Felix Felicis is a Leaping Golden Placebo and Agent of Misdirection

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 152018

As I mentioned in the current chapter discussion, I'm convinced that the
liquid in that little bottle of Felix Felicis (hereinafter "Felix") that
Harry is carrying around in that sock has no more magical properties than a
bottle of snake oil.  And old Sluggy is therefore a snake oil salesman.

Now, I doubt that this is a new idea.  But let's marshal the evidence and
see what we can come up with (with apologies to Tonks for adopting the same
kind of legal analysis she used in her very interesting post, but as I'm a
lawyer I can't think of a better way).

Exhibit 1.  The potion itself.

>From HBP ch. 9:  "The potion was splashing about merrily; it was the color
of molten gold, and large drops were leaping like goldfish above the
surface, though not a particle had spilled."

And what does it do?  Hermione Granger, who will testify later, told us it's
liquid luck.  "It makes you lucky."  Right, sure.  She obviously read it
somewhere, which means it's unreliable hearsay unless we can cross-examine
the source.  It's certainly not something they regularly stock at the
apothecary.  Testimony stricken.  (Of course, with all that splashing and
leaping, one would certainly *expect* the potion to do something.  But I'll
get to that later.)

Our first witness, Professor Horace Slughorn, when asked about the potion,
testifies that Felix is "[d]esperately tricky to make, and disastrous to get
wrong.  However, if brewed correctly, as this has been, you will find that
all your endeavours tend to succeed . . . at least until the effects wear
off."

Have you ever used it, Professor?  "Twice in my life," said Slughorn. . . .
Two tablespoons taken with breakfast.  Two perfect days."

And why isn't it regularly stocked?  Sluggy responds that it is "highly
toxic in large quantities.  But taken sparingly, and very occasionally . .
."  Hmm, must be the poison that makes the potion splash and leap and shine
like liquid gold.  And what is the toxic effect, Professor Slughorn?  "[I]f
taken in excess, it causes giddiness, recklessness and dangerous
overconfidence."

Upon further questioning, Slughorn testifies that he has taken Felix twice,
and been rewarded with "[t]wo perfect days."  The jurors observe, as does
Harry, that while Slughorn's effect is very good, it remains to be seen
whether he is play-acting.

Our second witness is Ron Weasley.  (HBP ch. 14) To summarize his testimony,
Ron reasonably believed that Harry spiked his pumpkin juice with Felix
immediately prior to the first Quidditch match.  And how did that make you
feel, Mr. Weasley?  "It's a great feeling when you take it," said Ron
reminiscently.  "Like you can't do anything wrong."  But, Mr. Weasley, I
thought you testified that the pumpkin juice had *not* in fact been spiked
with Felix.  "Yeah, but I *thought* I had, didn't I?" said Ron, as though
explaining the obvious.  "Same difference, really . . ."

What happened next?  A bit of fortuitous luck.  The weather was perfect for
Quidditch, was it not, Mr. Weasley?  "Yeah."  Two of the Slytherins'
first-string players, Malfoy and Veasey, did not play, and their places were
filled by inferior substitutes.  "Lucky, I call it," said Ron.  "Vaisey , ,
, , he's their best goal scorer."  And what happened in the match?  "[I]
saved goals with apparent ease" and "made some truly spectacular saves."
And clearly you thought Felix was responsible for your performance, Mr.
Weasley?  But after the match Harry produced the bottle, still "full of
golden potion and the cork was still tightly sealed with wax."  Harry's
testimony will confirm that you "did it all yourself."  Agreed, Mr.
Weasley?  It wasn't luck after all.

We will now present some expert testimony regarding the well documented
"placebo effect" from Robert DeLap, M.D., head of the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration's Offices of Drug Evaluation:

 http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2000/100_heal.html

"Expectation is a powerful thing.  The more you believe you're going to
benefit from a treatment, the more likely it is that you will experience a
benefit."

And Mr. Claude Steele, a Stanford University professor, conducted tests in
which groups were given challenging tests, but minority or women students
were told before the test that the test would reveal gender or racial
differences in performance.  The results *did* reveal a performance gap,
but the test of a control group that was told nothing showed no such
differences.
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/95/950816Arc5120.html
http://www.law.nyu.edu/workways/theoretical/stereotype/stereovul.html

The next witness is Harry Potter, who took a small dose of Felix before
setting off, as he thought, to get a memory from Slughorn.  Harry reports
that as soon as he took it, "an exhilarating sense of infinite opportunity
stole through him; he felt as though he could have done anything, anything
at all . . . and getting the memory from Slughorn seemed suddenly not only
possible, but positively easy."  (HBP ch. 22)  Mr. Potter, could this
feeling have had anything to do with the potion splashing its way merrily
down your esophagus?  Could be.

And just how does this feeling differ from what Ron reported feeling after
drinking pumpkin juice?  Yeah, it's just the same.  I thought so.  And what
happened next, Mr. Potter?  You decided to go to Aragog's burial.  "I feel
like it's the place to be tonight, you know what I mean?"  You mean you just
remembered that Hagrid *needed* you, didn't you?  He was grieving and you
felt guilty.

In fact, Harry, you attribute your every choice to Felix, don't you?
*Felix* made you reveal yourself to Slughorn, even though the reason you
used Felix was to get a memory from him.  *Felix* told you to tell the truth
to Slughorn.  *Felix* told him not to drink Sluggy's wine.  Surely you
didn't need Felix to tell you that?  Commonsense would tell you that
drunkenness would not aid your quest for the memory, right?  :: grudging
agreement from Harry::  And did you really need Felix to remind you to
refill the wine bottles?  And is it any surprise that you, Harry Potter, who
conjured a Patronus in your third year *because you'd seen yourself do it*,
could perform a nonverbal spell when the chips were down?

I didn't think so.  So what did Felix do for you?  Ok, Slughorn crossed your
path.  You bumped into Ginny, facilitating their breakup.   And is Felix
responsible for *Ron*'s luck in being given a golden opportunity to break up
with Lavender?

 In fact, wouldn't you say that your confidence was boosted by your ease in
exiting Gryffindor Tower through the portrait hole with your invisibility
cloak on?  How is this different from Malfoy deciding to skip the Quidditch
match?  Or Veasey being unable to play?
Exactly.  I didn't think there was any difference, either.  Thank you, Mr.
Potter.

"Objection," shouts Defense Counsel Catlady:

<<But when Harry took FF, "Why he knew that going to Hagrid's was the
right thing to do, he had no idea. It was as though the potion was
illuminating a few steps of the path at a time. (snip) It was when he
reached the bottom step that it occurred to him how very pleasant it
would be to pass the vegetable patch on his walk to Hagrid's. It was
not strictly on the way, but it seemed clear to Harry that this was a
whim on which he should act, so he di-rected his feet immediately
toward the vegetable patch," it gave him HUNCHES as well as CONFIDENCE.>>

No problem whatsoever, your Honor.  Harry *attributes* his success to Felix,
and there may well be something in the potion (its characteristic splishing
and splashing, for example) that increases confidence, in the same way that
alcohol tends to loosen the tongue.  Thus, he would be more likely to *act*
on his hunches under the influence of Felix, but it's hard to say based on
the text that the hunches themselves came from Felix.  Indeed, why
*wouldn't* he wander through the vegetable patch?  He's hoping to run into
Slughorn, isn't he?  Maybe he even knows that Slughorn relies on the
vegetable patch for potion ingredients.  Sorry to disppoint, but
there's nothing remarkable whatsoever about this supposed whim of Harry's.

We will shortly call Mr. Draco Malfoy, but first, Mr. Potter, did you notice
anything when Slughorn announced that the maker of the best Draught of
Living Death would be awarded the cauldron of Felix?  Harry "saw Malfoy
riffling feverishly through his copy of Advanced Potion-Making.  It could
not have been clearer that Malfoy really wanted that lucky day."  He didn't
win it, though, did he?  And what did you notice, if anything, about Mr.
Malfoy's confidence?  Did he not look pale throughout the year?  Did you not
find him crying in the bathroom?  Does that sound like a confident student?
I thought not.

Mr. Draco Malfoy is next.  Draco Malfoy, you had a mission to kill
Dumbledore, correct?  But your first attempt was "clumsy and foolish,"
according to your head of house (HBP ch. 15), and your second attempt was
also rather feeble, to use your headmaster's words.  (HBP ch. 27)  You were
quite stressed, were you not?  Didn't you have "dark shadows under [your]
eyes, and a distinctly greyish tinge to [your] skin?"  Didn't you reach the
point where you were "crying -- actually crying" in a Hogwarts bathroom?

Nevertheless, notwithstanding that you did not win the Felix bottle, Mr.
Malfoy, you did eventually devise a plan that allowed several Death Eaters
to enter Hogwarts Castle, correct?  But you still failed to kill Dumbledore
when he was at your mercy, did you not?  Do you think that, if you had won
the Felix bottle, you would have had the strength to kill him?  Would you
have had that strength even if the potion was impotent?

::Malfoy nods, whereupon defense counsel jumps up to object that the line of
questioning is speculation.  Objection is sustained, but the answers cannot
be erased from the jurors' memories::

Finally, we have a series of witnesses who will tell us what happened on
another night when Felix was used.defended Hogwarts against the Death
Eaters' attack.  Harry gave the remainder of his Felix to Mr. Weasley and
Miss Granger, instructing them to share it with Mr. Weasley's sister, Ginny.


Ginny will testify first.  She opines that if they hadn't had the bottle of
Felix, "we'd all have been killed, but everything seemed to have just missed
us."  But wait a minute.  Did you not expect a perfect evening after taking
Felix?  Did you experience a perfect evening?  Your brother was disfigured.
Your headmaster was killed.  Are those the marks of a perfect evening?  What
was that?  You think Slughorn's description of perfection was an
exaggeration?  We shall see.

We will now recall Mr. Weasley.  You also took some Felix the night the
headmaster was killed.  "We did like [Harry] told us."  And was your evening
perfect?  "I messed up .  . . Malfoy got past us," said Ron bleakly.
"Obviously Malfoy could see because of that Hand thing and was guiding [the
Death Eaters]."  Ok, I think that means "not perfect."

And finally, Miss Granger also took a dose of Felix.  And where were you?
"Outside Snape's office, yes, with Luna. . . . . It was nearly midnight when
Professor Flitwick came sprinting down into the dungeons.  He was shouting
about Death Eaters in the castle . . . and we heard a loud thump and Snape
hurtling out of his room and he saw us and -- and --"

"I was so stupid!   He said that Professor Flitwick had collapsed and that
we should go take care of him while he -- while he went to help fight the
Death Eaters."  She covered her face in shame . . .  "it's so obvious now,
Snape must have Stupefied Flitwick, but we didn't realise . . . ."

Final question, Miss Granger.  Did you consider yourself lucky that
evening?  I think that muffled response must be a *no*.

That ends the testimony; time for closing arguments.  The testimony shows
that:

1. The Felix potion splashed and leaped, suggesting that anyone ingesting it
could not fail to feel *something* as it leaped in big splashes down the
throat.  And substantial research on the "placebo effect" as well as Mr.
Weasley's testimony tell us that the *expectation* that Felix will bring you
luck is itself a very powerful effect, boosting the taker's confidence in
his thoughts and ideas.

2. The actions Harry credited Felix for were likely not different from how
Harry would have acted if he had not imbibed the potion.

3.  Ron was quite lucky when he did *not* take the potion; he was less
lucky, and certainly did not have a perfect day, when he *did* take it.  Nor
were the others who took it *lucky*.  What effect did the potion have on
Hermione?  What luck did she have?  None, absolutely none, ladies and
gentlemen of the jury.
Certainly no one who took Felix that night had anything remotely resembling
a perfect day.

 And let's take Ginny's assertion that Felix protected them from the big
blond Death Eater's indiscriminate casting of AKs.  Yes, they all missed.
But Harry instructed Ron and Hermione to share Felix with Ginny, not
everyone else.  You'd have to believe that with all those curses flying
around, one might have hit Lupin, or Tonks perhaps.  But they didn't.
Nobody was hit because Big Blondy had terrible aim.

In other words, there is insufficient evidence to prove that the potion had
any effect at all.

 So what's the point of Felix?   Does it just provide a convenient magical
excuse for writing in a Death Eater who flings killing curses about
indiscriminately, but without killing anyone?

I hope not.

The defense might argue that a DDM!Snape fan might find this sequence of
events very lucky.  Snape, they will say, *needed* to accomplish his task --
whether to protect Draco at Dumbledore's request or to accomplish some other
goal of Dumbledore's -- and Felix nudged everyone's brain so that they would
not get in Snape's way as he rushed to the Astronomy Tower.

Felix did nothing of the kind.  Everyone let Snape pass because he was a
member of the Order, and the Order members fighting the Death Eaters needed
help.  But on first blush, you might *think* this was the case.

And if you think Snape is ESE!, this was a disaster.  If you admired
Dumbledore, this was a disaster.  And if you like resolution and clear
answers, this was a disaster.  Because we don't know what Snape's up to.
And we can't trust Felix to help us interpret the events.

Yes, Placebo!Felix is a nice bit of misdirection, isn't it?

Debbie
whose courtroom experience includes exactly *one* trial


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