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DanArmak comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 17, chapter 86 - Less Wrong Discussion
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It's funny that Quirrel ought to be that too, because he's hyperrational and reliably cynical about people, and yet his backstory is that he failed to conquer England because he wasn't cynical enough and thought people would follow a Light Lord instead of backstab him.
Actually, I see a significant (at least 10%) chance that the person currently known as Quirrel was both the 'Light Lord' and the Dark Lord of the last war. His "Voldemort' persona wasn't actually trying to win, you see, he was just trying to create a situation where people would welcome a savior...
This would neatly explain the confusion Harry noted over how a rational, inventive wizard could have failed to take over England. It leaves open some questions about why he continued his reign of terror after that ploy failed, but there are several obvious possibilities there. The big question would be what actually happened to either A) stop him, or B) make him decide to fake his death and vanish for a decade.
This is exactly how I read chapter 85, and now 86 confirmed it. My estimate is way over 10%, probably ~60%.
Same. Though... what about Tom Riddle?
What about Tom Riddle? He grew up, decided to conquer Britain, and, being clever, played both sides to do so.
So, in other words, he lost twice.
Evil overlord list rule 230 is "I will not procrastinate regarding any ritual granting immortality.". Which he's shown to be aware of.
It makes sense, remaining evil overlord allows him access to all the materials of dark rituals and willing assistants, once he's achieved it successfully he has all the time he would like to do anything else.
One caveat - while Voldemort did seemingly try to set himself up as a Light Lord, the closest to such that actually existed in the end was Dumbledore. I think it's safe to assume that Voldemort is not Dumbledore.
Although, actually, that would be kinda impressive.
I mostly wrote that comment as an excuse to write the last sentence, truth be told. It's an interesting enough theory(even if obviously wrong in this case) to make me wonder if any fics exist with it as a premise.
OR IS HE?
No. No, he's not.
I've suspected something like that at least since Quirrell gave his speech at the end of the armies sequence, and 86 just gave me a lot of new evidence for it. By now I'd say my estimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% for him playing both sides in a similar sense, though I don't think we have enough evidence to narrow it down to playing Light Lord as such -- just to set up a situation where a Light Lord would need to arise.
This is certainly the obvious or surface theory that the text presents, and I believe in it too. But that doesn't change Quirrel's backstory; he played the role of Light Lord, and people didn't rally round him.
That's ... far from certain.
Somehow I don't think Moody would make that mistake.
It's pretty clear that whatever the reason Moody hasn't got a phoenix, it's not that he's not willing to solve problems right away by applying overwhelming force to a defenseless (but evil) enemy.
And why hasn't he tried to become a Light Lord with a Light Mark on an army of personally loyal Aurors? Maybe he more enjoys the thrill of the chase than rationally plots how to rid the world of Dark Lords.
Maybe because he has enough experience to know how much attempting to make himself any kind of Lord would increase his chances of getting killed.
Now that is a much better reason than "because Light Lords inevitably become corrupted and Dark".
Because that is how you become a Dark Lord.
Based on what? We know of only one such (alleged) case and that is Grindewald. Other Dark Lords have tended to start out Dark, thanks to Rowling's apparent beliefs about evil being intrinsic and unchangeable.
Anyway, I'll take a corrupted Light Lord over a deliberate Dark Lord any day of the week.
I suppose this is where I need to make the obvious quotation:
If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely more because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.
It's a nice quotation, but where's the actual evidence? Has anyone shut up and multiplied and calculated the net value of trying to become a Light Lord? At least some of them must do good.
Generally, people are too diverse to allow you to lord it over them without some serious force being used on dissidents, at which point you're not very Light anymore. The extreme case of this is people like Pol Pot or Robespierre, and Grindelwald is as good a fictional avatar of that sort as any.
Now, there are historical examples the other way - Cincinnatus, for example. But most of them you'll find will either have been given their power instead of seizing it(which is obviously a lot less likely to cause violence), or they'll turn out to be a lot less nice upon closer inspection.
Being a Light Lord doesn't necessarily mean ruling ordinary people and making laws. Unless you're like Harry and want to change existing laws a lot. Being a Light Lord is about leading people in the fight against evil and Dark Lords, but only a few people are fit to fight like that. For that matter, Dumbledore is a pretty good Light Lord, his goals just happen to be different from Harry's.
If you want to be a moral leader, you can do that and stay Light pretty easily - Gandhi is perhaps the archetype here. But few would consider him a Lord. When you go from consensual means(which are nice, but only ever affect a portion of society) to forcible means(which affect everybody, but are not nearly so nice), you're threading a needle to remain the good guy while you're doing it. It can be done - murder laws are forcible, but I think we can all agree they're good. But it's rare.
It's kind of there in the name: Light Lord. More generally, any radical change in society's moral nature will require changes to a lot of laws.
He wouldn't be good at it, would he? His role is purely defensive - thwarting and removing evil wizards without croaking in the process. There's little evidence he can plot that well, or lead a group that isn't a smallish team of fawning younger Aurors.
He's very offensive on the tactical level. If that sums up to defensiveness on the strategic level, that seems like it should tell us something about Dark Wizards being better strategists than the Light ones.
Well, duh. It's easier to gain and keep power than to gain and keep power and also improve the world and never do anything too unethical.
Or the idea isn't as great as Harry seems to think it is. Moody knows a LOT more about the world and the wizarding world. I'm sure he can remember plenty of dark Lords that started out as light lords, for one.
Where do you get that idea from? Apart from the single example of Grindewald.
Besides, Moody wouldn't go Dark because he's got ETERNAL VIGILANCE on his side.
Isn't a bad Light Lord pretty much exactly what Dumbledore fears? That suggests historical precedent, to be so worried after just a few months of Harry.
From Dumbledore's words to Harry, I gathered that he was more afraid Harry might become a Dark Lord more directly without a significant Light Lord phase in between. I don't think he has the concept of a Light Lord present - great wizards are to him either Dark Lords or those who oppose them, not Light Lords who do something positive and unrelated to any Dark machinations.
Also, I don't trust Dumbledore in particular to make a fair assessment, since he's the one most liable to be swayed by the single example of Grindelwald.