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iceman comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 28, chapter 99-101 - Less Wrong
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Comments (365)
Premise: Quirrell plays the game one level higher than Harry Potter.
Observation: This entire incident is uncharacteristically sloppy. Why were the unicorn corpses found? Why was Quirrell discovered?
Observation: Harry Potter is now really pissed off that herds of unicorns to slay aren't standard procedure for stable-izing people with life threatening injuries. He has just been given another "if only" to fixate on. It has been brought to his attention in ways that wouldn't trip his "why am I being told this" sense.
Hypothesis: Reminding Harry that there were ways the wizarding world could have saved Hermione was the primary effect. Possible secondary effects may include impressing on Harry just how ridiculously powerful he is. Perhaps implanting the desire to save Quirrell into Harry's mind? Quirrell may not actually need the blood right now, though I suspect it doesn't hurt.
I don't think knowing that unicorn blood has uses which may not be properly exploited by wizarding society changes his opinion of wizarding society much anyway. It's kind of a straw on a logpile.
I think it's more likely that Quirrell's planned reveal to Harry was his impending mortality (which, considering the horcruxes and the spell which can restore him to his original state, is probably not so unavoidable as he implied.)
While he's certainly determined to make Harry believe he's going to die ("this is the last time I will be able to do this for you"), it is likely he is lying for a couple of additional reasons. The man obsessed with not dying, prepared to tear his very soul to shreds to stay alive, has
a) been trying to prevent Harry from seeking a way to bring back the dead, and
b) been doing so purely as part of an effort to save the world - which he has no reason to care about unless he expects to remain in it.
If Quirrell is going through time by using up bodies and moving to new ones, applying a bring "back from death" spell to a former host might force him back to his previous used up body.
I don't think unicorns are actually kept in stables, despite their horse-like anatomy. ;-)
Hermione was dead before she could have killed a unicorn and drank it's blood.
Depends exactly how it works. Is someone dead when the heart is stopped, but can still be restarted ? What happens if someone is forced fed unicorn blood (and the unicorn dies in the process) just after cardiac arrest, but when no damage is done to the brain yet ?
By the time a capable wizard (Dumbledore) was on the scene, Hermione was dead.
I doubt there's anything unicorn blood can do that phoenix tears can't, so.
I'd think that unicorn blood has unique properties on phoenix tears.
Otherwise Quirrel would be tracking down Phoenixes and... showing them the first 5 minutes of 'Up' or something.
Yes. "Up" was a fairly good movie, but it doesn't hold a candle to the short film that constituted its first 5 or 10 minutes. That should have won an Oscar.
Here it is
I prefer the original audio, but that might be too much to hope to find on YouTube.
I could rewatch Up, except that doing so would require rewatching the first ten minutes.
And I can't do that.
I know that you're probably not serious but … you can always skip that part. You already remember what happens.
Doesn't this plan seem rather risky if the primary benefits are so limited?
On the other hand, now Quirrell has a way to convince Harry to help him get the Philosopher's Stone, or to consider leaving Hogwarts in spite of the danger to help him with a "life-saving ritual".
On the other other hand, telling Harry about these life-saving methods could just make him angry that no one mentioned them with respect to Hermione.
Another effect - Harry's now thinking about the power of unicorn blood to keep people alive.
Intresting. I do think that Quirrell needs the blood, but tipping his hand this way did seem to have those effects on Harry, and I would be very surprised if that was unintentional on Quirrell's part.
Related point that I haven't seen: chapter 100 increased the probability that Harry would bring any clever idea for defeating death straight to the Defense Professor.
I like to think that 101 decreased it again, and that Harry might have talked to Draco about those false memories (thereby learning that Quirrell couldn't make guilt feel real). But we'll see.