Memory Charms

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 38423

Laura Huntley wrote:
> 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.

OK, before I get into the more technical matter of the morality of 
forgetting and making forget, just a little canon here (just so the 
rest of the post makes sense in HP4GU). *Technically* the memory 
charm cannot be one of the unforgivable, because in that groups the 
only spells included are those that are unblockable. Maybe they're 
counterable (like the Imperious), or maybe you can dodge them (like 
AK), but there is no magic shield that can stop them. Any other curse 
can be blocked with some spell or another, like the ones H/R/H 
practiced before the last challenge in GoF. Those three happen to be 
pretty inmoral spells, but it's the fact that a wizard can do nothing 
to protect himself from them is what makes them unforgivable. There 
must be some other ways of killing/damaging another being with spells 
(unless Harry was thinking of kill Sirius in the shack by biting him 
in the jugular, or sticking his [Harry's] wand in his [Sirius'] eye) 
and they're not considered 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?

I do agree that taking someone's memories -completely- without his 
consentment is equivalent to a rape, although, as I'll explain 
latter, it could be necessary and even for his own good in some 
cases. Unfortunately, I haven't read (or watched, or whatever I'd 
have to do) DIR, so I'm not sure what the circumstances for the 
memory wipe were. However, I have seen, several times, "Total 
Recall". It would be nothing appart from another Schwarzenegger film 
except for a very particular situation. The star's memory is totally 
wiped out, but he realises that and seeks a psiquic to "cure" him. We 
discover, however, that his previous self was pretty horrible. The 
psiquic (who looks remarkably like a politician from my country and 
like Joda of Starwars) tells him:
Psiquic: "Why do you want to remember?"
Schwarzy: "To know who I am"
P: "Our beings are defined by what we do, not by what we remember"

The film is not particulary good, but that phrase is very good: your 
memories do not define who you are, since they are only reflections 
of the past. What you are and WHO you are is defined by your actions 
in the present, not by your memories of the past.

> 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 

Sometimes it's necessary to forget, and we do it unconsciously (since 
it's theorically impossible to forget conciously: think about it, as 
long as you think about something, even if it's to forget it, you'll 
continue to remeber it). For example, after traumatic events (like a 
car accident, for example), or mind forgets the feelings of extreme 
pain and the circumstances they happened in. A mind, if not, would be 
driven mad by the pain (I know that, in certain circumstances, the 
mind doesn't forget, just buries in the subsconcious, and that in 
those cases problems are normally generated, but I'll just skip that 
part - the post is long enough as it is).

In other cases, like a muggle seing wizard acts, or a human seing 
aliens around us (MIB), for example, it's better for protection of 
everyone to wipe that person's memories *of the specific situation.* 
Imagine what the poor owner of the camping would go through if he 
suddenly realized that magic exists. If he told anyone, he would be 
vituperated and ridiculizised in the best of cases, and thought mad 
and locked up or even taken by the goverment "for investigation" (in 
the typical US-conspiracy-theory fashion) in the worst.

In conclussion, I do believe that taking memories from someone is 
bad, but it may be necessary, as long as the memories blanked are 
limited and tightly controled in it's extense. Memories, I think, do 
not define us further more than giving us knowledge (I'd have big 
problems if someone wiped out my memories of the English language, 
for example, but that wouldn't make me less "me" than I am now). The 
important part of oneself is the ethics that guide us (whether or not 
they are morally acceptible ethics is besides the case).

Hope that was at least partially clear, and that it helps

Grey Wolf, who though this was going to be a one-liner, promise