The Killing Curse is unblockable, unstoppable, and works every single time on anything with a brain.
Professor Quirinus Quirrell, HPMOR chapter 16. Unless he’s wrong or lying, nonsapient animals are killed by it just fine. (In canon, doesn’t the Fake Defence Professor Du Jour use it on a spider in, er, book 3 or thereabouts?)
Which reminds me of something. At (IIRC) that point in canon, the teacher who’s introducing the Killing Curse says something like “It kills absolutely anything, every time. Only one person has ever survived one, and he’s right here in this classroom”. Here in HPMOR we have Quirrell introducing the Killing Curse in a classroom that’s got Harry Potter in it, and everyone knows the story just as much as in canon, and he conspicuously doesn’t make any such remark.
Maybe it’s just coincidence. But (assuming, as is customary, that Q=V) it looks to me like another bit of evidence that in HPMOR what happened at Godric’s Hollow was not that V. attempted to AK Harry and failed.
The Killing Curse is unblockable, unstoppable, and works every single time on anything with a brain.
Not related to the current discussion, but I was always very unsettled by that kind of affirmation.
From both canon and MoR, the Killing Curse looks like missile spell. A bolt of green light flows from the wand to the target, and kills it. But the bolt can’t get around material objects, it doesn’t go through them, and it doesn’t switch directions to avoid them like a seeker missile could do.
It can’t be blocked by raw magic (Protego and similar) but what prevents Actio, Wingdarium Leviosa or Free Transfiguration to be used to create a physical barrier to block the spell ?
And going even further, couldn’t armor be made to block the spell ? It kills through clothes, but can very thick clothes prevent the effect ? If you make an armor with two layers, physically separated, the outer layer kept from touching the inner layer through electromagnetic forces or magic, would the outer layer count as an obstacle ?
Yeah, it’s yet another thing JKR didn’t think out very well. It’s said to be a super-extra-deadly unblockable spell, but in practice there’s nothing in what actually happens to show that it’s any more dangerous than any number of other spells.
What she probably meant is that it’s exceptionally good at penetrating innate resistance, magical barriers, that sort of thing. So, the prime spell for killing serious targets. Something that min-maxing DnD players would find useful in a duel.
It can’t be blocked by raw magic (Protego and similar) but what prevents Actio, Wingdarium Leviosa or Free Transfiguration to be used to create a physical barrier to block the spell?
Nothing. Indeed, Dumbledore blocks the killing curse in canon (Order of the Phoenix) by animating a statue to jump in front of it.
So if AK is in any way unblockable, it is unblockable only by magical means.
Oh, correct. I didn’t do my homework here. This implies that nonsapient animals do have a soul, which I didn’t expect in the MoR-verse.
Quirrellmort not saying that Harry survived the killing curse might indeed be evidence for V. not failing to kill Harry, but intuitively, it seems like a very tiny bit of evidence.
Then again, nonsapient animals probably don’t have any soul avada kedavra could separate from its body.
Professor Quirinus Quirrell, HPMOR chapter 16. Unless he’s wrong or lying, nonsapient animals are killed by it just fine. (In canon, doesn’t the Fake Defence Professor Du Jour use it on a spider in, er, book 3 or thereabouts?)
Which reminds me of something. At (IIRC) that point in canon, the teacher who’s introducing the Killing Curse says something like “It kills absolutely anything, every time. Only one person has ever survived one, and he’s right here in this classroom”. Here in HPMOR we have Quirrell introducing the Killing Curse in a classroom that’s got Harry Potter in it, and everyone knows the story just as much as in canon, and he conspicuously doesn’t make any such remark.
Maybe it’s just coincidence. But (assuming, as is customary, that Q=V) it looks to me like another bit of evidence that in HPMOR what happened at Godric’s Hollow was not that V. attempted to AK Harry and failed.
Not related to the current discussion, but I was always very unsettled by that kind of affirmation.
From both canon and MoR, the Killing Curse looks like missile spell. A bolt of green light flows from the wand to the target, and kills it. But the bolt can’t get around material objects, it doesn’t go through them, and it doesn’t switch directions to avoid them like a seeker missile could do.
It can’t be blocked by raw magic (Protego and similar) but what prevents Actio, Wingdarium Leviosa or Free Transfiguration to be used to create a physical barrier to block the spell ?
And going even further, couldn’t armor be made to block the spell ? It kills through clothes, but can very thick clothes prevent the effect ? If you make an armor with two layers, physically separated, the outer layer kept from touching the inner layer through electromagnetic forces or magic, would the outer layer count as an obstacle ?
The grim version of an ongoing joke in some potter circles is that you could strap a bunch of puppies to your body and use them as living armor.
My favorite mental image is covering yourself in bees. What can I say? I’m a fan of Eddie Izzard being able to beat the Dark Lord.
Yeah, it’s yet another thing JKR didn’t think out very well. It’s said to be a super-extra-deadly unblockable spell, but in practice there’s nothing in what actually happens to show that it’s any more dangerous than any number of other spells.
What she probably meant is that it’s exceptionally good at penetrating innate resistance, magical barriers, that sort of thing. So, the prime spell for killing serious targets. Something that min-maxing DnD players would find useful in a duel.
Nothing. Indeed, Dumbledore blocks the killing curse in canon (Order of the Phoenix) by animating a statue to jump in front of it.
So if AK is in any way unblockable, it is unblockable only by magical means.
Well, we know that either harry has an actual means of blocking it, OR, that Quirrel and Harry’s magical dissonance can disrupt the killing curse.
Oh, correct. I didn’t do my homework here. This implies that nonsapient animals do have a soul, which I didn’t expect in the MoR-verse.
Quirrellmort not saying that Harry survived the killing curse might indeed be evidence for V. not failing to kill Harry, but intuitively, it seems like a very tiny bit of evidence.
Or simply that the “separate the soul from the body” is just a mumbo-jumbo explanation from people that believe in souls.