From a strategic point of view having Light-Harry as a gullible ally is worth way more than having Dark-Harry be so knowingly. If the plot is to gain control of Magical Britain under one single leader who you puppeteer (him being embedded with your brain patterns and all) there’d be no sense in turning him dark now. The political strategist would rather:
Put Dumbledore in a bad position by allowing Harry to be the one to stand up for the students. Possibly in a way that humbles Dumbledore by the great “wisdom” of Harry, but meanwhile in a way that doesn’t alienate Harry from Dumbledore’s political allies before he’s been groomed and positioned to lead them. A way to do this would be to present evidence that Harry would be able to deduct and present on basis of being the Boy-Who-Lived AND someone who actually thinks. It might very well involve Harry find out, and proof, that Snape burned the letters. Snape being a double turncoat means that he’d be an easy suspect. Quirrelmort already has good reason to see him gone (that’s how he deals with traitors if you recall) plus it’d severely weaken Dumbledore’s hold on the Slytherin part of Britain. Here the taboo trade-off is Snape’s future who Dumbledore trades to keep the school.
Quirrelmort might already have been there for the duel between Hermione and Draco. Hence he’d have a memory of it and be able to pull that memory to a pensive. That memory would be enough to proof Hermione innocent. If this is the case Quirrelmort ends up distancing Harry from Lucius; which might be a good idea considering that Quirrelmort probably prefers to be the one in charge of the dark side and have Harry as a champion of the light. The taboo trade-off would then be Draco’s father.
I see no reason to make Harry appear dark. Actually I’d consider that extremely stupid since Quirrelmort has obtained all the political power he could hope to and now knows that that is not enough. He needs both the wolves and the sheep.
Your reasoning makes sense, but I believe we’re clearly supposed to understand that Harry’s going over to his Dark Side was the premeditated purpose of Quirrell bringing the Dementor to Hogwarts in the first place. Quirrell’s plan was defeated that day, more or less because of Harry’s love (not romantic love, necessarily) for Hermione. That day Quirrell realized that to really turn Harry Dark, he had to neutralize those Harry holds dear.
Thank you. {EDIT} I reserve most of my nonsensical actions for comic relief in tense real life situations.
Well for me two obvious questions arise:
Why are we supposed to believe so? Given that Quirrelmort is dark, wouldn’t the Dementor just be the experimental method applied so as to test whether or not his brain-wave patterns interfered with Harry’s ability to act as a champion of light? {added} Also any of the given actions that day might as well have been a test of Harry’s current limits and willingness to follow a plan.
Even if not, shouldn’t Quirrelmort realize that after the Stanford Prison Experiment other venues for reaching his goal might be more attractive?
I do believe that Quirrelmort is currently trying to get Harry into thinking Dark and acting Light. [ADDED] At least that would make extreme amounts of sense to me for Controlling Britain purposes.
I think Eliezer gave us some good advice for understanding some of his characters’ plots: “One way to fathom a strange plot is to look at what happened, assume it was the intended result, and ask who benefited.”
Quirrell knows how Dementors affect him, and he knows that Harry’s got a piece of Voldemort stuck inside him, so it was a reasonable guess that Harry might be similarly affected, and permanently, if he was exposed for long enough.
Quirrell certainly anticipated the possibility of failure — his experiment was orchestrated so that failure left him no further from his goal — and in fact, he almost did succeed; I think it is highly more likely that he was hoping for an easy route to victory that almost occurred, rather than that what happened was an unexpected side effect.
From a strategic point of view having Light-Harry as a gullible ally is worth way more than having Dark-Harry be so knowingly. If the plot is to gain control of Magical Britain under one single leader who you puppeteer (him being embedded with your brain patterns and all) there’d be no sense in turning him dark now. The political strategist would rather:
Put Dumbledore in a bad position by allowing Harry to be the one to stand up for the students. Possibly in a way that humbles Dumbledore by the great “wisdom” of Harry, but meanwhile in a way that doesn’t alienate Harry from Dumbledore’s political allies before he’s been groomed and positioned to lead them. A way to do this would be to present evidence that Harry would be able to deduct and present on basis of being the Boy-Who-Lived AND someone who actually thinks. It might very well involve Harry find out, and proof, that Snape burned the letters. Snape being a double turncoat means that he’d be an easy suspect. Quirrelmort already has good reason to see him gone (that’s how he deals with traitors if you recall) plus it’d severely weaken Dumbledore’s hold on the Slytherin part of Britain. Here the taboo trade-off is Snape’s future who Dumbledore trades to keep the school.
Quirrelmort might already have been there for the duel between Hermione and Draco. Hence he’d have a memory of it and be able to pull that memory to a pensive. That memory would be enough to proof Hermione innocent. If this is the case Quirrelmort ends up distancing Harry from Lucius; which might be a good idea considering that Quirrelmort probably prefers to be the one in charge of the dark side and have Harry as a champion of the light. The taboo trade-off would then be Draco’s father.
I see no reason to make Harry appear dark. Actually I’d consider that extremely stupid since Quirrelmort has obtained all the political power he could hope to and now knows that that is not enough. He needs both the wolves and the sheep.
Your reasoning makes sense, but I believe we’re clearly supposed to understand that Harry’s going over to his Dark Side was the premeditated purpose of Quirrell bringing the Dementor to Hogwarts in the first place. Quirrell’s plan was defeated that day, more or less because of Harry’s love (not romantic love, necessarily) for Hermione. That day Quirrell realized that to really turn Harry Dark, he had to neutralize those Harry holds dear.
Thank you. {EDIT} I reserve most of my nonsensical actions for comic relief in tense real life situations.
Well for me two obvious questions arise: Why are we supposed to believe so? Given that Quirrelmort is dark, wouldn’t the Dementor just be the experimental method applied so as to test whether or not his brain-wave patterns interfered with Harry’s ability to act as a champion of light? {added} Also any of the given actions that day might as well have been a test of Harry’s current limits and willingness to follow a plan.
Even if not, shouldn’t Quirrelmort realize that after the Stanford Prison Experiment other venues for reaching his goal might be more attractive?
I do believe that Quirrelmort is currently trying to get Harry into thinking Dark and acting Light. [ADDED] At least that would make extreme amounts of sense to me for Controlling Britain purposes.
I think Eliezer gave us some good advice for understanding some of his characters’ plots: “One way to fathom a strange plot is to look at what happened, assume it was the intended result, and ask who benefited.”
Quirrell knows how Dementors affect him, and he knows that Harry’s got a piece of Voldemort stuck inside him, so it was a reasonable guess that Harry might be similarly affected, and permanently, if he was exposed for long enough.
Quirrell certainly anticipated the possibility of failure — his experiment was orchestrated so that failure left him no further from his goal — and in fact, he almost did succeed; I think it is highly more likely that he was hoping for an easy route to victory that almost occurred, rather than that what happened was an unexpected side effect.