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Danylo comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 5 - Less Wrong
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(Chapter 58)
Harry, once again, plays (or is played like) the fool. He places his life in obvious danger by going with Quirrell, and trusts Quirrell. Again. Agh! Here's what a suspicious Harry would think: Harry is the only one who knows that Quirrell is responsible for break in. Harry plans on staying behind. Quirrell can't stop Harry from staying behind with magic, and can't convince Bella to stop either. One choice left for safety -- manipulate Harry into making the vastly more dangerous choice and leaving.
I feel like the Harry of these past 8 chapters is a lot more human than the Harry of the previous 50 chapters. Much too trusting, much too simple-minded.
On the other hand, Quirrell's stated plan explains Bella's rescue. Bella is a symbol of Voldie, Voldie is needed as an antagonist to create the 'mark of good.' Downside? I don't see Harry agreeing to use Bella as a tool.
EDIT: Which isn't to say I'm particularly dissatisfied with the novel. No, I'm just agonized. I'm sure Eliezer has some grand plan and I, the common reader, am just blinded by my biases.
The more trusting Harry may be an artifact of his being terrified. He got played on his dislike of the Dementors to get him in there. Once the shit hit the fan he was running terrified and taking whatever solution appeared to him. In this case Quirrelmort sounding even slightly reasonable (remember he's been talking to himself to keep the dementors off) would be accepted. I'll be interesting to see what happens when he gets back to civilization.
Why not? If it's not a use that harms her directly, just letting her make an appearance from time to time to scare people into voting Harry, why wouldn't Harry agree?
After all, even Quirrel's (possibly just pretending) psych healer fixes her, she's not likely to ever become part of civilized society again. She should have some purpose to her life, no? Both helping the Dark-Lord-Harry (if not healed) and helping her rescuer Harry Potter (if healed) would please Bellatrix herself too. I really see no downsides to using her in this way.
Oh, I'm sure you and I can come up with lots of rationalizations to justify using her. Problem is, Harry, in addition to being a rationalist, is also a fictional character.
Eliezer, through Harry has, thus far, had a certain sense of poetic justice. Using Bella as bait would go against that. The same drive that leads Harry to see himself as the mesiah of two worlds -- the man who will kill death, that same drive will balk at using Bella. It's too ugly.
I see your point. But becoming a Light Lord by using any sort of politics at all is too ugly in any case.
Harry has a contradiction to resolve one day. On the one hand, he disdains politics and "human stuff" and he also sees himself as rationally fighting human biases. On the other hand, he speaks in favor of democracy. I think if he ever tries his hand at actual democracy, he'll soon realize that as Pratchett wrote (paraphrasing from memory), "it's not that you have the wrong kind of government; it's that you have the wrong of electorate".
As I recall, the only time Harry advocated democracy was in chapter 35, in which he seemed to accept its shortcomings. He values democracy because of its practical effect at preventing the brutality possible in dictatorships rather than because he has any illusions or ideals about it.
Also, he seems to dislike the idea of becoming a politically powerful leader as his method of being a Light Lord. In the same chapter, he thought the appropriate way to tackle his Voldemort problem with a small party/fellowship rather than with an entire nation. Likewise, I can't imagine him wanting to throw Manhattan Projects at his scientific/magical research interests rather than continuing to do what he is doing now; recruiting a small number of competent and like-minded people, such as Hermione, and getting them to help him. So unless Quirrel can convince or coerce him otherwise, I don't think we will see Harry try his hand at public politics and democracy any time soon.
Looks like we'll see what he thinks of that soon enough :-)
Of course, Quirrel probably doesn't plan for Harry to rule the nation before finishing school, thus it's outside the scope of this story.
Harry already intends to become god; this seems like a logical first step.
I wonder if he'll see it that way?
In the same sense that learning to fire a rifle is a logical first step to building an atom bomb?
While that's an amusing analogy, I was actually thinking it might be possible to use the resources of this nation (..widespread small city?) to solve the problem.
Being able to throw more brains at a problem is qualitatively different from gaining a little personal power.