Yeah, this is one of the hard and fast fanon 'facts' about Luna: Her mind is so chaotic that trying to see her thoughts will result in anything from the Legilimens just seeing the equivalent of an acid trip or receiving a splitting headache... to going mildly insane.

This idea seemed to be picked up later on and adapted to Remus, who is supposedly a natural occlumens because either the 'wolf mind' is so alien to humans as to be unreadable, or 'the inner wolf' is territorial that way and actively protects the werewolf's thoughts. :|

 

Isn't the only reason that Dumbledore trusts Snape because he can't control his emotions about Lily Evans? His entire existence is ruled by his emotions towards her. Definitely a case of his emotions controlling him and not the other way around.

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The clearing your mind seems to me to be for training purposes only- you can't make shields to close your mind if you aren't aware of what is and what isn't part of your mind.

So you need to clear your mind while someone else makes legilimency attacks; your mind is empty so anything you feel is someone else's mind. That way you can feel what other's minds are like, allowing you to make shields around your mind and detect when someone is attacking you.

 

For some reason I want to say that this was from Jeconais' work, but now I'm not sure. Does anyone know where this trope originated? I kinda came late to the whole 'fan-fic' party, so I don't have much of a sense of the timing.

Speaking of Jeconais (and this is a totally tangential [Edit: retardedly off-topic] track for the conversation), I was wondering what DLP's opinion is of his writing. His fics, and others on his site, were some of the first I read when I first began to read fan fiction, and even today it's among my favorite works, but I can't really tell if that's an opinion shared by others on this forum. Won't change my mind, but if it's taboo, that'd be good to know.

[Edit: A post-search on his fics turned up a few extremely positive reviews, a few extremely negative reviews, and no real sense of a DLP consensus. PM me if you have more info. Thanks, and sorry for the tangent.]

 

Edit: sorry sesc. Deleted.

 

That's way too convoluted, IMO. Snape tells Harry that you can't read a mind. You sense the thoughts or intentions of the other person. If the emotions are under control, then that is a major element of what makes up the other person now cordoned from the person using legilimency. It's not about having emotions - it's about controlling them.

Snape's existence isn't ruled by his emotions towards Lily. He is trusted because he betrayed Voldemort due to his love for her (twisted though it may be). The result is that he has basically a slave relationship to that "love," one that Dumbledore understands and utilizes.

Love doesn't equal emotion, except for teenagers and teenage fanfiction.

 

A drop of my thoughts on emotions and a bit on werewolves.


It is my belief, that O, especially the basic active usage of it, requires you to controll your emotions to some degree. Perhaps, on higher O abilities, you can make do without. My own interpretation would be that at moments like the rage mentioned, Snape would have trouble denying anyone using L 'entrance', but it would be hard for L user to find thoughts other than the focus of his rage and associated memories. Especially cause with O, he can focus his rage narrower, not leaving other stray thoughs or emotions intermixed, if he chooses to do that, of course. The fact that you can potentially controll your emotions, doesn't mean that you must want to do so.



On werewolves, I believe (and I use this in my fics that have werewolves), contrary to the popular wolf-shield fannon, O is quite impossible for them to master, as their thoughts are basically different and divided - even if a human part learns O, the wolf can't do it. Control of emotions and thoughs it impossible when someone else is using these same emotions and memories at the same time. Thus, L would be effective on them, especially on the surface thoughts (lies and spells they will be casting).

On the other hand, the natural predatorial(animal) side of the werewolf, would somewhat hinder a long term searches for exact information, and longer contacts could potentially be dangerous to L user's mind.

Kind of the same would hapen should one attempt L on any animal (especially an angered predator) - the mind would be so foreign, the contact would potentially be dangerous.
Of course, a minute or two would end up with a bad feeling or nausea, half an hour could leave say, a nervous twitch for a few days and a bad headache, and hours of maintaining conection would risk serious brain damage.
Even with trying L against an owl you would be in danger. If you are stupid and prolong the contact till your brain fries.

An interesting turnaround would be a werewolf who learned L, which should be potentially easier than O and might even be possible. What effect would a contact initiated by the werewolf have on the recepient is a good question ;D.

 

Is there any implication in canon that being a werewolf has any influence on Lupin beyond the narrow windows of time in which he is actually a wolf?

And I use Lupin because he's the only prominently featured werewolf in the series.

 

This sounds about right, and its a good counterpoint to those fics where Harry uses O to control his emotions (i.e., his temper when someone does something to piss him off). The latter begets the former, and I don't get why so many people insist on mixing that up.

 

Nothing on Lupin's part, but when Bill got bitten by Fenrir Greyback (while he was still human) he was infected to a degree. He had cravings for rare meat and the likes, iirc. That suggests the wolf has an effect on the mind of the werewolf while in human form, even if it's just a minor one.

 

I agree with TRH for the most part that this does sound right, except for just a couple minor issues.

1. There's no "active" and "passive" occlumency. It simply is (I can't tell if you're using of "bold" is meant the same way).

2. From what Snape says in OotP (24), It seems that it isn't thoughts, but rather, feelings and memories that are extracted. Since there's interpretation involved in what they find, (the mind isn't like an open book, according to Snape), it's almost as if Legilimency is used to extract the feelings and memories, and then interpret them to understand the actual thought. So emotions have to be controlled one whatever topic is being sought by the Legilimens, and since both can be called up by someone else simply saying a word, I don't think focusing anger on something else would help. (though, TRH, I'm know I'm somewhat over-simplifying what you said for brevity's sake).

 

1. What?
I mean most of the training was for Harry to throw out or limit Snape.
I mean, yeah, you can claim that O is allways on, but it's the same kind of leap of logic as claiming that it's reactive, no real proof but for deduction that could potentially go either way.
The basic O might become instinctive, but that doesn't make it a non-activated ability, and, yeah, otherwhise. I believe the core idea is to choose and remain consistent.

2. I had something on that on previous page, and the whole interpretation of minds interacting does not dissalow this interpretation of how exactly one forbids certain parts of his minds.




Back to werewolves - my 'sources' for wolf side of the mind:

A. Dovaekiin mentioned Bill. He (B, not D, well maybe D, too, but that comes from dragon kinship) gets some cravings, even without the full lycantropy. (couter argument would be, that this happens only during full moon, but the fondeness of steaks isnt mentiod to be tied to a cycle)

B. Fenrir, and him 'having embraced the wolf' - not sure on exact phrasing but the point was Fenrir liked being a wolf so much his habbits changed, his behaviour became more wolfish. (here, the argument could be made that he's a simple madman, who believes he is behaving like a werewolf whenever he's not changed, but I prefer the other interperation for the theory I'm using, the opposite effect of wolsfsbane.)

C. Wolfsbane returns human mind to the wolf form. Returns or allows a degree of controll. That allows us to deduce that there is a wolf side in there somewhere, that is realeased on the full moon. Not a very far assumption would allow to believe that this side exists while in human form - yet, only as a shadow, and not active in any way, but for cravings for meat and so on. In normal circumstances this side would be mostly inactive, showing itself like in the case of Bill, but it is a constant, if sleepy part of a werewolf's psyche. Alike the alternate personality disorder, where you have your alternate mind living inside yours, that can be brought out by certain triggers. (L on a mental patient should be interestingly challenging in it's own way, too, even though from previous assumptions it flows that getting the information might be not as difficult, using L might get you hurt by the experience)

D. Remus strikes me as a werewolf, who is very much ashamed of his wolf side, and unlike Fenrir, he restrains his wolfish tendencies as possible. Thus, where he would get urges to do something, he might not to do anything due to sheer determination. (Thus he fits into the theory.(If the facts disprove the theory, use other facts ;D))

E. I filled the holes with personal fannon assumptions, which try to be unoposed to the facts we have.

That's basically all I have on the subject, unless I forgot something.

 

When I'm talking about "active" and "passive" I'm referring to the entire fanfiction idea of someone having their "passive" shields up and then the inevitable "Harry slammed down his (active) shields," usually because of big bad evil Dumbledore - which is when I hit the "x".

I wouldn't say it's always on. It's something that gets employed when the person chooses to employ it - though like any kind of defense, it can become second nature, but it's still something that I think, from what I read in canon, has to be actively done.

 

Ah, we're talking kind of the same here. I chose active to be bolded as to distinguish it from the 'shields are allways on' approach, but I came too close to the 'slamming the shields' bit, true.


To rephrase the bit about Snape with a more detailed example:

Suppose the Snape is mid rant about Harry Potter helping Sirius escape. Fudge, being the man, or well, fudge behind everything, decides that it's a moment of truth, and he needs to know what Snapes does, discreetely finds eye contact and casts L. (presuming he can, but that's not the point.)

Now, following the interpretation I gave before:

1. Snape has no time to reign in his emotions, nor his mind is clear enough. Thus, Fudge succesfully pings Snapes mind.
Thus, the conctact is on.

1.2. If Snape had been in control, that is actively, or instinctivelly trying to emply O from pure paranoia, the contact might have been shaky, or, provided Fudge is an amateur, Fudge would believe that he simply failed the spell, or would get the contact but could not deciper any meaningful sense. Snape would prove too complex for Fudge to handle, and the poor man would have a severe depression from unnderperformance issues.

2. The thoughs on the surface, are, of course, related to Black. Anger, regert, Harry disarming Snape, Black screaming obscenities and so on.
Fudge gets all that as a foreign information stream that he can't read like a book, he has to deciper.
Let's say he can.

2.2. If he can't, the L stops here - rage, impressions and something that might at best give him an impression of Black in the Shrieking Shack.
Fudge feels accomplished, but why does he think there's more?

3.Fudge rides the wave, probably getting cleared ideas of what is going in Snape's mind, when Snape realizes something is not right. Or, let's say, suspects.
Furge notices, or suspects that Snape has noticed his, for the lack of better word, probe.

3.2. Fudge doesn't notice Snape and all his attempts to go deeper turn out to be futile, as Snape, now actually doing something consciously, for a change, is feeding him wrong images. Here, the easiest way would be remain on the Sirius Black, as suddenly dropping the emotions would rise too much suspition - the contact is already initiated, dropping it and turning it into a buzy signal of the phone would be a waste of good O.

4. Fudge tries to reach deeper, by loose association, or whatever Snape minds uses to think. Here, Fudge is actually using Snape's way of thinking, or rather has to think in a way that Snape would - he's not forcing a memory to appear, he's tricking Snape to think about something. You know, subtle.

4.2. Fudge forgets to be subtle, forcing the stream to go in his wanted direction - like Snape's usual lessons. In this case, Snape now can claim the attack is truly happening - he has proof that it's not simply bad indigestion. And as even Harry Potter, sadly, his best student in mind arts, would notice the intrusion he can now freely retaliate in appropriate manner. As Snape has a wand, there's no real problem for him to start using a wand to block, or even attack Fudge.
However, if Snape is very sneaky he can continue pretending he is stupid, and isn't noticing anything. The chances of Fudge buying it are tied to Fudge's logic... Well, yeah, maybe Snape can do that. We move to 5 in this case, where Snape has a very much upper hand, for being the one in contoll, and only showing figurative stands for the Fudge in a china shop to walk into.

5. Fudge is trying to deciper deeper images, while Snape is trying to feed him irrelevant bits, and Fudge is trying to guess whether Snape knows that he knows that Snape knows... Well you get the idea. Here, Fudge can take a page, well, slide, from Inception, and always try to go deeper, until he can't or goes insane.

6. Provided Fudge is Voldemort and knows for truth about Snape's O, there's a potential of getting more relevant data while letting Snape think that he didn't make the association or didn't catch some short, seemingly irrelevant bits, that reveal where Snape's necrophilia is making his loyalties remain as they are.


And this all should be a lot more complex.

That's the best I can give now, I guess, baring a short story about O, L and Inception.

 

I see where you're going with it, and yeah, I do think we are pretty much on the same page.


On a side note, is there anywhere in the books where Legilimens is cast without a wand? I don't seem to remember any, which would mean that it could never really be cast unawares (unless there wasn't eye contact - which, in itself, is extremely rare for someone to be able to do, and not to effective).

 

Legilimency is used without a wand - case in point, Voldemort knowing whenever people lie to him. Legilimens, however, is a specific spell (or rather, its incantion) within the field of legilimency. Whether this is a side effect from being an adept of the art or a separate spell or magical effect was never mentioned, so far as I remember, but it was definitely a magical effect and not simply a talent of reading body language because of the way this ability of Voldemort's is described to Harry when he's being told why he must learn occlumency.

And referring to occlumency and legilimency as O and L is goddamned annoying.

 

Voldemort can be lied to. Narcissa lied to him about Harry being dead, and he did not pick up on it. My guess is that she got away with it because he wasn't using the Legilimens spell to be able to detect the lie.

The more I think about it, wandless Legilimens is a Fanfiction creation.

 

...or Narcissa was good enough with Occlumency to lie to Voldemort without him picking up on it. Of course, we have no idea at all of Narcissa's abilities but I do agree that the Legilimens probably needs to be looking for a lie if he/she wants to be able to detect one.

Legilimency itself though can seemingly be performed without a wand. In HBP, Snape wasn't shown using a wand when performing Legilimency on Harry, after Harry used the Sectumsempra on Malfoy.

 

Narcissa wasn't looking Voldemort in the eye when she lied to him.

Also remember that a wizard doesn't need to be holding his wand to use it.

 

Good point. I suppose that makes Legilimency another type of magic (or spell) that can be cast with the wand on the wizard's person but not specifically in his hand. I think the Animagus transformation and Apparation are also similar where wand-use is concerned.