Snapedom

I am not saying we don't see dark spells hurt people! Or that some characters consider sectumsempra dark. My only point is that choosing one aspect these *four* spells have in common as *the* definitive characteristic of all dark magic - what makes magic dark or not dark - is an INTERPRETATION. It is NOT a coherent theory of dark magic explicitly spelled out by the text. (Whereas for example it IS spelled out by the text that magic for example cannot create information; this is part of JKR's magic system spell out IN the text.)

It is an interpretation allowed by the text, but there are other interpretations ALSO permitted by the evidence we have in the text. The TEXT ITSELF does not state explicitly that the interpretation you make is correct or not, so nobody can say their interpretation of dark magic is the only correct one. It does not give a definitive account of what dark magic is; that is a matter of *interpretation.* That is my point. That you are making an INTERPRETATION, which is not the same thing as something spelled out by the text itself as a clear coherent theory of dark magic. I am not offering a counter interpretation of what dark magic is, I am pointing out that it is something we must necessarily interpret because it *is not spelled out textually.* Am I being unclear?