[HPforGrownups] Re: OOP: The Penseive

[RhianynTheCat at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 63319

In a message dated 6/23/2003 5:41:52 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
medeacallous at yahoo.ca writes:

> >Rhianyn mewses:
> >
> >Much has been made about whether or not Snape's memory in the 
> Penseive is 
> >slanted.  I'm wondering if a stored memory really takes the 
> person's point of 
> >view or if it is omniscient.  I mean, if it is limited to the 
> person's point of 
> >view, then how would we even hear the conversation between James 
> and Sirius?  
> >How would we see what is being doodled on the note pad?  
> >
> >If a memory someohow becomes truthfully omniscient when put into 
> the Pensieve 
> >then that makes the Pensieve quite a more valuable tool.  If, 
> however, it 
> >reflects only what the memory holder has imagined in order to fill 
> in the gaps, 
> >it becomes very suspect indeed.  
> 
> 
> 
> Good points, Rhianyn... I think it's important to remember that this 
> isn't Muggle regression therapy, or a CrimeStoppers video based on 
> eye-witness accounts, it's *magic*!!!  Notwithstanding our 
> assumptions about the way the human brain works, I don't see it 
> being in any way unlikely that the pensieve renders truthful and 
> unbiased scenarios.  I also always imagined the pensieve memories to 
> be much more than just what happened from one person's POV - it 
> seems to me (from GoF and now OotP) that it's almost like an 
> omniscient recording device that keeps track of everything that 
> happens within a certain range of the subject.
> 
> MC
> 

With apols for the long quote, Rhianyn further muses:

Well, if the Penseive renders strictly accurate memories, the the "owner" of 
the memory then allowed to look back and see things as they really happened 
rather than as how they've played them out in their own minds.  Or is only a 
neutral observer allowed to get past the inherent bias.  Because it seems if one 
could look back at things as they really happened one could get a more 
balanced perception of events.  I wonder if Snape has ever had a look at some of the 
memories of how he treats Harry in the Penseive?

Of course, that would just tie right into the theme of choices ... which 
things he chooses to examine and analyze, or to dwell on.

:::Curls fluffy black tail about herself just _so_ and returns to napping by 
the fire::::
    ^   ^
 =( * .*)=


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