Desire to Survive

[Cindy C.]

No: HPFGUIDX 29958


Madaboutsteps wrote:

> > Surely dementors can also sense animals if they had a soul?  if 
they
> > had changed in to an animal to survive surely they are at risk as
> > Lupin tells us that they feed on the human "desire to survive"
> > amongst other things
> 

Heather wrote:

> I hadn't really thought about this, but now that I have, I wonder 
why 
> dementors don't feed on a normal animal's desire to survive. The 
> survival instinct is one of the strongest out there, and possessed 
by 
> virtually every kind of animal. 

I don't recall anyone saying in canon that dementors feed on the 
desire to survive.  Lupin spells this out in PoA, Ch. 10:  "They 
drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. . . . 
Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory 
will be sucked out of you."  

In PoA, Ch. 19, Sirius adds:  "They feel their way toward people by 
feeding off their emotions.  They could tell that my feelings were 
less -- less human, less complex when I was a dog."

Sirius does tell us in GoF, Ch. 27, that most of the prisoners in 
Azkaban do die and lose the will to live.  But that is because "Most 
go mad in there, and plenty stop eating in the end."

So I don't think we can say that dementors directly feed off of or 
suck out a person's will to live.  They feed off of emotions, 
specifically draining a wizard's positive emotions, leaving them 
depressed and wanting to die.  Animals (and transformed animagi) have 
less complex emotions, so dementors apparently don't feed off of 
their emotions.  If they did, Sirius would have lost his mind 
notwithstanding his ability to take a break by transforming into a 
dog.

Cindy