Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.

[lunar_music]

In CoS, Mr. Weasley utters one of my favorite lines of the series: “Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.” (CoS 329 American Hardcover ed.) Working where he does, in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office, we can assume he would be something of an authority on such things. After all, he works with

Comments

[lessthangreat]

Something that is as intelligent as a human but is, in fact, not human, cannot be expected to think in the same ways as a human. That, in itself, is a very good point.

This was a great essay. Sorry I don't have anything to say other than that, but I don't really think there is anything more to say. :-)

[lunar_music]

Ooo, good point. Harry's hatred of Snape does seem to flare up after he gets the map, doesn't it? I hadn't thought of that.

And the Real-Life!Sirius was repetitively accused of trying to turn Harry into James; it's perfectly possible that the Map!Sirius has been doing something very similar. Except that very few people even know about the map, and none of them realize what it's doing to Harry, whereas there were plenty of people who could catch the real Sirius at it.

[jamoche]

Interesting. I'm in the middle of writing a fic about how Remus gained the expertise needed to be the DADA teacher. Along the way he's becoming more convinced of Sirius's guilt, because the Dark Arts he's learning include spells that went into the Marauder's Map.

[meepalicious]

off topic, but: oh please make sure I somehow get a link to that story!

[jamoche]

Done; I've just posted it.

[meepalicious]

Interesting essay (not to mention, short and to the point.) Excellent.

This brings up three more possible issues to be explored: the loyalty of the Sorting Hat, what the hell is up with the MaP (and, therefor, the Marauders themselves) and Dumbledore's portrait.

The Sorting Hat issue really bothers me. I'm sorry, but anything that can read my mind and produce a sword from seemingly nowhere is suspect, especially if if spends its free time writing poetry.

[meepalicious]

I never thought the Hat was a Horcrux.
I just didn't think it was entirely "safe." Even in the first books, before we learned about Horcruxes, I was weirded out by the Hat. It does weird things. It reads minds and writes poetry, like I said.

[ook]

A couple of comments in passing about the Map. The order of the names seems like they might be a key to who actually put most of the work into the creation of the Map. Note that Lupin's name is first (he became the Dark Arts teacher) followed by Peter's name (he became a DeathEater). A coincidence? I can easily see Peter being the one to map out the school, using his rat Animagus form.

Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor.

Note also that the real life Sirius was also amazed that Snape was a professor. Is the Map a type of "clone" of the Marauder's personalities? Is the Map a Horcrux-Lite?

[lunar_music]

Based on the level of complexity of the spell-work that probably went into the map, I think it was probably James and Sirius who did most of the work. They are the ones generally described as "brilliant," after all. I have, however, heard a theory that their names are on the map in the reverse order of their death, meaning that Wormtail will die before Lupin does.

I think the map may be very similar to the Sorting Hat, just in terms of how it works. After all, both seem to have minds that are "clone"s of their makers, without actually being connected to their makers.

[meepalicious]

I have, however, heard a theory that their names are on the map in the reverse order of their death, meaning that Wormtail will die before Lupin does.
I certainly hope so. :D
Do you have a link to that?

[lunar_music]

I think it was on one of the recent Mugglecast episodes... maybe #22? I'm not sure.