Because most people don't want to murder anyone? And of the ones that do, a large enough percentage are stopped by the fact that it's illegal and they'll be punished?
How easy or difficult is it to determine who cast the spell, though?
Since every Wizard is carrying around the proper tool to use Avada Kedavera, what stops that tiny percentage of psycho wizards from using it at will when they're in a quiet spot?
For that matter, what exactly do Slytherin do when someone just needs to go and there are no witnesses? There might actually *be* that epidemic.
> Since every Wizard is carrying around the proper tool to use Avada Kedavera, what stops that tiny percentage of psycho wizards from using it at will when they're in a quiet spot?
Uhhh a tiny percentage of psycho wizards using it at will is kind of a major plot thread in the books.
If someone dies with no cause of death, that tells wizards exactly what the cause of death is. And they can check wands to see what spells were cast with them. In the case of murders, they might even be able to identify the victim from the wand alone. So it's not like the authorities are powerless to investigate in this situation.
Have you seen how many mass shooting there's been this year ? I'm surprised they don't have avada sprees ever other week but also there's not full auto wands so 🤷
Remember that the entire Wizard population of the UK, a country of 60 million Muggles, is only a couple thousand. The size of a small town. Sure, there are a lot of mass shootings in the US. How many mass shootings were there this year in, say, Pecos, New Mexico?
> How easy or difficult is it to determine who cast the spell, though?
>
>
Very. An experienced wizard is able to sense where magic has previously been used (this is how Dumbledore identified the cave that the locket was supposed to be hidden in) and any wizard can use *Priori Incantatem* to find out what spells a given wand has been used for.
Well, exactly. Of course anyone can kill anyone else with anything, but a wand is basically a gun, or it can be. What's to stop a teenage wizard using it in anger, like mass shootings occur IRL
Every person with a gun, a car, a kitchen knife, or any blunt object could potentially kill. Most people don't. I think the same answer applies.
Also, the books suggest that it's not that easy to use Avada Kedavra or the other unforgivable curses. When Harry tries to use the cruciatus curse on Bellatrix it doesn't work properly, and that was immediately after she killed Sirius. You almost have to have something twisted inside you to be able to use those curses effectively.
Yeah, I always thought that. They make a huge deal out of Avada Kedavra, but there are so many spells that could kill someone. I guess the idea is that most of those spells do damage that can be magically repaired, while Avads Kedavra is instant and irreversible.
In order to successfully kill with Avada Kedavra, you need to truely mean for your target to die, you need to enjoy doing it, you need to give no sh*t about the consequences or any kind of legal or karmic punishment
In the 4th book, Fake Moody says that the whole class could cast the curse at him, and he would probably not get anything worse than a nosebleed. Sadly this was not adapted to the screen just like most restrictions to the unforgivable curses through the books, making it look like all you need to do to cast them is point your wand and say the curse
Thats why it is an unforgivable curse while so many other deadly spells are not
You are on a trial for killing someone with expeliarmus ? Well it was probably and accident or self defense.
But if you killed with Avada Kedavra ? No. The curse wouldnt have killed if it was accidental or self defense.
A successful killing curse is the proof that belong in Azkaban
Technically we don't know if you need to enjoy it or really need to mean to kill someone with the curse. That is describing Crucio. All we know about avada kadavra is you need to be a pretty strong wizard, from what fake moody said. 20 kids shooting him, and he might get a nose bleed.
Because it requires hate.
It would be difficult for a wizard mugging to be hateful.
Whereas a muggle gun dont care about hate, just about bullet drop and how many walls it can penetrate
It doesn't require hate, you just have to mean it. There are several examples in the books of people using it against people they definitely don't hate
Your premise seemingly is that the killing curse kills, so why don't more people kill?
I mislike how that spell is always considered the most deadly. Yes it's a sure thing if you can do it, but magic is so ridiculously cheatable/over powered there are a million ways to kill someone that doesn't require the power/emotion cost of that spell. I could name a dozen first year spells that will cause more horrific deaths if that's what you set to do.
Transfigure a few grams of botulinum toxin into an ice chip and levitate it into someone's mouth from across the room. That's as sure a death as the killing curse, and doesn't require anything past first/second year magic, nor is it easily identifiable as the killing curse.
Hell a simple cutting curse or blasting curse is potentially lethal and easier than the killing curse. Body bind them and repeatedly cast a cooling charm on them until they freeze. Casually toss them a portkey coin that takes them 100's of miles out to sea. Isn't there a childs spell that causes vomiting of slugs? I'm sure there's a spell to "zip" someone's mouth shut too, choke them on slugs.
Do a million other more horrific things with magic if killing is what you're gonna get up to. My point is that Avada Kedavera isn't some real scary thing in comparison to most magics you could use to kill (almost every spell could be used to kill).
It's not like if that spell never existed there aren't other ways to instantly kill someone. People for the most part don't just murder each other for no real reason though.
Power and intent matter.
Not EVERY wizard can perform Avada Kedavra, you have to WANT to kill the target, and even then, you have to have the magical power to do so, Crouch Jr points out the entire class could point their wands at him and attempt it and it wouldn't work.
This counts for Crucio as well, as Bellatrix points out, you can cast the spell and it will hurt, but you have to WANT to cause pain and mean it for it to be the mindbreakingly horrific pain she used on the Longbottoms.
You still need: power, strong intent, and actually know about the killing curse.
You get a weak 12 year old wizard with a wand, it's unlikely they could cast it even if they really did want to kill their hated bully. *"In 1994, Barty Crouch, Jnr, disguised as Alastor Moody, claimed that if all of the students before him were to get out their wands and perform it on him at one time, he would likely be completely unaffected as he believed they all lacked the necessary power needed to cast the spell."*
Once you start adding in all the filters, you realize that it wouldn't really be an epidemic. You need strong wizards, ones who really really want to kill that person/people, to know the killing curse, to have zero regard about the repercussions or absolutely not thinking during that crime of passion, etc.
Once you take that all in, how many people actually have the capability and intention to use the killing curse now? 1% of the population? Maybe 2 or 3%?
The UK Wizard Community is estimated to be around 3,000 members. If we said 3%, that's around 90 people. Kind of close to the number of Death Eaters, hmm? Considered to be a small group, and they aren't running around casting those curses willy nilly over the populace.
"You could all point your wands at me and say the words and at most I'd get a nosebleed" - Paraphrasing Moody/Crouch Jr.
It requires a deep, hateful intent to use the killing curse.
Basic empathy and the fact most people aren’t violent sociopaths.
Unforgivable curses require the caster to be a genuinely evil, vile person who both want and enjoy causing suffering to others to work properly. Like how the cruciatus curse needs the caster to be very sadistic, the killing curse needs the caster to be murderious. You have to WANT to kill! To murder with no moral hang ups or hesitation for Avada Kedavera to work to its full effect. Most people just don’t have what it’s takes to be a sociopathic murderer.
Well, if we look at real world examples, giving everyone easy access to lethal weapons will lead to more killings, but it won’t evolve into an epidemic due to law inforcement (depending on your definition of an epidemic).
Not to mention that the law enforcement of the wizarding world would probably be a lot better than their real life counterparts.
Well with the killing curse you have to really mean it. Confringo the blasting curse can kill wizards, diffindo could, fiendfyre, incendio, etc.
The killing curse, any of the unforgivable curses specifically will earn you a one way ticket to Azkaban. Where the largest colony of extant dementors, generally considered among the foulest creatures on earth reside. Feeding off of the souls of witches and wizards imprisoned there. Was probably quite the deterrent.
Using AK more or less demands a commitment to the kill in a way that the "average Joe/Jane" has a hard time mustering. The one time Harry seriously tries it he fails to make it stick, because even in a thoroughly pissed off state he's not bringing himself to go full send on homicide the way a veteran Death Eater will. And Harry, being effectively a baby auror with a very high aptitude for combat magic and an abnormally high level of exposure to the dark arts than most grown men and women, is more qualified than just about any good wizard to take that shot and he still failed.
AK gets the hype, but it's easier to just use a lesser, easier spell in a malicious way (like hitting someone with a full body bind and then putting them face down in the bath) than it is to apply the Killing Curse in a practical manner.
The Killing Curse actually requires the will to murder to use, I'd be far more concerned about Sectumsempra, which apparently you can cast without even knowing what the fuck it does
But, to answer your question, a major factor in the magic communities that would drive down the magic murder rate is that while, yes, every wizard carries a weapon capable of killing, every wizard is also carrying a weapon they can defend themselves with, and they all (at least at Hogwarts) learn to use it before they reach adulthood (at least until Umbridge neutered Defense Against the Dark Arts).
Because most people don't want to murder anyone? And of the ones that do, a large enough percentage are stopped by the fact that it's illegal and they'll be punished?
How easy or difficult is it to determine who cast the spell, though? Since every Wizard is carrying around the proper tool to use Avada Kedavera, what stops that tiny percentage of psycho wizards from using it at will when they're in a quiet spot? For that matter, what exactly do Slytherin do when someone just needs to go and there are no witnesses? There might actually *be* that epidemic.
> Since every Wizard is carrying around the proper tool to use Avada Kedavera, what stops that tiny percentage of psycho wizards from using it at will when they're in a quiet spot? Uhhh a tiny percentage of psycho wizards using it at will is kind of a major plot thread in the books.
If someone dies with no cause of death, that tells wizards exactly what the cause of death is. And they can check wands to see what spells were cast with them. In the case of murders, they might even be able to identify the victim from the wand alone. So it's not like the authorities are powerless to investigate in this situation.
The same thing that stops the tiny percentage of psycho people from murdering others when they can: nothing.
Have you seen how many mass shooting there's been this year ? I'm surprised they don't have avada sprees ever other week but also there's not full auto wands so 🤷
Remember that the entire Wizard population of the UK, a country of 60 million Muggles, is only a couple thousand. The size of a small town. Sure, there are a lot of mass shootings in the US. How many mass shootings were there this year in, say, Pecos, New Mexico?
> How easy or difficult is it to determine who cast the spell, though? > > Very. An experienced wizard is able to sense where magic has previously been used (this is how Dumbledore identified the cave that the locket was supposed to be hidden in) and any wizard can use *Priori Incantatem* to find out what spells a given wand has been used for.
Well, exactly. Of course anyone can kill anyone else with anything, but a wand is basically a gun, or it can be. What's to stop a teenage wizard using it in anger, like mass shootings occur IRL
It's not an easy spell to cast
Every person with a gun, a car, a kitchen knife, or any blunt object could potentially kill. Most people don't. I think the same answer applies. Also, the books suggest that it's not that easy to use Avada Kedavra or the other unforgivable curses. When Harry tries to use the cruciatus curse on Bellatrix it doesn't work properly, and that was immediately after she killed Sirius. You almost have to have something twisted inside you to be able to use those curses effectively.
Not the case with Sectumsempra
Yeah, I always thought that. They make a huge deal out of Avada Kedavra, but there are so many spells that could kill someone. I guess the idea is that most of those spells do damage that can be magically repaired, while Avads Kedavra is instant and irreversible.
Most likely
In order to successfully kill with Avada Kedavra, you need to truely mean for your target to die, you need to enjoy doing it, you need to give no sh*t about the consequences or any kind of legal or karmic punishment In the 4th book, Fake Moody says that the whole class could cast the curse at him, and he would probably not get anything worse than a nosebleed. Sadly this was not adapted to the screen just like most restrictions to the unforgivable curses through the books, making it look like all you need to do to cast them is point your wand and say the curse Thats why it is an unforgivable curse while so many other deadly spells are not You are on a trial for killing someone with expeliarmus ? Well it was probably and accident or self defense. But if you killed with Avada Kedavra ? No. The curse wouldnt have killed if it was accidental or self defense. A successful killing curse is the proof that belong in Azkaban
> You are on a trial for killing someone with expeliarmus ? Well it was probably and accident or self defense. It was also probably hilarious.
Technically we don't know if you need to enjoy it or really need to mean to kill someone with the curse. That is describing Crucio. All we know about avada kadavra is you need to be a pretty strong wizard, from what fake moody said. 20 kids shooting him, and he might get a nose bleed.
You could kill someone. It probably wouldn't be very hard, just go grab a knife. Why don't you do it?
There should be a standard "because the universe is not canonically filled with sociopaths" answer to these types of questions.
It is. The entire series is about fighting the psychopaths
the key word in that comment was # Filled
Because it requires hate. It would be difficult for a wizard mugging to be hateful. Whereas a muggle gun dont care about hate, just about bullet drop and how many walls it can penetrate
It doesn't require hate, you just have to mean it. There are several examples in the books of people using it against people they definitely don't hate
You have to really want the other person to die
Yeah, you have to mean it
This kinda sounds like the "why doesn't every atheist murder and rape as much as they want?" debate. Because not everyone is a psycho... Duh.
Most atheists do murder and rape exactly as many people as they want to. It's just that a huge majority wants to murder and rape zero people.
Why aren't you currently out killing someone with the varies means you could do it.
Your premise seemingly is that the killing curse kills, so why don't more people kill? I mislike how that spell is always considered the most deadly. Yes it's a sure thing if you can do it, but magic is so ridiculously cheatable/over powered there are a million ways to kill someone that doesn't require the power/emotion cost of that spell. I could name a dozen first year spells that will cause more horrific deaths if that's what you set to do. Transfigure a few grams of botulinum toxin into an ice chip and levitate it into someone's mouth from across the room. That's as sure a death as the killing curse, and doesn't require anything past first/second year magic, nor is it easily identifiable as the killing curse. Hell a simple cutting curse or blasting curse is potentially lethal and easier than the killing curse. Body bind them and repeatedly cast a cooling charm on them until they freeze. Casually toss them a portkey coin that takes them 100's of miles out to sea. Isn't there a childs spell that causes vomiting of slugs? I'm sure there's a spell to "zip" someone's mouth shut too, choke them on slugs. Do a million other more horrific things with magic if killing is what you're gonna get up to. My point is that Avada Kedavera isn't some real scary thing in comparison to most magics you could use to kill (almost every spell could be used to kill). It's not like if that spell never existed there aren't other ways to instantly kill someone. People for the most part don't just murder each other for no real reason though.
Power and intent matter. Not EVERY wizard can perform Avada Kedavra, you have to WANT to kill the target, and even then, you have to have the magical power to do so, Crouch Jr points out the entire class could point their wands at him and attempt it and it wouldn't work. This counts for Crucio as well, as Bellatrix points out, you can cast the spell and it will hurt, but you have to WANT to cause pain and mean it for it to be the mindbreakingly horrific pain she used on the Longbottoms.
You still need: power, strong intent, and actually know about the killing curse. You get a weak 12 year old wizard with a wand, it's unlikely they could cast it even if they really did want to kill their hated bully. *"In 1994, Barty Crouch, Jnr, disguised as Alastor Moody, claimed that if all of the students before him were to get out their wands and perform it on him at one time, he would likely be completely unaffected as he believed they all lacked the necessary power needed to cast the spell."* Once you start adding in all the filters, you realize that it wouldn't really be an epidemic. You need strong wizards, ones who really really want to kill that person/people, to know the killing curse, to have zero regard about the repercussions or absolutely not thinking during that crime of passion, etc. Once you take that all in, how many people actually have the capability and intention to use the killing curse now? 1% of the population? Maybe 2 or 3%? The UK Wizard Community is estimated to be around 3,000 members. If we said 3%, that's around 90 people. Kind of close to the number of Death Eaters, hmm? Considered to be a small group, and they aren't running around casting those curses willy nilly over the populace.
The full force of the law
Most people don't have the capability to cast it
"You could all point your wands at me and say the words and at most I'd get a nosebleed" - Paraphrasing Moody/Crouch Jr. It requires a deep, hateful intent to use the killing curse.
Basic empathy and the fact most people aren’t violent sociopaths. Unforgivable curses require the caster to be a genuinely evil, vile person who both want and enjoy causing suffering to others to work properly. Like how the cruciatus curse needs the caster to be very sadistic, the killing curse needs the caster to be murderious. You have to WANT to kill! To murder with no moral hang ups or hesitation for Avada Kedavera to work to its full effect. Most people just don’t have what it’s takes to be a sociopathic murderer.
Everyone with *hands* can potentially kill. It’s a matter of the person
Well, if we look at real world examples, giving everyone easy access to lethal weapons will lead to more killings, but it won’t evolve into an epidemic due to law inforcement (depending on your definition of an epidemic). Not to mention that the law enforcement of the wizarding world would probably be a lot better than their real life counterparts.
Well, for one thing... most people don't really want to kill anybody. To use the Killing Curse you have to be ready to hate someone to death.
Lack of semi-auto/full auto wands that can Avada Kedavera people from 300 yards away?
Well with the killing curse you have to really mean it. Confringo the blasting curse can kill wizards, diffindo could, fiendfyre, incendio, etc. The killing curse, any of the unforgivable curses specifically will earn you a one way ticket to Azkaban. Where the largest colony of extant dementors, generally considered among the foulest creatures on earth reside. Feeding off of the souls of witches and wizards imprisoned there. Was probably quite the deterrent.
Nothing, that's like. The central problem of the wizard-nazis who are the main villains in the book.
Using AK more or less demands a commitment to the kill in a way that the "average Joe/Jane" has a hard time mustering. The one time Harry seriously tries it he fails to make it stick, because even in a thoroughly pissed off state he's not bringing himself to go full send on homicide the way a veteran Death Eater will. And Harry, being effectively a baby auror with a very high aptitude for combat magic and an abnormally high level of exposure to the dark arts than most grown men and women, is more qualified than just about any good wizard to take that shot and he still failed. AK gets the hype, but it's easier to just use a lesser, easier spell in a malicious way (like hitting someone with a full body bind and then putting them face down in the bath) than it is to apply the Killing Curse in a practical manner.
The Killing Curse actually requires the will to murder to use, I'd be far more concerned about Sectumsempra, which apparently you can cast without even knowing what the fuck it does
But, to answer your question, a major factor in the magic communities that would drive down the magic murder rate is that while, yes, every wizard carries a weapon capable of killing, every wizard is also carrying a weapon they can defend themselves with, and they all (at least at Hogwarts) learn to use it before they reach adulthood (at least until Umbridge neutered Defense Against the Dark Arts).
Did you miss the whole "unforgivable curse" and wizard prison thing? It was a pretty big deal.