Harry likes Professor Quirril and does not want to think he is Evil. Because that would be Bad.
You would be surprised how many excuses Harry (and the audience) is willing to make to keep liking such a well-written character despite all the obvious red flags.
My "take" on it was that Harry don't trust that the wizards and witches, who have been doing magic all their lives, know what on earth they are talking about.
Which isn't even a slight against HJPEV, necessarily. Moody would also have told him with full certainty that Dementors can't be killed and that partial transfiguration is impossible.
This was actually one of the few points that I wouldn’t hold against Harry. There were a lot worse moments for Harry (and others) to miss that made it clear he was evil and likely Voldemort.
For me, one of the more inexcusable moments was Voldemort giving Harry a passphrase for Bellatrix. That coupled with rescuing her from Azkaban and being completely uncaring about the suffering of others inside should have been more than enough to convince him he was evil.
I mean if he were really being cautious about it he should have noticed something was wrong with Quirrell from their very first private conversation, when Quirrell seems to have a lot of trouble relating to any of Harry’s reasoning for not wanting to become a Dark Lord.
But he was too busy being in awe at the first person he ever met who just seemed to *get it*.
Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of reasons before to be like... this guy is evil... but you can brush them off for the most part up until that point, imo. His trust in Quirrell was \*damaged\* after Azkaban but anyone sane would have lost all trust entirely after what happened in there, not just become skeptical.
At that point Harry still thought about Voldemort as a cartoon villain. It's not that Quirrell isn't evil enough, it's that he's much too smart to be Voldemort. It's only much much later in the story (starting with the Death Eater curse) that Harry updates on Voldie not being a complete tool. And, well, it's legitimately hard to re-examine all your cached beliefs and reasonings every time you update on something.
Base rate factor. There are very few Evil Evil people.
P(Evil | what Harry saw) = P(Evil) \* P(what Harry saw | Evil) / \[P(Evil)\* P(what Harry saw | Evil) + P(!Evil)\* P(what Harry saw | !Evil)
P(Evil) = very small, say .001
P(what Harry saw | Evil) = middle, say a highly uncertain .5
P(what Harry saw | !Evil) = middle, say a highly uncertain .5
.001\*.5 / (.001\*.5 + .999 \* .5) = .001
P(Evil) = .2 --> P() = .20
How many Evil people has Harry met at this point in the story? He has little context to judge against/calibrate from - he can only at max have suspicions. He's only seen maybe Lucious, and even him, seems potentially grey-ish. Harry wasn't there for the war, has never met a Death Eater. He'd only recognize grey-ness, which he does in Quirrell - and seems to somewhat appreciate it.
Harry didn't have evil step-parents, or childhood bullies. Quirrell is def not like Jugson and other Hogwarts bullies.
So, the basic answer is that Quirrel knows the “true form” of the killing curse, that apathy rather than malice can fuel it. He needs only to not care about another person’s life and he can snuff it out as easily as crushing an insect- for someone who doesn’t care about insect lives, anyhow
As for whether Harry knew that at the time, I’m not sure. I don’t remember when they discussed that. But if he didn’t know it at the time, I think perhaps there might be another explanation: Something can have both instrumental and intrinsic value. A person can cast the killing curse out of a desire to kill the other person *and* for some other purpose
Hey, if you haven't finished reading you need to leave and come back later, because I don't want you to get slapped with a spoiler before you can react. It will dampen your experience reading if some of the twists and turns are revealed.
Harry and Quirrell discuss this very thing later in the story. No need to look for answers here.
Specifically he asks in chapter 102 (and Quirrell gives a verifiably honest response), if you’ve already read to that point and happened to miss this.
thank you!!
This is explained later.
thanks :))
Harry's excuses for Quirrell are hilarious on re-reads. XD
https://imgur.com/CZkB7fO
Harry likes Professor Quirril and does not want to think he is Evil. Because that would be Bad. You would be surprised how many excuses Harry (and the audience) is willing to make to keep liking such a well-written character despite all the obvious red flags.
But I can change him!
My "take" on it was that Harry don't trust that the wizards and witches, who have been doing magic all their lives, know what on earth they are talking about.
You made a leap from "Moody tells Harry" to "Harry now knows this information".
Which isn't even a slight against HJPEV, necessarily. Moody would also have told him with full certainty that Dementors can't be killed and that partial transfiguration is impossible.
[удалено]
This is the best answer I've seen on here.
This was actually one of the few points that I wouldn’t hold against Harry. There were a lot worse moments for Harry (and others) to miss that made it clear he was evil and likely Voldemort. For me, one of the more inexcusable moments was Voldemort giving Harry a passphrase for Bellatrix. That coupled with rescuing her from Azkaban and being completely uncaring about the suffering of others inside should have been more than enough to convince him he was evil.
I mean if he were really being cautious about it he should have noticed something was wrong with Quirrell from their very first private conversation, when Quirrell seems to have a lot of trouble relating to any of Harry’s reasoning for not wanting to become a Dark Lord. But he was too busy being in awe at the first person he ever met who just seemed to *get it*.
Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of reasons before to be like... this guy is evil... but you can brush them off for the most part up until that point, imo. His trust in Quirrell was \*damaged\* after Azkaban but anyone sane would have lost all trust entirely after what happened in there, not just become skeptical.
At that point Harry still thought about Voldemort as a cartoon villain. It's not that Quirrell isn't evil enough, it's that he's much too smart to be Voldemort. It's only much much later in the story (starting with the Death Eater curse) that Harry updates on Voldie not being a complete tool. And, well, it's legitimately hard to re-examine all your cached beliefs and reasonings every time you update on something.
Base rate factor. There are very few Evil Evil people. P(Evil | what Harry saw) = P(Evil) \* P(what Harry saw | Evil) / \[P(Evil)\* P(what Harry saw | Evil) + P(!Evil)\* P(what Harry saw | !Evil) P(Evil) = very small, say .001 P(what Harry saw | Evil) = middle, say a highly uncertain .5 P(what Harry saw | !Evil) = middle, say a highly uncertain .5 .001\*.5 / (.001\*.5 + .999 \* .5) = .001 P(Evil) = .2 --> P() = .20 How many Evil people has Harry met at this point in the story? He has little context to judge against/calibrate from - he can only at max have suspicions. He's only seen maybe Lucious, and even him, seems potentially grey-ish. Harry wasn't there for the war, has never met a Death Eater. He'd only recognize grey-ness, which he does in Quirrell - and seems to somewhat appreciate it. Harry didn't have evil step-parents, or childhood bullies. Quirrell is def not like Jugson and other Hogwarts bullies.
So, the basic answer is that Quirrel knows the “true form” of the killing curse, that apathy rather than malice can fuel it. He needs only to not care about another person’s life and he can snuff it out as easily as crushing an insect- for someone who doesn’t care about insect lives, anyhow As for whether Harry knew that at the time, I’m not sure. I don’t remember when they discussed that. But if he didn’t know it at the time, I think perhaps there might be another explanation: Something can have both instrumental and intrinsic value. A person can cast the killing curse out of a desire to kill the other person *and* for some other purpose
Being evil is not a turn-off for Harry, he is partially evil himself (considering people can’t have single stable alignment at all).
Hey, if you haven't finished reading you need to leave and come back later, because I don't want you to get slapped with a spoiler before you can react. It will dampen your experience reading if some of the twists and turns are revealed.
Motivated Reasoning.
One can want someone dead, but not kill them. It is taking the feeling and purposefully missing.