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ChrisHallquist comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 15, chapter 84 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Ack. I can't believe it took me this long, but I think Quirrellmort's plan has finally fallen into place for me. Quirrellmort's primary goals are:
(1) Attain immortality. (2) Enjoy it.
But he believes a necessary means to those ends is:
(3) Kill Harry Potter.
When Quirrellmort first said that when he made his Evil Overlord list, he realized following it all the time would defeat the purpose of being a Dark Lord. I wondered if he was telling the truth about that. HPMOR is all about playing with things that don't make sense in traditional stories, and the fact the bad guy wants to rule the world in traditional stories is one of those things that rarely makes any sense. It's taken for granted that bad guys want to rule worlds, but why? Wouldn't it be a lot of work?
At first glance, though, having Quirrellmort not want to rule the world (or even just Magical Britain) would have done funny things to the dramatic tension of the story. Probably the story would end up being about whether Harry could think clearly enough to do utopia right, with Quirrellmort acting not as a traditional antagonist but more of a tempter-figure, trying to nudge Harry towards becoming a Dark Lord.
Now I've become convinced that Quirrellmort was very much telling the truth about deciding not to be a Dark Lord. Here's the thing, though: he still wants to be immortal. Remember the scene where Harry realizes that his mysterious dark side is terrified of death, and he needs to coddle it? If his dark side is a piece of Voldemort's soul, that's telling us that Voldemort is terrified of death.
And Voldemort has heard a prophecy saying that either he or Harry must die. He's absolutely terrified of death, so he's going to try to make sure it's Harry. He didn't intend to kill Harry on the Night of Godric's Hollow, but that's because he knew the part of the prophecy that said, "He will mark him as his equal." He realized if he tried to kill Harry directly, according to the prophecy something would go wrong, so he decided to first fulfill the part about marking Harry as his equal intentionally, and then figure out how to kill Harry in a way that nothing would go wrong.
For purposes of the story's plot, his central goal isn't any different than Canon!Voldemort's. Both are focused on killing Harry. But HPMOR!Voldemort, once he's done that, won't try to rule Magical Britain. He'll go off and do whatever the hell he feels like.
I wonder if maybe from '73-'81 Voldemort deliberately avoided winning the war, because he thought fighting a war would be more fun than actually trying to rule after you've won.
Seems Quirrell has a good motive for conquest that you didn't mention, or at least a motive for attempting the unification of wizards, whether under his leadership or not.
And remember his magical fascism speech, where he said to imagine an outside enemy attacking the divided armies?
It could be that Quirrell wanted a believable fake secret motive for his interest in Harry, and all of the above was so that Harry wouldn't question this:
Or, his desire to unite wizards against the muggle threat could be sincere.
EDIT: A proposal of this theory by 75th, and a little bit of discussion, here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ams/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/60di
They prophecy does not say that "either he or Harry must die" it says that one will "destroy all but a remnant of the other." One way for that to be true is that Volde dies but is still exists as a spirit due to his horcrux. However even if that is the obvious answer it would be wise for him to try to determine non-obvious ways the prophecy might be fulfilled. Preferably one where he could win. For example, inserting his personality into Harry's mind so that his personality changes Harry's such that it is only a remnant of its previous form.
Prophecies are a done deal, what is said will come to pass. Considering that the obvious answer is that Harry kills Volde it might be a good idea to make sure that happens when Harry is still a baby and cannot finish him off. With the personality insert as a backup plan for fulfilling the prophecy without completely losing.
Keep in mind that in canon, "either" in the prophecy was used in its lesser-known (but legitimate) definition of "both". "Either must die by the hand of the other", but what really happened was that BOTH died by the hand of the other.
So if that persists in MoR, we should expect both Harry and Voldemort to somehow destroy all but a remnant of the other.
Good point.
If I recall correctly, there are unfulfilled prophecies in canon.
It's definitely not just that, otherwise he'd have tossed Harry a knut port key into an active volcano or the like. His plan seems to involve Harry's "dark side" taking permanent control (like he expected to be the case before he was surpised by the news that there was a separate dark side in the first place rather than just Harry sometimes pretending to be non-dark).
Seems an awful lot of work to go through rather than just siccing an expert killer on the baby. No, I find it highly unlikely that killing Harry is the main goal. On the other hand Dumbledore's version of good seems to be very incompatible with Harry's...
You might also interpret this sentence in a mathematical sense, the two of them being identical, so the survival of either one is good enough for either of them. Thus V. tries to ensure that HP (presumably) has the best possible chance of survival in the harsh realities of Magical Britain :)