I noticed something odd in chapter 17, which seems relevant:
Harry was rather confused. “But this could be important, yesterday I got this sudden sense of doom when—”
“Mr. Potter! I have a sense of doom as well! And my sense of doom is suggesting that you must not finish that sentence!”
…
“This isn’t like you!” Harry burst out. “I’m sorry but that just seems unbelievably irresponsible! From what I’ve heard there’s some kind of jinx on the Defense position, and if you already know something’s going to go wrong, I’d think you’d all be on your toes—”
…
“I see,” Harry said slowly, taking it all in. “So in other words, whatever’s wrong with Professor Quirrell, you desperately don’t want to know about it until the end of the school year. And since it’s currently September, he could assassinate the Prime Minister on live television and get away with it so far as you’re concerned.”
Professor McGonagall gazed at him unblinkingly. “I am certain that I could never be heard endorsing such a statement, Mr. Potter. At Hogwarts we strive to be proactive with respect to anything that threatens the educational attainment of our students.”
…
“Oh, I doubt that, Mr. Potter. I doubt that very much.” Professor McGonagall leaned forward, her face tightening again. “Since you and I have already discussed matters far more sensitive than these, I shall speak frankly. You, and you alone, have reported this mysterious sense of doom. You, and you alone, are a chaos magnet the likes of which I have never seen. After our little shopping trip to Diagon Alley, and then the Sorting Hat, and then today’s little episode, I can well foresee that I am fated to sit in the Headmaster’s office and hear some hilarious tale about Professor Quirrell in which you and you alone play a starring role, after which there will be no choice but to fire him. I am already resigned to it, Mr. Potter. And if this sad event takes place any earlier than the Ides of May, I will string you up by the gates of Hogwarts with your own intestines and pour fire beetles into your nose. Now do you understand me completely?”
As Harry observes, this exchange is extremely out of character for McGonagall. Telling Harry not to voice his concerns about Quirrel, I could believe; but cutting him off mid-sentence, and them making such a graphic, violent threat if he does, I can not. It is so out of character, in fact, that I think it must be a symptom of being Imperiused.
We know that Voldemort used to use Imperius quite a bit, and the only real reasons he might stop would be if someone figured out how to detect it (which hasn’t happened), or if his new form didn’t have the power. One Imperiused person rules out the second possibility, so if if Quirrelmort put an imperius on McGonagall, he has almost certainly used it elsewhere too.
Which brings us to Harry’s attempted breakout of Bellatrix. Breaking in to Azkaban to rescue Bellatrix Black, I could just barely believe. Pretending to be Voldemort while doing so, however, pushes credibility too far. From Chapter 52 to Chapter 54, Harry is Imperiused. There are just too many things stupid and suspicious about the plan to believe that Harry overlooked all of them.
And that brings us to the question of what Imperius actually does. And this, I think, explains the chapter title, “The Stanford Prison Experiment”, which otherwise seems not to fit at all. The conclusion of that famous experiment was that if you give someone a role—even a fake role, like a prison guard over subjects in a psychology experiment who are technically free to leave—then they adopt it as part of their identity, including the evil parts, and become blind to the wrong things they do as part of that identity. So perhaps that’s what Imperius does: it assigns its target a particular role, which their mind will bend to accommodate. That would also explain why the title was redacted for part 1, which takes place before the Imperius curse was cast.
Here are some abnormalities in Harry’s mind:
This was it, this was the day and the moment when Harry started acting the part.
And in another part of him, like he was just letting another part of his mind carry out a habit without paying much attention to it...
Professor Quirrell had instructed Harry, calmly and precisely, how he was to act in Bellatrix’s presence; how to form the pretense he would maintain in his mind.
The only problem with this theory, is that Harry believes that Quirrel can never use magic on him. His Patronus and Quirrel’s Aveda Kevadera certainly didn’t interact well, and there seems to be an issue if they touch. But the theory that they can never use magic on each other, seems to have appeared from nowhere; there is no evidence for it whatsoever, except the sense of doom. Perhaps that idea was planted, to make the idea that Harry was Imperiused seem less plausible?
And, sorry this has probably been gone over before, but why doesn’t Harry think about the sense of doom all that much? He keeps glossing over it as if he’s under a Somebody Else’s Problem type field. If he’s under some sort of mental power it’s likely causing both mistakes
I think the title was redacted in order to not give the game away too early, as in Chapter 9.
Maybe the magical incompatibility is real, and perhaps the dark social engineering behind the Stanford Prison Experiment relates to Chapter 16, Lateral Thinking. In Ch16, there’s almost the same words in all-caps dizzying his brain. It might be explained by the sense of doom and magical incompatibility. Also Ch16 has “Mr. Potter, I never said you were to kill. There is a time and a place for taking your enemy alive,...” If Quirrell senses similar doom on his side, framing Harry as the Dark Lord and almost capable of breaking his most trusted lieutenant out of Azkaban might be a cunning lateral-thinking plot to dispose of all but a fragment of his nemesis without using anything direct.
The business with Snake-Quirrell whispering instructions to Harry might suggest the Imperius Curse. In Rowling’s book #4, Moody casts the curse on students and that’s just what it’s like—verbal commands that are followed without question (unless you’re trained in resisting the curse). Bellatrix doesn’t seem to notice that Harrymort is talking to his snake. Perhaps Voldemort was known to do this all the time, but it could be because the instructions were being issued directly to Harry’s brain.
But the fact that they can’t cast magic on each other is a big obstacle for this theory. Of course, a key point in these chapters is that it’s possible to control somebody without ever Imperiusing them.
Under a certain reading Quirrell actually did get him to stop.
“My lord! You must stop it!” … “Please, my Lord!”
The words went unheard.
They were far from him, the Dementors in their pit, but Harry knew that they could be destroyed even at this distance if the light blazed bright enough, he knew that Death itself could not face him if he stopped holding back, so he unsealed all the gates inside him and sank the wells of his spell into all the deepest parts of his spirit, all his mind and all his will, and gave over absolutely everything to the spell -
And in the interior of the Sun, an only slightly dimmer shadow moved forward, reaching out an entreating hand.
WRONG
DON’T
The sudden sense of doom clashed with Harry’s steel determination, dread and uncertainty striving against the bright purpose, nothing else might have reached him but that.
If you had been watching from outside you would have seen the interior of the Sun brightening and dimming...
Brightening and dimming...
...and finally fading, fading, fading into ordinary moonlight that seemed like pitch darkness by contrast.
Within the darkness of that moonlight stood a sallow man with his hand outstretched in entreaty, and the skeleton of a woman, lying upon the floor, a puzzled look upon her face.
Where is that “WRONG. DONT.” coming from? Harry’s inner dialogue or Quirrell? Note that the sense of doom has been associated with Quirrell’s proximity since the start of the mission, and the “man reaching out in entreaty” is Quirrell. So maybe it actually only was by Quirrell’s influence that Harry was able to stop.
Anyway, I think the bit about them not being able to cast spells on each other (which is true-ish in canon) is a stronger argument. But other have pointed out how unusual it is that Harry would go along with any of this unless he was either being imperiused or mind-fucked by Quirrell.
Anyway, I think the bit about them not being able to cast spells on each other (which is true-ish in canon) is a stronger argument.
Probably, but EY is a tricky writer and can make me second guess everything.
It appears that the phrase “The sudden sense of doom clashed with Harry’s steel determination”, tells us what happened. The Quirrell doom field brought Harry to his senses. In that context “WRONG DON’T” appears to be Harry’s awakened response to what he is doing. Nothing seems to imply that Harry’s will is not his own.
However, the sense of doom suggests a connection between Harry and Quirrell. Based on canon this suggests Q=V, but I suppose it might also suggest that Quirrell has been Voldemort. The connection with Harry could be residual.
That special connection could be the source of “WRONG DON’T”. It implies that Quirrell has a subtle route to Harry’s mind that does not require the Imperius curse and that gets around Harry’s Occlumency. In canon Harry could sense Voldemort’s mood and occasionally see through his eyes.
So perhaps Quirrell is reading Harry’s mind and carefully manipulating him through the scar connection. This would help to explain Quirrell’s ability to make deductions from insufficient evidence.
Chapter 49, Prior Information:
There were times when Harry suspected that Professor Quirrell had way more background information than he was telling, his priors were simply too good.
I noticed something odd in chapter 17, which seems relevant:
As Harry observes, this exchange is extremely out of character for McGonagall. Telling Harry not to voice his concerns about Quirrel, I could believe; but cutting him off mid-sentence, and them making such a graphic, violent threat if he does, I can not. It is so out of character, in fact, that I think it must be a symptom of being Imperiused.
We know that Voldemort used to use Imperius quite a bit, and the only real reasons he might stop would be if someone figured out how to detect it (which hasn’t happened), or if his new form didn’t have the power. One Imperiused person rules out the second possibility, so if if Quirrelmort put an imperius on McGonagall, he has almost certainly used it elsewhere too.
Which brings us to Harry’s attempted breakout of Bellatrix. Breaking in to Azkaban to rescue Bellatrix Black, I could just barely believe. Pretending to be Voldemort while doing so, however, pushes credibility too far. From Chapter 52 to Chapter 54, Harry is Imperiused. There are just too many things stupid and suspicious about the plan to believe that Harry overlooked all of them.
And that brings us to the question of what Imperius actually does. And this, I think, explains the chapter title, “The Stanford Prison Experiment”, which otherwise seems not to fit at all. The conclusion of that famous experiment was that if you give someone a role—even a fake role, like a prison guard over subjects in a psychology experiment who are technically free to leave—then they adopt it as part of their identity, including the evil parts, and become blind to the wrong things they do as part of that identity. So perhaps that’s what Imperius does: it assigns its target a particular role, which their mind will bend to accommodate. That would also explain why the title was redacted for part 1, which takes place before the Imperius curse was cast.
Here are some abnormalities in Harry’s mind:
The only problem with this theory, is that Harry believes that Quirrel can never use magic on him. His Patronus and Quirrel’s Aveda Kevadera certainly didn’t interact well, and there seems to be an issue if they touch. But the theory that they can never use magic on each other, seems to have appeared from nowhere; there is no evidence for it whatsoever, except the sense of doom. Perhaps that idea was planted, to make the idea that Harry was Imperiused seem less plausible?
And, sorry this has probably been gone over before, but why doesn’t Harry think about the sense of doom all that much? He keeps glossing over it as if he’s under a Somebody Else’s Problem type field. If he’s under some sort of mental power it’s likely causing both mistakes
I think the title was redacted in order to not give the game away too early, as in Chapter 9.
Maybe the magical incompatibility is real, and perhaps the dark social engineering behind the Stanford Prison Experiment relates to Chapter 16, Lateral Thinking. In Ch16, there’s almost the same words in all-caps dizzying his brain. It might be explained by the sense of doom and magical incompatibility. Also Ch16 has “Mr. Potter, I never said you were to kill. There is a time and a place for taking your enemy alive,...” If Quirrell senses similar doom on his side, framing Harry as the Dark Lord and almost capable of breaking his most trusted lieutenant out of Azkaban might be a cunning lateral-thinking plot to dispose of all but a fragment of his nemesis without using anything direct.
Hmm.. it seems clear that the “sense of doom” is important. Possibly even an indicator that one is being imperius’d—if these theories are correct.
The business with Snake-Quirrell whispering instructions to Harry might suggest the Imperius Curse. In Rowling’s book #4, Moody casts the curse on students and that’s just what it’s like—verbal commands that are followed without question (unless you’re trained in resisting the curse). Bellatrix doesn’t seem to notice that Harrymort is talking to his snake. Perhaps Voldemort was known to do this all the time, but it could be because the instructions were being issued directly to Harry’s brain.
But the fact that they can’t cast magic on each other is a big obstacle for this theory. Of course, a key point in these chapters is that it’s possible to control somebody without ever Imperiusing them.
When Harry powered up his Patronus, Quirrell was not able to get him to stop verbally. This suggests that Harry is not Imperiused.
Under a certain reading Quirrell actually did get him to stop.
Where is that “WRONG. DONT.” coming from? Harry’s inner dialogue or Quirrell? Note that the sense of doom has been associated with Quirrell’s proximity since the start of the mission, and the “man reaching out in entreaty” is Quirrell. So maybe it actually only was by Quirrell’s influence that Harry was able to stop.
Anyway, I think the bit about them not being able to cast spells on each other (which is true-ish in canon) is a stronger argument. But other have pointed out how unusual it is that Harry would go along with any of this unless he was either being imperiused or mind-fucked by Quirrell.
Probably, but EY is a tricky writer and can make me second guess everything.
It appears that the phrase “The sudden sense of doom clashed with Harry’s steel determination”, tells us what happened. The Quirrell doom field brought Harry to his senses. In that context “WRONG DON’T” appears to be Harry’s awakened response to what he is doing. Nothing seems to imply that Harry’s will is not his own.
However, the sense of doom suggests a connection between Harry and Quirrell. Based on canon this suggests Q=V, but I suppose it might also suggest that Quirrell has been Voldemort. The connection with Harry could be residual.
That special connection could be the source of “WRONG DON’T”. It implies that Quirrell has a subtle route to Harry’s mind that does not require the Imperius curse and that gets around Harry’s Occlumency. In canon Harry could sense Voldemort’s mood and occasionally see through his eyes.
So perhaps Quirrell is reading Harry’s mind and carefully manipulating him through the scar connection. This would help to explain Quirrell’s ability to make deductions from insufficient evidence.
Chapter 49, Prior Information:
You have to remember the fact that the Imperius curse can be resisted in canon. There’s no reason for that to not apply here.