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

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

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Comment author: gwern 07 September 2011 03:12:47PM 15 points [-]

What has he discovered? What useful spells has he learned? He's supposed to be a genius of near-Hermione level academic skill and far more strategic thought. When are we going to start seeing him pull out awesome, practical magical knowledge or skill?

And somewhere, someone begins thinking paranoidly, 'yes, Harry has made very little practical progress, compared to how much time he has put into scheming against bullies, breaking into Azkaban, and fighting Ender's Game - and isn't it interesting that all 3 seem traceable back to one particular person?'

Comment author: TobyBartels 07 September 2011 07:31:52PM 1 point [-]

I was about to respond to wedrifid in agreement, suggesting that were actually several loose ends where Harry ought to have interesting research results, which I would very much like to read about. And yet it's already April! So I was feeling a bit disappointed.

But your explanation has cheered me up immensely.