TBAY: Memory Charm Symposium (1 of 3) (Long)

Fri May 17 01:07:32 UTC 2002

No: HPFGUIDX 38812

Elkins was still unpacking from her vacation, wondering how on earth 
she could possibly have managed to get that much sand into such a
small rucksack, when she heard a strangely Cinister voice, crying 
out in the wilderness:

> I don't recall that anyone has really explained *who* would have
> put a Memory Charm on Neville.  Anyone?  Anyone?

Oh, that Cindy, Elkins thought.  What a kidder she is.  But then she
remembered once hearing something similar from Karen.  Something along
the lines of:

> The whole Neville back story possibilities are fascinating, as well 
> as the Weasley's cousin thing.  So the more the better on this, and 
> such things.

The more the better, eh?  

Elkins nodded grimly to herself.  

Well, she thought.  Well, well, well.  

*Right,* then.

><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> <>((">

Okay.  You guys want to hear some memory charm theories?  Well, 
aren't you in luck!  Because, by an amazing coincidence, I just 
happen to have a whole backlog of Still Life responses dealing with 
memory charm theories sitting right here in front of me.  They're a 
bit yellowed with age, true, but as adherents to the Reverse Memory 
Charm theory will happily tell you (from the comfort of their cushy 
MATCHING ARMCHAIRs), there's nothing quite like the persistance of 
memory when it comes to driving the point home that the passage of 
time can itself sometimes prove a *highly* subjective phenomenon.

So.  Let's get to it, shall we?  If anyone wants a little refresher 
course on the canonical evidence for this body of theories before we 
get started here, then they might want to try message #36421, in 
which Kelly the Yarn Junkie compiled a very nice list of canonical 
suggestions for Memory Charmed Neville, as well as message #36772, in 
which I added quite a few contributions of my own.  

Alternatively, any search through the archives should yield plenty of 
(very similar) defenses for this theory.  Memory Charm'd Neville has 
been around for quite a long time.  Why, he has nearly as much moss 
growing on him as _Goblet of Fire_ itself does!  Hell, these days 
even Memory Charm'd Neville's *moss* is starting to grow moss.

In fact, people have by now come up with so many variations on the 
mossy old Memory Charm Theory that a single lecture just doesn't cut 
it anymore, so I propose that we hold a symposium instead.  I've 
rented a lecture hall for us down here in the basement of the Canon 
Museum, and I've got one of those cool laser pointer thingies, and I 
even stopped by Inish Alley on my way over to pick up some boxes of 
discounted badges, so feel free to come on over.  (If you sneak into 
the Museum by way of the secret tunnels underneath the snack bar, by 
the way, then the security guys shouldn't be able to hassle you.)  So 
sit down, pull up a seat, make yourselves at--

Oh!  Oh, but *do* be mindful of that matching armchair!  

Yes.  Yes, I know.  It looks so darned *comfy,* doesn't it?  But take 
it from me: it's really a whole lot wobblier than it may at first 
appear.  Hardly has a leg to stand on, in fact.  You can sit there if 
you really want to, of course -- I mean, that's totally up to you -- 
but don't come around later saying that I didn't warn you, okay?

Okay.  Everybody settled in now?  Good.  This symposium looks likely 
to run pretty late into the evening, so every few theories or so 
we'll stop for a break to let the smokers step outside and feed their 
addictions.

And if things seem to be getting sillier and sillier as the evening 
wears on...well, given that a "symposium" was originally a type of 
Greek drinking party, that's probably only to be expected.

Or possibly, just possibly, the fact that we're going to be tackling 
these theories in rough order of Wild-and-wooliness (which, I hasten 
to point out, is absolutely *not* the same thing as canonical 
likelihood -- if you don't believe me, then just look at what JKR did 
with Scabbers!) might have something to do with that?

Naaaaah.  Couldn't be.

So.  First on our agenda, we've got a trilogy of relatively benevolent
theories, all three of which eschew the traditional notion of Neville
as under the influence of a formal memory charm spell.  These are the 
"No Suppressed Memory At All," the "Psychological Repression," and 
the "Spontaneous Magic" readings.  Once we're done with those, then 
we'll conclude with that moss-encrusted classic, the Good Old-
Fashioned Well-Intentioned Memory Charm.  This should warm us all up 
quite nicely for the far darker and crueller and stranger theories 
yet to come.

><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> <>((">

Our very first theory isn't really a Memory Charm theory at all,
truth be told.  In fact, it's sort of an *anti*-memory charm theory.  
I include it here nonetheless, though, because it does rely on the 
same basic premise as nearly all of the memory charm theories: 
namely, that as a very young child, Neville witnessed his parents' 
torture (or some other Very Bad Thing), and that this event is 
inextricably connected in some manner to his chronic canonical 
forgetfulness.

We might call this first one...

*********************************************************************

--The "No Suppressed Memory At All" Theory--

(Otherwise known as: "Badges?  We don't need no stinking badges!")

Memory Charm.  Whodunnit?

Well, no one.  No one done it, because it was never done.  There is 
no memory charm, nor any other type of memory suppression.  Neville's 
memory is just fine, really.  If it seems at times to be faulty, then 
that is merely because the poor lad is so preoccupied with dealing 
with the trauma of his past that it distracts him from concentrating 
on other matters, like his day-to-day affairs and his schoolwork.

---------------------

Tabouli made a brave case for this one.  She wrote:

> My impression was always that JKR *gave* us the reason for Neville's
> bad memory in GoF: his memory's fine, it's just that most of his 
> disk space is dominated by traumatic memories of and associations 
> with his parents and what happened to them, interfering with his 
> ability to focus effectively on things like schoolwork.

Tabouli also suggested (eyeing a suspiciously rubicund fish through 
the porthole of her submarine as she did so) that all of the textual 
implications that Neville may be under some form of artificial memory 
repression likely amount to nothing more than one of JKR's infamous 
acts of authorial misdirection.

Okay.  My take on this.  Personally, I am perfectly willing to 
concede that there may be misdirection going on here.  As I've said 
before, I'm not totally sold on the whole Memory Charm thing myself.  
I think, though, that if there is a red herring swimming around in 
this aquarium, then it is far more likely to be darting around 
somewhere in the vicinity of the notion that Neville witnessed his 
parents' torture at *all.*  I am far more willing to abandon MC'd 
Neville altogether than to buy into the notion that Neville both 
witnessed something so unspeakably horrible as a child *and* that he 
can remember it clearly.  This is because, to my mind, there is far 
too much evidence in the text to suggest that Neville is *not,* in 
fact, ordinarily very much troubled by traumatic remembrance.

Some of this "evidence" is admittedly highly subjective.  For me, much
of it boils down to the fact that I just don't find Neville's 
everyday demeanor at all believable as that of a child haunted by 
some terrible and traumatic memory.  Neville is timid and 
pessimistic, true, and he is even at times gloomy.  But his behavior 
still doesn't strike me as at all what I would expect from someone 
who had been traumatized in as direct and straightforward a fashion 
as Tabouli has suggested.

Of course, this comes down to interpretation of characterization, 
which is always a highly personal matter.  Far less vague and 
subjective, though, is the evidence of the Egg from the Second Task.

As Rohit the ColumbiaTexan has pointed out, when Neville first hears 
the screechy mermaid singing emerging from Harry's egg, he reacts as 
follows:

> "It was someone being tortured," said Neville, who had gone 
> very white and spilled sausage rolls all over the floor. 
> "You're going to have to fight the Cruciatus Curse!"

Now, this response strikes me as quite clearly phobic, rather than
truly informed.  For one thing, Seamus says that it sounds to *him* 
like a banshee, which we already know from the boggart scene in PoA 
is his own particular phobia.  For another, from the way that the 
noise is described ("a loud and screechy wailing. . . . The nearest
thing to it Harry had ever heard was the ghost orchestra at Nearly
Headless Nick's deathday party, who had all been playing the musical
saw"), I don't believe for a second that it really sounds in the 
least bit like a human being in agony.  Everyone in the Gryffindor 
common room when Harry opens the egg responds to the noise in a 
negative fashion, but _no one_ other than Neville himself seems to 
think that it sounds anything like a person in pain.  If Neville 
could really remember having witnessed his parents being tortured, 
then would he really have identified that noise as sounding anything 
like it?  I don't believe that he would.

And then there's also the evidence to which both Debbie and Finwitch 
alluded: Neville's behavior when confronted by the Dementor on the 
train at the beginning of PoA.

Debbie wrote:

> Some have suggested that the Memory Charm suggestions are false 
> clues, and his problems are more psychological in origin. The idea 
> is appealing. However, if that were the case I would have expected 
> that the Dementor on the Hogwarts Express would have affected 
> Neville almost as badly as it did Harry. 

If not even more so!  Yes, I agree.  Harry, forced to recall the 
sound of his mother pleading for his life, actually *faints.*  
Neville, on the other hand, is merely left pale and shaken.  He does 
not even react as strongly as Ginny, who we are told was "looking 
nearly as bad as Harry felt."

Debbie:

> JKR seems to make a big point of having Neville and Ginny stumble 
> into the darkened compartment just before the Dementor arrives, 
> and the only purpose I can imagine is to show us their reactions. 

Yeah, Neville and Ginny's injection into that scene has always come
across that way to me as well: as a quite deliberate (and even 
somewhat clumsy) authorial ploy.  Either we are meant to understand 
from it that for some reason Harry is actually *more* delicate than 
either Neville or Ginny when it comes to nasty old memories, or we 
are meant to deduce that while both Neville and Ginny are indeed more 
vulnerable to the Dementors than either Ron or Hermione, neither of 
them has a memory of anything nearly as dreadful as having witnessed 
ones own mother's murder.

The former idea is certainly intriguing, in a totally subversive sort 
of way, but I also find it utterly unconvincing, so I think that I'm 
forced to the latter conclusion.  Neville and Ginny are there to 
indicate to the reader that they do not have memories nearly as dire 
as Harry's.

Or that they are simply incapable of *accessing* them.

In Ginny's case, we already know both that she has had some pretty 
nasty experiences and that she suffers from some form of memory 
suppression.  She has certainly witnessed horrors -- she's even 
perpetrated a couple of them -- but in CoS, it is established that 
she cannot remember having done so.  She only comes to suspect that 
she might have been responsible for killing Hagrid's roosters due to 
the circumstantial evidence, and Riddle makes mention of her concern 
about her own amnesia.  From her reaction to the Dementor on the 
train, however, it would seem that Ginny certainly does remember 
*something,* even if only the power of the Dementors suffices to 
dredge it up.  

So the question then becomes: is Neville in the same situation as
Ginny, or is he in the position of someone who has never truly
witnessed anything very terrible at all?

If the former, then I think that we need to accept that Neville must
suffer from some type of memory suppression similar to, but even 
stronger than, that which we already know has affected Ginny.  

Would a memory charm qualify?

Quite recently, Raven wrote:

> I also can't help wondering whether exposure to a dementor wouldn't 
> bring out the memory of such trauma even if a person was under the 
> influence of a regular memory charm. I don't know whether there's 
> anything in canon to support that idea, but I think it's an 
> interesting question.

It's a *very* interesting question, I agree, and particularly in the
context of this discussion.  Do Dementors trump memory charms?

Canon supplies no answer to that question.    

Canon does, however, suggest that breaking a memory charm involves 
some pretty serious mistreatment.  Bertha Jorkins is described 
as "damaged beyond repair" by the time that Voldemort and Wormtail 
get done with her.  The Dementors are certainly bad news, but 
exposure to them doesn't wreak quite that degree of damage -- or not, 
at any rate, nearly that *quickly.*  So I'd say that it's certainly 
possible that a memory charm might be able to stand up against the 
power of the Dementors.  And Neville is, after all, only exposed to 
the Dementor on the train for a very short period of time.

If we choose to reject the notion that memory charms can resist 
Dementor-Dredge, on the other hand, then Neville's comparatively mild 
reaction to the Dementor on the train leads us inexorably to the 
conclusion that he simply doesn't have anything very terrible lurking 
in his memory at all -- in short, that *no* variant of Memory Charm'd 
Neville can be reconciled with canon.

Okay.  Time to come clean here.  You know, as much as it pains my 
featherboas to admit this, it really does seem quite likely to me 
that Neville was never anywhere near his parents when they were 
attacked, and that whatever trauma he has suffered derives solely 
from having grown up with the knowledge of what was done to them, 
both the anecdotal knowledge of the story itself, and the first-hand 
knowledge of seeing for himself the living evidence of just how 
damaging such abuse can be.  

It's kind of boring.  It doesn't offer nearly as much in the way of 
thematic complexity.  It definitely lacks Bang.  But there's just no 
getting around the fact that it certainly is *plausible.*

And I have this funny feeling that Faith herself probably favors this 
reading.  

Its big drawback, though, is that it fails to account for all of the
foreshadowing and emphasis that both memory charms and memory 
suppression have been given over the course of the past four 
volumes.  

As Cindy said:

> I mean, we have a fantasy tale about a boy wizard, yet this memory 
> charm business is coming up. Over and over and over we hear talk 
> about memory charms, but we never see one become really pivotal in 
> a big plot twist. . . . Memory charms are getting more 
> foreshadowing throughout the series than polyjuice potion, animagi 
> and the Grim ever did. 

Yeah, they're just all *over* the place, aren't they?  So if Neville 
doesn't really have one, then I still think that *somebody* had 
better sooner or later, because the focus on memory magics has been 
given far too much build-up, IMO, to be nothing but a red herring.

Many of these same objections also apply to our next variant on 
Memory Charm'd Neville: the "Psychological Repression" theory.

*********************************************************************

--The Psychological Repression Theory--

(Otherwise known as: "Magic?  We don't need no stinking magic!")

Neville did it to himself.  But it wasn't a Memory Charm, nor
any other sort of magic.  Nope, it was just good old-fashioned
psychological repression, that's all, an unconscious block that has 
since expanded to affect his memory in the wider sense.

------------------------------

This one is a very close relative of the "No Suppressed Memory 
At All" Theory, and in fact, I'm not altogether certain whether
it might not sum up Tabouli's real position much better than the 
position that I just ascribed to her did.  

Chynarose wrote, in support of this reading:

> You see, I think that Neville did the memory thing to himself; 
> only he didn't use any magic to do it. The way I figure it, if 
> he ever finds a way to really *deal* with his parents' fate and 
> having (possibly) witnessed it, then his memory would visibly 
> improve. . . . Simply put, there is an unconcious block stopping 
> (possibly damaging) long term memories from being recalled lest 
> the Trauma be unleashed. Everything that may unleash the Trauma 
> is locked away from his conscious mind to prevent this; kind of 
> a mini Fudge if you will.

The comparison of Neville to Fudge is an interesting one.  Both
Pippin and Finwitch, proponents of the closely related "Spontaneous 
Magic Theory," also drew parallels between Neville and Fudge.  The 
connection certainly is strongly encouraged by name association, 
isn't it?  

Neville --> Neville Chamberlain --> Archetypical Twentieth-Century
Head-in-the-sand Political Appeaser --> Cornelius Fudge.

And of course, the parallel makes a great deal of sense on the 
thematic level as well.  This is a cluster of theories that all
rest on the notion of *willful* forgetfulness, on the deliberate
(if not necessarily fully conscious) refusal to face up to an 
unpleasant truth.

This is certainly thematically compelling, and it also appeals on 
the grounds of emotional realism.  It does strike me, though, that 
it might not mesh very well with the pattern that JKR has maintained 
throughout the books of consistently externalizing and literalizing 
emotional repression in the form of magical creatures or devices.

The Tough and Steely Talon DG (with whom I deeply regret having missed
my opportunity to wrangle over Shrieking Shack, as I suspect that he 
would have proved a far worthier opponent than I really deserve) 
wrote:

> JKR does not strike me as the type who would fall back to 
> a "muggle" reason for it, like a psychological one. . . . If 
> Neville's forgetfulness is a plot device, not a character detail, 
> then it is almost certainly magical in nature.

Yes, I agree.  While I certainly believe that on the thematic and 
symbolic level, Neville's poor memory is best viewed as in some sense 
his own doing, I don't know if I think that the psychological 
approach would fit in very well with the style of the rest of the 
series.  In the HP books, it seems to me, JKR almost always chooses 
to represent emotional repression by externalizing it.  Much like the 
denizens of Theory Bay, she prefers to literalize her metaphors. :)

When JKR wants to show us the seductive peril that dwelling on a 
fantasy version of ones lost family can represent to an orphan like 
Harry, for example, she doesn't merely show him engaging in that 
activity; instead, she externalizes its temptation as the Mirror of 
Erised.  The depressive dangers of dwelling on the past are 
personified by the Dementors.  The mystical power of sacrificial 
parental devotion confers not a symbolic but an *actual* physical 
protection upon Harry, rendering him for a time quite literally 
untouchable by evil.  There really is a monster lying in wait down 
there in the Chamber of Secrets: it is not merely a myth which serves 
to symbolize the ugly strain of racism underlying wizarding culture; 
it is instead all too physically real.  Both the Pensieve and 
Riddle's Diary are real magical items, not mere metaphors.  And so on.

So while I certainly agree that it is very fruitful to view 
Neville's memory problems as a representation of psychological 
repression, I feel that if indeed it does turn out to be the 
case that his memory problems are tied to a specific traumatic 
event in his past, then JKR will almost certainly provide us
with an external -- and very likely magical -- explanation for it.

*********************************************************************

--The Spontaneous Magic Theory--

(Otherwise known as: The "Tommy" Theory)

Neville did it to himself, with powerful spontaneous magic of the 
sort that wizarding children in the Potterverse often display before 
they begin their formal training.  While Neville did indeed succeed 
in suppressing his traumatic memory, he also caused a great deal of 
damage to his overall capacity for concentration and memory retention.

------------------------------

Finwitch has made a very strong case for this reading.  She wrote:

> The little 2-year-old Neville may well have Memory-Charmed himself 
> with that strong magic of his, without even knowing it - to stun 
> the painful memory. He's not ready, not able to deal with the 
> memory of his parents' being tortured.

She then went on to cite both the boy with the slug at the QWC and 
Harry's own experiences as evidence that even very young children are 
capable of achieving quite powerful and specific effects, even 
without the benefit of either a wand or a known incantation:

> Little Kevin (about Neville's age) - did a charm that enlarged the 
> slug - not incantation, only Daddy's wand. . . . .The Magic Harry 
> did without knowing - well, it is all pretty specific: Jump onto 
> school roof, turn teacher's hair blue...

Pippin agreed, and pointed out that this approach offers rich 
thematic possibilities as well:

> Thematically, it fits with the "numbing the pain will make it worse 
> when you finally feel it" philosophy which Dumbledore espouses 
> in GoF, and with Fudge refusing to face up to Voldemort's return. 
> Plotwise, Harry is being made to face all these traumatic 
> situations, so JKR needs to show us what would happen if he had 
> been sheltered instead. 

Porphyria also adopted this approach in her "Memory Charm Most Foul"
speculation.

<Elkins considers for a few moments and then nods, satisfied>

Yes. I really like this one.  I find it very appealing indeed, as it 
manages to retain all of the thematic relevance of the Psychological 
Repression Theory, while still conforming to JKR's preference for 
literalizing her metaphors.  

It also ties in quite nicely with my belief that Neville's actual 
magical power is, if anything, too *strong,* and that his 
difficulties lie in his inability to control it.  Certainly if 
Neville's memory problems derive from an act of spontaneous magic 
that he himself performed at the age of two or so, then that *would* 
explain why it seems like such a botched effort.  Not only was he far 
too young to have the slightest idea how to do such a thing properly, 
but he is also *Neville.*  Botching a memory spell on himself is, I'm 
afraid, an utterly characteristic thing for Neville to do.

Finwitch wrote:

> Neville, with his uncontrolled magic -- well, he *does* tend to 
> harm himself when in stress by magic. So Neville, or his 
> uncontrolled magic, did the memory charm. And Neville's innate 
> magic is very strong - it's just that he keeps hurting himself with 
> it.

Indeed.  Really, it's just the sort of thing that *would* happen to 
Neville, isn't it?  I love the boy dearly, but there's just no 
getting around the fact that he's a terrible bungler.  He's unlucky.  
And he's accident-prone.  

The Spontaneous Magic Theory is also appealing because it so neatly
side-steps many of the questions that other memory charm theories
must struggle to contend with.  As Pippin wrote:

> It gets rid of all those messy questions, like a) why would the 
> good guys do something so damaging and b) wouldn't the bad guys 
> just knock off Neville instead, since they, unlike Lockhart, 
> have enough power to do an AK?

That it does.

Really, the only drawback that I can see to the Spontaneous Magic
Theory is the one that Amanda touched on here:

> I'm iffy about this, because Neville's behavior is too typical of 
> people who actually have the real Memory Charm cast on them.

Mmmmm.  Well, yes.  If Neville's memory problems derive from an act 
of spontaneous magic, rather than from a formalized memory charm, 
then that *does* rather weaken all of those nifty canonical arguments 
in support of the existence of Neville's memory charm in the first 
place, doesn't it?  Similarities between Neville's behavior after 
DADA class and Mr. Roberts' behavior at the QWC, for example, seem 
far less compelling as evidence for the memory charm speculation as a 
whole if we propose that what afflicts Neville isn't really a formal 
memory charm at all.

I'm not too concerned, though.  As Finwitch pointed out, Kevin's
enlargement of the slug at the QWC is cast without any incantation
at all, and yet it seems virtually identical in effect to the 
Engorgement charm that Crouch Jr. cast on the spiders in DADA class.
If the effects of spontaneous magic can so closely mimic the effects
of formal spells, then I have no difficulty believing that the 
negative side-effects of botched versions of both types of magic 
would also share strong similarities. 

So this one gets a thumbs-up from me.  It also finishes off the list
of the variants on MC'd Neville that reject the premise that he is
operating under the influence of a formalized spell.  From here, 
we move on to the classic...

*********************************************************************

--The Well-Intended Memory Charm Theory--

(Otherwise known as: Classic Memory Charm; Humanitarian Memory Charm;
The "For Your Own Good" Theory; The Soft, Sappy, Well-Meant, Anti-
Traumatic Memory Charm.)

A well-meaning Ministry Official, St. Mungo's medic, or family member
placed Neville under a memory charm to spare him the emotional trauma 
of having witnessed his parents' torture.  Alas, either because the 
memory in question was so very traumatic or because the caster of the 
charm blundered big-time, the spell caused permanent damage to 
Neville's memory.

------------------------------

This is the oldest, the most popular, and the most wide-spread of all 
memory charm speculations, although it's come under a lot of attack 
lately, particularly by those who think it just a wee bit "ewww." 

People like Eileen, for example, who called it:  

> The soft, sappy, well meant, anti-traumatic Memory Charm

I was really quite surprised that so few people leapt to the
classic memory charm's defense over the course of the Still Life
thread, as I had always believed it to be by far the most popular
of these theories.  Perhaps it has now gone out of vogue?  Become
unfashionable?  Who can say?  Even those people who did make a case 
for this one on the thread chose to focus their efforts chiefly on 
the question of "Whodunnit?" and many of them added some novel twist, 
as well.

Dogberry, for example, did indeed point the finger at the Usual 
Suspect, dear old Gran.  He also, however, suggested a new twist 
on the usual motive of "for his own good:"

> Just a bit of a twist from me here, what if Gran put the memory 
> charm on Neville as soon as she got to his parents house and said 
> to the ministry that he wasn't there to spare him being questioned. 
> Judging by her belief in family pride, she may have done that so he 
> would not grow up like Harry, famous and potentially bigheaded with 
> the all the fame.

Hmmm.  Well, judging from Neville's feeling that Gran would have 
wanted him to try to compete in the Triwizard Tournament, I have kind 
of an idea that fame (and even a certain degree of bigheadedness) is 
*precisely* the kind of thing that "upholding the family honor" 
entails.

I do rather like the idea that the motive might have been to protect
Neville from the trauma of questioning, rather than from the trauma
of witnessing his parent's torture, though.  For one thing, it implies
some truly dreadful things about the Ministry's reputation, which in
turn would fit in quite well with Sirius' claims about Crouch's 
regime.  If even the family of a victimized Auror didn't want their 
son questioned by the Ministry -- and was even willing to risk 
sacrificing the possibility of apprehending the culprits in order to 
protect him from this fate -- then what does that say about the 
degree of trust accorded to the legal authorities at that particular 
moment in time?  If Those In The Know felt that way, then it's hardly 
surprising that the general wizarding populace turned on Crouch 
not too long afterwards, no?

Jake Storm also sent the Classic Memory Charm spinning off in an 
unusual direction by retaining its usual humanitarian motive, but 
selecting instead an unusual culprit: Snape.  Snape, of course, is a 
very popular suspect within the context of many *other* memory charm 
variants -- as Jake pointed out, making Snape the one responsible for 
Neville's poor academic performance in the first place offers an 
almost irresistably appealing psychological explanation for his 
treatment of Neville in his Potions Class -- but usually when Snape 
gets fingered, it is in the context of a "Double-Agent Protection 
Program" or a "Marooned At the Court Hearing" scenario, or even as 
part of a "Severus Snape Is Ever So Evil" speculation.  Our dear 
Severus is very rarely ascribed the purely generous motive that Jake 
bestowed on him here:

> I don't know if I'm the first to suggest this or not, but my gut 
> instinct on this one is that Snape may have been the one to Memory 
> Charm li'l Neville, but he did it for humanitarian reasons rather 
> than to cover his own tracks. 

Awww.  That Snape!  He's just a regular old softie deep down inside, 
isn't he?   

I am...well, I'm touched, Jake.  Truly and deeply touched.  I would 
never dare to give someone named "Jake Storm" his very own sprig of 
Bleeding Heart, but might I offer instead a Cute Kitten?  

Take good care of her, Jake, okay?  And, uh, look.  Don't take her
out water-skiing with you or anything like that, all right?  Because 
this kitten really doesn't float very well, I'm afraid.  Sinks like
a stone, she does.

Oh, hey, you know what?  If Snape really did want to protect dear 
little Neville from trauma, couldn't that have been because he was 
secretly in love with Neville's Mum?  I mean, if you think about it...

<shakes head firmly>

No.  No, all right.  Memory Charm Specs.  We're talking about *Memory 
Charm Specs* here.  C'mon, Elkins.  Focus.  Concentrate.  Stay. On. 
Target.

Yes, well.  Where were we again?  Ah, yes.  The Good Old-Fashioned 
Well-Meant Anti-Traumatic Memory Charm.  The one that might be the 
thing interfering with Neville's powers of, um, concentration and, 
er, focus, and his ability to...well, to remember what he's supposed 
to be doing and to stay on target.

Right.  That one.

Tabouli, a vocal opponent of the Classic Memory Charm Theory, argued 
against it on the grounds that she does not view memory charms as 
working in a way that it would make it at all sensible for Neville to 
have been given one.  Memory charms as we have seen them in canon, 
she says, are used for discrete events, and their purpose is to 
convince the recipient that the event in question never happened at 
all.  For Neville, who knows full well that the event in question 
happened, and for whom reminders of the event are a constant part of 
his upbringing, a memory charm would simply not be applicable.

Tabouli:

> What I'm saying is that this particular event is not isolated and 
> short term in its effects but inextricably connected with the rest 
> of Neville's life, and therefore not very suited to a Memory Charm 
> for altruistic, psychological purposes.

I don't know if I agree.  The event itself is obviously inextricably 
connected with the rest of Neville's life, but that doesn't mean that 
the specific trauma of having served as eye-witness to it could not 
have been excised.  As Tabouli herself wrote:

> Therefore the only purpose of the Memory Charm is to *reduce* the 
> trauma suffered. Take away the first-hand eyewitness trauma, but 
> leave the second-hand aftermath trauma untouched.

Precisely.  As I understand the basic premise of the well-meant 
memory charm theory, this was just the intent: not to hide the 
knowledge of what had occurred from Neville altogether, but instead 
to reduce the degree of acute trauma that his having actually 
witnessed the event might have caused.

Tabouli also wondered why on earth Neville's family would take him to 
visit his parents all the time, if they wanted him to forget the 
event.

Tabouli:

> If the Big Coverup was to protect Neville from traumatic knowledge 
> of the incident, why not whisk him away after the Charm, protect 
> him from the aftermath, and tell him his parents are dead instead 
> of telling him all about the Crucio incident and traumatising him 
> by *taking him to see them* every holidays? 

Well, there's a very big difference between traumatic *knowledge* and 
traumatic *experience,* don't you think?  Knowing that your parents 
were tortured into a state of madness and being taken to visit them 
from time to time may be a bit traumatic, especially for a very young 
child, but it's hardly in the same category as actually having seen 
it happen to them.  

It also serves a useful function, in a way that having a specific 
memory of the event does not.  Visiting and caring for ones 
incapacitated relatives may not be much fun, but it's hardly 
*gratuitous.*  Not only may Neville's visits be of some comfort to 
his parents (even if they don't really remember who he is), but they 
are also a matter of filial duty, which serves an important social 
function.  Most people would like to believe that even if they were 
rendered catatonic by some dire catastrophe, their friends and loved 
ones would continue to care for them and to visit them from time to 
time.  And naturally, from Neville's perspective, it is infinitely 
better to know what really happened to your parents than *not* to 
know -- or even worse, to know that they are utterly mad, but to have 
no idea how they got that way.

So I don't really find it at all difficult to believe that a 
reasonably rational and well-intentioned adult might have thought it 
a good idea to remove Neville's memory of the actual event, even 
knowing that he was still going to go through life being aware of 
what had occurred.  

>From here on out, though, I'm going to have to resign my defense of 
this theory and leave it to somebody else, as far too many people -- 
DG, Eileen, Porphyria, Debbie -- chose to frame their objections by 
snatching that "The Wizarding World Has A Warrior Culture" drum that 
I'm always beating on right out of my hands and then thrashing me 
savagely about the head and shoulders with it.

Talon DG:

> Except that this doesn't jibe with the Wizarding World's attitude 
> to life in general. They're very elemental, these wizards. No 
> touchy-feely therepy for them! Either suck it up and deal with it, 
> or get on with the business of going mad....That's not to say 
> Neville wouldn't have been comforted, that people wouldn't have 
> tried to take care of him, that he wouldn't have recieved sympathy 
> and empathy. Wizards may be harsh, but they're not _cruel_. But 
> hiding the trauma from Neville for his own psychic health doesn't 
> seem in character.

Erm.  No.  No, I guess it really *doesn't* seem very much in 
character for the wizarding world, does it?  Although...

Porphyria:

> I think these Warrior Ethos types wouldn't bother to spare him. 
> After all, he's supposed to grow up to avenge the wrongs against 
> his parents -- isn't he?

Well, yes.  Yes, he *is.*  But...

Debbie:

> But I don't believe for a minute that a well-meaning family member 
> put a Memory Charm on Neville to protect him from the psychological 
> effects of the torture he witnessed. That, IMO, is inconsistent 
> with the general violence and toughness of the Potterverse. (Does 
> anyone have one of those Viking helmets to spare?)

I...um.  Um.  I, uh, think that you need to talk to Eileen about 
getting one of those Viking helmets.  See, I don't know from 
Vikings.  I only know from Romans.  But listen, guys, about that 
classic memory charm notion?  I really do think that...

Eileen (delivering the coup de grace): 

> But, this wouldn't happen in a warrior culture, would it? Let's 
> reimagine the story in Livian Rome. . . .Nevillus's pater was a 
> great Roman general, who bravely defended the Eternal City against 
> the Volscians and company. However, one day he is ambushed by some 
> distinctly treacherous Volscians who kill him. Therefore, Nevillus 
> is brought up by his grandmater, a Roman matron in every sense of 
> the word. Does grandmater put a memory charm on little Nevillus to 
> make him forget?  Not if she, or those around her, are true Romans. 
> Instead, they are more likely to emphasize that it is up to 
> Nevillus to wipe out this blot on the honour of the Lombotommi, to 
> emphasize the past for his benefit.

All right!  All right!  Uncle!  Mercy!  I yield!  I am powerless in
the face of Livian parallels, and the entire notion of the family 
"Lombottomi" weakens the last of my sinews.  The Classic Memory Charm 
is a total dog, all right?  Okay?  Forget the fact that it's got the 
weight of tradition and history on its side!  Forget the fact that 
it's practically older than God Himself!  It's a complete loser!  
Anything you like!  Just.  Please.  Stop.

<Elkins crawls away from the fray, shaking her head in stunned 
disbelief>

I don't believe it.  I do not believe it.  Hoist.  Hoist by my own 
pet reading.  Impaled, as it were, on my very own sword.

O, the irony.

><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> <>((">

Well, would you just look at the time!  Let's take a break now, 
okay?  I could really use a cigarette.  A couple of cigarettes.  Lots 
of cigarettes.  And a stiff drink.  Not to mention some bandages.  

Be back in around forty minutes or so, and we'll move on into the 
realms of the somewhat greyer-motived variations on MC'd Neville: The 
Wizarding Witness Protection Program, The "Wizards In Black" Theory, 
the "Hidden Source" Theory, and the Ever So Alluring (if also Ever So
Wobbly) Reverse Memory Charm.

-- Elkins

For an explanation of the acronyms and theories in this post, visit
Hypothetic Alley at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin%
20Files/hypotheticalley.htm 
and Inish Alley at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/database?
method=reportRows&tbl=13