I have not read the original Harry Potter series. I first learned that Quirrell was Voldemort when, after finishing the 49 chapters of MoR out at that point, I followed a link from LW to the collected author’s notes and read those.
I think that for those who have not read the source material (though there may not be many of us), it is basically impossible to intuit that Quirrell is Voldemort from the body of the fanfic so far.
That said, I don’t feel like I missed out in any way and don’t see why it necessarily needs to be any more explicit until the inevitable big reveal.
Edit: I just remembered that, as you can see, my prior comment on this post was written after I read chapter 49 but before I learned that Quirrell == Voldemort.
Eliezer planted lots of clues about many facts that are never explicitly revealed, in such a way that noticing correct hypotheses is sufficient to confirm them upon observing enough of those little clues. Now, for some facts, it could be difficult to even locate them, but Quirrell=Voldemort seems to be a good hypothesis to entertain, even if it’s not apparently confirmed from any single passage, and it does get lots of evidence if you know to look for it.
How much of that is hindsight bias? Clues that show a specific hypothesis if you’ve located the hypothesis aren’t necessarily that helpful. For me at least, even knowing the that Q=V, and seeing the clues, they don’t intrinsically point to that. Most of them can be explained simply by the idea that Quirrell is subtle, evil, and likes corrupting people.
The biggest clue is the material about the Horcrux and if one hasn’t read the books that likely goes completely out the window. (In fact, if I were Eliezer, I’d have Harry find out about Horcruxes pretty soon to help the less knowledgable readers.)
The biggest clue is the material about the Horcrux and if one hasn’t read the books that likely goes completely out the window. (In fact, if I were Eliezer, I’d have Harry find out about Horcruxes pretty soon to help the less knowledgable readers.)
Wait, were Horcruxes mentioned explicitly in the text anywhere so far? The one Horcrux we know about is only explicitly stated to be such in the author’s notes; at any rate, I didn’t figure out it was a Horcrux without reading them.
I concluded Q=V early on based on:
Quirrell seems to flip between two wildly different personalities
In canon, his body is housing Voldemort
…which I found to be enough to conclude that he is being intermittently possessed by Voldemort. (OK actually I’m simplifying a little but I don’t think the other details are relevant.)
The only result for CTRL-F “horcrux” is in a private conversation between Dumbledore and McGonagall, and it doesn’t say what it is except that it belongs to Voldemort. Dumbledore does later tell Harry that Voldy achieved immortality through some scary rituals, but says nothing about the method other than that it involves a murder, so a canon-ignorant reader wouldn’t be able to make a confident connection. “Horcrux” could very well be Voldermort’s super-weapon, or a fancy term for “hideout”.
As for clues to Q=V that don’t rely on canon knowledge, the two biggest ones that come to mind are the sense of “doom” that Harry repeatedly perceives when coming physically near Quirrell (when something magical happens to Harry that is unusual or impossible even in the wizarding world, it’s safe to assume that it’s a consequence of his unique battle with Voldemort), and especially the tale he tells about Voldemort and the monastery, which despite his cover story of a deliberate “survivor” should make anyone raise an eyebrow.
On the other side, however, there is the fact that, in a marginally subtler way, Quirrell is NOT Voldemort. Everything we are told about Voldemort in MoR (at least part of which comes from reliable accounts) matches canon Voldemort and suggest an equally cartoonesque villain composed mostly of questionable motives, self-defeating pettiness and pointless cruelty, with zero PR skills and awful fashion sense, not to mention a certain fondness for the Idiot Ball. But if Quirrell is Voldemort, that requires Voldemort being not just far smarter and more patient, but possessing ambitions more sophisticated than being a Dark Lord on his Dark Throne in the land of Britain where the Shadows lie.
Which just so happened to have been the entire core of his character! For all functional and narrative purposes, whatever change Voldemort underwent when he turned into Quirrellmort was so drastic that we might as well say that he is no longer Voldemort.
On the other side, however, there is the fact that, in a marginally subtler way, Quirrell is NOT Voldemort. Everything we are told about Voldemort in MoR (at least part of which comes from reliable accounts) matches canon Voldemort and suggest an equally cartoonesque villain composed mostly of questionable motives, self-defeating pettiness and pointless cruelty, with zero PR skills and awful fashion sense, not to mention a certain fondness for the Idiot Ball.
Eliezer has previously written that a supervillain (meant to be defeated) might do more for world unity than just about anything else. (If the words “I did it thirty-five minutes ago” mean anything to you, you get the idea.)
It’s plausible that MoR Voldemort was a facade put up by Quirrell as part of a strategy to bring the wizarding world together and face the very real threat of Muggleborne nuclear war– and both his speech to Hogwarts and his private discussion with Harry make this more plausible.
If Voldemort’s plan was to cause Britain to unite under a Mark of Britain killing Yermy Wibble and his family was a funny way to accomplish it.
Voldemort may have been operating under the same false assumption that Wibble was (that Wibble’s martyrdom would legitimize his ideas), but a villain that clever could have at least done some better PR work on Wibble during the seventies.
Note, too, that if V knew he could ‘die’ and then possess someone, and if he also believed his followers could only lose to a dictator who united magical Britain against them, then he likely figured it didn’t matter if they won or not.
Everything we are told about Voldemort in MoR (at least part of which comes from reliable accounts) matches canon Voldemort and suggest an equally cartoonesque villain composed mostly of questionable motives, self-defeating pettiness and pointless cruelty, with zero PR skills and awful fashion sense, not to mention a certain fondness for the Idiot Ball.
Except we also have Dumbledore describing V as clever like Harry, or words to that effect. The two monastery stories seem consistent with this: first of all, canon!Voldemort would never have sought out a Muggle teacher at all. Second, the two stories together suggest that MoR!Voldemort got what he wanted and then returned without his disguise to get revenge, like he said Harry would do if Harry became like him. Also, what orthonormal said.
Edited to add: and come on, we know MoR!V killed Narcissa Malfoy. Draco told us himself to look at the result and ask who benefits. The plan surely broke an evil overlord rule or three, at least in spirit, but if V couldn’t get Lucius on his side he probably needed to kill the default leader of the pureblood faction anyway. And V, as a skilled Legilimens, could probably count on Lucius responding irrationally to his wife’s death one way or another.
For me at least, even knowing the that Q=V, and seeing the clues, they don’t intrinsically point to that. Most of them can be explained simply by the idea that Quirrell is subtle, evil, and likes corrupting people.
The Law of Conservation of Detail (TV Tropes warning) implies that an important character who is subtle and evil (or even just subtle) has a substantial probability of being the villain.
I hadn’t read the original series either, and so at first I had no idea that Q=V except from the Author’s Notes; however, I suspect that by this point in the story I would have begun entertaining it seriously as a hypothesis. (And of course as long as the story is still being written, there’s always some chance Eliezer could change his mind.)
The Law of Conservation of Detail (TV Tropes warning) implies that an important character who is subtle and evil (or even just subtle) has a substantial probability of being the villain.
But there are a lot of subtle characters in HPMOR; Quirrell might be the most subtle and the most apparently evil, but he’s not the only one. That would imply that Harry, Dumbledore, and Lucius also have substantial probabilities of being the villain.
Edit: Then again… maybe that’s correct.
On the other hand, I think we’ve been told to expect most characters to be substantially smarter than their canon equivalents, and maybe this kind of subtle schemingness just comes automatically when you have a bunch of smart wizards who don’t trust each other and have potentially conflicting goals that they all take seriously as things-to-protect.
I wouldn’t mind one little bit if the story is structured like Lensmen, with several layers of villains that have to be discovered.
Admittedly, this is less likely in the wizarding world—the population is much lower than in a universe with multiple inhabited galaxies.
On the gripping hand, it would be really cool if Quirrel/Voldemort were a claw on a finger of a conspiracy of evil alien wizards. Presumably, Cthulhu is part of the middle layer.
The Law of Conservation of Detail (TV Tropes warning) implies that an important character who is subtle and evil (or even just subtle) has a substantial probability of being the villain.
However, while that gives evidence that Quirrel is the villain, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the villain (the one that is Quirrel) must be Voldemort.
Why does Quirrelmort even have to be a villain? Sure, he was terribly evil in canon, and in the back story, but he’s obviously been through some sort of magical transformative process, and that he may have made him redeemable. Killing Rita Skeeter is a pretty substantial mark against him, but we have very little idea what his real goals are.
I have not read the original Harry Potter series. I first learned that Quirrell was Voldemort when, after finishing the 49 chapters of MoR out at that point, I followed a link from LW to the collected author’s notes and read those.
I think that for those who have not read the source material (though there may not be many of us), it is basically impossible to intuit that Quirrell is Voldemort from the body of the fanfic so far.
That said, I don’t feel like I missed out in any way and don’t see why it necessarily needs to be any more explicit until the inevitable big reveal.
Edit: I just remembered that, as you can see, my prior comment on this post was written after I read chapter 49 but before I learned that Quirrell == Voldemort.
Eliezer planted lots of clues about many facts that are never explicitly revealed, in such a way that noticing correct hypotheses is sufficient to confirm them upon observing enough of those little clues. Now, for some facts, it could be difficult to even locate them, but Quirrell=Voldemort seems to be a good hypothesis to entertain, even if it’s not apparently confirmed from any single passage, and it does get lots of evidence if you know to look for it.
How much of that is hindsight bias? Clues that show a specific hypothesis if you’ve located the hypothesis aren’t necessarily that helpful. For me at least, even knowing the that Q=V, and seeing the clues, they don’t intrinsically point to that. Most of them can be explained simply by the idea that Quirrell is subtle, evil, and likes corrupting people.
The biggest clue is the material about the Horcrux and if one hasn’t read the books that likely goes completely out the window. (In fact, if I were Eliezer, I’d have Harry find out about Horcruxes pretty soon to help the less knowledgable readers.)
Wait, were Horcruxes mentioned explicitly in the text anywhere so far? The one Horcrux we know about is only explicitly stated to be such in the author’s notes; at any rate, I didn’t figure out it was a Horcrux without reading them.
I concluded Q=V early on based on:
Quirrell seems to flip between two wildly different personalities
In canon, his body is housing Voldemort …which I found to be enough to conclude that he is being intermittently possessed by Voldemort. (OK actually I’m simplifying a little but I don’t think the other details are relevant.)
The only result for CTRL-F “horcrux” is in a private conversation between Dumbledore and McGonagall, and it doesn’t say what it is except that it belongs to Voldemort. Dumbledore does later tell Harry that Voldy achieved immortality through some scary rituals, but says nothing about the method other than that it involves a murder, so a canon-ignorant reader wouldn’t be able to make a confident connection. “Horcrux” could very well be Voldermort’s super-weapon, or a fancy term for “hideout”.
As for clues to Q=V that don’t rely on canon knowledge, the two biggest ones that come to mind are the sense of “doom” that Harry repeatedly perceives when coming physically near Quirrell (when something magical happens to Harry that is unusual or impossible even in the wizarding world, it’s safe to assume that it’s a consequence of his unique battle with Voldemort), and especially the tale he tells about Voldemort and the monastery, which despite his cover story of a deliberate “survivor” should make anyone raise an eyebrow.
On the other side, however, there is the fact that, in a marginally subtler way, Quirrell is NOT Voldemort. Everything we are told about Voldemort in MoR (at least part of which comes from reliable accounts) matches canon Voldemort and suggest an equally cartoonesque villain composed mostly of questionable motives, self-defeating pettiness and pointless cruelty, with zero PR skills and awful fashion sense, not to mention a certain fondness for the Idiot Ball. But if Quirrell is Voldemort, that requires Voldemort being not just far smarter and more patient, but possessing ambitions more sophisticated than being a Dark Lord on his Dark Throne in the land of Britain where the Shadows lie.
Which just so happened to have been the entire core of his character! For all functional and narrative purposes, whatever change Voldemort underwent when he turned into Quirrellmort was so drastic that we might as well say that he is no longer Voldemort.
Eliezer has previously written that a supervillain (meant to be defeated) might do more for world unity than just about anything else. (If the words “I did it thirty-five minutes ago” mean anything to you, you get the idea.)
It’s plausible that MoR Voldemort was a facade put up by Quirrell as part of a strategy to bring the wizarding world together and face the very real threat of Muggleborne nuclear war– and both his speech to Hogwarts and his private discussion with Harry make this more plausible.
However, it looks like the Boy-Who-Lived ruined his original plan somehow, and he’s trying Plan B now by mentoring Harry.
If Voldemort’s plan was to cause Britain to unite under a Mark of Britain killing Yermy Wibble and his family was a funny way to accomplish it.
Voldemort may have been operating under the same false assumption that Wibble was (that Wibble’s martyrdom would legitimize his ideas), but a villain that clever could have at least done some better PR work on Wibble during the seventies.
Note, too, that if V knew he could ‘die’ and then possess someone, and if he also believed his followers could only lose to a dictator who united magical Britain against them, then he likely figured it didn’t matter if they won or not.
Except we also have Dumbledore describing V as clever like Harry, or words to that effect. The two monastery stories seem consistent with this: first of all, canon!Voldemort would never have sought out a Muggle teacher at all. Second, the two stories together suggest that MoR!Voldemort got what he wanted and then returned without his disguise to get revenge, like he said Harry would do if Harry became like him. Also, what orthonormal said.
Edited to add: and come on, we know MoR!V killed Narcissa Malfoy. Draco told us himself to look at the result and ask who benefits. The plan surely broke an evil overlord rule or three, at least in spirit, but if V couldn’t get Lucius on his side he probably needed to kill the default leader of the pureblood faction anyway. And V, as a skilled Legilimens, could probably count on Lucius responding irrationally to his wife’s death one way or another.
The Law of Conservation of Detail (TV Tropes warning) implies that an important character who is subtle and evil (or even just subtle) has a substantial probability of being the villain.
I hadn’t read the original series either, and so at first I had no idea that Q=V except from the Author’s Notes; however, I suspect that by this point in the story I would have begun entertaining it seriously as a hypothesis. (And of course as long as the story is still being written, there’s always some chance Eliezer could change his mind.)
But there are a lot of subtle characters in HPMOR; Quirrell might be the most subtle and the most apparently evil, but he’s not the only one. That would imply that Harry, Dumbledore, and Lucius also have substantial probabilities of being the villain.
Edit: Then again… maybe that’s correct.
On the other hand, I think we’ve been told to expect most characters to be substantially smarter than their canon equivalents, and maybe this kind of subtle schemingness just comes automatically when you have a bunch of smart wizards who don’t trust each other and have potentially conflicting goals that they all take seriously as things-to-protect.
I wouldn’t mind one little bit if the story is structured like Lensmen, with several layers of villains that have to be discovered.
Admittedly, this is less likely in the wizarding world—the population is much lower than in a universe with multiple inhabited galaxies.
On the gripping hand, it would be really cool if Quirrel/Voldemort were a claw on a finger of a conspiracy of evil alien wizards. Presumably, Cthulhu is part of the middle layer.
However, while that gives evidence that Quirrel is the villain, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the villain (the one that is Quirrel) must be Voldemort.
Why does Quirrelmort even have to be a villain? Sure, he was terribly evil in canon, and in the back story, but he’s obviously been through some sort of magical transformative process, and that he may have made him redeemable. Killing Rita Skeeter is a pretty substantial mark against him, but we have very little idea what his real goals are.
He just tried to kill an innocent man, so that settles that.