Some Discrepancies

[Diana]

No: HPFGUIDX 86400


Susan Miller wrote:
> > 
> > If those in the mirror are magical, then the mirror seems to be 
> > claiming that Lily's family is magical. But there is plenty of 
> > canonical evidence ("Muggle-born Lily") to the contrary. If the 
> > mirror is simply showing Lily's family, then where is Petunia? I 
> > think it is showing Harry's idealized idea of what his family 
> would 
> > look like. Lily's and James' relatives, minus Petunia who he 
> hates, 
> > show up smiling at him. I just don't see how we can apply this 
as 
> > hard proof to conclude that these people ever existed. The 
mirror 
> > lies.


Serena wrote:
> All the mirror shows is Harry's greatest desire--to have a real 
> family.   The Evanses would be part of the family, so it's very 
> likely they would show up with the Potters.  However, it might be 
a 
> bit more likely that Harry has seen pictures of the the other 
Evans 
> side having grown up with Petunia--surely she has photos of people 
> besides "Duddikins" around--say like her parents.   So it's 
possible 
> that the Evans are depicted acurately.

Diana replies:
I always got the impression that the mirror showed only the loving 
extended family Harry desparately wished he still had.  He already 
had Petunia 24/7 up until he left for Hogwarts, so his heart's 
desire wouldn't be for family he already has, would it?  
Dumbledore has said:

Sorcerer's Stone, Chapt. 1: "I've come to bring harry to his aunt 
and uncle.  They're the only family he has left now."

OoP: Chapt. 37: "I put my trust, therefore, in your mother's blood.  
I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative."

By these statements, we know that Harry has no other living blood 
relatives on his mother's side.  Unless Dumbledore was lying to 
Harry and concealing distant blood relatives on his mother's side 
(which I highly doubt, given Harry's emotional state in AD's office 
at the end of OoP), all of the Evans, except for Petunia, Harry and 
Dudley, are deceased.  
Petunia's rant in the Hut on Rock in the first book suggested to me 
that Petunia was not close to, nor fond of, her parents because of 
Petunia's obvious, intense jealousy of Lily and her parents' 
acceptance and pride of Lily's 'abnormality'.  So I highly doubt 
whether Petunia would have a single photograph of her parents or 
extended relatives on display in her home.   
So far we have no idea how accurate Harry's vision of his relatives, 
other than his parents, were in the mirror.  It's possible that his 
mind could have been making up faces to fit what he despartely 
wished to see his relatives look like.  
At this point in the story, Harry has never seen his parents and has 
no (conscious) idea of what they looked like.  He sees his parents 
in the mirror and then at the end of the first book he sees his 
parents in actual wizard photographs in the photo album Hagrid gives 
him.  Nowhere does it state, or even suggest, that Harry's vision of 
his parents differs even slightly from the vision of his parents in 
the Mirror of Erised.  
I supposed the mirror could have read Harry's subconscious memory of 
his parents when he was using the mirror because Harry did spend the 
first year of his life with his parents.  Of course, Harry was only 
a year old and might not have ever met relatives that died before he 
was born, so that doesn't seem the likliest of explainations.  If 
his parents' appearances were correct and not based on the deeply 
repressed memories of a one-year-old, then it would indicate that 
the other Evanses and Potters in the mirror were also accurate 
representations of his extended family.  Besides, I can't see Lily 
and James getting married and not a single relative on Lily's side 
coming to the wedding.  There's just got to be additional Evanses 
and Potters in those photos in Harry's photo album. 

While the mirror does 'lie', the truth of what the person 
desparately desires is absolute.  For example, if Ron's vision had 
shown him accepting the Quidditch cup in a blue and purple uniform 
while wearing robes with Snarfblatt badges, Ron would have known the 
mirror was a lie and wouldn't have gotten excited about what he 
saw.  He would have thought it a stupid joke.  Next time you watch a 
movie and see an obviously made up brand name on a prop in the midst 
of the action, doesn't it pull you out of the action/drama 
somewhat?  Well, if the mirror messed up the important details, it 
would be like the same thing.  I get the impression that for the 
Mirror of Erised to work, the visions must be accurate in detail, 
even if the events/actions shown are never going to come to pass.

So, whether the mirror reads the viewers subconscious mind and 
memories or magically knows all the important details(!), I would 
say that the appearances of Harry's relatives were all spot on.  

Diana L.