NihilCredo comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 8 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Unnamed 25 August 2011 02:17AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (653)
Tags: harry_potter fanfiction fiction hpmor

Comments (653)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: orielwen 27 August 2011 04:39:52PM 2 points [-]

Fred and George didn't do it. They planted a story about Quirrel. Quirrel read the story and, seeking a way to get back at Skeeter, found out that Fred and George were trying to get back at Skeeter on Harry's behalf – but not that they had planted the story about Quirrel. So he offered to help them, and set everything up for Skeeter, then wiped their memory of everything they'd done to plant the story, which included the memory of planting the story about Quirrel.

Comment author: NihilCredo 27 August 2011 05:29:48PM 1 point [-]

I still can't see how publishing a stupid and incorrect story would have been reason enough to make people assume that Rita Skeeter had gone into hiding lest she faced Malfoy's punishments.

Canon!Skeeter would hardly flinch at publishing bullshit stories, and I don't recall hints in MoR that that trait was different - hell, she says her paper regularly throws around empty accusations of Death-eating, which sounds like a much more dangerous thing to do for a publication than fake marriage tales.

Comment author: gwern 27 August 2011 10:03:50PM 1 point [-]

Been a while since I read it, but I got the impression the danger came from offending the Goblins and other major magical institutions. (As far as death-eating goes, both in MoR and canon, the paper is connected to Lucius Malfoy, who would like all accusations of death-eating discredited and made ridiculous conspiracy theories - so he might even encourage obviously false stories. The danger would be libel suits, and those are healable with Malfoy funds.)

Comment author: Sheaman3773 31 August 2011 04:25:45PM *  1 point [-]

The problem with libel suits is that as far as I could tell, there aren't any in the canon wizarding world, as evidenced by Rita Skeeter writing whatever the heck she wanted.

I also thought that her going into hiding seemed like an overreaction, though it could be another example of wizards believing anything. As for legitimate reasons for her running, though, what I got from the story is that the problem is not that this is a bullshit story, or even a really high-profile bullshit story, but that it's a demonstrably false high-profile bullshit story. If she is used as a social weapon and to spread disinformation, being openly proven to lie--or be overly credulous--would be a liability, albeit one I wouldn't think would warrant assassination.

Comment author: gwern 31 August 2011 06:10:22PM 2 points [-]

The problem with libel suits is that as far as I could tell, there aren't any in the canon wizarding world, as evidenced by Rita Skeeter writing whatever the heck she wanted.

It's a sticky inference to make. Maybe there are no libel laws as you say; or maybe:

  1. Malfoy has enough money to hire lawyers who successfully beat even the magical equivalent of England's plaintiff-friendly libel laws
  2. Variant of above; it is known that attacking the Prophet/Malfoy will be a poison pill for the attacker as the legal fees are too high to be borne and/or discovery will be abused to dig up all sorts of dirt and private information.
  3. People fear the behind-the-scenes retaliation of the Malfoys and their alleys
  4. Variant of above; fear retaliation by the Daily Prophet (monopoly paper) which doesn't rise to the level of legal actionability - constant mocking and negative references.
  5. Death-eating in particular is not good grounds for a libel suit; perhaps magical England has a factual defense like the US, and all the accused are in fact former Death Eaters.
  6. Variant of above; Magical England has libel laws, just they are in general like American libel law and it's awful hard to win such a lawsuit.
  7. The Prophet carefully writes too vaguely to be sued in the first place.
  8. Rowling just didn't think about it; the British press is scurrilous, so the magical press is scurrilous. The various economic and legal incentives are too far to the background to be even thought about. Eliezer borrows this assumption, and in keeping with his medieval evil Magical England interpretation, it doesn't matter why the press is evil and freely accusing people of Death-eating.

Given the uncertainty of the libel suit point, and the canon that goblins are touchy murderous nasty customers, I'd rather point to powerful factions rather than a big libel suit as why people would accept Skeeter hiding or going into exile.

Comment author: wedrifid 01 September 2011 12:43:39AM 3 points [-]

People fear the behind-the-scenes retaliation of the Malfoys and their alleys

The Malfoys' alleys are people I really wouldn't want to meet in a dark ally.

Comment author: gwern 01 September 2011 12:54:27AM 0 points [-]

And Daigon Alley in particular.

Comment author: dbaupp 01 September 2011 08:02:56AM *  0 points [-]

(I think wedrifid was suggesting that "alley" should be "ally")

Comment author: gwern 01 September 2011 02:00:24PM 0 points [-]

Well yeah, but it's a lot funnier to pretend it's deliberate.

Comment author: MinibearRex 01 September 2011 04:22:31AM 1 point [-]

Death-eating in particular is not good grounds for a libel suit; perhaps magical England has a factual defense like the US, and all the accused are in fact former Death Eaters.

Rita Skeeter says that if Quirrel was a real Death eater, the paper never would have actually printed it.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit