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buybuydandavis comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: palladias 18 July 2013 02:23AM

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Comment author: ChrisHallquist 18 July 2013 07:26:02PM 4 points [-]

Another question: can we try to nail down Voldemort's body-management strategy (for lack of a better term)?

I've been assuming that Voldemort possessed Quirrell shortly before the beginning of the Hogwarts school year, and the dark magic he used is only good for about a year before it "uses up" the possessed body in some sense. (Killing it, rendering it an un-possessable vegetable, something like that.)

But after thinking about this hard, I'm not so sure about that. Maybe the degredation in that body's condition is due to being in constant close proximity to Harry Potter, or something. Also, that may not even be Quirrell's body, Quirrell may be long dead and this is just some poor schmuck Voldemort decided he could pass off as Quirrell.

I assume Voldemort has a backup plan, in case his plans for Harry do not come to fruition this year.

Going back in time, what was going on when Voldemort was also, simultaneously, David Munroe? It seems he was planning on using the Munroe persona for many years, so he can't have used the same method he used for the Quirrell-body. What if the Munroe body was his original body, and he was just counting on years of aging to prevent people who knew him as Tom Riddle from recognizing him?

We may safely assume Voldemort used different facial features for Voldemort and Munroe. I don't know if it's been explicitly stated in HPMOR if Voldemort (as Voldemort) was disfigured as he was in canon, but it seems likely. However, I doubt the disfigurement was an unintentional side-effect of dark rituals, as in canon, because Voldemort had no trouble appearing as Munroe. More likely, it was a deliberate choice, to make the villain he set up for himself to defeat as Munroe as evil-looking as possible. One possibility is that this was not a second body, but the same body as the Munroe body, shape-shifted.

I assume what happened on the night of Harry's parents' death went exactly as planned for Voldemort. While Voldemort could have been betting on his ability to resurrect via horcruxes, it's not clear what going there would accomplish. More likely, he either (1) did not die (2) sort of died, but already had a second body ready to go so he wouldn't have to waste time gathering his power to resurrect.

If he had two different bodies for the Voldemort and Munroe identities, it's possible he kept the Munroe body in reserve upon retiring that identity, deliberately disposed of the Voldemort body shortly after or as part of whatever he did to Harry, and then went back to using the Munroe body secretly as he prepared for Stage 2 (to be executed when Harry became old enough to attend Hogwarts.) I wonder if the place he goes when he leaves the Quirrell body is back to the Munroe body.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 19 July 2013 08:58:43AM 10 points [-]

Maybe the degredation in that body's condition is due to being in constant close proximity to Harry Potter, or something.

I thought the clear implication was that Quirrell performed more powerful magics by ritual magic, sacrificing some bit of health with each exertion of power, so that he aged quickly after large exertions.

Comment author: Velorien 19 July 2013 11:06:04AM 2 points [-]

sacrificing some bit of health with each exertion of power, so that he aged quickly after large exertions.

Yet all his uses of powerful magic either have no visible effect on him whatsoever, or cause him to revert to pretty much the same zombielike form for varying periods of time. It's strongly implied that different dark rituals require entirely different kinds of sacrifice.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 20 July 2013 07:38:04AM 3 points [-]

Yet all his uses of powerful magic either have no visible effect on him whatsoever

I can't remember whether it was after the "war" that stuck people to the roof, or after Bellatrixes rescue, but there was visible aging to Quirrell.

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 19 July 2013 06:06:09PM 3 points [-]

Huh, hadn't thought of that. Which raises the disturbing possibility that he uses body-snatching as a way to cheat on the costs of dark rituals. But what do the rituals do that he's been using do, beyond the fiendfyre?

Comment author: buybuydandavis 20 July 2013 07:55:30AM 5 points [-]

Can't say what exactly Quirrell did, but he seems to be aging quickly. Search for "bald" and you'll find rapid balding in Quirrelll, where early on he may have been balding, to increasing indications of baldness. After Azkaban, as Quirrell recovers in the infirmary, Harry notes:

stared into the pale blue eyes, and thought that Professor
Quirrell looked...
...older.
It was subtle, it might have just been Harry’s imagination, it might have been the poor lighting. But the hair above Quirinus Quirrell’s forehead might have receded a bit, what remained might have thinned and greyed, an advancing of the baldness that had already been visible on the back of his head. The face might have grown a little sunken.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 20 July 2013 02:11:03PM 0 points [-]

Could this be a result of very frequent time-turning?

Comment author: gwern 20 July 2013 03:15:17PM 5 points [-]

Not unless Quirrel is using some sort of super-Timeturner. 6 hours per day over an entire school year of ~180 days is still only (180 * 6) / 24 = 45 days. Most people don't age visibly over just 45 days - unless, of course, there were some sort of massive ordeal & trauma.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 20 July 2013 08:14:34PM *  2 points [-]

I don't see the increased again being accounted for just by increased hours of living through time turning either.

If the argument is that too frequent time turning has a damaging effect in itself, I can't see them giving out such a potentially health damaging item to children without at least warning of that specific effect. Also, if EY is keeping the same basic timelines for Dumbledore, he is holding up better than average for his chronological age despite his time turning adventures.

Meanwhile, Quirrell explicitly talked about the advantages of ritual magic, and how it allows greater power than otherwise possible. He has greater power. He is aging rapidly. And by many indications, he is traveling host to host over time. If you could do that, the natural thing would be to use up the host and travel to a new one when you use it up, since your supply of bodies is in effect infinite, while it's a finite resource of 1 body for everyone else.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 20 July 2013 07:32:28AM 2 points [-]

Yeah, I think he takes bodies and burns them out, then moves to new ones.