[HPforGrownups] Re: Questions and ponderings--the dementor's kiss

[Jodi Bailey]

No: HPFGUIDX 41042


----- Original Message -----
From: <magicy2jai at cox.net>


> Greetings all.  A very newly converted Potter-phile here, who has
literally just finished re-reading Prisoner of Azkaban, and this
conversation caught me:
>
> <<"corinthum" <kkearney at students.miami.edu> said:
>
> The description of dark, filthy places implies that dementors can often be
found in uninhabited areas.  This leads me to believe they don't actually
need happy thoughts to feed on.>>
>
> If I remember correctly, when the Dementors come to the Quidditch game
where Harry falls off the broom, someone (forgive me, I don't have my book
here, it may have been Dumbledore) mentions that they were attracted because
of all the people there and that they had been too long without human souls.
So that would seem to imply that they DO need some sort of thoughts to feed
on, and it also seemed implied that they would be happy.
>

It was Lupin, right after the passage where he explains the nature of
Dementors (all on page 140 of the UK paperback):

"Why did they have to come to the match?" said Harry bitterly.
"They're getting hungry," said Lupin coolly, shutting his briefcase with a
snap. "Dumbledore won't let them into the school, so their supply of human
prey has dried up ... I don't think they could resist the large crowd around
the Quidditch pitch. All the excitement ... emotions running high ... it was
their idea of a feast."

I do believe that Dementors feed on happy thoughts ("Get too near a Dementor
and every good feeling, every happy memory, will be sucked out of you."),
and that they need a regular supply. But this part isn't exactly clear about
whether the thoughts need to be happy, however it does seem to imply there's
something about the intensity of the emotions which is important. So putting
the two together I guess Dementors find that very happy thoughts are more
appetising or satisfying than only mildly happy ones.

The description of, "the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and
despair, they drain peace, hope and happiness out of the air around them"
didn't make me think of uninhabited areas at all, but rather places like
run-down, crime-ridden housing estates full of people trapped in poverty. In
fact this is one of my favourite parts of the books, for the way it links
the WW with our own world, offering an explanation for the despair and
depression in these places. But then they presumably wouldn't be getting a
whole lot of happy thoughts to feed on. They must do fine in Azkaban where
they keep getting new prisoners to feed on, but I just can't think of other
places that could be their natural habitat which are dark, filthy etc. and
yet with enough happy thoughts to sustain them. But then I've never been
that good at coming up with theories of my own, just picking holes in other
people's. ;o)

    Jodi