[HPforGrownups] Memory Charms (WAS: Neville: Memory, etc.)

[Laura Huntley]

No: HPFGUIDX 38414

Abigail:
>That sounds like something we read in synagogue every year on Yom Kippur.  
>It's by Martin Buber, the German philosopher and one of the fathers of 
>Reform Judaism.  What he says basically is that the two greatest powers 
>granted to the human race are the ability to remember and the ability to forget.

This statement touches on something that's been bothering me about Wizarding World ethics for quite some time now.

How DARE they use Memory Charms?

Seriously, I can think of nothing more evil -- they ought to be Unforgivable.

I mean, my memories -- they're all I *have*.  They're the only thing that make me *me*, you know?  How could anyone try to take even a few of them from me?  It's like rape.  Worse.  

This also bothered me in the Dark Is Rising series...at the end when the minds of all the humans are wiped.  Only one is even given the *choice* to remember.  How could the forces of "Light" *do* something to someone -- especially against their will?

Especially in DIR, the choice to part with the memories of the battle between Light and Dark was looked upon as noble, responsible, and mature.  But how could that be?  Honestly, how could that ever be made right?

In my experience, it is never good to even *try* to forget.  Every bad thing I've ever tried to push into the back of my mind has always kept coming back until I *dealt* with it.  Even if it seems like I've succeeded in pretending something never happened -- years later it will surface again, just as terrible as before.

And again, what else do any of us have, except memories?  What else is there that defines you in your mind?  To take something like that from someone is, IMO, the most amoral thing possible.

I realize that JKR had to have a plausible explanation for why us Muggles never noticed the Wizards living in our midst...but still.

laura 


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