= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
thomblake comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 4 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (649)
A few thoughts, just to go on record with them. As always, apologies if I'm repeating well-covered ground; I have not read all the comments on this thread, nor am I likely to. I would appreciate pointers to comments I ought to read, though.
OTOH, the same person is described in ch52 as
It's unclear whose voice that is in, but the same sentence describes the voice as "unfamiliar," which suggests we're getting Harry's POV rather than Word Of God. So Harry believes Quirrell Polyjuiced into this man.
So either: A. Harry is right, and Bahry is mistaken about what's possible while Polyjuiced. B. Bahry is right, and Harry is mistaken about what happened. C. They're both right, and something weird is happening. (E.g., Harry's companion is not actually doing magic as delicate as he appears to be doing, or some such thing.)
B seems most plausible to me, as Bahry ought to know about such things. The simplest explanation is that he isn't Polyjuiced at all -- the "sallow lanky bearded man" with the "low and gravelly" voice is Harry's companion's natural form. (Of course, there might be other means of changing his appearance that we've never heard of before, but that would be a cheap narrative trick.)
Which suggests he is not and never was the actual Quirrell. And also that he is not and never was anyone Harry would recognize (from pictures, from extrapolation in mirrors, etc.)
So either: A. There is in fact no plausible reason for this. B. There is a plausible reason, but neither Quirrell nor Harry can think of one. C. There is a plausible reason, but Harry can't think of one, and Quirrell is pretending not to be able to think of one.
The most likely of those given the data I'm aware of is A. Which suggests that Professor Quirrell is not and never was possessed by Voldemort (ETA: er, I mean, by the shade of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named).
Which is not to say that Harry's companion isn't or wasn't.
Yeah, I think the naive reading is that the narration is from Harry's POV, and Quirrell Polyjuiced into the man (as planned), and Quirrell is such a badass that he can do whatever magic he wants while polyjuiced, which is unusual enough for Bahry not to expect it.
And Quirrell claiming there's no plausible reason to think he's possessed by Voldemort is just him thumbing his nose at the reader (aside from the usual misdirection).
If it turns out to be just "Quirrell is such a badass" then I'll be very disappointed.
My reason for choosing A over C wrt: possessing Quirrell is not that Quirrell lying is implausible (that much is entirely likely) but that it raises the question of why, if there is a plausible reason, and Harry was invited to think of one, he didn't come up with any.
That said, we're only getting cherry-picked fragments of Harry's thinking, and he's being manipulated anyway. So maybe Harry just isn't thinking straight.
Still, until I see a plausible reason to believe it, I don't.
Considering that Quirrell is one of the most powerful and feared wizards ever to live, sheer competence is probably the simplest explanation for him being able to perform exceptional feats of magic while handicapped.
From Bahry's perspective, the possibility that the unknown criminal he's facing is secretly the most dangerous dark wizard of modern times is unlikely enough not to merit immediate consideration. From the readers' perspective, it's an established fact.
Huh.
When you put it that way, it seems plausible.
In fact... you're right, and I'm wrong.
If there's a highly salient fact in play that Bahry neither knows nor can reasonably be expected to consider, which is certainly a strong possibility, then Bahry's beliefs about the situation stop being credible evidence about much of anything, and I should not be treating them that way.
I'm falling into the trap of assuming that everybody else already knows what I know.
I hereby repudiate my earlier speculations.
Thank you.