I have a question about Veritiserum. If its a truth potion why don't they just give it to everyone who is under arrest? I mean then you would find out what you wanted to know. I know this question doesn't really have an answer but why not?

Happy Christmas/Hannakah/Kwanzaa/Festivis

*Rica

Can't Explain all these feelings that you're making me feel.
My hearts in overdrive and your behind the steering wheel.
-The Darkness

AIM-Crossedmyheart2

Wow, good question. I have thought of this before, and I have come to one conclusion:

Veritserum is kinda like a lie detector. I can't see them as fail safe. A very strong willed person would be able to resist the temptation to give in to the device/potion. So if they gave the potion to the "bad" guys, you could never really know who was telling the truth, and who wasn't. Also, the potion could be brewed incorectly, or the person brewing it could be purposefully brewing it incorrectly(like we have seen snape do). This is just a theory, but I think it is relevant. I don't believe people's testimony's could be valid if they are under some kind of "drug"/"potion". I mean, how is that moral? Even in the wizarding world.

Good question, I hope my theory helps you. I would also like to note, that this isn't fully my thoery. While reading a fan-fic, some of this was mentioned, and I "elaborated" on it. I had not really thought of it before, but I do not wish to take full credit for the theory.

"Make way for the Heir of Slytherin, seriously evil wizard coming through. . ."-Fred and George(CoS)

IM Me: MSN: petrov_18@hotmail.com ICQ:147142744 AOL: lockehockey

What Locke said is a prety good reason. But, I have another to add to it. Even if the person brewing it is trying to get it correct, and he does get it correct, and the person doesn't have enough will power to make the potion not work correctly, there is this problem: What is something isn't true, but the person with the potion beleives it's true? Nat all can be learned.

Also, they wouldn't be in their correct frame of mind. They wouldn't answer questions with exact detail. It is my understanding that they would get right to the point. Like if you said "Who murdered John Doe?" They would say "I did." If they were assisted, but the assistant didn't do the murdering, then that part wouldn't be addressed at all. Like if they had a spell on them to kill the person they wouldn't mention it. They would flat out say that it was him who did the killing. Or if someone planed the whole thing out, he wouldn't say who planed it. It would have to be used by a very skilled interigator, and then hope that the person knows the correct truth, and not a false truth. Too good of a chance of inacurasey on many aspects of it if you ask me.

I remember asking this question waaaay back when I was such a lurker who made random question posts and somenoe answered it for me in a way I've stuck to. It's kind of like Chris said... this person pointed out that what you believe is true may not REALLY be the truth. Like ( really bad example but.. ) if you really try to convince yourself that your head is big you may eventually believe it to be fact. Your head may not be big at all but if you believe it's true then under vertiseium you would say you had a big head even if you could plainly see that you didn't.

Wow I need sleep.

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"if you let them make you; they'll make
you paper mache; at a distance you're
strong; until the wind comes; then you
crumble and blow away"

Yeah, what she said is also true, but I was looking at it from a different angle. What I meant is say "Joe Smow" tells you "Jane Doe" was killed by "John Doe". You would beleive that to be true. But say "Joe Shmow" was lieing, and it was realy "Joe Shmow" who killed "Jane Doe", then you would be telling a lie under the potion, but you wouldn't know since you would beleive the first thing I mentioned.

But yeah, what Smantha said actually is a good point also. Some people lie so much that they convince themselves at times that a lie is the absolute truth. And trust me, I know a few people I used to be friends with who are like that. Although that's a good part of the reason I'm not friends with them any more, but that's another story for another time.

If you want a real good thorough and detailed answer, try and look for the thread about the same topic (probably different but similur title). It may be a few months back, but probably not too far back. Helen had a really good explenation on it. I think it tied in to what Locke said, but I honestly can't remember.

Great points from everyone.  I also think that the value in Vertiserum would be the one that Umbridge tried on Harry.  You have an unsuspecting subject. (Umbridge was not able to pull that off) and then you give them the potion and talk to them.  They would not realize that were under it's influence so they wouldn't be able to attempt to fight it off.  Of course, then you have the problems that were mentioned above.  You could only 'rely' on 1st person information. I suppose this is one of the potion skills that Aurors need.....wonder if Harry could brew some?

Yet another point. I can see why Voldemort, Umbridge, etc. use the potion- they're not under the influence of the government in their procedures (Umbridge claimed to be, but I doubt she sought government approval in its use). The main problem here is that interrogating a person through the use of artificial drugs that severely influence the main is a gross violation of human rights. I don't know what stone age the magic world is living in, but for a government that is closely connected to the English Muggle Parliament and part of the western world, to use such a powerful drug and deprive a person of all free will violates a fundamental right of individual automony that no Muggle government will allow. Right now, there are drugs on our market that relax a person to the point they practically can't lie. I'm sure police would love to have that, but they could never use it because in our system of government, people are allowed to remain silent and keep their person free from such influences. Our governments actually respect the individual, and I can't see the magic world so barbaric as to resort to means that absolutely shock the conscience of any person who values human life. I couldn't see the Muggle British Parliament keeping ties with a government that does use drugs to force people to talk and take away their freedom.

Plus, as already brought up here, no drug is a fail safe. Right now, if a person voluntarily agrees to take a lie detector test and fails, that evidence is inadmissible in ANY court. The prosecutors can beg and show as much evidence as they want to the judge, but right now, NO judge in America can allow that evidence into trial without the defense's consent (which is impossible to obtain if the defendant failed) and if they do, it's a guarantee that conviction will be immediately overturned by the court of appeals as plain error and a fundamental violation of the person's rights since the test will have undue influence on the jury. Juries hear "lie detector" and assume it's fail safe...but it's anything but. A lie detector test has such random results that no accuracy rate can be conclusively determined, although they guess it at around 50%...which means that you have just as much chance at failing as passing regardless of whether or not you're guilty. The problem is in how the test is run. It basically takes samples of your skin and notices changes, the theory being that if you lie, you'll tense and sweat more and your body temperature will rise. But just being plugged into a machine can cause that reaction. The idea that you'll always be perfectly calm when telling the truth and nervous when you lie is absolute BS. As brought out, some people lie so much that it's natural to them and won't induce a skin reaction at all. Others are naturally nervous and being hooked up to a machine with wires going everywhere is going to induce a reaction that no matter what you say, it will show you are lying. The machine is so terribly inaccurate that it is evidence of absolutely nothing and is usually used just as a formality of showing you actually did something, even if it means crap.

Anyway, veritserum is the same thing. It may have higher accuracy, but you'll never achieve true 100% accuracy. No government that has any respect for individual rights would allow a person to be convicted and sent to a prison such as Azkaban after denying them all defense because they admitted something under the influence of a less than accurate drug.

Wow. Great answer, Helen. I ddunno how much I can add to what's already been said and I know we covered this once or twice before...but here goes anyway.

Another problem with Veritaserum is other spells. We don't really know which spells and potions are stronger than others. Perhaps there are spells that block Veritaserum from working properly. Something that Snape might know how to do, and Voldemort and Dumbledore definitely would know how to do.

Maybe it's a spell that convinces you that certain things are true when ordinarily you know that they aren't. Maybe it's a spell that prevents the serum from taking affect. That one would be especially dangerous because anything you said would be considered the absolute truth when in fact you could tell them anything you wanted.

And another interesting question...can veritaserum overpower a secret keeper? I doubt it. If Pettigrew was Harry's parents' secret keeper and someone had given Sirius veritaserum and asked where they were and Sirius knew, would he be able to "betray" them even though Peter hadn't squealed yet?

Something to think about.

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In the land of the braindead
The man with one neuron is king
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That's a great question.  It would be interesting to see someone actually questioned under Vertiserum since its come up so often in the books (although it would probably be used against the Order, which would be bad).

Here's another question...Snape indicated to Umbridge that he had given her quite a lot of the stuff and that she was only to use a drop or so (I think thats right) but she, of course used the entire vial.  Does this mean that more is more effective, or is there a limit to how much 'truth' you can get from any one subject regardless of how much you give them.

I don't think it has anything to do with truth at all. That's a clear overdose. What happens when you overdose that much on anything? You probably would die. If 3 small drops can get you completely drugged out of your mind, imagine what an entire vial will do. It probably won't make you speak more, it will make you comatose and probably cause a brain hemorrage or cardiac arrest. A body cannot handle that much of a mind altering substance in that vast of a quanity.

Do we know for sure that they don't use it? I mean, how many trials have we seen? Harry's, which  probably wasn't important enough to use it in. We also saw the death eaters, but I got the feeling that there was alot more going on "behind the scenes" with those trials. Of course, if it said it in the book, forget all of that. I'm just saying at's a possibility that they do use it sometimes, or used to use it and then it was outlawed or something.