Snape & Harry's Memory Perspective Question

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 84016

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kiricat2001" <Zarleycat at a...>
wrote:
>  
> Marianne:
> > ... When breaking into another's mind, does the one breaking in 
> > see the memories with the same perspective that the memories' 
> > owner sees?  Or does the Legilimens see the memory as if it were 
> > like thoughts trapped in a  Pensieve, where the perspective is 
> > that of an outside observer?  
> > ...edited...
> 
> > Sherrie repliied:
> > 
> > What we saw was not Snape's view of Harry's memories - it was 
> > HARRY's view of those memories.  We never went inside Snape's head
> > to see what HE saw.
> > 
> > I rather thought that the person whose memories were accessed 
> > would experience his or her own perspective of the memory, while
> > the person watching would do just that - observe.
> 


> Now me (Marianne):
> 
> But Snape did see "flashes" of this. He says so himself and then
> asks Harry to whom the dog belonged.  So Snape obviously "saw" 
> something. 
> 
> Marianne

bboy_mn:

Tricky business this memory stuff. It appears that when someone is IN
a Pensieve memory, they are an independant observer in a vitual world
with some limits. 

The Legilimens spell causes a cascade of memories to occur for the
person ONTO whom the spell was cast. The CASTER of the spell equally
has some visual insight or mind sight of those same memories.

As to whether the Legilimens memories are from the point of view of a
neutral observer or from the point of view of the person those
incidences happened to, depends on whether they are actual original
memories or whether they are memories of memories.

Very often the things we think are original memories, are not. They
are memories of the last time we remembered the incident. In other
words, not a memory of an event, but a memory of a memory. Restate,
these are not memories of the event, but memories of the last time we
thought about the event. That's also one reason why, when you go back
to your childhood home and neighborhood, things don't look the way you
remembered them.

This also explains how and why all knowledge of an event doesn't
vanish from your mind when you put a memory in a Pensieve. The
original memory is stored and gone from your mind, but there are
secondary memories to remind you that it existed, and what the general
nature of the memory was. If this were not true, how could you ever
recall a memory from the Pensieve?

Based on my memory of what I read, some of the Harry's memories are
described as from his point of view. For example, he is looking at
Dudley who has a shiny new red bike. That sounded like we see it
through Harry's eyes.

However, when Harry uses the Shield Charm to bounce the Legilimens
Charm back on to Snape and we start to see Snape's cascade of
memories, we see both Snape as a crying little boy, and Snape's
parents. We must acknowledge at this point that what was described is
colored by Harry's interpretation of what he saw. Logically, this
'little boy/parents' memory could have been Snape's memory of his best
friend and that boy's parents. But the book leads us to believe it was
Snape.

So we have seen Legilimens induced memories from both perspectives.
However, let us remember that Harry's memories are 5 to 10 years old;
Snape's memories are 20 to 30 years old. Therefore Snape's memories
are more likely to be memories of memories and not originals. That
could explain the difference we see between when Harry's memories are
revealed and when Snape's are revealed.

OR... since this is all pure speculation, it's possible that you see
your own memories in the First Person, but you see other's memories as
a neutral observer. That makes logical sense, but I think I prefer the
way I described above, where the nature and freshness of the memory
determines the perspective.

You've brought up an interesting point. When I read the story, I never
thought about the perspective of the memories, but now that you've
mentioned it, I can't decide whether it's just a quirk of JKR's
writing, or whether we have stumbled on something significant;
something that could re-enter the story later.

As long as we are on the subject, I agree with Snape, that Legilimens
is not mind reading. The gift of Legilimens, as opposed to the Spell,
alows the one who is gifted to sense emotions and see this cascade of
mental images based on memories, but he must use his own judgement and
interpretation skills to figure out what it all means. 

One aspect of it could be a degree of empathic ability; the ability to
sense and feel the emotions of others. I think that would be the best
indicator as to whether someone is telling the truth. It would take
deeper feelings and mental images to determine the exact nature of the
lie, and even more indepth 'vision' to accurately determine the truth.
At best, anything other than a general sense of guilt and fear to
determine lies, would be difficult to decipher and interpret.

Harry and Voldemort do have a special connection, but I don't think
that means that Voldemort automatically knows everything that Harry
knows, any more than Harry knows everything about Voldemort. It's much
more fragmented than that, in my opinion.

Anyway, that's my best guess as to what is going on.

bboy_mn