I find myself confused about how dementors can be a personification of death in the way that Harry sees it when that's not how death actually is in the HP universe. I managed to keep a hold of my suspension of disbelief with the idea that the afterlife is a magical version of a brain upload and only works when you have magic in you to record your brainstate at death. Death is still death for muggles and squibs, wizards have just figured out a clever workaround since dementors first came about.
The fridge horror of realizing that, under this theory, muggleborns and the parents of squibs would live on forever while knowing that their relatives are gone was rather enlightening. It made me realize all over again that death truly is a horrible thing that no one who had not lived with it all their lives would willingly sign up for. Who knows? Maybe magic in its entirety was just a side effect to Atlantis' solution for death.
I managed to keep a hold of my suspension of disbelief with the idea that the afterlife is a magical version of a brain upload and only works when you have magic in you to record your brainstate at death.
We're not sure if the afterlife exists in the MoR-verse.
ETA: Eliezer weighed in on this a long time ago.
Warning: Don't wander. One of the things you can find on the sidebar has spoilers for upcoming chapters.
Warning: As per the official spoiler policy, the following discussion may contain unmarked spoilers for up to the current chapter of the Methods of Rationality. Proceed at your own risk.
Assume HPMOR was written by a super-intelligence implementing the CEV of Eliezer Yudkowsky and assorted literary critics. What would it have written differently?
... is what I want to know, but that's hard to answer. So here's an easier question:
In what ways do you think Eliezer's characterisations/world-building/plot-fu are sub-optimal? <optional> How could they be made less sub-optimal? </optional>
(My own ideas are in the comments.)
To put it another way... Assume a group of intrepid fanfic writers in the late 2020s are planning to write a reboot. What parts of Eliezer's story do you think they should tweak?
And just to make sure we're all on the same page: Eliezer isn't going to go back and change anything he's written to bring it in line with anything suggested here. This is purely an "Ah, just consider the possibilities!" thread.
... which means that we can safely suggest drastic rewrites encompassing 30 chapters or something. Or change fundamental facts about the world.
(Exercise due restraint on this one. Getting rid of the Ministry/the Noble Houses/blood purism would probably turn the story into something completely different; this isn't what we're trying to do here.)
With that, let the nit-picking begin!!