Or, perhaps, Madam Pomfrey is taking them to see the body, since it is in her medical ward.
Intrism
Reinforcement and Short-Term Rewards as Anti-Akratic
It means that it’s confirmed that Quirrell wants people to think he’s secretly David Monroe. I’d be wary of drawing any other conclusions, though it does seem more likely that Quirrell pretended to be Monroe during the war.
Dumbledore and Harry don’t actually do anything very different from each other in that scene. They’re both blaming themselves instead of McGonagall. What’s different is in how they express that. Harry is very clear about who he is blaming, and why; he tells McGonagall exactly what she did wrong when she asks to be blamed, although he still does not in fact blame her. Dumbledore, on the other hand, offers only comfort; he doesn’t even tell McGonagall that he’s going to blame himself, although she can very well guess.
It’s also worth noting that Harry chooses an interesting fault to explain to Professor McGonagall. He doesn’t suggest that, like Quirrell, she should have checked on all the high-value targets before leaving the room. Instead, he told her to trust her students more. This is something that McGonagall could actually do; it’s much better suited to her than the more complicated, strategic options Harry would suggest for himself or Quirrell. So, although it’s definitely not explicitly said this way, it’s pretty easy to read Harry as giving advice here, which Dumbledore notably fails to do.
Her “reason and maturity,” in canon, is basically playing the role of a responsible young girl. Rowling seems to think this is impressive; obviously, Eliezer does not.
These chapters caused me to update more in favor of Quirrell being genuinely scared. However, there are still some things that confuse me. First, Quirrell’s not citing the prophecy in his favor, even though McGonagall was the one who paired him with Trelawney in the first place, and there’s absolutely nothing incriminating in hearing a prophecy under those circumstances. Second, well, this is a problem with a murder-based solution, and I would expect Quirrell to take it unless (for some magical, personal, or prophetic reason) he finds death preferable to a world in which Harry is dead.
As far as Harry destroying the world goes, I’m most worried about Fred and George. In canon, they become quite skilled at spell creation in later books, and it’s suggested that they experiment in earlier books; they’re probably not especially good yet, but they might know enough information (or have enough books) to be dangerous already.
Of course, the attacker could also have chosen to kill Draco slowly in order for the ward circumventions to go unnoticed...
That’s fair enough, but I just thought of one more thing that Quirrell could do that he’s choosing not to… Why isn’t Quirrell doing the star thing again, or at least offering to do so?
I decided to enumerate all the map errors I could think of.
Name errors: any error in which someone’s name is persistently not what you’d expect.
Quirrell being named Defense Professor.
Anyone (probably Quirrell, maybe Harry) being named Tom Riddle.
Quirrell or Harry being named Heir of Slytherin.
Map errors: any error in which the map itself is drawn incorrectly, or in a way you wouldn’t expect.
The Chamber of Secrets entrance being drawn on the map if/when Quirrell accesses it.
Quirrell being drawn inside a wall if/when Quirrell accesses the Chamber of Secrets.
If Quirrell can become a spirit, Quirrell being drawn inside a wall when he is in fact inside a wall.
Harry being drawn in strange and incorrect places when he’s inside of his trunk.
Name persistence errors: any error in which someone changes names.
Harry changing names while using his “dark side.”
Quirrell switching between Quirinus Quirrell and “Defense Professor,” possibly when Quirrell “rests.”
Quirrell being labeled Salazar Slytherin, particularly when he accesses wards.
Harry being labeled something more commonly associated with Professor Quirrell when he uses his Potterdar.
Multiple dot errors: any error in which one person is in multiple places.
If the Dark Lord can become disembodied (perhaps while Quirrell is “resting”), separate “Quirinus Quirrell” and “Defense Professor” dots in different locations.
Any student with a Time-Turner showing up twice on the map.
The real Quirinus Quirrell was most likely lobotomized long ago, to become the Defense Professor’s “zombie mode.”
The going theory is that Monroe and Voldemort were the same person, and that the real Monroe did not return from Albania. Usually, this is because the Defense Professor wanted to manipulate Wizarding Britain to concentrate power in the Ministry, and then put himself at the head of it.
I strongly doubt that the Defense Professor intends to die with his body. The real Quirinus Quirrell, however, probably will.
I suspect Quirrell’s closing statements to McGonagall at the end of this chapter are not quite what they seem. I’m thinking of two in particular: the first, that he wants Harry kept away from the Restricted Section, and the second, that he wants McGonagall and Dumbledore to try to restore Harry’s mood by any means necessary.
The trick to the first one is that he hasn’t mentioned sealing off a certain other means of discovering arcane secrets at Hogwarts. Admittedly, Quirrell’s suggested that it’s probably blocked off anyways. But it might not be; even if the basilisk itself is gone, there might still be useful books. So it looks as though Quirrell is trying to push Harry into finding the Chamber of Secrets. There could be any number of reasons why—though the fact that it’s a secret, hidden place at least partially exempt from the Hogwarts wards seems like a good place to start.
The trick to the second one is that McGonagall’s way of cheering Harry up is actually going to be quite predictable: she and Dumbledore are likely going to try bringing Harry’s parents to Hogwarts. Naturally, this opens up a whole world of possibilities for Quirrell; he could use them as hostages, kill them, Imperius them, or do any number of other nasty things if necessary. Or, if he’s interested in understanding Harry better, he could use Legilimency to learn all about his background.
Unlimited Pomodoro Works: My Scheduling System
The House Points are more of a way to formalize Minerva eating crow for all the students that broke the rules and acted when the situation required it. And, of course, most of the points talk was really about extending them to more students, which was extremely necessary for Harry. The Neville talk was probably the least justified, but there is a shard of importance in that Harry had to forgive and defend Neville during it.
The “soulsplosion,” in Hermione’s death, was extremely hard to miss. But it was notably absent in a previous wizarding death we supposedly witnessed: Harry’s mother’s death. This has provided some unexpected confirmatory evidence for an old pet theory of mine: that Harry’s memory of his parents’ death was faked. I can only assume someone else brought a similar theory up around here before, so I won’t go into too much detail.
If it were a false memory, though, why would the soulsplosion be missing? Well, we get an answer for that in Chapter 86: some things can’t be adequately faked in false memories. If whoever created the false memory had included a false wizard’s death, Harry might have wondered what exactly the strange light show was; if he had researched it, he might have realized that what he remembered was faked. But Harry had never seen a wizard die before; an omitted soulsplosion would therefore arouse no suspicions, whereas a faked one might. Hence there was none.
- 10 Jul 2013 14:49 UTC; 6 points) 's comment on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 23, chapter 94 by (
There are as many atheists who have never heard a decent defense of religion as there are religious fundamentalists who have never bothered to think rationally.
This seems improbable, considering that there are vastly more religious people than atheists.
Probably because Quirrell is insanely good at being a Defense Professor. After a long string of incompetents, I might be willing to overlook a little “obviously evil” if it meant getting the best Defense Professor in a century.
Greetings, LessWrongers. I call myself Intrism; I’m a serial lurker, and I’ve been hiding under the cupboards for a few months already. As with many of my favorite online communities, I found this one multiple times, through Eliezer’s website, TVTropes, and Methods of Rationality (twice), before it finally stuck. I am a student of computer science, and greatly enjoy the discipline. I’ve already read many of the sequences. While I can’t say I’ve noticed an increase in rationality since I’ve started, I have made some significant progress on my akrasia, including recently starting on an interesting but unknown LW-inspired technique which I’ll write up once I have a better idea of how well it’s performing.
My estimate of Trelawney in Methods has, for quite some time, been that she may or may not be good at formal Divination, but that she is a terrible teacher and an excellent seer, and that Dumbledore keeps her around primarily for the latter reason.
It’s possible that Quirrell himself intends to be Harry’s source of information, but so far he’s only been manifestly unhelpful. Basically every response he gave was a brush-off; he didn’t even name his spell of cursed fire. When directly given an opportunity to suggest spells or rituals of his own choosing (“There’s some magics I mean to learn”), he wasted it. It’s possible that he did so out of concern that he was being listened in on, which would also explain his choice not to switch to Parseltongue; still, it certainly doesn’t seem like he’s trying to point Harry in any particular direction.
“Ward” almost certainly refers to the spells McGonagall cast to protect herself and Harry from public view.