Talk:Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Magic/Mirror of Erised

"the Mirror should have surrendered the Stone to [Quirrell] as he was not planning to use it himself" - Except that Quirrell was going to use the stone, wasn't he? He was going to use it to get Voldemort off the back of his head. No matter how much of an 'honor' it might be to host his master in this fashion, it would have to be a relief to get him off. Alternately one could infer that he was going to use the stone to ingratiate himself with Voldemort, gaining some type of favor in return. It depends upon the Dumbledore's definition of 'use' when he cast the spell. From a less word-smith and more pragmatic point of view, who's actually going to make the elixir for Voldemort to drink? Only one of those two has hands. To me the more problematic issue is the implication that Harry "dearly wanted the Stone" when looking at the mirror. I would have expected that what he wanted most at that moment would have been Dumbledore. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Glibbet (discuss • contribs) 18:54, 24 November 2017‎
 * An interesting point. Did you want to put that into the article, or should I tackle it? Chazz (talk) 04:11, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Probably better you do it. I'm not very experienced with wiki.  Feel free to use as much (or as little) from that comment as seems useful.Glibbet (discuss • contribs) 04:43, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Much better, thanks. Do we delete this discussion now that the change is made? Glibbet (discuss • contribs) 04:09, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Nope, it's worth keeping so that others if they're so inclined know the process, or at least some of it, that we went through to reach the finished product. Chazz (talk) 05:13, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

"But Harry has no conscious memory of what his parents look like. Yet, the Mirror is able to show them to him." Whether this is indeed a problem seems to depend upon how the mirror actually works. As I understand it, no two people looking at the mirror are going to see the same thing. For instance Quirrell who was standing right next to Harry had to ask him what he'd seen. Which seems to suggest that however the mirror is showing things, it's not doing so via light waves off its surface. I don't have the book here so I can't confirm, but does Harry describe what he's seeing in the mirror? Not just "I see my parents" but "There's a woman roughly 35 years old with brown hair and green eyes who is roughly 5'8" tall and weighs 130 pounds?" And more importantly, how would Harry recognize this woman as his mother if in fact he has never seen her?

This suggests to me that the mirror doesn't actually "show" (via eyes) the things it does. Instead it reflects people's desire back into their minds, turning "I want to know that my parents loved me" into "You see your parents and they love you."

NB: I'm a muggle and don't actually know how magic works... Glibbet (discuss • contribs) 04:14, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
 * The only reason I commented on this originally is that there is no "cognitive jolt" when Harry gets the album with his parents' pictures at the end of the book. In fact, she is described: "She was a very pretty woman. She had dark red hair and her eyes – her eyes are just like mine, Harry thought, edging closer to the glass." James is also described as a tall thin man with black hair that stuck up at the back, just like Harry's. It's the visible similarity to Harry's own appearance that triggers Harry's realization that these are his parents. I'll grant that everyone sees something different, though it is possible that the mirror will reflect only one person at a time - I note that the second night, when both Harry and Ron are there, Ron describes what he's seeing, but Harry doesn't seem to be able to see Ron in the mirror at all. There is no mention if this is because the mirror is empty when Harry tries to look around or over Ron at it, or if Ron is simply in the way. But given that we do have a clear description of the people that Harry sees in the mirror, and that the couple in the mirror seem to be the same as the couple in the photo album (and in the cemetery, and retrieved through the Stone), the suggestion that the mirror is reading deeper memories than Harry can on his own must remain as the most likely hypothesis. Chazz (talk) 05:13, 5 December 2017 (UTC)