Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Unnamed 27 May 2010 12:10AM

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Comment author: gwern 31 July 2010 10:48:45AM 6 points [-]

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?'

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 31 July 2010 07:20:01PM *  2 points [-]

J. K. Rowling once said that Harry Potter was a story about death.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 01 August 2010 04:42:04AM 1 point [-]

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.

Comment author: gwern 01 August 2010 07:35:30AM 4 points [-]

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:

Death is an extremely important theme throughout all seven books. I would say possibly the most important theme. If you are writing about Evil, which I am, and if you are writing about someone who is essentially a psychopath, you have a duty to show the real evil of taking human life.

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2001/1201-bbc-hpandme.htm