Talk:Unforgivable Curses

Questions

Legal

Do Bellatrix Lestrange's and Antonin Dolohov's curses get you a life sentence in Azkaban? (They kill people, don't they) And what about if you put someone under the Imperius curse to break an Imperius curse they are already on (not sure if it would work), or use the Cruciatus curse for one second like Harry did to Bella? How about if you use the Killing curse or another fatal curse or an unforgivable curse on a bad guy? (You don't get sent to jail in the muggle world if you shoot a bad guy and kill him) How about during a duel or during a battle. It is apparently not that bad, since Aurors were allowed to use the Unforgivable curses on possible Death Eaters during the First Wizarding War. Also, was it legal to use them on house elves and other non human sentients? Also, during the First Wizarding War, Aurors were allowed to use the Unforgivable curses on possible suspects, but could they actually kill them? Also if they could, could they use any other curse that killed, and could they use any curse they wanted. What happened if the person ended up being innocent. What if they killed an innocent person? And could anyone use it on possible suspects? And did they get to use it whenever they wanted? 75.27.36.231 23:39, December 6, 2010 (UTC)

Ask J.K. Rowling. She'd know, not us. All we can do is guess. As for Lestrange's & Dolohov's curses, though, there are a lot of spells that are capable of killing. For example a Reducto to the face would surely tend to be fatal unless some protective spell was successfully used to block it. What makes the Killing Curse different is that (aside from very unusual circumstances) it always kills whoever it hits. As for aurors, they're the wizarding equivalent of police officers. It's plausible that they'd be given authorization to cast spells that are normally illegal in the course of their duties. 75.76.213.106 08:13, February 8, 2011 (UTC)

Legal during Voldemort's regime?

Is there any source that the Ministry under Thicknesse legalised the use of the Unforgivable Curses? I mean, sure, the Death Eaters sure could use them as they pleased, as no one in authority would punish them (and, in many cases, they were the authority), but did the same thing hold for the rest of the wizarding community? I don't recall reading that at all. If the curses were legal to the whole wizarding community, couldn't people just enter the Ministry and lawfully start killing the Death Eater officials, like Yaxley or Travers, without facing criminal prosecution? Or couldn't the members of the Order of the Phoenix start to cast Imperius Curses everywhere to raise their numbers without breaking the law? Please, could anyone provide a source that this is true? --  Seth Cooper  owl post! 23:21, September 19, 2012 (UTC)

I think it's not so much that they were legal so much a lawlessness in general. If people broke into the Ministry and started trying to kill Yaxley or Travers, there wouldn't be a criminal prosecution if they were caught, there'd just be a summary execution. "And this is what happens to people who try something like that! Crucio! Crucio! Crucio! Avada Kedavra! ProfessorTofty (talk) 23:38, September 19, 2012 (UTC)

Regulus Black?

I'm new here so I don't want to go around changing things I might not know about, but it saids that Voldemort killed Regulus Black with a killing curse. I thought he died from being dragged underwater by Inferi, or was it said somewhere otherwise?

Sirius

I think it is clear that Sirius was not struck by the Killing Curse.  It is described in the books as a "jet of red light."  Death was also not instantaneous.  Therefore, I think his murder and the accompanying video needs to be removed as an example of Avada Kedavra in this page. Wva (talk) 02:46, May 3, 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, but I would suggest that the video be moved to the "Behind the scenes" section with an explanation of the book and movie differences (like how it's handled for Sirius Black#Behind the scenes) --Ironyak1 (talk) 02:56, May 3, 2016 (UTC)

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Wva (talk) 05:44, May 3, 2016 (UTC)