Rereading the Prisoner of Azkaban, this interesting question(at least to me) popped in my head. What shape would a boggart take if a person is never depressed about anything, has no evil memories whatsoever for the boggart to feed on or has no fear?
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2Richard Sherman? – Major Stackings Jul 09 '14 at 22:36
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6Of a boggart with an identity crisis. – Saturn Jul 09 '14 at 22:47
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Midway through, I imagine they'd fear getting an "F" on the Boggart exercise. ; ) – Meat Trademark Jul 09 '14 at 22:51
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1@voldemort - That seems highly likely. – Valorum Jul 09 '14 at 22:54
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Ricky (of rickrolling fame)? Also, virtually EVERYONE has phobias. Snakes are nearly universal for evolutionary reasons. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Jul 09 '14 at 23:31
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@Richard What an awesome edit!! – Hashir Omer Jul 09 '14 at 23:36
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I wonder if you used a camera setup to take a time-delayed photo. With the delay and environment setup so that nobody was near the bogart when the photo was taken. Surely some wizard would have tried to observe the bogart. – Zoredache Jul 10 '14 at 00:18
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@MeatTrademark In other words, they'd be just like Hermione – Izkata Jul 10 '14 at 01:06
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I wonder then what form a Bogart would take if a person who is blind stands before it? Perhaps a certain "Man without fear"... – Monty129 Jul 10 '14 at 11:20
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SPESS MEHREENS do not exist in the HP universe.. right? – Marriott81 Jul 10 '14 at 11:20
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@Monty129, being blind doesn't equal being fearless. You can fear a lion if you have heard it, for example. – Arturo Torres Sánchez Nov 25 '14 at 17:54
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@ArturoTorresSánchez I was referring to Daredevil, who is blind, and nicknamed The Man Without Fear. – Monty129 Nov 25 '14 at 22:34
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@Monty129, I'm sorry, I don't know much about comics – Arturo Torres Sánchez Nov 25 '14 at 23:16
5 Answers
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In-canon, no-one knows.
Per Pottermore:
A Boggart is a shape-shifting creature that will assume the form of whatever most frightens the person who encounters it. Nobody knows what a Boggart looks like if nobody is there to see it, although it continues to exist, usually giving evidence of its presence by rattling, shaking or scratching the object in which it is hiding. Boggarts particularly like confined spaces, but may also be found lurking in woods and around shadowy corners.
It's not even apparent whether a boggart actually has a physical form, but rather manifests as a force of nature:
Like a poltergeist, a Boggart is not and never has been truly alive. It is one of the strange non-beings that populate the magical world, for which there is no equivalent in the Muggle realm. Boggarts can be made to disappear, but more Boggarts will inevitably arise to take their place. Like poltergeists and the more sinister Dementors, they seem to be generated and sustained by human emotions.
Out of universe, there are very few people that lack a fear response and even those individuals (extreme psychopaths, sufferers of Urbach-Wiethe) do have a psychological (but not physiological) ability to identify things that they dislike highly, even if they lack the mental capacity to actually feel a fear response.
It's possible that they would have the same response as a Muggle:
The more generally fearful a person is, the more susceptible they will be to Boggarts. Muggles, too, feel their presence and may even glimpse them, although they seem less capable of seeing them plainly and are usually easily convinced that the Boggart was a figment of their imagination.
Rand al'Thor
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Valorum
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2I wonder if Moody knows what a Bogart's true form is. Remember the incident at Grimmauld place with the Bogart in the cabinet? – Möoz Jul 10 '14 at 05:17
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@simon - implied but not stated. Also it doesn't answer the question of what it looks like. – Valorum Jul 10 '14 at 09:19
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Never said it did state what it looks like, however for him to recognize the Boggart in the cabinet he must know what one looks like. – CandiedMango Jul 10 '14 at 09:20
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@simon - except that that ignores the statement from pottermore and the books that no one knows what they look like. – Valorum Jul 10 '14 at 12:08
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it wouldn't ignore pottermore as moody is "spoilers" dead so as of writing no one would know. What other possibilities are there for moody's ability to identify the Boggart? – CandiedMango Jul 10 '14 at 12:11
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1@Simon - if glimpsed by a muggle, they are felt and partially seen. Maybe he felt its presence. .. – Valorum Jul 10 '14 at 12:17
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2@Simon For Moody, there are two options. 1. He doesn't see anything because the Boggart doesn't have a form, and therefore knows it's a Boggart and not anything else that he would be able to see. 2. When observing it with his magical eye he sees whatever form a Boggart would take if he'd opened the cabinet, and therefore knows it's a Boggart. – Anthony Grist Jul 10 '14 at 15:06
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@AnthonyGrist There is in fact an old question here about what Moody might have seen: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/7479/could-mad-eye-moody-see-the-natural-state-of-a-boggart-with-his-magical-eye And the accepted answer concludes he must have seen its true form. – N Unnikrishnan Jul 11 '14 at 11:45
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1@NUnnikrishnan Being an accepted answer doesn't make it fact, it simply means that the person who asked the question thought it was the best/most helpful/most useful answer. I disagree entirely with Kevin's conclusion. – Anthony Grist Jul 11 '14 at 13:08
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@AnthonyGrist I should say both your options are entirely plausible. It should be made an answer there. From what we have seen of the HPverse, there is no reason the amortal creature should be constrained by doors, walls etc. in its perception of who looks at it, or, in other words, it doesn't perceive at all and is just programmed to reflect the fears of who look at it, like the Mirror of Erised, a non-living object, shows the deepest desires of the heart. – N Unnikrishnan Jul 11 '14 at 18:17
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Perhaps it wouldn't turn into anything. From "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban":
So the boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears.
-Professor Lupin
It is safe to assume then if one did not fear anything the boggart would not change at all. You would know what a boggart's true form looks like.
Another idea is that the boggart would just guess what to turn in to, because as Hermione says:
It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most.
This wouldn't scare the person of course but it might be rather funny...
BitNinja
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2@Simon, and he didn't tell anyone; more importantly, he didn't tell us damnit! :) – Mac Cooper Jul 10 '14 at 11:51
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I think the second idea is quite likely. It is stated that if a Boggart encounters multiple people at once it can get confused because it tries to turn into something both will fear at the same time. Similarly, if it encountered someone without a concrete fear, it would likely take whatever information it had and try to conjure something out of it that would scare the person. – Jan 04 '19 at 12:11
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They appear to have no form... Therefore, if there is no fear for them to transform into they will probably not even materialize or attempt to. Like dementors, they appear to feed off of emotions, so if there isn't something for them to feed off of, they will either leave or stay hidden.
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It would randomly switch between anything.
When Molly Weasley was trying to get rid of the Boggart at Grimmauld Place, the Boggart switched between her worst fears.
‘R–r–riddikulus!’ Mrs Weasley sobbed, pointing her shaking wand at Ron’s body. Crack. Ron’s body turned into Bill’s, spread-eagled on his back, his eyes wide open and empty. Mrs Weasley sobbed harder than ever. ‘R–riddikulus!’ she sobbed again. Crack. Mr Weasley’s body replaced Bill’s, his glasses askew, a trickle of blood running down his face. ‘No!’ Mrs Weasley moaned. ‘No ... riddikulus! Riddikulus! RIDDIKULUS!’ Crack. Dead twins. Crack. Dead Percy. Crack. Dead Harry ...
If a person didn't have a fear, their "worst" fear would tie between everything, therefore it would randomly switch between anything.
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When children learn to bear with Bogarts they make them change to funny things, so it's feasible to supose that a Bogart facing a totally fearless character (suposing that's possible) will probably switch to any form he can get from their "victim's" mind and it can be related someway to fear.
Bardo
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