Dark Magic (Was: Re: Motivations for Joining DEs)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 141142

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "a_svirn" <a_svirn at y...> wrote:

> Obliviate violates one's subjectivity even more than Imperius. It 
> robs one not only of one's will, but of one's identity. If you've 
> been subjected to the memory-modifying charm, how can you be sure 
> that you are what you think you are? 

Hence enters in the case of degrees.  I'd first challenge (on general 
grounds, as well as in the Potterverse) the idea that memory is *the* 
component of identity or even identical with identity, but that's 
more a problem for a philosophy list, and not an area for here.  [It 
does seem that, in the Potterverse, people have a fundamental core to 
them which is not solely composed of their experiences; it's an 
essentialist world out there.]  But there's another difference as 
well: Obliviate does something to another person, but it does not set 
up the caster as a continually dominant figure over another person.  
Marietta is Obliviated to forget what she saw in the office, but is 
then let loose: something is done to her, but it's not quite the same 
amount of 'use', it doesn't involve the same kind of domination.

I'm not saying that Obliviate isn't ethically skating a very, very 
fine line.  I'm just looking for distinctions that can be made.  If 
you look for mass similarities, you'll find them.  It's the same 
thing with differences.

-Nora thinks these days about how communication has actually damaged, 
instead of reinforced, the idea that the author is dead (not that she 
ever thought the author was dead...)