, not in self-defense, etc.

 

My headfanon is that Horcruxes require one to feel no remorse. If a person feels remorse, the Horcrux gets destroyed and the soul starts healing. This means that to have a stable Horcrux one cannot feel remorse, not even the tiniest bit for what they've done. That, more than the actual act of murder is what makes Horcruxes so evil.

Of course, it's not canon, so yeah.

 

The Dark Arts are a broad category, and I think they encompass inherently tempting and self-destructive magic as well as "merely" harmful spells.

There's probably no good reason to use the Cruciatus Curse: torture is harmful to both the victim and the caster, and casting it requires you to want to hurt someone. Anyone capable of casting it once might enjoy the feeling and be tempted to try again.

On the other hand, the Killing Curse is classified as Unforgivable, but you can commit murder just as well with a Severing Curse. Also, it doesn't quite require murderous intent: Snape was able to mercy-kill Dumbledore without harming his own soul.

There's a whole spectrum of harmful spells, including jinxes, hexes, and curses. Some were taught at Hogwarts, while others classified as Dark were forbidden. But I don't see any evidence for, say, Expulso being any more addictive than a Cheering Charm.

For the most part it seems like Dark-classified magic is (1) significantly harmful or (2) has little to no benign application. For example, Incendio isn't dark because there are plenty of uses for fire apart from burning people, but Expulso is purely destructive (although it's not unforgivable if used in self-defense, because malicious intent is not actually required). The Hand of Glory might not seem Dark, since its function (to give light only to the bearer) is useful for criminals but not harmful in itself; but making one requires a severed human hand. Likewise, I expect that Dark rituals might have useful effects, but also require immoral sacrifices.

Some fanfics claim that the Ministry classifies politically inconvenient magic as Dark, but I don't think that's the case. They might be overly cautious--e.g. if all blood magic or necromancy is automatically Dark--but I can't think of any Dark spells that ought to be light, whereas plenty of sanctioned light spells can be used for evil. (And speaking of blood magic, since nobody gave Harry trouble over his blood wards, I doubt it's all considered Dark either.)

 

It does, however, require "nerve." As Harry was chasing Snape after the aforementioned killing of Dumbledore, Snape said this:

So clearly, not all dark magic is easy to use, and also it requires very specific mindset. After all, for the existence of Unforgivables as a classification to make any sense at all, one of two things must be true:
1) They're merely a distinction made by an inept and fearful government that arbitrarily tries to control the means and actions of its populace.
2) There's something inherent to the effects or casting that sets them apart from other spells, and makes them inherently more reprehensible.

A lot of people go with 1, but the modern, bureaucratic Ministry was created in the 1600s iirc and there are tons of examples of dark wizards and witches before then. Just off the top of my head, you've got Herpo the Foul from ancient Greece and Morgan Le Fay from Arthurian times (probably 5th - 6th centuries). So the distinction of spells being "dark" runs deeper in wizarding history than the current government, even if Unforgivables are a newer classification. This implies to me that there's got to be a more compelling reason for their description than just "governments are inept."

So start with the assumption that dark magic, and more specifically Unforgivables, are inherently wrong, and therefore that darkness is a real, tangible entity. What sets it apart from everything else?

Well, obviously it's not the effects. As many people in this thread have noted, a cutting charm can have the same end result as a killing curse. Additionally, compare Bombarda and Expulso: one a charm, and one a curse, but both cause explosions. If the effects of the spells were important, then why the distinctions?

This is why it also can't just be the power being addictive; if the dark quality comes from the feeling of having power over the world - that is, from the effects themselves - then there has to be something different about the effects. And yet there are charms far more deadly than many curses, and curses that do the exact same things as some charms.

I find that it's easiest to explain in terms of the casting - more specifically, the intent. Once again, look at Snape's comment about nerve, and Bellatrix's comment about needing to really mean the Cruciatus. If we assume that the Unforgivables all require an intense level of hatred and murderous intent towards the victim, then their illegality actually makes perfect sense: in the unholy trinity of means, motive, and opportunity, anybody who could cast an Unforgivable on another human being automatically has motive before the spell leaves their wand.

And if the Unforgivables are very dark, then all the other dark spells must just be kind of an Unforgivable lite. They all require some kind of harmful intent which is, if Dumbledore is to be believed, damaging to the soul, but in varying amounts.

As for Snape casting the killing curse on Dumbledore...Well, I'll direct your attention to canon:

Sounds like there's enough nerve in the guy to cast the spell on Dumbledore. The two never really had that good a working relationsip; it's honestly not surprising it ended in homicide.

 

I feel as though that quote is more in reference to the fact that Snape disliked having to kill Dumbledore, as Dumbledore was one of the only people to really see Snape's "softer" side as it were. This is especially prevalent in this scene:

Not only that, but Dumbledore covered Snape's arse within the original Wizengamot trials, and Snape does seem to have a long memory.

 

Possibly confusing fanon and canon, but I believe that the dark arts are just another branch of magic. I think that there are those whose magic is inherently light and inherently dark and inherently neutral.

 

I agree that JKR muddies things, and that "nerve" is probably as close to an explanation as you might get, since that is Snape and he certainly seems to know his magic.

At the same time, while he says Harry has neither "the nerve or the ability," we should perhaps consider that Snape seems to be more fixated on Harry's ability (or lack thereof) than anyone else. He's always going on about mediocrity, and the narrative almost always produces someone out of the woodwork, even Dumbledore, to remind him that others consider Harry to be at least "reasonably talented." Beyond that, we know from other places in the text that Harry definitely has at least some ability with two of the three Unforgivables.

But the concept of "nerve," even as applied to the Dark Arts in general, does seem to have some ring of truth to it. It even resembles what are considered to be "Dark" acts in the real world, in that almost everyone is familiar with them, or at least the extremes (least and most harmful), almost everyone does them to some extent (hexes, jinxes, etc.), and almost everyone contemplates dark and terrible things, but only a few have the nerve, or sufficient motive, or what have you, to commit the truly evil acts (torture, murder, enslavement, etc.).

That might also shed light on some of the magical thought behind legalizing them for use by Aurors, or behind the Order's tolerance of killing. That would be, if one does not assume merely utilitarian, a tacit implication that the Ministry too sees it as a matter mainly of intent, in terms of what makes it dark, and if you have the nerve to kill a man, you can do so even in the context of administering justice.

Which also clarifies, to some extent, what fake Moody said to the fourth years. To be fair, he mentioned power, but if magic is about the mind, then having, by whatever means or for whatever reason, the nerve to kill someone must be a powerful thing.

 

When Harry used the Cruciatus on Bellatrix Lestrange, what did she tell him?

You have to mean it, Potter.

Temperament, motivation, and intent absolutely matter. Righteous rage might fuel an Unforgiveable, but it wouldn't be anywhere near as powerful as enjoying torturing someone into insanity.

In that way at least, the Killing Curse is probably a bit simpler morally. It's entirely possible to be willing to off them so they can't kill/maim/torture anyone else, rather than especially enjoying the idea of them being dead.

Pretty standard Dark Side stuff, really.

 

I don't know about that. The only person we know who made a killing curse as a mercy was Snape.

Snape who is an awful person, at one time HATED Dumbledore and knows how to control his emotions. I would not be surprised if Snape was able to cast the killing curse because apart of him hated Dumbledore and wanted him dead. Remember, Dumbledore was pretty good to James and Sirius, even after Sirius almost killed Snape. There was probably a good portion of his life that he despised him. If Snape could have just controlled that one emotion and focused on the negative, it may have been enough to fuel the curse.

That and the fact Snape has very few emotions outside of anger.

 

Something else odd about Dark classification: people affected by the obviously-Dark curse of lycanthropy, aka werewolves, are themselves classified as dark creatures. Even though they're only dangerous one day out of thirty, and not even then if they use the Wolfsbane potion. Compare this with someone under the Imperius curse: just as Dark, just as potentially dangerous, but treated as a victim instead of a threat.

This is evidence that even if there's a natural meaning to Dark magic, the Ministry lumps anything in with it that they want suppressed. I wouldn't be surprised if certain foreign spells also get called Dark just out of xenophobia (after all, flying carpets are banned while broomsticks are not, and Parseltongue is considered Dark basically because snakes are creepy).

 

When it comes to werewolves, we're talking about 50% bigotry and 50% of there being a history of people like Fenrir Greyback.

At best. More likely, we're talking 20% bigotry and 80% people like Fenrir Greyback.

Likewise, Wolfsbane is apparently a very recent invention.

I don't think flying carpets are banned because they constitute Dark magic. I think they're illegal because carpets are considered Muggle objects and thus draw a certain amount of unwanted scrutiny.

Parseltounge is considered Dark by the masses because a number of notable Dark wizards have been Parselmouths- notably Voldemort and a few characters that don't actually appear in the books (Herpo the Foul, Salazar Slytherin himself, etc).

It's similar to how Slytherin House is associated with Dark wizards because a number of notable Dark wizards were Slytherins in their school days.

I don't think there's actually a law about it. Popular belief taking correlation too far isn't exactly an unknown phenomenon.

Lindsey: True. He does have plenty of angst, too.

 

No idea what you mean here. I've just started Pottermore and it seems great.

 

I disagree with the notion that the required emotion for the Unforgivables is hate. Sure, the majority of casters have unusually high levels of hate, since it's the main driving force behind cruel acts. But it's not the only emotion.
Look at Molly Weasley. She killed Bellatrix, I would argue, more out of maternal drive and love for her kids than out of her hate for Bellatrix. Sure, she hated her for endangering her children, but I would think that her love for Ginny trumped her hate for Bella.

 

It's true that you don't need hate to kill in the HP universe, but we're discussing specifically the Unforgivables, and so your evidence falls short in two ways.

1: Molly Weasley did not cast an Unforgivable. Look:

While she did use a curse, and therefore have intent to harm, she did not use an Unforgivable. Or, at the very least, we do not know that she did, and considering there's no mention of her in Azkaban afterwards, we can assume she did not.

2: Molly Weasley was definitely pretty hateful towards Bellatrix at that point.

I mean, I don't know if it would be enough to power an Unforgivable, but there's definitely a lot of murderous intent and hatred there.

 

There's no evidence that there's any magical connection between the Unforgiveables. The only definition we're given is that they land you in Azkaban, which is a legal definition, not a magical one.

So there's really no evidence behind the idea that you need any specific emotion to cast the Killing Curse or Imperius Curse. For the Imperius Curse, at least, we know for certain that no specific emotional state is required, as Harry cast it in DH without any particular emotion.

Further, DH casts significant doubt that Bellatrix was even right about the Cruciatus curses. Bellatrix believes you need to get sadistic pleasure from pain for the curse to work properly, but she's not exactly the most reliable source, and in DH we see Harry successfully cast the Cruciatus with righteous anger - exactly the emotion Bellatrix said could not fuel the Cruciatus in OotP.

In short: there's no strong evidence that you need hate to cast any Unforgiveable.

 

Well, I'm not saying that the emotion behind an Unforgivable has to be love particularly. It just doesn't have to be hate. Tons of people cast Unforgivables out of power, and their desire to see others weak and totally at their mercy. But it doesn't require the caster to hate the victim.

Look at when Crouch demonstrates the curses on a spider in GoF. I really doubt that he cared enough to fully hate the spider.
Voldemort murders tons of Muggles for fun. It's a sport for the Death Eaters. That's not fueled by hate specifically, but intent is a huge factor in casting these curses.

"You need to really want to cause pain — to enjoy it — righteous anger won’t hurt me for long — I’ll show you how it is done, shall I? I’ll give you a lesson —”

Righteous anger isn't it, it's more of a need to derive pleasure from hurting others. And hatred definitely helps with that. Intent seems to be the most important thing here, more than any other emotion.