Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread - Less Wrong
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I have to say, for a blog (?) focused on good writing and story structure, that's a really terrible essay/brain-dump - highly repetitive, problems mostly alluded to rather than described, fact & citation-free, and very very ranty. (I suspect I'd also find a number of self-contradictions if I cared to re-read.)
If it didn't have the occasional good insight, I'd never have finished reading it. I did, but I still hate essays which are intermittent reinforcement schedules.
But here's one good point. By the end, the real sin of Voldemort is not being evil, but in seeking to avoid death. Rowling implicitly seems to be saying: 1) you can't live forever 2) you shouldn't avoid death 3) death is good.
LWers may grudgingly accept #1 ('fine, I can't live for ∞ but can't I live for a few thousand years at least?'), but I think we all pretty much vociferously disagree with #2 & 3. And if we were put into the Potterverse, I think we would pretty quickly all go over to the Dark side.
And that observation suddenly changes my interest in MoR from 'what is Quirrelmort's grand plan?' to 'how does Harry rewrite Good & Evil and fix that sordid little world?'
J. K. Rowling once said that Harry Potter was a story about death.
Citation? I think I've read a fair number of JKR interviews and I don't remember her saying this. A quick Google search doesn't turn anything up but my Google-fu may be weak.
Your Google-fu is weak; a search like http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=%22J.K.%20Rowling%22%20%22Harry%20Potter%22%20death%20interview turns up Wikipedia linking to several interviews, and then some quick C-fs turn up:
http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2001/1201-bbc-hpandme.htm