These aren't the droids you're looking for.

[prillalar]

(No spoilers for OotP here. Please don't put any in the comments.)

There's a fair bit about mind control in the HPverse. We're told about the Imperius curse, which gives the caster complete control over the castee, unless the castee can resist. This is one of the Unforgivable Curses and "the use of any one of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban".

So, now we know: Imperius == bad.

But what about Memory Charms? Wizards are forever casting these on Muggles. These charms modify your memory. They alter it. And the wizards seem to think this is just fine.

It's not for the good of the Muggles; it's all to protect the secrecy of the wizarding world. Muggle sees some magic? Memory charm. Nobody thinks twice.

At the World Cup in GoF, there's a Muggle family running the campground. When Death Eaters torment them by levitating and jeering at them, the "good" wizards are horrified. But when a wizard casts a memory charm on the man over and over and over again, nobody seems to think this is a problem.

But it is a problem. It's an incredible invasion.

And it's not just Muggles who have their memories modified. Lockhart uses them left and right to make wizards think he's done great deeds instead of them.

So how can anyone trust what they know?

It's all so fucking creepy.

Comments

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

I think the treatment of Muggles on the whole by wizarding zociety is... creepy.

Yes, they're a minority and they were persecuted and they want to protect themselves. I get that. But...::shivers:: the memory charms. The dementors. The fact that they have all sorts of magical remedies for disease and illness etc. and they have no wish to share them with the rest of the world...

I wonder if a more open and understanding relationship between the magical and muggle worlds will be a result of Voldemort's defeat. I think Harry and Hermione being of Muggle stock, and the Weasleys' position as 'race traitors' point to some sort of reconciliation (not in the forgiveness sense, but in the making things match or add up sense) between the two worlds.

I hope, anyway.

[prillalar]

Yeah, I'd love to see the magical world revealed and integrated with the rest of the world. That would be a big job, but I bet Hermione would be just the person to handle it.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she would.

I imagine if she survives (and for some reason, with all the death and predictions of death, I can't bring myself to doubt *Hermione's* survival), she'll be Minister of Magic someday. Or possible Prime Minister of England. *G*

[prillalar]

Hee! Now I've got this whole crossover world in mind where Pandora Braithwaite is Prime Minister and Hermione is Minister of Magic and between them, everything is governed very *efficiently* and *for people's own good*.

It makes me glad I'm safe over here in Canada. *g*

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you mentioned this - nobody seems to talk about it much, but I've always thought it was a HUGE invasion (I even wrote a nastyfic about it).

The routine use of memory charms seems to be standard Ministry policy, and as Harry (and thus the reader) is seeing more and more clearly (the parting of the ways, Sirius' lack of a trial, Arthur constantly flouting the rules of his own department), the ministry is hardly a bastion of all things right and proper.

I also think JKR laid a big old clue about the true nature of memory charms with Lockhart, though Harry doesn't seem to have picked up on that yet. Honestly though, I'm surprised more fans (and fanfic) haven't addressed it. It IS creepy. Big time creepy.

[semielliptical]

Yes, very creepy. I was most bothered by the campground Muggles at the World Cup - the Wizards were there for *weeks* if I remember correctly, with the Muggles subjected to Memory charms every hour or so!

I think there are at least a few references to Wizards considering modifiying Muggles' memories something to be avoided - Mr. Weasley? Not sure when. But that may be because it's an indicator for a situation in which Muggles saw magic than concern for the Muggles.

[semielliptical]

- posted before I was done. What was I saying?

I will be very curious to see how/if JKR addresses not just memory charms, but Muggle/Wizard relations in the remaining two books. I suppose one can read memory modification as just another cute example of the Things Wizards Do, like wearing robes and making candies that turn people into canaries, but I don't find that very satisfying.

[prillalar]

The campground Muggles bothered me a lot too. I kept thinking that A. they were essentially losing time out of their lives and B. all those memory charms couldn't be good for them.

There have got to be some longterm effects.

[thran.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is my absolute hugest and most intense pet peeve with the whole series. No, 'pet peeve' doesn't even cover it. Makes me want to heave. It's treated so lightly, like, oh, that wizard was careless in front of a Muggle at the World Cup. Wipe the Muggle's memory. Laugh at the funny Muggle with the vacant expression who says "Happy Christmas" in July. It's really sickening.

Makes me think of Buffy, 6th season Willow, and the major reason for Tara's leaving her. Mindrape, mindrape, mindrape! Muggles (and, as you point out, magic folk, too) are getting violated all over the place and nobody says jack about it. And yeah, if Imperius is an Unforgivable, overuse of Obliviate is Requiring of Major Atonement Before Possibility of Forgiveness, to me.

I wonder, though, if Hermione might not at some point apply her inner activist towards this sort of thing. It'd be totally in character. And, you know, if JKR doesn't deliver . . . I wonder if someone's already done that in fanfic.

[prillalar]

Oh, good comparison with Willow and Tara. And good thought about Hermione. She at least *thinks* about these things.

Re:

[thran.livejournal.com]

Yeah, exactly. It's only a matter of time before she branches out from S.P.E.W. (and I'm sorry, if your acronym is a word, you don't get to complain when people call it that word, har, har) and goes into Muggle Rights. :)