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gwern comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 10 - Less Wrong
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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.
I'm not sure we're reading the same story.
My comment was made before the chapter was posted with the explicit statement by Bones that the catatonia was increasing, which I accept; I stand by my characterization of previous chapters indicating any progression as extremely subtle...
My point was intended the opposite way: It seems to me that many plot-relevant details are extremely subtle.
Well, then we get into other issues. For example, Quirrelmort. If that's true, then we have an extremely non-subtle massively plot-relevant point, and if it's false, then Eliezer has laid so many red herrings we can trust little or nothing not explicitly shown or stated.
I did not intend to imply that no plot-relevant points are non-subtle.