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CAE_Jones comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 20, chapter 90 - Less Wrong
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Curious; when I read Professor Quirrel going into "protect the information from Harry Potter" mode for Macgonnagle, I almost immediately thought this was deeper than "I've changed my mind and it is no longer a good day and holyshit he's going to kill us". The overwhelming majority of readers assume he is being sincerely cautious in an effort to save the universe. I was assuming that there was obviously a slightly deeper plot involved, though I hadn't gotten far in thinking about what before I read the suggestions about alternative sources such as the Chamber of Secrets.
(Harry's lecture to Macgonnagle on identity-based strategy actually made me realize something about myself I feel is worth analysis... somewhere. I may or may not get back on that if I figure out if it's worth publishing.)
To me it seemed obvious that Quirrel was just taking the opportunity to isolate Harry from Dumbledore-and-co. He's always tried to make Harry distrust Dumbledore. Now Harry will find them even more obstructionist to his goals, so he will only have Quirrel to go to with his ideas and plans.
I wouldn't be surprised if the next thing we see is Quirrel supplying Restricted books to Harry.
This is definitely true, because he was encouraging Harry in private before setting McGonagall to oppose him.
I think it's more likely that while Quirrell wants Harry to be dependent on him for information, he also doesn't plan on telling him very much. He's keeping Harry away from people who are (relatively) easy to manipulate (see: McGonagall just took Harry at his word and undid his Time Turner lock), and making sure that he's the one with a final say as to what Harry does and does not know.
Insofar as he can, anyway. We'll see how well that works. Quirrell's deflection w.r.t. spell creation was sufficiently obvious that Harry's probably noticed, which in turn means that he'll be making his own plans.
Given the chapter title, the first thought that leapt into my mind is "he's being exactly what Harry wants/expects to see, then being exactly what Minerva wants/expects to see, leaving no-one including us aware of what he actually wants or is actually going to do". Malus points to Minerva for the fact that he told her straight out what he was doing to Harry, but it didn't occur to her whether he might be doing the same to her.
She didn't give any indication that the possibility occured to her, so she's either one level down or a full level above Quirrel.
My prediction is that Znptbaantyr vf n yriry qbja, ohg gung Qhzoyrqber vf n yriry nobir jurer Dhveery rkcrpgf uvz gb or.
Does Dumbledore observe Quirrell's interaction with either Harry or McGonagall?
Not that I know of. That isn't a requirement for Dumbledore to be GenreSavvy enough to effectively manipulate Quirrell and/or Harry.
Has Dumbledore ever done anything for Quirrell or Harry that he didn't want to?
What's wrong with assuming that Quirrell wants to keep the universe intact? Quote:
I get the impression that this is a known part of the LW-sphere, but since no articles immediately come to mind that suggests there's space for one. I recommend committing to write something, and then deciding whether to put it into main or discussion based on how good you think it is at some specified point in the future.
I thought it might have been that he doesn't want Harry to destroy himself doing something stupid before he could take over the universe.
In light of all the talk about heroic responsibility, my first thought was that if he really, really wanted Harry kept away from those books, he'd steal them or something. (This specific method isn't a very good one because it would raise suspicion, but there has to be a better way to keep them from Harry than going through Macgonnagle.) And maybe he was hoping that Harry would notice the increased wards and try to go there because of it, but that seems like he might be assuming too much.
Such was warding the books rather than the entire Restricted Section. However, Quirrel seems to want to keep Harry away from quite a bit of knowledge: not just particular books, but the entire Restricted Section; not just random spell creation bits, but the entire field of spell creation. This suggests to me that there no single book that is problematic, but any book dealing with the topic at all beyond the fake "usual evasions". If that's the case, then he can't do much else - what is he going to do, abscond with an entire wing of the library?
Note that warding books A, B, and C leaks more bits of information than warding all restricted books.
That's a good point too.
It seemed to me that Quirrel just wants to prevent Harry from bringing Hermione back so she doesn't affect his judgements (positively, but negatively for Quirrel).
Quirrel want's Harry to solve the general-case bring-someone-back problem, because Voldemort wants that problem solved.
I agree, but he also doesn't want the universe destroyed in the process.