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 Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 2:02 pm
In The Deathly Hallows, Hermione protects her parents by modifying their memories to make them think that they want to go to Australia and that they don't have a child. Then just after the wedding when Hermione, Ron, and Harry are attacked by the two death eaters in the little coffee shop, Hermione has to perform a memory charm on the waitress and the two death eaters to make them forget what they saw. All the while, Hermione is panicking because she's never performed a memory charm before. How can that be if she modified the memories of her parents? She made them forget who they really were, so wouldn't it be the same kind of spell? Any thoughts?
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Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 11:07 pm
I believe the difference is that she altered her parents' memories, but erased the waitress' memory. Her parents believed they didn't have a daughter, but I'm sure that Hermione wouldn't flat-out erase 18 years of their lives and put them under the delusion that they were 18 years younger than their bodies physically were. Besides, if they were the same people they had been 18 years ago, they probably would have stayed in England and had another child, not have been given a reason to move to a different continent. Hermione must have changed something.
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Minerva the Bookwyrm Crew
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Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 4:14 pm
That is confusing. I think it's a totally different spell because Hermione just replaced her parents memories with different ones. Lockhart made his victims totally forget that they did something. Then Hermione did the same with the Death Eaters and the waitress.
I just thought of something totally off-topic.
Weren't there more people in the Cafe? Surely there wasn't just one waitress?
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Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 4:28 pm
Good question. Wasn't it really late at night when Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered the cafe? So there probably weren't a whole lot of customers in the cafe. None at all actually. Also, restaurants often have less waitresses/cooks in the later shift because there are less customers.
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Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 12:29 pm
No, because Hermione only took care of the waitress, and no one else. Hm, maybe she was a cook/waitress? It can't be that hard to make two coffees...
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Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2008 4:42 pm
I agree, I think that is was a completly different spell because of what everyone else said, she didn't erase her parents minds, just altered them.
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Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2009 1:49 pm
All very good points :3
However, she not just altered her parents memories, she also made them forget that Hermione even existed or that they ever had a daughter. Couldn't she have just made the death eaters and the waitress forget that they had ever seen them instead of fretting about not knowing how to modify someone's memory?
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Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 1:29 am
justamoose All very good points :3
However, she not just altered her parents memories, she also made them forget that Hermione even existed or that they ever had a daughter. Couldn't she have just made the death eaters and the waitress forget that they had ever seen them instead of fretting about not knowing how to modify someone's memory? Well, I'm probably incorrect in my attempt at a scientific explanation, but it could be that the memory-loss spell completely destroys the synaptic relationship between neurons in the brain. As a result, such memories are not recoverable. On the other hand, altering might mean that the neurons are forced to create different synaptic relationships with each other, creating different feelings, moods, and even memory. That's just a theory. I think it's possible that Hermione knows how to alter memories and now know how to make people forget permanently. However, it is always a possibility that this is a minor plot error that J.K. Rowling botched up.
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Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 10:25 am
The obvious answer would be all that stuff you guys talked about already, with the differences between the spells.
Problem is, J.K. Rowling isn't the most consistent writer. When she made Dumbledore the secret keeper of 12 Grimmauld Place, she mentioned that was because the secret keeper could not live in the Fidelius-ified place. However, in the seventh book, Percy is the secret keeper of his own house, along with his wife Audrey.
So it's probably just something Rowling used to move the plot along.
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:57 pm
I personally think that, plot error or not, they would be different spells, and the reason she didn't just change the memories is because I would think that in order to do that, you would need to have something on hand to replace them with, and need time to do it, neither of which did Hermione think she had. It's probably much easier to attempt a new spell than to think of a believable story on the spot and replace the actual memory with it. As realistically as you can possibly interpret the story, it was faster and easier to perform the memory removal spell than a memory changing spell.
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Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 3:42 pm
My english teacher looked up the answer to this question for my class today, and J.K.R. pretty much explained it the way you guys did. I still think she goofed, but was able to come up with a good explanation, but it seems that I am wrong. I like Kita's explanation best though >_> I don't think J.K.R. would ever even consider a scientific explanation.
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Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 3:54 pm
She probably DID goof it, and is trying to cover it up with the story she thought of when the flaw was pointed out. It's not that uncommon for writers to do that. And yeah, the thing with the brain is pretty cool. I'm not too knowledgable when it comes to science, so I wouldn't have thought of it.
By the way, nice poll. And no, not the curtains, the land!
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