With All Hallow's Eve upon us, themes often line up together to be dark or scary in some way. This month SOUP is no exception with our October issue being all about Death Eaters. Love them or hate them, or something in between, this month I'm going to dredge up a few of the more unsavory spells that we saw in our beloved series.
You would not believe how much I struggled with this theme. I thought I had this great idea and thought it'd be so easy and I'd be done like that *snaps*. Yeah, no. Sadly enough, no matter how much we are told that these people are big and bad, or how often JK tells us that they are mean and nasty, or fierce and powerful... very few spells are attributed to Death Eaters. Much of what we are given is unnamed, or unknown, and that makes for a pretty nasty bout of writer's block. I mean, we are told how powerful and unbeatable Lord Voldemort is, yet the only spells (outside of the oft overused unforgivables, which are used by even the weakest of villains) that we are told He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named uses are ones like Morsmordre - which harms exactly no one - and the unnamed spells to fly unassisted or place the Dark mark on one's arm. Not exactly fear-inducing, are they?
My next thought was Bellatrix, for surely she has some sort of specialty, right? All searches proved fruitless as more unnamed spells appear and nothing was lauded as being a signature of hers. Such an incomplete fleshing out of our treasured villains, right? One unnamed spell that I will bring up this month is Antonin Dolohov's 'purple' spell. First of all, the only reason I am even able to bring it up and discuss it even a little is that we hear a lot about its effects because it was used against the heroine of the Golden Trio - Hermione Granger. As both the book and movie showed us, this spell uses a very quick (and perhaps even overdramatic) slashing movement that emits a purple-colored flame. We are also told (and reminded more than once) that this spell causes extremely painful internal injuries that are compounded if the spell is spoken verbally. There was no outward showing of the injuries, but Hermione suffered from its effects for a long time afterward and was on a strict potion regimen that included ten different potions, taken daily.
There are other, more obvious Dark spells throughout the series, such as Sectumsempra. This brilliant invention by a well-known snake is also one of the first spells brought up when people are asked what type of spells are Dark. Severus Snape's spell causes lacerations to appear all over the victim's body at an alarming pace. If not treated fast enough it can indeed cause death by bleeding out. While on this subject, however, let me also bring up how annoying the consistent argument by some that any spell can be Dark, intent matters, etc can be. The Chosen One himself used this against Draco Malfoy while at Hogwarts. One could easily argue that Harry had not intended to cause such harm to Draco Malfoy, especially as he had no idea of the spell's effect, but does that make this instance any less audacious or 'evil'? No. It's still a willful harming of another person. Ugh, just ugh.
I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the Caterwauling Charm that was used by Death Eaters in the seventh book. This charm was placed upon the wizarding town of Hogsmeade to alert them to the comings and goings of people of all sorts. It shows us the softer side of our villains, too. They cared so much about Hogwarts (and their control over it, but we can gloss over it *cough*) that they placed protective charms around the nearest place to the school. Death Eaters wanted to protect the little town and control who could get to Hogwarts. Such love and devotion, care and protection, right? I mean, I even heard that one of the lower-ranking Death Eaters, Death-Eater-In-Training if you will, used this very same spell to protect a beloved red slug. Their pet slug was so precious to them that they chose to be alerted every time some thing, or some one came within fifty yards or so of it. I mean, you gotta stop those people from throwing salt after all.
I could get super Dark this month if I even just touched on other such things like the horrid blood maledictions that plagued the Greengrass women or Nagini. Or perhaps the atrocious Black Quill that was invented by the ever-so-cheerful ray of sunshine herself, Dolores Umbridge. Potions aplenty, cursed items galore. I'd wager that not many of you have even gotten this far with my ramblings, so I'll just stop while I'm ahead wayyyy behind.
I'd love to hear your thoughts, though. Head on over to the Common Room SOUP thread and tell me what your favorite Dark items/spells/potions/etc are from the series. Got a theory about one - tell us. At this point, I'd even take something of your creation that would have made the villains in our series even better nastier. Cheers!