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Daniel_Starr comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 11 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Harry's suggesting that Voldemort's tactics involve not just hate but an incredible degree of cynicism.
Both "Make Bella love you despairingly, on purpose" and "Mess with Hermione's brain intimately over a long period of time" reflect a person who can get to know people closely and accurately and yet not care about them at all.
A lot of evil comes from people doing bad things to people they don't bother to think about in the first place. Voldemort clearly took the trouble to get to know Bellatrix and (somewhat) Hermione rather well - solely for the purposes of undermining them.
Some police trained as hostage-situation snipers find they can't actually pull the trigger on real criminals, because they watch them so long and so closely they empathize with them. Draco Malfoy, in the fic, was coming to empathize with Hermione Granger.
Harry is observing that Voldemort seems to be immune to natural empathy, and that creeps him out.
(Agree that Harry having "Voldemort plot detection powers" as a general rule would be bizarre.)
Harry doesn't know whether whoever framed Hermione knew her closely or not. He knew that her mind was probably tampered with on several different occasions, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the criminal interacted with her on a regular basis, or enough to empathize with her. Otherwise I think he would have considered Quirell as a lead suspect early on.
Good reply.
I'll note, however, that to me the word "evil" means what you're talking about. If we're talking about "evil' as a character trait, that is, someone being an evil person. When you say "A lot of evil comes from people doing bad things to people they don't bother to think about in the first place", I assume you're talking about "evil" as in "harm done", which is not the same thing.
Voldemort isn't the only empty one.
Quirell "cannot say that I bothered keeping count" of "how many different people" he is. Surely he has an empty persona. It's useful.