OOP: Pensieve as biased as true mind?

[Ersatz Harry]

No: HPFGUIDX 62942

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "cornflower_o_shea"
<tenpinkpiggies at h...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "psychic_serpent" 
> <psychic_serpent at y...> wrote:
> > 
> > No, I don't.  She had Dumbledore say that it contains thoughts and 
> > memories.  You can't remember what you never knew in the first 
> > place.
>
> If the Pensieve holds thoughts, than it 
> holds what we believe we see, what we thought existed, which may not 
> really be what trully existed at all? The pensieve exists to let you 
> examine your thoughts...prejudice, misinterpretation, and all 
> perhaps?

I think Cornflower is on the right track here.  I certainly have some
"memories" that I really don't recall directly, but I do recall
looking at, say, photographs of the particular event.  Such a
pseudo-memory might well be the sort of think I could drop into a
pensieve.  Further, I think "thoughts" might well be construed to
include "imaginings", and Snape could well have imagined much of what
was in the pensieve.  Finally, if Snape was reasonably good at reading
minds (to use the muggle term) when he was young, then he might well
have other people's thoughts (OPT) as part of his genuine memories.

Ersatz Harry