Obliviate vs Deneuralizer what if…?

[Alice I]

It occurred to me that the Oblivaite Spell in Harry Potter is kind of like the deneuralizer in MIB, only in MIB you can replace the memory with a new one.

What if; in the Harry Potter universe all the times we have heard of the obliviate spell being cast the memory was not just removed but replaced with something else.

We could theorize all kinds of ways to twist the plot with this consideration. Any thoughts?

[Athena Appleton]

ummm... but we've seen what happened when an Obliviate spell went bad... Harry and Ron watched Lockheart LOSE, not REPLACE his memory...

[Ferrus]

Yes, but Kingsley Shacklebolt MODIFIES Cho changs friend(cant remember the name) memory when she is in DD´s office so that she says that it was the first DA meeting instead of the umpteenth

[Nobby]

yeah but wouldn't she just lose her memories of previous DA meetings.

therefore she would think it was her first

[Ferrus]

Good point actually

*thinking furiously*

no, I can´t think why it shouldn´t be the case...

[Athena Appleton]

Did he modify it? I'm going daft in my old age. I was thinking he just kinda forced her to tell Umbridge there were no previous meetings (like she was under the imperius curse or somethin), but technically she still remembered it...

[Jotomicron]

Umm... I found it: page number 548 English Hardcover version. I's Dumbledore talking about Kingsley Shaklebolt.

'He was remarkably quick on the uptake, modifying Miss Edgecombe's memory like that (...)

.

We also know that "her eyes looked oddly blank" (page 543). This is the same effect described when the muggle in the Quidditch World Cup was "obliviated"... It seems that it's possibe to make someone just forget, and to modify one's memory![/quote]

[tonym144]

[quote="Jotomicron"]Umm... I found it: page number 548 English Hardcover version. I's Dumbledore talking about Kingsley Shaklebolt.
[quote]'He was remarkably quick on the uptake, modifying Miss Edgecombe's memory like that (...)[/quote].

We also know that "her eyes looked oddly blank" (page 543). This is the same effect described when the muggle in the Quidditch World Cup was "obliviated"... It seems that it's possibe to make someone just forget, and to modify one's memory![/quote][/quote]


Unfortunately, by deleting her memories, that IS modifying them. Any change to something, either by adding, changing or deleting is modification. Good try though. ;)

[Athena Appleton]

Unfortunately, by deleting her memories, that IS modifying them. Any change to something, either by adding, changing or deleting is modification. Good try though.

Okay, this thread is really really really old, so I don't know what I was thinking earlier.

Common sense says they would have been adding memories, similar to what they did in MIB.

Granted, not everyone would have to be given false memories. People who saw Ron and Harry flying over London in a car, or even the family who was being levitated at the mass campsite, only needed to have those memories erased.

But Muggles were witnesses to the blow-up where Sirius and Peter had their confrontation. It obliterated an entire street, killing a lot of Muggles. They would have to have had some memory of what happened, because let's face it, the street is blown apart and there are dead bodies. For that many people to not remember anything would have been REALLY suspicious. They got the testimonies about what happened (Sirius was imprisoned based on "eyewitness testimony"), the memories were destroyed immediately, and something else had to be put in there, because they would wake up the next day and the street would be still be in ruins, and it would come out that there was a mass murder there.