SB's sanity-SS's cruelty-DM's tie-DH's punishment-analysis

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 13611

Monika wrote:

>And if you don't have any happy thoughts, you are depressed (IMHO).

Can you really survive for 12 years without any happy thoughts at all? 
   
I am not saying this to downplay depression in any way--I know it is 
sheer torture and can kill Muggles as surely as Dementors can kill 
wizards--but I do think what the Dementors do is beyond what we 
generally call depression.  I would call it despair:  the absolute 
lack of any happiness and any sense that future happiness is possible. 
 Maybe at its worst major depression *is* despair...

So, can "not having any happy memories" be a protection?  The 
Dementors do two things:  they suck out all the happy thoughts and 
they also force you to relive terrible memories.  JKR has a scarily 
sharp imagination; this latter is one of the worst tortures I can 
imagine.  The only comforts for someone who's found the wreck of his 
best friend's body (murdered because of his own, Sirius's, bad 
judgment) is that the memory will fade over time, and that he can 
block it out with happy thoughts when it threatens to overwhelm him.  
The Dementors keep it as fresh as if it were happening for the first 
time and block happy thoughts.  This has to be as maddening as 
anything the Death Eaters have to remember.

...Except...

that Sirius does have a sense of identity, a conviction, that the 
Death Eaters can't have.  When all their happy times are stripped 
away, what do they have?  Sirius talks about holding onto the 
conviction that he was innocent, and that makes sense to me.  He 
couldn't feel good about being framed, but it did give him a sense of 
identity and purpose.  Can people who have made the purpose of their 
lives terror and torture hold onto something like this?  The Dementors 
must force them to see how utterly valueless their lives have been.  
In that sense, an innocent man will have comforts that the guilty 
don't.

The worst thing for Sirius himself seems to be his guilt.  It is 
positively suicidal for him to say to Harry (when H first accuses 
him), "I don't deny it," but he does it because he is so tortured by 
guilt about their deaths.  This is one thing the Dementors seemed to 
be able to inflict on him that he found impossible to shake.

Sorry, that was kind of rambling.  I can't quite work out 
myself what I'm trying to say.

Rebecca wrote:

>I'm interested in
>Snape because I think he is actually a good boy with a phenomenal 
amount of
>courage and resolution who is willing to be regarded as -- and indeed 
to
>pretend very convincingly to be -- a bad boy in the service of 
Dumbledore
>and of the greater good.  Although his feelings of resentment and 
bitterness
>toward James Potter and the other Marauders were very real and to 
some
>extent are still there (making it not too much of a stretch for Snape 
to act
>harshly toward Harry, who is after all the spitting image of his 
father), I
>believe that Snape's behaviour to date has been largely a theatrical
>performance.

Oh boy, dare I take on all these rabid Snapefans?  You all probably 
know some pretty scary potions.  Well, I can always drink out of a hip 
flask from now on.  I think Snape is good in the ultimate sense (i.e. 
is on the Right Side and will even sacrifice himself to defeat V), but 
I just can't buy the idea that he's really a nice guy.  There is no 
earthly reason why he has to treat his students so cruelly just to 
convince the world that he's a baddie.  Whenever I start to think that 
he's just a very grumpy person with an overly sarcastic sense of 
humor, I remember Trevor.  We're talking about someone who would force 
a student to kill his own pet.  (And as long as I'm being a party 
pooper, I'll confess that I'm one of the few who really hates the 
Malfoy-bouncing scene.  I just can't take physical cruelty.  Seeing 
Malfoy get slapped was fun; seeing him slammed against a stone floor 
in the form of a small animal wasn't.  Sorry, Ron, didn't mean to ruin 
your moment.)

Draco's tie (WARNING: TRAILER):  from my version, I'm not sure whether 
it's black or you just can't see the stripes.  If the latter, it could 
be any time.  

Dave humbly wrote:

>I will now go and surrender myself to Filch and volunteer to polish
>the entire Trophy Room without magic.  :)

Well, it beats answering Lockhart's fan mail.

Stacy in defense of "over"analyzing:

>it's because the characters become real people to us, with real 
motives
>and lives beyond what we get to see in the book.

Yes, beautifully said!  Thanks, Stacy!

Amy Z
who KNOWS that these people are real

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 "Before we begin our banquet, I would like 
 to say a few words.  And here they are: 
 Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"
            --HP and the Philosopher's Stone
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