Nornagest comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 16, chapter 85 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (1106)
To be honest, I'm not even sure if Voldemort is Voldemort, in the sense of being the man behind the proverbial curtain here. Everything about him from the name up screams "assumed persona": he's far more theatrical a figure than a blood-purist demagogue would need to be, and some aspects of what he does even look counterproductive in that context. And while the canon Tom Riddle did all the same stuff and all for no particularly good reason, in the context of MoR I think we can assume that there's an agenda behind it.
I don't know for sure what that agenda is yet, but a good first step seems to be this question: why would you want to pose as a supervillain? As it happens, Eliezer has touched on that before.
More proof:
Added to this...
...would seem to suggest that Quirrelmort was pretending.
As you pointed out, Eliezer has suggested that humanity might benefit from a Dark Lord to unite against.
And Quirrell has used Voldemort as a reason for magical britain to unite.
To clarify, this is only weak evidence in favor of Nornagest's theory, but it seems like we shouldn't be postulating evil mutants without considering other possibilities.