# What's your boggart? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 6, 2019, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087 "2019-11-06T18:28:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2019, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/21 "2019-11-06T22:23:55Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Hmm. > > My brain is now jumping to the theory that the boggart might only read your mind enough to find what you _believe_ you’re afraid of, meaning that you can actually control what the boggart shows you, by focusing on one scary thing specifically. It also explains why kids end up seeing such transient things like Snape and a bad test score while still respecting the “we’re too afraid to even say Voldemort’s name” rule a decade after his apparent death. Makes sense. I accept that as my head canon. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2019, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/22 "2019-11-06T22:57:56Z")
Bankruptcy court ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2019, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/23 "2019-11-06T23:05:24Z")
Asking a woman out. Glad I’m done with having to do that. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/24 "2019-11-06T23:21:47Z")
Sudden financial insecurity. Having to move again very quickly, for example. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2019, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/25 "2019-11-06T23:28:18Z")
I’m like Mrs. Weasley - it would be my daughter, grievously injured or dead. And I also would have trouble finding a way to make it be funny. I suppose if she popped up and “April Fool!” perhaps? I felt that scene so hard though. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2019, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/26 "2019-11-06T23:51:46Z")
Something horrible happening to my husband. I can’t imagine anything worse. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/27 "2019-11-07T00:09:07Z")
For me it’s fire. Not a nice fireplace, or cookout fire, but life threatening fire. The idea of death by fire is my real boggart. I’m also afraid of heights. But I’d jump from a tall building rather than burn to death. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/28 "2019-11-07T00:31:37Z")
Didn’t _Doctor Who_ do this idea in “Mind of Evil” with the Third Doctor? ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/29 "2019-11-07T00:33:02Z")
Didn’t _Doctor Who_ do this idea in “Mind of Evil” with the Third Doctor? ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/30 "2019-11-07T00:33:10Z")
\ ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/31 "2019-11-07T00:34:23Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > For me it’s fire. Not a nice fireplace, or cookout fire, but life threatening fire. The idea of death by fire is my real boggart. > > I’m also afraid of heights. But I’d jump from a tall building rather than burn to death. Since I have the hang having read everyone else ------- like you but specifically house fires. For some reason I’ve been around forest fires and they don’t bother me much but just the thought of a forest fire and I get chills. Maybe it was my years with the VFD and the things I saw, maybe its living in a 1904 tinderbox, who knows? But I don’t sleep well after a housefire is the lead story at 11. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/32 "2019-11-07T00:50:04Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > …It is a shape shifter,\*\* so it will always take the form of the thing you fear the most\*\*… Many years ago, it was Raquel Welch, but lately, I’d say…Scarlett Johansson 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/33 "2019-11-07T02:16:59Z")
> [@peccavi](#): > > Many years ago, it was Raquel Welch, but lately, I’d say…Scarlett Johansson 😃 What would you be if you didn’t even try? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/34 "2019-11-07T02:24:38Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Dogs. I find this to be very sad (and I say this as somebody with a scar on my nose from a dog bite). I mean that sincerely, and I hope it is not considered condescending. Some of my best friends have been dogs. … Like the OP, mine would be a ringing telephone; specifically, a call on home from an angry client. I have a horrible habit of putting off difficult calls because I have such anxiety about the discussion, even though the actual experience is never as bad as I expect. Can a boggart just be “anticipation”? ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/35 "2019-11-07T12:15:58Z")
Heh, Professor Lupin opens the closet door and ---
**Author:** ![Jumpbass](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jumpbass/32/147_2.png) [@Jumpbass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jumpbass)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/36 "2019-11-07T15:47:51Z")
Snails. You can laugh now. I can’t stand snails. If I run across one in my yard, I jump and get the willies something fierce. When I was very young, maybe four, an older kid in the neighborhood had me and my friends in his back yard. He sat us on a bench, went in the back corner of the yard and pulled out a shoebox full of snails and commenced throwing them at us. We ran and I was scarred for life. Don’t get me started on banana slugs. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/37 "2019-11-07T16:29:14Z")
Staircases. Specifically, walking down staircases. Fall down one staircase and snap off one wrist bone, and you are scarred for life. And I simply do not use ladders. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/38 "2019-11-07T16:34:01Z")
> [@Jumpbass](#): > > Snails. You can laugh now. > > Don’t get me started on banana slugs. I grew up in western Washington. I had a nightmare about slugs when I was a kid. Didn’t mess me up to the point of phobia, really, but I was always a bit uneasy around them after that. And yeah, banana slugs are amazing and gross. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/39 "2019-11-07T19:26:38Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > I find this to be very sad (and I say this as somebody with a scar on my nose from a dog bite). I mean that sincerely, and I hope it is not considered condescending. Some of my best friends have been dogs. Don’t shed tears for me - I’m not missing a thing. There are enough humans rattling around here to serve as friends, and while (sadly) none of them serves in a romantic role, I kind of don’t think I’d want to go that route with an animal anyway. Though come to think of it, do shed some tears - because it sometimes seems like half the people around me bring along clawed fanged pack animals (of which I’m not part of their pack), and half of _them_ don’t seem too familiar with the concept of “leashes”. And many of these people are literally incapable of understanding that other people might not love to face down their beast. So that part’s not so good. I face my boggart almost daily. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-boggart/843087/40 "2019-11-07T23:12:26Z")
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