harry potter - Did Voldemort know when he was being lied to by Snape?

We know Severus Snape was "an accomplished Occlumens." We also see that Voldemort, who was a powerful Legilimens, was unable to detect when Snape was lying to him.

Does this mean that Voldemort could not detect when he was being lied to because of Snape's Occlumency? Would he know that Severus was protecting his thoughts from being read, had Voldemort tried Leglimency on him?

Answer

If Voldemort had ever known -- or even suspected -- that one of his inner circle was using Occlumency against him, I don't think that person would have lived for very long. Therefore, either:

Voldemort never tried to use Legilimency against Snape (which I find extremely unlikely; especially since, as stated at the beginning of HBP, Snape had to defend his actions of the past fourteen years after Voldemort's return); or

Snape did use Occlumency against Voldemort, but Voldemort was unaware of it.

I lean toward the latter. I'm sure a clumsy beginner's attempt at Occlumency would be easy to spot, but perhaps a skilled-enough Occlumens is able to hide the fact that they're hiding anything -- to leave parts of their mind open while blocking other parts, and leave even a powerful Legilimens like Voldemort none the wiser.

Personally, though, I think that Snape had additional help, beyond even his skill in Occlumency: (spoiler for book 7)

Snape's love for Lily.

Love is the antithesis of everything Voldemort ever stood for; he never understood it, and it actually caused him pain when he possessed Harry in OotP. I think a skilled Occlumens like Snape could turn that to his advantage in steering Voldemort away from any thoughts relating to protecting Harry.

Comments

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...

Blog

Search This Blog