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75th comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 10 - Less Wrong
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(Can't find a good place to insert my entire current edifice of theory elsewhere, so I'll put it as a top level comment.)
Quirrell is Voldemort is Mr. Hat and Cloak. Quirrell's ultimate goal is driving Harry permanently into his Dark Side, so as to be another Voldemort, either to rule alongside the real Voldie or to be led by the real Voldie.
Quirrell's first attempt at driving Harry over to his Dark Side was with the Dementor in the Humanism sequence. He would have succeeded, had Hermione not been there to bring him out of it. So from Quirrell's point of view, Hermione is Harry's anchor to his good side.
So then it makes perfect sense for all the events of Self Actualization and this new sequence to be Quirrel/Voldie/H&C's handiwork. Quirrell helped SPHEW win that last battle in Chapter 74 so as to paint a larger target on Hermione. When Harry came to him with his plan for that battle, he just laughed, because Harry had unknowingly come to him with a brilliant plan to further Quirrell's own goals for Hermione's doom. He poisoned Hermione against Draco (which was difficult, because Quirrell is pure evil and Hermione is pure good and he can't understand her) so as to provoke House Malfoy further.
Now Hermione is in deep trouble, just as Quirrell intended. All that remains is for something unspeakably awful to happen to her soon, which, Quirrell believes, will help do to Harry what the Dementor almost did in January.
I'd like to point out that after Azkaban, when Quirrell tries to talk Harry into his next plot, Harry refuses by citing what Hermione and Draco would say. Quirrell sits there and thinks for a really long time, and asks if Harry really cares about what they think. My guess is that right then and there is when Quirrell decides to take them out.
Why, in this theory, did Voldemort abandon his quite successful campaign, become the lame Quirrel, and begin fiercely criticizing his former self and attempting to reform magical Britain's children into tools that would defeat his former self?
My own (admittedly somewhat romantic) hypothesis is that Quirrelmort is trying to correct his past mistakes.
Recall the conversation that Dumbledore has with Harry regarding escalation and proportional response. Dumbledore tells Harry that the Light cannot, must not win every battle, because some victories come at too high a price. Harry, on the other hand, believes that the ends justify the means, and that it's all just a matter of thinking up a sufficiently clever solution. Without Dumbledore's intervention, he would've escalated the SPHEW-bully conflict to the point where it engulfs all of Magical Britain, and quite possibly plunges the Wizarding world into a new dark age of terror.
Does that sound familiar at all ?
My guess is that Voldemort, in his original body, was a bit like Harry. He wanted to optimize the Wizarding society, and in order to do so, he had to take over, and in order to make an omelette, you've got to break a few eggs, and there are people opposing you, and before you know it, you're a Dark Lord and people are skinning your opponents alive in your name. The only option was to fake your own death and start anew... which is exactly what Voldemort did.
He didn't abandon his campaign, he got blown out of his body when he tried to kill Harry Potter. Later on he possessed Quirrell, and as he said himself, "One can never quite disentangle the mind from the body it wears". Perhaps he's imbued with some of Quirrell's own opinions. Quirrell must have been somewhat Voldemort-ish before the possession, if Voldie chose him as a suitable vessel.
Incidentally, when all has he criticized Voldemort? I can think of one time, when he said that Voldie was foolish to wish the story of the dojo to be retold. But if Quirrell's part of the story was really Voldemort, then that was simply a lie; Voldie DIDN'T kill everyone on his first visit to the dojo, but later on, deliberately, to sow fear. At any rate, we shouldn't take Quirrell's opinions of Voldemort at face value, given that, to some extent, they're the same person. "Don't believe everything you read."
And Voldemort isn't training Britain's children to defeat a Dark Lord, he's training them to defeat the Muggles. In MoR, Voldemort actually has a good reason to hate Muggles and Muggleborns: their recklessness with power (nuclear weapons, etc.). In his speech before Christmas he all but stated his belief that there would someday be a climactic battle between wizardkind and the Muggle world, which only a united wizarding world could win. That is his ultimate purpose for Dark Harry: to lead the world (or help Voldie lead the world) against the Muggles.
So basically he accidentally torpedoed his original campaign and his life as Quirrel is just making the best of it? But then why didn't he just restart his original campaign? Quirrel seems quite powerful enough to credibly claim to be Voldemort resurrected and enforce his rule, based on his duel in Azkaban with a top Auror and his general position at Hogwarts.
When Dumbledore tells his closest colleagues that draining the life from a follower over a long period would render Voldemort weak compared to his former power, I'm inclined to believe him. Even if you're not, there's the rather inconvenient periods of near-catatonia to get around. (Unless you think that's an act for some reason?)
Everybody sleeps eventually, which is worse than Quirrel's catatonia.
(Actually, I would expect that to be one of the first things Voldemort modified about himself, if it's at all possible.)
I meant more the problems it presents for intimidation value, but I guess if you've Marked your followers to ensure loyalty and/or obedience regardless, it's just a matter of not spending a lot of time in the public eye, which he'd be doing anyway. It's still pretty undignified, but that doesn't seem to bother Quirrell overmuch, so...
The real question, which I don't believe the duel with Bahry or the Massacre of the Bullies answers, is whether Quirrell could stand up to Dumbledore. If he couldn't - even if he just had significantly less endurance - that would make it pretty hard to claim the mantle of Voldemort.
If Quirrell was confident he could kill Dumbledore he would have done so by now, of that I'm certain. Gods, Eliezer better be planning to write this fight eventually.
For Quirrell it would be "in character" to kill Dumbledore in such a way, that everybody would think it was natural death. Or at least assasinate him quietly without witnesses, without time for Dumbledore to react.
BTW - what stops Quirrell from polyjuicing as Harry, asking for private audience in Dumbledore apartment, doing quick surprise Avada Kedavra, and flying out of window? Or better yet - put Albus body to magical pouch, polyjuice as Dumbledore and run Hogward ever since. Dumbledore behaves quite strange, and rarely shows publicly, so it wouldn't be hard to do.
I can only think that Quirrell thinks everything is going according to plan, and no need to make the game more chaotic by killin Dumbledore now.
"Polyfluis Reverso!"
If killing Dumbledore were as simple as yelling "Avada Kedavra" at him when his back is turned, he'd already be dead.
Dumbledore might have other methods of recognizing such a disguise. Perhaps, for instance, he can detect the approximate magical strength of a person regardless of their appearance? In Half-Blood Prince, while seeking out one of Voldemort's horcruxes, he and Harry encounter a device which is supposed to detect when a wizard passes through by registering their power, and Dumbledore notes that next to him, it's not even going to notice Harry. Perhaps while a switch like Barty Crouch Junior for Alastor Moody could slip his notice, a huge disparity like Quirrell for an eleven year old Harry would be an immediate red flag in his senses.
Dumbledore's death would probably be not worth the trouble right now, but I think that if it were possible Quirrell would have removed and impersonated him before Harry ever got to Hogwarts.
Quirrell probably has more raw talent than Albus, but when someone has an ancient wand that guarantees combat victory talent isn't enough. He's smart enough to know he'll need to plot his way to victory, because he is not beating the Elder Wand.
Even in canon, Voldemort rarely goes up against Dumbledore directly. They rarely ever meet after he graduates. IIRC, it's something like he applies for 1) Defense against the Dark arts & is rejected; 2) hides from Dumbledore on Quirrel's head (indefinite number of encounters); 3) fights Dumbledore in the Ministry to a draw; and that's about it.
At the beginning of Chapter 62, though, we learn that McGonagall has faced Voldemort four times:
"She had encountered the Dark Lord four times and survived each one, three times with Albus to shield her and once with Moody at her side."
This makes it likely that Dumbledore has faced Voldemort on other occasions without her.
Another MoR divergence, perhaps; nothing in canon comes to mind.
So in all that long period of open war, during which Lily & James Potter and Alice & Frank Longbottom both fought Voldemort and survived three times each, the strongest Light wizard in Britain never crossed wands with his foe?
Sure. We are told Voldemort feared Dumbledore, are we not? Does a chess player immediately send out his queen to duel the other player's queen? And is this not exactly what happened with the previous Dark Lord - were we not explicitly told in canon that Dumbledore only encountered Grindelwald at their final clash and they never met between that and the death of his sister?
The catatonia appears to be getting worse and worse over time. Channeling strong magic through Quirrell accelerates the decay. I suspect he'll crap out as a host by the end of the school year, and that's with Quirrell being reasonably conservative of his energy.
Worse? What makes you say that? We seem to be seeing ever more action on his part, I actually would have said: from the Azkaban duel to his commentary in battles (and setting them up too) to his casual displays of sheer power/skill in the interrogation of chapter the last.
Harry comments at some point that "He'd noticed the correlation between the effort Professor Quirrell expended and the time he had to spend 'resting'." (74)
Harry notices after Azkaban that Quirrell looks older (65).
What I meant was that it seems like Quirrell has spent more and more of his time active using his body as little as possible. Maybe we've just seen it more because he's hid less from Harry? In the most recent battle he talked and made the tiniest possible shrug but otherwise didn't move at all. When he was grading papers he did it purely by magic as well. Whenever he can let his body sit around and not move, he seems to try to do that.
That could simply be Quirrell looking very tired and worn out, like he had just run a marathon while watching Grave of the Fireflies. It's fairly common to describe someone as looking older in circumstances like that.
Mm. Maybe. Not very strong evidence either way. If it's meant to be a plot point, I would expect it to be telegraphed more strongly.
Dumbledore was a credible threat to him even back when he had his full power. In his weakened state, there may be too much danger that he would end up in a direct confrontation with Dumbledore or some union of strong opponents and lose. McGonagall's reminiscences of having encountered Voldemort before, three times at Dumbledore's side, implies that they've faced each other head on before.
But even if he could manage it as a matter of convenience, he might not be able to as a matter of pride. Dumbledore said that he doesn't think Voldemort would settle for any less than the strongest instantiation of the spell that would return him to power. Even if he has some avenue to victory which would probably work, he may simply be dissatisfied with any plan which does not result in him completely regaining his powers.
Maybe he knows how Minister Fudge will react (badly) and hopes to get Dumbledore sacked.
Complicated and risky plot (he teach well his future enemies). Sacking Dumbledore doesn't seem worthy such big risk. Quirrell now has the possibility to teach future wizards what he thinks will serve him, is impossible to fire, has influence on Harry, and Dumbledore doesn't seem to get much value out of being head of the Hogward.
I think Quirrell wants to unite wizards using some external enemy, and conquer the world/stop muggles from nuking themselves. Harry has great PR, so he'll be the fuhrer of united magical Brittain, and Quirrell will provide common enemy somehow to make it easier for Harry to rule.
So... Quirrel made that near-slip of "time travel" and "I'm going to go back in time and try again" in the Groundhog Day Attack? I'm afraid I'm not really buying it.
It wasn't time-travel (which through Time-Turner can only go back an hour per turn, 6 times used in total), it was repeated Obliviations of Hermione.
Other than that, your point stands.
Forgive me if I'm being dense, but I don't understand what remains of his point, given that he was wrong about how the Groundhog Day Attack worked.
Cloak & Hat kept saying "Hello, again", when for all Hermione knew he'd not talked to her before. That's indeed a somewhat bizarre slip for Quirrel to make. And regardless of whether he was going to tell "Time travel" or not, regardless of whether it was a lie or not, it seems a bit out-of-character for Quirrel to be catching himself mid-sentence.
Hmm, I just thought he was being, I guess, playful or something, rather than it being a slip.
Or he might just have been planning on Obliviating her again.
Doesn't seem like Quirrel to slip even if he can't see a way for it to hurt him. He's too careful for that.
Quirrel wouldn't have made any near slips. Apparently I don't know what he was about to say, but Quirrel wouldn't even have gotten that far.
Quirrell has slipped up before, when he tried to kill Bahry. Every rationalization Quirrell later gave for why it would have been stupid was absolutely correct, but I believe he did sincerely try to kill him. In the heat of the moment, in the depths of his hate, he decided to do what he felt like rather than what was smart.
Of course, this encounter with Hermione is not like his encounter with Bahry. But he is pretty agitated; he sounds agitated, anyway, and it fits, given that it took him a few hours to find the right lever to pull with Hermione. At any rate, he has no reason to be particularly careful with what he says to someone he's planning to Obliviate anyway. And given all that, I think Eliezer was not acting out of character to pick that moment as a time to throw us some scraps.
It was Obvliations in this case but don't be confused by the limitations in time travel. When it comes to this kind of task, one days worth of turner use done smart and with preparation would give more information than a month of constant obliviation use, without the pesky side effects of death by starvation, dehydration or sleep deprivation.
Similar strategies would give Harry a full index of the entire Hogwarts library ranked according to a reliable indication of potential usefulness, difficulty level, and possible risk. Even with the crippled turner as he currently has it, if Harry was out to win and not tell interesting stories, he probably would have won already.
He tried that, a while back. Ontological loops just give him "DO NOT MESS WITH TIME."
Or, if kept at a reasonable scale, fun with pies and bullies?
I'm entirely familiar with the earlier experiments with time and maintain what I said in the grandparent. See the discussion from back then if necessary. The only reasons that Harry doesn't use his time turner carefully, for practical benefit, are narrative convenience and an irrational protagonist. Much the same as in just about any fantasy fiction.
I am overwhelmingly unimpressed with Harry as a rationalist avatar most of the time. To the extent that I'd call "Methods of Rationality" something of a misnomer. He's reasonably clever and flamboyant but his strategic thinking is abysmal.
Wait, I can't find this discussion and I am very interested, mind linking it?
It's the Good Story Bias at work. Compare the very first Omake.
Wait, but it seemed to be fairly clear that it's time travel from the slip-ups H&C made. (Of course, you'd have to postulate a different form of time travel that allows for paradoxes, so I suppose Obliviation has a point up on that...)
The sentence "Time..." is in response to a question from Hermione about how H&C knows Harry will turn dark and destroy her, not in regards to anything having to do with the conversation itself.
Also if you reread the passage in question, you'll see several hints that indicate a long time passed for Hermione also, even though she didn't remember it, e.g. *"Her hand was almost slipping on her wand, there was a sense of fatigue in her fingers like she'd been holding the wand for hours instead of minutes", and ofcourse the fact that the rush of adrenaline at the beginning of the conversations corresponds to the rush of fear at H&C decloaking at the end.