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 Aug 24 2006, 09:29 AM
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Just Through the Brick Wall
Posts: 5
Joined: 9:13am August 24, 2006
Location: Wisconsin
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Okay, I'm new here but I have a few questions that have been bothering me for some time. I wasn't sure where to put this post either, so I put it here...
Does a boggart only take the appearance of what a person fears most, or does it actually transform into the fear?
I thought the answer was pretty easy, it's just an appearance of the fear, not the real thing. But then I got to thinking that if the boggart is just an imitation, then how does it cause Harry to feel as though a real Dementor is around him. For example, in Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry hears his mother's voice again and faints before Lupin disposes of the boggart.
Does this mean that the boggart has the power's of whatever it transforms into? If that were true then, wouldn't that cause Lupin to transform into a werewolf, as the boggart would actually be a (much smaller) full moon?
So lets say that the boggart does actually turn into the fear in question. Then say, for example, someone's worst fear is a Basilisk or a mandrake screaming. Would this cause the person with the fear to die from looking at the Basilisk or hearing the mandrake?
These questions have been bothering me for some time and unless I've missed some crucial info in one of the books, I've never been given and explanation.
Thanks if any of you have any answers/ideas on this!
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Aug 24 2006, 09:54 AM
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Quality Quidditch Supplies Test-Flyer
Posts: 1,275
Joined: 11:03am October 24, 2005
Location: Volunteering to ref the next Thunderer - Warrior game
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I think maybe that the boggart is really sensitive, and is not turning into a dementor as such, but uses that form to achieve the thing that Harry fears the most - his abnormal reaction to it. Harry is not directly frightened by a dementor, but the fact that he passes out and hears his mother screaming (even if at first this is unconscious) - a wish not to go back and relive that time. It is also vastly different from others' reactions - which also upsets him.
Harry wants to blend into the background - he doesn't want to be famous, or different, and his own reaction to the dementor demonstrates this - so it is not the dementor he fears, but the feeling itself. Just as Lupin fears a lack of control at the full moon, rather than being a werewolf - he never makes it clear whether he feels like he is about to lose control and change, or whether it is just a picture of the moon that unnerves him.
 and feel free to disagree though - that's what makes this forum fun.
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~~Proud member of the Ingalwings Society~~ |
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Aug 24 2006, 10:54 AM
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Hiding in the Iron Maiden at Borgin and Burkes
Posts: 326
Joined: 9:00pm July 31, 2006
Location: Searching the library of Hogwarts looking for another book series.
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FVDub
No it can only change into one thing at a time. Remember both Hermione and Lupin answered that question, they said that it will become confused, if it was around one than one person.
This post has been edited by padfootbitme: Aug 24 2006, 11:00 AM
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Aug 24 2006, 12:00 PM
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Shopping for a New Firebolt
Posts: 844
Joined: 9:18pm July 24, 2005
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The bogart does nto turn into a dementor, but apparently can evoke similar feelings of fear. My guess is they are not to disimilar as magical creatures, so the effects are not very different.
The reason I can say that bogarts to not actually become Dementors is because, in GoF, Harry encounters a "dementor" in the maze, and it starts to back away and trips over its own robes, Harry then realises it is not a dementor, but rather a bogart, and uses ridiculus on it.
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Aug 25 2006, 08:13 AM
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Quality Quidditch Supplies Test-Flyer
Posts: 1,275
Joined: 11:03am October 24, 2005
Location: Volunteering to ref the next Thunderer - Warrior game
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QUOTE I'll agree on the Lupin part but then if Harry's worst fear would indeed be hearing and feeling the death of his parents, why wouldn't the boggart just turn into Harry's mother dying and screaming?
His mother's death is upsetting to him, but he can't fear it as such because it has already happened. What he does fear is being different to everyone else - to reacting differently, to being singled out. Finding out Voldy had actually singled him out seemed to frighten and upset Harry.
During the book, Harry when he starts to hear his parents, he starts to find a perverse pleasure and curiousity in it - he resists that, because he doesn't want to be different or special. This is belied in his hatred of his scar as an identifier, his fantasies about not being the chosen one in HBP; and his thankfulness that Hermione and Ron stick by him after he tells them about the prophecy - that they don't run away from such a freak.
So a boggart would not turn into Lily dying, but rather be trying to replicate how separate Harry feels from others when he first fainted in the train.
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~~Proud member of the Ingalwings Society~~ |
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Aug 27 2006, 08:57 PM
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Being Eaten by the Pea Soup
Posts: 36
Joined: 12:38am July 5, 2006
Location: In the Hogwarts lake, swimming with the mermaids
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QUOTE I'd still like to know what would happen if someone saw a Basilisk or heard a mandrake boggart. Maybe the mandrake would scream but not fatally?
Possibly. Because, doesn't Lupin say that the boggart is the closest thing to a real dementor they could get? That means that a boggart-dementor is not exactly like a real dementor. Yet it does seem to have all the same powers. Perhaps the boggart-dementor would not be able to administer the Kiss? If that's the case, then the Basilisk would be able to petrify the victim but not kill.
The main thing I've always wondered about boggarts is what would happen if you fear something that the boggart can't turn into. For example, what if you are afraid of height?
And what if your fear is fear? If you are actually afraid of fear, then it would not be dementors you are afraid of, but boggarts. Dementors do evoke bad and painful memories, but they don't necessarily cause you to feel fear. If you were afraid of boggarts, would the boggart take its true form?
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