[HPforGrownups] Re: Occlumency VERY VERY LONG

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 191719

On 6/01/2012 3:32 AM, dumbledore11214 wrote:
>
> Alla:
>
> I know I am stating the obvious, but I am not obligated to respect the
> opinions of fictional characters, only real people.

Shaun:

See, to me, that *isn't* obvious. Because, if fictional characters are 
written with any type of insight and accuracy, their opinions will be 
opinions shared by at least some real people. I think I've made it 
pretty clear over the years that there are occasions where I think I 
have the same opinions about certain aspects of the Wizarding World as I 
think certain of the characters have. Now, I now understand you see 
things differently on this issue and that's fine, but to me, the 
distinction you seem to making here is one that would lead me to not 
bother discussing the books at all if I shared it - because none of it 
would matter at all.

Alla:

> I mean, I often do
> respect the opinions of fictional characters as much as it is possible
> anyway, but I do not think I am obligated to do so. And even in the real
> world, while I would certainly respect somebody's right to not consider
> themselves oppressed, I still have a right to think of them as otherwise
> in my mind. But believe me, in the real world, I would advocate
> vigorously that nobody has a right to "free" people who do not think
> they want to be freed from tyranny or any other things. However, I will
> reserve the right to think of their situation as I please, but think not
> to act upon it of course. I am snipping everything else, because
> hopefully it explains how I feel.

Shaun:

I agree you have the right to think anything you like, even if you 
wouldn't act on it in certain cases out of respect for the rights of 
others to decide things for themselves, but, where I find that difficult 
is when it seems that people assume that if others disagree with them, 
it must be because they are 'bad' or 'evil' or 'wicked' or whatever word 
people choose to use and based on the assumption extrapolate all sorts 
of other ideas from it.

Let me try and explain what I mean by that (and please note, I am not 
intending to accurately describe your position here - I can't because I 
can't know the exact details of it as I can't read minds, I'm just 
trying to illustrate a point).

"Snape uses legilemency on Harry. I think that's an invasion of privacy. 
That means he treats Harry with disrespect by invading his privacy. I 
will therefore assume from now on that Snape disrespects Harry in all 
areas." and from then on every time Snape does something involving Harry 
disrespect is assumed. And so every time an incident happens between 
Snape and Harry happens, a person looks for a way it could be viewed 
through this lens and not surprisingly they find it because they are 
looking for it, and it becomes further 'proof' of their position.

Contrast with

"Snape uses legilemency on Harry. I think that's an invasion of privacy 
- but is that the reason Snape does it? Maybe he does this because part 
of his duty as a teacher in loco parentis requires him to maintain a 
reasonable level of supervision and Harry is a student we know has a 
tendency to do dangerous things and to break rules, and perhaps in 
Wizarding society, legilemency of a student by a teacher wouldn't be 
seen as a significant invasion of privacy. Snape could just be trying to 
protect Harry.

That latter case doesn't mean the opinion of legilemency changes. The 
personal opinion of it remains the same ("I think that's an invasion of 
privacy") . But the second case allows for the fact that other people 
may see it differently and that therefore their motivations in using it 
may be quite different.

People are fully entitled to believe legilemency is a violation of 
privacy. But *unless* Snape sees it that way as well, there's no reason 
to assume his use of legilemency is intended to do something 'bad' to 
Harry. His intentions may be good.

"'If you loved Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, your way forward is 
clear.'

Snape seemed to peer through a haze of pain and Dumbledore's words 
appeared to take a long time to reach him.

'What - what do you mean?'

'You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me 
protect Lily's son.'

'He does not need protection. The Dark Lord is gone -'

'The Dark Lord will return, and Harry Potter will be in terrible danger 
when he does.'

There was a long pause, and slowly Snape regained control of himself, 
mastered his own breathing. At last he said 'Very well. Very well. But 
never - never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us! Swear it! I 
cannot bear... especially Potter's son... I want your word!'

'My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?' 
Dumbledore sighed, looking down into Snape's ferocious, anguished face. 
If you insist...'"

(The Deathly Hallows)

"Dumbledore opened his eyes. Snape looked horrified.

'You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment?'

'Don't be shocked, Severus. How many men and women have you watched die?'

'Lately, only those whom I could not save,' said Snape. He stood up. 
'You have used me.'

'Meaning?'

'I have spied for you, and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for 
you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now 
you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter -'

'But this is touching, Severus,' said Dumbledore seriously. 'Have you 
grown to care for the boy, after all?'

'For him?' shouted Snape. 'Expecto patronum!'

 From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe: she landed on the office 
floor, bounded once across the office and soared out of the window. 
Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned 
back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.

'After all this time?'

'Always,' said Snape."

(Deathly Hallows)

*****

To me, it does seem that it makes most sense that what Snape does is 
intended to 'keep Lily Potter's son safe.' That's what Snape has 
dedicated his life to doing. He has spied and lied and put himself in 
mortal danger. Not because he's a nice man. He's not. He's a nasty piece 
of work, and he's done evil in his past - but he has spent his life and 
risked his life, and gives his life to protect Harry Potter, since 
failing to protect his mother. And so I do tend to look at Snape's 
actions in the light of 'how do they protect Harry'?

> Alla:
>
> People in the Wizarding Society do not seem to care much how they treat
> muggle born students and muggles (except selected few of course and even
> they imo often act condescending and arrogant), Headmaster of Hogwarts
> (supposedly one of the most progressive ones) thinks it is all right to
> put all his hopes for defeat of Lord Voldemort into whether eleven year
> old boy will be raised in the mindset which will make him agree to
> sacrifice himself on the altar of WW, Headmaster of said Hogwarts thinks
> it is totally all right to allow Severus Snape who hates the sight of
> Harry Potter to teach him and protect his life. Forgive me if I will not
> put too much stake into what people of WW think needs to be changed in
> their world. Besides, I do not think anybody said that Legilimency does
> not need to be regulated either. Silence to me allows for even more
> vigorous speculation.

Shaun:

Harry Potter *is* the chosen one. Dumbledore didn't make him so. He 
*has* to put all his hopes in the fact that Harry will be willing to die 
to get rid of Voldemort because that is what the prophecy requires. And 
what he actually does in the long term is equip Harry to fulfil the 
prophecy in a way that does allow him to live.

Severus Snape is a teacher who, even if he does hate the sight of Harry 
Potter, is also committed to protecting the boy. A teacher doesn't have 
to like their students to teach them. A student doesn't have to like 
their teacher to learn from them.

We know that the wizarding world does regard certain spells as off 
limits. Forbidden. Use of them leads to a life sentence in Azkaban. It 
does regulate spells it considers beyond the pale. Three of them - 
Imperio, Crucio, and Avada Kedavra. It doesn't place Legilemency in that 
league.

> Alla:
>
> And I disagree with that, so maybe we do disagree on more basical
> premises of this discussion that I thought. I think there is plenty of
> symbolism to show us that WW needs drastic change and not every single
> need for change is spelled out. For example, IMO there is a reason that
> so many more people from older generation are killed at the end than the
> younger generation, IMO this is one of the symbolic signs that JKR
> wanted to eradicate a lot of what older generation was about and allow
> young people to shake the WW to the core. Of course we have Fawkes, who
> dissappears at the end of HBP, for me it was always a symbolic sign that
> WW would need to be reborn from ashes and him dissappearing and not
> showing up in the last book for me was a sign that such change is
> already happening in the real and no symbol is needed.

Shaun:

And yet, we are then presented with a epilogue that shows no sign that 
in two decades *anything* at all has changed. To me, the epilogue shows 
that everything has continued more or less as it was.

> Alla:
>
> I do not see acceptance or not acceptance actually, I do not see people
> reacting with outrage, but I do not see Harry being happy about it
> (including the lessons) either.

Shaun:

I don't see him being unhappy about it, except for being forced to work 
with Snape.

> Alla:
>
> People in the WW can not be broken and brainwashed? What about Imperio?
> What about Crucio? What are those if not the tools for brainwashing and
> torture?

I was interrupted writing that and missed out the chance to finish the 
thought I was writing when I came back to it. My point was actually to 
mention Imperio, Crucio, and Avada Kedavra, as specifically forbidden 
spells because Wizarding society has decided brainwashing like that is 
unacceptable. But Legilemency isn't forbidden. Nor are the memory charms 
that Gilderoy Lockhart uses - Obliviate is routinely used by the 
Ministry of Magic. Hermione modifies her own parents memories (something 
I have much more of a problem with than Snape's possible legilemency). 
Wizarding society accepts these things quite readily despite clearly 
having standards they regard as ones that shouldn't be normally breached.

>  > Shaun:
>  >
>  > If I believed that the people weren't free to make that choice, I would.
>  > But if they were free to make that choice, I'd have to conclude that the
>  > book was either very badly written and nonsense (assuming the author
>  > couldn't convince me that he or she had come up with a consistent world)
>  > or that the author is some sort of genius (if they could).
>
> Alla:
>
> Then we will just have to agree to disagree. I really cant come up with
> any other response.

Shaun:

That's fine - sometimes people do just see things differently.

> Alla:
>
> See, I think they were fine and dandy with it. Simply because nobody
> said anything about it, nobody questioned it, not even Sirius' guilt
> (even though as I said many times that I thought Dumbledore should have
> at least tried to check more), but how his case was handled. Of course
> the victim of injustice thinks (correctly IMO) that it was wrong and of
> course Harry and Ron and Hermione think it was wrong. After all these
> three are agents of change, after all high and mighty Dumbledore even
> deemed that Harry can share his mission with them, so yes I do not find
> it surprising that they think in more progressive terms than most of WW
> (maybe couple other people).

Shaun:

And one of your agents of change modifies her own parents memories.

>  > Shaun:
>  >
>  > Yes, to an extent, I did, but on further consideration, I think it's
>  > more accurate to say Harry cooperated with the Occlumency classes rather
>  > than actually consenting to them. He wasn't really offered a choice, he
>  > was told what to do. He just decided not to make it difficult by
>  > cooperating.
>
> Alla:
>
> So just to be clear, you think that if he refused, Snape would have
> forced him? Quite possible, but we would never know.

Shaun:

No, that's not what I said. Whether Snape would have forced him or not, 
is, in my view irrelevant. Just because a teacher doesn't *force* a 
student to obey when they are disobedient, doesn't mean the student 
wasn't disobedient. There are numerous reasons why it may not be worth 
forcing the issue.

The situation in this case is serious enough that I suspect further 
efforts would have been made to make Harry attend the lessons. 
Personally, if I was Dumbledore, in that case I would get McGonnagall to 
carpet Harry and make it very clear he's expected to do this, and I 
would have expected that to work.

> Alla:
>
> I was not talking about the speed, I most definitely was not talking
> about letting Harry getting away with anything, I support and applaud
> Remus' lecture later on and think that Harry fully deserved that lecture
> and more. I was trying to say that unless Snape was trying to prevent
> further rule breaking or further danger, to me mind invasion is not an
> appropriate way of dealing with it. I am not asking you to agree and I
> dont particularly have anything to debate on this particular point, just
> want to make myself clear, while I am happy to agree that I can see
> where you are coming from calling this justified to prevent further
> danger, I can never agree that such method is appropriate to punish for
> something that already happened.

Shaun:

But the point is, I *don't* think legilemency is being used to punish in 
this case. As a punishment it would be utterly pointless as while Harry 
wonders if Snape can read his mind on occasion, he doesn't actually know 
if it's happening and a punishment you don't even know about is useless. 
In my view, if it's being used, it's being used in an effort to find out 
*if* Harry did leave the school, and nothing more. All Snape has at that 
point is a report by Draco Malfoy that Harry was in Hogsmeade. Snape is 
trying to confirm if that's true. I think he is probably convinced it 
is, and at that point, he moves on to trying to work out how Harry did 
it, so he can prevent Harry from doing it again. He *is* trying to 
prevent further rule breaking, and further danger. And, as has been 
pointed out, it's not just danger to Harry (serious though that is), but 
the possibility than any method Harry used might also be used by the 
murderer Sirius Black to get into the school.


> Alla:
>
> Aha, but what could be concern for his safety here? To make sure he does
> not sneak out again right now? See I think I am missing something here.

Shaun:

No, to make sure he doesn't sneak out again *in the future*. Not right 
now. When I get a boy to turn out his pockets so I can check if he has 
cigarettes, I'm rarely worried about him smoking in the next two 
minutes. I'm worried about something more long term than that.

As has been pointed out (and I've also mentioned above) there is the 
additional risk that Sirius Black might use this method to get into the 
school, but that one hadn't occurred to me and wasn't part of my 
thinking until I read it. What I was thinking was working out how to 
stop Harry sneaking out of the school again in future.

> Alla:
>
> Maybe here we have the disconnect indeed, because I do not think Snape
> is lying, I just think that this IS the description of mind reading.
> Does it make sense? Snape says it is flashes, but he sees stuff what is
> happening in Harry's mind, flashes or not, and I do not see the sign
> that there is stuff Snape just cannot see, period, if subject is not
> resisting. When Harry is resisting, Snape is sometimes having trouble,
> sure, but I do not see that there is stuff that he just cannot see
> because of what Legilimency is.

Shaun:

OK, I get what you are saying here, and I agree it's *possible* Snape 
can see everything Harry is thinking and Harry is just thinking in 
flashes, so all he sees are flashes, but I don't really think so.

"'Did you see everything I saw?' Harry asked, unsure whether he wanted 
to hear the answer.

'Flashes of it,' said Snape, his lip curling. 'To whom did the dog belong?'"

(Order of the Phoenix).

Harry explicitly asks Snape if he saw *everything* and it's then that 
Snape says he saw only flashes of it. Now, Snape could lie - and JKR 
could mislead us as to the nature of legilemency and never bother to 
correct that misapprehension in the future - but I think it makes more 
sense to assume we're being told the truth so I think that you only see 
flashes of whatever the person is thinking and if they are just thinking 
in snippets for some reason, you'll only see flashes of the snippets.

> Alla:
>
> To me the best example that one can theoretically see anything in
> Legilimency is Snape removing his memories in the pensieve. If those are
> just flashes, why would Snape be concerned? Unless you subscribe to evil
> school of thought that Snape was deliberately setting Harry up, but I
> suspect not ;)

Shaun:

I think Snape removes that one memory because it's the memory that would 
make him most vulnerable to Harry.

"'Get up! You are not trying, you are making no effort. You are allowing 
me access to memories you fear, handing me weapons... Then you will find 
yourself easy prey for the Dark Lord! Fools who wear their hearts 
proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow 
in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked so easily - weak 
peoples, in other words - they stand no chance against his powers! He 
will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!'"

In legilemency, it's the sad memories, the bad memories that allow 
somebody to break through your occlumency shields. That memory is the 
biggest reason Snape hated James and thus hates Harry.

> Alla:
>
> But do we know that he did not know? I mean yes, he should have acted a
> certain way if he did, but really, I think that the argument that
> Dumbledore deliberately set it up as training lesson for Harry (leaving
> for the ministry, really) has a very strong merit, because Harry telling
> his friends that Dumbledore let him face Voldemort does not sound to me
> as eleven year old, but as JKR breaking the silence and talking directly
> to the readers.

Shaun:

I can just about believe Dumbledore letting Harry face these dangers as 
some sort of training exercise. I'm not saying he did, but I could 
believe it. The problem I have is that I don't think Snape would have 
cooperated with it without objecting in the way he did when he 
discovered Dumbledore's master plan involved Harry dying:

"'I have spied for you, and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger 
for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe.'"

Snape is *not* risking his life to protect Harry Potter so Dumbledore 
can put him in danger. Not without an explanation and there clearly 
hasn't been one up until that conversation quite a bit later.

> Alla:
>
> I dont know. Maybe he did not have time to dive too deep, but more
> likely to me is that he was toying with Lupin, because whether he knew
> that this was a map, he certainly seemed to be very familiar with the
> nicknames.

Shaun:

Except he doesn't find out the nicknames until after he's already 
started his investigation.

> Alla:
>
> I definitely think I am missing something, or maybe it is a language
> disconnect (I thought I outgrew those lol), to me seeing stuff what
> Harry did or was thinking about is mind reading. What do you think Snape
> sees?

Shaun:

Flashes of what the person is thinking, at most. In many cases, probably 
not even that - generally I think he can probably just do what Voldemort 
can do:

"'The Dark Lord, for instance, almost always knows when somebody is 
lying to him. Only those skilled at Occlumency are able to shut down 
those feelings and memories that contradict the lie, and to utter 
falsehoods in his presence without detection.'"

This does seem to match every case that I can see outside of the 
lessons. Snape can tell Harry is lying. No sign of anything else.

> Alla:
>
> Oh I can talk about for a long time, but I do not think it is
> unreasonable to speculate that Dumbledore did not want Sirius to
> influence Harry's upbringing at all, Harry may have become too
> independent, god forbid and may have refused to go along with
> Dumbledore's plans, note that when Sirius escapes he has no choice but
> to go far away, again almost no contact with Harry.

Shaun:

Sirius was about 21 when James and Lily died (as were they, of course). 
At 21, Dumbledore was able to predict that Sirius would turn out to be a 
'bad influence'? That doesn't make sense to me at all. One thing 
Dumbledore should have worked out in many, many years at Hogwarts is 
that irresponsible kids grow up.

> Alla:
>
> Basically what I am trying to say is that I agree with your last
> sentence - we dont know what doctrine applies in WW and before you say
> it, yes, I know that JKR is British :) and that a lot of things in
> Hogwarts are done based on how British private schools are run or were
> run. However, having said it, I maintain that we cannot be sure what
> inspired the artist to write any specific thing in her stories. Yes,
> Hogwarts could mostly be done based on British private schools, but it
> is not a documentary about how British school was run, right?

Shaun:

No, but Hogwarts is a very close match for a certain type of British 
school in many ways. It's very clear to me that JKR had a particular 
model of school in mind in her design of Hogwarts. Houses, Prefects, 
Masters - it virtually all rings true to that model, *except* when it 
comes to the specific things that need to differ for her magical world 
to work. I've read my share of fanfiction written by Americans and it 
really jars when an American writer puts something they are used to in 
American education that doesn't really exist in the same way in 
traditional British education (typical American cheerleaders, for 
example) because the model is so close. And, the doctrine of in loco 
parentis is a very large part of why those schools have developed the 
way they have. I'd need to write a large essay to go into that (and I am 
actually writing a history of education at the moment).

Anyway, for now, that's it :)