To be fair here, there was a diegetic reason Harry couldn’t just kill him (hundreds of horcruxes in unknown locations), so really it was between crucio’ing him into insanity vs obliviating him; both are equally effective so the crucio would’ve been just torturing him for fun, which Harry didn’t want to do. (Also he did feel really bad about the Death Eaters the next day when he found out he’d killed like half the Slytherins’ parents including Draco’s, though admittedly he seemed to find Draco’s sorrow in particular the most upsetting.)
I acknowledge there is an in-universe explanation, but I have two responses.
The first is the fact that there is a reason Harry can’t just kill Quirrell doesn’t affect the overall vibe and ethos of the scene. I’m not trying to critique specific plot holes,[1] but instead to point to something different in that bullet point. It acts as a deflection and distraction, a Sunshine-glorified backtracking that’s thematically inappropriate because it doesn’t fit with the literal text of what Chapter 114 was about previously.
But secondly, and more importantly, this unfortunately just leads to the problem I mentioned in the final bullet point. Namely that it turns this entire interaction, this interpersonal conflict, this moment of narrative tension… into yet another Puzzle with External Constraints that must be Solved through Intelligence. It once again glorifies the only actual virtue worth the piece of paper it’s printed on in the world of HPMOR,[2] and once again depersonalizes the scenario and has the main character overcome something extrinsic instead of confronting his own flaws/fears/uncertainties.
It wouldn’t be particularly fun to do that, and it would come across as nitpicky. Separately, I acknowledge that HPMOR, as the nerdy story it is, tries quite hard (and generally succeeds!) to maintain good internal logic
To be fair here, there was a diegetic reason Harry couldn’t just kill him (hundreds of horcruxes in unknown locations), so really it was between crucio’ing him into insanity vs obliviating him; both are equally effective so the crucio would’ve been just torturing him for fun, which Harry didn’t want to do. (Also he did feel really bad about the Death Eaters the next day when he found out he’d killed like half the Slytherins’ parents including Draco’s, though admittedly he seemed to find Draco’s sorrow in particular the most upsetting.)
I acknowledge there is an in-universe explanation, but I have two responses.
The first is the fact that there is a reason Harry can’t just kill Quirrell doesn’t affect the overall vibe and ethos of the scene. I’m not trying to critique specific plot holes,[1] but instead to point to something different in that bullet point. It acts as a deflection and distraction, a Sunshine-glorified backtracking that’s thematically inappropriate because it doesn’t fit with the literal text of what Chapter 114 was about previously.
But secondly, and more importantly, this unfortunately just leads to the problem I mentioned in the final bullet point. Namely that it turns this entire interaction, this interpersonal conflict, this moment of narrative tension… into yet another Puzzle with External Constraints that must be Solved through Intelligence. It once again glorifies the only actual virtue worth the piece of paper it’s printed on in the world of HPMOR,[2] and once again depersonalizes the scenario and has the main character overcome something extrinsic instead of confronting his own flaws/fears/uncertainties.
It wouldn’t be particularly fun to do that, and it would come across as nitpicky. Separately, I acknowledge that HPMOR, as the nerdy story it is, tries quite hard (and generally succeeds!) to maintain good internal logic
Namely intelligence