Luke's HP Site

The Mind Arts: Legilimency

Legilimency might not be quite reading your thoughts like a book, but it certainly seems to come close. Though I have not seen it myself, this is apparently especially true if you include the Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them movie.1 According to what I have read, Mrs. Rowling’s comments on that movie indicate that Legilimency is not just a skill you can learn, but one that you can essentially be born with.

Before reading that, my thoughts were certainly trending in the direction of the dark arts. The fact that Dumbledore makes fairly free use of Legilimency2 is really more proof of the morally ambiguous nature of Dumbledore; I am the last person to whitelist a practice just because he does it. Certainly the idea of intruding on a person’s thoughts, memories and emotions is invasive. That by itself isn’t enough to render it evil though. It is more the way Snape uses it I suppose, the way he batters Harry with it, leaving Harry with migraines and nightmares that starts me down that path. I am not sure where, but I have also read at least one author speculate that a skilled Legilimens might not just be able to read and interpret, but might be able to implant and influence thoughts, emotions, maybe even manipulate memories. That, to me, would unquestionably be a violation of the person’s free will, and thus evil.

Still, I refuse to believe that someone is born evil. Now the fallen nature of humanity is a very very real thing. We tend towards sin. But we also have free will, and sufficient free will to turn towards God and respond to grace. Moreover the Devil can only corrupt, not create. The idea that you can be born with a skill that is inherently immoral to use is repugnant. One that can only be used in specific context, in narrow ways, fine. Theology has to deal with concupiscense and chastity already afterall. But if Queenie Goldstein is born instinctively practicing Legilimency, there must be a moral context in which it is acceptable. A time, a place, and a method by which she can use her gift, even if she must (or at least should) learn to reign it in some or even most of the time.

Still, whether or not Legilimency is not itself inherently evil, and given that Occlumency is inherently flawed, the methods of defense against it that are presented to us by Mrs. Rowling are woefully insufficient. There has to be something that you can do to defend your privacy, and potentially even the integrity of your mind, without risking damage to yourself.

Lastly, as I discuss when considering Mental Shields as an alternative to Occlumency, using Legilimency must in some way undermine any defenses you may have against being yourself attacked with it. Whatever Snape does to protect his own thoughts, when he is attacking Harry’s mind, he feels the need to take the extra step of removing certain thoughts to make them that much more inaccessible.3

On a side note, several authors before me have speculated that Snape routinely uses this skill on Harry throughout the books, and that it is only because Harry, our narrator, is himself unaware of it, that we in turn are not made more aware of it.4

  1. Kelly West. “A Key Difference Between Snape And Queenie’s Abilities, According to JK Rowling” Cinema Blend 2016-12-26. Last Viewed 2020-06-30.↩︎

  2. https://harrypotter.fandom.com/. “Legilimency” Last Viewed 2020-06-30. Note the article’s text only mentions one clear cut example, but I’m taking everything in the table as a given example of use.↩︎

  3. Mrs. J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Better citation needed here.

    This is a charitable interpretation. The alternative is that Snape was laying a trap for Harry, that he fully intended that pensieve to eventually be left alone in the room with Harry and to be spied upon.↩︎

  4. works include, but not limited to:

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