But Snape had already joined the DE of his own free will and apparent natural inclination, no threats needed; but he had taken the Dark Mark, which is supposed to obviate the need for threats;
Someone like Snape is not controlled so simply; you could not simply Dark-Mark him into being the best Snape he can be, any more than you can whip a programmer into coming up with a brilliant new algorithm. You have sticks and carrots. Snape can be a Death Eater who does nothing to merit the death penalty, and still malinger and cease to be an effective agent. (This is especially true if he was to play highly demanding roles like being a spy.)
but Lily was a fighter for the Light, and even without the prophecy would have been on Voldemort’s hit list soon enough; but the moment Snape realized Voldemort was going to kill Lily he went straight to Dumbledore… etc.
IIRC, Voldemort was perfectly happy to turn Lily over to Snape, who presumably would’ve been able to control her (with potions if nothing else).
It still seems unnecessarily risky, which doesn’t seem like Quirrel’s style, let me put it that way.
Whatever Quirrel is, he’s already shown himself quite different from Voldemort. If nothing else, he learned the lesson of the monastery.
but he had taken the Dark Mark, which is supposed to obviate the need for threats;
“Someone like Snape is not controlled so simply; you could not simply Dark-Mark him into being the best Snape he can be [...] Snape can be a Death Eater who does nothing to merit the death penalty, and still malinger and cease to be an effective agent.”
Well, the thing is… from the mouth of Quirrel:
Your parents faced one Dark Lord. And fifty Death Eaters who were perfectly unified, knowing that any breach of their loyalty would be punished by death, that any slack or incompetence would be punished by pain. None could escape the Dark Lord’s grasp once they took his Mark. And the Death Eaters agreed to take that terrible Mark because they knew that once they took it, they would be united, facing a divided land.
Of course, he could be lying.
IIRC, Voldemort was perfectly happy to turn Lily over to Snape
Yes, but… he was also perfectly happy to just kill her right there. From the mouth of Voldemort:
“I give you this rare chance to flee. But I will not trouble myself to subdue you, and your death here will not save your child. Step aside, foolish woman, if you have any sense in you at all!”
And then, of course, he ended up just Abracadabra’ing her anyway. So the answer actually seems to be that he just didn’t care about retaining Snape’s loyalty. He listened to Snape beg for Lily’s life and, instead of explaining why this was pathetic (as current!Snape seems to believe he could’ve), he went off and made a quarter-assed effort not to kill her.
Whatever Quirrel is, he’s already shown himself quite different from Voldemort. If nothing else, he learned the lesson of the monastery.
Tom Riddle, when he was young, journeyed to an ancient place of learning, highly esteemed in the rarefied circles to which it was known, to obtain obscure lore that can only be passed from living mind to living mind, and thereby increase the strength of his art. The lessons were difficult, but he studied hard and well; and when he had absorbed all that he could, the last words he spoke to his non-wizard mentor were: “Avada Kedavra.”
Rule Twelve: Never leave the source of your power lying around where someone else can find it.
obscure lore that can only be passed from living mind to living mind
Oo, I missed that! Does it work to transmit from Muggle to Wizard? That would be a great place to hide information, if for some reason you didn’t want it to be lost forever.
Er. That’s not actually what I was referring to. (Although it could work… ideally you would make sure the information would be transmitted down through generations, and through multiple lines, to ensure redundancy… and it would need to be an oral tradition, as it couldn’t be written down… and you would need to make sure every new Muggle was trustworthy before letting them in on the secret… anyone else thinking Freemasons?)
This is perhaps stretching the analogy a little too far, but… powerful wizardries can only be passed down that way because of the Edict; martial arts can theoretically be learned from books (or ghosts, or paintings) but it seems like it would be really hard.
Maybe it was a little too obscure? I feel like “non-wizard” is a really clumsy way to lump a Basilisk and a Muggle into one category, but it was all I could come up with.
I feel like “non-wizard” is a really clumsy way to lump a Basilisk and a Muggle into one category, but it was all I could come up with.
Well, now I have to reread Quirrell’s description of the monastery incident and see if it makes sense as an allegory for the Chamber of Secrets. I’ll vote you up or down when I get back.
Okay, apparently it was too obscure. To clarify, my interpretation is that Tom Riddle went to that monastery, learned martial arts and how to (pretend to) lose, and once he was done, put on the glowing-red-eyes schtick and killed everybody (except his one friend) to prevent anyone else from learning what he had. He wasn’t foolish to want that story spread by the one survivor—he wanted to be underestimated, to make people think he was murderously impatient when he was coldly calculating.
Rule Twelve is more general than just “kill Slytherin’s Monster,” it applies to all sources of power.
(The account is about halfway through Chapter 19, btw.)
The pain thing is a bit troublesome, but again, someone like Snape, their greatest abilities can’t be unlocked with just pain. As Wedrifid suggests, the pain may unlock some ability… for subtle skilled betrayal and subversion.
And then, of course, he ended up just Abrakadabra’ing her anyway. So the answer actually seems to be that he just didn’t care about retaining Snape’s loyalty.
That only shows he didn’t care about his loyalty that much. To echo Harry’s dark side, Snape being disloyal is annoying, but the woman irrationally resisting and sacrificing herself and troubling him was even more annoying.
Also, remember that in MoR, Lily was implied—stated? - to have tried to Avada Kedavra’d Voldemort. All deals are off when one’s life is on the line—Lily’s life could have bought Dumbledore or the whole Wizarding world! but self-defense still takes priority.
If Salazar Slytherin foresaw use of Rule 12, a hidden requirement to pass on the knowledge to the next heir in the transfer ritual could explain Harry’s survival. The transfer ritual requiring a later deposit, a checkpoint of the recipient’s state, could explain why Quirrell seems more than how Voldemort has been described—if he does contain multitudes. Or the different instantiation has avoided physical pathologies Voldemort lived with.
Someone like Snape is not controlled so simply; you could not simply Dark-Mark him into being the best Snape he can be, any more than you can whip a programmer into coming up with a brilliant new algorithm.
I could be whipped into writing a brilliant new algorithm. Unfortunately the improved focus and creativity would only be active while plotting against them and for purely my interests.
Someone like Snape is not controlled so simply; you could not simply Dark-Mark him into being the best Snape he can be, any more than you can whip a programmer into coming up with a brilliant new algorithm. You have sticks and carrots. Snape can be a Death Eater who does nothing to merit the death penalty, and still malinger and cease to be an effective agent. (This is especially true if he was to play highly demanding roles like being a spy.)
IIRC, Voldemort was perfectly happy to turn Lily over to Snape, who presumably would’ve been able to control her (with potions if nothing else).
Whatever Quirrel is, he’s already shown himself quite different from Voldemort. If nothing else, he learned the lesson of the monastery.
Well, the thing is… from the mouth of Quirrel:
Of course, he could be lying.
Yes, but… he was also perfectly happy to just kill her right there. From the mouth of Voldemort:
And then, of course, he ended up just Abracadabra’ing her anyway. So the answer actually seems to be that he just didn’t care about retaining Snape’s loyalty. He listened to Snape beg for Lily’s life and, instead of explaining why this was pathetic (as current!Snape seems to believe he could’ve), he went off and made a quarter-assed effort not to kill her.
Tom Riddle, when he was young, journeyed to an ancient place of learning, highly esteemed in the rarefied circles to which it was known, to obtain obscure lore that can only be passed from living mind to living mind, and thereby increase the strength of his art. The lessons were difficult, but he studied hard and well; and when he had absorbed all that he could, the last words he spoke to his non-wizard mentor were: “Avada Kedavra.”
Rule Twelve: Never leave the source of your power lying around where someone else can find it.
Oo, I missed that! Does it work to transmit from Muggle to Wizard? That would be a great place to hide information, if for some reason you didn’t want it to be lost forever.
Er. That’s not actually what I was referring to. (Although it could work… ideally you would make sure the information would be transmitted down through generations, and through multiple lines, to ensure redundancy… and it would need to be an oral tradition, as it couldn’t be written down… and you would need to make sure every new Muggle was trustworthy before letting them in on the secret… anyone else thinking Freemasons?)
This is perhaps stretching the analogy a little too far, but… powerful wizardries can only be passed down that way because of the Edict; martial arts can theoretically be learned from books (or ghosts, or paintings) but it seems like it would be really hard.
Maybe it was a little too obscure? I feel like “non-wizard” is a really clumsy way to lump a Basilisk and a Muggle into one category, but it was all I could come up with.
Well, now I have to reread Quirrell’s description of the monastery incident and see if it makes sense as an allegory for the Chamber of Secrets. I’ll vote you up or down when I get back.
Okay, apparently it was too obscure. To clarify, my interpretation is that Tom Riddle went to that monastery, learned martial arts and how to (pretend to) lose, and once he was done, put on the glowing-red-eyes schtick and killed everybody (except his one friend) to prevent anyone else from learning what he had. He wasn’t foolish to want that story spread by the one survivor—he wanted to be underestimated, to make people think he was murderously impatient when he was coldly calculating.
Rule Twelve is more general than just “kill Slytherin’s Monster,” it applies to all sources of power.
(The account is about halfway through Chapter 19, btw.)
OK, you were simultaneously describing, with the same text in that one paragraph, two different episodes in Tom Riddle’s life. Now I get it!
Well, that was the idea, anyway.
It was a good idea! I just didn’t get it.
The pain thing is a bit troublesome, but again, someone like Snape, their greatest abilities can’t be unlocked with just pain. As Wedrifid suggests, the pain may unlock some ability… for subtle skilled betrayal and subversion.
That only shows he didn’t care about his loyalty that much. To echo Harry’s dark side, Snape being disloyal is annoying, but the woman irrationally resisting and sacrificing herself and troubling him was even more annoying.
Also, remember that in MoR, Lily was implied—stated? - to have tried to Avada Kedavra’d Voldemort. All deals are off when one’s life is on the line—Lily’s life could have bought Dumbledore or the whole Wizarding world! but self-defense still takes priority.
If Salazar Slytherin foresaw use of Rule 12, a hidden requirement to pass on the knowledge to the next heir in the transfer ritual could explain Harry’s survival. The transfer ritual requiring a later deposit, a checkpoint of the recipient’s state, could explain why Quirrell seems more than how Voldemort has been described—if he does contain multitudes. Or the different instantiation has avoided physical pathologies Voldemort lived with.
I could be whipped into writing a brilliant new algorithm. Unfortunately the improved focus and creativity would only be active while plotting against them and for purely my interests.
Harry isn’t the only one with a cold dark side!