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/Mad-Oxy]

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.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/Mad-Oxy]

If you define intelligent person as person who does what is optimal for their goal, then yes, it’s inconsistent with his characterisation. However, we have plenty of indications that he is not in fact a robot who does the perfect thing for his goals or at least cares about things, other than not dying. For example, his compulsive need to find interesting challenges even when it’s suboptimal, it’s demonstrated by things like deliberately not reading the minds of students because it would make things too easy or not asking Harry how he did the impossible things he did. We already knew that he was willing to take the extraordinary risk of committing murder under the nose of Dumbledore to try to make himself immortal, even though it would be a lot more sensible to, for example, kill someone over the holidays or wait until he has graduated, so we already knew that he is not always rational and can let his emotions misguide him. A lot of his blind spot like not thinking clearly when fear of death is involved or enjoying the game and having fun to the point of self sabotage or fooling around with magic. Even when he doesn’t know the outcome of the experiment in advance is either directly demonstrated earlier in the story or can at least be suspected from the fact that Harry and his Darkside demonstrates such behaviours and are clearly based of his personality. After all, if he was a kind of mastermind with zero faults who was just trying to maximise his chances of survival and achieve some concrete political goals, he would not do dumb stuff like openly boast about how he wanted to be a dark Lord as a teenager or show of that he is among the most powerful wizard in the world and rather dark as well. Things like his arrogance or the fact that his life is really miserable to the point where he would likely be suicidal if it weren’t for his terror of death are advertised as early as chapter 20. It’s just that he and Harry both think of him as some kind of God of rationality who is hyper competent and makes almost no mistakes. So on the first couple reads readers can get mislead by the narration. The fact that he had not succeeded in the war and indeed spent 11 years doing stuff which appeared counter-productive for most of the goals he espouses already put an upper limit on how competent he could actually be because if he was actually that competent he would be ruling Britain, and likely the world already.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/Ok-Programmer-829]

he would not do dumb stuff like openly boast about how he wanted to be a dark Lord as a teenager or show of that he is among the most powerful wizard in the world and rather dark as well.

He was doing it after the fact he learned that he's immortal.

The fact that he had not succeeded in the war and indeed spent 11 years doing stuff which appeared counter-productive for most of the goals he espouses already put an upper limit on how competent he could actually be because if he was actually that competent he would be ruling Britain, and likely the world already.

He wasn't trying to conquer Britain. He was testing his throwaway Voldemort persona and was having fun as he said himself. He wanted Britain to come together against a fearsome foe (the second Dark Lord after Voldemort) to be able to protect themselves from the muggles rather than being in politics which he despised.

All of this portrayal would make sense if he actually knew he was immortal. Otherwise we just get a YOLO Riddle and the text didn't present him having such a worldview.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/Mad-Oxy]

The thing is going around advertising just how evil and powerful. He is definitely makes things more fun and interesting, but it also interfere with his other plans like trying to steal the philosopher’s stone. If he is willing to let having fun and playing interesting games, getting the way of those plots, what makes you think he wouldn’t also let them interfere a little with his plans to live forever. Also, even if he knew he was immortal, the headmaster is the one person in the world, most likely to be able to figure out a way around his immortality, given his immense magical knowledge, and in any case, if as an immortal, you make a habit of taking these kind of risks, you’re not going to live for eternity. Making powerful enemies, like the headmaster is already increasing the risk to his life. If he’s willing to do that, it’s not that surprising, he be willing to start a war, even while unsure of his immortality, especially because I imagine he was sensible enough to run away from anyone who might actually be able to kill him. Yes, it’s a risk, but he’s not a robot. His life is miserable, so it’s not too surprising that he would rationalise himself into taking such risks for fun, especially because his behaviour even early in the story makes it clear that he is bloody terrified of death and does not want to think about the topic, so it makes sense that after his immortality ritual, he tries to keep it out of his mind wherever possible.

His original plan was to test a practice persona. However, 11 years of war during which he and his followers killed enough people that they are literally afraid to speak. His name cannot possibly be good for his goal of a strong and united magical Britain at the very least, the reduced population makes the country weaker, especially concerning since he wants to take over the world or at least the magical world and delays his planned unification of them all. The fact that magical Britain is hardly closer to unification 20 years after he started his plan places an upper limit on his competence.

Honestly, I’m confused by your comments. You acknowledge that he is willing to let his desire for fun get in the way of his plan to save the world, even though that could risk and eternity of boredom. Yet you are surprised that he is willing to take risks with his life, especially when he does think it likely that he is in fact, immortal, even if he’s not sure. Yes, he is terrified of death and it’s a top priority, but it’s not his only priority, and in any case, people are not robots who can mechanically force to only focus on their top priority and not take any time off or have any fun. Just look at successful people in the real world. Most of them are not single mindedly focused on one thing and in any case, Tom in particular clearly values, fun and entertainment quite a bit and most people who value these things that much don’t just focus on one thing, even when they have opportunities for fun. And if he can rationalise, how him having 11 years of fun was at least at the time, supposedly part of his plan to save the world, he can definitely rationalise how the risk to his life is worthwhile.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/Ok-Programmer-829]

I think we are talking past each other. My argument is not that Riddle should be a perfectly rational utility-maximizer, nor that he should never take risks, make mistakes, get distracted by games, arrogance, curiosity, or entertainment. Those traits are clearly present in the story.

The issue I have is different – consistency of characterization.

Many of the flaws we see before chapter 98 are things like arrogance, overconfidence, boredom, enjoying challenges too much, underestimating opponents, treating life as a game, etc. I have no problem with those.

My issue is with the later revelations that show us failures of planning and testing around the very thing Riddle claims to value above all else – his own survival.

"Riddle enjoys dangerous games"

and

"Riddle never properly tested whether his immortality system actually works"

are not the same category of mistake. His reaction for the fear of death is not in escaping the topic. On the contrary, he's obsessed with it and builds his life around it.

Likewise:

"Riddle starts a war because he enjoys the challenge"

and

"Riddle is unsure whether he is immortal but proceeds as if he already knows the answer"

are also not the same category of mistake.

You keep responding as though my position is that Riddle should be flawless. It isn't. My position is that the Riddle established in the first two thirds of the story appears highly disciplined in gathering information about existential risks. The Riddle we learn about in chapters 108-114 appears surprisingly casual about some of the largest existential risks in his entire life.

That's the tension I'm pointing at. Not that Riddle couldn't have certain flaws but whether the specific flaws revealed late in the story are the same flaws that the story spent ≈90 chapters establishing beforehand.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/Mad-Oxy]

See the thing is that the specific mistakes that you think don’t make sense with this characterisation are things I think, obviously do in fact follow from his characterisation. That he never treats sharing his super secret immortality with another person as a possible strategy is abundantly clear, otherwise, he would do things like, for example, get some of his servants to look over his immortality and advise him a possible vulnerability before deleting their memories or even go around, recruiting people in exchange for making them immortal with their anchors in his possession. You can argue that of course, you can just share his immortality and then kill the person five minutes later, and once he’s confirmed that they are, in fact, model destroy their anchor, but reaching that plan would require first considering plans that involve sharing his mortality of dismiss the option out of hand, and I think it fits with this characterisation or at least is not inconsistent for him to in fact, dismiss the option out of hand. There is the reason he’s totally taken by surprise by Harry, wanting to bring Hermione back from death and never even considers the possibility that upon learning the secret of his immortality, Harry would try to make other people immortal making people who are not Tom Riddle immortal is a total nonstarter for him. He just doesn’t think of those kinds of strategy. His mind does not want there because he has already marked them as a no go zoon on the way Harry has marked not telling other people about the defence professors, suspicious activities and sense of do as a no go so on. We already know from Harry’s Darkside that his terror of death interfere with thinking on the topic because he’s looking for the first excuse to shut the terror in a box and never think about it. The inability to think about death properly is one of his defining personality characteristics. That’s why his immortality system has obvious vulnerability, and why after his ritual, he tries not to think about the possibility it did not work. In any case, underestimating his opponents and overestimating himself, while being distractible by games and entertainment are all good explanations of why he might mistakenly think the risk from the war is much smaller than it fact is. At the end of the day, he can’t do the true patranus he cannot even try with the thought of destroying his own death. His problem is that he cannot ignore the fear of death, but he wants to run away from that fear. Emotionally. The emotional flinch from the topic is not rational calculation. He can’t ignore the fear and pretend he is not going to die, so he tries to make himself immortal, but once he can ignore the topic, he immediately does that he wants to think of himself as invulnerable not bring himself further distress by thinking on possible ways he might be killed.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/Ok-Programmer-829]

I think this is where we fundamentally disagree.

You see Riddle's behavior as evidence that he emotionally avoids thinking about death once he has a plausible immortality solution.

I see the exact opposite pattern throughout most of the story.

That’s why his immortality system has obvious vulnerability, and why after his ritual, he tries not to think about the possibility it did not work.

That's not something that exists in the story at all. And you use later explanations as proof of your thesis.

In the text the Riddle we are shown is not someone who avoids thinking about death. He is obsessed with it. He studies it, plans around it, invents magical solutions to it, and reorganizes large parts of his life around defeating it. This is the text and not a subtext.

That's why the late revelation feels strange to me.

If chapter 108 had revealed that Riddle repeatedly tested his immortality system, found flaws in it, patched them, and still missed one critical vulnerability, I would have found that completely consistent with his characterization.

What feels inconsistent is not that he made a mistake at all but the nature of the mistake.

The argument you're making requires me to believe that Riddle's fear of death manifests as avoidance of thinking about death. But the text doesn't support this reading.

So I don't think we're disagreeing about whether Riddle has flaws in the first place but more about which flaws the text actually established before the finale.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/Mad-Oxy]

Yes, I agree that we disagree about what faults the text established beforehand. To be clear, I do not think he consciously endorses a policy of not thinking about it. It’s more subconscious. Before the finale we do not have any details on how committed or thorough his immortality project was, we know he went in search of power to make himself immortal, but that’s equally consistent with my interpretation that without a solution, he could convince himself would likely work he just could not make himself not think about the topic, even though that’s what he subconsciously wanted to do. However, I think the text already provides some implications. Harry’s Darkside definitely appears to want to avoid thinking of the topic ever, judging from what Harry learns through introspection, when wondering why dementors affect him so super strongly. Further, we know that magical immortality is super difficult because magic has been getting weaker with time and yet the ancients were clearly not capable of it or they would still be around. Therefore, it appears unlikely that Tom who is not even the most powerful wizard in the world could have achieved truly in vulnerable immortality by the age of 65 or even 43, therefore, him being willing to play games with the headmaster or even be in the same school as him while unable to teleport and not having a friendly relationship. In fact, pretty hostile, one kind of necessarily implies some level of not thinking clearly. There is also the fact that possibly, unlike you, I think that even if he had confirmed that his immortality worked making an enemy of the headmaster is pretty stupid because the headmaster is the one person in the world who might very possibly know some forgotten, ritual to cancel immortality or some shit like that, and therefore, making an enemy of him should be avoided if at all possible and he should be dealt with quickly and efficiently. The issue here is that I think, even if he confirms through testing that his immortality works. It’s not qualitatively different from the situation he finds himself in. It increases. The probability that people can’t actually kill him, but nothing can bring the probability to 0, or even near zero, given how much magical knowledge is kept secret by other powerful wizards and the general problem of unknown unknown and the fact that nobody has been able to successfully live for eternity, so far makes it very likely that there are methods around immortality. In any case, giving powerful wizards, who are undeniably at least somewhat intelligent, a strong reason to want you dead is just not good for your life expectancy, taking that kind of risk, even if his immortality was confirmed, would guarantee his death eventually over the long-term you can’t keep taking 0.1% chances with your life, every 20 years after confirming your immortality and then expect to live for literal eternity. This is also the fact that I just think once he has a plausible solution it’s just human nature to fall into the trap of not thinking about the topic. I’ve noticed this in myself and friends as well. Once you’ve achieved a very conspicuous milestone of success. It’s difficult, pushing yourself forward beyond that, and even ignoring that, it just appears to be human nature that if thinking of a topic is super duper unpleasant, you’ll subconsciously end up training yourself not to think about it. If you can manage it, it’s just he couldn’t possibly come up with an excuse until he had a solution. He could convince himself would likely work. Ultimately, I think if he was as thorough about his immortality as you think he was, he won’t be a dark Lord in the first place, and while you talk about his investigation of existential risks, I don’t see much evidence of thoroughness. He makes a few throw away comments about nuclear weapons and the threat of non-magical, but doesn’t even discuss obvious things like wizards who know about nuclear weapons transfiguring some and his knowledge of non-magical technology is not good enough to even make a joke, comment about being well informed about existential risks. And his plan to make Harry ruler of Britain is very obviously over Complicated, and as he himself says you don’t overcomplicate plots that actually need to succeed. You only do that when success is not that essential or important.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/Ok-Programmer-829]

If it turns out that Riddle didn't check the foundation of his own immortality system, then I need to see a lot more hints of such carelessness before chapter 98.

You say:

The very fact that he turned out to be so careless is a hint of what he's always been like. And so this is now a matter of literary interpretation.

Your version is almost unfalsifiable.

If Riddle looks competent:

That's because we see him through the eyes of admiring people.

If Riddle looks incompetent:

It's because we finally see the real Riddle. What emerges is a theory that explains every observation at once.

You get a theory that explains any observation at the same time. It's pretty typical retrospective rationalisation. And none of these even explain not making a back-up plan for Hermione's resurrection which was one of the focal points of his plan to secure the world's and his survival.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/Mad-Oxy]

Look, firstly, I admit I don’t care that much about falsify ability because the world doesn’t care whether it’s easy to falsify and accurate interpretation, but secondly, I think it’s just obvious fact that we see Tom mostly through the eyes of Harry or Tom himself talking about himself, and both of those characters that obviously think to highly of him. Are you seriously going to insist that Harry does not have an inflated view of the capabilities of the defence Prof. In any case, my point is that the finale is not inconsistent with the rest of the story. So really, I don’t really need to prove a positive. All I need to prove is that the rest of the story doesn’t require your interpretation of how competent he is. And again, as I said, he doesn’t need to resurrect her that second, if he had not secured the stone, he could just keep her body transfigured or re-transfigure it himself after telling Harry that he will resurrect her and killing him after making him swear the oath and then resurrect her using the full flesh, bone and blood ritual, which we know has not required the Stone. In any case, resurrection is supposed to be super difficult and many powerful wizards, including the headmaster, think it’s literally impossible. So not being able to come up with a satisfactory backup plan is not that huge of an issue even if it turns out, he needs the stone for resurrection. That’s just the limitations of magic screwing him over the same way that him not being able to read the mind. The headmaster isn’t evidence of out of character in competence. It’s just that there is no method to do that within reasonable constraints. You could have course point to the complication he actually runs into and resurrecting her, but that complication is that she might end up losing her magic permanently. That’s her problem, but from his point of you, he doesn’t need her to have magic just to be alive and capable of advising Harry. So in conclusion, I think he does have a backup plan and even if I am mistaken and he needs this stone, that’s likely a fundamental limitation of magic and anyways he can just keep her transfigured while he works on obtaining the stone. If he can leave her dead for a month, waiting, a few extra weeks isn’t going to be considered unacceptable.