I have to depart from the majority of responses to your question and offer, “There is yet insufficient data to answer the question.”
The tendency is to answer a qualified “yes” because that would be the answer in regard to canon. However, this is not canon. It also isn’t an alternate history of canon, since Eliezer has modified things where he felt it made more sense to have them changed. For example, there is in this post a comment by Eliezer stating that he places the Peverells before the founding of Hogwarts, whereas canon states that Hogwarts was founded first (the decision makes sense, considering that Hogwarts itself seems to offer enough continuity of knowledge to make strange the idea that the Peverell story could have been reduced to myth given that their artifacts actually exist).
In short, the only reason people are so sure that Quirrel is Voldemort is because he was Voldemort in canon.
I don’t think there is very strong evidence for it, but there isn’t really sufficient evidence against the hypothesis either. Canon!Quirrel and HPMOR!Quirrel don’t even appear to represent the same character (they use the same name, but there the differences basically stop, and the HPMOR version appears to be a case of identity theft). So in that sense, not only is what we know from canon unreliable, but we’re not even really talking about a character that is derivative of his counterpart in canon, so all bets are off.
What people might point to as evidence (the zombie state, the feeling of dread, and the danger of Harry and Quirrel casting spells on each other) are things that invoke enough similarity to canon to encourage people to think of them as evidence that the situations are identical, but those pieces of evidence are fundamentally different between canon and HPMOR.
In canon, Quirrel usually acts rather normal with no hint of a zombie state and actually isn’t even possessed when Harry sees him in the Leaky Cauldron (he seems to give Harry the dread feeling in that scene in HPMOR)-- because we know in retrospect that he was possessed for most of the book, we have a tendency to incorrectly match that with the zombie state in HPMOR.
In canon, Harry’s scar physically hurts when Quirrel turns away from him while he’s possessed. In HPMOR there is the the ‘feeling of dread,’ which isn’t reliant on Quirrel’s orientation to Harry at all, but rather it is reliant on proximity and the state of Quirrel’s mind (it is reduced in both Quirrel’s zombie state and in his animagus form).
In canon, the resonance between Harry and Voldemort is between their wands, not between themselves (Voldemort is able to cast torture spells on Harry just fine). The encounter between Harry’s Patronus and Quirrel’s Avada Kedavra did not create a Priori Incantatum event in HPMOR. It also affected Quirrel rather more severely than it did Harry.
From this, one has to conclude that this evidence that Quirrel is Voldemort is inconclusive at best and is generally misleading. It doesn’t discount the possibility that HPMOR!Quirrel is possessed by Voldemort in a way that results in somewhat different symptoms, and it doesn’t discount the possibility that Quirrel is actually Tom Riddle in the physical and mental sense.
So, insufficient data to answer the question. But add in author agency and you have to really question the obvious solution that we’re being led to by things that only seem similar to canon. And I should note that “author agency” may also freely apply to comments the author has made outside the story as himself.
What people might point to as evidence (the zombie state, the feeling of dread, and the danger of Harry and Quirrel casting spells on each other) are things that invoke enough similarity to canon to encourage people to think of them as evidence that the situations are identical, but those pieces of evidence are fundamentally different between canon and HPMOR.
These aren’t actually things I would point to as evidence of Quirrell’s identity (though they are certainly suggestive of.. something). The Pioneer plaque thing may be one, but here are some clues that are less often mentioned:
Quirrell’s “love potion” speech in Chapter 70 describes Tom Riddle’s family situation fairly precisely; also, in Chapter 20, he implies (if you squint) that he killed his parents.
We know Quirrell to have many identities, and we are warned of Dark Wizards who have many identities.
Plots that we know of to be Quirrell’s remind people of Voldemort’s plots. (This is in equal measure evidence that Harry Potter is Voldemort.)
In Chapter 26, Quirrell demonstrates a rather strong interest in prophecies concerning Harry Potter.
In Chapter 40, after finding out that a ring which was in Voldemort’s possession in canon is actually the Resurrection Stone, Quirrell immediately changes his plans and leaves to do something unspecified.
Voldemort has an obvious motivation to do things such as rescue Bellatrix Black from Azkaban.
Unfortunately, even those things aren’t particularly strong evidence if you’re really being objective.
Quirrel’s commentary about love potions in Chapter 70 is generic enough that no one objects to it except on the grounds that it’s not appropriate for the children present, so clearly his point that it DOES happen is widely recognized enough that to the adults present it’s not particularly notable that he points it out.
That Quirrel has many identities and Dark Wizards sometimes have many identities isn’t even really strong evidence that Quirrel should be considered a Dark Wizard (even though he seems pretty damn Darkish a lot of the time). It’s only evidence that he has many identities.
Plots reminding people of Voldemort’s plots is susceptible to confirmation bias, just like most of the evidence I mentioned in the earlier post.
Demonstrating a strong interest in Harry Potter prophecies is a matter of course/survival for ANYONE acquainted with Harry Potter, since he’s Harry Potter and they might get caught up in said prophecies.
This is probably the strongest evidence of Quirrel being Voldemort, but it’s still circumstantial since we don’t know where Quirrel actually went. He might also have just realized that Dumbledore’s wand is the Elder Wand… or have been a Death Eater who saw the stone in question, or have otherwise deduced the location of the ring. Still, the simplest answer here appears to be him knowing about it because he’s Voldemort… but that isn’t as simple if you don’t automatically assume he’s been possessed by Voldemort as the canon!Quirrel was.
Voldemort does have an obvious motivation to rescue Bellatrix, but Quirrel does actually take Bellatrix to a Healer (which you wouldn’t expect Voldemort to do), and Bellatrix hasn’t been sent on any missions since her rescue… that we’ve heard of. In canon, Voldemort basically just sets her loose. Also, Quirrel acknowledges that what was done to Bellatrix was wrong (much more strongly and genuinely than anyone else in either HPMoR or Canon, all of whom are happy to judge her on her actions), which looks more like a connection to Bellatrix rather than Voldemort, who certainly wouldn’t be remorseful for abusing her. Of course, that could be a ruse.
The fact is, we aren’t going to get any concrete evidence of this until we actually see Voldemort in the flesh. And when it comes down to it, I’m not exactly offering any counter-evidence that he isn’t Voldemort. But the evidence certainly isn’t strong enough to be as sure of it as most of the people talking about Quirrel and Voldemort in these discussions are. And frankly I keep thinking that Quirrel seems to actually care about things more than you’d expect Voldemort to be capable of emulating.
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?’
I have to depart from the majority of responses to your question and offer, “There is yet insufficient data to answer the question.”
The tendency is to answer a qualified “yes” because that would be the answer in regard to canon. However, this is not canon. It also isn’t an alternate history of canon, since Eliezer has modified things where he felt it made more sense to have them changed. For example, there is in this post a comment by Eliezer stating that he places the Peverells before the founding of Hogwarts, whereas canon states that Hogwarts was founded first (the decision makes sense, considering that Hogwarts itself seems to offer enough continuity of knowledge to make strange the idea that the Peverell story could have been reduced to myth given that their artifacts actually exist).
In short, the only reason people are so sure that Quirrel is Voldemort is because he was Voldemort in canon.
I don’t think there is very strong evidence for it, but there isn’t really sufficient evidence against the hypothesis either. Canon!Quirrel and HPMOR!Quirrel don’t even appear to represent the same character (they use the same name, but there the differences basically stop, and the HPMOR version appears to be a case of identity theft). So in that sense, not only is what we know from canon unreliable, but we’re not even really talking about a character that is derivative of his counterpart in canon, so all bets are off.
What people might point to as evidence (the zombie state, the feeling of dread, and the danger of Harry and Quirrel casting spells on each other) are things that invoke enough similarity to canon to encourage people to think of them as evidence that the situations are identical, but those pieces of evidence are fundamentally different between canon and HPMOR.
In canon, Quirrel usually acts rather normal with no hint of a zombie state and actually isn’t even possessed when Harry sees him in the Leaky Cauldron (he seems to give Harry the dread feeling in that scene in HPMOR)-- because we know in retrospect that he was possessed for most of the book, we have a tendency to incorrectly match that with the zombie state in HPMOR.
In canon, Harry’s scar physically hurts when Quirrel turns away from him while he’s possessed. In HPMOR there is the the ‘feeling of dread,’ which isn’t reliant on Quirrel’s orientation to Harry at all, but rather it is reliant on proximity and the state of Quirrel’s mind (it is reduced in both Quirrel’s zombie state and in his animagus form).
In canon, the resonance between Harry and Voldemort is between their wands, not between themselves (Voldemort is able to cast torture spells on Harry just fine). The encounter between Harry’s Patronus and Quirrel’s Avada Kedavra did not create a Priori Incantatum event in HPMOR. It also affected Quirrel rather more severely than it did Harry.
From this, one has to conclude that this evidence that Quirrel is Voldemort is inconclusive at best and is generally misleading. It doesn’t discount the possibility that HPMOR!Quirrel is possessed by Voldemort in a way that results in somewhat different symptoms, and it doesn’t discount the possibility that Quirrel is actually Tom Riddle in the physical and mental sense.
So, insufficient data to answer the question. But add in author agency and you have to really question the obvious solution that we’re being led to by things that only seem similar to canon. And I should note that “author agency” may also freely apply to comments the author has made outside the story as himself.
These aren’t actually things I would point to as evidence of Quirrell’s identity (though they are certainly suggestive of.. something). The Pioneer plaque thing may be one, but here are some clues that are less often mentioned:
Quirrell’s “love potion” speech in Chapter 70 describes Tom Riddle’s family situation fairly precisely; also, in Chapter 20, he implies (if you squint) that he killed his parents.
We know Quirrell to have many identities, and we are warned of Dark Wizards who have many identities.
Plots that we know of to be Quirrell’s remind people of Voldemort’s plots. (This is in equal measure evidence that Harry Potter is Voldemort.)
In Chapter 26, Quirrell demonstrates a rather strong interest in prophecies concerning Harry Potter.
In Chapter 40, after finding out that a ring which was in Voldemort’s possession in canon is actually the Resurrection Stone, Quirrell immediately changes his plans and leaves to do something unspecified.
Voldemort has an obvious motivation to do things such as rescue Bellatrix Black from Azkaban.
Unfortunately, even those things aren’t particularly strong evidence if you’re really being objective.
Quirrel’s commentary about love potions in Chapter 70 is generic enough that no one objects to it except on the grounds that it’s not appropriate for the children present, so clearly his point that it DOES happen is widely recognized enough that to the adults present it’s not particularly notable that he points it out.
That Quirrel has many identities and Dark Wizards sometimes have many identities isn’t even really strong evidence that Quirrel should be considered a Dark Wizard (even though he seems pretty damn Darkish a lot of the time). It’s only evidence that he has many identities.
Plots reminding people of Voldemort’s plots is susceptible to confirmation bias, just like most of the evidence I mentioned in the earlier post.
Demonstrating a strong interest in Harry Potter prophecies is a matter of course/survival for ANYONE acquainted with Harry Potter, since he’s Harry Potter and they might get caught up in said prophecies.
This is probably the strongest evidence of Quirrel being Voldemort, but it’s still circumstantial since we don’t know where Quirrel actually went. He might also have just realized that Dumbledore’s wand is the Elder Wand… or have been a Death Eater who saw the stone in question, or have otherwise deduced the location of the ring. Still, the simplest answer here appears to be him knowing about it because he’s Voldemort… but that isn’t as simple if you don’t automatically assume he’s been possessed by Voldemort as the canon!Quirrel was.
Voldemort does have an obvious motivation to rescue Bellatrix, but Quirrel does actually take Bellatrix to a Healer (which you wouldn’t expect Voldemort to do), and Bellatrix hasn’t been sent on any missions since her rescue… that we’ve heard of. In canon, Voldemort basically just sets her loose. Also, Quirrel acknowledges that what was done to Bellatrix was wrong (much more strongly and genuinely than anyone else in either HPMoR or Canon, all of whom are happy to judge her on her actions), which looks more like a connection to Bellatrix rather than Voldemort, who certainly wouldn’t be remorseful for abusing her. Of course, that could be a ruse.
The fact is, we aren’t going to get any concrete evidence of this until we actually see Voldemort in the flesh. And when it comes down to it, I’m not exactly offering any counter-evidence that he isn’t Voldemort. But the evidence certainly isn’t strong enough to be as sure of it as most of the people talking about Quirrel and Voldemort in these discussions are. 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?’
WoG says no, for canon.