alethiophile comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 3 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Unnamed 30 August 2010 05:37AM

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Comment author: alethiophile 12 September 2010 04:21:33AM 1 point [-]

I'm wondering about the relationship between Quirrel, who is obviously at this time at least being driven by Voldemort, and Voldemort as Voldemort. Quirrel's story about the martial arts monastery, in particular, has a clear dichotomy between Quirrel and Voldemort. Quirrel's actual seeming competence at martial arts lends some support to Quirrel's story that he learned them there, though it is possible that he just picked them up somewhere else either earlier or later. So, a.) did Quirrel(mort) make up at least one of the two incidents out of whole cloth? Or b.) was Quirrel pre being-possessed-by-Voldemort actually competent as well, and Quirrelmort's story as himself came from that personality (which possibly no longer exists)? Or c.) did both events happen to either personality, and Quirrel's distinction between them is the lie? (Sub-question: how would that work?) Are there other possibilities that I'm missing?

Comment author: Unnamed 12 September 2010 04:42:57AM 3 points [-]

My guess was that Quirrell was already possessed by Voldemort, and that both events happened to Quirrelmort roughly as he described, the first with him acting under the identity of Quirrell and the second with him openly identifying as the Dark Lord.