For that matter, why did he ever bother turning into his snake form? Just to make Harry think he had the limitation of not being able to speak Parseltongue while human, for some reason?
Looks like I misunderstood the relevant passage in Chapter 49--when Quirrell confirms that other snake Animagi can’t overhear them, he isn’t implying that you also have to be a Parselmouth, he’s implying that he can only understand Harry because Harry wills it.
This makes me wonder whether we can trust anything Quirrell said as a snake. Let’s say Parseltongue is “the ability to speak in snake language” and was created by Slytherin so that his heirs would have a way to talk to each other in a trusting way (plus so they could talk to snakes, because he liked snakes). Then Harry or Quirrell speaking as humans in Parseltongue are using Slytherin’s creation, but Quirrell speaking as a snake animagus is just doing normal snake-talk and wouldn’t have the restriction.
But Quirrell’s justification RE Parseltongue was “snakes can’t lie”. So if we believe his explanation to begin with, we must assume that normal snake-talk is equally trustworthy.
Another possibility is that snakes can’t lie (lying depends on some brain feature they lack) and Parselmouthing people can’t lie (part of how it works) but a snake animagus is neither and so can lie.
FWIW, I’m pretty sure that EY would endorse the claim that lying depends on a brain feature that snakes lack. Lying in the sense of deliberate deception requires a theory of mind of the one being deceived, and snakes aren’t that intelligent, or so I believe that EY believes (and for that matter believe myself).
OTOH, snakes aren’t intelligent enough to talk either; in HPMOR, they only do so by borrowing the mind of the Parseltonguer. And Parseltonguers can conceive of other minds, both for the benefit of snakes and for their own speech. So this doesn’t prove anything.
All of them, as this is the first time Q hasn’t turned into his Snake form first…
For that matter, why did he ever bother turning into his snake form? Just to make Harry think he had the limitation of not being able to speak Parseltongue while human, for some reason?
Voldemort is the last known Parselmouth, so it would be highly suspicious for Quirrell to also be one.
Looks like I misunderstood the relevant passage in Chapter 49--when Quirrell confirms that other snake Animagi can’t overhear them, he isn’t implying that you also have to be a Parselmouth, he’s implying that he can only understand Harry because Harry wills it.
For an obvious reason—pretend to have more limits than you do, to be underestimated.
This makes me wonder whether we can trust anything Quirrell said as a snake. Let’s say Parseltongue is “the ability to speak in snake language” and was created by Slytherin so that his heirs would have a way to talk to each other in a trusting way (plus so they could talk to snakes, because he liked snakes). Then Harry or Quirrell speaking as humans in Parseltongue are using Slytherin’s creation, but Quirrell speaking as a snake animagus is just doing normal snake-talk and wouldn’t have the restriction.
But Quirrell’s justification RE Parseltongue was “snakes can’t lie”. So if we believe his explanation to begin with, we must assume that normal snake-talk is equally trustworthy.
Another possibility is that snakes can’t lie (lying depends on some brain feature they lack) and Parselmouthing people can’t lie (part of how it works) but a snake animagus is neither and so can lie.
FWIW, I’m pretty sure that EY would endorse the claim that lying depends on a brain feature that snakes lack. Lying in the sense of deliberate deception requires a theory of mind of the one being deceived, and snakes aren’t that intelligent, or so I believe that EY believes (and for that matter believe myself).
OTOH, snakes aren’t intelligent enough to talk either; in HPMOR, they only do so by borrowing the mind of the Parseltonguer. And Parseltonguers can conceive of other minds, both for the benefit of snakes and for their own speech. So this doesn’t prove anything.
Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s EY’s model.
But a snake animagus doesn’t have a snake brain; you keep your normal mind while you’re an animagus.
Yes, I agree. So if Quirrel were deliberately trying to mislead, ‘Snakes can’t lie.’ would be a great statement to use.
Or it’s almost all truth with one crucial lie.