gwern comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 10 - Less Wrong

11 Post author: Oscar_Cunningham 07 March 2012 04:46PM

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Comment author: gwern 13 March 2012 08:54:57PM 2 points [-]

Or are we discussing canon now?

Canon. MoR introduces extra difficulties like the implied Nazi blood-sacrifice empowering of Grindelwald.

I don't know what to make of MoRdemort. If I did, I think a fair number of obscurities or mysteries would snap into place.

Comment author: Eneasz 14 March 2012 07:51:35PM *  0 points [-]

I'm pretty sure MoRdemort (pre-Quirrell-meld) is meant to be very much like canon!Voldemort - nasty, ruthless, very magically powerful, in possession of exactly one good idea (the dark mark), and as intelligent as Rowling could write him (not an insult to Rowling). When asked to outwit a dark lord (in chapter 39, I believe?) Harry thinks that Voldemort wouldn't be much of a challenge, but Quirrell would be another matter entirely.

As Dumbledore says, Voldemort was never Dumbledore's destined foe. But he wasn't Harry's destined foe either. He had to be shattered by Dumbledore so he could transmute into Quirrellmort, who is Harry's destined foe. So Voldemort is an intermediate step, and obviously not as smart/dangerous as his final incarnation as Quirrellmort.

Comment author: pedanterrific 14 March 2012 08:42:05PM 7 points [-]

Harry thinks that Voldemort wouldn't be much of a challenge, but Quirrell would be another matter entirely.

Doubtless Harry based that belief on his extensive experience with Voldemort. Dumbledore's opinion, on the other hand:

"Aye, it is he," Albus said. "Azkaban has endured impenetrable for ages, only to fall to an ordinary Animagus potion. It is too clever and too impossible, which was ever Voldemort's signature since the days he was known as Tom Riddle. Anyone who wished to forge that signature must needs be as cunning as Voldemort himself to do so. And there is no one else in the world who would accidentally overestimate my wit, and leave me a message I cannot understand at all."

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