Vladimir_Nesov comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 12 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Xachariah 25 March 2012 11:01AM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 28 March 2012 11:46:57PM *  1 point [-]

"I would not have thought Voldemort able to resist the temptation of the Stone, still less because such an obvious trap is a challenge to his wit."

The "trap" Dumbledore refers to is one set up in the third-floor corridor of Hogwarts, and has nothing to do with the Night of Godric Hollow. Ch. 77:

"Do not bluff against me, Severus Snape; I find it annoying, and you are in no position to annoy me. A single glance would tell any competent wizard that the Headmaster has laced that corridor with a ridiculous quantity of wards and webs, triggers and tripsigns. And more: there are Charms laid there of ancient power, magical constructs of which I have heard not even rumors, techniques that must have been disgorged from the hoarded lore of Flamel himself. Even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would have had trouble passing those without notice." Professor Quirrell tapped a thoughtful finger on his cheek. "And for the actual lock, a Colloportus laid on an ordinary doorknob, cast so weakly that it could not have kept out Miss Granger on the day she entered Hogwarts. Never before in my existence have I encountered such a blatant trap."

Comment author: gwern 29 March 2012 12:51:15AM 2 points [-]

I don't follow your point. You suggested that Dumbledore could have prepared Godric's Hollow as a trap, and then a conjunction about it being a trap and Voldemort using it cleverly; I pointed out that Dumbledore's assessment of Voldemort's psychology makes the conjunction more likely than a naive analysis would expect, inasmuch as he has explicitly said it and prepared such a trap, and Quirrelmort's assessment basically agrees: it's an obvious trap which impresses him with the rare and powerful magics, and would tax his ingenuity to solve.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 29 March 2012 01:00:26AM *  0 points [-]

I see, the statement you used was confusing, which got worse with the clarifying quote. You said "took a trap as a challenge", which (1) refers to a different trap, using article "a" and not "the", which I wrote off as a typo in the first comment, and so also discounted the possibility that your comment (2) only states that he took it as a challenge, not that he faced that challenge, which is not the case for the trap I was talking about, and (3) the statement still isn't strictly speaking true, Dumbledore is saying that he expects this to be likely, not that it happened. I agree that Dumbledore's saying that makes the conjunction more likely.

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