The “in the spirit of friendship” thing makes no sense if Lucius was imperioused.
A person without context would find Harry’s continued friendship with Draco after Draco tortured him unfathomable, and yet it was true. Dumbledore announced to Harry that he would be a well kept prisoner in Hogwarts. That too, requires context to appreciate. A great many things that Dumbledore has done require a lot of context for justification.
We don’t have the context of Malfoy’s and Voldemort’s relationship in the same way, and the friendship comment is hard to reconcile absent that context.
Harry was clear that he prefers a scientific civilization over a magical one, but I think he could respect someone who wanted to preserve a magical civilization if it was threatened with destruction.
I think we just don’t have enough of the back story to make definitive conclusions; our priors are slightly differently and we come up with different conclusion. I’m not the confident in my conclusions. I’m less confident in yours.
But I disagree with your last paragraph. Had Draco given the “preserve magic from the mudblood menace!” defense of the Death Eaters, Harry had fairly good reasons to think they were wrong about that, so it just makes them look murderously insane. But the “Dumbledore killed my mother” line actually made Harry stop and think for a second.
And even if Harry might have sympathized, Draco didn’t know that.
That’s maybe the rational reaction, but it’s not necessarily how Harry would react. He fantasized about guillotining blood purists, remember?
I’d also reiterate what we know about Lucius’ characterization. He has a deluded view of the world (blood-purism), and he reacts to evidence against that view (the experiment performed by Harry and Draco, which Lucius learned about when Draco got veritaserum’d) by shouting lies! He also has put a great deal of effort into maintaining his power in the wizarding world, and also into grooming his son for a similar role.
In other words, he’s a power-hungry bigot. Exactly the sort of person who would follow Voldemort out of hated for mudbloods and then spin other justifications for public consumption. Also, I get the impression that very few people believe Lucius was imperious’d, and he tells the story not so that others will believe it, but for the sake of plausible deniability
But maybe our priors are just different, as you said.
“I’d also reiterate what we know about Lucius’ characterization. He has a deluded view of the world (blood-purism), and he reacts to evidence against that view (the experiment performed by Harry and Draco, which Lucius learned about when Draco got veritaserum’d) by shouting lies! -- But maybe our priors are just different, as you said.”
Consider Lucius’s, and Draco’s, priors. Namely, they do not actually have the priors to explain why the result of their experiment means what Harry says it means—not independent of Muggles, anyway, and possibly not independent of Harry. Without replicating all the experiments (or, at least a significant number) on different color peas or whatever, to arrive at a basic understanding of genetics (and an explanation for awkward questions like “why doesn’t skin color or height work that way? who says that, or something else entirely, isn’t a better model for magic?), the simpler explanation (to Lucius—and, honestly, to Draco, divorced of his complex motivations for wanting to stay in the Bayesian Conspiracy) is that Harry examined the data in advance and made up a theory to fit the numbers to what he wanted to convince Draco of.
P.S. Unless Veritaserum in HPMOR works similarly to how truth serum works in (of all things) The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, we can’t conclusively assume that Draco necessarily told Lucius any particular fact. What line of questioning leads to Lucius finding out about the experiment?
A person without context would find Harry’s continued friendship with Draco after Draco tortured him unfathomable, and yet it was true. Dumbledore announced to Harry that he would be a well kept prisoner in Hogwarts. That too, requires context to appreciate. A great many things that Dumbledore has done require a lot of context for justification.
We don’t have the context of Malfoy’s and Voldemort’s relationship in the same way, and the friendship comment is hard to reconcile absent that context.
Harry was clear that he prefers a scientific civilization over a magical one, but I think he could respect someone who wanted to preserve a magical civilization if it was threatened with destruction.
I think we just don’t have enough of the back story to make definitive conclusions; our priors are slightly differently and we come up with different conclusion. I’m not the confident in my conclusions. I’m less confident in yours.
Fair point about context.
But I disagree with your last paragraph. Had Draco given the “preserve magic from the mudblood menace!” defense of the Death Eaters, Harry had fairly good reasons to think they were wrong about that, so it just makes them look murderously insane. But the “Dumbledore killed my mother” line actually made Harry stop and think for a second.
And even if Harry might have sympathized, Draco didn’t know that.
And I disagree with your disagreement, sir!
No, I think it just makes them look wrong about a factual matter.
That’s maybe the rational reaction, but it’s not necessarily how Harry would react. He fantasized about guillotining blood purists, remember?
I’d also reiterate what we know about Lucius’ characterization. He has a deluded view of the world (blood-purism), and he reacts to evidence against that view (the experiment performed by Harry and Draco, which Lucius learned about when Draco got veritaserum’d) by shouting lies! He also has put a great deal of effort into maintaining his power in the wizarding world, and also into grooming his son for a similar role.
In other words, he’s a power-hungry bigot. Exactly the sort of person who would follow Voldemort out of hated for mudbloods and then spin other justifications for public consumption. Also, I get the impression that very few people believe Lucius was imperious’d, and he tells the story not so that others will believe it, but for the sake of plausible deniability
But maybe our priors are just different, as you said.
“I’d also reiterate what we know about Lucius’ characterization. He has a deluded view of the world (blood-purism), and he reacts to evidence against that view (the experiment performed by Harry and Draco, which Lucius learned about when Draco got veritaserum’d) by shouting lies! -- But maybe our priors are just different, as you said.”
Consider Lucius’s, and Draco’s, priors. Namely, they do not actually have the priors to explain why the result of their experiment means what Harry says it means—not independent of Muggles, anyway, and possibly not independent of Harry. Without replicating all the experiments (or, at least a significant number) on different color peas or whatever, to arrive at a basic understanding of genetics (and an explanation for awkward questions like “why doesn’t skin color or height work that way? who says that, or something else entirely, isn’t a better model for magic?), the simpler explanation (to Lucius—and, honestly, to Draco, divorced of his complex motivations for wanting to stay in the Bayesian Conspiracy) is that Harry examined the data in advance and made up a theory to fit the numbers to what he wanted to convince Draco of.
P.S. Unless Veritaserum in HPMOR works similarly to how truth serum works in (of all things) The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, we can’t conclusively assume that Draco necessarily told Lucius any particular fact. What line of questioning leads to Lucius finding out about the experiment?