[Harry Potter] If a strong love potion has more or less similar effect to the Imperius Curse, then why one is legal and the other gets you lifetime in Azkaban?
[Harry Potter] If a strong love potion has more or less similar effect to the Imperius Curse, then why one is legal and the other gets you lifetime in Azkaban?
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Much much harder to make a love potion that strong.
Also I think they work differently
love potions are harder to make , not only that , it’s technically possible to use antidotes and counter-charms for it.
Meanwhile , Imperius Curse can be only lifted by the willpower of the target and even that could bring consequences to said target.
Further lack of punitive laws on love potions also comes down to Wizard Society been elitist and anti-muggle. They notoriously have little care over muggles in their affairs.
Amortentia doesn’t replicate the Imperius Curse, not even close. It creates an irrational infatuation which is basically useless. In particular:
People are giving logical answers–and good ones! But it may also simply be illogical. Wizarding culture has its own, well, culture; cultures don’t always apply the same rigorous logic to all of their facets.
In this case, love potions are considered harmless fun, and the Imperius Curse gets life imprisonment. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense, but neither does legalizing alcohol but throwing someone in the slammer for decades over marijuana, and some Muggles are still doing that.
Even a powerful love potion doesn’t have similar effects to the Imperius curse – is there anyone you love to the point you’d literally do anything they asked on the spot, no question asked? Like, if they told you to shoot yourself, you’d just do that there and then?
A love potion artificially causes a burst of strong emotion, the Imperius curse completely removes your free will. There’s certainly plenty of ethical problems with the former, but it’s clearly on a completely different level to the latter.
The unforgivable spells seem to be such dire uses of magic, because they seem to be directly interfering with the human soul.
It seems like in Harry Potter, the ultimate taboo and even most mysterious and powerful magic, seems to be “soul magic” or magic that interacts with the nature of what souls are.
Crucio: Is described as something beyond agony. It’s described as reality and nature warping pain that is enough to break a persons mind and sense of self to an unfixable level. Unfixable by magic!
It seems to suggest that what’s being wounded and injured is not just your body. It’s something deeper than that. I think it’s pretty clear that it’s hinting at the very soul being damaged and injured, not just the physical body.
Imperio: This spell seems to be more power and deeper than all the other mind influencing spells. There are countless spells which seem to impact the mind, to impact thoughts, to influence the mental capacity of people. Things that can erase or modify memories. Things which (as this post talks about) influence the way you feel about another persons. Spells which plant suggestions into people. Even skills which are telepathy and mind reading, breaking into someone’s mind with force.
But Imperio seems to implant a personality override in a person that impacts their entire being (for as long as they don’t resist). I would suggest that this spell is one that is directly influencing the soul of a person, and causing the soul to change beliefs and change understanding. It’s like a the soul being given instructions which then mean the host body is being influenced.
Avada Kedavra: The final curse. The simple fact is there are dozens of spells across the setting which kill someone. That can cause death. And we have all sorts of examples from the setting of people being killed because of magic and it’s not treated the same way as AK.
The descriptions of AK leaving absolutely no mark on people usually. Of it being an instantaneous and pain free death as if a persons puppet strings got cut? I think the spell is actually just severing the link between a soul and a body. It’s like a magical pair of scissors snipping the connection.
So that’s why I think some spells are unforgivable. We have other hints that meddling with “souls” is the absolute worst taboo in the setting because of how horcruxs are described. They are described as some of the absolute worst most horrifically bad evil avenues you can pursue.
It can’t just be because it involves killing people, and trying to extend your life. Clearly in the Harry Potter setting, killing people is not the end of the world. It’s not some great crime. Likewise, seeking to extend your own life is obviously not some great moral sin, because Nicolas Flamel is a celebrated wizard for finding a version of immortality.
I suggest again that it’s because this path of magic is again dealing with souls. It’s a path of magic that commits the true wizarding taboo, soul based magic.
My other support for this whole soul thesis is look at the department of mysteries. One of the largest most important rooms in the entire department, the room which is deepest under the ministry and is one of the most guarded places in the wizarding world, is the room with the arch which clearly is somehow related to souls and the “beyond”.