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TheMajor comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 114 + chapter 115 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (423)
So did Harry just outsmart himself? Are we really expecting the clever Lord Voldemort to not have something in place to recover from obliviation? Harry seemed to appropriately judge the importance of this spell about half a second after he first heard of it, but Tom Riddle doesn't realise at all?
I'm sure he realizes it, but Harry literally obliviated everything in his memory, which would presumably include knowledge of any anti-obliviation counter measures (like the signals that were mentioned early on).
Unless there's some spell or artifact we haven't heard of before now that blocks/reverses Obliviation, I am going with it worked. And from a meta perspective, we know the story is winding down, so Voldie coming back with his full memory and then having another showdown with a different solution seems highly unlikely.
There is an artifact that might suffice, the Pensieve. Voldemort might have prepared such an artifact with all his memories, and had Bellatrix and/or others ready to restore them to him by it if necessary.
But I grant the extreme difficulty Voldemort is likely to have having been transfigured into a ring. If necessary, Harry can always do with the ring what Voldemort did with the Horcruxes and ensure it is lost forever.
He can’t, unless he wants to visit one of the suggested hiding places several times a day:
(McGonagall, chapter 15)
He has the Philosopher's Stone. Not an issue.
That might, however, make him no longer retain his original form, so then he's seriously dead, and the horcruxes activate.
Possibly true; although I’m not sure whether Voldemort’s spirit would still stay inside the jewel once that transfiguration is made permanent. (Less of a problem now, thanks to the obliviation, but I’d still prefer some oversight, just to be safe.)
Both good points. While Harry does actually have the means to overcome that difficulty, I admit I hadn't thought of it in the first place. Up-votes for both.
I agree with this interpretation. But given that, I'm not sure why Harry thinks he didn't kill Voldemort.
LV would anticipate this, so he should have something set up that will explain it all over to him again, automatically. Compare Fiona in Harry Potter and the Natural 20; LV could have done what she did, and she used no magic (and no Muggle technology more advanced than audiocassette recordings).
The obliviated Fiona was still a policewoman who likes jogging with a walkman. The obliviated Voldemort isn't even still in the same category of "animal, vegetable, or mineral". The total obliviation is a second layer of precaution on top of that.
At this point it's hard to even define "him". Even if some absent Death Eater's contingency orders just kicked in, and some magical trace on Voldemort defines where to deliver a post-obliviation message, that message is just going to end up in the hands of the obliviated ex-Tom-Riddle we like.
Being obliviated and transfigured is a pretty bad fix, yes. But they're both things that he could have anticipated. I don't know how to get out of that, but V might.
Total obliviation requires more than just a message; it requires brainwashing to recreate the lost personality. Voldemort (I mean past V planning for these contingencies) can find a way. He just needs to shut up and do it! (^_^)
Um, that doesn't apply to anything Tom Riddle needed to learn from the basilisk. Which he actually did kill, to judge from the spiders (ha) and the lack of basilisk in the Tunnels of Secrets.
What about a Voldemort who comes back and just Avada Kedavras Harry on sight? This would finally do justice to Voldie's superior power and intelligence, and take only one paragraph.
I was indeed thinking of spells or artefacts we don't know about (or perhaps clever combinations/side-effects of magic we do know about). If Horcruxes are indeed images of the caster impressed upon the world then perhaps it might be possible to construct them in such a way that they become active unless repressed by the original? That would solve Voldies stuck-in-a-plaque-for-decades problem as well.
Would you consider the story ending with Voldemort, up to that point presumed dealt with, suddenly showed up and killed Harry with no chance for recourse?
It would be a quick resolution, but despite what Harry thinks as he matures, he is in fact living inside a narrative. I don't believe that the story would end on such a down note. I could well be wrong, but that is what I choose to believe.