I meant to add this when I originally wrote the above post, but forgot, probably because it’s pretty obvious:
A major focus of the next arc will be Quirrell teaching the first years to cast Avada Kedavra. (p ≈ 0.9)
Quirrell was antsy to get back to his classes, of which there are not many left. And teaching the Killing Curse is a good way to make sure Harry is deeply in tune with his Dark Side when Quirrell executes his plot against Hermione. Harry’s Dark Side will of course be exceptionally good at casting the Killing Curse, and casting it will make it easier for him to stay Dark when he wants to. Whenever Harry next gets back to his Light Side thereafter, he’ll be alarmed at how right it felt for him to cast it; indeed, he’ll probably start finding it hard to resist casting it whenever something activates his Dark Side.
I get the feeling that if Harry learns the Killing Curse he’ll manage to tweak it somehow, on the order of Patronus 2.0 or partial Transfiguration.
I arrived at this idea by intuition—it seems to fit, but I don’t think there’s much explicit support. AFAICT I’m mostly pattern-matching on story logic, AK’s plot significance and symmetry with Patronus, and Harry’s talent for breaking things by thinking at them.
I think my probability estimate for this (given that Harry learns AK in the first place) is around 30%, but I suspect I’m poorly calibrated.
Interesting. I’m finding it hard to imagine what a “True Killing Curse” would do differently; the Standard Killing Curse seems to leave things pretty much good and dead. Perhaps it would kill Phoenixes permanently? Offing Fawkes would be a nice Yudkowskian punch in the gut. Or maybe it would kill all of the victim’s horcruxes as well? But it’d be a drag if Eliezer introduced the Cvbarre ubepehk only to have Harry discover a shortcut that makes him not have to deal with it.
Circumventing Horcruxes would be one option, certainly.
Harry has already thought how blindingly stupid it is that the killing curse must be cast using hate in order to work. If he were going to change anything about it I would imagine that that observation would feature.
I meant to add this when I originally wrote the above post, but forgot, probably because it’s pretty obvious:
A major focus of the next arc will be Quirrell teaching the first years to cast Avada Kedavra. (p ≈ 0.9)
Quirrell was antsy to get back to his classes, of which there are not many left. And teaching the Killing Curse is a good way to make sure Harry is deeply in tune with his Dark Side when Quirrell executes his plot against Hermione. Harry’s Dark Side will of course be exceptionally good at casting the Killing Curse, and casting it will make it easier for him to stay Dark when he wants to. Whenever Harry next gets back to his Light Side thereafter, he’ll be alarmed at how right it felt for him to cast it; indeed, he’ll probably start finding it hard to resist casting it whenever something activates his Dark Side.
I get the feeling that if Harry learns the Killing Curse he’ll manage to tweak it somehow, on the order of Patronus 2.0 or partial Transfiguration.
I arrived at this idea by intuition—it seems to fit, but I don’t think there’s much explicit support. AFAICT I’m mostly pattern-matching on story logic, AK’s plot significance and symmetry with Patronus, and Harry’s talent for breaking things by thinking at them.
I think my probability estimate for this (given that Harry learns AK in the first place) is around 30%, but I suspect I’m poorly calibrated.
Interesting. I’m finding it hard to imagine what a “True Killing Curse” would do differently; the Standard Killing Curse seems to leave things pretty much good and dead. Perhaps it would kill Phoenixes permanently? Offing Fawkes would be a nice Yudkowskian punch in the gut. Or maybe it would kill all of the victim’s horcruxes as well? But it’d be a drag if Eliezer introduced the Cvbarre ubepehk only to have Harry discover a shortcut that makes him not have to deal with it.
Circumventing Horcruxes would be one option, certainly. Harry has already thought how blindingly stupid it is that the killing curse must be cast using hate in order to work. If he were going to change anything about it I would imagine that that observation would feature.