This chapter confirms earlier speculations that horcruxes work by making backup copies of brain states (with the caveat that actually using the horcrux will merge its memories and personality with those of its host body, resulting in a hybrid entity). The theory that Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres is an instance of Tom Riddle (or, rather, a hybrid of Tom Riddle and the original Harry Potter) now seems very, very probable. It explains why Harry is as smart as Tom’s other instances (the original Riddle/Monroe/Voldemort and the Quirrell/Riddle hybrid), and why the remember-ball glowed like the sun (Harry forgot Riddle’s memories because he was too young to remember them).
I learned of the horcrux sspell ssince long ago.
Parseltongue has a word for “horcrux”?
Death iss not truly gainssaid. Real sself is losst, as you ssay. Not to my pressent tasste. Admit I conssidered it, long ago.
Voldemort used horcruxes, obviously (that’s what the five hidden items in the elemental pattern are), but between the missing memories and the hybridization Quirrellmort doesn’t consider them to be worth the trouble. Keep in mind that there is a nice theory about not being able to lie in parseltongue.
Not like certain people living in certain countries, who were, it was said, as human as anyone else; who were said to be sapient beings, worth more than any mere unicorn. But who nonetheless wouldn’t be allowed to live in Muggle Britain. On that score, at least, no Muggle had the right to look a wizard in the eye. Magical Britain might discriminate against Muggleborns, but at least it allowed them inside so they could be spat upon in person.
I suppose open borders and unrestricted immigration are in-keeping with Harry’s character as a utilitarian who tries to assign equal value to each and every human life.
Also, won’t Quirrell die of transfiguration sickness if he drinks the blood of transfigured Rarity?
the blood must come from a live unicorn and the unicorn must die in the drinking
Quirrell doesn’t have a very large window in which to drink the blood.
More to the point, wouldn’t particulate matter, other fluids, other bits of the unicorn pollute the blood as a result of the transfiguration? I could see the blood itself fixing that issue, but in the case of another fluid in a similar situation, I could see the drinker getting sick (if not to the degree that the animal did).
I may not be understanding how transfiguration sickness works exactly.
Quirrell doesn’t have a very large window in which to drink the blood.
According to this he should have plenty of time:
“Is it possible to Transfigure a living subject into a target that is static, such as a coin—no, excuse me, I’m terribly sorry, let’s just say a steel ball.”
Professor McGonagall shook her head. “Mr. Potter, even inanimate objects undergo small internal changes over time. There would be no visible changes to your body afterwards, and for the first minute, you would notice nothing wrong. But in an hour you would be sick, and in a day you would be dead.”
This presumably means don’t transfigure anything into food. However it could also be interpreted to mean, don’t transfigure food into anything. I am somewhat disappointed in McGonagall for not catching that ambiguity.
Also Quirrell is not a recognized transfiguration authority:
“If I am not sure whether a Transfiguration is safe, I will not try it until I have asked Professor McGonagall or Professor Flitwick or Professor Snape or the Headmaster, who are the only recognised authorities on Transfiguration at Hogwarts. Asking another student is not acceptable, even if they say that they remember asking the same question.”
“Even if the current Defence Professor at Hogwarts tells me that a Transfiguration is safe, and even if I see the Defence Professor do it and nothing bad seems to happen, I will not try it myself.”
However since Quirrells past is unknown (as far as Hogwarts is concerned) he could be one of the best transfigures in the world and he wouldn’t be recognized as an authority. Also I don’t see Quirrell neglecting something as useful and versatile as transfiguration, so I would expect him to know how dangerous eating formerly transfigured food is.
That, and “the current Defence Professor” refers to a different person each year. She’s giving the students a whitelist of people who are an authority, and drawing a bright line of no one being an authority unless explicitly being on the list.
Transfiguration sickness isn’t because things turn into poison. Your body goes into a transfigured state, minor changes occur, and when you come back from that state things are different. It’d be tiny things. Huge problems would cause you to die instantly, but little transcription errors would kill you in the timeframe described.
Eg, your veins wouldn’t match up right. The DNA in your cells would be just a little bit off and you’d get spontaneous cancer in your entire body. Some small percent of neurotransmitters and hormones would be transformed into slightly different ones… etc. None of that would be contagious or even harmful to somebody consuming it. But to the animal itself it’d be devastating.
Also remember that once the transfiguration reverts and you’re back to yourself, you’re in a stable state. The only issue is that you’re not back together perfectly. Quirrell would only get sick if he drank the blood while it was transfigured and then it changed form while inside of him.
Death iss not truly gainssaid. Real sself is losst, as you ssay. Not to my pressent tasste. Admit I conssidered it, long ago.
It’s still not a lie.
He considered it long ago and then he did it. He doesn’t want to try it again because he’s already got some and/or they wouldn’t fix his current situation. Literally truthful but appropriately misleading.
Right. These are further evidence that the language was constructed or at least heavily influenced by humans, and is not snakes’ original natural language.
Voldemort used horcruxes, obviously (that’s what the five hidden items in the elemental pattern are)
I would hesitate to call this “obviously”. Certainly, there’s the Pioneer plaque, but as for the elemental pattern, all we actually have is Quirrell remarking on the fact that Harry’s ideas have an elemental pattern, and Harry himself failing to realise it. There’s nary a hint that Harry’s guesses correspond to anything that actually happened.
Keep in mind that there is a nice theory about not being able to lie in parseltongue.
What’s that theory?
I suppose open borders and unrestricted immigration are in-keeping with Harry’s character as a utilitarian who tries to assign equal value to each and every human life.
And yet, Hogwarts won’t take in Muggleborn from outside Britain. And an early chapter mentioned “lands where Muggleborn children received no letters” (quoting from memory).
There would have to be a very narrow definition of “lie” for this to not qualify:
“Correct lessson iss to follow ssteps laid down for you by older and wisser Sslytherin, tame your wild impulssess.”
Also, besides doubling the s’s, EY denotes Parseltongue with violations of English grammar. This sentence is missing “the” at the beginning, the sentence “Will not sspeak of planss beyond thiss” lacks a subject, etc. If the “no lies” rules depends on precise parsing, it’s odd that the grammar is so lax. If this is supposed to represent just a loose translation into English, and the “no lies” rules applies to the precise wording, rather than the general meaning, then we can’t really know what’s true.
Also, Magical Britain keeps Muggles out, going so far as to enforce this by not even allowing Muggles to know that Magical Britain exists. I highly doubt that Muggle Britain would do that to potential illegal immigrants even if it did have the technology...
It iss called—” and Harry stopped, as he realized that he did know how to say the word in Parseltongue. “Horcrux.
If you wondered why the book explicitly calls out that Harry knows the word Horcrux in Parseltongue, here’s some background.
Harry has not learned the English word for Horcrux. He knows that unnamed Horcrux-like things exist, and he has heard the word “Horcrux” and made a mental note to look it up, but he hasn’t connected the concept to the English name.
How can you write about Horcruxes in third person limited if Harry does not know the word? If you just use the raw word Horcrux without explanation, persnickety readers will concoct elaborate theories about Harry researching Horcruxes off-camera. Calling out that Harry knows the word Horcrux in parseltongue—and by implication not in English—may keep persnickety readers at bay.
That doesn’t make any sense. If Harry didn’t think he knew the word in English, he wouldn’t start ‘It is called...’ and then break off as the Parseltongue word comes to mind and he doesn’t have to lapse back into English. He would say something like ‘I’m not sure what exactly the ritual is called -’
If you just use the raw word Horcrux without explanation, persnickety readers will concoct elaborate theories about Harry researching Horcruxes off-camera.
Yes, elaborate theories based on Harry doing what he said he would do in chapter 86:
Harry mentally noted down the word ‘horcrux’ for future research
Hardly a stretch that he encountered a few hints in books and went ‘oh, the dark ritual which confers immortality and something bad Moody thinks Voldemort made while he was alive are the same thing’, even if he’d never read about Koschei the Deathless or D&D’s liches.
There are few ways the word Horcrux could come out of Harry’s mouth that I would not take as evidence for Harry doing outside research. It would take non-trivial circumlocutions to indicate that Harry doesn’t know what the English word Horcrux means. Such circumlocutions appear in the text. The best reason I can think of for those circumlocutions to appear in the text is to prevent people like me from inferring too much from Harry’s vocabulary choice. There are alternatives explanations, like hinting that Salazar invented Horcruxes, but they seem less likely to me.
It would take non-trivial circumlocutions to indicate that Harry doesn’t know what the English word Horcrux means.
And what circumlocutions are those, exactly? Because in the passage quoted, I see a straightforward explanation of the ritual and a naming in English (with the unexpected result that he knew the English word’s equivalent in Parseltongue too).
One interpretation is that his language production module generated the sentence “It is called Horcrux”, and his conscious mind, in the midst of him saying this sentence, became aware of the fact that he knows the Parseltongue word.
Keep in mind that there is a nice theory about not being able to lie in parseltongue.
This line reminded me that Quirrel’s frequent transitions from man to snake and back seemed odd to me when I was reading. I went back to see if any of what he said after transitioning back to a man was a good candidate for a direct lie that he couldn’t tell as a snake. But I didn’t find anything. Most of what he said was phrased as speculation, rather than direct statements.
but between the missing memories and the hybridization Quirrellmort doesn’t consider them to be worth the trouble. Keep in mind that there is a nice theory about not being able to lie in parseltongue.
I’m not convinced of the theory. Very tenuous and circumstantial, and not part of canon, AFAIK.
I expect anything Quirrell says to be a mix of half truths.
This chapter confirms earlier speculations that horcruxes work by making backup copies of brain states (with the caveat that actually using the horcrux will merge its memories and personality with those of its host body, resulting in a hybrid entity). The theory that Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres is an instance of Tom Riddle (or, rather, a hybrid of Tom Riddle and the original Harry Potter) now seems very, very probable. It explains why Harry is as smart as Tom’s other instances (the original Riddle/Monroe/Voldemort and the Quirrell/Riddle hybrid), and why the remember-ball glowed like the sun (Harry forgot Riddle’s memories because he was too young to remember them).
Parseltongue has a word for “horcrux”?
Voldemort used horcruxes, obviously (that’s what the five hidden items in the elemental pattern are), but between the missing memories and the hybridization Quirrellmort doesn’t consider them to be worth the trouble. Keep in mind that there is a nice theory about not being able to lie in parseltongue.
I suppose open borders and unrestricted immigration are in-keeping with Harry’s character as a utilitarian who tries to assign equal value to each and every human life.
Also, won’t Quirrell die of transfiguration sickness if he drinks the blood of transfigured Rarity?
No, the unicorn will, but by the time Quirrell drinks it blood it won’t be transfigured any more, so he will be fine.
From chapter 100:
Quirrell doesn’t have a very large window in which to drink the blood.
More to the point, wouldn’t particulate matter, other fluids, other bits of the unicorn pollute the blood as a result of the transfiguration? I could see the blood itself fixing that issue, but in the case of another fluid in a similar situation, I could see the drinker getting sick (if not to the degree that the animal did).
I may not be understanding how transfiguration sickness works exactly.
EDIT: formatting
According to this he should have plenty of time:
hpmor ch15
From the transfiguration rules:
hpmor ch15
This presumably means don’t transfigure anything into food. However it could also be interpreted to mean, don’t transfigure food into anything. I am somewhat disappointed in McGonagall for not catching that ambiguity.
Also Quirrell is not a recognized transfiguration authority:
hpmor ch15
However since Quirrells past is unknown (as far as Hogwarts is concerned) he could be one of the best transfigures in the world and he wouldn’t be recognized as an authority. Also I don’t see Quirrell neglecting something as useful and versatile as transfiguration, so I would expect him to know how dangerous eating formerly transfigured food is.
I think McGonagall doubts Quirrell’s goodness more than his knowledge.
That, and “the current Defence Professor” refers to a different person each year. She’s giving the students a whitelist of people who are an authority, and drawing a bright line of no one being an authority unless explicitly being on the list.
Transfiguration sickness isn’t because things turn into poison. Your body goes into a transfigured state, minor changes occur, and when you come back from that state things are different. It’d be tiny things. Huge problems would cause you to die instantly, but little transcription errors would kill you in the timeframe described.
Eg, your veins wouldn’t match up right. The DNA in your cells would be just a little bit off and you’d get spontaneous cancer in your entire body. Some small percent of neurotransmitters and hormones would be transformed into slightly different ones… etc. None of that would be contagious or even harmful to somebody consuming it. But to the animal itself it’d be devastating.
Also remember that once the transfiguration reverts and you’re back to yourself, you’re in a stable state. The only issue is that you’re not back together perfectly. Quirrell would only get sick if he drank the blood while it was transfigured and then it changed form while inside of him.
It’s still not a lie.
He considered it long ago and then he did it. He doesn’t want to try it again because he’s already got some and/or they wouldn’t fix his current situation. Literally truthful but appropriately misleading.
If Salazar Slytherin did indeed created Parseltongue, it’s not that unlikely. Slytherin knew various powerful Dark Magics.
Other words you wouldn’t expect snakes to use: ritual, schoolmaster, spell, sacrifice, world, meaningless, murder, obscuration, device, continuity, Merlin’s freaking Interdict...
yeah.
But most of those you’d expect Salazar Slytherin to use when talking to, say, an ancient snake guarding all his dark secrets.
Right. These are further evidence that the language was constructed or at least heavily influenced by humans, and is not snakes’ original natural language.
I would hesitate to call this “obviously”. Certainly, there’s the Pioneer plaque, but as for the elemental pattern, all we actually have is Quirrell remarking on the fact that Harry’s ideas have an elemental pattern, and Harry himself failing to realise it. There’s nary a hint that Harry’s guesses correspond to anything that actually happened.
What’s that theory?
And yet, Hogwarts won’t take in Muggleborn from outside Britain. And an early chapter mentioned “lands where Muggleborn children received no letters” (quoting from memory).
These threads. At this point I’m pretty much convinced that the theory is correct.
There would have to be a very narrow definition of “lie” for this to not qualify:
“Correct lessson iss to follow ssteps laid down for you by older and wisser Sslytherin, tame your wild impulssess.”
Also, besides doubling the s’s, EY denotes Parseltongue with violations of English grammar. This sentence is missing “the” at the beginning, the sentence “Will not sspeak of planss beyond thiss” lacks a subject, etc. If the “no lies” rules depends on precise parsing, it’s odd that the grammar is so lax. If this is supposed to represent just a loose translation into English, and the “no lies” rules applies to the precise wording, rather than the general meaning, then we can’t really know what’s true.
Also, Magical Britain keeps Muggles out, going so far as to enforce this by not even allowing Muggles to know that Magical Britain exists. I highly doubt that Muggle Britain would do that to potential illegal immigrants even if it did have the technology...
That’s just selection bias. You wouldn’t know about it if they did.
Did you just spill the secret? You’re never going to get Muggle Atlantis citizenship now.
In reference to:
If you wondered why the book explicitly calls out that Harry knows the word Horcrux in Parseltongue, here’s some background.
Harry has not learned the English word for Horcrux. He knows that unnamed Horcrux-like things exist, and he has heard the word “Horcrux” and made a mental note to look it up, but he hasn’t connected the concept to the English name.
How can you write about Horcruxes in third person limited if Harry does not know the word? If you just use the raw word Horcrux without explanation, persnickety readers will concoct elaborate theories about Harry researching Horcruxes off-camera. Calling out that Harry knows the word Horcrux in parseltongue—and by implication not in English—may keep persnickety readers at bay.
That doesn’t make any sense. If Harry didn’t think he knew the word in English, he wouldn’t start ‘It is called...’ and then break off as the Parseltongue word comes to mind and he doesn’t have to lapse back into English. He would say something like ‘I’m not sure what exactly the ritual is called -’
Yes, elaborate theories based on Harry doing what he said he would do in chapter 86:
Hardly a stretch that he encountered a few hints in books and went ‘oh, the dark ritual which confers immortality and something bad Moody thinks Voldemort made while he was alive are the same thing’, even if he’d never read about Koschei the Deathless or D&D’s liches.
Has Harry read about Koschei the Deathless? He does know about liches. Chapter 94 initially contained the line:
which was edited a few hours after posting to:
There are few ways the word Horcrux could come out of Harry’s mouth that I would not take as evidence for Harry doing outside research. It would take non-trivial circumlocutions to indicate that Harry doesn’t know what the English word Horcrux means. Such circumlocutions appear in the text. The best reason I can think of for those circumlocutions to appear in the text is to prevent people like me from inferring too much from Harry’s vocabulary choice. There are alternatives explanations, like hinting that Salazar invented Horcruxes, but they seem less likely to me.
And what circumlocutions are those, exactly? Because in the passage quoted, I see a straightforward explanation of the ritual and a naming in English (with the unexpected result that he knew the English word’s equivalent in Parseltongue too).
I hope you are right.
One interpretation is that his language production module generated the sentence “It is called Horcrux”, and his conscious mind, in the midst of him saying this sentence, became aware of the fact that he knows the Parseltongue word.
This line reminded me that Quirrel’s frequent transitions from man to snake and back seemed odd to me when I was reading. I went back to see if any of what he said after transitioning back to a man was a good candidate for a direct lie that he couldn’t tell as a snake. But I didn’t find anything. Most of what he said was phrased as speculation, rather than direct statements.
I’m not convinced of the theory. Very tenuous and circumstantial, and not part of canon, AFAIK.
I expect anything Quirrell says to be a mix of half truths.
That much seems true.