Celer comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 12 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Xachariah 25 March 2012 11:01AM

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Comment author: anotherblackhat 25 March 2012 11:28:44PM *  6 points [-]

Between chapter 80 and 81, here's my analysis. I can think of seven broad possibilities;

1.) Do nothing
2.) Attack publicly
2b.) Attack publicly in disguise
3.) Stealth attack
4.) Retreat and regroup
5.) Change the board
6.) Deus Ex Machina

1.) Do nothing; I list this simply because people often forget that inaction may be the best possible action. Here, that doesn't seem to be the case. On the other hand, once you realize that sacrifice is necessary, why not give in to the dark side? What's one muggleborn more or less? With proper obliviation Harry can literally forget about Hermione. Plus, the dark side has tasty Hufflepuffs. And cookies.

2.) Attack publicly.
While romantic, this puts Harry into a massive, wasteful, battle with basically all of wizarding Britton.
He's good, but realistically, he'd lose.
Blackmailing the council publicly seems equally pointless. Even if they gave in, it would be disastrous in the long run. On the plus side, this is by far the most dramatic possibility. It's not hard to imagine Harry laying waste to the Dementors essentially freeing all the prisoners, and throwing the wizarding world into complete and utter chaos.

2b.) Attack publicly in disguise. Basically, put on a mask and break Hermione out of custody. Again, several possible ways to do it, but all with the significant drawback of making Hermione a wanted fugitive.

3.) Stealth attack. Harry and Quirrell almost succeeded in getting Bellatrix out without any help and without anyone knowing. With the order and the aurors attempting it, it wouldn't be unimaginable that they could remove Hermione without anyone finding out. On the minus side, Hermione would have to become a non-entity for 10 years, and they'd have to sneak her back in. On the plus side, the comedic potential is enormous. Almost every major character could reasonably have a motive to sneak Hermione out, even the evil ones. Massive Gambit Pileup ensues.

4.) Retreat and regroup The bad part of this is Hemione will be in Azkaban for some amount of time. The good part is that it doesn't result in Harry being at war with magical Britton before he's ready. This probably isn't as bad as it first seems. Many will be outraged by the decision to send a 12 year old girl to Azkaban, including, I bet, Draco Malfoy. Now that the court room acting is over, "Draco" can argue for leniency, and Lucious can soften his heart over the plight of so young a girl who was clearly unaware of the severity of her crime, and blah blah blah. Lucious wants Hermione away from his son, discredited, and wants to stir up the blood purists. All that is accomplished if Hermione is locked up in, say, Nurmengard, and his son vows to stay away from her. Add in a bad publicity campaign smearing the wizingamot "Malfoy says 12 year old girls should be tortured in Azkaban". Harry might even be allowed to visit and banish a few dementors, rather than having to do it clandestinely

5.) Change the board. Determine who really cast the blood chilling charm. Find out who killed Narcissa Malfoy, and give them up. Or the dark path - find someone and give them up as Dracro's assailant/Narcissa's killer, without considering their actual guilt. (Harry could put his minion Lesath Lestrange to good use.) Find something else that Malfoy wants, like say, the philosopher's stone, and give it to him. Become god. All good things to work on, but their timing is not under control, which means this really is a variation of one of the other options with extra work added.

6.) Deus Ex Machina. The author could make anything happen. While it might be that only the author can save them now, it's not something I'd expect the characters to plan for. And I for one would feel cheated if that was the final solution.

Comment author: Celer 26 March 2012 01:16:49AM *  19 points [-]

Chapter 38: Lucius Malfoy claims that he was under an Imperius curse cast by Lord Voldemort. In canon, that claim was made by many powerful pureblood lords.

Chapter 26: Freeing someone from an Imperius curse by killing the caster of that curse creates a debt

Chapter 4: Bounties payable to the killer of Lord Voldemort could be delivered to Harry Potter.

Conclusion: Harry Potter is owed a blood debt by a number of the lords of the Wizengamot, which might be large enough that he could call it in and save Hermione. Even if it is just Lucius who owes him this debt, it could be enough.

Comments: Law of Conservation of Detail leans towards these facts being used, feels very desperate and Harry like, allows Hermione to come back to Hogwarts as a student.

Comment author: DanArmak 26 March 2012 09:11:25AM *  9 points [-]

In canon, that claim was made by many powerful pureblood lords.

Sorry? In canon, many powerful pureblood lords claimed to have killed Voldemort?...

Ah. You mean they claimed to be Imperiused. I'm obscurely disappointed. For a moment I imagined a coalition of Rational Pureblood Lords going around saying "it's ridiculous to believe a baby survived the Killing Curse and killed the Dark Lord, really we ambushed him and left the burned husk of his body".

Comment author: Celer 26 March 2012 09:33:43PM 1 point [-]

I edited my comment to correct that.

That would be brilliant. I wish.

Comment author: Nisan 29 March 2012 01:03:35AM 1 point [-]

You were right. Congratulations, good sir or madam.

Comment author: TimS 26 March 2012 01:25:29AM *  1 point [-]

What's Dark about this plan? And why wasn't it considered at the pre-trial conference at Hogwarts?

Actually, "because Dumbledore doesn't want Harry to do that" answers my second question, but raises its own questions.

Comment author: Celer 26 March 2012 02:26:31AM 2 points [-]

To call in favors he never earned for something he had no conscious control over to subvert the political process of a nation qualifies as at least a little bit dark. I think that it wasn't considered because Harry doesn't think of himself as being the one who killed the Dark Lord regularly, and he doesn't know that much about how debts in Magical Britain work. Only once he fully slipped into his Dark Side and became willing to do anything did he see that he could call in these debts.

I don't believe that Dumbledore would think of subverting the political process in that fashion. That things follow a "good process" seems to be very important to Dumbledore, even when it results in bad ends. That is the most charitable interpretation, and I believe it to be possible.

Comment author: Pringlescan 26 March 2012 05:58:27AM 0 points [-]

Hermoine is still on the hook in the eyes of Draco and everyone for murder. I believe the story demands a fully vindicated Hermoine to continue, which is why I think Harry will frame Lord Jugson for the false memory charms on Draco and Hermoine. I go into further detail on this elsewhere, just check my comment history.

Comment author: Celer 26 March 2012 09:52:18PM 2 points [-]

I don't think that Hermione needs to be fully vindicated for the story to go on. Having her be ruled innocent by the Wizengamot, possibly with a later recantation by Lucius Malfoy once he calms down, would have her be distrusted by her classmates somewhat. This could fit in nicely with her character development and her fear of becoming dark.

Comment author: pedanterrific 26 March 2012 06:04:19AM 2 points [-]

What False Memory Charm on Draco? I thought the current leading theory was that Hermione was GHD Attacked, FMC'd, then later on (after the attack?) Obliviated of the FMC. I don't see how Draco needed to be messed with at all.

Comment author: Pringlescan 26 March 2012 06:19:07AM 1 point [-]

This would be if they were stunned immediately on entering the trophy room, like Harry said we don't even know if a duel took place. Granted he could have just waited until after the duel and stunned Draco from behind, both would look the same to us.

Now that I think about it I actually like your way better, cloak and hat is there invisibly and makes sure Draco wins the duel, then stuns Draco while he is leaving. Less work to do with the False Memory charms, less work to do with tampering the wands, and less chance of messing up on evidence since an actual duel was fought.

Comment author: pedanterrific 26 March 2012 06:24:35AM 1 point [-]

What makes you sure that Hermione didn't stun and Blood-Chill Draco herself?

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 26 March 2012 08:11:43AM 1 point [-]

What makes you sure that Hermione didn't stun and Blood-Chill Draco herself?

If by "herself" we mean without being Imperiused, Confunded, Dark-ritualed or otherwise having her mind directly messed with, it's because we've been inside Hermione's mind enough to know that she wouldn't murder a classmate.

Human beings have characteristics just as inanimate objects do.

Comment author: pedanterrific 26 March 2012 08:15:31AM *  2 points [-]

Maybe we have different standards, but the Groundhog Day Attack and (at least) one False Memory Charm is quite enough mind-messing for me to believe she did it.

ETA: just to make it perfectly clear, I don't think this value of "she did it" is the sort that should require her to be held liable in a criminal trial. I just meant that the Stunner and Blood-Chilling Charm came out of Hermione's wand while she was holding it.

Comment author: Anubhav 26 March 2012 03:09:57PM 1 point [-]

I still can't figure out whether you're excluding the Imperius.

Miss Granger would remember the Imperius. Obliviation cannot be detected by any known means, but only a Professor could have cast that spell upon a student without alarm from the Hogwarts wards

chapter 79

'She was Imperiused and then Obliviated' looks like the likeliest hypothesis right now.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 26 March 2012 03:14:55PM 4 points [-]

'She was Imperiused and then Obliviated' looks like the likeliest hypothesis right now.

I think the idea is that with just an Imperius and an Obliviation, she wouldn't remember herself deciding to cast the Blood-Chilling charm -- she might remember doing it, but not remember deciding to do it, which would be difference enough to be noted by the Veritaserum and/or Legimancer.

So you'd need the False-Memory-Charm on top of that, and once you have the False-Memory-Charm you don't actually need to complicate this further with an Imperius and Obliviation, it suffices by itself.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 26 March 2012 08:31:03AM *  1 point [-]

but the Groundhog Day Attack and (at least) one False Memory Charm is quite enough mind-messing for me to believe she did it.

I don't think a False Memory and whatever persuasive words were used in the Groundhog Day attack would have sufficed for her to cold-bloodledly murder a 11-year old classmate, even if she had seen him openly declare a desire to rape Hannah Abbot. (she might have hot-bloodedly murder him then, but not cold-bloodedly so).

Comment author: JacekLach 26 March 2012 03:14:21PM 2 points [-]

I think you underestimate the power of the GHD. If Hermione really believed she had to kill Draco or he will, for example, murder every student in Hogwarts the next day, I'm pretty sure she would cold-bloodedly kill him.

Comment author: pedanterrific 26 March 2012 08:34:44AM 2 points [-]

Okay. How about we take up this discussion again in, let's say, thirty-five hours?

Comment author: Anubhav 26 March 2012 03:07:20PM 0 points [-]

Miss Granger would remember the Imperius. Obliviation cannot be detected by any known means, but only a Professor could have cast that spell upon a student without alarm from the Hogwarts wards

'She was Imperiused and then Obliviated' seems to be the likeliest hypothesis.

Comment author: wirov 26 March 2012 07:43:53AM 1 point [-]

If it were, one could argue that Harry's certainty re: the false-memory charm deliberately fools the reader.

Comment author: pedanterrific 26 March 2012 07:51:48AM 2 points [-]

I don't understand what you mean. Harry believes she was FMC'd into obsessing over Draco and believing he was plotting to kill her. That's quite sufficient to drive her to murder, without it actually being her fault.

Comment author: magfrump 26 March 2012 11:11:32AM 3 points [-]

A big deal has been made about Hermione's innocence; i.e. Harry's extensive thoughts on the Milgram experiment after Azkaban. The implication seems to me to be that no, that is definitively NOT sufficient to drive her to murder; in fact, nothing would be sufficient to drive her to murder.

Comment author: pedanterrific 26 March 2012 07:07:57PM 4 points [-]

I guess Harry is sure of this fact due to his infallible power to know the hearts of men (and little girls).

I think Harry's wrong about that, is what I'm saying.

Comment author: wirov 26 March 2012 08:09:02AM *  1 point [-]

He also believes that performing the Blood-Cooling Charm was a false memory. (At least that's how I understand the following quotes from ch. 79.) I'll admit however, that the evidence is not as clear as I thought, when I wrote the previous comment.

"Draco didn't do anything, Hermione didn't do anything, they were both False-Memory-Charmed!" Harry Potter's voice had been rising on the last words. "How is that not BLOODY OBVIOUS?"

[…]

"Ah!" Harry said suddenly. "I get it now. The first False Memory Charm was cast on Hermione after Professor Snape yelled at her, and showed, say, Draco and Professor Snape plotting to kill her. Then last night that False Memory was removed by Obliviation, leaving behind the memories of her obsessing about Draco for no apparent reason, at the same time she and Draco were given false memories of the duel."

Comment author: pedanterrific 26 March 2012 08:13:52AM 3 points [-]

Oh, you're right, I misremembered Harry's proposed scenario in the second quote.

Yeah, on balance I think that the duel actually happened and Harry's suggested second round of FMCs is unnecessary- that just comes down to Harry not being willing to believe that Hermione is capable of cold-blooded (ha) murder, even in that state of mind.

Comment author: Locke 26 March 2012 01:42:31AM 0 points [-]

Oh wow, I completely forgot about the bounties. My gold's on this theory now.