I see the point of the Something to Protect article as being about growing past your current conception of how you should think and act.
Interesting. I saw it largely as Canon:
Harry: That even though we got a fight ahead of us, we’ve got one thing that Voldemort doesn’t have. Ron: Yeah? Harry: Something worth fighting for.
Basically Something to Protect = Something to Love.
Otherwise, doesn’t Quirrell also have “something to protect”, namely his life, and the world in which he lives it?
The difference seems to be the motivation. Which is what Harry is claiming. And he is correct in the general case. Quirrell isn’t motivated by love or happiness. He doesn’t really enjoy his life much (though he did seem pretty jolly after defeating Dumbledore).
The distinction between a Yes to Life versus a No to Death is a very common theme. I can see how the Yes to Life provides more motivation, but the claim that this made the difference in this particular outcome just seems false.
But in chapter 114 I don’t see anything holding Harry back that he needs to see past. The nanotubes solution was a purely technical thing that Harry would either think of or not,
Let me give it the best interpretation I can. Wouldn’t a Yes to Life be a much better defense against despair in that situation than No to Death? I can’t cite studies, but that does seem plausible to me. It’s not that Yes to Life makes you think better, but that it better keeps you thinking instead of giving up.
So, from Harry’s perspective side, it’s maybe true that having a more positive reason provided more motivation to keep him thinking and not just giving up, but “thinking faster” still seems like a mischaracterization.
And from Quirrell’s perspective, I don’t see that a heartfelt “Kumbaya” would have allowed him to overcome his ignorance of certain facts, which was a clear cause of his defeat.
The overconfidence that I would argue that Quirrell also displayed by leaving Harry his wand seemed very out of character for the hyper prepared but totally unloving Quirrell. How would a lack of love explain his failure to take the wand, given his general level of hyper preparedness?
Amusingly, that’s probably more true in MoR than in canon, even if our Harry would never phrase it that way (or speak to Ron if he didn’t need to). Here Tom Riddle’s a bored sociopath without any strong connections; the only thing he really cares about is self-preservation, and that’s more adequately assured if he doesn’t pick fights with major wizarding governments or do crazy things like set up alternate versions of himself to spar with. In canon he’s basically just Snake Wizard Hitler, and Hitler had if nothing else the courage of his convictions.
Interestingly, this is kinda one of the reasons this Voldemort impresses me. EY writes that “more than your own life has to be at stake”, but Voldemort was sane enough that caring about his own life was enough to get him thinking and to get him moving.
So much so, he ended up genuinely working to save the world, and indeed ended up doing so, or at least significantly helping (Harry’s Vow). Sociopath or not, the fact that normal people aren’t sufficiently motivated by risk to their own lives is not a strength.
Also, Riddle’s care about his own life didn’t look like a mere animal flinch away from death; he seemed to find meaning in his works towards that goal:
He paused in his Potions work and turned to face Harry fully; there was a look of exultation in the man’s eyes that Harry had never seen there before. “In all the Darkest Arts I could find, in all the interdicted secrets to which Slytherin’s Monster gave me keys, in all the lore remembered among wizardkind, I found only hints and smatterings of what I needed. So I rewove it and remade it, and devised a new ritual based on new principles. I kept that ritual burning in my mind for years, perfecting it in imagination, pondering its meaning and making fine adjustments, waiting for the intention to stabilise. At last I dared to invoke my ritual, an invented sacrificial ritual, based on a principle untested by all known magic. And I lived, and yet live.” The Defense Professor spoke with quiet triumph, as though the act itself was so great that no words could ever do it justice.
Wow, either I got seriously ninjaed there or I wasn’t paying much attention. I was referring to the canon quote near the top of your post, the one about “something worth fighting for”.
I thought your replay came really fast after my previous edit. Maybe I was editing while you were typing your reply.
But I think your comment stands, now that I know what you’re referring to. Yeah, HPMOR sociopath Voldemort had less that he was fighting for, even in comparison to cartoonish canon Racist Hater Voldemort.
Interesting. I saw it largely as Canon:
Basically Something to Protect = Something to Love.
Otherwise, doesn’t Quirrell also have “something to protect”, namely his life, and the world in which he lives it?
The difference seems to be the motivation. Which is what Harry is claiming. And he is correct in the general case. Quirrell isn’t motivated by love or happiness. He doesn’t really enjoy his life much (though he did seem pretty jolly after defeating Dumbledore).
The distinction between a Yes to Life versus a No to Death is a very common theme. I can see how the Yes to Life provides more motivation, but the claim that this made the difference in this particular outcome just seems false.
Let me give it the best interpretation I can. Wouldn’t a Yes to Life be a much better defense against despair in that situation than No to Death? I can’t cite studies, but that does seem plausible to me. It’s not that Yes to Life makes you think better, but that it better keeps you thinking instead of giving up.
So, from Harry’s perspective side, it’s maybe true that having a more positive reason provided more motivation to keep him thinking and not just giving up, but “thinking faster” still seems like a mischaracterization.
And from Quirrell’s perspective, I don’t see that a heartfelt “Kumbaya” would have allowed him to overcome his ignorance of certain facts, which was a clear cause of his defeat.
The overconfidence that I would argue that Quirrell also displayed by leaving Harry his wand seemed very out of character for the hyper prepared but totally unloving Quirrell. How would a lack of love explain his failure to take the wand, given his general level of hyper preparedness?
ETA: re: “something worth fighting for”
Amusingly, that’s probably more true in MoR than in canon, even if our Harry would never phrase it that way (or speak to Ron if he didn’t need to). Here Tom Riddle’s a bored sociopath without any strong connections; the only thing he really cares about is self-preservation, and that’s more adequately assured if he doesn’t pick fights with major wizarding governments or do crazy things like set up alternate versions of himself to spar with. In canon he’s basically just Snake Wizard Hitler, and Hitler had if nothing else the courage of his convictions.
Interestingly, this is kinda one of the reasons this Voldemort impresses me. EY writes that “more than your own life has to be at stake”, but Voldemort was sane enough that caring about his own life was enough to get him thinking and to get him moving.
So much so, he ended up genuinely working to save the world, and indeed ended up doing so, or at least significantly helping (Harry’s Vow). Sociopath or not, the fact that normal people aren’t sufficiently motivated by risk to their own lives is not a strength.
Also, Riddle’s care about his own life didn’t look like a mere animal flinch away from death; he seemed to find meaning in his works towards that goal:
“that”?
Wow, either I got seriously ninjaed there or I wasn’t paying much attention. I was referring to the canon quote near the top of your post, the one about “something worth fighting for”.
I thought your replay came really fast after my previous edit. Maybe I was editing while you were typing your reply.
But I think your comment stands, now that I know what you’re referring to. Yeah, HPMOR sociopath Voldemort had less that he was fighting for, even in comparison to cartoonish canon Racist Hater Voldemort.