A matter with the Comed-Tea that was bugging me for a while:
Chapter 14:
SO THAT’S HOW THE COMED-TEA WORKS! Of course! The spell doesn’t force funny events to happen, it just makes you feel an impulse to drink right before funny things are going to happen anyway!
Hypotheses: Comed-Tea on person = impulse to drink, Comed-Tea not on person = no impulse to drink.
According to Chapter 12:
Harry couldn’t help but feel the urge to drink another Comed-Tea.
(And when he didn’t...)
Harry inhaled his own saliva and went into a coughing fit just as all eyes turned toward him.
So no matter what, even if you don’t end up drinking it, you will get the Impulse before something funny happens.
Chapter 46:
I have been saving them for special occasions; there is a minor enchantment on them to ensure they are drunk at the right time. This is the last of my supply, but I do not think there will ever come a finer occasion.
So Harry has used up all of his Comed-Tea.
(edit: it appears that Harry actually has tons left unless he’s not mentioning some he drank/gave away, look at bottom of post)
...
WHY? WHYYY?!
It is apparent that you’ll still get the impulse to drink whether or not you do end up drinking. So why didn’t he save a can he’s never ever going to drink?
Even if Harry will end up choking on his saliva, wouldn’t the early notification of something ridiculous happening be helpful to him in any way? Like… it’d be an early warning to be prepared for whatever another person could say/do in conversation. Or if he’s looking for interesting information, say from the library, he can just walk by all the shelves until he gets the Impulse—that’d be an indicator that he’s near the shelf that has the interesting book. There might be more uses.
Chapter 14:
Thankfully, Harry’s panicking brain remembered at this point that he did have something he’d been planning to discuss with Professor McGonagall. Something important and well worth her time.
It was at this point that Harry realized he was faced with a priceless and possibly irreplaceable opportunity to offer Professor McGonagall a Comed-Tea and he couldn’t believe he was seriously thinking that and it would be fine the soda would vanish after a few seconds and he told that part of himself to shut up.
The charm even works for other people. If, for example, Harry wishes to test whether or not someone knows that Voldemort is alive, he could see if he has the Impulse to give that person a drink, all while thinking about saying that “The Dark Lord is still alive”. If he gets the Impulse, they don’t know. If he doesn’t, then they already know/has been suspecting that he’s been alive.
Chapter 8:
The boy reached into his pouch and said, “can of soda”, retrieving a bright green cylinder. He held it out to her and said, “Can I offer you something to drink?”
Hermione politely accepted the soda. In fact she was feeling sort of thirsty by now.
In fact, just asking, “Are you feeling thirsty?” seems to be enough to trigger the charm’s apparent spit-taking powers. Harry could think about talking about Voldemort, and ask if the other person’s thirsty. If yes, they would take whatever he’s going to say as a surprise, if no, then they won’t. Geebus this thing is powerful.
edit: actually, I’m going to check the text and see Harry actually used up his supply. Be right back.
Chapter 7:
“Two dozen cans please.” (24)
He tossed a can to Draco and then started feeding his pouch… (23)
(Harry’s drinking one too) (22)
Harry snarled, threw the can violently into a nearby garbage can, and talked back over to the vendor. “One copy of The Quibbler, please.” He paid over four more Knuts, retrieved another can of Comed-Tea from his pouch… (21)
Chapter 8:
The boy reached into his pouch and said, “can of soda”, retrieving a bright green cylinder. He held it out to her and said, “Can I offer you something to drink?” (20)
Chapter 12:
Harry reached into his pouch and whispered, “Comed-Tea”. (19)
Chapter 46:
“Three sodas.” (16)
Nevermind, Harry lied, he still has tons unless he’s been drinking them and not mentioning it. However the Comed-Tea hasn’t been mentioned since, so it might actually be all gone.
“I’m feeling thirsty,” Harry said, “and that is not at all a good sign.”
Dumbledore entirely failed to ask any questions about this cryptic statement.
He doesn’t seem to choke after this, but there follow several occasions where might have, had he been drinking. Anyway, the sentence means he kind of does use the Comed-Tea to kind-of-sort-of-predict the future, albeit not systematically.
Regarding the counting, his line in chapter 14 might be meant to suggest he had been doing more experiments “not on camera”. There are only three occasions where he’s seen using it until then; he shouldn’t have been that frustrated about the explanation after that few tries.
If, for example, Harry wishes to test whether or not someone knows that Voldemort is alive, he could see if he has the Impulse to give that person a drink, all while thinking about saying that “The Dark Lord is still alive”. If he gets the Impulse, they don’t know. If he doesn’t, then they already know/has been suspecting that he’s been alive.
Unless he actually followed through with saying that Voldemort is still alive, this wouldn’t be enough.
What if he actually planned on going through with saying “The Dark Lord is still alive”, but got Silencio’d by an invisible time-turned Harry he wasn’t aware of right as he’s about to say it? It’d be obvious, but at least he wouldn’t actually release the secret?
Harry could still get a false negative. Remember, Harry will feel the impulse to offer a drink to Alice if and only if if Alice is about to be surprised. So not feeling an impulse to offer her a drink would indicate that either that Alice would not be surprised that Voldemort is alive, or that Harry will not actually end up telling her.
Harry could still get a false negative. Remember, Harry will feel the impulse to offer a drink to Alice if and only if if Alice is about to be surprised.
Again, we don’t know that. The soda working in two steps as you seem to suggest (detecting future surprise, then determining whether that surprise is sufficient to cause soda spitting when drunk at the right time) is consistent with what we know about the soda. But that’s not the only possibility consistent with what we know. The soda could also work in a single step and detect whether soda drunk at various points would be spit, without directly detecting surprise at all.
Regardless of the reason for the spit Harry would still have to follow through with whatever that is for the signal to be sent back in time to cause the urge to drink. Otherwise it would be like Harry escaping from that locked classroom after Draco tortured him without then going back in time and sending the Professor to let him out.
So from what we know of Quirrell, it would be just like him (having recently learned about Comed-Tea) to have a policy of spitting out soda that he drinks, so that no one gains information on whether or not he is surprised.
You are right, those are both possibilities. Though, one of them has been explicitly presented by the author, and endorsed by Harry. I don’t think we have much reason to doubt the canonical interpretation.
“SO THAT’S HOW THE COMED-TEA WORKS! Of course! The spell doesn’t force funny events to happen, it just makes you feel an impulse to drink right before funny things are going to happen anyway! I’m such a fool, I should have realized when I felt the impulse to drink the Comed-Tea before Dumbledore’s second speech, didn’t drink it, and then choked on my own saliva instead—drinking the Comed-Tea doesn’t cause the comedy, the comedy causes you to drink the Comed-Tea! I saw the two events were correlated and assumed the Comed-Tea had to be the cause and the comedy had to be the effect because I thought temporal order restrained causation and causal graphs had to be acyclic BUT IT ALL MAKES SENSE ONCE YOU DRAW THE CAUSAL ARROWS GOING BACKWARDS IN TIME!”
I interpreted Comed-tea as the simplest example of backwards causality—an event A causing event B, where A occurs /after/ B in time. Eliezer introduced Comed-Tea to make the point that the HPMoR universe does not operate by what we imagine to be standard causality rules.
I suspect that, the same way that messing with Time somehow results in a message saying “NO”, it would be similarly impossible to commit to drinking Comed Tea.
A matter with the Comed-Tea that was bugging me for a while:
Chapter 14:
Hypotheses: Comed-Tea on person = impulse to drink, Comed-Tea not on person = no impulse to drink.
According to Chapter 12:
So no matter what, even if you don’t end up drinking it, you will get the Impulse before something funny happens.
Chapter 46:
So Harry has used up all of his Comed-Tea. (edit: it appears that Harry actually has tons left unless he’s not mentioning some he drank/gave away, look at bottom of post)
...
WHY? WHYYY?!
It is apparent that you’ll still get the impulse to drink whether or not you do end up drinking. So why didn’t he save a can he’s never ever going to drink?
Even if Harry will end up choking on his saliva, wouldn’t the early notification of something ridiculous happening be helpful to him in any way? Like… it’d be an early warning to be prepared for whatever another person could say/do in conversation. Or if he’s looking for interesting information, say from the library, he can just walk by all the shelves until he gets the Impulse—that’d be an indicator that he’s near the shelf that has the interesting book. There might be more uses.
Chapter 14:
The charm even works for other people. If, for example, Harry wishes to test whether or not someone knows that Voldemort is alive, he could see if he has the Impulse to give that person a drink, all while thinking about saying that “The Dark Lord is still alive”. If he gets the Impulse, they don’t know. If he doesn’t, then they already know/has been suspecting that he’s been alive.
Chapter 8:
In fact, just asking, “Are you feeling thirsty?” seems to be enough to trigger the charm’s apparent spit-taking powers. Harry could think about talking about Voldemort, and ask if the other person’s thirsty. If yes, they would take whatever he’s going to say as a surprise, if no, then they won’t. Geebus this thing is powerful.
edit: actually, I’m going to check the text and see Harry actually used up his supply. Be right back.
Chapter 7: “Two dozen cans please.” (24) He tossed a can to Draco and then started feeding his pouch… (23) (Harry’s drinking one too) (22) Harry snarled, threw the can violently into a nearby garbage can, and talked back over to the vendor. “One copy of The Quibbler, please.” He paid over four more Knuts, retrieved another can of Comed-Tea from his pouch… (21)
Chapter 8: The boy reached into his pouch and said, “can of soda”, retrieving a bright green cylinder. He held it out to her and said, “Can I offer you something to drink?” (20)
Chapter 12: Harry reached into his pouch and whispered, “Comed-Tea”. (19)
Chapter 46: “Three sodas.” (16)
Nevermind, Harry lied, he still has tons unless he’s been drinking them and not mentioning it. However the Comed-Tea hasn’t been mentioned since, so it might actually be all gone.
Chapter 17:
He doesn’t seem to choke after this, but there follow several occasions where might have, had he been drinking. Anyway, the sentence means he kind of does use the Comed-Tea to kind-of-sort-of-predict the future, albeit not systematically.
Regarding the counting, his line in chapter 14 might be meant to suggest he had been doing more experiments “not on camera”. There are only three occasions where he’s seen using it until then; he shouldn’t have been that frustrated about the explanation after that few tries.
Unless he actually followed through with saying that Voldemort is still alive, this wouldn’t be enough.
What if he actually planned on going through with saying “The Dark Lord is still alive”, but got Silencio’d by an invisible time-turned Harry he wasn’t aware of right as he’s about to say it? It’d be obvious, but at least he wouldn’t actually release the secret?
We don’t know that, committing to saying Vldemort is alive conditional on actually giving them a can might suffice.
Harry could still get a false negative. Remember, Harry will feel the impulse to offer a drink to Alice if and only if if Alice is about to be surprised. So not feeling an impulse to offer her a drink would indicate that either that Alice would not be surprised that Voldemort is alive, or that Harry will not actually end up telling her.
Again, we don’t know that. The soda working in two steps as you seem to suggest (detecting future surprise, then determining whether that surprise is sufficient to cause soda spitting when drunk at the right time) is consistent with what we know about the soda. But that’s not the only possibility consistent with what we know. The soda could also work in a single step and detect whether soda drunk at various points would be spit, without directly detecting surprise at all.
Regardless of the reason for the spit Harry would still have to follow through with whatever that is for the signal to be sent back in time to cause the urge to drink. Otherwise it would be like Harry escaping from that locked classroom after Draco tortured him without then going back in time and sending the Professor to let him out.
So from what we know of Quirrell, it would be just like him (having recently learned about Comed-Tea) to have a policy of spitting out soda that he drinks, so that no one gains information on whether or not he is surprised.
You are right, those are both possibilities. Though, one of them has been explicitly presented by the author, and endorsed by Harry. I don’t think we have much reason to doubt the canonical interpretation.
Earlier thoughts on Comed-Tea here
I interpreted Comed-tea as the simplest example of backwards causality—an event A causing event B, where A occurs /after/ B in time. Eliezer introduced Comed-Tea to make the point that the HPMoR universe does not operate by what we imagine to be standard causality rules.
I suspect that, the same way that messing with Time somehow results in a message saying “NO”, it would be similarly impossible to commit to drinking Comed Tea.
You know, that is a really good idea.