Sorta ties into something I thought about much earlier;
-- The easiest way to prevent LV from killing HP would be for HP to convince LV that his intention is misguided.
—His intention is to kill Harry to save the world. (funny, that)
—Killing Harry will not save the world. It is clear that LV is aware of this, based on his reflections on self-fulfilling prophecies.
—LV intends to defy the prophecy at every point of intention, and will therefore try to kill HP anyway, because if the prophecy is coming true anyway he’s already screwed and has nothing to lose.
—Convincing LV that killing HP is useless is therefore insufficient. He must be convinced that killing HP will bring about the very thing he wishes to avoid.
—HP’s existence must be tied to the continued well-being of the world.
—What does HP have that could save the world? Well, power over dementors.
—What might dementors do that could destroy the world? Jump into the sun, perhaps?
—The realization that that would be an optimal thing for death incarnate to do will cause the thing itself to happen.
—Unfortunately, the vow cannot prevent this, because it allowed for the weighing of risks, which by nature includes contemplation of disastrous possibilities. (if I die, does this end the earth? Is it dementors? if I don’t think about this question, and they’ve done something, that’s a certain bad thing, but if I think about it, I might decide there’s nothing wrong and that’s a not-certain bad thing, so I’ll take the lesser risk and think about it.)
—HP is the only one who can stop them from destroying the sun. And if he dies, he cannot prevent them from doing so.
—Not that killing HP would be intelligent in any case, as there’s a non-zero chance that his death and subsequent entrance into the horcrux system would kill LV too.
I don’t think Harry would automatically consider Dementors jumping into the Sun an optimal thing to do as there are too many unknowns.
Can a Dementor fly high enough or fast enough to leave the Earth’s atmosphere? Practically speaking, we don’t know how much of their flight is true flight and how much they are bound by forces like gravity (not as much as true material beings, obviously, but that’s not necessarily the same as not at all).
Can a Dementor survive away from the Earth? We don’t know if they need to absorb sustenance. It may be that they need to draw on the Earth’s ambient magical field to continue to exist, or to remain within a certain range of living beings with thoughts and feelings to passively absorb. It may be that shadows of Death have no meaning too far away from the nearest living thing.
How long would it take a Dementor to reach the Sun? We don’t know their maximum travelling speed, but you can Apparate away from them, and the journey might easily take long enough for humanity to achieve magico-technological singularity in the meantime, or for cosmic-scale Patronus casting to become a thing, or any number of other solutions to be implemented.
Can Dementors destroy the Sun? Azkaban is still standing despite having a significant concentration of Dementors in it for at least decades, and we know it’s not because it’s magically protected, since Dementors consume magic. It’s plausible that all the Dementors on Earth will not have a sufficient impact on the Sun’s lifespan to make a difference to humanity.
My suspicion that they would destroy the sun has more to do with their action as potential heat sinks due to their indestructibility than their drain abilities.
Sorta ties into something I thought about much earlier;
-- The easiest way to prevent LV from killing HP would be for HP to convince LV that his intention is misguided. —His intention is to kill Harry to save the world. (funny, that) —Killing Harry will not save the world. It is clear that LV is aware of this, based on his reflections on self-fulfilling prophecies. —LV intends to defy the prophecy at every point of intention, and will therefore try to kill HP anyway, because if the prophecy is coming true anyway he’s already screwed and has nothing to lose. —Convincing LV that killing HP is useless is therefore insufficient. He must be convinced that killing HP will bring about the very thing he wishes to avoid. —HP’s existence must be tied to the continued well-being of the world. —What does HP have that could save the world? Well, power over dementors. —What might dementors do that could destroy the world? Jump into the sun, perhaps? —The realization that that would be an optimal thing for death incarnate to do will cause the thing itself to happen. —Unfortunately, the vow cannot prevent this, because it allowed for the weighing of risks, which by nature includes contemplation of disastrous possibilities. (if I die, does this end the earth? Is it dementors? if I don’t think about this question, and they’ve done something, that’s a certain bad thing, but if I think about it, I might decide there’s nothing wrong and that’s a not-certain bad thing, so I’ll take the lesser risk and think about it.) —HP is the only one who can stop them from destroying the sun. And if he dies, he cannot prevent them from doing so. —Not that killing HP would be intelligent in any case, as there’s a non-zero chance that his death and subsequent entrance into the horcrux system would kill LV too.
I’m very interested in commentary.
I don’t think Harry would automatically consider Dementors jumping into the Sun an optimal thing to do as there are too many unknowns.
Can a Dementor fly high enough or fast enough to leave the Earth’s atmosphere? Practically speaking, we don’t know how much of their flight is true flight and how much they are bound by forces like gravity (not as much as true material beings, obviously, but that’s not necessarily the same as not at all).
Can a Dementor survive away from the Earth? We don’t know if they need to absorb sustenance. It may be that they need to draw on the Earth’s ambient magical field to continue to exist, or to remain within a certain range of living beings with thoughts and feelings to passively absorb. It may be that shadows of Death have no meaning too far away from the nearest living thing.
How long would it take a Dementor to reach the Sun? We don’t know their maximum travelling speed, but you can Apparate away from them, and the journey might easily take long enough for humanity to achieve magico-technological singularity in the meantime, or for cosmic-scale Patronus casting to become a thing, or any number of other solutions to be implemented.
Can Dementors destroy the Sun? Azkaban is still standing despite having a significant concentration of Dementors in it for at least decades, and we know it’s not because it’s magically protected, since Dementors consume magic. It’s plausible that all the Dementors on Earth will not have a sufficient impact on the Sun’s lifespan to make a difference to humanity.
My suspicion that they would destroy the sun has more to do with their action as potential heat sinks due to their indestructibility than their drain abilities.