What's your point?

 

who are the other 2 people in the vows?

 

The person you promise to speak the truth to and the oath keeper I assume.

 

This is basically the same as veritaserum and thus open to the same exploits (namely, magic that temporarily changes what you believe to be true).

 

I was referring to the possible uses of the oath, not the circumstances it requires, and pointing out that even following a very strict interpetation of canon, it can be used to show that one is speaking the truth as one knows it. Which would have consequences for a number of plots.

 

Was going to edit this into a previous post but the conversation has moved on.

No idea what you're getting at here. Romilda did not ever have a conversation with Harry in which she offered him sex on a platter, offering him rational arguments as to why he should accept.

Moderately sure you're trolling here. There is a clear difference between House Elves and animals (or at least as much difference as there is between humans and animals): House Elves are sentient beings. They have desires and goals. They're capable of love and hate. They can learn and change. They're capable of speech, reasoning, and planning. They have ideals. They are the "moral equal" to human beings. Owning them is wrong.

And Harry buying Dobby off Lucius would be as much against Harry's character as Dobby volunteering for slavery is against his.

We have a grand total of one pure-blood family which lives in a manor: the Malfoys. And hell, they got their Manor as a gift from a Muggle. No idea where you're getting the idea that pure-blood = manor house.

Because individuals, if given a choice, choose to marry for love, not to aid the political ambitions of their parents. Which means the parent has to have the power to overrule their child's choice.

There are very vague hints. Firstly, if you do a search through all the books you will find very few examples of dodging. This is probably the clearest:

Importantly, Harry is throwing himself to the ground before Voldemort casts the spell -- he moves when Voldemort raises his wand. Contrast with when he does try to move until the wand is already pointing at him:

Here's another example, from OotP:

Here's an example of Harry dodging a spell already in flight. The context is a pretty large room, however - an amphitheatre.

Here's another one, again a spell cast from a significant distance away:

This is probably the best example we have of deliberate dodging in close quarters:

The context - "you can't dance forever" - makes it clear that Ginny is moving constantly, rather than dodging in response to individual spells.

That's basically every example of spells being dodged in the whole series.

 

so can veritaserum-post 41

 

Of course. But usually it would be enough to convince most people to give one the benefit of the doubt - doubly so if combined with spells or other means that would detect such exploits.

(Incidentally, if one assumes that people will always assume that a witness or accused will have used such means as you mention, then one could never convict anyone given that even an - admittedly genius - second year student could brew polyjuice.)

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Which obviously was a far better tactic than standing and trying to shield against an unforgivable. So, I think given the circumstances the DA members and especially Harry were training for (defending against Death Eaters), "dodging" or "keeping moving" is superiour to shielding and standing your ground.

 

I actually quite like the idea that veritaserum would be accepted as conclusive evidence in civil trials but not criminal trials. Criminal trials have to show guilty beyond reasonable doubt, which veritaserum would not do due to the existence of counter-measures. The burden of proof in civil trials, however, is the balance of probabilities and so veritaserum is probably enough to tip that balance.

I disagree. A shield, if you can cast it, does not leave you in a worse position after using it. Dodging, however, puts you on the back foot, because you're being forced to react and reposition yourself (often into a bad position) by your in-control enemy. If you're dodging spells you are going to be hit eventually - your opponent just has to keep using the same tactic and wait for you to tire/get unlucky. Ginny here, remember, is dodging under the influence of luck potion.

If, on the other hand, you can cast the shield charm and you block the spell (obviously you would not use a shield charm in a real fight if your shield isn't good enough to stop dark magic), then basically your opponent is going to have to change to a different tactic. Repeating the same spell, as they would against the dodging opponent, is just going to crash unsuccessfully against your shield again and again.

Incidentally, the reason why dodging is a deal-breaker cliché is not because it can't be logically defended. The reason why it's a deal breaker is that it reveals a certain preference on the part of the author for "physical magic" where they treat magic largely like a slow gun. Where dodging exists, unoriginal "tennis match" duels are sure to follow. Often a Muggle-wank is not far behind.

 

Even in criminal trials people would use veritaserum as evidence, just not evidence that would be conclusive on its own. But if the claim was that that multiple witnesses and the accused were influenced by such means, without any sign of their use, "resonable doubt" quickly disappears.

Further, in criminal cases the prosecution would probably be able to ensure that no such measures can be taken by the witnesses and the accused. Unless of course such measures cannot be detected by any means, which opens another can of worms.

 

This thread could've been named pet peeves for all the stuff going on here.
Anyway personally for me any story no matter how decently written, if it gives harem to the main character or any character for that matter marks my cue to leave it.

 

One reader's pet peeve is another reader's deal breaker.

 

In the extreme case, the defendant could obliviate themselves or have someone else obliviate them. We know this to be irreversible except via torture which completely breaks the mind.

We don't really know how the trial system works in normal cases, as the only trials we saw where quite irregular. The Death Eater trials were a kind of summary trial by a special court which is never again mentioned -- the Council of Magical Law -- and Harry's trial before the Wizengamot is noted to be contrary to standard practice.

If there's any semblance of a jury system, it could be that a past ruling makes veritaserum inadmissible, because a jury might be swayed by it beyond what they should be. There are other ways it could be inadmissible too: a rule against self-incrimination/forcing people to testify against themselves, or the right to silence.

 

I don't really think that the wizarding world, who tortures and summary executes people, is concerned with such legal niceties. It certainly played no role at all in canon. The mere fact that Harry was tried before the Wizengamot makes one guess that this is the rule, and that it's irregular because he's a minor.

 

Where on earth did you get that from? Even House Elves don't think owning house elves is wrong. Dobby was an outcast, a source of shame to good house elves everywhere. The only one in all of canon who thought owning house elves to be wrong was Hermione. No one else gave a fuck.

Why would it be? Even canon Harry didn't think anything of owning house elves - infact, he did own a house elf, and this was actually against the wishes of said elf. Very few wizards think of house elves of anything more than property, and it is very likely that any version of Harry raised in the wizarding world would be the same.

Why do the political ambitions have be those of your parents? You could marry for your own political ambitions.

Your reading is different from mine. Surely there can't be too many reasons for Romilda to feed Harry love potions if she did not want to sleep with him. At least, we know that this is the reason Merope slipped Tom Riddle Sr. his love potion. Romilda presumably wanted the same.

You are wrong here. Hermione memory charmed her parents and planned to bring them back after the war. Presumably, memory charms can easily be reversed by the caster.

Also, even Barty Crouch Sr did not authorize the use of Veritaserum on Death Eaters. There is either a huge taboo against the use of Veritaserum, or it just very ineffective for some reason. Or JKR did not fully think of the consequences when she introduced Veritaserum. Probably the last one, so make of it what you will.

 

I like to imagine that the reason veritaserum isn't used in trials is because the people making the laws are scared that somebody might use it against them someday.

 

This is a bad argument on many levels.

Firstly, you have the issue of indoctrination. House Elves are, from birth, immersed in the belief that slavery is good, serving a family is the most important thing in life, and that they should enjoy work. It is essentially a process of grooming. Grooming invalidates consent, because you've subverted the will of the consenter through brainwashing. That the elves are happy as slaves does not, therefore, make it okay for wizards to hold them as slaves.

Secondly, you have the issue of choice. As sentient beings, it's a moral imperative that House Elves' self-determination not be compromised. There is a massive difference between choosing to work for free (charity) and being bound to work for free (slavery). This means that, even if House Elves would choose to continue life in exactly the same way, failing to allow them a free choice as to the matter violates their rights.

Now, House Elves being happy with their slavery is relevant in one sense, which is that it has to be taken into account when trying to devise a practical solution to the problem. It would be unkind to force them to be free and cause them distress; a longer-term solution built around education is required, slowly building up their confidence as independent agents until they're ready to ask for freedom.

This was the whole point. The thematic purpose of SPEW was to show that the world is not cleanly divided into "liberal" and "conservative". There are some people who call themselves liberal on certain matters (e.g. blood matters) but who don't even realise that they're conservative in others (e.g. House Elf slavery). In time, the moral Zeitgeist moves: the previous controversy becomes accepted, the previously accepted malpractice begins to be questioned.

This is a parallel with the real world. For example, consider the movement for the enfranchisement of women. At the time, many of those who argued for women to have the vote were only, in fact, arguing for women of property to be able to vote. It was only years later that universal suffrage was campaigned for.

Situation 1 (Harry inheriting Kreacher): accidentally inheriting a dangerous slave with a track record of supporting the other side in a conflict, then following your mentor's instructions as to what to do with him.

Situation 2 (Harry buying Dobby off Lucius): deliberately seeking to enslave an innocent third party, working together with a man you hate to do so.

These situations are not at all comparable. Harry's acceptance of the former (and we don't really receive much info on how he feels about it) does not imply that he would do the latter.

If you're doing it for your own political ambitions, what political benefit does marrying someone bring, exactly?

Marrying a relative off to seal an alliance is essentially a case of giving a hostage to the other side. Marrying yourself does not do this.

You're still not getting the point. Convince means to persuade verbally using argumentation. Romilda did not do that.

Not true. Hermione used the memory-modification charm on her parents, not the obliviation charm. The former is reversible, the latter is not. The memory modification charm was first mentioned in HBP, and then Hermione explicitely says in DH that she hasn't obliviated anyone before.

JKR has elaborated on the limits of veritaserum; it's not her fault if you haven't sought that information out.

 

With all the things that exist in the wizarding world, I wouldn't surprised if you could pull a Kira/Just as planned quite easily.

Basically, what Taure said.

edit : I'm talking about veritaserum.


edit 2:

You could marry a woman/man for money. Money that can be used for your own political ambitions.

 

On House Elves and morality: The initial argument was that Harry owning Dobby was a story breaker, and later that owning house elves is wrong. Owning house elves may be amoral in our society, but it is hardly amoral in the HP society. I am not going to write an essay on morality here, I just don't understand why would it be a story breaker, especially taking into account all the Dark!Harry stories out there.

I assumed you were talking about the false memory charm the first time as well. There is no reason to get yourself obliviated when the false memory charm is much more viable (in fact, it makes obliviations almost obsolete). The false memory charm presumably blocks Veritaserum as well, since it changes your perception of truth (admittedly this is not listed as a Veritaserum counter measure by JKR, although logically if what you think is true can be changed, Veritaserum is rendered useless). An obliviation merely means that you forget - which is immediately suspicious and largely pointless in a court case.

JKR on veritaserum:

While this (along with the false memory charm) explains why veritaserum is not the sole tool used in courts (still, occlumency is largely unknown and other counter-measures require a wand), none of this explains why Barty Crouch Sr did not haul a Death Eater out of Azkaban for questioning. Presumably a DE fresh out of Azkaban would be groggy enough for Veritaserum to work, and considering that Crouch made the darkest of curses legal for aurors to use, he should have no qualms drowning Karkaroff or some other unfortunate DE in Veritaserum. It should definitely be enough to haul in someone for questioning, yet for some reason he did not do that in canon, instead choosing to rely on Karkaroff's reluctant and shaky testimony.

 

Maybe veritaserum is really expensive/difficult to get (requiring a ≥world-class potions master to brew) and they simply don't have it on hand? Dumbledore had access to Snape and had no qualms about using veritaserum on Crouch.