I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good
Jun. 11th, 2011 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_sally_anneWell, I took apart the cruopticon and I thought I'd gotten it clean but then I took a closer look and realised the tea or whatever was spilled got into all sorts of little crevices inside so I borrowed a tiny soft cleaning brush from one of the house-elves and started working. But I'm not getting it done tonight and my fingers are getting cramped from holding the little brush so I'm going to write about Dark Arts instead.
So.
The three cardinal curses used to be called 'unforgiveables' because you'd go to Azkaban if you did them on a human, but be careful because it's generally only blood-traitors who say 'unforgiveables' these days. I think Mr and Mrs Weasley are careful not to call them that but they never say Cardinal Curses either, they say, 'the spells that used to be called the Unforgiveable Curses.'
Anyway, each one is strongly associated with a particular emotion. Cruciatus is concentrated hatred. Imperius is contempt. And the killing curse is anger. In some ways that makes it the easiest to cast, because a lot of people never feel enough hatred to cast cruciatus or the arrogance you need for Imperius but everyone (almost everyone) gets angry sometimes. If you've ever gotten angry enough that you've wanted someone dead, you've been angry enough to cast the killing curse.
In Dark Arts class there's quite a lot of talk about 'mindset' and 'controlling your emotions' and what this means, more or less, is that it's actually quite easy to cast a Dark spell (though not necessarily one of the Cardinal Curses because they are so powerful) if you're furiously angry. What makes it really difficult is if you're casting a curse on someone you don't really care about one way or the other. The trick in that case is to summon up the emotion and direct it. When I took my final exam I pretended I was casting the killing curse on Professor Carrow and it worked quite well except that I had my eyes closed so I missed. And, that's the only real defense against the killing curse: dodging.
There are quite a few spells that can be used to kill someone, after all, from the entrails-expelling curse to wingardium leviosa (you hover someone high enough and drop them, they'll die). What makes AK special is that you can't defend against it, at least not magically -- 'protego' won't do you any good.
The way the spell works is to rip the victim's soul loose from his or her body. And that brings up the real problem -- well, risk, anyway.
This, they don't talk about much in Dark Arts class but after that conversation with Neville last year I was curious so I looked for information about whether the spells change you, and if so, how.
Killing another person does something to your soul. And, it doesn't seem to me that it ought to matter that much whether you use AK or a knife but it does, because your soul and your magic are related in some ways that are difficult to explain (I assume, anyway, because no one really explains them) and when you cast avada kedavra since it rips out the other person's soul it sort of injures your soul in a way that's harder to heal. None of the books explained it very clearly. There was one book that seemed to have a whole section on it that had been sliced out -- and that was in the library, where Madame Pince usually keeps a close eye on things!
It's quite a bit safer to use it on animals, like my father did, because animal souls aren't quite like ours. Also, it takes a lot less power. It's actually a very humane way to kill animals because it's so quick and painless but after studying it I understand better why Mrs Weasley thinks it's better to use an axe.
Anyway, here's how you cast it.
First, you need to feel intense anger, hate, or fear. (Anger is the primary and hate and fear are the secondaries -- that's how she put it in class -- with a whole long list of tertiaries that includes resentment and humiliation and oddly enough romantic love, don't ask me to explain that as it made no sense to me).
Second, you need conviction. Like Goyle (ha) put it in his essay about wandless magic. If you have reservations, the spell will not work. (The mindset stuff also included all sorts of talk about putting aside reservations. Actually she had us do some of the same exercises that Goyle talked about for stopping someone from reading your mind, except in this case the thing you're not trying to think about are your doubts and your sense of whether it's WRONG to go around killing people.)
(Do you see why I say it's a lot easier to do Dark spells if you're casting them on someone you really hate and want to see dead?)
Third, you need to speak aloud. There are all sorts of arguments about whether it is THEORETICALLY possible to cast the killing curse silently (because maybe it's been done and the victims are all dead so NO ONE KNOWS) but the fact is it's an incredibly powerful spell and those are extra hard to cast silently. If a beginner, you also maximize your chance of success by casting it while standing, and by shouting the words at the top of your lungs.
For the actual spell, take a fighting stance, one foot ahead of the other, your weight balanced. The wand movement is to thrust your wand toward the sky on the first word, and sweep it down to point it at the person you're casting it on, on the second. As you sweep the wand down, you shift your weight toward your front foot by bending your knee, as if you were hurling the spell toward them like a bludger. (If you're seated, you can lean forward. This part is not absolutely required, it merely increases your chances of success.) If it works, you will see a green flash envelop your victim and they will fall over dead. Protego will not help them but they can dodge (if they know it's coming).
It leaves no trace and in fact one of the problems historically is that it makes it hard to know that a murder has happened. (This is part of why they made it such a huge crime to even TRY to cast it.)
It is the easiest of the Cardinal Curses to cast in a lot of ways it's the least risky, because you don't have to maintain it.
Oh, and. I should mention that many people our age can't cast it, not to kill a human, anyway. OWL year, that's when most people have enough magical power to seriously try. Some people have their full power earlier. It's hard to know. Most of the hard spells are also complicated and AK isn't, so if you DO have your full power and conditions are right you could use it to kill somebody even if you can't cast a corporeal Patronus Charm, say, because that's just hard to cast. If that makes sense. Anyway, it would be risky to cast but if you have nothing to lose, the more intense your emotion is the stronger the spell will be anyway. So if you're actually in fear of your life, it might work even if it wouldn't otherwise.
So.
The three cardinal curses used to be called 'unforgiveables' because you'd go to Azkaban if you did them on a human, but be careful because it's generally only blood-traitors who say 'unforgiveables' these days. I think Mr and Mrs Weasley are careful not to call them that but they never say Cardinal Curses either, they say, 'the spells that used to be called the Unforgiveable Curses.'
Anyway, each one is strongly associated with a particular emotion. Cruciatus is concentrated hatred. Imperius is contempt. And the killing curse is anger. In some ways that makes it the easiest to cast, because a lot of people never feel enough hatred to cast cruciatus or the arrogance you need for Imperius but everyone (almost everyone) gets angry sometimes. If you've ever gotten angry enough that you've wanted someone dead, you've been angry enough to cast the killing curse.
In Dark Arts class there's quite a lot of talk about 'mindset' and 'controlling your emotions' and what this means, more or less, is that it's actually quite easy to cast a Dark spell (though not necessarily one of the Cardinal Curses because they are so powerful) if you're furiously angry. What makes it really difficult is if you're casting a curse on someone you don't really care about one way or the other. The trick in that case is to summon up the emotion and direct it. When I took my final exam I pretended I was casting the killing curse on Professor Carrow and it worked quite well except that I had my eyes closed so I missed. And, that's the only real defense against the killing curse: dodging.
There are quite a few spells that can be used to kill someone, after all, from the entrails-expelling curse to wingardium leviosa (you hover someone high enough and drop them, they'll die). What makes AK special is that you can't defend against it, at least not magically -- 'protego' won't do you any good.
The way the spell works is to rip the victim's soul loose from his or her body. And that brings up the real problem -- well, risk, anyway.
This, they don't talk about much in Dark Arts class but after that conversation with Neville last year I was curious so I looked for information about whether the spells change you, and if so, how.
Killing another person does something to your soul. And, it doesn't seem to me that it ought to matter that much whether you use AK or a knife but it does, because your soul and your magic are related in some ways that are difficult to explain (I assume, anyway, because no one really explains them) and when you cast avada kedavra since it rips out the other person's soul it sort of injures your soul in a way that's harder to heal. None of the books explained it very clearly. There was one book that seemed to have a whole section on it that had been sliced out -- and that was in the library, where Madame Pince usually keeps a close eye on things!
It's quite a bit safer to use it on animals, like my father did, because animal souls aren't quite like ours. Also, it takes a lot less power. It's actually a very humane way to kill animals because it's so quick and painless but after studying it I understand better why Mrs Weasley thinks it's better to use an axe.
Anyway, here's how you cast it.
First, you need to feel intense anger, hate, or fear. (Anger is the primary and hate and fear are the secondaries -- that's how she put it in class -- with a whole long list of tertiaries that includes resentment and humiliation and oddly enough romantic love, don't ask me to explain that as it made no sense to me).
Second, you need conviction. Like Goyle (ha) put it in his essay about wandless magic. If you have reservations, the spell will not work. (The mindset stuff also included all sorts of talk about putting aside reservations. Actually she had us do some of the same exercises that Goyle talked about for stopping someone from reading your mind, except in this case the thing you're not trying to think about are your doubts and your sense of whether it's WRONG to go around killing people.)
(Do you see why I say it's a lot easier to do Dark spells if you're casting them on someone you really hate and want to see dead?)
Third, you need to speak aloud. There are all sorts of arguments about whether it is THEORETICALLY possible to cast the killing curse silently (because maybe it's been done and the victims are all dead so NO ONE KNOWS) but the fact is it's an incredibly powerful spell and those are extra hard to cast silently. If a beginner, you also maximize your chance of success by casting it while standing, and by shouting the words at the top of your lungs.
For the actual spell, take a fighting stance, one foot ahead of the other, your weight balanced. The wand movement is to thrust your wand toward the sky on the first word, and sweep it down to point it at the person you're casting it on, on the second. As you sweep the wand down, you shift your weight toward your front foot by bending your knee, as if you were hurling the spell toward them like a bludger. (If you're seated, you can lean forward. This part is not absolutely required, it merely increases your chances of success.) If it works, you will see a green flash envelop your victim and they will fall over dead. Protego will not help them but they can dodge (if they know it's coming).
It leaves no trace and in fact one of the problems historically is that it makes it hard to know that a murder has happened. (This is part of why they made it such a huge crime to even TRY to cast it.)
It is the easiest of the Cardinal Curses to cast in a lot of ways it's the least risky, because you don't have to maintain it.
Oh, and. I should mention that many people our age can't cast it, not to kill a human, anyway. OWL year, that's when most people have enough magical power to seriously try. Some people have their full power earlier. It's hard to know. Most of the hard spells are also complicated and AK isn't, so if you DO have your full power and conditions are right you could use it to kill somebody even if you can't cast a corporeal Patronus Charm, say, because that's just hard to cast. If that makes sense. Anyway, it would be risky to cast but if you have nothing to lose, the more intense your emotion is the stronger the spell will be anyway. So if you're actually in fear of your life, it might work even if it wouldn't otherwise.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-13 04:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-13 04:14 pm (UTC)Do you get the same sort of harm to the soul with the other two? Crucio, or Imperius?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-13 05:56 pm (UTC)With Cruciatus, partly it's what you know about yourself, after. Some people can't cast it at all. If you haven't really thought it through and you're pointing your wand at someone you really hate, you can cast it but you can't sustain it. Actually that's what happened with Sandoval, and me, that time in Carrow's office. When I started screaming it startled her so much she almost dropped her wand. Carrow took the mickey over that and so she tried it again and this time she kept it going for ages, or at least it seemed like ages.
And cruciatus is utterly unbearable pain, it's absolutely the worst pain you can imagine. It's not even describable. And usually people scream when you're doing it, you can't possibly pretend to yourself that it's not happening. They scream, they go stiff and rigid like somehow they're trying to get away, if they can get any words out they usually beg for mercy. And as soon as you feel doubt, or pity, or any of that, you're not going to be able to keep it going. Which means that to really be any good at casting the spell you have to LIKE seeing people in pain. Or at least that person.
So if you ever cast it and you succeed, that's what you know about yourself: that you are that sort of person. Who can torture another person in cold blood. Who keeps doing it even when they're not a threat to you. Who likes seeing them in pain.
Sometimes it's just a discovery. But sometimes it's like what I've said about lies, and how people make themselves believe what they say because they don't want to think of themselves as a liar. If they'd never cast cruciatus, they wouldn't have been that sort of person, but that day, they decided that was the sort of person they wanted to be, and they made themselves into it because they wanted the power, or they wanted people to be afraid of them, or they were Head Boy and they didn't want people to think they were a ponce who balked at casting a little spell like cruciatus when you had the permission to do it and everything. And after that, they ARE that sort of person.
And once you are, to STOP being that sort of person you have to be willing to admit that you did something utterly awful.