Neville as Witness (was Re: TBAY: Memory Charm Neville

[naamagatus]

No: HPFGUIDX 38881

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "cindysphynx" <cindysphynx at c...> wrote:
> Naama wrote:
> 
> > Erm. Am I the only one with a dark enough mind to realize that if 
> the 
> > torturing DEs had Neville there, in the house with his parents, 
> they 
> > would have used torture on him as the best and quickest means to 
> get 
> > what they want from the parents? Can you imagine a parent not 
> > breaking down under threat or actual torture of her child? 
> > That's one of the reasons I just can't buy the Neville as 
> eyewitness 
> > theories. If he was there, he would have either gone through 
> terrible 
> > torture (in which case, why isn't he insane also?) or already be 
> > dead. 

Cindy:
> 
> There might be a few reasons why Neville didn't receive his own 
> extended round of the Cruciatus Curse:
> 
> 1.  According to Crouch Sr., the DEs tried something similar to 
what 
> you suggest.  They tortured Frank, and then "when he would not give 
> you information" they tortured his wife.  At this point, even if 
the 
> DEs considered moving on to torture Neville, the DEs may have 
either 
> figured Frank really didn't have information or he was insane.

What I am suggesting, is that if Neville was there, they would have 
tortured him first - to break down the parents (then why didn't they 
first torture the wife, you ask. Well.. maybe they didn't think very 
highly of marital love? <g>)

> 
> 2.  Even DEs aren't evil enough to torture a small child.

Nope, sorry. People who kill and torture other people for *fun* would 
have no scruples to torture a child in order to achieve an important 
goal.

> 
> 3.  Maybe DEs know that if you torture anyone long enough, they'll 
> Crack if they have the information.  There was no benefit to 
> continuing the torture with Neville.

Like I said, they would have begun with Neville. 

> 
> 4.  Perhaps the assault was interrupted before they had the chance 
> to move on to torturing Neville.

Ditto.

<snip>

> 
> Now as for me, I'm still waiting for an answer to why the DEs 
didn't 
> use the undisputed quickest and most efficient way to get the 
> information out of Frank -- The Imperius Curse. 


Or, for that matter, why did Voldemort bother torturing Bertha? 
Definitely an inconsistency in the story, I'd say. Imperius and the 
Veritaserum, in my opinion, are very problematic in that sense (as is 
the Time Turner). You can just solve so many things by just using 
these things. E.g., if you want to know what happened at some point 
in the past, why not use the Time Turner to get there? You could 
arrive covered with an invisibility cloak, in order to avoid changing 
the past. Why don't they use Veritaserum on every suspect DE? Etc.


Naama