Logical Limitations

Thu Feb 2 00:26:53 UTC 2006

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" 
<arrowsmithbt at ...> wrote:

>Talisman in 3862:
> It seems to me that the PoA visions come in two distinct flavors:
> Dementor and Boggart.
>

>Kneasy in 3867:
>Er... no.
>I didn't count any Boggart induced bits, just the PS/SS memories and
>the Dementor triggered flashbacks in PoA.

Talisman: 
Au contraire mon frere. 

Kneasy in 3788 :
>GH Input.
>Piecing together Harry's visions we get the following sequence:
>A warning urging Lily to grab Harry and run, "I'll hold him off"
>The door bursting open, a cackle of high-pitched laughter
>"Get out of the way, girl"
>"Not Harry!", "Take me instead!... Mercy!" etc.
>Shrill laughing
>Screaming
>Green flash
>A high, cold, cruel laugh
>(Uncertain if this occurs thrice - depends how one reads Harry's
>thoughts in PS/SS chap.4. But note that all three laughs are
>described slightly differently.)

Talisman: you will find that you have mixed Boggart and Dementor 
evidence together in the foregoing list.  

Fortunately I found an old unpublished post on the subject.  Here's 
a little riff, modified slighty to address your recent concerns.

Harryfs version of Godric's Hollow.

In the beginning of SS/PS Harry doesnft have much.  He desperately 
wants to remember his parents.  But, no matter how he gstrained his 
memoryh(29) all he can manage is ga blinding flash of green light 
and a burning pain in his scar. 

In addition to this, he has some dreams about a flying motorcycle; 
however, he doesnft understand these as being memory related, nor 
does he in any way connected these with his parents' deaths (25).

Events ensue.  Anon, Hagrid tells Harry that the evil Lord 
Voldemort, not an automotive mishap, extinguished Harryfs parents. 
And, yada, yada, failed curse, scar on head, etc.  (55).

Later, Harry sees his parents in the Mirror of Erised (209).  Now he 
knows how they look. (Note: apparently the Mirror shows a true form 
of your heartfs desire, because Harryfs parentsf mirror images 
conform to what he later sees in albums, penseives and smokey wand 
regurgitations, etc.)

Still later, Voldemort tells Harry gI killed your father firste 
(294); that James died put[ting]up a courageous fight; and, that 
Harryes mother gneednet have died, but did so gtrying to protect 
[Harry]h (294).  

Now it should be noted that, initially, Voldemort told Harry that 
the Potters gdied begging me for mercy.h(294). Wefll call that GH 
version I.  That doesnft mean that GH version II is false, but it 
leaves some wiggle room.  Moreover, even if GH version II is 
entirely accurate, it is lacking in details, and we all know how the 
Devil lurks in those.

Dumbledore tells Harry that Lily died to save Harry (299).

And, finally, Hagrid provides Harry with an album of parental 
pictures for his perusing pleasure (304). 

Therefore, at the end of SS/PS, Harry knows what his parents looked 
like; he has been told they were killed by Lord Voldemort, who tried 
to kill Harry with a curse; he has heard that James fought and died 
first; and that Lily didn't need to die, but died in the effort to 
save Harry.

The veracity of some of this information--especially the part from 
Voldemort--is questionable, and none of it is complete.

However, it's all Harry has. 

It is not at all a stretch to infer that Harry, who has spent his 
childhood trying to remember his parents, and connecting his limited 
memories with their deaths, would run this new information through 
his imagination and come up with a little gfilm striph of the 
events of that fateful evening.

Much as Rowling cobbled together her "false memory" of her sister's 
birth.

Fast-forward through CoS , because the entire tale is sanitarily 
devoid of Harry memories regarding his parents or GH. No dreams or 
mental images, at all.  

But we know itfs all in the old Potter noggin, percolating away.

Then comes PoA.  A Dementor boards the train and Harry falls to the 
ground and hears screaming. (84) 

Now, a bona fide Dementor is an amazing sucker.  It can suck your 
soul right out of you, which includes, but is possibly not limited 
to, Hoovering out your memories and all sense of self (247).

More usually it just sucks away all of its victimsf happiness, 
leaving them capable only of dwelling on bad experiences (187).

Although these drifting black holes operate on a negative principle 
(removing happiness/souls rather than adding anything) the bad 
memories they uncover in the process are in some sense evoked, 
inasmuch as these memories are at least latent until the happiness 
buffer is removed. 

Therefore, memories surface during the sucking process that the 
victim might not otherwise be experiencing .   

I'll revise what I said earlier, because Hagrid does seem to confirm 
that the uncovered memories are legit: E.g., Hagrid: gKepf goinf 
over horrible stuff in me mindcthe day I got expelledcthe day me 
dad dieh (PoA 220)    And later, Mrs. Figg tells us: gcI 
remembered cdreadful thingsch (Oop 145)

For Demetors to have any utility as a literary device, in the 
absence of contrary evidence, I'll accept that what they uncover is 
real. (Though I note here, per your argument that Dementors 
represent depression, that people who suffer depression are not 
wholly realistic about their situations, and are quite capable of 
dwelling on the anticipation of bad things that may never occur.)

Obviously, however, at least in Harry's case, the evidence that they 
do uncover is far from complete.  Partially because Harry didnft 
really see what happened at GH.

Back to the PoA train.

gWho screamed?h Harry wonders after he regains consciousness (PoA 
84).  This also suggests that the Dementor has uncovered a bit of 
grealhmemory.  If the scream were the stuff of Harryfs own 
invention, he would surely be able to identify the screamer.  

Part of the "incompleteness" is that the Dementors don't give 
visuals.  Harry doesn't even get the old green light.

Nonetheless, as you will see below, Harry's "bad memories" never 
extend beyond the screaming and Voldemort's reply/laughter during 
any of the bona fide Dementor experiences. 

Summation of memory evidence evoked during the 3 bona fide Dementor 
attacks in PoA:

First Dementor attack: on the train: 
General unidentified screaming.

Second Dementor attack(or hundred Dementor experience, as it were), 
on the Quittitch field:

The screaming starts up again, and this time Harry recognizes that 
it is a womanfs voice. gNot Harry cstand aside you silly girlc
take me, kill me insteadc[p]leasec have mercychave mercyh (179).

(So at least one of them DID die begging for mercy, eh? Albeit for 
Harry. GH version III?)

He also hears the g[s]hrill voice laughing. 

Third Dementor experience, at the Lake: 
A hundred Dementors swarm toward him,gand in the distance, he heard 
the familiar screamingch  ghis mother was screaming in his earsc
She was going to be the last thing he ever heard--h (384).

I'll make the point that Harry has   "concluded" that it's his mum, 
based on what he's been told of the events of GH.  I'm not saying 
it's not Lily, just sifting knowledge from conclusion.  Sort of like 
Dumbledore <veg>.

Aside from generalized screaming, the second attack produces the 
only memory that has real use as evidence.  

Still, thanks to all the interview/site commentary from Rowling, 
what the memory shows is already pretty well accepted, i.e.,  that 
1) Lily didn't need to die because Voldemort was willing to let her 
stand aside; 2) that she chose to shield Harry, knowing she would be 
killed; and, 3) that she didn't die fighting. 

And what about Boggart pseudo-Dementors? Do these simulacrum have 
the powers of a real soul-sucker?  You wonft be surprised that I 
donft think so.

We are told the Boggart is a gshape-shifter;h  that it can gtake 
the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us mosth (PoA 133).   
It may be able to simulate the powers of  the shape embodied, but we 
are not told that it assumes the actual powers. 

I reject as too improbable any notion that a Boggart werewolf or 
vampire could bite someone and beget an actual werewolf or vampire.  
I do not believe that a Boggart Dementor could actually soul-suck 
someone and leave them gworse than dead.h 

Likewise, even if a real Dementor can uncover memories of forgotten 
events, I will posit that a Boggart Dementor cannot.   It stimulates 
fears--real or imagined--it sucks nothing out, reveals nothing but 
what you fear, by tapping your imagination.

There is no evidence that anyone was actually chased by a 
disembodied eyeball, or that Dean was ever attacked by a creeping 
hand (PoA 138), if Sean had ever really heard a banshee (137) he'd 
be dead, and to date, Hermione hasnet failed everythingh (319).

On the other hand, Neville has certainly experienced Prof. Snape 
(PoA 137), rats and rattlesnakes are well within probability for 
being drawn from real experience (138), and all we know Ron has seen 
the giant spider (138)

The question of Parvatifs mummy is open to speculation (137), 
though the mummies the Weasely's saw on their trip to Egypt weren't 
mobile.

Your suggestion that Rowling's false memory hint is applicable to 
Mrs. Weasley's 12GP trauma (dead loved-ones everywhere) only makes 
my point.  It was obviously an imagined fear, not a true memory, and 
it was Boggart induced.

In any event, just as Rowling explains about her recollection of Dif
s birth, she also shows us about the Boggart: it draws form the 
imagination, which is capable of mixing reality and fiction in a 
seamless blend.  

In Harry's case, as a Dementor, the Boggart simulates effects Harry 
expects from a Dementor, and furnishes the scenes from the 
imagination, which is an amalgam of truth, lies, and pure invention.

All evidence points to Boggarts being associated with the 
imagination.  They draw from the victim's imagination for custon-
made terror, and likewise, they are repelled by a charm empowered by 
the victims imagination: wherein the victim gimagine[s] how [they] 
might force [the Dementor] to look comicalch(136).

Boggarts = imagination.  

Summary of imagination-tainted  Boggart evidence: 

First Boggart experience with Lupin: 
 gNot Harry! Not Harry! Please--Ifll do anything--h
gStand aside.  Stand aside, girl!h (PoA 239)

 gI could hear her louder that time--and him--Voldemorth (239)

Second Boggart Experience:
gcbig blurred shapes were moving around himcthen came a new 
voice, a manfs voice, shouting panicking--h Lily, take Harry and 
go!  Itfs him! Go! Run! Ifll hold him off--h The sounds of 
someone stumbling from a room--a door bursting open--a cackle of 
high-pitched laughter--h (240).  

gI heard my dad.h (240). 

 gYou heard James?h said Lupin in a strange voice.h ( 241).

This stuff, in my opinion, should be sifted out of your primary 
evidence, and filed under: "Dubious at Best." 

As to the question of whether Voldemort used an AK on Harry, I would 
say the answer is yes.  The answer to the mystery does not seem to 
lie in refuting the curse.  

JKR has said alternately that Harry survived a gKilling Curseh 
that night, and that the curse rebounded. Fake!Moody calls the AK 
gthe Killing Curse,h in GoF.   Always room to wiggle, but Ifm not 
expecting a twist here.

If you really still want an expanded explanation of how Voldemort 
got all his GoF info from Wormtail, Ifll get back to that later.

Yours where logic serves intuition, 
Talisman