Foundations of The Dark Magic
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:date: 2021-02-06T09:11:36
:category: literature
:tags: review, harryPotter, blogComment

(my comments on “`The Light and the Dark`_” by Uncommonality)

.. _`The Light and the Dark`:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/gcds32/the_light_and_the_dark/

One of the many issues with the universe of the Harry Potter
books, which has never been fully resolved in the books by Ms
Rowling is the true nature of the Dark Magic. It is really not
explained. Dark Magic is what Dark Wizards do, and Dark Wizards
are Dark because they do Dark Magic. There is not much more to
say, only that some curses are labelled as Dark, and they are so
Dark, that one gets immediately life-long stay in Azkaban just
for using them. That’s basically all we learn in the books.

Moreover, the adult reader is left wondering whether Ms Rowling
is really honest when she says that a rather hygienic Killing
Curse, painful but time-limited hygienic Pain Curse
(time-limited, because they are useless for torture longer than
few minutes), and the Control Curse, are the very worst Magic
which anybody can impose on another being. Even us, poor Muggles,
can do much worse and be much nastier than these three curses,
and it doesn’t take too much imagination to imagine much worse
and dark types of torture or killing than that: there is nothing
sexual in nature, no real human sacrifice, not much real torture.
Let me just mention without explanation the tortured child in
“`Inner Demons by serendipity_50`_”. The reader is left to
suspect that JKR sanitized this list of Dark curses to make it
palatable for teenagers and young adult readers.

Let me suggest my theory about what is a better explanation of
these questions [#]_. Moreover, I hope, that the distinction
I want to develop here is useful even for Muggles in the
non-magical world.

The original point where I started is my pet peeve how some
people tend to consider Dark Magic as something good. Most
contrarian teenagers reading and authoring fanfiction stories
love the idea that the wrong is right, and that only nasty old
codgers like Dumbledore stops people from using wonderful Dark
Magic. I don’t agree and yes I am an old codger myself. I really
think that Dark Magic taints your soul and yes inability to
produce the super-light magic like Patronus may be one of (many)
costs.

The idea is that the “normal” magic (Lumos, etc. … most if not
all spells taught at Hogwarts) are based on the power from the
caster herself. It was the original magic discovered by the
Neolithic people (think Stonehenge), who happily used this magic
for their everyday lives and all was fine. However, then later
somebody (probably some Celtic druids) discovered that one can
harness the power of somebody or something else, and that even
more power can be obtained when you don’t leave enough magic for
the other to survive (e.g., human sacrifice). And that’s the
foundation of all Dark Magic, using the power of somebody or
something (animal, etc.) else.

There is, not well studied (because nobody cares enough) the
opposite Light Magic, which is not using your native power, but
willing giving of own magic for others. And that is what Lily
ultimately did when protecting Harry. However, as I said, it is
very obscure and not a much-studied branch of magic, because of
lack of interest.

And it goes to rather deeper morale: either we are living for
others (to serve them), or we are living for oneself (to be
served). Think about the Kant’s categorical imperative (“Act in
such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or
in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end,
but always at the same time as an end.”), or Mark 3:9 (NET): “If
anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all and servant of
all.”.

----

Let’s make an example of using this theory in analysing The
Cruciatus Curse [#]_, which is the least defensible of the
Unforgivable Curses. Redditer `/u/FUAllVeryMuch`_ asked me:

    So your comment was about dark magic being magic that takes
    from others while light magic is giving for others in
    a sense. Or at least that's what I understood from it.

    In that case, what do you gain from casting the Cruciatus?
    Next, and I'm sure this has come up before, wouldn't intent
    be more important? Like it is possible to kill using a basic
    levitation charm, so would it have no effect? Also, suppose
    someone was about to kill other people, and you kill him to
    protect the others, does it taint you? How many times can you
    cast dark magic before the taint is permanent?

That ‘giving to others’ versus ‘taking from others’ distinction
was just my basic very general premise. There are many details
where it gets muddy and where the theory needs a lot of
development.

So, Cruciatus is certainly one such case. I am not sure how does
the curse works. I would think the foundation of the curse is
some energy for the torture coming from the tortured, so tortured
people are effectively made to torture themselves, but this
theory wouldn’t work for Muggles, who can quite certainly be
tortured as well. By the way, concerning this curse, I was
working for some time for a professor of pathophysiology who was
researching pain. There are medicinal situations where part of
the nervous system is intentionally so overwhelmed with pain,
that it stops working, and so it allows some horrible surgery,
e.g. amputation, be done. I wonder whether Cruciatus was
originally meant to achieve something like this. The same goes
for some variant of Imperio … it could be deadly useful for
medicinal purposes.

Back to the intent. Yes, that’s another question. With my theory,
Dark Magic would certainly not cover all bad magical actions. Mrs
Weasley with her enchanted knives (which normally chop
vegetables) can certainly make a lot of damage if she wishes, and
household charms certainly fall into the original Neolithic
magic.

Concerning righteous killing. Yes, “Not everyone who wants to
kill is necessarily evil.”, certainly, it can happen (soldiers in
war, self-defence), but I don’t think even in such situations
Dark Magic would be allowed. If I understand Bellatrix Lestrange
correctly, you have to want to cause pain for the joy of causing
pain, not out of the righteous anger. That of course leads to
another side-question: how did Harry manage to curse Alecto
Carrow? I have no idea, but it was just one bout of magic,
effectively a rather painful Stunner, not sure. We probably
should rather silently ignore it as one of many inconsistencies
of Mrs Rowling. The same goes for the Killing Curse … you cannot
use it for good reasons, in Self-Defence or in the war
situations. You have to have your soul tainted, you have to want
to have somebody killed just for the Death itself. Yes, Snape
could do it as the former Death Eater, but that’s probably the
only one from the anti-Riddle side. Soldiers in war just have to
use some other curse … Reducto/Expulso/Confringo (I still have
a problem to distinguish which is which) to your head would do
just nicely. Notice, that for example we never saw Umbridge using
Cruciatus. She was rather slowly making up her mind to curse
Harry, and we don’t know if she could actually manage to do it.

----

I have said that according to my theory using Killing Curse is
necessarily evil. And yet, “good guys” once used Unforgivables.
Sirius mentioned (in chapter 26 “Padfoot Returns” of Harry Potter
and the Goblet of Fire):

    The Aurors were given new powers—powers to kill rather than
    capture, for instance. And I wasn’t the only one who was
    handed straight to the Dementors without trial. Crouch fought
    violence with violence, and authorized the use of the
    Unforgivable Curses against suspects.

Which exactly supports my point, when Sirius talked about it, he
was specifically saying that Aurors (I guess, those who followed
this order) were getting really close to being as evil as Death
Eaters.

Some situations just have to be chalked up as JKR
inconsistencies. Harry using Sectumsempra without knowing what it
is. It just doesn’t make any sense. Whole seven books we are told
(heck, that’s the whole purpose of Hogwarts as a school), that
doing magic is much more complicated than just random waving your
wand and saying random weird incantations. Even with study most
students don’t manage even the simplest spells (Lumos, Wingardium
Leviosa) on their first try, and let us not mention whole
theories about intent being significant (I am not sure whether it
is or it isn’t, but it certainly makes more sense than this
scene). Here we have spell without any diagram for wand movement,
without Harry even knowing what it does (so, whole intent goes
out of the window), and it on the first try makes significant
damage to Malfoy. It just doesn’t compute for me.


.. [#] Originally developed in `the Reddit thread on the nature
   of magic`_.

.. [#] This part has been originally developed in `another Reddit
   thread`_.

.. _`the Reddit thread on the nature of magic`:
   https://www.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/i9h9at/the_character_of_hp_magic/g1flpsp/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

.. _`another Reddit thread`:
   https://www.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/iduokw/dark_wizards_patronus/g2biamt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

.. _`/u/FUAllVeryMuch`:
   https://www.reddit.com/u/FUAllVeryMuch

.. _`Inner Demons by serendipity_50`:
   https://archiveofourown.org/works/601124