And frankly I keep thinking that Quirrel seems to actually care about things more than you’d expect Voldemort to be capable of emulating.
The trouble is that we know very little about Voldemort’s personality. Canon!Voldemort is practically a cardboard cut-out of a villain, whose attributes can be summed up as cruelty, power, fear of death and being like a snake. He is also at times clever and manipulative, but these attributes fade in and out (see the “Bahl’s Stupefaction” reference, for example).
Is HPMOR!Voldemort copy-pasted from the original? It seems unlikely for a variety of reasons, such as the fact that he’d make an unworthy villain for Harry Potter to face, or the fact that Eliezer is a good writer who would not leave a major character two-dimensional.
How, then, is he different? His foes describe him as extremely intelligent, with the implication that he has been upgraded in a similar way to Harry, yet as Harry realises, a rational!Voldemort should not have had to fight a protracted campaign in the first place, never mind losing it. His treatment of Dumbledore and his brother is indeed cruel, as are a number of other actions, though they are always cruel to serve an end, not because he is evil for evil’s sake. He is implied to be very powerful, though little evidence of this is provided. We know little about his attitude to death, but there’s no reason to believe it’s greatly altered from canon. And little is made of any possible snake affinity, though if he is Riddle, he is a Parseltongue and the Heir of Slytherin.
In short, it seems like we know very little about HPMOR!Voldemort, including what he might care about, or how much, so we’re not going to get far if we attempt to use his personality as evidence.
That is the trouble indeed. We only have a few reliable pieces of information regarding Hpmor!Voldemort’s character: the incident with Dumbledore’s brother and his treatment of Bellatrix. The former is filtered through his enemies and the latter comes from the mouth of one of the most likely suspects. We also have Harry’s memory of his mother’s death.
The trouble with the ransoming of Dumbledore’s brother is that we don’t know about his motivations. We just know he did it and we have a report from Snape that he was pleased to force Dumbledore to start playing, as it were. We can assume that he had several reasons to take those actions—it’s win-win for him. He either cripples the Order or he strikes a compromising personal blow against its leader. That’s evidence for his tactical acumen, though it doesn’t speak to his character except that he’s capable of following through.
Bellatrix’s situation at least shows that Harry has Voldemort modeled well enough to fool a half-sane, withered and abused Bellatrix into believing he is Voldemort. And her behavior supports everything Quirrel says about how she was treated—which points to him having insider information of some kind. He doesn’t have to be Voldemort to get that information, but it would be one explanation for him knowing. On the other hand, he does seem to be making moral judgements about her treatment that you wouldn’t expect him to make were he Voldemort (reading him talking about it made me think he was focused on Bellatric for more personal reasons).
Speaking of the breakout, Bellatrix does see both Quirrel’s animagus form and his own appearance after the polyjuice has worn off. She didn’t seem like she recognized him at all, so either she didn’t remember him (which she wouldn’t if he was a happy memory), or he was able to signal her somehow not to say anything (not so reliable given her state, but possible). Quirrel doesn’t take polyjuice to maintain his daily form, else it would have worn off when his disguise did (and it seems like a terrible idea to overlay a polyjuice over another one). Of course, he could be a metamorphmagus, which would allow him to pretend to take polyjuice. I should point out here that Eliezer doesn’t appear to be in the habit of changing characters’ abilities except as a direct consequence of an alteration of their personality or mental framework. Voldemort wasn’t an animagus or a metamorphmagus in canon as far as we know; a smarter Voldemort would learn to be the former but can’t learn to be the latter. And we don’t know certain things like, ‘can you be both at the same time?’
The trouble is that we know very little about Voldemort’s personality. Canon!Voldemort is practically a cardboard cut-out of a villain, whose attributes can be summed up as cruelty, power, fear of death and being like a snake. He is also at times clever and manipulative, but these attributes fade in and out (see the “Bahl’s Stupefaction” reference, for example).
Is HPMOR!Voldemort copy-pasted from the original? It seems unlikely for a variety of reasons, such as the fact that he’d make an unworthy villain for Harry Potter to face, or the fact that Eliezer is a good writer who would not leave a major character two-dimensional.
How, then, is he different? His foes describe him as extremely intelligent, with the implication that he has been upgraded in a similar way to Harry, yet as Harry realises, a rational!Voldemort should not have had to fight a protracted campaign in the first place, never mind losing it. His treatment of Dumbledore and his brother is indeed cruel, as are a number of other actions, though they are always cruel to serve an end, not because he is evil for evil’s sake. He is implied to be very powerful, though little evidence of this is provided. We know little about his attitude to death, but there’s no reason to believe it’s greatly altered from canon. And little is made of any possible snake affinity, though if he is Riddle, he is a Parseltongue and the Heir of Slytherin.
In short, it seems like we know very little about HPMOR!Voldemort, including what he might care about, or how much, so we’re not going to get far if we attempt to use his personality as evidence.
That is the trouble indeed. We only have a few reliable pieces of information regarding Hpmor!Voldemort’s character: the incident with Dumbledore’s brother and his treatment of Bellatrix. The former is filtered through his enemies and the latter comes from the mouth of one of the most likely suspects. We also have Harry’s memory of his mother’s death.
The trouble with the ransoming of Dumbledore’s brother is that we don’t know about his motivations. We just know he did it and we have a report from Snape that he was pleased to force Dumbledore to start playing, as it were. We can assume that he had several reasons to take those actions—it’s win-win for him. He either cripples the Order or he strikes a compromising personal blow against its leader. That’s evidence for his tactical acumen, though it doesn’t speak to his character except that he’s capable of following through.
Bellatrix’s situation at least shows that Harry has Voldemort modeled well enough to fool a half-sane, withered and abused Bellatrix into believing he is Voldemort. And her behavior supports everything Quirrel says about how she was treated—which points to him having insider information of some kind. He doesn’t have to be Voldemort to get that information, but it would be one explanation for him knowing. On the other hand, he does seem to be making moral judgements about her treatment that you wouldn’t expect him to make were he Voldemort (reading him talking about it made me think he was focused on Bellatric for more personal reasons).
Speaking of the breakout, Bellatrix does see both Quirrel’s animagus form and his own appearance after the polyjuice has worn off. She didn’t seem like she recognized him at all, so either she didn’t remember him (which she wouldn’t if he was a happy memory), or he was able to signal her somehow not to say anything (not so reliable given her state, but possible). Quirrel doesn’t take polyjuice to maintain his daily form, else it would have worn off when his disguise did (and it seems like a terrible idea to overlay a polyjuice over another one). Of course, he could be a metamorphmagus, which would allow him to pretend to take polyjuice. I should point out here that Eliezer doesn’t appear to be in the habit of changing characters’ abilities except as a direct consequence of an alteration of their personality or mental framework. Voldemort wasn’t an animagus or a metamorphmagus in canon as far as we know; a smarter Voldemort would learn to be the former but can’t learn to be the latter. And we don’t know certain things like, ‘can you be both at the same time?’
WoG says no, for canon.