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Flipnash comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89 - Less Wrong
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Quirrel might think that Harry used the killing curse.
It's implied that Quirrel expects Harry to have used it. It's what Quirrel should expect and even want, if he is behind the troll.
Does Harry know how to use the killing curse? I assumed he didn't. Why else wouldn't he have used it first?
Maybe a wizard cannot be able to cast both the true patronus charm and the killing curse, because the thoughts they require are so opposed. (Does anyone remember if Godric and Rowena ever used the killing curse?) Alternately, terminally valuing death might just break Harry's patronus in particular - the thought he uses to cast it is that nobody should die, but there might be other possible variations that don't include that.
Lily Potter has a patronus, and at least attempted to use the Killing Curse in her dying moments.
I was referring to only the true patronus charm (the human version, not the animal version).
Right, sorry.
Because it's implied that Quirrell thinks Harry used it, it follows that Quirrell thinks it was feasible for Harry to use it. IIRC it's mentioned elsewhere that the killing curse is powered by killing intent and not magical power. Harry may not have wanted to use the killing curse either because he didn't have enough confidence in his killing intent (he has to want to kill something terminally, not instrumentally) or (and this is stretching) because he didn't want to deal with the political repercussions of being known for using the killing curse on top of everything else.
It's also possible that to Harry, 'tricky transfiguration weapon' is more mentally available than 'THE KILLING CURSE'. Also, for the same reason, Harry might not have learned it.
Quirrel knows the killing curse better than Harry does. He also is likely to have information about Harry, which Harry lacks. So the fact that he is sure Harry could pull off the killing curse does not mean that Harry has any reason whatsoever to share his confidence. And having it fizzle would be fatal. "Finite the rock" on the other hand is going to work. So he went with that.
He's seen the curse used by Voldemort to kill his parents, but that doesn't mean he's practiced it. Wasn't Quirrel supposed to be teaching the killing curse, after winning a bet with Dumbledoor that first years could learn the patronus? I'm surprised that the story never mentioned whether Harry chose to learn it.
I didn't think they had reached that point in the year yet.
edit: Lesath mentioned that he hadn't learned the Killing Curse as a contrast against the other students, which clearly implies that that time has indeed come. My bad.
I think Harry does, but he may have reasons to avoid it. I fully expected him to use it, but I suspect that EY avoided using it to demonstrate Harry's cleverness in combat.
He saw Voldemort cast it on his mother after he recovered the memory via dementor exposure. EDIT: whoops someone already pointed that out
I'm pretty sure that readers know how to cast it, never mind characters - it's stated to be easy in terms of actions, the hard part is wanting someone dead.
I don't know how to cast it. What are the wand movements? Where would Harry have learned them?
One reason Harry might not use the killing curse is that he wants to avoid the slippery slope that Mad-Eye warned of--once a wizard has used the curse once, it becomes easier to do so in the future.
Moody said the slippery slope was due to killing, not due to casting the curse, and Harry still killed the troll. Quote:
Harry also kills chickens, cows, and whatever was in that chili they serve at Mary’s Room and more. To Harry a troll isn’t people. Killing it won’t break his soul.
But it was also said:
Killing the troll was for the greater good so this might not count as soul-cracking murder. But then there's also 'giving himself over fully to the killing intention' which might count.
Are trolls sentient/sapient? Does killing one carry the same moral/psychological weight as killing a human? Cononically, they are able to comunicating using a system of grunts, though we don't know enough about it to tell if this is a true language, or merely a call system. We also know that some trolls can understand a few human words, but so can dogs.
Even if they are sapient, it might not have the same psychological effect.
The effect of killing a large, snarling, distinctly-not-human-thing on one's mental faculties and the effect of killing a human being are going to be very different, even if one recognizes that thing to be sapient.
If they are, Harry would assign moral weight to the act after the fact: but the natural sympathy that is described as eroding in the above quote doesn't seem as likely to be affected given a human being's psychology.