More Harry Potter thoughts
Nov. 2nd, 2005 12:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
At the end of CoS, Molly makes a big deal about how she had "always said" that you should "never trust anything that can think for itself unless you can see where it keeps its brain!"
That's odd advice, isn't it? Not "don't play with your brother's wand!", or "always wear a helmet when on a broom", or "love potions, they're not for fun", but... don't trust things that can think for themselves? Even accounting for some massive hyperbole here, she has to have said it at least once or twice to think that Ginny would know that! Geez, how often would this even come up?
Then I started thinking about it. People in that word trust thinking objects all the damn time. The Sorting Hat? Where does it keep *its* brain? Arthur's car? I suppose the brain could go under the hood/bonnet.... Hogwarts itself? Even if we don't accept the idea that the school is sentient, it's clearly got some kind of intelligence, or it couldn't keep updating itself! (That, or one of Slytherin's descendents was a plumber....) Heck, it's even got some minor telepathy, or appears to, by which it operates the Room of Requirement (notice that the "bathroom" room of that room has chamber pots - it hasn't been updated. Is this significant?) So what is it about not knowing where the brain is that makes the thinking object untrustworthy, exactly?
*yawns* I'm going back to sleep soon. Hi all.
That's odd advice, isn't it? Not "don't play with your brother's wand!", or "always wear a helmet when on a broom", or "love potions, they're not for fun", but... don't trust things that can think for themselves? Even accounting for some massive hyperbole here, she has to have said it at least once or twice to think that Ginny would know that! Geez, how often would this even come up?
Then I started thinking about it. People in that word trust thinking objects all the damn time. The Sorting Hat? Where does it keep *its* brain? Arthur's car? I suppose the brain could go under the hood/bonnet.... Hogwarts itself? Even if we don't accept the idea that the school is sentient, it's clearly got some kind of intelligence, or it couldn't keep updating itself! (That, or one of Slytherin's descendents was a plumber....) Heck, it's even got some minor telepathy, or appears to, by which it operates the Room of Requirement (notice that the "bathroom" room of that room has chamber pots - it hasn't been updated. Is this significant?) So what is it about not knowing where the brain is that makes the thinking object untrustworthy, exactly?
*yawns* I'm going back to sleep soon. Hi all.
