QuicklyStarfish comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 13, chapter 81 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: bogdanb 27 March 2012 06:07PM

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Comment author: smk 30 March 2012 05:24:41AM 3 points [-]

In Ch 45, Harry thinks:

I comprehend your nature, you symbolize Death, through some law of magic you are a shadow that Death casts into the world.

If this is true, it's possible that as long as death exists (for wizards, anyway), it will continue to cast its shadows, and so the dementors can never be all destroyed. Maybe they'll just respawn or something. In fact, maybe when Harry destroyed that one in Ch 45, a dementor respawned back at Azkaban without anyone noticing. Do the guards keep a count of dementors?

Comment author: QuicklyStarfish 30 March 2012 06:48:17AM *  19 points [-]

That's an interesting possibility, but I favour the interpretation that this is the source of dementors:

Even so, the most terrible ritual known to me demands only a rope which has hanged a man and a sword which has slain a woman; and that for a ritual which promised to summon Death itself - though what is truly meant by that I do not know and do not care to discover, since it was also said that the counterspell to dismiss Death had been lost.
- Quirrell, Chapter 74

It fits very nicely. Dementors (Death) were unkillable (undismissable) because the "true" patronus charm (counterspell) had been lost.

Comment author: MinibearRex 31 March 2012 06:47:39AM 3 points [-]

Canon makes reference to fog being produced by dementors breeding, which doesn't sound like a light ritual or a respawning option. I don't know if Yudkowsky has kept this part.

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