That explanation would have been a pretty good one, right up until the Humanism chapters, where exposure to a Dementor turns Harry directly into Voldemort for a few minutes. After that it doesn’t really hold water anymore.
I’d agree that it shifts probability away from that explanation, since passing out and waking up without a shred of compassion for other people is certainly less a reaction you expect from someone with only some fairly normal personality quirks than someone with something really unusual going on, although I’ll note that Harry has always had something of a conflict between the part of him that cares about and wants the best for everyone, and the part of him which doesn’t like or relate to other people, and this is certainly not unique or indicative of multiple personalities. But to say that exposure to a dementor “turns Harry directly into Voldemort” seems like jumping to conclusions to me. If we didn’t already know that in the original canon, Harry was inadvertently made a horcrux of Voldemort, I’d say it was an extremely premature narrowing of the hypothesis space.
Voldemort might think like Harry did when he was dementor-warped, but we’ve never gotten to see inside his head, and he didn’t act like Harry acted.
There was a compulsion to chew and swallow chocolate. The response to compulsion was killing.
People had gathered around and stared. That was annoying. The response to annoyance was killing.
Other people were chattering in the background. That was insolent. The response to insolence was to inflict pain, but since none of them were useful, killing them would be simpler.
“The response to compulsion was killing.” Not just “He wanted to kill Dumbledore”. The way it’s phrased implies a memory, a history, a system of behavior that was predetermined and practiced. The only way that can be is if Harry has directly and fully assumed the mind of someone who has already established all that in their past. For me, “turn[ed] directly into Voldemort” is as accurate a way as any to describe that, unless it’s someone other than Voldemort he turned directly into.
“He wanted to kill Dumbledore” would have been poor dramatic phrasing. “The response to compulsion was killing” could mean that he has a memory and history of this, or it could simply mean that in his state of mind, killing seems like the natural response to being compelled to do things by others. If I were trying to write that, I would sooner write “the response to compulsion was killing” than “He wanted to kill Dumbledore.”
The fact that Harry underwent a serious personality change on exposure to the dementor, and Hermione speculated that such a thing might happen to a person who already had that darker personality within them, is a substantial piece of evidence that Harry has something more unusual going on than some personality quirks. The phrasing used in that scene, on the other hand, I do not think can reasonably be treated as evidence of anything in particular. In fact, I can’t think of a single explanation for Harry’s personality change which would make the phrasing seem weird, given that artistic impact of the words being used is as important a consideration as their connotations.
I didn’t read the ‘the response to X was Y’ approach as experience as Voldemort. I thought it was the goal-orientedness side, the intent to kill. The algorithm of ‘I am here, I want to be there, where is the shortest route’.
That explanation would have been a pretty good one, right up until the Humanism chapters, where exposure to a Dementor turns Harry directly into Voldemort for a few minutes. After that it doesn’t really hold water anymore.
I’d agree that it shifts probability away from that explanation, since passing out and waking up without a shred of compassion for other people is certainly less a reaction you expect from someone with only some fairly normal personality quirks than someone with something really unusual going on, although I’ll note that Harry has always had something of a conflict between the part of him that cares about and wants the best for everyone, and the part of him which doesn’t like or relate to other people, and this is certainly not unique or indicative of multiple personalities. But to say that exposure to a dementor “turns Harry directly into Voldemort” seems like jumping to conclusions to me. If we didn’t already know that in the original canon, Harry was inadvertently made a horcrux of Voldemort, I’d say it was an extremely premature narrowing of the hypothesis space.
Voldemort might think like Harry did when he was dementor-warped, but we’ve never gotten to see inside his head, and he didn’t act like Harry acted.
It’s not merely that Harry thought a certain way:
“The response to compulsion was killing.” Not just “He wanted to kill Dumbledore”. The way it’s phrased implies a memory, a history, a system of behavior that was predetermined and practiced. The only way that can be is if Harry has directly and fully assumed the mind of someone who has already established all that in their past. For me, “turn[ed] directly into Voldemort” is as accurate a way as any to describe that, unless it’s someone other than Voldemort he turned directly into.
“He wanted to kill Dumbledore” would have been poor dramatic phrasing. “The response to compulsion was killing” could mean that he has a memory and history of this, or it could simply mean that in his state of mind, killing seems like the natural response to being compelled to do things by others. If I were trying to write that, I would sooner write “the response to compulsion was killing” than “He wanted to kill Dumbledore.”
The fact that Harry underwent a serious personality change on exposure to the dementor, and Hermione speculated that such a thing might happen to a person who already had that darker personality within them, is a substantial piece of evidence that Harry has something more unusual going on than some personality quirks. The phrasing used in that scene, on the other hand, I do not think can reasonably be treated as evidence of anything in particular. In fact, I can’t think of a single explanation for Harry’s personality change which would make the phrasing seem weird, given that artistic impact of the words being used is as important a consideration as their connotations.
I didn’t read the ‘the response to X was Y’ approach as experience as Voldemort. I thought it was the goal-orientedness side, the intent to kill. The algorithm of ‘I am here, I want to be there, where is the shortest route’.
I can’t imagine Voldemort or Quirrell thinking so crudely, even in terms of goal systems.