omg i am in so far over my head with a discussion pitting buddhism against psychoanalysis (as am lamentably completely unfamiliar with buddhist notions of desire, woe woe). HOWEVER. this: Does the Mirror of Erised lie to your face? Why wouldn't it? I mean, doesn't everybody? makes my head hurt just a little bit. i suppose i would want to know, if it were going to lie, which lie would it tell? because maybe you only have one deepest, most desperate desire of your heart, but technically there are an infinite number of things you don't desire: which to choose? though, you know, this goes back to the psychoanalytic notion of desire, because the mirror is basically a year's worth of psychoanalysis in one glance, skips right to the good stuff. it's actually what everybody wants in a therapist, for someone to reach into their brain and pull out what's in there. it makes me uneasy in the same way, to think that an outside agent (and is the mirror even sentient? would that be better or worse? where does it keep its brain?) knows my deepest, most desperate desires better than i do—and something in me always rebels at that, at having to take their word for it. if the mirror were lying, 1) what would be the purpose—other than that i think everything in the wizarding world is out to eat you, which is purpose enough for me; and 2) the effect of it would just be pure and total psych-out: you don't even get the chance to show it to anyone else, or hide it, it's revealed only to you, to you, to you alone.

so: the mirror of erised could lie to your face, i would not put it past it; has the mirror of erised lied to anyone's face thus far in the harry potter books as we know them?