[HPforGrownups] Another Dementor question

[Carolina]

No: HPFGUIDX 59269

Melanie L Ellis wrote:

> Hmmm, I can't think of an instance where they practice "lies" especially
> since they don't speak. Can you elaborate?

silmariel:

Speaking is not importand. Lies stand for deceiving. It doesn't mater how you 
communicate if you (or your species) are able to get profit by means of 
fooling your opponent. Many animal do this as a strategy for survival, some 
pasive (chamaleon), some active and elaborate (a female Alpha-paired monkey 
mating the beta-male while the alpha is not looking), but we also do. This 
'lie' was of an entire power that can unbalance a society changing sides. At 
least concede me they are top-intelligence-scoreboard animals. 

I can hardly elaborate in english, but I'll try. When I said they were 
examples I was trying to give some logic reasons for a 'fact' I had always 
asumed in an intuitive way, that all of a sudden, thanks to your idea, wasn't 
so true. That was the meaning of (quoting myself) "I was convinced they were 
intelligent until you raised the subject"

Maybe it's too much roleplaying on my side, but I have got used to a whole lot 
of thinking dark creatures and I just put Dementors in the same sack   


> You may be at least partially right. I'm not sure what kind of
> "agreement" they have with the MoM about staying at Azkaban. The
> implication certainly seems to be that they have an agreement to stay
> there in exchange for feeding off the prisoner's souls. But they may be
> just as much prisoners as the inmates themselves. Something along the
> lines of "Stay here and you live and get nourishment. Leave without
> permission, and we'll kill you." (Assuming they can be killed.)

What a mental picture! Wizards training Dementors as animals. MoM ranking: 
XXXXX... which makes me think, do the MoM clothes them? Animals are not 
usually clothed. Zombies, however, are, and they aren't the brightest of 
creatures (sorry I'm topicing off).

Yes they can be prisoners. But then, I don't understand why is Dumbledore 
worried. If they are prisoners, they can be managed. That's leave without 
permission, and we'll kill you. Maybe he is concerned because he thinks the 
MoM unable to see how dangerous they are. 

> I don't think they're all that intelligent, though, the more I think
> about it. They were easily fooled not once but twice by prisoner switches
> (Barty Crouch Jr and his mother; Sirius in dog form). 

I suppose 'Robin-Hood-Like' escapes didn't categorice medieval prison guards 
as a non-intelligent category of beings (I know, I know, I shouldn't use this 
argument, it so non-realistic). More seriously, ¿how they maintain Azkaban? 
¿how they receive visitors, how they feed prisoners? ¿doesn't anyone 
supervises them? I think it all can be sumed to ¿do you need to be 
intelligent to maintain a prison? what do you think?

I think is easy to over relax when your prisoners are ketp all day in a 
druged-like state, anyway.

>I think the command
> to stay out of Hogwarts was akin to telling a dog, "You may not come in
> the house!" but they did it anyway when the temptation was too great,
> just like a dog might follow a cat into the house if he's chasing it.

That's a way of looking at it. But I can also reason they found a security 
breach and exploited it. If you tell me not to come, I'll wait for an ocasion 
when is easy to fool you.

Maybe I obey you. Maybe I'll obey you to a certain point. Maybe, from time to 
time, I can try and push the line, get a little power, or just get my way one 
time because I don't want to obey you, and hey, I can always say that was 
'animal instinct' (the dementors don't even have to say: we assume it).

Dementors feed on what humans have. So it is a primary instinct whether you 
are intelligent or not. But I've played a few vampires. They were 
intelligent, but had moments of mental blindness. Those moments could be 
faked. 

> As for "betraying" and changing sides, it would be like tempting a dog
> away from his yard with a juicy bone. Yeah, they get nourishment at
> Azkaban, but Voldie can offer them treats beyond their wildest dreams.
> One hopes that the interments at Azkaban have slowed down since the
> Voldie power years, 

I hope so, for the WW justice is frightening.

so they're probably getting hungry, and if he goes to
> them and says, "Look what I've got!" they'll come running.

Yes. If they don't have ethics, if they are animals (a trained animal that not 
only feeds on you, It has so narrow(*) an ecological niche that he can only 
feed of you) they will certainly do. 

(*) absurd footnote:  they could feed of other inteligent creatures, I 
suposse, but still keeps narrow. This get them to be a sort of 
'inter-species' parasit or useful intelligent being detector, which can be 
argued they prey on emotions, but cows also have emotions and I don't imagine 
a dementor feeding of a cow.

And yet they seem so bestial (you are right), almost blind, I have imagined 
them smelling their preys... 

I think that's all. Forgive me if I sounded rude or unrespectful. I didn't 
mean to. It is too hard to elaborate in this idiom, this post has take me two 
hours writing, so I just try to make myself understand.

silmariel