Mugglenet.com's Harry Potter Should Have Died - Emerson Spartz [53]
No!
They’re not called the Sometimes-Forgiveable Curses—they’re called the Unforgiveable Curses, and for good reason. Even the Muggle nations (mostly) agree—torture is never the answer, and there is never an appropriate time for Harry to cast an illegal Unforgivable Curse. Battle or no battle, it is wrong. And Harry never shows any remorse or questions his own judgment about that, which sends a really bad message to young readers. If Harry is a true hero, why does he resort to torture as revenge? Yes, he feels human feelings of rage and grief because people have died. But torturing someone is the lowest thing one human being can do to another, and it’s sadistic—Harry has to enjoy it in order to cast the spell. Also, having been the victim of the Cruciatus Curse himself (when Voldemort attacked him in the graveyard), Harry knows exactly how painful it is and what he is doing to his own victims. It is just unbelievable that he could keep trying the Cruciatus Curse until he got it right, and then enjoy it. That’s not the Harry the fans thought they knew! It shows a complete lack of control over his emotions.
In every battle scene, Harry proves that he knows other spells that can stop people in their tracks. In the Battle of the Tower in HBP, the best spells are Impedimenta, which makes people fall over, and Petrificus Totalus, or the Body-Bind Curse, which keeps them from moving at all. Plus, there are other effective charms, jinxes, and hexes, not to mention the Stunning spell Stupefy that the kids used at the Department of Mysteries in OotP. So why is it ever necessary for Harry to try an Unforgivable Curse to keep Bellatrix or Snape from running away? Since when is painful revenge a good thing in the books? What about showing mercy? At the end of PoA, Harry stops Sirius and Remus from killing Peter with Avada Kedavra, and that is the absolute right thing to do. Everyone in the wizarding world knows the Unforgivables are wrong. Yet every time a situation gets personal for him, Harry tries the Crucio because it feels satisfying in the heat of the moment. That makes him no better than Voldemort.
The most depressing and stupid moment is when Harry uses the Crucio on Amycus Carrow in Deathly Hallows. We are expected to believe that he uses one of most sinister curses around just because an ugly Death Eater spit at Professor McGonagall? What a stupid reason to inflict ultimate pain on someone! There is absolutely no moral high ground for that, and it’s immature and hot-headed. Also, Minerva is dead wrong to thank Harry for it, too. She should have known better than that. It is never right to torture someone over a lady’s honor. And what’s really crazy about that is in HBP, Harry catches Amycus laughing while trying to Crucio Ginny, and stops him from doing it with an Impedimenta spell.
So who is worse, Harry or Amycus? It’s a sad day when Harry Potter sinks to the level of a Death Eater himself, but that’s what happens. Carrow is outnumbered two to one, and Harry or McGonagall could easily turn him into a toad or a centipede and put him in a tin can for life. Harry could use the Rictusempra spell he uses on Draco in the second-year dueling club and tickle Carrow to death [CoS, p. 192]. Did Harry forget all the boring forgiveable spells between HBP and DH?
Maybe J.K.R. is trying to show that Voldemort’s soul-crux is having an effect on Harry’s mind, making his actions similar to the Dark Lord’s? Several times in DH Harry sees the world through Voldemort’s eyes, such as the death of Severus Snape. Even so, Harry is supposed to have a pure soul, and he can’t possibly enjoy torturing people and stay pure. That goes against everything Dumbledore stood for, and it crosses the line between good and evil. Harry should never have used an Unforgiveable Curse on anyone, for any reason.
Verdict
Should Harry be forgiven for his Unforgivable tendencies, since he was seeking justice? Or should the justice system seek him out for