Yeah, I read the justifications back then, and I’m kind of beating a dead horse here, but this argument implies that Occlumency is useless against an opponent who has both physical force and a mind-affecting ability like Legilimency or Obliviate. And if HPMoR-verse worked like that, then this part from chapter 27 no longer applies:
Even the best Legilimens could be fooled that way. If a perfect Occlumens claimed they were dropping their Occlumency barriers, there was no way to know if they were lying. Worse, you might not know you were dealing with a perfect Occlumens. They were rare, but the fact that they existed meant you couldn’t trust Legilimency on anyone.
And instead we have this, from the same chapter:
And so the race between telepathic offense and telepathic defense had been a decisive win for defense. Otherwise the entire magical world, maybe even the whole Earth, would have been a very different place...
Even if you could tell—Voldemort was Obliviated while knocked out and then transfigured before having the chance to wake up, so there never was an opportunity to verify that the Obliviation worked.
I don’t think that these quotes imply that Occlumency is a perfect shield of the mind. IIRC it specifically counters any attempt to divine whether or not someone believes they are telling the truth.
To completely Obliviate someone, you don’t need to read their mind first, you are just setting all the 1 to 0. (Apparently somehow only hitting memory and not vital processes.)
I don’t see a problem then. If you want to find out specific information, you can not use Legilimency, unless you first somehow break the person. And you will never know if you actually did, if they are a perfect Occlumense, so this doesn’t work.
It would have to be tested, what exactly happens if you try to delete something from memory, that isn’t there in the first place. And also what actually happens, when you try to delete a part of the Occlumency Barrier. If I had to guess, though, you would literally just cut a hole in a pretend personality. So if the Occlumense has f.e. 2 layers active plus their “base”, they could have each hold/pretend to hold the knowledge of how to do Occlumency. If you now delete it from the top layer, you will just be let in into the next one, which is being adapted to represent the changes. Also, I would expect the Occlumense to create another layer.
This also assumes that you actually see the whole personality the Occlumense pretends to be, which is not actually correct, IIRC. You only see surface thoughts. Which would probably muddle this even further.… Still, I don’t see a problem there.
I don’t see a problem then. If you want to find out specific information, you can not use Legilimency, unless you first somehow break the person. And you will never know if you actually did, if they are a perfect Occlumense, so this doesn’t work.
Well, the way I understood the HPMoR finale, you can just KO a wizard and then do whatever you want with them, up to and including erasing their Occlumency abilities. For instance, Harry KO-d Voldemort and then selectively spared some parts of his enemy’s mind when Obliviating him.
Anyway, if the world works like that, then telepathic offense overpowers telepathic defense. The resulting equilibrium should then look more like a society controlled by a telepathic dictator, than like one governed by a Ministry of Magic.
The finale was a specific instance of two people who were in a very unusual situation. You can not “just” KO a powerful wizard. The whole reason that worked, was the restrictions that arose from this situation.
If someone was able to KO Lord Voldemort in a confrontation in which he was allowed to use magic, I assume they would afterwards be able to perform rituals to change their mind, similar to how Bellatrix was broken.
Also...I mean, you can just kill them at that point. Being also able to change their mind doesn’t seem like that much of an additional burden.
In regards to how the world looks: We already were told several ways to overthrow the Ministry of Magic. Since nobody has bothered to do so, I would assume that the same logic proposed to answer the question of “why not” in the story, also applies to this, right?
I would also like to add that the spells in this world are not at all balanced. As was also noted in HPMoR: The False Memory Charm should be unforgivable. And I think Obliviate is pretty close to that, too.
Yeah, I read the justifications back then, and I’m kind of beating a dead horse here, but this argument implies that Occlumency is useless against an opponent who has both physical force and a mind-affecting ability like Legilimency or Obliviate. And if HPMoR-verse worked like that, then this part from chapter 27 no longer applies:
And instead we have this, from the same chapter:
Technically, even with Obliviate, you still can’t tell if someone’s lying, unless you’re able to make someone forget how to use Occlumency.
Even if you could tell—Voldemort was Obliviated while knocked out and then transfigured before having the chance to wake up, so there never was an opportunity to verify that the Obliviation worked.
I don’t think that these quotes imply that Occlumency is a perfect shield of the mind. IIRC it specifically counters any attempt to divine whether or not someone believes they are telling the truth.
To completely Obliviate someone, you don’t need to read their mind first, you are just setting all the 1 to 0. (Apparently somehow only hitting memory and not vital processes.)
I don’t see a problem then. If you want to find out specific information, you can not use Legilimency, unless you first somehow break the person. And you will never know if you actually did, if they are a perfect Occlumense, so this doesn’t work.
It would have to be tested, what exactly happens if you try to delete something from memory, that isn’t there in the first place. And also what actually happens, when you try to delete a part of the Occlumency Barrier. If I had to guess, though, you would literally just cut a hole in a pretend personality. So if the Occlumense has f.e. 2 layers active plus their “base”, they could have each hold/pretend to hold the knowledge of how to do Occlumency. If you now delete it from the top layer, you will just be let in into the next one, which is being adapted to represent the changes. Also, I would expect the Occlumense to create another layer.
This also assumes that you actually see the whole personality the Occlumense pretends to be, which is not actually correct, IIRC. You only see surface thoughts. Which would probably muddle this even further.… Still, I don’t see a problem there.
Did I miss something obvious?
Well, the way I understood the HPMoR finale, you can just KO a wizard and then do whatever you want with them, up to and including erasing their Occlumency abilities. For instance, Harry KO-d Voldemort and then selectively spared some parts of his enemy’s mind when Obliviating him.
Anyway, if the world works like that, then telepathic offense overpowers telepathic defense. The resulting equilibrium should then look more like a society controlled by a telepathic dictator, than like one governed by a Ministry of Magic.
The finale was a specific instance of two people who were in a very unusual situation. You can not “just” KO a powerful wizard. The whole reason that worked, was the restrictions that arose from this situation.
If someone was able to KO Lord Voldemort in a confrontation in which he was allowed to use magic, I assume they would afterwards be able to perform rituals to change their mind, similar to how Bellatrix was broken.
Also...I mean, you can just kill them at that point. Being also able to change their mind doesn’t seem like that much of an additional burden.
In regards to how the world looks: We already were told several ways to overthrow the Ministry of Magic. Since nobody has bothered to do so, I would assume that the same logic proposed to answer the question of “why not” in the story, also applies to this, right?
I would also like to add that the spells in this world are not at all balanced. As was also noted in HPMoR: The False Memory Charm should be unforgivable. And I think Obliviate is pretty close to that, too.