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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 7 - Less Wrong
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I can't help but think that Harry dropped an incredible idiot ball on deciding to go to Azkaban. I don't mean his deciding to trust his Professor and Mentor. I'm having trouble reconciling Harry's timeline with either his or (more importantly Quirrel's) decision making style.
8 AM - "Well, I have a big day of breaking into Azkaban today. So much to set up, I've got to be super careful!"
3 PM - "Hmm, it seems that the failsafe Quirrel setup in case anyone believes I was involved in Azkaban was triggered. Better go through with the plan anyways."
5:55 PM - "Hey Mr Quirrel, our failsafe triggered and McGonagall suspects me of illegal use of my time tuner, indicating something went terribly wrong. Think we should abort the plan?"
6 PM - "Welp, time to go to Azkaban!" . . . "Oh no! It's going horribly wrong, how could we have ever anticipated this?!?"
I'm aware you can't use a time tuner to solve problems, but from Harry's/Quirrel's point of view the most logical action would be to abort the mission and send back the note to prevent paradox. I can understand that Harry has already been established as acting irrationally at this point in time. However, it is unimaginable that Quirrel, a planner far more than one level above me, would simply ignore the failsafe being triggered and continue onward.
The only option I can fathom is that Quirrel intentionally planned on failure and had them go forward with the plan anyways. But this doesn't explain why Harry doesn't use it as very strong evidence that Quirrel is evil and out to get him. Harry doesn't even reflect on the fact that, in retrospect, going onward even after they knew the failsafe was triggered was an idiotic move.
This seems be either a glaring plot hole or an idiot ball, but I may be misunderstanding all interactions of time travel or getting the timeline wrong.
Harry got the note from himself at around 3:10pm. He left for lunch with Professor Quirrell in the late morning, went back in time, went to Azkaban, went back in time again to Mary's Room, and was grabbed by Dumbledore and rescued at around lunchtime. Those two time-loops did not intersect; they are separate time-loops.
So not only did they break into the most heavily guarded prison ever, not only did they break out the[*] most dangerous criminal known to be still alive, not only did they get away with it all to boot, but they did it BEFORE LUNCH!
[*] (assuming that MoR!Voldemort already killed Grindelwald)
(OK, I know, they had plenty of time in their own personal timelines to eat lunch. And they didn't finish until after lunchtime. But still.)
Thank you, that clears up my confusion.
I am afraid that I am too used to intelligent fictional characters having supernatural powers of planning and foresight. I suppose it is much easier to have readers be impressed with intelligence if smart characters are simply omniscient rather than acting rationally at all points. Therefore, if you were to be writing Quirrel with maximum intelligence, he simply MUST have planned it all at the earliest possible moment. It didn't occur to me that they could just be making the best of a bad situation, since that doesn't maximize the illusion of cleverness. He's a very smart human; he's not L/Light.
I'll try not to be so hasty to make assumptions in the future and scan for any unspoken assumptions that are coloring my view when reading MoR. On further reflection, that's a good general life lesson too.