Chapter 49 of fanfiction Harry Potter & The Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong.[link]
Voldermort's evil overlord list : Rule Twelve = Never leave the source of your power lying around where someone else can find it.
Slytherin's monster is believed to have Salazar Slytherin's lost knowledge. After Riddle received all those lost knowledge, he killed the Slytherin's monster so nobody after him could have those lost knowledge.
Riddle killed Basilisk with an Avada Kedavra, but in my fanart he also 'Diffindo'-ed Basilisk's body afterward, just to be evil.
It's rather sad that Evil Badasses don't actually follow the Evil Overlord List. If they did, we would have more instances of Evil triumphing Good. You know: Like it does in the real world.
That, of course, is entirely subjective, as evil itself lacks an objective standard. Remember; no one intentionally does evil unless they either believe that A; they have no choice, or B; that it will result in good. Since my standard of evil is different from most (not all, just at least a majority), what I consider evil may or may not be considered evil to another (with circumstances also playing a factor.
In other words; until you find something which every human being on earth would call evil, then your statement is invalid.
Also; yes, it would be sweet if more people followed the Evil Overlord list. It would be more interesting, at least.
>After Riddle received all those lost knowledge, he killed the Slytherin's monster so nobody after him could have those lost knowledge. That, again, we know second-hand at best and from extremely unreliable sources (or rather, cunning manipulators).
"Nice well-groomed boys get girls, and Dark Wizards also get girls, but nice well-groomed boys suspected of being secretly Dark get more girls than you can imagine.." - Arty Grey, HPMOR
Tom Riddle is so much hotter when he's not an insane snake-faced freak. I feel I should close this page before I start drooling over your fantastic depiction.
I think, canonically, the reductor curse only works on inanimate objects -- at least, that's all it's ever used on in canon, and you'd think it would see some use in combat if it was at all effective for that. Likewise Diffindo: if it cut living flesh, Snape wouldn't have needed to invent Sectumsempra to achieve the same effect.
One of the laws of magic in the Potterverse appears to be Vitalism; certainly the concepts of Avada Kedavra (a curse that kills without causing any detectable injury) and Horcruxes are consistent with that belief, and the use of different spells to achieve the same effect on living vs. non-living things (not just the afformentioned blasting and cutting charms either -- healing magic doesn't seem to use the same spells as are used to repair broken inanimate objects).
All available evidence supports the conclusion that vitalism is not valid in the real world, but the great majority of people remain vitalists, either because they are unaware of the evidence supporting materialism, or because they reject it for emotional reasons. J. K. Rowling, as an Anglican Christian, is presumably a vitalist herself.
Maybe for healing, though I always figured they never did it because it would seem rather brutal for a children's book. As for sectumsempra vs diffindo, didn't they describe sectumsempra's effect as more of an invisible sword slice that leaves an unhealing wound vs diffindo's effect as magical scissors? Not sure about reparo on living things though. I believe there was an instance of the avada turning a non-living target into dust on impact though.
You know: Like it does in the real world.
In other words; until you find something which every human being on earth would call evil, then your statement is invalid.
Also; yes, it would be sweet if more people followed the Evil Overlord list. It would be more interesting, at least.
That, again, we know second-hand at best and from extremely unreliable sources (or rather, cunning manipulators).
Tom Riddle is so much hotter when he's not an insane snake-faced freak. I feel I should close this page before I start drooling over your fantastic depiction.
One of the laws of magic in the Potterverse appears to be Vitalism; certainly the concepts of Avada Kedavra (a curse that kills without causing any detectable injury) and Horcruxes are consistent with that belief, and the use of different spells to achieve the same effect on living vs. non-living things (not just the afformentioned blasting and cutting charms either -- healing magic doesn't seem to use the same spells as are used to repair broken inanimate objects).
All available evidence supports the conclusion that vitalism is not valid in the real world, but the great majority of people remain vitalists, either because they are unaware of the evidence supporting materialism, or because they reject it for emotional reasons. J. K. Rowling, as an Anglican Christian, is presumably a vitalist herself.