Of Souls and Death - Dumbledore's Intent

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 148985

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at ...>
wrote:

>
> Miles wrote:
> > > Just to put another question into the discussion: Why don't
> > > we dive into the pensieve to listen to the prophecy? 
>  
> >Geoff responded:
> > I often find that if I am concentrating on, say, a conversation
> > in a noisy environment, I subconsciously filter out background 
> > noise and often don't even remember that a CD player or 
> > something of that ilk was blasting away behind me.
> > 
> > ...
> 
> Carol responds:
> But the whole point of a Pensieve is that it presents an objective
> record of a memory, including what the perceiver filtered out at 
> the time or has since forgotten, without any of the subconscious 
> changes....
>
> ... So the figure of Sibyll rising from the Pensieve has nothing
> to do with DD's level of concentration and everything to do with 
> what she really said and how she really appeared.
> 
> However, to answer Miles's question, DD has made a conscious 
> choice to show *only* the Prophecy without its context. Rather
> than taking Harry with him into the Pensieve, he uses the much
> more efficient method of having Trelawney rise from the bowl ...
> 
> Carol, hoping that JKR will convincingly reconcile the two versions
> without making DD a liar or implicating him in the Potters' deaths
>

bboyminn:

On no...the dreaded 'me too' post.

I think Carol has hit the nail right on the head. Note that Dumbledore
does NOT DIVE into the Penseive, but makes the memory come out to him.
When we are in, as in dive in, the Penseive, we are able to see
complete unbiased unfiltered memories including all conscious,
subconscious, unconscious knowledge, as well as all accumulated
knowledge about the environs, circumstances, and events. 

Note that when Harry is in Snape's Worst Memory, he listens to
aconversation that Snape could only have heard subconsciously.
Further, Harry is aware of, and able to see, his complete environment.
He see things that Snape is not actively looking at. So, Snape is
filling in the environment from his general knowledge and experience
in that environment. Not only does the Penseive memory remember the
precise event, it is able to flesh out the event with all the
accumulated knowledge of the owner of the memory to create a fully
realized three dimensional world.

This is not typicaly how Dumbledore uses the Penseive though. He
usually sits at his desk and brings out very precise details of a
memory. In a sense, this precise selective viewing allows him to
examine a memory minus all the clutter and distractions.

Regarding Carol's comment about resolving the different version of the
events surrounding the Prophecy; I don't see different versions of the
event. I see different version of /people's description/ of the events. 

As I've said many times before, people don't speak in absolutes, and
rarely do people give each and every minute detail when describing an
event. If that were true, we would all be subjected the endless
tedious boring descriptions of events filled with pointless and
irrelevant details to the point the speak is trying to make. 

Everything we say is a generalization driven by the needs and context
of the converstion immediately at hand. When Dumbledore said the
eavesdropper was 'caught and thrown', he is making a summary
generalization including only the details necessary to make the point
that the listener heard only part of the conversation. 

When Trelawney give her description of events, she has a different
context and different priorities in mind. So she generalizes out some
details and generalized in other details.

Now, however, in the Broom Storage Shed at the Weasley's, Dumbledore
says 'There are only two people in the world who know the full
contents of the Prophecy made about you and Lord Voldemort, and they
are both standing in this smelly, spidery broom shed'. In this case,
the context is not general summaries. I believe that is this case, in
this statement, Dumbledore is speaking in absolute truths. There is no
 context driven reason for Dumbledore to make such an unqualified
statement, and for it to be a generalization or an outright lie. That
simply makes no sense.

So, I have to take Dumbledore at his word. Only two people know the
exact contents of the Prophecy. All others relevant persons heard a
context driven 'short' version.

So, in summary, I agree with Carol.

Steve/bboyminn