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Benito comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, January 2015, chapter 103 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Anybody wish to provide arguments for why this decision of Quirrell's was a wrong one?
Professor Quirrell believes Hermione's death is final. Harry intends to make sure it is not.
That... Doesn't seem right. The important point is that Quirrell is teaching the other students what it means to truly fail. Even if she does come back, she failed that test.
Public excoriation of failures usually lowers everyone's performance (in complex tasks or those that require creativity, like the candle/drawing pins test). If, in dangerous situations, his students are afraid that they will fail by dying, they're going to be less effective at defending themselves.
Cites? I've been relying on Hanson's read of the evidence, which points the opposite way.
I think the effect of his statement was to better calibrate his students' attachment to written tests (make them less worried), but also to make them more vigilant in life.
Dying is pretty much a failure no matter how you look at it, so I doubt worries about your grades will make any marginal difference.
People are irrational, especially in high-stress situations.
Granted, but that's a really unusual thing for the mind to jump to. "Oh god, who will feed my owl?!", maybe, but "I'm going to fail DADA! Ohnoes!" seems terribly unlikely.
Also, at risk of pointing out the obvious, he's fricking Voldemort. He's allowed to do evil stuff.
DADA would be on your mind at that point. It seems pretty likely to me. Shrug.
Allowed?
(I don't think anyone has been suggesting that it would be, I dunno, out of character for Quirrelmort to make the point he's making. What's at issue is -- isn't it? -- that Harry thinks it's unwise or irrational or unfair or something of the kind. And Harry evidently hasn't figured out who Quirrell really is yet. Or maybe he has, at the very end of the chapter, though I am inclined to doubt it.)
Right, good call.
Note first that Quirrell's perspective is informed by his conversation with Hermione on the night she returned from the Wizengamot trial. In his view, her decision to stay involved, knowing the dangers, means she assumes the burden of her failure (as represented by her death).
That said, I imagine Harry thinks Quirrell is making a hasty generalization from what must be considered an exceptional case. Further, that Quirrell is mischaracterizing Hermione's death as a failure of preparation, when in fact she could not have been prepared, because her enemy was an unknown meticulous assassin who could readily counteract every preparation she could make. And finally, that these moves (starting with the attempt to frame Hermione for murder) were made against Harry, and so Harry at least shares the burden of responsibility for Hermione's death.
She could have left the school the same way Longbottom did who got his "Outstanding".
Rereading that conversation it feels like Quirrell's position is: "I know you don't like me. I don't want to you to be here and I give you the opportunity to leave. I need a decision tonight." It's all said with plausible deniability but Hermione was already thinking that Quirrell was evil enough to ask him: "Are you here to kill me?".
In particular:
Killing her is also an example of "arranging her departure".
Fair points. Hermione had enough information to make getting out rational, though perhaps not enough to trust Quirrell to get her out. And if Quirrell is the culprit, all the more reason for him to consider her failure to leave as assumption of responsibility for her own demise. That said, these may be blind spots for Harry.