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malthrin comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 11 - Less Wrong
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So, what happened to Narcissa?
I think the key line here is Dumbledore's "The Death Eaters learned, toward the end of the war, not to attack the Order's families."(Ch. 62). IMO, he openly burned Narcissa alive, as a method of scaring the Death Eaters into leaving the Order's families alone. It's a reason that many would consider valid, I think, but it would sunder Harry from either Dumbledore(more likely) or Draco(less likely) when Harry finds out.
That's a great possibility.
The catch would be explaining why Dumbledore killed Narcissa instead of kidnapping her as a hostage. If you're in control enough of the situation to kill someone slowly and painfully, why aren't you in control enough to knock them out and carry them off?
But aside from that hitch, that's a great motive for Dumbledore. Dumbledore does have this pattern of finding "poetic story logic" a convenient excuse for almost unlimited occasional evil. (Harry's intended parents, Snape as a kid, Snape's victims as an adult.) And in story terms it would be a great way to finally "open Harry's eyes" about Dumbledore, if the author wanted to send the story that way.
I'd still say Bellatrix is two or three times as likely a candidate as Dumbledore. Both because Bellatrix fits the boundaries of Harry's oath to Draco so neatly, and because Dumbledore's other vile actions have been explicitly in pursuit of assembling "fairytale tradition" on the side of Hogwarts or Harry. Killing Draco's mother doesn't fit the pattern for making Hogwarts heroic or Draco a hero, unless...
... well, unless Dumbledore has some specific reason to want Draco to want to try to kill him. Of course, Draco is indeed tasked to kill Dumbledore in canon. But I don't think MoR!Dumbledore has read his own canon. That would be too much meta.
I think.
War makes people do some pretty awful things. I don't think anyone would be surprised by the Death Eaters massacring families en masse as a threat to their opponents - in fact, Quirrell explicitly confirms that they did, in his post-Battle of Zabini speech.
If you're the commander of the forces of the light, and you know that someone is knocking your people out of the war with tactics that you have no plausible way to stop directly(too many innocents to secure, etc.), then you're faced with a problem that you must address for the war to continue, and one that you must address indirectly at that. Honestly, I can think of no better solution to that problem than...well, burning a completely innocent woman alive as a terror tactic. Maybe two or three, if the lesson didn't take. Voldemort won't care, but his people will, and it should at a minimum reduce the numbers of such attacks. It's not fairytale logic of the sort Dumbledore prefers, but we know that he can be a hardass at need, and this seems like a need.
These are the tradeoffs you get when lives are the playing pieces of your game and you can't walk away from the board. War sucks.
As for the hostage case, consider the logistics of holding a hostage. Voldemort is essentially all-powerful, and not even Dumbledore can best him in a straight-up fight(and of course, Voldemort's a lot more likely to come rolling in with a SWAT team at 4 AM than to let you have a fair fight, especially MoR!Voldemort). You need some sort of fortification that can resist a trained and very pissed-off witch being inside it indefinitely, and an unbeatable army at the gates. Hogwarts is as close as Dumbledore has available, and as we saw in Deathly Hallows, it's not sufficient. The alternative is a secret location, using magical anti-detection methods, but those have flaws of the sort the HP books spent a lot of time dealing with, and to my understanding of the spells involved, simply bringing Narcissa inside would ruin the secrecy were she ever to get out again. And of course, how do you pass messages telling Lucius that you have his wife and that you'll kill her if they keep killing your family members, and have them be believed and respected?
Or suppose Dumbledore did take Narcissa prisoner first, and that wasn't good enough to make the enemy stop.
That's just cold-blooded, not gratuitously cruel, and Lucius might not be able to publicize his side of the story without admitting to more Death-Eater backstory than he wants discussed. So this could work.
(In our world, even most guerrilla and terrorist groups have routinely held significant prisoners alive for intelligence or as hostages. Even the deliberately cruel groups have found it feasible to take captives when they wanted leverage or information.
So if Dumbledore claimed that his war with Voldemort was so difficult that he just couldn't ever take prisoners, that he had to torture innocents for leverage rather than capture them, he'd have claimed more moral exemptions than claimed by Hezbollah or the IRA or the Taliban.
That's unlikely already. Still less likely is that Fawkes and McGonagall are mostly happy in his company now after a "cruelty because convenient" pattern of behavior in the not-so-distant past.
So I think Dumbledore has to have tried to use her as a hostage alive before killing her, for his internal behavior and his external reputation to fit what we observe.)
That's a reasonable narrative. We'll have to wait to see exactly how it played out, of course, but I wouldn't find that version surprising at all.
Conversely, however, remember how many of the basic protections we take for granted that don't exist in the wizarding world. In a lot of ways it's a medieval society, and very few leaders from that era would have flinched at doing something utterly brutal to make a point. Even real-world terrorist groups try to pretend to play by the rules of civilized society, because those rules are so expected that ignoring them would damage their cause terribly. It's the same as dictators running "free elections" - they're not, but they pretend for the PR value. I doubt that PR value exists in the wizarding world.
I doubt PR counted for much among deatheaters, so Dumbledore did not lose anything here, and for the rest of wizarding Brittain - they didn't have a choice other than Dumbledore, so they wouldn't believe deatheaters that DD could do sth like that. And later they would not change their opinions, but would forgot their motivation (because it was unplesant - fear of worse evil).
Very similiar thing happened in real life in WW2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre Nazi Germany announced in 1943 that they have found mass graves of tousands Polish prisoners of war all killed by shot in the back of head by soviets. USA and UK had treaty with Stalin, and Germany was more immadietly dangerous, and Stalin was instrumental, so nobody believed Germans, and after the war Poland was sold to USSR, and only in 1990 Katyn massacre was made public.
Wow. I like the idea that Dumbledore burned Narcissa, told Lucius and the other Death Eaters and consciously relied on his good reputation to ensure no one else would believe he'd done it. That's creepy. You're right, that does take care of the "how does he have such a positive reputation, then?" objection.
I still think Fawkes would have a problem with it unless he'd tried everything else first. Fawkes is presented as quite the moral absolutist. But maybe Fawkes wasn't around - and possibly he did try lesser measures first.
If family members of order of the phoenix members are being killed on a daily basis, one doesn't quiet have the luxury of "trying everything else" first.
Yes, but will Fawkes care?
(I expect Dumbledore's learned how to keep a secret from his pet bird by now, so Fawkes may not know, but if he did then I suspect he'll be disgusted. Phoenixes don't seem to do situational morality well.)
As a recent example compare the attitude towards bombing civilians before WWII, with what every side wound up doing during that war.
Interestingly, PR value did exist in the medieval world. King John suffered some serious dissent among his barons for his severity (hostage executions, etc.).
You're right that "be restrained with everybody" is a recent values innovation. There's a more limited version that goes way, way back in history: "be restrained with other elites, especially if they have relatives supplying you soldiers."
I suppose my grammar was rather ambiguous. PR value certainly existed in the medieval world, I meant "that" as in "that particular".
Use ‘that that’.
I'm not sure if the surrounding dialogue supports this:
I think the last sentence makes it clear that what the Death Eaters learned was that attacking or threatening the Order's families was ineffective because Dumbledore would not give in to such threats, not because he would retaliate on a massive scale.
I'll admit, a big part of my reason for that belief is narrative causality - I would not find this evidence convincing in an open world, but in the context of a fictional story, it fits a little too neatly for coincidence. It's obvious that Harry is going to move out of Dumbledore's camp at some point - their worldviews differ too strongly - but this would make an absolutely beautiful cause for the split.
And yes, "I don't give in to intimidation" is a good start for getting people to stop threatening you, but "...and if you try, I'll start intimidating your people and see how you like it" works much better. There's a reason nuclear deterrent involved having your own nukes, and not just saying "London can take it" writ large.
(Edited in response to feedback)
When do we stop making excuses and start noticing the pattern under them? Dumbledore isn't a good guy, he is a schemer who thinks of himself as a good guy. But he is willing to do very bad things for very bad reasons, which is not a good guy thing.
No, he didn't say that. He simply acted as if to imply that's the case -- at around the same time he was acting as if to imply that Fawkes was in reality a chicken.
Do you think Dumbledore couldn't have ensured that Harry had wicked step parents, if he truly so wanted it?
Draco said that McNair said that Lucus Malfoy said that Dumbledore said he did it.
Citation needed that readers excused him for it.
Dumbledore was also Lily's potion confidant. He helped her make the permanent potion of +4 charisma that she gave to Petunia.
I think I'll start downvoting people who make no distinction between their wild hypothesizing, and the facts we observe in the story.
We observe that Petunia says took a potion that made her sick for weeks then she became beautiful. (Chapter 1)
We observed that it Harry thinks her beauty is a sign of magic and deduced that it was extremely rare and dangerous. (Chapter 36)
We observe that Dumbledore admits to writing into Lily's potion notes. Specifically he claims he wrote notes regarding a potion of Eagle's Splendor that includes a modification where you get sick for weeks and is very dangerous. (Chapter 17)
We observe that Harry and Eliezer are familiar with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (chapter 3); although Harry may not be familiar with this particular potion (D&D 3.0 came out in 2000). Eliezer uses the words "Eagle's Splendor" when that already is a well defined term in D&D. (From the D&D SRD)
Now, it is possible that Petunia and/or Dumbledore are both lying and/or false memory charmed. We do only observe them saying things and not the actions themselves. It could also be coincidence that Eliezer used "Eagle's Splendor" as a borrowed keyword or he may be trying to mislead us. But these all require an unnecessary addition to our theory.
I suspect we're supposed to go with the obvious answer. The answer that these people are not lying or memory charmed: Lily gave an unusual beauty potion to Petunia; Dumbledore wrote in the margins about a modification to a beauty potion; the side effects for both unusual potions were the same. Ergo Dumbledore, as Lily's potion confidants, helped her come up with the components of Lily's unusual beauty potion.
If you have other observations or come to a different conclusion, feel free to share it. But absent of further evidence, I consider it obvious that Dumbledore helped Lily devise the potion and that Eliezer waned this to be obvious to us, rather than a mysterious secret. Do you come to a different, less wild hypothesis, given these observations?
Upvoted for geek scholarship. Also, Thestral hair is used in the Elder Wand, and IIRC the Cloak of Invisibility is mentioned at least in MoR to be marked with Thestral blood. (The Stone is said to be marked, but I don’t remember if it’s mentioned with what.)
The Hallows have all sorts of attributes related to permanency, or power over decay: being “invincible” means (more-or-less) your shields aren’t broken and your attacks aren’t stopped, the wand is able to repair broken wands, the cloak hides from death (it also looks like new from the descriptions), the stone brings back “souls”, and owning all of them makes you “Master of Death”.
In the twisted logic of magic, I could see Thestral blood making the effect of a potion permanent (or at least for life) rather than time-limited like most potions seem to be. (Transfiguration needs to be maintained, Polyjuice needs to be taken periodically, and the D&D Eagle’s Splendor has defined duration.)
Thank you for explaining your reasoning. Upvoted.
May I note that you hadn't explained it previously, and that not all of us are D&D gamers that we would automatically know what Eagle's Splendor was?
I apologize. A took it as an insult and responded inappropriately.
I know this theory has been explained in past discussion threads and assumed anyone who cares (wow that's a loaded phrase!) would have already known it. Even though it could be 5000+ posts of writing. In retrospect, that was clearly unreasonably of me.
In the future, it would make sense for someone to post a catalog of all the non-obvious insights in HPMoR. I know there are others, but my mind simply labels everything everything I know regarding HPMoR as 'obvious' since I already know it.
I'm reminded of the sequences on Inferential Distance.
That seems pretty convincing to me. I had never heard of eagle's splendor before so I wasn't able to put the pieces together. But now I'm wondering, since we just learned the major principle of potions: how exactly does thestral blood help one become beautiful? Thestrals in canon are invisible and their blood confers invisibility (or was that MoR? they're getting mixed up in my head so much these days), so wouldn't such a potion render Petunia invisible? Useful for many things, perhaps, but being beautiful does not seem to be one of the things helped by being invisible.
(Or under the 'releasing' sort of mechanism, thestral blood... releases death? Makes one younger? But Petunia was already young.)
In canon, the Elder Wand has a thestral tail-hair core; in MoR,
Maybe the thestral blood added permanence, because death is permanent? If it was replacing blueberries I doubt it was the key magical ingredient, and so its effect may not be directly related to its properties.
ETA: And also that's why this version of the potion so much more dangerous. It has Death in it.
Yes, definitely. But it must be very dilute death or it'd just be a stupid potion. Dumbledore may feel guilty over such dangerous 'help' but he wouldn't make a suggestion guaranteed to fail.
That's just crazy enough to work, but to continue the vein of thought, if thestral blood conferred permanence on all sorts of potions, you'd expect it either to be a deep wizarding secret Dumbledore wouldn't give any schoolgirl or to be used in lots of other contexts - anything you want a potion to be permanent. (Maybe witches aren't desperate enough to risk Petunia's potion... but how about Felix felicis? We saw what one day on FF could do, imagine an entire lifetime!)
Most people don't know how potions work. I think it'd be safe to tell someone to add thestral blood without telling them what for, and if they're someone as mundane as Lily Potter they would never figure it out.
Invisibility cloaks in canon are supposed to be made from demiguise hairs or enchanted, and not usually made out of thestral components even though thestrals are invisible. The true Cloak of Invisibility may be using the thestral blood for permanence as well. Most cloaks of invisibility fade and weaken with time until they are useless; until Harry discovered a secret use, the primary difference of Harry's cloak was it's ability to last for so long.
In canon, people are extremely prejudiced and superstitious against thestrals. They also share the same XXXX classification as trolls, according to Quirrel "the third most perfect killing machine in all of Nature." This means they're probably illegal to handle or acquire without ministry supervision. I would guess that most people don't have the means or desire to experiment with thestral blood.
Lastly, Felix Felicis is a super finicky potion. It is toxic in large quantities, difficult to brew, and dangerous to get wrong. The inclusion of thestral blood made an ordinary (well, 5th year) beauty potion extremely dangerous; people may not want to risk making it even more dangerous.
Although, all of these are just speculation so take with a grain of salt. But it would explain how thestral ingredients grant permanence, but aren't used commonly.
Could you do me a favor and quote the exact line that made you think this?
I got the impression that in this case "everybody" amounts to Harry and... maybe just Harry. And I'm not sure that Harry bought that excuse so much as didn't think it worth arguing over at the time.
ETA: Oh, you meant the readers. Well yes, in that case you have a point.
Actually McGonagall did pretty much the opposite of that.
She registered her dissent by not showing up at the Hermione Humiliation Party. She didn't actually do anything about it - like talk with Hermione and provide emotional guidance and maybe pick up on her Malfoy obsession ahead of time.
"the opposite of that" as in, not excuse him.
And yeah, that would have been helpful. My first reaction to the suggestion was interesting: I thought 'that's not really her job, though' which is true as far as it goes, but raises the question of whose job it is, which raises the further question of why in the world Flitwick is such a nonentity in this story with two Ravenclaw protagonists.
"Could you do me a favor and quote the exact line that made you think this?"
It's in the Author's Notes, where he talks about how he wants his readers to figure things out. There were a couple times where he changed things because people kept guessing wrong, too. I don't know which one exactly made me thing that. It has come up a few times.
Basically, if he didn't say it, it would be a twist with nothing in it. Lucius hasn't done anything on his own in the story. He has only ever reacted to things that other characters did. If Lucius told a lie about what DD said, then that would be the only time in the whole story he did anything on his own. It doesn't fit what EY is doing with Lucius.
Yeah. I'm talking about the readers.
Please distinguish between observation and inference.
Please be clear when you make a request of others. I honestly don't understand what you're asking for.
And aren't you suppose to be linking the Sequences if you're telling me my contribution isn't good enough? Isn't that how it works?
You have an argument about how probable Dumbledore is to have said that he burned Narcissa alive. But in the ancestor post, you're talking about readers "excusing" that, as if that's an observation both you and other readers shared, and the other readers merely choose to excuse him for it -- instead of just not making the same inference given the observations at hand.
I have no problem linking to some sequence when I know there's actually something relevant and useful there, same way I have no problem linking to some relevant and useful Wikipedia page. Do you have some particular page in the sequences that you think I ought have linked to? If so, you can link it to me.
Or are you in reality complaining that people are linking to the sequences too much for your tastes, and are disguising this as a complain that I did not link to them? If so, I suggest that your tactic of criticizing the people who act like you would like them to act is counterproductive.
I've only read a couple. I don't know what's out. I just see them being linked and thought it might do a better job of explaining what you were trying to tell me.
It would be less confusing (to me, possibly others), if you abbreviated Albus Percival Brian Wulfric Dumbledore's name as AD. (My personal preference for APBWD should not be catered to.)
Just call him Heh.
It's APWBD, not APBWD.
Thank you. Alas, my credibility shall be forever tainted.
Nah, if you didn't make mistakes now and then your name wouldn't make any sense.
See: me.
I'd settle for "Albus" or "Dumbledore" too.
Dumbledore is a funny word to type and not easy to look at. I don't want to get it wrong.
I used DD because that's where you speak up when you say it. Is there another character in this story that DD could mean?
Dedalus Diggle?
I bet there won't be need for him in this story. If EY doesn't use an existing character to do something minor that Dedalus Diggle would do, he'll use a cameo.
I don't mind too much. It makes Dumbledore sound like "The Destroyer". Bodes well for the future when he puts on his black hat...
"It makes Dumbledore sound like "The Destroyer"."
How does it do that? There's only one D in "The Destroyer". Is there a character somewhere called The Destroyer whose initials are DD?
In other news, standard Navy designations for battleships are BB, frigates are FF, battle cruisers are CC and submarines are SS.
I thought that it was split into heavy (CA) and light (CL) cruisers, at least back during WW2. Also deviating from the two-letter pattern are carriers (CV) and escort carriers (CVL).
Damn, I really need to get into Gary Grisby's War in The Pacific someday. It's an amazing game, but immense and borderline unplayable, like Dwarf Fortress with you controlling a whole civilization.
No, cruisers are split into battle cruisers (CC), armored (CA), large (CB), light and a couple of others, some of which are even still in use. Pre 1920 cruisers were just "C", destroyers "D" and battleships "B".
One hypothesis is that it was actually Amelia Bones that torched her. When she believes Auror Bahry was killed seven months from retirement, she thinks "Someone would burn for this." Perhaps she thought the same thing when, say, Lucius killed someone close to her (is her husband alive?).
I don't know if we're really supposed to read that much into it. But if we are, it stands to reason that Dumbledore might take the blame on Amelia's behalf, since he would be equipped to defend himself physically and politically from Lucius's onslaught, and since he didn't have a daughter whose life to fear for.
Susan is Amelia's niece, not daughter. She might not have ever married, canon doesn't say. (Bones is her maiden name, though.)
ETA: No, I'm sorry, grand-niece:
Right you are. I hesitated when I wrote that, I even remember noticing myself hesitating, but then I wrote it anyway. Kind of embarrassing that it was right there in the very chapters we're all talking about.
I can't see how Dumbledore would defend Bones if she did that. I realize he's a little more behind "for the greater good" than in canon, but if it really was as Draco described there's no justification and Harry would take both Dumbledore and Amelia as his enemies.
Now, for story purposes I'm going to assume Draco and Lucius both told the truth and Dumbledore did claim to have killed Narcissa. With that presumption, I propose that Dumbledore helped to fake Narcissa's death so she could join the light-side. Either that or Dumbledore was somehow blackmailed by another party. But Dumbledore said he doesn't give into blackmail, so I find that unlikely.
I'm not sure if Eliezer has read the sixth book, but Dumbledore makes this very offer to Draco:
Dumbledore proceeds to offer protection to all of Malfoy's family.
Daniel_Starr mentions below that Narcissa might be unwilling to leave her son with Lucius if she's defecting. So there would have to be some pressing need to disappear in order for this theory to hold water; her life would have to be in danger, or something similar.
When Harry makes his promise with Draco, one of the conditions is that if Narcissa got her hands dirty, it wouldn't make her murderer evil like it would if they were unprovoked. Well, if Lucius murdered Amelia's husband or other loved one, she might kill Lucius's loved one in enraged revenge, if she felt that she could not harm Lucius directly. That might be enough to put her on this side of Dumbledore's moral event horizon.
But again, I don't really subscribe to this theory. It's just the only thing close to a legitimate hint that I've noticed or seen anyone else talk about.
Close, but no cigar:
Narcissa's sister murdered Amelia's brother.
Whoa! How did I miss that!? That certainly gives this theory a lot more credence! It also makes it a little more plausible that Amelia thought she couldn't directly attack the one she wished to take revenge on.
Maybe I subscribe to this theory after all. The "burn" line alone isn't that strong of evidence, but two hints in that kind of proximity to each other is too much of a coincidence to ignore.
Why would anyone admit to giving in to blackmail?
I was referring to when he described to Harry how he didn't give in when Voldemort took hostages. If Voldemort couldn't blackmail him, I doubt anyone could.
Dumbledore faking Narcissa's death: problem is this involves Narcissa leaving behind her son.
Dumbledore covering for someone else: who'd want to be covered for?
Rule of drama and crime: start with people known connected to Narcissa. Who's connected, besides Draco?
Lucius. Could Lucius have killed Narcissa and gotten Dumbledore to take the fall in exchange for some unknown favor or threat? Sure. So that's one option.
Who else do we know, besides Draco and Lucuius, who were connected to Narcissa?
I don't have a clue why Dumbledore would be involved in this case, but... Bellatrix is Narcissa's sister. And it occurs to me that a) Bella would be perfectly capable of burning her sister to death for basically any reason at all and b) Harry would be extremely reluctant to destroy her even if he knew she did it.
Oh, thank you, that's it, that's the answer: Bellatrix is Narcissa's sister, and of course Lucius would be more comfortable blaming Dumbledore than Bellatrix, not only for family reasons but for fear of Voldemort.
Plus, consider the Law of Dramatic Efficiency: Bellatrix is one of the few people we've met who would fully trigger Harry's oath (to take Narcissa's killer as an enemy) yet Harry wouldn't want to kill. Because Bellatrix wasn't "tricked" into killing Narcissa. Brainwashed, yes, but not tricked.
Bellatrix meets all the conditions for Narcissa's killer:
If it's not Dumbledore, it has to be someone Lucius would rather not name to Draco. Bellatrix: sister-in-law and Voldemort's chief lieutenant.
It has to be someone Lucius has been in no position to take revenge on in the intervening years. Bellatrix: in Azkaban.
It ought, dramatically, to be someone within the oath yet very uncomfortable for Harry to go after. Bellatrix: in Harry's mind, brainwashed into her evil, but not tricked into the murder of Narcissa.
So Bellatrix fits perfectly. Lucius blames Dumbledore, knowing Draco won't trust Dumbledore claiming the contrary, and knowing how dangerous it would be for Draco to go after Bellatrix -- or for Draco not to accept Bellatrix as an ally, if Voldemort returns.
Lucius lied about the killer so that Draco wouldn't want revenge on someone so unsafe to want revenge on.
Voldemort himself is another one Lucius would lie to Draco about, but Voldemort would probably not have burned Narcissa alive, and it doesn't have the storytelling punch, because Harry has far less problem taking Voldemort as an enemy than Bellatrix.
So I think you've got it. It's Bellatrix, and Lucius lied about it to keep his son from a dangerous revenge, and Harry will have a huge problem once he finds out.
If this is true, I'm looking forward to the inevitable Draco+Neville team-up.
Oh, I just realized - this makes Lucius' reaction to Harrymort make much more sense. Previously I was confused as to why he wasn't either ingratiating or fearful, but instead was all "my son is the last worthwhile thing I have in the world" complete with threats of vengeance. Of course he would react like that if this had happened.
It’s a very nice theory, but Dumbledore’s (and the other characters’) reactions to Lucius proposing the deal don’t quite seem to match. Lucius also seems sincere about considering it a real blood debt from Dumbledore comparable to an attempt on his son, I don’t think he’s a high-level enough player to have even the narrator not mention anything suspicious about it if he were faking it.
This fits very well. Nice job!