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ewbrownv comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 17, chapter 86 - Less Wrong Discussion
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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.