Memory Charms/WW social mores/Percy

[Bernadette M. Crumb]

No: HPFGUIDX 38426


----- Original Message -----
From: "grey_wolf_c" <greywolf1 at jazzfree.com>

SNIP interesting argument

> 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).

Here's a question then.  How do you know _what_ are the ethics
that guide you if you have lost the memories of learning them and
acting on them in the past?  What if your original guiding
principles are no longer in your mind because they've been stolen
from you along with the other knowledge and memories?

Memory IS identity.  Who I am now IS built upon what I have done
and experienced and the loss of the access to those experiences
would diminish me.

There are people alive in this world who have suffered damage to
the hypocampus and other areas of the brain that does not allow
them to access their memories and worse, to be unable to transfer
short term memory into long term memory.  There's a man in
England (or was, he may be dead by now) who suffered a brain
injury and has no past... he cannot remember marrying, he has to
be reintroduced to his wife every time he turns away from her
because he can't keep it in his mind that she's always been
there.  His life is reduced to the literal Now and in the
interview that I saw of him on the Discovery Channel several
years ago, he could not articulate a self-identity.  He could not
tell the interviewer who he was because who and what he was had
been obliviated by the trauma that caused the brain damage.
*shudder*

We don't know exactly how Memory Charms work--do they just break
the connections in the brain between the retrieval mechanism and
the stored memory?  Or do they actually remove the memory itself,
leaving nothing to be retrieved?  Or is the link between
retrieval and memory simply blocked?  It seems to me, based on
the idea that Voldemort broke Bertha's Memory Charm, the first is
possible, the second is not as Voldemort was able to retrieve the
information he was after, so the third option is the most likely.
The breaking down of the wall between access and memory was
enough to destroy Bertha's mind.  Is that what faces Neville, if
someone tries to get through to him?

Regardless of the mechanism of the Charm, the point remains that
a portion of a person's reality has been taken from them.

I do know first hand about loss of memory, having lost the first
day of my daughter's life because of a siezure that I suffered
about 24 hours after she was born.  I know intellectually,
because I was told by others, that I did things with her, but I
have no tactile or emotional memory--of holding her, of caring
for her, of feeling the "joy" of a new child-- from a point about
two hours after her birth until nearly twenty four hours later.
It's gone along with memory of any visitors (I still don't know
who brought me the pink carnations that didn't have a card
attached) and any medical procedures performed on me... and since
I have memories of experiencing those things with the births of
my other children, I know I'm missing it and it hurts.  Four
years have passed since then and Istill hate this gap in my
reality.

Maybe with Neville, because he was so young if the Obliviate
spell was used on him, his awareness of "something missing" isn't
conscious, unlike my experience.  But even an unconscious
awareness of a lack can affect a person's perception of who and
what they are.  If Neville could have access to his toddler
memories--as few as they may be--it might have affected the level
of his self-esteem and his self-perception, might have improved
them... He has no memory of loving parents... only of zombies in
St. Mungos...

In my case, the loss of memory was something no one could
control--it was a biological accident and is not reversible.  As
far as I can see from the Memory Charms used in the books, it's
NOT reversible either.  We have no real proof at this point that
it is possible to safely remove a Memory Charm or to defend
against one being inflicted on you.  We know they can be
broken--apparently along with the mind that had been charmed.
But until I see in the novels that the victim of a Memory Charm
may defend against them, that they are controllable (and can be
accurately focused to take out a specific memory thread and not
an indiscriminate wiping of an overall period of time), and that
they are safely reversible, I will continue to consider the
Obliviate spell a Curse rather than a Charm.

In regards to the moral issues, I'm afraid that in the case of
manipulating people's minds with this particular spell, good
intentions aren't good enough for me.  We don't know the
intentions of the person or people who cast a Memory Charm on
Neville (assuming that is what happened to him)--there's as much
argument that it was done with evil intentions (to protect
wrongdoers) as there is that it was done for good intentions
("It's a horrible thing for a child so young to have witnessed
this kind of trauma, lets take it away.") I just feel that there
is a moral wrongness to playing around with other people's minds.

And the "convenience" issue really bugs me.  Instead of wizards
being taught to be responsible and to be discreet with their
public magic use, the WW society has gotten used to this
convenient idea of "let's just wipe out their memories of the
magic" and the wizards and witches just continue going on being
stupid about what they do instead of actually taking the
consequences for their idiocies and mistakes with Muggles.  All
right, their excuse is self-preservation.  But if they didn't
have Memory Charms, they'd have had to figure out other ways of
dealing with accidental discovery, and perhaps those ways would
be better. But since they have Obliviate, no one is even trying
to find other, more ethical methods.  But the root of the problem
seems to me to ultimately be the WW society's difficulty with
self-control in being discreet. Other than the restriction on the
kids about using magic outside of school, we don't really see
much of the regular populace of the WW actively trying to be
discreet. (Witness the behavior of most of the attendees at the
QWC and the witches and wizards that Vernon notices the day Harry
comes to live with the Dursleys.)  Or the ones who try, just
aren't good enough at it to keep from making mistakes.  That
might have its roots in the lack of interest in the Muggle world
that most wizards have.

Another thought... WHY does the WW seem to have so much trouble
with self-control in the use of their magic around Muggles?  Is
it a rebound from the Voldemort years when necessity demanded
strict control of what people did in the MoMs attempts to deal
with the Deatheaters?  Or some odd, innate disability, much like
the idea that Wizards in general aren't capable using deductive
logic as well as Muggles are?  Or does it come down to them not
seeing Muggles as people, but as alien beings who don't deserve
the consideration they should get as human beings? "That Muggle
saw something he shouldn't because I was stupid?  Well, let's
just cast this Memory Charm and wipe out how he spent his
afternoon, just to be safe.... Do I care that an hour ago he said
goodbye to his dying Mum in a Nursing Home and now he has no
memory of their last farewell?  Who cares?"

When it comes  to issues of responsibility and self-control, I'm
not terribly impressed with the WW... Perhaps THAT is why Percy
appears to be such a misfit in his family and at school.  To
everyone else, he's so anal about rules and regulations and
behaviors... but if he were a Muggle, would this type of
personality be as odd as it appears to be in the WW?

Hmmm. I've gone on longer than I intended, but I think it's
obvious that I feel very strongly about this topic.  And I think
that anyone who has NOT experienced amnesia and lost memories can
have no idea of just how important they really are and just how
distressing it is to know that something is missing.  I am not
just what I am sitting here at this computer typing right this
moment.  I am the cumulative product of all that I have done and
experienced and thought.  If you take away my ability to access
any of that, you HAVE taken away my self identity.  And THAT is
the identity that matters--not how outsiders perceive me.

Just my two knuts,
Bernadette

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no
survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value
to survival."
-- C.S. Lewis (1898-1963).