In 'Harry Potter: A Blue Peter Special.' Blue Peter (CBBC), July 20 2007, Rowling comments on the double-edged nature of magical objects in her Harry Potter universe:



Rowling’s magical objects are inventive and often critical to the plot development, but she reminds us that there is a double-edged nature to most of them. The positive side of most of the objects is usually what captures our imagination, but often it is the negative side that deepens Rowling's plot development and underscores the many moral decisions that must be made when using them and the destructive consequences they may have. It is also interesting that many of the most powerful objects are involved with memory.

I find the Resurrection Stone particularly interesting because of the psychological nature of its magic. It 'recalls' the dead and though it could be argued whether this is simply recollection or memory, Rowling implies through the Beedle the Bard tale that obsessing over memories can become addictive in much the same way looking into the Mirror of Erised could. The negative aspects of the Pensieve are more subtle, but we can clearly see some of the negative consequences of observing someone else's memory, through Harry's experience with Snape's memory. There is also the Horcrux Diary in which Voldamort stored the memories of his teenage self - and here, memory operates like a lure to destruction.

I think Rowling uses many of these magical objects to explore abstract concepts such as feelings of loss, obsessions with power or with the past, and even the desire to be invisible. The list of magical objects is almost endless. What are your thoughts on the double-edged nature of these objects?

People cry at funerals. People cry at weddings. They cry, laugh, hurt, rejoice, hope, and despair. Feelings are very human things. Very often misunderstood. Stress, or anxiety, can be a combination of many different emotions/feelings experienced simultaneously. The intensity of emotions also varies.

I believe that feelings are associated with thoughts, or memories. There is even such a thing as "memory of a feeling/emotion." A sensitive individual may be able to identify meaning in emotions. At the same time, I believe that a person can unlearn a "difficult" feeling by attaching a "modified" understanding/meaning to that feeling (HP HBP: Professor Slughorn's first attempt regarding Tom Riddle and horcrux memory).

The pensieve allows us to do that. As knowledge is changed, so to is the feeling associated with it. Do we judge others differently when we know more about them? Do we "feel" differently about others when we know more/differently about them?

I am not bothered about the "origins" of the pensieve; rather only about my experiences when using it. Perhaps this approach is wrong. In a way, I have taken the LL and TLC for granted (I have never been asked to contribute financially; and my posts have generally been accepted without significant challenge). I do acknowledge that these threads have been for me a "pensieve" of such; and I am very grateful for them.

ELC

That is a very introspective and thoughtful post Ex Libres Cogito.

The first thing that occurred to me was a story I was told just last week about a man with alzheimer’s. Apparently this fellow has started to patch memories together so that he has some elements of one mixed up with elements of another, yet he is totally convinced that the event happened that way and will tell it over and over (the wrong way). I think that we all do this though over time. I think we also patch images from photos sometimes together with our memory of an event and after a while we can't remember what we remember from the event or what was just transplanted from the photo.

You are right to point out that not only is the magical object double-sided, but that memory itself can be double-sided. I think it could also be very hard to look at certain memories in the way a pensieve allows one to look at them - to be able to go back in time and see things from your future point of view. Some memories might be terribly embarrassing. Take James for example, if he had been the one watching his own behavior in Snape’s memory he probably would be very ashamed. For Harry, it was hard to see that his idealization of his father was not the reality. Or even watching very happy memories of times with people who are now gone. That could be both very happy yet simultaneously terribly sad.

Yes, I think most people do feel differently about their memories as they move through life. And I think that I also use the LL as a sort of pensieve.

The word ‘pensieve’ is also very interesting. It seems to reflect both the word and connotations of ‘pensive’ as well as possibly the word and connotations of ‘sieve’. A sort of introspective distillation, or sifting of thought. That aspect is what I like the most about the pensieve really, it removes the thought/feeling temporarily from your consciousness, and yet allows you to go back and reflect on it when you feel you might be in a better frame of mind to do it. But what it also does is freeze the ‘events’ so that they can be experienced differently from other angles or points of perspective (emotionally or temporally) it seems to sift out the emotional overlay.

This is a fascinating topic. Reading your posts, I couldn't help but think of the art of journal writing - keeping a history of yourself, by yourself, for yourself - as a sort of realistic and tangible pensieve.

Chloe, I too knew someone with Alzheimer's. This person had been keeping a journal of their life since the tender age of seven. When this person, whom was very dear to me, was quite sick and dying, she made sure in a moment of clarity to tell me where she had hidden her massive collection of notebooks.

I cannot tell you how amazing it was for me, after she was gone, to read through her version of life, and to basically tip head-long into her memories, pretty much the way Harry does in the books.

With that however, comes a certain sense of loss which you attest to as well Chloe. As exhilarating as it was for me to delve into her most precious commodity - her life, memories and vision through her words - it was terribly sad as well.

In this sense, object that let you look back, whether fictional objects or real things, are truly double-edged and shouldn't be taken lightly, so to speak.

I think you are right with regard to journal writing. I have kept a journal off and on for most of my adult life...and it does operate like a pensieve. Sometimes I go back and re-read entries from many years ago and its almost like reading someone else's journal at times - sometimes that is the easiest way for me to find how much I've changed and in which ways. Some entries are also terribly hard to re-live, and others are just a breath of nostalgia. Sometimes even the distance between then and now seems terribly far and can consequently be joyful or sad.

Rowling's depictions and use of memory in the HP series also seem very connected to death...giving the memories that double-edged, bittersweet quality. I have the impression that in spite of the depth of detail in Rowling's fantasy world she still is almost using the HP series as others use their journals. I think she is working out her own philosophy of dealing with death in a sense. So memory becomes very key to her understanding of death, but it also seems to be a lure to obsession with loss. I believe she has made comments about her devastation over her mother's death and how she has had to battle with her memories and her desire for more time with her mother, even while knowing that it is impossible to have.

Many of the feelings that are drawn from memory and emotional responses to memories seem to take physical forms in Rowling's HP universe. For instance her Dementors are apparently a sort of personification of depression. Even the alzheimer subject can be seen to some extent in 'memory modification', in memory charms that alter the ability for the person to remember certain things. There is some sadness with the loss of memory and it also has a bit of a sinister quality to it in the sense that it can be a bit like lobotomy as well. But it seems more as though a pathway of connection is just blocked in her memory charms which is very similar to the way alzheimers opperates - except that it of course can be willfully done (which in a way is a bit like repressed memory).

I think it is significant that Rowling has Harry drop the Resurrection Stone in the forest when he is finally ready to confront death. It seems as though she is saying that bravery is really the ability to 'be' in the present and not to be dwelling in the 'autumn glow' of the past or in fantasies of the future. In a way DD's words about the Mirror of Erised seem like they could be seen as Rowling's attitude toward memory. He says: "this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible." This could apply to memories, dreams or fantasies. They can bring joy but can also bring madness.

In a sense, it seems that the 'recollections' of Lily, James, Sirius and Lupin in the forest could easily be defined by DD's statement. Although the mirror just shows the "deepest, most desperate desires of our hearts", memories are often that very thing, but of course they can also be much more. They can be nightmares of the past like DD's 'visions' in the cave, or they can be 'fears' that a boggart reflects. The boggart is also interesting in that it deals again with the interiority of thought, though this time with both real and/or imagined fear. It can be both memory and imagination.

It really seems that so many of the magical objects, creatures and spells embody psychological states and preoccupation with memory.

chloe squibbulus, I really like the way you brought both fear and desire together as elements that Harry must "drop" in order to proceed with what must be done. Both Stone and Mirror, like many other objects, have this double edged quality about them--nice, but if clung to desperately, they enslave and destroy. Memories and emotions like fear and desire are strong motivators but deadly masters. Harry, dropping the stone, tucking away the wand, even turning his back toward his desire for Ginny, is completely free of all compulsion. At that point, he is unconquerable--live or die. In a sense, he defeated Voldemort before Voldemort even raised his wand. I believe it was Hemingway who said that a man can be destroyed, but not defeated.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with this, chloe. I think the reason Harry Potter resonates with so many of us is because of the simple fact that it speaks truth - raw, honest emotion, which is the essence behind truth in my opinion. I agree and think Rowling most definitely used her story as a forum in which to purge, if you will.

I'm not saying she wrote it specifically with that in mind, I just think she definitely used it to express, like you stated, her feelings about death, the past, the future, life, love and loss. Almost every major theme in the Harry Potter books deals with a raw, human emotion or condition. That's why the theme of memory plays such an important, yet almost subtle role throughout the series. It is simply the longing for what was in the face of gaining knowledge - sometimes knowledge you don't necessarily want.

In another thread topic which asks the question of what we think the main, major theme, or message from the Harry Potter series is in its entirety, I stated that I think it is love.

I feel like Rowling's public "journal" asked the questions all of humanity has been asking since the beginning of time - and in some cases, such as when Harry achingly asks if it "hurts" to die - taking it further and imagining scenarios where those questions would be answerd - and as a result, Rowling came to the conclusion that despite all the "madness" in the world and the numerous questions that may never be answered, the only thing she is certain of, the only absolute, raw, truth that she knows is real - is love.

This is the same exact conclusion the remarkable woman I mentioned above came to throughout the course of her journal entries. Brilliant.

Thanks. I agree completely with your statement about 'deadly masters'. When I read your post it reminded me of my scribbulus essay because in it I predicted Harry was a horcrux (correctly - though apparently not 'technically' a horcrux) and I predicted Voldamort might end up killing himself somehow (also correctly) but I predicted (wrongly) that Harry wouldn't need to remove the part of Voldamort's soul because he essentially had psychologically defeated its influence on him by book six. Voldamort does of course end up killing that piece himself, but I have always thought that Harry was learning to 'tune out' Voldamort's influence inside him. I think you are absolutely right to say that Harry is unconquerable when he drops the stone - I see this as his point of maturation also.

I would guess that Rowling probably sees this as her own way of 'exorcizing', conquering or 'purging' the memories that she has been preoccupied with (as Oxymoronic states so nicely).


That must have been an amazing read (the woman's journal)...but isn't it fantastic that those feelings were recorded.

I like your observation about 'knowledge you don't necessarily want.' We see this when Harry is watching Snape's memory of his father in the pensieve. He so badly wants more knowledge of his parents, yet what he finds out is actually somewhat painful for him. That is again this double-edge. Even in Rowling's world everything comes at a price. But I think it is this double-edged quality that gives Rowling's series such depth and resonance. Otherwise it would just be a simple fantasy about good versus evil, but with this double-edge to most of the magical objects (as well as people), the tale becomes more grounded in the complexity of human emotion and psychology.

Another object that I find really interesting is the Time-turner, or Time-turners in general. We see the benefit of it in PoA, where two lives are saved, but we see the damage that can occur when the Death Eater falls into the Time-turner in OoP. If viewed from a psychological standpoint, the Time-turner could be said to be reducing the man to the mentality of an infant (as in the Death Eater). Time-turners operate again much like a 'memory machine' might when you think about it. They also operate a bit the way the Mirror of Erised and the Resurrection Stone do, in that they take the person at least 'psychologically' out of the present and into a sort of landscape of memories. Perhaps that is really why Rowling's rule about being seen while time-traveling is so hard and fast. Maybe you can't be seen - because you are only there in your mind? And remember why you can't be seen, its because you might think that you are going crazy. So going back in time can become a rewriting of your past mistakes in your memory at the risk of insanity....when you no longer can tell what is past and what is present....it again has this double-edged quality and again it could be tied into memory.

I think Rowling's whole world of magic can be read as a psychological landscape really.


Your thoughts on love are also very interesting. But even love has its own double-edge, as we all have experienced. I suppose Snape's story is the epitome of this. But the striving for love is certainly the search for the grail. And even the pursuit of it has a profound value (regardless of the type of love it is). Love pries open the heart's door and lets in the potential for loss.

Everything in Harry potter can be used for good things bad things or even downright silly things. It's much like things in the muggle world. We use the telephone to coomunicate, to make threats, and pracnk call. the pensieve can be used for clarifying things or making someone confused.
Memory itself can harm or help, there is a reason people don't remember extreme pain. I know hospital give you pills to make you forget the moments of having your cornea scratched so severely you need cateract surgery,(it ahppened to my brother). What I am talking about above seems more like the dementoers then the pensive.

The mirror gives you bliss but makes you forget the truth. I can see the appeal and the danger in that.

Fantasyweaver, I definitly agree that their are parallels between objects in the muggle world and in the magical one, and I think that JKR used the idea of the choice of what to do with the objects around us to show these parallels, to show that this double edged idea is present in almost everything in both worlds, but our choices give us a certain edge.

The idea of bliss in forgetting the truth is also very interesting because I remember this movie I saw awhile ago called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, its a wonderful movie and it addresses this idea. In it a couple who had a difficult break up both decide to have their memories 'modified' (sound kind of familiar?) by a new technology so that they don't remember eachother's existance, therefore getting rid of the pain. However when their minds are modified they seem at first fine, but then the question arises of was it really better to lose all memory of that experience? Because its truth is a lesson and living with the memory, although difficult leads to acceptance which is a greater bliss than forgetting. I think the choice is in that, there's the double edge, and we force ourselves to try to forget something because we want an easy bliss, like the easy promise of the Resurrection Stone of bringing you everyone you have lost, or the Mirror of Erised showing us exactly what we desired (and there is a certain bliss in that, but it is the cheap bliss not the truth which we come to realize is infinitly more precious) or we can make a choice and use our memories to our advantage and learn and live through them.

On the other hand people can use the mirror and pensieve for learning. It's not just using those things, its how they are used.