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

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

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Comment author: Daniel_Starr 25 March 2012 12:22:20PM *  22 points [-]

Why is HPMOR's Quirrellmort so much less violent than HPMOR's Voldemort?

HPMOR paints a Voldemort fixated on punishing his inferiors, a Voldemort who never used persuasion or inspiration when he could rely on suffering.

  • Voldemort amused himself by inducing in Bellatrix a love so knowingly one-sided that it was not a happy thought for her.
  • Quirrell asserts Voldemort slaughtered an entire monastery rather than simply impersonate an appropriate student.
  • Voldemort's rule was so coercive and terrorizing that Lucius Malfoy finds it best to claim he was not merely deceived or misled but forced to obey him.
  • If Harry's "dark" thoughts under the Dementor's influence represent Voldemort's mind accurately, Voldemort's reflex inclination was to punish or kill anyone who didn't slavishly obey.

Yet Quirrellmort, for all that he talks cynically and is prepared to kill or memory-charm, prefers not to punish when he can benignly persuade or inspire.

  • Quirrell is verbally much less insulting than an army drill sergeant, let alone how Snape treated students.
  • The "Quirrell point" system is all about achieving rewards, not avoiding punishments.
  • Quirrell's entire plan revolves around patient impersonation and feigned subordination - the kind of behavior that the old Voldemort allegedly refused at the monastery.
  • Quirrell is explicitly disapproving about the old Voldemort's approach to persuasion.
  • We've been in Quirrell's head when Harry and Dumbledore weren't around, yet his violent acts have always been to "eliminate my enemy", not to "instill fear of me in my intended lackey." The author's had 70+ chapters to show Quirrell or even H+C tormenting a hireling of his with no one else around, and neither has done so.

In HPMOR, Voldemort was grandiose, cynical, and punitive. Quirrellmort is grandiose, cynical, but not punitive. We see him kill to remove danger, but we don't see him torment to instill subordinates' fear of him. Why the change? Options:

  • 1: Maybe Quirrellmort is still as punishment-oriented as old Voldemort, but the author doesn't want to show us that ugly side of him quite yet. But if Quirrell doesn't deserve our sympathy, isn't it a good idea to make us lose it? Or if the author wants to hold off on admitting Quirrell is Voldemort until the last moment, why not have H+C be the punisher instead of Quirrell?
  • 2: Maybe Voldemort had bad publicity; he was ruthless with enemies, but it's only propaganda that he abused his own people. But Bella and Dementor!Harry are both private evidence that Voldemort was abusive.
  • 3: Maybe Quirrellmort has realized the practical downsides of being punitive with those under your authority, and no longer uses those tactics. But if he could figure he was wrong about such a huge part of his leadership style, why is he so deaf to all the other ways he could be wrong about what to expect from people? Where did that open-mindedness go?
  • 4: Maybe Quirrellmort doesn't have Voldemort's abusive impulses, because Horcrux!Harry is holding onto them. But why would Quirrellmort not believe in terrifying his subordinates anymore, when he still believes that nobody has any reliable kindness or loyalty? It's cynicism as much as anger that inspires rule-by-fear, and Quirrellmort has full cynicism.

Of those four, my bet is on Horcrux!Harry, but even that doesn't quite make sense to me. Why'd you change, Quirrellmort?

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 25 March 2012 12:36:31PM *  29 points [-]

Quirrell and Voldemort are personas designed to play different roles. You are looking for different urges, but there are instead different purposes behind these roles, that call for different behaviors, with any urges controlled too reliably to manifest if contrary to the purpose.

Ch. 79 (Dumbledore):

But Voldemort was more Slytherin than Salazar, grasping at every opportunity.

Ch. 61 (Dumbledore):

It is too clever and too impossible, which was ever Voldemort's signature since the days he was known as Tom Riddle. Anyone who wished to forge that signature must needs be as cunning as Voldemort himself to do so.

Ch. 63 (Quirrell):

To an actor or spy or politician, the limit of his own diameter is the limit of who he can pretend to be, the limit of which face he may wear as a mask. But for such as you and I, anyone we can imagine, we can be, in reality and not pretense.

Quirrell is not Voldemort, Quirrell is Riddle, just as Voldemort is Riddle.

Comment author: Lavode 25 March 2012 01:55:45PM *  17 points [-]

The simplest reason is that Quirrelmort is simply not in a position to indulge any sadistic impulses the way Voldemort was. He spends hours each day conked out completely, and he has no powerbase to retreat to. Overt malice of the kind Voldemort practiced would very rapidly earn him an adavra. There are quite a few other possible reasons - for one thing, Tom Riddle is not running on the same wetware anymore, and his original brain might have been miswired in a way that did not carry over, or heck, the original Quirrel could have been very calm and unflappable, so now Quirrelmort just cannot get a good temper tantrum going no matter how hard he tries.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 25 March 2012 09:11:16PM 3 points [-]

True, he doesn't have the power base to openly attack anyone and everyone in the wizarding world. But Quirrell is a wizard with power dwarfing all others except Dumbledore. He could indulge as much sadism as he wants on random people in spots across the globe. If he has the appetite, he could do it.

And with obliviate, he could probably arrange to have Minerva as his sex slave with minimal risk.

Comment author: loup-vaillant 25 March 2012 11:00:29PM 6 points [-]

"Some do," Professor Quirrell said equably, as though discussing the weather. "Although personally, I don't."

(Chapter 70)

Comment author: pedanterrific 25 March 2012 11:03:11PM 8 points [-]

Well, that's what he would say either way, isn't it? (Not that I believe he would, the motive seems too human, but it's the principle of the thing.)

Comment author: loup-vaillant 26 March 2012 08:58:31AM *  3 points [-]

Mostly true. The bayesian evidence from that is weak. However, I do think that if he did do this sort of thing, he would be less likely to raise the topic in the first place. Well, unless he's playing one level above me, in which case it would point in the direction of guilt, or he is just messing with my brain, Arrggghhhh!!

Anyway, it doesn't seem to fit Professor Quirrell style. (Though like Harry, I am beginning to wonder if this whole "style" business mean anything.)

Comment author: Daniel_Starr 25 March 2012 01:12:49PM *  8 points [-]

I like the idea that "Voldemort" was very consciously a role; that fits the Occlumens speech Quirrell gives to Harry.

But still, which is more plausible? That Voldemort's violence was an optimal choice for the situation? Or that Voldemort was stupidly violent?

Quirrell uses the monastery story to argue Voldemort was stupidly violent, which at minimum implies Voldemort had a reputation consistent with stupid levels of violence. Dementor!Harry, which I read as a representation of Voldemort, thinks

The response to annoyance was killing.

which is about as stupidly violent as it gets.

Let's put it this way: if Voldemort's violence level was rationally chosen, the author's worked really hard to disguise that fact.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 25 March 2012 01:23:32PM *  10 points [-]

Dementor!Harry, which I read as a representation of Voldemort

I believe Dementor!Harry was just damaged by the Dementor, producing both grotesquely negative motivations and poor impulse control.

Comment author: Daniel_Starr 25 March 2012 01:31:05PM 8 points [-]

The chapter emphasizes that it's a separate personality system that's running Harry at that point (which doesn't prove it's Voldemort, but is suggestive). E.g.:

that's not Harry--

You know. About his dark side.

Although it's not absolutely definitive; Dumbledore's line in reply is

But this is beyond even that.

which argues for "he's damaged" as you suggest rather than "he's alien [and Voldemort]" as I'm suggesting.

Comment author: DanArmak 25 March 2012 04:50:48PM 4 points [-]

Look at results, though. Until whatever it was happened ten years ago, Voldemort was winning the war with those tactics.

Comment author: wirov 25 March 2012 07:23:56PM 2 points [-]

Modulo Harry, those tactics were good enough – no doubt about that. But were they optimal?

Comment author: DanArmak 25 March 2012 09:23:09PM 7 points [-]

Probably not optimal if he could go back and redo from start. But sometimes "good enough" is good enough. Shifting tactics in the middle of a war, to the extent of completely changing your public persona, when a lot of the loyalty of your followers (and the fear that keeps bystanders uninvolved) depends intimately on your existing persona, would not be easy at all.

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