Since when has Harry ever done something because it was logical or more efficient? He likes to have fun, and torturing, killing, maiming, sexing, is what is fun to him.

If he extracts the wrong information, so what? Harry's happy go lucky, I mean, I'm sure Tonks will be furious, but he figures he'll just get information another way.

But Harry has confidence in his methods, I mean, he has experience getting what he wants from people, and for the purposes of the story, I don't see why his methods shouldn't work here.

 

Nah, wasn't just making up excuses, just trying to look at it from another angle, Datakim. But, yeah, it'd be nice to see an explanation in the story.

 

I'd have to agree with Taure. I can see how torture and legilimency would make a good combination. Normally torture is unreliable, but I could see how it could be very useful if one was able to scan the surface thoughts of the victim.

In addition I think torture would be very useful in a situation like this because, occlumency has always struck me as a area that would require a great deal of concentration. Now unless occlumancy somehow magically makes a person able to deal with tremendous amounts of pain, torture would make a great deal of sense as a method to disrupt a person's concentration.

Anyway that's my take on it.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see how Shezza explains things.

Edit: Chime does make a good point too.

 

I've seen it done that way in some fics, occlumency used as a kind of catch-all for anything mental, or to 'partition his mind', or send him to his inner happy place, or something.

 

You are all just comparing different methods of obtaining information, why not combine them? Individually they all have their weaknesses, yet collectively you should be able to get reliable information out of people.

Torture? The weakness is that people will end up just saying anything to stop the pain.
Veritiserum? Resistible by people with occlumency shields. (apparently)
Legilimency? Same as Veritiserum, occlumency.

Instead of torturing them for information, why not just break their minds(not turn them into the Longbottoms, just to an extent where the pain gets too much for anything else, hold them on that edge) and then give them veritiserum? Use a bit of legilimency to confirm they are broken.

If you want reliable information, a combination of all three seems to be the best way to go.

 

Wasn't veritaserum 'perfect' in that it always made the person tell the truth? I don't remember it being mentioned that occlumency could block it...

 

It wasn't mentioned. Not to my knowledge at least. I believe Occlumency blocking veritaserum came from fanon.

Other than spelling mistakes, Denarian Lord is superb. 4/5, only because of the spelling mistakes, and the fact that there are so few chapters.

 

I think it JKR mentioned it in an interview, but I'm not sure.

Regardless, it makes a certain degree of sense that veriraserum is not absolutely foolproof, or else it would be a sure-fire solution for finding spies, Death Eaters, Order of the Pheonix infiltrators, and just about anyone else with secrets.

 

I've always thought of it as, sure, you have to tell the truth. But what's to stop you from just telling a half-truth, and hoping they just assume something completely wrong from it?

 

It can be pretty easy to dictate questions around that, just ask questions that aren't open to interpretation.

As Aekiel said, it would just be to 'super' if it could solve all the problems.

 

Well, I'd imagine any halfway competent interrogator would ask clear questions and demand simple and direct answers because of that very issue.

Also, if vertiaserum were fool-proof it would have made any kind of spying by either side virtually impossible during the War; even if the Ministry and Order had some sort of moral compunction about regularly dosing their people with veritaserum and making inquiries I doubt Voldemort would have any moral qualms, especially when he knows there is a spy in his ranks.

 

Occlumency being able to defend from Veritaserum is on JKR's site, and given as one reason why Veritaserum would be useless on Slughorn by Dumbledore in HBP.

The problem with my torture + legilimency idea is that, if in essence legilimency is that ability to force the mind to think of something (I.e. A memory), and occlumency the ability to think what you want to be thinking, not what the legilimencer is trying to get you to think, then torture may actually aid Occlumency: all you'll be able to think of is the pain, and nothing else.

 

Which is why i used torture + veritiserum as an idea.

However, in opposition to what you said, occlumency requires a lot of control over your own mind + concentration etc. I'd have to argue that the torture destroys those parts of ya mind, therefore aiding in the legilimency.

What i'd ask, is would it be possible for the victim to retreat 'behind' his occlumency shields, therefore shielding himself from the pain. Could be an interesting concept.

 

Occlumency shields? What are they?

 

I was more meaning the general effect, sure, it protects against mental intrusions, but isn't it 'organizing your mind' as well? If so, could it be used as a barrier to pain or not?

cannon fanboy

 

Occlumency, iirc correctly, is one thing. Having enough control over your mind to stop people from viewing memories through legilimency. It's about creating false memories, (maybe fanon?). The whole point of Occlumency is that whoever you're defending yourself from doesn't realize you're using it.

Otherwise, Voldemort would have killed Snape almost right away. He would have demaned Snape lower his 'shields', and would have found out the truth.

But, since there's not, Voldemort never knew that Snape was using Occlumency against him.

That's really the one branch I was JK had fleshed out alot more.

 

I don't know, I quite like it as it is. Simple to comprehend, but difficult to put into practice.

As for what Occlumency is, I would say that it is the art of thinking. It does involve the ability to expel intrusions from the mind, but I would say that this is the lesser part. The real aim of Occlumency, as Samuel said, is to be able to fool the intruder by hiding thoughts/memories (i.e. clearing your mind) or by providing thoughts and memories that are not what the intruder was looking for.

For example: Voldemort uses legilimency on Snape, trying to find memories and thoughts related to "betrayal". Snape could expel Voldemort, but instead either clears his mind, indicating that he has no thoughts on betrayal, or provides thoughts different to what Voldemort was looking for, perhaps bringing up thoughts of Bellatrix, making Voldemort think that Snape suspects Bellatrix of betrayal.

It is my opinion that Occlumency is nothing more than Snape taught it as in OotP: that is, merely the art of thinking. Occlumency consists of one thing only: being able to think of what you want to be thinking (whether a misleading thought or no thought at all) rather than what the intruder wants you to think of, and this is achieved by mere force of will.

/derailment.

 

You know, it just occurred to me that if Harry wanted to, he would have access to a way of extracting knowledge from the prisoner that would be 100% effective and completely accurate with virtually no chance of failure.

Give Meciels coin to the prisoner for a few minutes.

We know from Dresden Files that the fallen, once the coin has been "willingly" taken has full access to all the memories of the person. So all Harry would have to do is put Meciels coin on his palm, order the guy to take it (force him to do so via torture if necessary), wait a few minutes while Meciel extracted all the necessary information directly from the prisoners brain, and finally take the coin back. Meciel ofcourse would retain everything he saw in the guys memories, even after Harry regained the coin.

This approach would not only get the information Dumbledore wanted, it would also gain Harry pretty much anything else usefull that the prisoner would know from knowledge about any spells the guy might know to his bank account numbers (or location of gringotts key).

And I very much doubt any amount of occlumency could possibly prevent Meciel from from extracting whatever she wanted from the prisoners brain. I mean once the coin is actively taken by the prisoner she would essentially BE in his brain and able to access anything she wanted.

 

That doesn't sound like "willingly taken" at all.

 

Thats why it was in quotes. The impression I atleast have from DF is that the only thing required is that you have an active part. So having Harry touch the guy with the coin would not work, but so long as the guy himself picks the coin, even under duress, the fallen is accepted and has full access.

Would be no different really than in DF when Nicodemus was torturing/threatening Dresden in an attempt to make him pick up the coin of Lasciel. Heck, I think even throwing the coin to him and having the guy grab it via reflex would be sufficient since that is essentially how Lasciel got Dresden at the end.

And ofcourse Harry probably would not have problems giving up the coin (for a few minutes) since he believes that Meciel loves him and would never abandon him. Besides, there is no way Meciel would choose that weakling guy over Harry so there is no risk of losing the coin even if you ignore emotions.