I certainly agree that the difference between living and dying is typically much greater than the difference between being tortured for a while and not being tortured.
OTOH, situations do arise where killing X becomes necessary but torturing X remains optional. I completely agree that it’s typically far far far better to avoid such situations altogether, but once I’ve tried and failed at that I still see no reason to torture X.
Agreed that if D’s chances of being caught out are high enough, the expected cost of faking torture might well exceed the expected cost of torture. But I suspect that if we eliminated the death from the equation, and his choices were to fake her torture or to actually torture her, and he chose to torture her because the expected costs of doing so were lower, most readers (even here) would censure that choice.
But the whole point of killing Narcissa is to shock the Death Eaters. If you’ve gotten to the point where it seems like a good idea to murder someone for shock value, you don’t do a half-assed job, you do it nasty. To do otherwise would be a waste, because if you murder her and it doesn’t have the desired effect, then you did it for nothing.
There is a difference between killing someone in a messy but expedient manner, like a weapon deemed inhumane, and torturing someone to death.
1) the killer must sustain killing intent throughout the torture
2) the killer is vulnerable to counter-attack while torturing when, instead, they could be done and absent
3) the things we do change us, a torturer is likely to (almost must) become less empathetic than one who quickly executes, and empathy is a valuable skill in many activities
Most weapons deemed inhumane are the sort of thing that would be about as unpleasant as being tortured to death. The de facto ban on poison gas in WW2, for example—if I had to choose between mustard gas and napalm, I’m not sure which way I’d go. For that matter, plenty of people are burned alive in ordinary wars(naval combat is particularly bad for that, along with the aforementioned napalm), and that’s never been deemed worse than any other death in any legal sense.
Also, all we know is that she was burned to death. Ordinary fire deaths are not the sort of torture you’re suggesting—they’re relatively quick in most cases(minutes, and not many of them), so 2) in particular doesn’t apply strongly.
I certainly agree that the difference between living and dying is typically much greater than the difference between being tortured for a while and not being tortured.
OTOH, situations do arise where killing X becomes necessary but torturing X remains optional. I completely agree that it’s typically far far far better to avoid such situations altogether, but once I’ve tried and failed at that I still see no reason to torture X.
Agreed that if D’s chances of being caught out are high enough, the expected cost of faking torture might well exceed the expected cost of torture. But I suspect that if we eliminated the death from the equation, and his choices were to fake her torture or to actually torture her, and he chose to torture her because the expected costs of doing so were lower, most readers (even here) would censure that choice.
But the whole point of killing Narcissa is to shock the Death Eaters. If you’ve gotten to the point where it seems like a good idea to murder someone for shock value, you don’t do a half-assed job, you do it nasty. To do otherwise would be a waste, because if you murder her and it doesn’t have the desired effect, then you did it for nothing.
There is a difference between killing someone in a messy but expedient manner, like a weapon deemed inhumane, and torturing someone to death.
1) the killer must sustain killing intent throughout the torture
2) the killer is vulnerable to counter-attack while torturing when, instead, they could be done and absent
3) the things we do change us, a torturer is likely to (almost must) become less empathetic than one who quickly executes, and empathy is a valuable skill in many activities
Most weapons deemed inhumane are the sort of thing that would be about as unpleasant as being tortured to death. The de facto ban on poison gas in WW2, for example—if I had to choose between mustard gas and napalm, I’m not sure which way I’d go. For that matter, plenty of people are burned alive in ordinary wars(naval combat is particularly bad for that, along with the aforementioned napalm), and that’s never been deemed worse than any other death in any legal sense.
Also, all we know is that she was burned to death. Ordinary fire deaths are not the sort of torture you’re suggesting—they’re relatively quick in most cases(minutes, and not many of them), so 2) in particular doesn’t apply strongly.