It's called plot-armor. If Harry couldn't fight it off, he'd be dead. And killing off the main character is bad for a book series.

 

Also let's be honest all "duels" between Voldie and Harry are somewhat off. If Voldemort wasn't so interested in grandstanding he would have let pettigrew slit Harry's throat to get the blood for the ritual.....

On topic, i'll pretty much stick to canon for the imperius that being: Hard to shake off, but with time possible. So even IF Hagrid has a strong will, chances are he was taken by surprise and only has a relatively short amount of time to put up a fight.
Aside from that, i have never seen an indication that Hagrid is particulary weak willed. He was willing to casually ignore every rule to bring his Brother to England. that means he is at least stubborn.

 

I don't exactly remember, but weeks is the minimum. The time at which they managed to escae isn't necessarily the first.

I agree with Korisovra though, and the Imperius isn't a case of your mind vs theirs in a form even close to a legilimency attack. It might somehow help, but I don't think Snape could throuw it off if Harry managed to catch him with a good Imperius, and Harry can probably thow it off from anyone.

@ slasheh: I don't know if Hagrid is weak-willed, but I see more implications in the fact that he is very easy to get drunk and persuaded into giving einformation he shouldn't, than in the fact that he somehow thought utting Grawp in the forbidden forest was a good idea.

 

how easily you are manipulated implies how intelligent you are, not how strong your will is. A friend of mine is by all accounts stupid. If you know how to do it you can easily make him do the silliest stuff, but once he has decided on something nothing short of an Act of God will stop him.

That's the kind of person i imagine Hagrid to be. Remember the Scene in OotP where Umbridge wants to arrest him? As soon as the Aurors attack McG he goes berserk. That is the kind of reaction i'd expect him to have if someone ordered him to release Dementors on Harry.

On the other hand his fondness for drink might make it rather easy to dose him with a plethora of potions which make him susceptible to the curse.

to sum my point up: is Hagrid stupid? Undoubtly. He is also painfully naive. But i have yet to see any indication that he has a weak will.

 

During Dumbledore's interrogation Crouch Jr. said that he never broke the curse, but that as time went by there were moments where he was completely lucid. I went back and checked GoF, and Junior wasn't completely freed from the curse until Voldemort and Wormtail showed up after the World Cup. Just as an aside, I wonder if Crouch would have been able to fight off baby-Voldemort and Wormtail if Winky was there...

We also know that Voldemort and Wormtail very soon after the First Task kept Crouch Senior at home - he was fighting the Imperious so they had to keep him prisoner and send in work from home. Luckily for them Percy was enjoying being in charge and never looked too far into things.

Breaking the Imperious must be very difficult yet also not unheard of. After all, no one makes a big deal of the fact that Harry can break it, yet Malfoy and the other Death Eaters are easily believed when they claimed they were under the Imperious.

As has been stated, just because you are a bit of an idiot doesn't mean you are not strong willed. Intelligence does not equate to determination.

 

The problem we face when talking about the Imperius curse is, that we base much of our information on Harry’s experience with it (which isn’t surprising given the point of view in the books), but what if Harry is an absolute exception or there are other factors to consider?
I’ve got a few theories going:
1) The Imperius give the victim the feeling of absolute bliss and care freeness, many people would take that as a good thing and simple go with the flow, but Harry (and probably others with the same sad face) is a person who, when faced with so many positive things/emotions, becomes suspicious, mostly because of his upbringing and lack of experience in the "bliss-business", it is alien and will be threatened with caution.
So, it isn’t as much about will power as about you character and personality. Will is important to throw it completely off, but you need to be able to notice/care about the difference to be able to start fighting back.

2) Harry is an exception to the whole thing (however it works) because of is status as half finished Horcrux. He began to fight the Imperius curse after a voice told him that doing what was commanded would be stupid. We all assumed that this voice was Harry himself (his inner voice, will etc. whatever), but what if Voldemort’s Horcrux was this voice?
Not strong enough to make "himself" noticeable at any normal circumstance, but the Imperius curse opens some kind of window for this piece to work with. And before you scream that Harry threw Voldemort’s Imperius off, too, yes he did, but if we assume that this piece is kind of sentient in a primitive way, maybe it didn’t want to be controlled (Harry-c controlled) or didn’t recognisee Voldemort or it didn’t want Harry to get killed (it would die to and a survival instinct should be very strong or at least exist). I’m sure that isn’t was J.K. thought of, but who knows? Nothing shows that it isn’t possible and we don’t know how Harry would react to an Imperius curse after this piece vanished.

3) It is a combination of different things that makes you able to throw off the curse or at least, help you to fight against it. A strong will is one thing that probably helps very much. To be able to "detect"/realise that you are under the curse and then to CARE that you are under it. It doesn’t help to "know" that something is wrong when it isn’t bothering you even a little bit.
If you are happy to live in la-la-land, than you probably will never fight against the curse. Instructions are an interesting aspect: If they are not to bothering for you, than you won’t start to fight, if you, in you "stoned" situation realise that something is wrong about doing this or you NEED to do something overly important than you have a reason to do something against it (you haven’t started fighting yet, but you have started to realise that you probably should start doing something).

...

To fight the Imperius curse for beginners:

1) Imperius curse is performed- "welcome to la-la-land"
(if the curse is strong enough of course)

2a) You don’t care and just follow orders- curse can hold indefinitely
2b) At first you are happy and do nothing against it, but it becomes more and more "uncomfortable" and you start to think that maybe, something is wrong.
2c) You realise shortly after being hit with the curse that something is wrong and start to act upon this.
2d) Something disturbing gives you a wake up call (strong pain/shock, a moment of weakness on the casters side, an order that goes against anything you would ever do/ you remember to do something/not do something like a constant nagging that gives you a reason to do something) and helps you to realise your situation.

3) If you start to fight, it probably comes down to your control over your own mind (Occlumency is a bonus here), your will to fight, the strength of your opponent and maybe some kind of natural shield (some people are just better at it as others, because of blood/upbringing/experience etc.), your own strength and awareness of mind.

Those are just some theories and ideas I have, what do you think?

 

I like the whole Horcrux helping Harry fighting off the Imperius.
I don't think the horcrux in Harry has ever been explored indepth. What else has it done to help him out.

Parseltongue - Which was lost when Voldemort destroyed the horcrux.

Thats really the only thing that J.K. had the horcrux give him

--Edit--
Are the Horcruxes going to be apart of this story or are they just going to be ignored?

 

I don't mean to bother you but is there any word on the progress of either chapter.

 

TML 7 is at 7500 words. I expect to finish it tomorrow and post Wednesday.

I'll start the next Lie right then.

Jim

 

Most excellent, I eagerly await the resolution of one of your most vexing cliffhangers.

 

Indubitably

 

Quoted For Truth

 

One of the best fics i have read.

 

Profound, you are.

 

Anyone else get the feeling that the Puzzle room is task that Voldie is going to try and snatch HJ?

He isnt allowed a wand and he is all alone. Plus he is gonna be tired from the task. Perfect time to catch him.

 

You could be right Boo, there is a good chance for this to happen,
but we don´t know what else jbern has planned and the consequences for the Dementor incident, so free game until we know more.

 

Is it specified if the champions were the only ones being affected by the dementors? I'm too tired to go back and read it... maybe Hagrid is reliving a terrible memory from his childhood or something dealing with persecution of the Giants. He snapped and lashed out at the cause of his agony...the dementors.

 

I'm pretty sure (almost) everyone is overthinking this. >>

Its called the test of courage, the champions are being tested to their limits. Do you honestly think anyone even remotely trying to write Hagrid in character would have him go crazy, with high class magic items, over the issue of Giants' Rights? Even IC evil people influencing Hagrid would have a slightly more convincing issue.

Its a ploy, set up for the test. Hagrid yelling and acting "alone" distracts the Champions, Dementors are released, everyone else watches while they cope. His issue doesn't have to be plausible, it just has to confuse the Champions long enough to set them up.

Anyone can steel themselves against a known threat, that's only a small part of courage. Grace under fire, when the world has gone mad around you...

That, is true courage.

((And just the kind of headfuck something like this would call for.))

 

Hagrid doesn't have the ability to portray this stuff realistically. He just can't lie or keep a secret - especially from a friend, or from a woman he wants in bed. His "tells" are obvious. Moreover, he only just got a new wand, and is only educated to fourth year. He wouldn't Know How to set that prison ward or release all the locks simultaneously. I bet those locks are impervious to most magic, and hard to pick as well. Dumbledore would have Made Sure those Dementors couldn't escape into a crowd of children.

I think it's sabotage.

This is incredibly OOC for Hagrid, which is why I'm going with the Imperious curse or someone else under polyjuice theories. And I don't really think it's the curse, because someone evil and desperate enough to cast the Unforgivable in front of God and everybody isn't going to waste it on an utterly lost cause. They'd have Hagrid kill AD and probably Harry.

Edited to add:
Or they aren't really dementors. Harry's boggart imitates a Dementor. Maybe they have some sort of dementor-simulator.

On the other hand, they DID have Nesting Dragons in the school (which I still think is INSANE.)

 

That's the first I've heard of anyone suggesting polyjuice...which isn't a bad thought at all, really.

EDIT: Just read back, and you did mention it earlier. Don't know how I missed it. Hagrid being under polyjuice makes more sense than any other theories out there so far.

@Janus: No way would risking a Dementor attack on students be part of the challange. That's nuts.

As for nesting Dragons, there are trained dragon handlers, and there are spells that work on a dragon. There's no such thing as a way to "handle" Dementors; all dealings with them seem to be pure bargaining: please don't suck out the souls of X, and we'll give you Y from the prison. While there is the Patronus, the fact that hundreds of Dementors were able to marshall so ferociously against one escaped convict (Black) leads me to believe that they have very long memories, and a bit of a hive mentality. I'll bet casting a significant Patronus is tantamount to signing your name on the Dementor 'Shit List'.

So yeah: dealing with a dragon (that doesn't want to move;nesting, right?) with protective gear, conjunctivitus, and flame-freezing curses that work, versus a "dragon" that makes you loose focus, dwell on your worst fears, freeze up (literally), remembers your face, won't stop hunting you, and has the ability to surround you with duplicates (hive mind).

Yeah.