Comment author: Alsadius 30 June 2013 07:35:36PM *  2 points [-]

Because the real Hermione was under an invisibility cloak ten feet away. (Not saying this is how it happened, but it does explain that part of the riddle)

Comment author: glumph 01 July 2013 12:07:21AM 0 points [-]

The silver outline blasted back into the world, and said in the strange outside version of Harry's own voice, "Hermione Granger says," the blazing figure's voice became higher-pitched, "AHHHHHHHHH!"

Comment author: cultureulterior 10 May 2012 09:09:27AM 1 point [-]

I'm not sure the Powers that Be at Hogwarts would allow her to be taken home by her parents...

Comment author: glumph 13 May 2012 03:59:37AM *  3 points [-]

Do Hermoine's parents even have the right to withdraw her? Harry's parents apparently do not have such a right:

Muggles had around the same legal standing as children or kittens: they were cute, so if you tortured them in public you could get arrested, but they weren’t people. Some reluctant provision had been made for recognizing the parents of Muggleborns as human in a limited sense, but Harry’s adoptive parents did not fall into that legal category (Chapter 26).

Comment author: DanArmak 06 May 2012 12:45:52AM 7 points [-]

Um. Maybe he was experimenting with the powerful magic protection that a mother's love grants her child?

Comment author: glumph 07 May 2012 01:48:39AM 0 points [-]

We know that LL loves his mother, but does she love her son? Does she love anyone but Voldemort?

Comment author: pedanterrific 01 May 2012 03:11:20AM 1 point [-]

It's on the talk page. Link is broken, though.

Comment author: glumph 01 May 2012 06:34:46AM 0 points [-]

Saved by the Wayback Machine. Thanks. I should have checked the talk page.

Comment author: Postal_Scale 29 April 2012 08:34:43AM 1 point [-]

Who would win in a fight, Harry Potter-Evans-Verres, or the Harry Potter from Wizard People, Dear Reader?

Comment author: glumph 01 May 2012 02:16:44AM 2 points [-]

WPDR Harry could at least drink HPJEV under the table.

Comment author: shminux 27 April 2012 07:00:34PM 1 point [-]

This being the 21st century, shall we make it up or look it up?

Comment author: glumph 01 May 2012 02:12:55AM *  1 point [-]

This is the quote I had in mind, from Chapter 23 of HBP:

‘He [Voldemort] seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths. You would certainly have been that. He believed that in killing you, he was destroying the danger the prophecy had outlined. He believed he was making himself invincible. I am sure that he was intending to make his final Horcrux with your death.

‘As we know, he failed. After an interval of some years, however, he used Nagini to kill an old Muggle man, and it might then have occurred to him to turn her into his last Horcrux.

If Dumbledore is right, then Bertha Jorkins could not have been murdered to make that Horcrux, because she was already dead. Is there an interview where Rowling says otherwise? I don't see anything on the wiki page (a citation, or other reference) that backs up their claim.

Comment author: pedanterrific 22 April 2012 12:50:05AM 5 points [-]

All the sources I've found indicate the deaths used to create the Horcruxes are Myrtle (diary) - Riddle Sr. (ring) - an unnamed Muggle tramp (locket) - Hepzibah Smith (cup) - an unnamed Albanian peasant (diadem) - Voldemort himself (Harry) - Bertha Jorkins (Nagini), in that order.

Comment author: glumph 27 April 2012 06:52:55PM *  0 points [-]

I thought that the Nagini horcrux was made via the killing of Frank Bryce. Don't have the book with me to check, though.

Comment author: Paulovsk 21 April 2012 04:21:20PM 1 point [-]

You deserve far more karma than what you received, my friend.

By the way, could you link me to the argument expressed here?

RL rkcerffrq chmmyrzrag ng ubj many readers took forever to decide Quirrell = Voldemort

Comment author: glumph 21 April 2012 09:05:07PM 3 points [-]
Comment author: Daniel_Starr 20 April 2012 06:55:21PM *  11 points [-]

Quirrell's tale of "I played a hero, but it didn't get me political power" doesn't hold up. The "lonely superhero" is just as much a mere storytelling convention as the "zero-casualties superhero". Either Quirrell is leaving something out, or the author is ignoring real-world politics for storytelling convenience.

In real life, successfully fighting societally recognized enemies gets you all kinds of political opportunity. Look at American Presidents Eisenhower, Grant, Taylor, Jackson, Harrison, and Washington. This is true in nondemocracies too: consider the Duke of Wellington, the Duke of Marlborough, or Sir Francis Drake.

What gets you loneliness and isolation is being a pioneer.

In real life, heroes go unrewarded exactly and only when their enemies aren't yet regarded as enemies by the rest of society.

The socially isolating thing isn't fighting Nazis when you're an American, it's fighting Nazis when you're a German. Being a reformer is isolating.

"The lonely superhero" is just as much a mere literary convention as "the zero-casualties superhero".

Of course, "the lonely superhero" reflects an underlying truth. The real bravery we could use more of from people is the bravery to give up status.

So the deeds we see Batman and Superman perform are mere stand-ins for socially brave deeds that make less good stories but matter far more: the scientist defending an unpopular hypothesis, the leader admitting to his followers he doesn't have an answer, the skilled and intelligent person who chooses to work on something that matters instead of something that makes the most money. Those are the real heroes we need, and they really are lonely.

So just as "the zero-casualties superhero" is a literary figure for "we need people who'll take risks for others", the "the lonely superhero" is a literary figure for "we need people who are willing to be mocked for doing what's right".

But within the context of the story, Quirrell's "I fought the villain but got no respect" is nonsense. Humans don't work that way. We have to assume Quirrell is leaving something out.

Did Dumbledore see through him and undermine him politically at every turn?

Alternatively, perhaps Quirrellmort is as bad at mass politics as he is good at individual violence? There's evidence he's got no clue how to handle 'inspiration' as a motive, though he gets 'greed' and 'fear' just fine.

Comment author: glumph 20 April 2012 09:51:32PM *  3 points [-]

I'm assuming the 'past-Quirrell' that Quirrell tells Hermoine about in Chapter 84 is the 'young man' that Amelia Bones believes is now Quirrell. (Is this reasonable?)

If that's the case, then one way of understanding the situation is this: Riddle assumed two personas---Voldemort and Light Riddle---in order to experiment with different ways of acquiring power. He found that the Voldemort-path was much more preferable on account of the loyalty he could obtain via the Dark Mark. The Dark Mark was so effective that the loyalty he earned as Light Riddle seemed negligible by comparison; thus he complains that he got no help from his 'allies'.

So Riddle retired his Light persona by faking his own death and continued only as Voldemort. Now that he sees Harry as a potential puppet, he wants to ensure that he/Harry have loyalty comparable to that secured with a Dark Mark. He therefore calls for a 'Light Mark' in his speech before Christmas.

EDIT: Of course 'Light Riddle' (if he existed) and Voldemort would have looked different; Minerva remembers Voldemort as snake-like. If the above is right, then Voldemort's disfiguration would have to be a disguise rather than real damage from Dark Rituals.

Comment author: Nornagest 20 April 2012 12:54:52AM *  13 points [-]

It certainly looks like Harry is a horcrux in this universe, and Harry already thought of that possibility in different terms, yet the Sorting Hat says...

The exact phrasing of the Sorting Hat's statement was as follows:

...there is definitely nothing like a ghost - mind, intelligence, memory, personality, or feelings - in your scar. Otherwise it would be participating in this conversation, being under my brim.

Now, anyone that's read the sort of fairytale where riddles are important should immediately be able to come up with a half-dozen loopholes in that, but I think we can dismiss most of them out of hand given that the Sorting Hat has no particular incentive to be misleading. The most promising option that remains, by my reading, is that there's nothing separate about the Horcrux contents for the Hat to key off of -- they effectively are Harry, or part of him. He's probably tapping that part of himself when he has his Dark Side episodes, at the very least, but I don't think that's the full extent of the Horcrux's influence: at various points he asks himself or people around him why he doesn't think like other children, and narrative parsimony points rather strongly to the one unique trait we know he has.

The weakest point of this theory, as best I can tell, is the lack of any (obvious) memories from Voldemort; I think we can safely assume the Hat would have found them if they were locked away somewhere within him, but on the other hand it'd be a rather poor resurrection that resulted in an amnesiac personality-clone. Riddle's diary from Chamber of Secrets also argues along these lines. Unfortunately, we haven't seen any other Horcruces in MoR, so we have nothing in-universe to compare against, and canon may not be reliable. Perhaps the relevant memories got wiped out by infantile amnesia or something.

Comment author: glumph 20 April 2012 06:29:13AM 8 points [-]

The most promising option that remains, by my reading, is that there's nothing separate about the Horcrux contents for the Hat to key off of -- they effectively are Harry, or part of him.

That seems to be supported by this passage from Chapter 85:

Maybe because his dark side wasn't an imaginary voice like Hufflepuff; Harry might imagine his Hufflepuff part as wanting different things from himself, but his dark side wasn't like that. His "dark side", so far as Harry could tell, was a different way that Harry sometimes was. Right now, Harry wasn't angry; and trying to ask what "dark Harry" wanted was a phone ringing unanswered.

The idea is, crudely, that if Harry is a Horcrux, it is not because he has some distinct thing inside him, but because some part of Voldemort (part of his soul?) has "merged" with Harry.

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