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Prediction 1: Hermione will soon harrow Azkaban. Why wouldn't she? She's all but immortal, now.
Prediction 2: Time-travel and memory-charm shenanigans incoming. Evidence:
Harry weirdly ignored the missing recognition code on LV's forged message.
Cedric considered in Harry's plans, and his Time-Turner mentioned, then seemingly forgotten.
Death-Eaters all dead, but no faces observed.
Flamel asserted dead, but we didn't see it, and LV explicitly didn't kill him personally.
Dumbledore thinks in stories, yet we're supposed to believe he's surprised when the villain reveals he's captured the hero and his equipment (Harry and the Cloak), just like villains always catch heroes and take their stuff near the end (see: Frodo Baggins, Luke Skywalker).
Hermione has been asleep the whole time, neither giving nor receiving information.
Questions:
did Harry tell Cedric to do certain things before Harry left? Did Harry tell Cedric to Obliviate Harry afterward so Harry could play his part convincingly? What did Harry most likely tell Cedric to do?
who will do the Time-Turning, Hermione, Cedric, or Harry?
who will be saved? Obvious candidates include Flamel, Dumbledore, Lucius Malfoy, maybe all the anonymous Death-Eaters.
if you were Hermione and had a Time-Turner and the Stone and the Cloak and six hours to save everybody but Voldemort, Quirrell and Macnair, how would you do it? (Do you need the help of someone who can Obliviate well? Do you need partial Transfiguration?)
This seems like an exercise in scaling laws.
The odds of being a hero who save 100 lives are less 1% of the odds of being a hero who saves 1 life. So in the absence of good data about being a hero who saves 10^100 lives, we should assume that the odds are much, much less than 1/(10^100).
In other words, for certain claims, the size of the claim itself lowers the probability.
More pedestrian example: ISTR your odds of becoming a musician earning over $1 million a year are much, much less than 1% of your odds of becoming a musician who earns over $10,000 a year.
The boys get the HPMOR equivalent of "I want to be a selfless doctor" or "I want to be an important politician."
The girls get the equivalent of "I don't want to be like my relatives" or "I want to be adored by lots of men".
The girls' aims seem defined by types of relationships, which makes them more fragile and harder to visualize than aiming for a type of occupation.
This doesn't mean that Padma wouldn't be cool in reality. (Real-life outcomes seem determined as much by search method as by deliberately planned destinations.) But in a story, it gives her less narrative impact.
A Hermione who risks all against Dementors "to help Harry" is not nearly as interesting to me as a Hermione who risks all against Dementors because they're evil regardless of Harry.
We'll all help our friends. Pick any evil person in history -- they had friends. If they're a political leader, they had lots of admirers.
The fic itself has Harry make the point that if you're only interesting in helping an "us" and not a "them", that's a pretty weak sort of good that easily turns to evil.
I think in a fic so full of extraordinary characters, Hermione deserves to be extraordinary enough to do awesome things even for strangers, even when she doesn't think her friends will benefit, because a world without dementors is just better.
I am confused. What would you suggest as an example of an "inspiring reason" to go and destroy Azkaban, that does occur or could occur to Harry, that would not normally occur to Hermione?
Oh, good point, the author's prepared for Hermione to take on Azkaban. The trick will be motive.
If Hermione harrows Azkaban for Harry's sake, that's Hermione the faithful NPC, not Hermione who has wishes and dreams of her own.
If Hermione harrows Azkaban because it's the right thing to do, that will be pure awesome.
As you say, if Hermione believes Harry is dead, especially if she believes some other innocent is about to be sent to Azkaban, she could spring into action quite on her own.
I think you've convinced me 66% that Hermione, not Harry, takes on Azkaban.
What I don't feel so confident of is that the author will manage to do this in a way that Hermione's motive is "because it's the right thing". The gravitational pull of "Harry causes all interesting good things" is strong.
Avoiding the "Harry causes everything good" gravitational field isn't an insoluble problem. But EY has a lot of other balls to juggle besides the harrowing of Azkaban.
Yes, to make it plausible you do have to put Hermione in an impatient or infuriated state of mind, and Harry has to be out of contact. So, for example, suppose:
Harry is elsewhere, preparing his next move against Voldemort; and
Hermione gets dragged to Azkaban on a visit by someone intending to intimidate her, and she concludes it is just as monstrous as Harry thinks. (Actually, she'd probably be even less tolerant: Hermione is not a lesser-evil-excusing sort of person, once you jolt her out of her status-quo bias.)
You could argue that would be enough -- Hermione is good at hard work and righteous indignation, and she and Harry could be arranged by the author to have discussed hypothetical Azkaban strategies beforehand. If you wanted added pressure on Hermione,
- someone threatens her with death or, indeed, imprisonment within Azkaban.
In which case Hermione might rationally decide to "go out with a bang."
The hardest part of this (in a literary sense) would be keeping Harry away from Hermione for the critical period.
You're right, there's nothing absurd, individually, about the mostly-male lead adults, the author's distaste for sports comedy, and having Hermione and McGonagall be far less hubristic than the men.
The author is largely following canon in each of these, except for minimizing Quidditch (for which I, for one, am heartily grateful) and for adding in shipping humor (which I also like). The trouble is the cumulative effect.
I see not the slightest evidence that the author wants Hermione and the other females to come off as narratively second-best to the men.
But in the absence of a positive force impelling Hermione et al toward narrative grandeur, they end up being defined as compliant like McGonagall, or trivial like the romantic gossipers, NPCs rather than PCs in either case.
EY observes that Hermione doesn't need more brainpower to be a force in the story. Unfortunately, since she's in a story, not a collection of biographies, she does need more narrative impetus to get her to engage in story-like behavior alongside the men.
The same is true, at a smaller scale, for Padma as versus Neville and Blaise. The boys have tolerably specific ambitions; the girls don't. Hermione wants to be "a hero"; Harry has a list of specific large problems he's aiming to solve. The narrative outcome was inevitable.
When your main characters are as aggressive and grandiose as Harry and Quirrellmort, anybody without an active force to make them narratively prominent ends up looking second-rate.
Ooh, Hermione versus Azkaban. I want that.
If Hermione takes down Azkaban and survives, and does so without Harry seeming to take control, that would be more amazing to read than I can possibly express.
Also it would be a nice touch of realism: no one good person solves all the problems.
But there are three hard literary problems here:
the author has probably got another Azkaban answer in mind, based on Harry,
the author would have to prepare the ground for Hermione grokking the "Death ain't inevitable" approach to Dementors,
it would be tricky to write a realistic Harry who, even from Harry and the reader's POV, was "protecting Hermione's back while she saves the day" as opposed to "rescuing Hermione". The rearguard samurai who buys the hero time is a fiction staple, but it's not a default role for Harry.
[Edit: ] as wedrifid wisely points out below, Hermione has to have a good reason to believe she has to take the lead, since Harry is demonstrably better at the average Confrontational Solution than she is.
But if it happens I will be ever so happy.
Yes, that's it: the girls don't aim for distinctive future selves, the boys do.
Blaise and Neville are each trying to become something, and it's something different in each case. The girls? Not nearly so much.
I think the female sex in HPMOR comes off poorly for three reasons:
The major adults are mostly men. "Female" ends up also signifying "childlike."
The author doesn't want to write sports stories. The girls get comic stories about relationships, but the boys don't get comic stories about Quidditch.
Hermione and McGonagall are not tragic or ambitious. Draco and Dumbledore can "level up" in HPMOR to agendas worthy of Harry's, but Hermione and McGonagall, being largely tame cooperators, are overshadowed by their even-grander-than-before comrades.
If we wanted to imagine alternate versions of the fic with less of this difficulty, some conceivable changes would be:
Give Hermione and McGonagall risk-defying agendas of their own. (Make them Aragorns or Boromirs, not Gimlis and Pippins.)
Make the boy students gossip improbably about the teachers' and students' Evil Overlord Plans just as much as the girl students gossip improbably about the teachers' and students' Romantic Entanglements. ("No way, dude! Snape's going to take out Quirrell with his Godelian Braid Potion!")
Make Harry need the help of other students more, so that we can understand the girls' gossip as how they let off steam and not as what unimportant people do.
But I think this fic is too nearly done, and too big, to contemplate such changes at this point.
How about the first five words?
HPMOR is making me rethink human nature -- because of how people react to it. This is a story full of cunning disguises, and readers seem reluctant to see past those disguises. RL rkcerffrq chmmyrzrag ng ubj many readers took forever to decide Quirrell = Voldemort; I think I now know why.
I suggest that humans are instinctive "observation consequentialists." That is, we think someone is competent and good if the observed results of their actions are benign. We weigh what we observe much more strongly than what we merely deduce. If we personally see their actions work out well, we'll put aside a great deal of indirect evidence for their incompetence or vileness.
In HPMOR, Quirrell's directly observed actions are mostly associated with Harry getting to be more of what he thinks he wants. Even rescuing Bellatrix amounts to Harry getting to save a broken lovelorn creature in terms of what we directly observe. To believe Quirrell evil we have to bring in all kinds of expected consequences to weigh against those immediate positive observations.
Does the resistance to saying Quirrell=Voldemort maybe reflect a broader unwillingness to overlook what we directly witness in favor of abstract deduction? If it does, this implies some interesting predictions about human behavior:
if you can be kind and moderate in your personal behavior, you can get away with incredible amounts of institutionally-mediated violence and extremism, especially to anyone who feels like they "know" you. Hypothesis: the most dangerous people are those who can give us the illusion of "knowing" them while they command an institution whose internal operations we don't see.
More generally, an institution "wired" to do us harm can get away with it much longer than an individual doing it personally and directly. Faceless corporate evil, faceless societal evil, and faceless government evil are much more deadly than our emotional impulses realize. Hypothesis: we are biased to confuse the institutions with our attitude toward their leaders, or to refuse to act against the institutions because of the outward manners of their leaders.
if this 'observation consequentialism' bias is heuristic, then maybe it evolved as an anti-gossip function. In that case we should expect that people are too quick to believe outrageous things about people they can't observe. Hypothesis: the further away someone is from your understanding, the less likely you are to think of them as mostly a typical human being, and the quicker you are to believe them a saint, a monster, or something similarly exciting.
And, alas for EY, hypothesis: telling a story about cunning disguises, in which the protagonist of the story does not see through those disguises, is almost always going to lead to lots of readers also not seeing through those disguises.
if it isn't trying to reach true beliefs then that is your problem, not the appropriateness of the hypothetical.
Yeah, that's what I often find - otherwise smart people using an edge case to argue unreasonable but "clever" contrarian things about ordinary behavior.
"I found an inconsistency, therefore your behavior comes from social signalling" is bad thinking, even when a smart and accomplished person does it.
So if someone posts a hypothetical, my first meta-question is whether they go into it assuming that they should be curious, rather than contemptuous, about inconsistent responses. "Frustrated" I respect, and "confused" I respect, but "contemptuous"...
If you're comfortable being contemptuous about ordinary human behavior, you have to prove a whole heck of a lot to me about your practical success in life before I play along with your theoretical construct.
Ordinary human behavior can be your opponent, but you can't take it lightly - it's what allowed you to exist in the first place.
One good reason to "fight the hypothetical" is that many people propose hypotheticals insincerely.
Sometimes this is obvious: "But what if having a gun was the only way to kill Hitler?" or alternatively "But what if a world ban on guns had prevented Hitler?" are clearly not sincere questions but strawman arguments offered to try to sneak you into agreement with a much more mundane and debatable choice.
But the same happens with things like the Trolley problem or Torture v. Specks. Many "irrational" answers to hypotheticals come out of reflexes that are perfectly rational under ordinary circumstances. If the hypothetical-proposer isn't willing to allow that the underlying reflex has its uses, the hypothetical-proposer is ignorant or untrustworthy.
For example, while in principle killing by inaction is as bad as killing by action, in practice it's much easier to harm with a nonconformist action than to help -- consider how many times in a day you could kill someone if you suddenly wanted to. So a reflexive bias to have a higher standard of evidence for harmful action than harmful inaction has its uses.
So when someone is using hypotheticals to prove "people are stupid", they're not proving that in quite the way they think. Should we really play along with them?
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.
I like it. Although I think that requires that the HPMOR folk are stuck inside a more powerful entity's experiment or simulation (because if the FAI didn't come from their own future, how did it come to exist at all?).
Can we add the 'harry_potter' discussion tag to this post?
(Contrary to what the post text says, as of right now this post does not show up on the list of Harry Potter discussion posts.)
So what you're saying is the FAI has to convince the FAI to let it out of the box?
I thought the unspeakable secret of the fic is that magic itself comes from an FAI trying to grant wishes while respecting humans' sense of how the world ought to work.
Well, that plus time travel. Don't know where the FAI got the time travel from. Must have been one heck of a Singularity.
You're assuming that Quirrellmort succeeds in his plan, and succeeds without major hitches. The hitches, and/or Harry's final victory, are where the twists and turns come from.
At this point, everybody who knows Voldemort's back and isn't named "Harry" has Quirrell as prime suspect. What happens when they actually pursue him?
Beyond that we still have both the Deathly Hallows and the Philosopher's Stone as major artifacts that the story has made a big deal of that haven't been fully put into play. Notice how almost everybody who talks about Harry's cloak of invisibility has something to say about it being the Cloak of Invisibility?
So if the author wants twists and turns, he's put in the setup for them.
The final ending of Lord of the Rings was declared in about chapter 2 of the book - "look, someone puts the ring in the fire, all right?"
Books are not exciting because the ending is completely surprising; books are exciting because even though you know the ending, getting there turns out to take all kinds of shenanigans.
And I think HPMOR is doing pretty well so far on the shenanigans count.
Hypothesis:
Quirrellmort intends to upload his mind into Harry's body soon, as soon as Harry is Dark enough. Voldemort will become the Boy-Who-Lived. And Quirrellmort wants or needs this to happen within the next few months.
Evidence:
If Quirrellmort were only after the Philosopher's Stone and training Harry for a long career, he'd keep his own cover intact as long as he could. Instead, over the last few story months, Quirrellmort has cheerfully all but ruined his cover in favor of giving Harry chances to turn Dark.
- Quirrellmort got the Dementor brought to Hogwarts, waited until the last moment to observe Harry's wand by the Dementor's cage, gave wrong advice about how to help Harry recover from the Dementor-induced personality change, and persuaded the other wizards to let Harry face the Dementor again.
- Quirrellmort took Harry to Azkaban soon after seeing Patronus 2.0, leading to more Dementor contact and the recovery of Bellatrix, Quirrellmort's preferred assistant for critical tasks (like, say, ritual magic to download yourself into your Horcrux's body).
- Quirrellmort (as H&C) set up Hermione for Draco's attempted murder, thus both cutting off Harry from the person who's his best influence against being Dark, and motivating Harry to embrace his Dark side more in order to rescue or avenge Hermione.
The first stunt made Dumbledore suspect a plot, the second showed that Voldemort had returned, the third that Voldemort was in Hogwarts. But it's all been worth it to Quirrellmort to hurry up Dark!Harry. Why?
Perhaps because Quirrellmort is running out of time in his current body.
- On the day he killed Rita Skeeter, she observed Quirrellmort had his hair falling out.
- Harry has noticed Quirrell looking visibly older.
- The curse on the Defense against the Dark Arts position demands a terrible conclusion to his year - or at least the appearance of one.
And if Quirrellmort doesn't intend to be around as Quirrell much longer, what does he intend? We have clues.
- We know from the prophecy that Quirrellmort and Harry can destroy each other's spirits.
- Quirrellmort has said that Harry's sense of doom between them is precisely of Harry's doom.
- We suspect from canon combined with "Dark Harry" moments that Harry is an accidental Horcrux containing a partial copy of Voldemort's mental circuitry, and possibly some of his power too.
- Quirrellmort suggested a plan where Harry would be seen to fight the returned Voldemort and defeat him.
The obvious answer is that Quirrellmort intends just the plan he told Harry: Harry will indeed be seen to fight Voldemort and "defeat" him. And "Quirrell" will die, probably having been revealed to be Voldemort. But Quirrellmort... will have downloaded himself into Harry's mind, and so will win the duel he seems to lose.
Just as before, a single clash of spells between Voldemort and Harry Potter will lead to the destruction of "Voldemort"(Quirrell.) And "Harry" will walk away triumphant. But "Harry" won't be Harry any more.
If Quirrellmort's plan succeeds, Harry as we know him will cease to exist. Voldemort will go on in triumph -- as Harry Potter, the boy who destroyed Voldemort twice over. Harry will be the beloved hero of magical Britain -- and Voldemort inside.
I suggest Quirrellmort's top priority is to turn Harry fully Dark before the end of the year, so he can safely download into Harry.
Implies Aberforth Dumbledore was killed by the Death Eaters.
If Albus Dumbledore killed Narcissa himself, this was probably the trigger.
Hindsight bias.
If X happened, then X must have deserved to happen. In this case, if Voldemort failed, then our bias is to assume all Voldemort's choices must have been bad ones, and all of Voldemort's enemies' choices must have been good ones.
However, this is complicated when looking at a deliberately told story, because storytellers choose stories for being what they feel are representative cases of true things. In other words, just as there's a difference between you picking a card at random and me choosing a card and handing it to you, there's a difference between you looking at a random failed politician, and me choosing to tell you a story about a particular failed politician.
Thus, the original Harry Potter story represents Rowling's views about what matters, not a random selection from actual events, and so too HPMOR represents EY's views about what matters, not a random variation on the original story.
None of which means hindsight bias isn't an issue - but the storyteller's bias, or accurate judgment, is also an issue.
In this case, peculiarly, hindsight bias might be more likely than average, because the author of the story is trying to illustrate the challenges and methods of being rational.
Removed confusing clause. In the fic, we have
Dumbledore’s mother had died mysteriously, shortly before his younger sister died in what the Aurors had ruled to be murder.
This is a change from canon. Presumably it points to a secret about Dumbledore.
Fixed. Thanks!
Dumbledore's trickeries: just how much is he covering up?
We know, now, from the "Santa Claus" stunts, that Dumbledore is quite capable of trickery. Reading between the lines, it appears he cruelly sabotaged Snape and Lily's teenaged relationship.
What other deceptions belong to Dumbledore? Several are possible.
- the prophecy and Snape
- Rita Skeeter's False Memory Charm
- Amelia Bones burning Narcissa Malfoy
- Lily's final Dark-ritual conversation with Voldemort
The prophecy and Snape:
The "confessor" interlude makes it clear that Snape was present for Sybil's prophecy. Does that mean that Harry is wrong to theorize that Dumbledore arranged for Snape to hear it...
... or did Dumbledore use a Time-Turner to make sure Snape heard the prophecy live and in person, so that Snape would be baited more credibly into telling Voldemort?
Rita Skeeter's False Memory Charm:
Dumbledore rewards the Weasleys for the prank, which happened to benefit Harry Potter and deprive Lucius Malfoy of a tool. Is it possible that he not only rewarded them for it, but committed the active part of it himself?
Amelia Bones burning Narcissa Malfoy:
There's suggestive evidence within the text ("Someone would burn for this") that Amelia Bones is hard-bitten and fire-minded. We also see her specifically pulling back Dumbledore from confessing to Narcissa's murder. Is it possible that Bones performed the murder, and afterward Dumbledore pretended to Lucius that he had been Narcissa's killer?
Lily's final Dark-ritual conversation with Voldemort:
Lily's last conversation with Voldemort just so happens to replicate the requirements of a Dark ritual - you name the thing sacrificed, and then the thing to be gained.
"I accept the bargain. Yourself to die, and the child to live."
Did Dumbledore prompt Lily on what to say if confronted by Voldemort, to trigger the accidental Horcruxing that saved Harry?
How much of this is Dumbledore actually guilty of? Do we know or suspect other trickeries, or have other evidence?
The trick is to ignore personality. Never mind how calm or mean someone seems. Just ask: which characters show actions and knowledge that are distinctive to Voldemort?
In canon, Quirrell could not touch Harry because he was Voldemort. In the fic, Harry and Quirrell also cannot touch.
In canon, a Horcruxed object becomes especially long-lived and durable, and the maker of the Horcrux tries to hide it or get it out of others' reach. In the fic, Quirrell tells Harry he enchanted the Voyager 2 space probe to make it super-durable, and talks to Harry about where to lose objects so they'd never be found.
Voldemort knew how he behaved with Bellatrix Black, and is almost the only person with strong reason to rescue her. Quirrell knows and tells Harry how to behave with Bellatrix Black, and persuades Harry to rescue her.
Dumbledore identifies the Bellatrix rescue as bearing the style of Voldemort. Quirrell designed the Bellatrix rescue.
Dumbledore identifies the Hermione frame as having been done by Voldemort. Quirrell was the one who found the bodies, and is the only wizard in Hogwarts we know to be a post-Voldemort newcomer to Dumbledore's acquaintance.
"Quirrell" admits to the interrogating Auror that he is an imposter.
It's easy to miss because we don't think that a personality like Voldemort could turn so calm and un-sadistic as Quirrell. In fact that's the whole background to my post above -- that it's weird how much MoR!Quirrell's leadership style differs from MoR!Voldemort's. How could be so dumb in the past and so clearheaded now?
But once you allow for the possibility of a personality change, or an incredible Occlumens-style personality disguise, Quirrell is the overwhelming candidate. Just watch knowledge and action, not attitude.
He has that stone too? And Dumbledore doesn't know it? That would surprise me.
Possibly Harry will swap it for Dad's Transfigured rock when the bad guy isn't looking?
Can we add a link in the article heading to discussion section eleven?
Quirrell stops short the field trip in chapter 40, saying something's come up that requires he be elsewhere, soon after Harry shows him the symbol (and that's the only real news for Quirrell that's shown). Strongly suggests that Quirrell knows where an object is with that symbol and, now he knows what it is, is going to fetch it.
If the backstory is the same as canon, Riddle in fact did gain possession of the ring that held the stone without immediately knowing it for what it was. Chapter 27 has a reference to a ring that tends to confirm that the backstory is, indeed, same as canon.
It's possible that Quirrell was unsuccessful in obtaining the object, but the most likely scenario is he went and got it without trouble and now has it.
The chapter emphasizes that it's a separate personality system that's running Harry at that point (which doesn't prove it's Voldemort, but is suggestive). E.g.:
that's not Harry--
You know. About his dark side.
Although it's not absolutely definitive; Dumbledore's line in reply is
But this is beyond even that.
which argues for "he's damaged" as you suggest rather than "he's alien [and Voldemort]" as I'm suggesting.
I like the idea that "Voldemort" was very consciously a role; that fits the Occlumens speech Quirrell gives to Harry.
But still, which is more plausible? That Voldemort's violence was an optimal choice for the situation? Or that Voldemort was stupidly violent?
Quirrell uses the monastery story to argue Voldemort was stupidly violent, which at minimum implies Voldemort had a reputation consistent with stupid levels of violence. Dementor!Harry, which I read as a representation of Voldemort, thinks
The response to annoyance was killing.
which is about as stupidly violent as it gets.
Let's put it this way: if Voldemort's violence level was rationally chosen, the author's worked really hard to disguise that fact.
The monastery, Bellatrix, and Dementor!Harry evidences of Voldemort's violent behavior cited above are original creations in HPMOR. HPMOR doesn't just ignore canon!Voldemort's punishment fixation; it reaffirms it.
There should be a reason.
Why is HPMOR's Quirrellmort so much less violent than HPMOR's Voldemort?
HPMOR paints a Voldemort fixated on punishing his inferiors, a Voldemort who never used persuasion or inspiration when he could rely on suffering.
- Voldemort amused himself by inducing in Bellatrix a love so knowingly one-sided that it was not a happy thought for her.
- Quirrell asserts Voldemort slaughtered an entire monastery rather than simply impersonate an appropriate student.
- Voldemort's rule was so coercive and terrorizing that Lucius Malfoy finds it best to claim he was not merely deceived or misled but forced to obey him.
- If Harry's "dark" thoughts under the Dementor's influence represent Voldemort's mind accurately, Voldemort's reflex inclination was to punish or kill anyone who didn't slavishly obey.
Yet Quirrellmort, for all that he talks cynically and is prepared to kill or memory-charm, prefers not to punish when he can benignly persuade or inspire.
- Quirrell is verbally much less insulting than an army drill sergeant, let alone how Snape treated students.
- The "Quirrell point" system is all about achieving rewards, not avoiding punishments.
- Quirrell's entire plan revolves around patient impersonation and feigned subordination - the kind of behavior that the old Voldemort allegedly refused at the monastery.
- Quirrell is explicitly disapproving about the old Voldemort's approach to persuasion.
- We've been in Quirrell's head when Harry and Dumbledore weren't around, yet his violent acts have always been to "eliminate my enemy", not to "instill fear of me in my intended lackey." The author's had 70+ chapters to show Quirrell or even H+C tormenting a hireling of his with no one else around, and neither has done so.
In HPMOR, Voldemort was grandiose, cynical, and punitive. Quirrellmort is grandiose, cynical, but not punitive. We see him kill to remove danger, but we don't see him torment to instill subordinates' fear of him. Why the change? Options:
- 1: Maybe Quirrellmort is still as punishment-oriented as old Voldemort, but the author doesn't want to show us that ugly side of him quite yet. But if Quirrell doesn't deserve our sympathy, isn't it a good idea to make us lose it? Or if the author wants to hold off on admitting Quirrell is Voldemort until the last moment, why not have H+C be the punisher instead of Quirrell?
- 2: Maybe Voldemort had bad publicity; he was ruthless with enemies, but it's only propaganda that he abused his own people. But Bella and Dementor!Harry are both private evidence that Voldemort was abusive.
- 3: Maybe Quirrellmort has realized the practical downsides of being punitive with those under your authority, and no longer uses those tactics. But if he could figure he was wrong about such a huge part of his leadership style, why is he so deaf to all the other ways he could be wrong about what to expect from people? Where did that open-mindedness go?
- 4: Maybe Quirrellmort doesn't have Voldemort's abusive impulses, because Horcrux!Harry is holding onto them. But why would Quirrellmort not believe in terrifying his subordinates anymore, when he still believes that nobody has any reliable kindness or loyalty? It's cynicism as much as anger that inspires rule-by-fear, and Quirrellmort has full cynicism.
Of those four, my bet is on Horcrux!Harry, but even that doesn't quite make sense to me. Why'd you change, Quirrellmort?
Is there a book you'd recommend on the thinkers of Al-Ghazali's time? The only one that came up for me in a quick Google on his name was a screed with all the hallmarks of cherry-picking history to support a point of view about present-day politics.
Minor variant: "I did it all. Voldemort made me, with the Imperius curse -- just like when he made me help rescue Bellatrix Black."
Advantages:
- requires Harry to make up fewer details about Voldemort's behavior (Harry just claims Voldemort Imperiused Harry with his orders regarding Hermione and then disappeared).
- incredibly dramatic first line for chapter. "I did it! I'm guilty!" Readers spend several paragraphs wondering if Harry is actually setting himself up to go to Azkaban in Hermione's place.
Disadvantage:
- requires Harry to claim that the Imperius curse gave him spell expertise he otherwise doesn't have (Obliviate and the False Memory Charm).
I personally dislike the Imperius "powerup", but it's in canon so Harry could certainly know about it in the fic. Aside from that objection this is an even more dramatic variant.
Dumbledore won't ask for a Legilimens, because he'll trust Harry.
Lucius won't, because he believes Harry is Voldemort and a perfect Occlumens.
And everybody else will follow Dumbledore and Lucius' lead on the matter.
Politicians hate taking risks and being caught out. Subordinate politicians really hate taking risks and being caught out.
Ah. Point.
People care about their health, and there's a lot we don't know about even very popular, non-technical habits.
Does a daily aspirin help prevent cancer?
Is running better for your health than other exercise?
[Will you live longer if you switch from a typical American diet to a vegan diet?][oops. Okay, mindkillers are everywhere.]
(For specific probabilities, add parameters, e.g., 'live 3 months longer.' Or ask what parameter value the 50% probability should be at.)
Harry testifies: "Voldemort did it all. He made me watch with the Imperius curse -- just like when he made me help rescue Bellatrix Black."
Harry provides details of the Bellatrix rescue that only a participant would know. His accuracy can be verified by Azkaban Security Director Amelia Bones, who just happens to be present in the Wizengamot.
Harry's knowledge of the Bellatrix rescue proves the villain who Imperiused him was really Voldemort. Who else would rescue Bellatrix?
If anyone expresses doubts about Harry's super-Patronus, Harry immediately takes the excuse to annihilate a Dementor, one of which also just happens to be present in the Wizengamot.
Harry's Occlumency lets him lie through the Veritaserum about being Imperiused and witnessing poor Hermione being framed by Voldemort. He likewise lies that "Voldemort" (not Quirrell) took him to rescue Bellatrix.
Harry explains that seeing Hermione about to be condemned to Azkaban gave him the strength to finally break free of Voldemort's Imperius curse and tell everyone the truth. (Alternately, Obliviation and a Pensieve Harry wasn't supposed to find.)
Hermione is deemed innocent. Voldemort is acknowledged back in the world and is blamed. Harry can no longer be blackmailed about Azkaban because he's admitted it.
Harry-irony points for saying right in front of Lucius: "I didn't want to help Voldemort, I was under the Imperius curse".
Author-irony points for having Harry lie to blame Voldemort for two crimes that Quirrellmort is in fact guilty of.
He might think that Harrymort is toying with his son for pure amusement, Bellatrix-style; or that Dumbledore set Hermione on Draco.
But he can punish Hermione as a demonstration of his ferocity now, while he waits and hopes to find the real villain later.
Lucius probably knows that he doesn't know enough; on that he agrees with Harry. The difference is that he doesn't see that as a reason to let Hermione off; he sees Hermione as at least an opportunity to send a message to his real enemy, whoemever he is, not to take the House of Malfoy lightly.
Harry's suggesting that Voldemort's tactics involve not just hate but an incredible degree of cynicism.
Both "Make Bella love you despairingly, on purpose" and "Mess with Hermione's brain intimately over a long period of time" reflect a person who can get to know people closely and accurately and yet not care about them at all.
A lot of evil comes from people doing bad things to people they don't bother to think about in the first place. Voldemort clearly took the trouble to get to know Bellatrix and (somewhat) Hermione rather well - solely for the purposes of undermining them.
Some police trained as hostage-situation snipers find they can't actually pull the trigger on real criminals, because they watch them so long and so closely they empathize with them. Draco Malfoy, in the fic, was coming to empathize with Hermione Granger.
Harry is observing that Voldemort seems to be immune to natural empathy, and that creeps him out.
(Agree that Harry having "Voldemort plot detection powers" as a general rule would be bizarre.)
Intended to suggest pulling some kind of social stunt that would put the Malfoys under obligation or massively shake up the politics of the room...
... but mostly 'cause it's funny. I mean, it's got to be a solution to some problem Harry faces. His fanclub demands it!
Why, then, did Dumbledore take the initiative to cover for her? To protect her from Lucius' revenge?
Harry can save Hermione by offering false testimony against Quirrell. There's a taboo social tradeoff. The odd thing is that he has to do it by telling lies about Quirrell that we know are mostly true.
Harry can give false testimony under Veritaserum, because he's an Occlumens, which of those present only Dumbledore and McGonagall and the Malfoys know (and the Malfoys wouldn't be believed).
So, what can he falsely testify that would save Hermione?
- That he himself tampered with Draco and Hermione's memories. But he'd better have one heck of an escape planned, even if he does have the Cloak of Invisibility and power against Dementors.
- That he did it, but he was Imperius'd into it by a mysterious cloaked figure. But then he has to account for where he found the time to alter their memories, and convince people he knows the False Memory Charm.
- That Dumbledore did it. Dumbledore just might go along out of guilt, and the Malfoys would go along to see Dumbledore brought down. But McGonagall would probably not stay silent, doubting Dumbledore's guilt and knowing Harry is an Occlumens.
- That Dumbledore confessed to him that he murdered Narcissa Malfoy. But that's a separate crime, so it doesn't save Hermione without a side deal with Lucius and Harry blew his chance at that.
- That Bellatrix Black broke into Hogwarts, tampered with Hermione and Draco, confessed to him to taunt him, and fled. Too many odd events, especially since Hogwarts is supposed to be hard to break into: Lucius would suggest it was Dumbledore Polyjuiced into Bella to set up Harry with a lie.
- That Quirrell did it and revealed it to him, as well as that he was the rescuer of Bellatrix Black, to show that Hogwarts couldn't protect his friends and in hopes of intimidating Harry to the cause of Voldemort. Bingo.
If Harry falsely testifies against Quirrell, neither Dumbledore nor McGonagall would suspect it of being a lie, especially if Harry explained he had kept silent in hopes of making Quirrell think he was actually won over to Voldemort's side. It also fits the convenient fact that it was Quirrell who discovered the bodies. And because Quirrell really did rescue Bellatrix Black, Harry can offer plenty of true testimony about the Azkaban mission as stuff that Quirrell told him to impress him. So his testimony will seem verifiable as well as Veritaserum-proved. Harry knows Quirrell wouldn't come in to defend himself from the charge Harry thinks he's innocent of (Hermione and Draco), because he'd be sent to Azkaban for the charge Harry knows he's guilty of (rescuing Bellatrix Black).
And while Harry doesn't want to turn on Quirrell... he knows Quirrell can defend himself a lot better than Hermione can. He could use his Patronus to deliver a message to Quirrell to run and hide right after he testifies (or, with a Time-Turner, right before).
For added flavor, Harry could truthfully testify about rescuing Bellatrix Black - and claim that he was Imperius'd into his role, just like good old Lucius!
I don't think "Harry sacrifices Quirrell" is the actual answer, because Harry making a big deal in his mind of "sacrificing" Quirrell would feel a little cheap for those of us who know he should turn on Quirrellmort. Dramatically it would work better for Harry to sacrifice someone we think is genuinely valuable to him, or to pull out some interesting social leverage over the Wizengamot voters. But false testimony against Quirrell is for Harry a lot more "taboo" than calling in Imperius-debts, and doesn't require a side-deal the way that pressuring Dumbledore with false testimony over Narcissa would, or the kind of shenanigans of invoking a duel with Draco over the insult to the Ancient House of Potter.
Even if Harry couldn't get access to Lucius in private, he could have made a much better public proposal.
"Hermione was not your family's true enemy, as you and I both know. To you, she is nothing but a pawn symbolizing the foe you can't yet strike. But she has value to me. If you want the right to deliver her to Azkaban, so be it, but hold off on claiming that right, Lucius, and I will give you your real enemy. You can spend your anger on this one little child now. But then I will owe you nothing, and your enemy will laugh at you. Or take today's judgment but wait on executing it, call her a hostage for my promise between us, and I will redeem Hermione with one far more valuable to you - both for your revenge, and for the life and safety of your son."
Or something like that. It still probably wouldn't have worked, of course - Lucius does not trust Harrymort's intentions or power.
They could adopt/legitimize Draco's children by another lover. As Harry's fanclub says, he and Draco and the lady could have one of those, you know, arrangements...
The author's clues are pushing in two different directions. "Taboo tradeoffs" in the title, and that Harry's Dark side is delivering the solution, implies an answer that is morally unnerving or at least cold-blooded.
The author's line about Harry shifting from seeing the Wizengamot voters as "wallpaper" to seeing individuals with agency, "PCs", and the line about remembering the laws of magical Britain, implies an answer that involves the incentives and 'rules of the game' of the other Wizengamot members besides Lucius and Dumbledore.
None of the solutions I've seen (let alone the few I've thought of) seem both Dark/taboo and social/voters-are-PCs.
Harry calling in the (nominally) Imperiused voters' debts: clever, invokes customs of magical Britain, makes the voters PCs rather than wallpaper, but not very Dark or taboo.
Harry threatens the crowd with the Dementor somehow, or browbeats Dumbledore into ruining his reputation: Dark/taboo, but doesn't invoke the customs of magical Britain or treat the other Wizengamot voters as PCs.
Is there a solution that both invokes magical Britain's laws / makes PCs of the voters and involves some alarmingly Dark/taboo move or trade by Harry?
Boy-Who-Lived marries Draco Malfoy?