But gwern’s description of Harry’s victory over Voldemort as a “black swan” doesn’t satisfy me. The canon explanation—that the Power of Love auto-defeats all dark magic, and either no one had ever noticed this before, or Voldemort just assumed no one would use that strategy despite its obvious game-winning power because Evil Cannot Comprehend Good—doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would cut it in Methods.
One remote possibility is that Voldemort realized he’d inspired so much hatred that he’d never be able to unite the magical world without first breaking its power so badly it would be useless to him, so he found a kid with Dark Lord potential, stuck enough of his soul into him that he felt in control, and then faked his own death in such a way as to make his chosen heir the sort of hero whom everyone would rally around. This is probably too complicated for a smart Slytherin who’d seen The Tragedy of Light to try, but there’s got to be some sort of weird explanation for why Voldemort lost ten years ago, and why he lost to a kid with precisely the sort of plotting ability and mastery of Muggle methodology Voldy needs for his plots.
Clearly happening in MoR, at least to some extent. AFAICT, Quirrel honestly can’t tell why Harry wouldn’t want to be a dark lord, and Draco’s completely incapable of grokking Harry’s motivations; pretty much whenever Draco tries he gets it wrong. Quirrell also won’t understand why Harry wouldn’t just flee, rather than sticking around to fix things.
Ooh, thanks for reminding me about Light in this context. I shall now be re-reading to determine if there’s evidence that Quirrell remembers being Voldemort, or whether he’s just been overwritten with V’s utility function and not his memories. We’re owed a few more Obliviation-based bombshells.
The story that Quirrell tells about Voldermort going to learn about martial arts strongly implies that Q has access to at least some of Voldemort’s memories.
I agree with your analysis.
But gwern’s description of Harry’s victory over Voldemort as a “black swan” doesn’t satisfy me. The canon explanation—that the Power of Love auto-defeats all dark magic, and either no one had ever noticed this before, or Voldemort just assumed no one would use that strategy despite its obvious game-winning power because Evil Cannot Comprehend Good—doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would cut it in Methods.
One remote possibility is that Voldemort realized he’d inspired so much hatred that he’d never be able to unite the magical world without first breaking its power so badly it would be useless to him, so he found a kid with Dark Lord potential, stuck enough of his soul into him that he felt in control, and then faked his own death in such a way as to make his chosen heir the sort of hero whom everyone would rally around. This is probably too complicated for a smart Slytherin who’d seen The Tragedy of Light to try, but there’s got to be some sort of weird explanation for why Voldemort lost ten years ago, and why he lost to a kid with precisely the sort of plotting ability and mastery of Muggle methodology Voldy needs for his plots.
Clearly happening in MoR, at least to some extent. AFAICT, Quirrel honestly can’t tell why Harry wouldn’t want to be a dark lord, and Draco’s completely incapable of grokking Harry’s motivations; pretty much whenever Draco tries he gets it wrong. Quirrell also won’t understand why Harry wouldn’t just flee, rather than sticking around to fix things.
Ooh, thanks for reminding me about Light in this context. I shall now be re-reading to determine if there’s evidence that Quirrell remembers being Voldemort, or whether he’s just been overwritten with V’s utility function and not his memories. We’re owed a few more Obliviation-based bombshells.
The story that Quirrell tells about Voldermort going to learn about martial arts strongly implies that Q has access to at least some of Voldemort’s memories.