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JTHM comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Quirrel did not know the lore of the Hallows, until Potter told him; at which point he discovered where the stone of resurrection was, and went to retrieve it. It seems to interfere a little too much that he then went on to study the whole lore to the fullest of his ability, seeing as he was not that interested in it from the beginning. (in canon, the gang learns of the symbol by talking to the father of Luna Lovegood, thats really not an obscure enough source for him to have missed)
The fact that Quirrell seemed not to know the symbol of the Deathly Hallows is very strange--the symbol is reasonably well-known in the wizarding world, as Grindelwald used it as his own. Which raises the question: was Quirrell's apparent failure to recognize the symbol an oversight on Yudkowsky's part, or an important clue?
As I interpreted canon: Canon!Voldemort also didn't recognize the symbol. Inference: Grindelwald studied the Deathly Hallows particularly and thus learned that symbol, to use as his own. The Deathly Hallows in general are well-known enough to have sayings like "Wand of elder, never prosper" but not the symbol.
In canon, Grindelwald used it as his own, true, but no one (else) knew of it's significance. It was just considered "Grindelwald's symbol", and that's what Krum identified it as.
(Sort of like the swastika. It used to have a meaning as a Hindu symbol, but that meaning has been overshadowed by its later use, so nowadays most of the population is only aware of its meaning as a Nazi symbol.)
I don't know if this is actually true. It seems to me that countries that are historically Buddhist (Korea, parts of China, India, Indonesia, and etc.) view this meaning as dominant, and that of the symbol of a (comparatively) small, distant, fascist dictatorship as secondary.
I think the Hallows are a disreputable story, so serious researchers like QQ probably have not dug in.
In our world, if Loch Ness Monster venom cured skin cancer, this would be more likely to be discovered by a nut than a real scientist because real scientists generally don't spend a lot of time on the loch ness monster. But of course since the wizarding world is nuts, the hollows are real and you ignore the Lovegoods at your peril.
If I recall correctly, at some point Quirrell recognized Harry's invisibility cloak as the Cloak, so he must have known about the other two, as well.
It does seem that a large number of people (Dumbledore, Snape, Quirrell, and Hermione—all intelligent, but not all likely to credit random crackpot theories) all know about the Cloak, and Quirrell at least has heard of the Stone and credits if existence if not the standard explanation for its powers. There's no evidence that many people know of the Wand, but the subject has never really come up so we wouldn't know if that's common knowledge. I expect that those who study wandlore would know about it, as in canon.
Probably all three artifacts' existence is common knowledge, and that they are connected in some way (I think most people would notice, upon hearing The Tale of the Three Brothers, that all three exist; additionally, Hermione recognizes "the Charm which [...] would not reveal the Cloak, but would tell you whether it or certain other artifacts were nearby."). However, even if people know about the Deathly Hallows as real objects, they may not know details (such as the sign, or the connection to the Peverells, or what "conqueror of Death" actually means). I doubt anybody today except Harry, Lupin, and possibly Dumbledore (who may have noticed it when taking Lily and James to the Hall of Prophesy) know about the prophesy; Harry and Lupin know the contents but not that it's a prophesy, while Dumbledore may know there is a prophesy but not the contents.
I assume that QQ knows much more than HP about all the wizarding history and trivia.
I would agree about "most" of the history and trivia, but not "all". Given his behavior in Chapter 40, it at least seems likely that he did not know as much as Harry about the Hallows at that time. This is understandable, as Harry has a Hallow and therefore cares more than the Defense Professor, who doesn't have one and doesn't have a particular reason to search for any of them. He wouldn't decline a chance to try the Stone, but he doesn't have much reason to believe it works as advertised and therefore didn't plan to seek it out. Now that he remembers "a peculiar ring he] saw on the finger of a man [he] met only once" ([Chapter 26), he is much more interested and probably knows more publicly-speculated information about the Hallows than Harry even if he doesn't know some of the specifics Harry learned in TSPE.
Similarly, the Defense Professor doesn't seem to care about whether other beings are sentient, so he probably does not know as much about the fairy tale of the tale of the Lady of the Flying Squirrels (Chapter 49), even now that Harry has mentioned it.
Also, Quirrel doesn't know the story of Weasleys' Pet Rat. Did he spend a century in Albania or something?