[HPforGrownups] Re: Animagi and Kneazles

[Amanda Geist]

No: HPFGUIDX 45889

Melody had said:

<<In animal animagus form, the wizard has the advantages of the physical
animal form and the advantage of a human mind.  I am not sure of the
mechanics of how the human mind shrinks to fit the animal body, but it
obviously does.>>

and then Audra said:

If this is true, then Sirius's explanation of how he escaped Azkaban is
either a lie or an inconsistency in the story.  I'm trying to cover for him.
If only Sirius's outer appearance changed to a dog, but his mind remained
the same, that certainly wouldn't fool the blind Dementors.

Me, now:

I have been lost in the details of this discussion (alas for the days when I
was a stay at home mom and had more time!), but this is my take on it, which
kind of helps me to encompass the parameters JKR has set. It has its roots
in an old medieval analogy to help people grasp the mystery of the
Incarnation (something about how Mary could have the baby and still be
virgin; it's been a while and the details escape me). The image was light;
it can shine through colored glass, be transformed into colored light, but
the passage of the light does not change the glass. Something like that
(Caius? other men/women of letters? a little help here?).

Anyway, I see the animagus form as a sort of screen (or glass) through which
the emotions of the wizard are filtered. The intellect is intact, but the
emotions (which are all Sirius mentions) must come through the form, and
they take on the color of that form, like the light takes the color of the
glass it passes through. It is the same light, but changed. The same
emotions, but altered, at least enough to confuse dementors.

Comments? Thoughts? Shouts of derision?

~Amanda (who would like her form to be something graceful and lovely like a
falcon, but will admit it would probably be a harpy)