[HPforGrownups] Re: Anyone think that Harry will start using the penseive...

[Batchevra at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 95107

In a message dated 4/3/04 12:58:38 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
justcarol67 at yahoo.com writes:
I'm pretty sure that the whole point of a Pensieve is that it's an
*objective* record of a thought (or rather, memory). You take it out
of its subjective context in your own mind to examine it without
subjective distortions, which is why you see yourself from the
outside--and others can enter the memory without changing or
disturbing it. Remember, just as with Tom Riddle's diary, Harry is not
inside Dumbledore's or Snape's mind. He is an observer of the scene as
it happened. Otherwise, the Pensieve would be valueless. Also, Snape
would not have needed to remove a subjectively distorted memory from
his mind. He could simply have made it favorable to himself and
allowed Harry to see it that way. Instead, it's an objective record of
his humiliation which he did *not* want Harry to see. (To be sure,
James and Sirius don't come off very well, either.) If Remus Lupin
were to remove his memory of that scene and put it in the Pensieve,
I'm pretty sure it would be identical to Snape's.

Carol, with apologies to Del and Ffred for miscrediting an earlier post

If we had seen the Pensieve memory of Lupin of this incident, the emphasis 
would have been different. Remus would have hilighted the girls near the lake, 
because of James. He would have noticed them more. Snape couldn't be bothered. 
As for Tom Riddle's Diary, we know that the incident that Tom showed happened, 
but the emphasis was that Hagrid's spider was responsible for the death of 
Myrtle, which shows that memories could be altered. Dumbledore is such a person 
with no prejudices except against evil, that his memories are closest to the 
truth then say Snape who totally hates Sirius and James. 


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