You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

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

9 Post author: Alsadius 17 December 2012 07:19AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (606)
Tags: fanfiction harry_potter hpmor fiction

Comments (606)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: pedanterrific 21 December 2012 06:35:53AM 11 points [-]

An excuse to stop, or further evidence of the 'teaching them to fight' theory?

Dumbledore's eyes were like stones. "I am told that Voldemort laughed at the news, and proclaimed to his Death Eaters that I had finally grown, and was at last a worthy opponent. Perhaps he was right. After the day I condemned my brother to his death, I began to weigh those who followed me, balancing them one against another, asking who I would risk, and who I would sacrifice, to what end. It was strange how many fewer pieces I lost, once I knew what they were worth."

One hundred Voldemort points to Mr Dumbledore, and twenty points to Gryffindor.

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 22 December 2012 06:29:21AM 1 point [-]

I thought of this too, but how about this variant: teaching himself to fight.

Early on, Quirrell says he realized his ambition was to be the greatest fighting wizard of all time. He might have decided that winning the moment he got good enough to win once would cut short his learning too much.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 21 December 2012 07:07:22AM 1 point [-]

Good point.

Not so much an excuse to stop, but no need to continue after the lesson had been learned. It always indicated to me that for him killing and torturing wasn't a terminal value.

Comment author: drethelin 21 December 2012 07:54:38AM 5 points [-]

This lines up perfectly with the worries Quirrel expresses to Harry about a possible war between Muggles and wizards, as well as his attempts to unify magical Britain. He gave up being Monroe when he saw Britain wouldn't unify behind him, and gave up (it's possible he was actually destroyed by Harry but it seems pretty sketchy to me) being Voldemort because he couldn't unify it by force either. Sort of a reverse of Watchmen. The trumped up threat is in order to prepare Wizards for a much larger threat in the end.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit