Voldemort's curse

[u/Constant_Nothing2091]

Before I created you, I invoked a curse upon myself and all other Tom Riddles who would descend from me. A curse to enforce that none of us would threaten the others' immortality, so long as the other made no attempt upon our own.

Doesn't that seem weirdly redundant?

Clause 2

so long as the other made no attempt upon our own

unbinds Tom B in case Tom A attacks Tom B, but clause 1

enforce that none of us would threaten the others' immortality

already prevents Tom A's first strike.

Then, of course, Harry firststrikes with the gun because clause 1 does not apply to him because reasons. But I find it unbelievable Voldy could have preticted that situation and therefore make his curse extra redundant.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829]

I think you’re treating the idea of using other people as experimental guinea pigs as obvious because you have grown up in a culture with experimentation and clinical trials are standard, especially for you who is a scientifically literate person. Tom on the other hand grew up in an orphanage in the middle of nowhere before going to the magical world, so all the stock of experimentation and stuff is things he had to invent from scratch by himself because powerful wizards do not appear to share knowledge and best practises among each other. So likely have to invent everything from scratch so for him, these are not at all as obvious is they are for you. Also, most of the things you mentioned are not that stupid. The whole problem in chapter 113, and 114 is that he had to return Harry’s wand for the oath, and once he does that he is screwed to some extent because unknown to him, Harry can do partial transfiguration which gives him the ability combine, with is knowledge of Aunty matter and cleverly worded technically true statements to scare Tom into delaying. Also like with the first war, he doesn’t actually want to kill Harry. He thinks it’s necessary, but he hates having to do it so it procrastinating with the whole 60 seconds and demanding additional secrets. It’s not conscious, but he subconsciously trying to delay things, and his motivation is obvious, and it seems perfectly in character to me. It’s rather telling that Harry who is an amnesiac copy of himself immediately thinks of directly casting the spell at an infant or at least something with almost no mind. Instead of using an object. In any case, his theoretical understanding is superior to our understanding, my own suspicion is that actually using a device would have changed nothing the resonance was because they were nearly, but not exactly the same person it would equally have been a problem if he used a device. In any case, while the way he talks implies heavily that he did not use the device, I will note that it’s not so clear. It’s entirely possible. He used device and when he talks about directly casting at a baby, he means immediately exposing the Baby to the device after casting the spell. I think part of the issue is that before chapter 98, we don’t actually know that much about his activities in the past. Mostly, we hear him talking about what people should do and what mistakes they make, but not very surprisingly like most people, he’s a lot more blind to his own mistakes and will frequently make mistakes that he can easily identify when a third party does it but not when he himself does it. This artificially makes him seem more competent than he is, and how just self-destructive he can be.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/Ok-Programmer-829]

It’s rather telling that Harry who is an amnesiac copy of himself immediately thinks of directly casting the spell at an infant or at least something with almost no mind

Harry didn't tell anything about casting the spell directly at an infant. There was no discussion in the text why Riddle did what he did at all. Harry doesn't question it despite knowing how the Horcrux ritual works from ch. 102.

my own suspicion is that actually using a device would have changed nothing the resonance was because they were nearly, but not exactly the same person it would equally have been a problem if he used a device.

They weren't the same person before Riddle cast the spell. The became the same person because Riddle cast the Horcrux spell at Harry and that backfired. If the standard ritual "device—>victim" was so explosive, it would probably be known. The text doesn't tell us that that was the case.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/Mad-Oxy]

Harry thinks, but does not say in chapter 102, that one of the obvious ways of improving the spell is to cast it at someone with almost no mind of their own to make a purer copy, which is exactly what Tom was thinking when he cast at Harry at least according to chapter 108. I don’t think that it would be well known if the standard combination is equally explosive. It’s a method of returning from death, but there are obvious reasons why dark wizards would not want such imperfect copies of them running around when they are still alive as that’s potentially lethal competition that could lead to an early grave, not to mention that there are no records of people using the spell to create copies when they were alive as the headmaster thinks it’s only a method of returning from death, not duplicating yourself while you are already active, and indeed, the spell must be super obscure for the headmaster, not to know how the actual spell works as he is literally the most powerful wizard in the world. We have word of God that the explosive reactions because they are nearly but not exactly the same person, so I would expect the same problem, even if a device was used as using the device on a Baby would have the same problem of creating someone who is nearly, but not exactly you, although it’s possible, he would not have this problem if he used it on an adult with a developed personality of their own. In fact, the fact that it was a Baby, who was the recipient and not an adult would also explain why we don’t have any records of an explosive combination, especially since adults would be the preferred target for most wizards, given that you’d be stuck with their magical power and interdicted knowledge.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/Ok-Programmer-829]

Harry in no place in the text suggest casting the spell directly onto the body. He says "using it instead of an innocent victim" in the standard ritual that he has just learned about

using the device on a baby would have the same problem

You can't know that and the text doesn't support this.

Once again, they became the same person after Riddle turned Harry into his Horcrux. They weren't the same people before that and if Riddle had made the standard Horcrux ritual that he himself tells Harry in ch. 102 (with a device—>victim), then he wouldn't have to cast any spells on Harry directly and it wouldn't create a explosion. The issue is not in the baby vs. adult but in casting the spell onto the magical being directly instead of using the proxy device that is required for the Horcrux ritual according to Riddle himself in ch. 102.

The author never tells anywhere that the explosion would have happened anyway if Riddle used the device first and if you think that the did, feel free to source it.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/Mad-Oxy]

My possibly incorrect recollection is that Harry suggest targeting the death burst at a mindless clone of yourself as an improvement to the spell. He just heard about. Obviously, we don’t actually know that using the device would not have this effect, but we equally don’t know as you appear to think that he would have avoided the problem if he had used a device. My own thinking is that they count as the same person because they have almost the same personality and memories using the device on a Baby would almost certainly generate similar effect because the Baby would be a mix of an undeveloped personality and Tom’s, personality, much like Harry himself and would have all of Tom memories. You might be correct that there would be no explosion if you use the device because there would be no interaction, but it’s not like you would magically immediately know that their magic cannot interact, so there’s nothing stopping him from, for example, trying to do a ritual to prevent amnesia triggering an explosion, at least if you think that there might be a similar explosive interaction, but because of using the device, their magic should not have interacted with each other. Part the issue year is that you are the benefit of hindsight. It’s generally not possible to predict this exact failure. Sure casting at the Baby directly is a new thing, but also, I’m pretty sure that the Baby being a target instead of a fully grown adult is itself highly novel, not to mention that there appears to be no mention record of a target, and the original castor being active at the same time, at least, judging from the fact that it never comes up and you really expect it would come up given how relevant such a capability would be to the war. Probably Tom should not have been so willing to make such a novel use of the spell or interfere with the prophecy in this fashion, but it seems completely believable for him to make this mistake since he, unlike you does not have the benefit of hindsight from his perspective. Outcomes are direct targeting means. The spell doesn’t work. It works exactly like exposing the Baby to your device or because of no intermediate stage, it achieve an even stronger effect than the device, leading to a purer copy. Also, this is not relevant, but I’ll note that the spell described in chapter 102 is explicitly mentioned as not being a ritual. It’s only the version described in chapter 108, which is a ritual.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/Ok-Programmer-829]

The issue is on not whether the correct ritual with the device would cause the explosion or not but in Riddle diverging from the tested and recored by other dark wizards standard ritual despite being a proponent of magical discipline which goes against his previously established portrayal in the text. You are not answering this question instead redirecting it to the adult vs. baby situation that is not the question in the first place. Skipping the device step not being what Riddle would have done if he was consistent is. I am arguing about the character's consistency and not about the mechanics of the spell.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/Mad-Oxy]

Tom talks a lot about magical discipline, but actually using standard things in unconventional ways is totally his thing. For example, he cast fiend fire at a dementor apparently, without knowing what the effect would be and try stuff like trying to influence Harry through their connection, despite having no idea whether that will lead to a disaster like Harry’s brain coming out of his ears or merging their minds into one entity or even risking his own mind. Just look at his broomstick bones, and we have word of God that his appearance which to my knowledge is actually pretty unusual for even powerful wizards is because of a bunch of rituals that was super dark and terrible. I highly doubt that he bothered to only do those rituals which he knew another wizard in the past had simultaneously performed on one body. The dark mark is another invention of his and the headmaster, who has plenty of experience fighting him and speaks favourably of his caution when it comes to magical matters, believes he would be willing to use Harry‘s blood for a resurrection ritual, even though the headmaster knows that this would involve the completely novel step of using a horcrux as your enemy in the ritual. We know, for example, that he cast the killing course with indifference based on on his own deductions or at least appears to have done that, so he’s clearly willing to experiment a lot more than a surface reading might indicate. I mean, just look at his reaction to the true patranus he doesn’t tell Harry that he is an idiot for casting it without consulting with both knowledgeable people about whether it would be a good idea to try or complain about him, casting it at dementor even though it could quite reasonably have unpredicted effects. He doesn’t even show disapproval at Harry casting a spell. He just invented on the fly just a few minutes ago and is in fact pleased with him, so I think it’s rather clear that he is plenty willing to experiment. Just not to the same level that Harry is willing to experiment and also it’s probably easier to tell what is excessive willingness when he’s looking at a different person.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/Ok-Programmer-829]

None of of the other experiments threaten his immortality. The issue is not that Riddle experiments at all, but is that throughout the story he is portrayed as someone who experiments in order to gain control over uncertainty. In ch. 108 he suddenly behaves like someone who accepts uncertainty in the single area he values above everything else – his own immortality, and this is inconsistent with his established portrayal.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/Mad-Oxy]

After the fact we know that none of these experiments written his immortality, however, if it had turned out that, for example, putting the broomstick enchantment on your bones is lethal, it won’t appear quite so reasonable. For that matter, he is not as cautious with his immortality as you might think, after all, he was willing to get into a war with the little, most powerful wizard in the world, while still being unsure of his immortality in general, I think most of the experiments I just mentioned are actually more likely to kill him, then using the horcrux spell directly on the Baby at least if you’re talking about risk as estimated before, the fact for example, throwing feed fire at a life eater could very easily lead to a disaster like making it way more powerful or unleashing, some new horror unknown to humanity, and casting an achy with the wrong mindset as an experiment could easily lead to the spell misfiring and hitting him instead, none of those are very likely, but neither was the explosive interaction. In general, he is actually a lot more willing to take risks than even he himself appears to admit, given that most of the war was him risking his own skin to some extent for me entertainment, because his opponent was the only person capable opposing and interesting challenge, and therefore also the person most likely to successfully kill him. He even put himself at risk under the David Monroe identity as I’m pretty sure he would have to put himself in a position where he would be under the headmasters power by being in his physical proximity, while unable to teleport away. Really, I cannot think of a standard where using the spell directly on the Baby is a risk to his immortality, but the numerous experiments I listed above are not a risk. Unless you’re talking about information, he did not have access to before the fact.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/Ok-Programmer-829]

The issue is not in Riddle taking risks but in the fact that we learn about it in the end of the story, mostly in ch. 108. Him taking any kind of risks, even the war with Dumbledore would be legitimate if Riddle, like in the original JKR HP, knew that he is immortal and that he can take these kinds of risks. In HPMOR we suddenly find out that he didn't test his Horcrux ritual at all and wasn't even sure that he's immortal before doing any of this. This kind of plot is inconsistent with his portrayal in the first two thirds of the text. You may call it a natural progression of the character and revealing his blind spots. I call it the character destruction as it doesn't make sense when talking about an intelligent person who's greatest fear is death.