[HPforGrownups] Re: TBAY: MATCHINGARMCHAIR and the Ever So Frustrating Egg

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 39247

Charis Julia:

> Eloise quoted me saying:
> 
> > "Neville," Charis concludes happily closing the book with a 
> snap, "has Post—Traumatic Stress >Disorder! He's Spell—Shocked."
> >
> <snip>
> >
> > Sooooo, every loud noise makes his mind leap automatically to the 
> > Cruciatus. He can't help it. And especially after that nice little 
> > reminder of his parents torment courtesy of Monsieur Crouch which 
> > made all those old memories resurface with a vengeance.
> > 
> > 
> > Of course this theory only works if Neville is * not* under a 
> Memory 
> > 
> And then she countered:
> 
> >OTOH, I'm not so sure about this.
> <snip>
> >
> >But what chiefly intrigues me is at what level the memory is wiped. 
> In fact, 
> >*is* it wiped, or merely suppressed?
> >If memory charms merely *suppress* memory, then Neville might not be 
> affected 
> >on a day-to-day basis by the trauma he suffered as an infant, yet it 
> might be 
> >re-awakened in his subconscious by something such as the egg's 
> wailing.

Charis Julia:
> 
> Hmmm, well, no, sorry, I'm going to have to remain adamant here. The 
> idea the Neville is labouring under some kind of state of shock can 
> only work if we assume that he does in fact have a very clear memory 
> of the night his parents were Crucio—ed. If he doesn't, well, very 
> simply he doesn't have anything to be shocked * about*. I mean, what? 
> Did Neville just suddenly get a subconscious blast when he heard the 
> egg, leading to some kind of a Freudian slip so that he inadvertently 
> blurts out "It was someone being tortured!" and them recovers and 
> goes "Gee, did I just say that? Huh, fancy that! Where * do* I come 
> up with these crazy ideas? Oy, you there, hand me another one of them 
> custard creams will you?"
> 
> 
> Errr, though, actually this is exactly what he does do, isn't it? 
> Ooops. Huh.
> 
> 
Eloise:

 What I'm saying is that the egg's wails do exactly what you say. They act on 
one suffering from something like post-traumatic stress, as a trigger. Even 
if he has no *conscious* memory, the memories are there, if suppressed. 
Suppressed memories are much more dangerous than conscious one in that they, 
or the emotion which they evoke, will burst forth, unbidden. The egg does not 
really sound like someone being tortured (well, it doesn't to Harry or George 
or Seamus) but it is enough to provoke a flashback, perhaps.

Charis Julia:
> Ah, but the point still holds. If Neville does not have any memory of 
> the incident because of the Memory Charm set on him or whatever, then 
> his reaction would not be such an emotional one neither in Moody's 
> class nor at the Gryffindor common room. When seeing the spider one 
> would expect him to be * less* affected than Harry, who at least has 
> green light and screaming, and when hearing the wailing he might—if 
> his subconscious * did* kick in (and why should it if we are all in 
> agreement that the egg does * not* sound like people under Crucio) – 
> he might halt a sec, sausage held midair, he might tilt his head 
> slightly sideways and raise his eyebrows in mild curiosity, he might 
> think "Now * where* did that sinking feeling come on from?", but he 
> needn't go around blanching and dropping food. That just doesn't work 
> for me. It somehow would seem excessive.
> 
> Eloise:

Harry doesn't know about Crucio until then, Neville does. Harry's parents 
weren't Crucio'd, Neville's were. Memory or no, the sight of the curse that 
deprived him of his parents, that illustrated the suffering they went through 
*must* have had a huge impact on him. 

Or do you mean that Harry should have reacted more at Avada kedavra?
Well....Harry's had plenty of practice dealing with the *experience* of his 
parents' deaths through his exposure to the Dementors and his anti-Dementor 
training, so your theory of habituation works for *him*, here. And Harry's 
situation has some sense of completion about it. His parents are dead. He's 
always known that. In a way, the more he knows, the easier it is to let go. 
Neville's situation has no sense of completion. His parents are not at rest. 
He can't let go, because their shells still live on and he is constantly 
confronted by them. Poor Neville's situation, and that of his parents, is far 
worse, IMHO, than Harrys' or his parents'.

Charis Julia:
> 
> OTOH, if you've got your Neville with a strong Memory Potion seeping 
> through his veins, far from being excessive, his behaviour is 
> restrained. He is initially taken aback upon hearing from an external 
> source a noise he so strongly associates with his parents agony, but 
> quickly he realises his mistake and that he's gone and made a bit of 
> a bit of a prat of himself as Fred delicately puts it, not to mention 
> almost revealed his great, big, scary secret and so proceeds to plays 
> it cool by biting into a custard cream with feigned unconcern, all 
> his previous anxiety apparently dissolved. And when the custard cream 
> actually turns out to be a * canary* cream he laughs good—humouredly 
> along with the rest because he's actually * relieved* to have 
> attention centred somewhere other than that awful egg. After all 
> posing as a bird for a few moments for your friends amusement is * 
> nothing* compared to spilling your guts out in front of the whole 
> house.
> 
> 
> OK, so you can take or leave that last part. But do you see my point? 
> JKR as a rule hardly ever has her characters overacting. Quite to the 
> contrary: from Harry almost all the time to Remus and Sirius's brief 
> and to—the –point reconciliation, her heroes rarely indulge in 
> emotional outbursts even when fully entitled to them. And, what's 
> more, Neville in particular sure has done a great job up till now of 
> hiding his skeleton—in—the—family—closet. I'm thinking this boy ought 
> to be a past master at restraining his emotions. It must take 
> something really Big (and Bangy!) to make him let go. At least 
> something * much* bigger than "Ooo, hang on. . . deja vue flash. . ."

Eloise:
But I think restraint makes for explosion in the long term. Isn't this why 
Memory Charmers think that they have more Bang than Reverse memory Charmers? 
The huge Bang that will occur when Neville's memory is finally restored?

> 
> Eloise continued:
> 
> 
> >Another point I'd like to make is that even if Neville has no 
> *memory* of the 
> >events (and it would seem unlikely anyway, given his very young age 
> at the 
> >time, memory charm or no), or no conscious trauma caused by them, he 
> still 
> >*knows* what happened. He *knows* his parents were tortured; he has 
> to see 
> >the results every holiday. This is traumatic in itself. He doesn't 
> have to 
> >*remember* witnessing the Cruciatus performed on his parents to make 
> >connections.
> >
> 
> Yeah, but that's the * boring* explanation! It's the obvious thought 
> that pops into you're head when you find out about the Longbottoms 
> family history in the Pensieve scene. Surely there must be more to it 
> than that?! Otherwise what are we all doing here? ;--)

Eloise:

Oh dear, Eloise is being boring again! I must work on this one. ;-)
But that (what I said) was just pointing out the obvious. I'm actually 
totally agnostic on the point of Memory Charms/Potions, etc., but I can see 
that the end result of a Memory Charm being broken would be one gigantic Big 
Bang.
And much as I hold out against Banging in some situations, I concede that it 
really can be quite good fun. ;-)

> I wrote:
> 
> >
> >> Sooooo, every loud noise makes his mind leap automatically to the 
> >> Cruciatus. He can't help it. And especially after that nice little 
> >> reminder of his parents torment courtesy of Monsieur Crouch which 
> >> made all those old memories resurface with a vengeance.

Exactly. I agree. I just don't think that you need to constrain yourself to 
Neville having a continuous record of his parents' torture playing in his 
mind to make it work.

And if the function of a memory charm *were* to suppress, but not wipe a 
memory, it could explain, as I did before, the fact that Harry reacts worse 
to Dementors, who have access to his memories and Neville to the  egg which 
provokes an unsolicited emotional response to sound.

> 
> Charis Julia, who thinks she would like to confront a Boggart, a 
> Dementor and the Mirror just once `cos she really has no idea what 
> her greatest fear, memory or desire are. Ah, well.

Eloise, who doesn't know how she could possibly make her greatest fear seem 
ridiculous, would hate to be confronted again by any of her worst memories, 
but would quite like to know what she truly desires.


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