Dark Magic Doth Never Prosper, Part II

[terri_testing]

Part II contains:

Drawback to Not Teaching the Dark Arts
Harry: Seriously Evil Wizard Coming Through?
Blood/Death Magic, Lily’s Sacrifice, and Albus (The White One)
Why Teach that Dark = Evil?
Historical Considerations

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

I see you answer here the question I asked on the first part. Thanks. I agree with your point about the danger of insufficient familiarity with potentially dangerous tools. More tomorrow.

[oryx_leucoryx]

The Marauders Map: Of course we must consider that Remus recognized it and was trying to get Harry out of trouble and get the map out of Severus' hands without giving himself away as one of the creators of the map. And Severus may have been suspicious about those nicknames and their style of insults and was trying to find a way to tie it to the Marauders. He may have been trying to see if he could prove there was a conspiracy of Remus and Sirius to get Harry. So we do not know if what they say in that conversation reflects their true opinion. What is suspicious about the Map is that it tracks true identities and gives instructions to those who are up to no good. (And yes, I'm pretty sure that had Remus heard someone he respected and who understood the Map's function call it dark he wouldn't have taken it well

The Map

[terri_testing]

What Severus knew about the Map (and what Remus glossed over) is that it didn't just regurgitate canned insults--it insulted Severus personally. So it did "think for itself" to at least some extent; it identified the victim, and tailored its insults to him. And it speaks in the voices of the teenaged Marauders but with understanding of the passage of time. (That is, it insults Profesor Snape, not teen-Snivellus, but using the teen-Marauders' knowledge of Snivellus.)

I wonder, if, say, Lockhart had tried the Map, someone whom the teen-Marauders hadn't known, how would the Map have insulted him?

Severus finds the parchment in Harry's possession after an illegal excursion to Hogwarts. He doesn't know it's a map, but he must wonder--he's already speculated--whether the voices of the Marauders had given Harry "instructions to get into Hogsmeade without passing the Dementors?" (One of the Marauders' areas of expertise--and indeed they had, if not precisely by texting Harry.) In which case Severus must have suspected that Remus (one

Rest of your comments

[terri_testing]

Yes, about the Animagus transformation, both would be logical

Re: Rest of your comments

[lynn_waterfall]

Ron is a Weasley, and his parents shun and abhor Knockturn Alley.

Well, Arthur and Molly definitely don't want their kids going there, but that isn't necessarily shunning and abhorring. Hagrid doesn't want Harry to go or be there, either, but he saw nothing wrong with going there himself.

It seems to me that they mostly just treat Knockturn Alley as a dangerous part of town, and not somewhere kids should go alone, or without *close* supervision.

In HBP, Harry tells Arthur that the Trio followed Draco to Borgin and Burkes. Arthur knows that that's in Knockturn Alley; we know that from the conversation in CoS right after Hagrid leads Harry out of there. But he doesn't express any particular emotion in response to hearing that they went there.

In short, Arthur had already realized that they'd put themselves in danger by going off somewhere without their bodyguard, and the fact that they'd gone to Knockturn Alley didn't make much difference on top of that, at least not once they had gotten back safely.

[shyfoxling]

Consider the Marauder’s Map, which was characterized by Severus as “plainly full of Dark Magic.”

1. Severus had not seen the Map's true function when he made this remark, so we cannot therefeore conclude that what drives the Map's tracking powers is Dark magic. Even if this remark is literal (which see point 2), we could only conclude that what drives its ability to "see" and personally insult someone would be Dark magic.

2. I have argued before and will continue to argue that this remark was sarcastic, not literal; a "gotcha" because he thinks he has Lupin trapped in a corner about explaining its existence and/or how Harry came to have it. It's not quite clear whether he recognizes the nicknames or the "voices" with which the Map insults him, but he appears to think (correctly) that Lupin specifically is connected to it: "You don't think it more likely that he got it directly from the manufacturers?" -- emphasis original -- is some very heavy hinting

[oryx_leucoryx]

I don't think Severus knew of Wormtail's involvement with Voldemort until the end of GOF, but he may have recognized the nicknames from overheard conversations at school. It's bad policy to let agents acting on separate missions behind enemy lines know of one another. (If Bellatrix referred to him by name or nickname in Azkaban - rather than as an unnamed double-crosser - then she probably picked the name or nickname from Sirius' nighttime mutterings.)

Map

[terri_testing]

1) Oh yes, I just finished talking about this in my reply to Oryx

Re: Map

[shyfoxling]

Come to that, no one except Barty considered that Harry (or someone) had to cheat to get his name to come OUT of the Goblet, whether or not he cheated (or got someone else to) to get his name IN. So everyone else thought the Goblet would, unaided, choose fourteen-year-old Harry over more trained and experienced seventeen and eighteen year olds as the extra contestant? They really did think highly of him, didn't they?

...

Whoa. You're right, they don't seem to have doubted at all that if Harry could get his name in there that he would be chosen.

'Course, I wonder if really this is JKR's opinion at work, there...

[shyfoxling]

(...from previous comment)

“I put my trust, therefore, in your mother’s blood. I delivered you to her sister, her only surviving relative… She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon you [emphases mine].”

Harry’s safety at Four Privet Drive wasn’t an automatic side-effect of Lily’s sacrifice, it was the effect of ancient magic that Dumbledore performed.

Hmm, interesting. So Lily's sacrifice was more of a setup or pre-requisite that enabled some other specific charm then to be fueled by it?

So what was Albus doing clinging to the thing? Well, I did say that its immediate effect was to amplify the bearer’s hubris.As does the Ring. Which makes me wonder if Albus thought of Harry as something like Gandalf thought of Frodo -- that his innocence and simpleness were protective factors against the influence of the Hallows and/or Horcruxes? (Of course, if you're going to use ignorance as protection, you have to carefully maintain that

Lily's sacrifice & other comments

[terri_testing]

Lily's sacrifice apparently protected Harry subsequently from being touched by Voldemort--physically, literally. We saw that Quirrel was burned, supposedly to death, first by grabbing Harry and then being grabbed and held by him. It did not protect Harry from hexes Quirrelmort threw, nor from Voldemort's Legilimency (Voldie looked in Harry's eyes and saw he had the Stone in his pocket), nor from young Tom's pet the next year

Re: Lily's sacrifice & other comments

[shyfoxling]

I have a hard time comparing Frodo to someone who revelled in the Cruciatus.

Although Frodo was capable of terrible thoughts and cruel deeds while under its influence... but anyway the idea was more what did Albus think, as you go on to say, than specifically about whether they were directly comparable.

I graduated high school in 1979; I was born not quite a year after James, had James existed.

*blush* I was born slightly over a year before Hermione, had Hermione existed. lol.

Still that seems to me quite late to be having anti-communism classes as such, prior to Reagan or no.

Re: Lily's sacrifice & other comments

[terri_testing]

Quire late to be having anti-communism classes?

It seemed so to me as well.

creative magic

[ericoides]

So, one of the things as an artisan that bugs me about these books is how little that's valued. Broomsticks and wands seem to be two major exceptions. Heaven knows art, fiction, poetry, dance and drama aren't. Photography is only useful as a record keeping medium. The only really creative student work that comes to mind are pranks (marauders' map, the weasley twins' creations) or curses (half-blood prince's

Re: creative magic

[terri_testing]

That's interesting about the wand making--and you're right, it might also qualify as Dark. Certainly Ollivander himself is presented as a bit iffy, which would fit JO's general attitude towards the Dark

Re: creative magic

[shyfoxling]

the Hogwarts library sounds like my college library, which had no popular literature at all.

The college library where I work (cataloging) includes in its collection, besides various other current fiction, Harry Potter -- and Twilight. *wry grin*

Re: creative magic

[ericoides]

Have fun, she says