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IOW, the difference between manslaughter and Murder (premeditated or Heat of the Moment)...
So say AK, when used 'correctly' basicly blows the soul out of the body baring extreme intervention. We SEE souls of those who have died from an AK at
dramatic points in the books, so its not that the soul is destroyed, just that the 'astral cord' so to speak, is severed. without the soul, the body
just... stops.
Another thought to throw into the mix for this... What if the ability to use magic is essentally an 'inhertiable' gift of the ability to hear at least
part of the symphony? and what AK effectivly does is sever somones connection to it?
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
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Just a thought: could the AK be specific to the target? When Voldemort's wand got hit by the priori incantatem/brother wand effect, it actually summoned
the souls of the people he had killed, instead of just a ghostly form of the cast spells. This would seem to indicate that a casting of the AK is somehow
optimized or linked to the one it kills, enough so that the wand's "memory" of the spell is the actual soul of the victim.
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Quote: Star Ranger4 wrote:
without the soul, the body just... stops.
Not quite. Don't forget that Dementors can devour souls. The dementor's kiss doesn't actually kill the victim, it just leaves them an
empty shell with no hope for recovery. The fact that bodies can survive without souls implies that the killing curse does not work by simply severing the soul
from the body.
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Quote: Jorlem wrote:
Just a thought: could the AK be specific to the target? When Voldemort's wand got hit by the priori incantatem/brother wand effect, it actually summoned
the souls of the people he had killed, instead of just a ghostly form of the cast spells. This would seem to indicate that a casting of the AK is somehow
optimized or linked to the one it kills, enough so that the wand's "memory" of the spell is the actual soul of the victim.
I believe that the official explanation was that the brother wand effect summoned 'echoes' from recently cast spells. I think that Rowling
stated that what was summoned were not actually ghosts/souls.
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To best of my recollection, Sheperd, you are correct -- they are mere echoes.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Ah, ok. I had thought that they were more than just that, given that Lily's echo was able to recognize Harry and give him advice, and that the echoes were
capable of attacking Voldemort. Though if the word of god is that they are echoes, then I guess I'll go with that.
EDIT: I've given this a bit more thought, and, well, even if they are just echoes, and aren't actually souls, they are echoes of the people killed and not of the spell itself. The other echoes look like ghostly versions of the spell, such as
the miniature dark mark, or Wormtail's silver hand, so you might expect the AK's echo to look like a green ball of light or something. The AK is
weird.
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Quote: Shepherd wrote:
The fact that bodies can survive without souls implies that the killing curse does not work by simply severing the soul from the body.
Consider that Rowling says 'avada kedavra' means 'let the thing be destroyed', and that it kills people.
Since DH has Harry meeting Dumbledore after dying, which would be impossible if the AK destroyed people's souls, I submit that it extinguishes one's
magic/life force, instantly killing the subject.
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It's a combination of limited direct knowledge of the series (I've only read through book 4, with plot synopsis of the other 3), invalid assumption
(What happens when AK is improperly cast? The assumption I made is that there is the same green light, just without effect), and probably too much fanfiction
(I don't think I'm actually the one who came up with the idea truthfully) that informed my personal take on this. I did not mean to imply that it was
a canonical reason, though I see how it could have come across that way. Sorry 'bout that.
After thinking about it for a few hours, my logic has been going in circles and I'm poking holes in my own arguments. I suppose I just find it difficult
to believe that in who knows how many years of the AK being around, Harry is the only one to have ever survived. I can't maintain my suspension of
disbelief.
Fake-Moody's suggestion of a hangnail-causing AK probably contributed to my confusion, because if a student actually cast it and gave him a hangnail, he
could be said to have survived the AK - although it could also be said that the student didn't cast AK in the first place.
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Quote:IOW, the difference between manslaughter and Murder (premeditated or Heat of the Moment)...
Exactly.
To be honest, I don't remember it ever being specifically stated that this "desire to kill" is what would make the difference fake-Moody was talking about - I think that's fanon, derived from the fact (Received Wisdom from Bellatrix Lestrange) that casting an effective Cruciatus requres the desire to hurt the target. It's been suggested that that requirement extends, analogously, to all three Unforgivable Curses - the desire to hurt, the desire to kill, the desire to control - and is precisely the reason why they're Unforgivable.
On the other hand, there's also the notion floating around (which something tells me may be canonical) that the reason they're Unforgivable has something to do with their being unblockable, but given that the Imperius Curse can demonstrably be resisted by the target I'm not sure that that holds any water.
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I personally like that argument, that the real reason why they are unforgivable is because of the desire needed to successfully cast them, desires that the
wizarding community does not want people espousing for many reasons.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children
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