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Why don’t Death Eaters always use Avada Kedavra?

If Lord Voldemort and his henchmen (Death Eaters) can so easily conjure up the Avada Kadevra curse? Why doesn't he just kill all the good wizards, knowing that they cannot conjure up this same curse and rally everyone to his side?

I know this is possibly a question that would interfere with the fact that if this should happen, the Harry Potter series would not exist because Harry was one wizard whom survived the curse, but why not use the killing curse to hold the wizarding world hostage and have them all turn on Harry to where Harry is the last wizard standing?

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  • That question is specifically around Battle of Hogwarts and answer there isn't answer to this question. That's why I have nominated this question for re-opening. – user931 Nov 02 '12 at 23:59
  • Although the answers to the other question are specific to a certain event, they are still relevant in general. If you asked why didn't V just kill everyone in the MoM Foyer? the same answers would be given. – Möoz Apr 08 '14 at 05:44
  • Also, Voldemort did use Avada Kedavra like almost every single time he met an enemy! and he did hold the world hostage with his threats, but people's belief in Harry and ultimately the cause against Voldemort overpowered the threats... – Möoz May 07 '14 at 21:52
  • Mooz: Coming back to this, due to someone bumping it; however, it still would not make sense. Unless every person was like Harry, Voldemort could have gotten away with killing other wizards, if they did not join him. Do not tell me they all had the same protection that Harry had, which only allowed him to get the scar from it. Additionally, it would not just be him, doing the killing. La Strang seems like she is evil enough to help Voldemort do his bidding and all the other death eaters. They could easily kill every good wizard that went against them due to just using that same curse. – Wanting Answers Dec 04 '15 at 13:23

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"Good" wizards can use Avada Kedavra just as the Death Eaters do. Avada Kedavra is not a curse or spell that has to do with anyone's internal "goodness," as is, conversely, the Patronus Charm. Mad-Eye Moody teaches Harry's year about the Unforgivable Curses in Goblet of Fire:

‘Avada Kedavra’s a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it – you could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I’d get so much as a nose-bleed. But that doesn’t matter. I’m not here to teach you how to do it.'

Goblet of Fire - page 192 - Bloomsbury - chapter 14, The Unforgivable Curses

Moody doesn't say that the curse needs a powerful bit of dark magic behind it, but rather just magic.

The reason Voldemort doesn't use Avada Kedavra to eradicate the "good" wizards is that, with training and the internal will to perform the curse, any witch or wizard can perform Avada Kedavra.

Case in point: Snape killed Dumbledore using Avada Kedavra, and Snape was firmly on the good guys' side. While we don't know for sure, it's possible Dumbledore may have killed his own sister Arianna during his boyhood duel with Grindelwald, and it's further possible the curse he used to do it may have been Avada Kedavra.

‘The argument became a fight. Grindelwald lost control. That which I had always sensed in him, though I pretended not to, now sprang into terrible being. And Ariana ... after all my mother’s care and caution ... lay dead upon the floor.’

[...]

'You see, I never knew which of us, in that last, horrific fight, had actually cast the curse that killed my sister. You may call me cowardly: you would be right. Harry, I dreaded beyond all things the knowledge that it had been I who brought about her death, not merely through my arrogance and stupidity, but that I actually struck the blow that snuffed out her life.'

Deathly Hallows - pages 574-575 - Bloomsbury - chapter 35, King's Cross

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  • "Avada Kedavra is not a curse or spell that has to do with anyone's internal "goodness,"...are you sure? There definitely is evidence that Cruccio requires the conscious desire to cause pain, and Mad-Barty-Eye-Crouch-Moody-Jr didn't specify that either. – NominSim Nov 02 '12 at 20:11
  • Conscious desire to cause pain does not mean a good wizard can't experience those feelings. Think Harry in the atrium in the Ministry of Magic trying to perform Crucio on Bellatrix Lestrange after she killed Sirius. Also, in Deathly Hallows, not only do both Ron and Harry perform the Imperius Curse in Gringotts, but Harry successfully casts Cruciatus on one of the Carrows in the Ravenclaw common room after whichever Carrow it was spit in McGonagall's face. Harry's hardly a bad guy. – Slytherincess Nov 02 '12 at 20:19
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    You're right of course, I was a little unclear in my comment. What I meant was that it seems from your answer that you're indicating that Avada Kedavra doesn't require the conscious desire to kill someone, but by its very nature it does require that. So when the OP says that "good wizards cannot" use the curse he is in error, but it isn't too far fetched to assume that some, or even most of the "good" wizards would choose not to use it. Also just nit picking here but you don't have to be a "good" guy to cast a Patronus do you? Umbridge certainly wasn't a "good" girl. – NominSim Nov 02 '12 at 20:26
  • @NominSim - the canon says so IIRC. Barty Crouch authorized the use of Unspeakables for all Aurors during First Wizarding War. A.K. included, as far as I could tell. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Nov 02 '12 at 21:36
  • @DVK Not sure what you are referring to, I misspoke in the first comment and tried to clarify in my second comment. I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that some if not most "good" wizards would choose not to use the Unforgivable curses (Dumbledore certainly would choose not to). I was just making a point of clarification that the OP wasn't entirely off base by saying they "cannot", more likely they just "would not". Aurors are a different story, they are trained to fight, the normal everyday "good" wizard/witch would be less inclined to kill people IMO. – NominSim Nov 02 '12 at 21:42
  • @NominSim - they are human. Humans can be easily inclined to kill if goaded enough (murdering one's family is a good way of doing that, which DEs like doing). It's less likely in cold blood though according to research they did post-Vetnam. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Nov 02 '12 at 21:48
  • @NominSim - Sure, I'd agree with that. Not all "good" witches and wizards would choose to use Avada Kedavra. Nor would all "bad" witches and wizards. For example, Draco Malfoy chose not to use Avada Kedavra on Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince. I don't agree, though, that Dumbledore would never use Avada Kedavra. The Patronus issue is different. JKR has said DEs (except for Snape) cannot produce a Patronus because they have an affinity for the very forces that Patronuses repel. Yes, Umbridge could produce a Patronus. I only know more about that in relation to the Slytherin locket Horcrux. :) – Slytherincess Nov 02 '12 at 21:49
  • @Slytherincess - JKR was really jumbled on the whole Patronus/DE issue. IMHO she fscked up in that tidbit of the interview. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Nov 02 '12 at 21:51
  • @NominSim - And I think what DVK was trying to get at was during the first wizarding war, the Aurors (good guys, presumably?) were authorized by Barty Crouch to use the Unforgivables against suspected Death Eaters or Voldemort followers with impunity. The Unforgivables, obviously, includes Avada Kedavra, and I believe it is Sirius who talks to Harry about how the Aurors during that time took their new found opportunity and ran with it like whoa. To answer your question above, I think canon supports the idea that there must be intent to kill in order to successfully do so with Avada Kedavra. – Slytherincess Nov 02 '12 at 21:57
  • @DVK - Yes, I too find Umbridge's ability to produce a Patronus to be rather inexplicable. The Death Eaters not being able to I can understand a little more readily (sort of?), but I think that for some people pain, evil, hurt, and hatred are what makes them feel good and happy, so I don't understand why Death Eaters couldn't learn to produce a Patronus, however convoluted their happy thought might be. – Slytherincess Nov 02 '12 at 22:02
  • @Slytherincess Yeah I agree with DVK (and you?) with the whole JKR may have made a mistake by saying that DEs couldn't produce Patronuses. It doesn't follow with her already established canon. Now, I can see the fact that they may not have the need to produce them, as the Dementors are often on their side and maybe (probably) most didn't bother to learn. (I think we have talked before of my...dislike...for all/most of the "post-book" canon that JKR has provided...it tends to step on its own feet and get in its own way.) I'm still of the mind that only the books exist...Pottermore what? – NominSim Nov 02 '12 at 23:33
  • @DVK I agree completely with what you're saying. The OP was positing a situation where the DEs just started killing everyone and I am sure that a lot of "good" wizards would respond in kind. I think at first that the DEs would be correct in assuming that most "good" wizards would resort to non-lethal means of apprehension first (unless as you say goaded by death of loved ones etc.). The Punisher as a wizard perhaps? – NominSim Nov 02 '12 at 23:37
  • @NominSim - Just Human. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Nov 02 '12 at 23:43