A Small Dementor Puzzle

[rja.carnegie at excite.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 18988

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Steve Vander Ark" <vderark at b...> wrote:
> The Dementors are more or less neutral as far as allegiences go.
> They will side with whomever gives them the most of what they want, which 
> is human prey. They are currently on "our side" simply because ours 
> is the only side there is. One might assume that during the Voldemort 
> years from 1971-1981, the Dementors were in some way allied with the 
> Dark Side, but there is nothing to tell us for sure. And it's not 
> because they're "bad" -- they are what they are and they like what 
> they like, rather like a tiger isn't "bad" because he eats people. I 
> get the sense that they're version of intelligence is somewhat like 
> an animal rather than human.

According to _Fantastic Beasts_, a [magical] "being" as opposed to a
"beast" is "any [magical] creature that has sufficient intelligence to understand the laws of the magical community and to bear part of the responsibility in shaping those laws."  This of course doesn't mean that they necessarily abide by the laws.  And they're not in the Muggle edition as Beasts, but, as with the boggart, perhaps that's well-meant censorship.

Without reading GOF, I don't think I've seen Dementors speak; they apparently understand spoken English, but perhaps they don't have much to say.  Dumbledore tells the school, "It is not in the nature of a Dementor to understand pleading or excuses", which suggests, if they _do_ understand the language, that something like autism or Asperger's syndrome is their natural state of mind.  Or perhaps it's just _our_ feelings that they don't care about - other than as nutrition, that is.

They don't appear to have human wizards in charge of them; they seem to report directly to the Minister for Magic.  So I don't think they're beasts.  I think they count as people, but they're not normal people and they're not nice.

Symbolically or allegorically, they represent clinical or sub-clinical depression in JKR's personal experience.  I've been on pills myself - but that's off-topic.  I wouldn't testify that imagining that depression is due to Dementors roaming the world and preying on people is a helpful metaphor in that situation, but if JKR feels better for it, she can speak for herself.  Perhaps that's what she's doing when she has Lupin commend Harry for being more afraid of the Dementors than of anything else - for fearing fear itself - fear, perhaps, that prevents us from trying where we may succeed, just because we may fail.  It isn't an especially profound point, but it's universal.

I don't think they experience depression themselves as part of their own natural condition, or they'd be paralysed themselves.  They're just single-minded.

And in POA at least, of course, there's a hint of that simple video game where zombies or, in the implementations I know, Daleks, march mindlessly towards you from all over, hundreds of them, and you have to run away.  This one: http://www.google.com/search?q=daleks+game

Robert Carnegie

"I read them all when I was seven and I hated them" - unnamed American office
worker on the Harry Potter books (www.dilbert.com, List of Stupid Things
Overheard)