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ArisKatsaris comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 13, chapter 81 - Less Wrong
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Can you please reread them instead of just going by memory? Here, I'll make it easy for you:
Now, please actually read the above sentences again, and tell me now whether they sound like marriage vows to you?
And if you still think they've gotten married, in short if you're arguing that P(they've gotten married)> 50%, then I'll put my money where my mouth is and bet you they haven't. I'll bet 10 of my dollars for every 1 of yours, up to a maximum of $10,000 of mine. That should be an easy way for you to make some money.
Well, after yesterday, I certainly won't be betting against you, even though my odds are (slightly) lower.
My reading is that Harry intended to get married, because that's the only applicable law he knew of-- but McGonagall figured out what he was about to attempt and instead triggered some sort of fealty or adoption law.
But I don't think it's totally inconceivable that the wizarding world has marriage vows that sound like that.
Agreed mostly, but I don't think McGonagall figured out that he was about to propose marriage to Hermione. She just came up independently with the idea of inducting Hermione into House Potter; and of course she preferred to use a more age-appropriate (and less emotionally-charged) path than marriage. The alternate option of service, which Harry didn't even know existed.
I'm not sure how good McGonagall's model of Harry is, so maybe you're right, and she didn't figure out what he was planning.
Hm. In my model of the wizard world, what McGonagall did was a totally obvious solution to every wizard in the room except Harry; everyone in the room not on Malfoy's side probably even came in expecting Lucius to extract this fealty vow or something similar from Hermione before Azkaban was mentioned-- it should have been fresh in their minds.
So I kinda feel like Lucius must have picked up the idiot ball to utter this. I can't explain why he didn't think of the obvious counter (was he so fixated on Azkaban that the fealty thing never occurred to him this whole time?). Unless he was trying to get Hermione joined to House Potter, but that seems really unlikely. Perhaps he didn't think there was any way he could lose to an 11 year old and thus didn't try hard enough.
I assumed the vow was obscure, ancient, Almost Never Done in modern times for good reasons (consider the content!), and that Lucius just wouldn't have imagined his model of Harry doing that with a mudblood girl.
Would've been fun to see Lucius's expression if Harry had actually proposed marriage, but that wouldn't have fit quite as well.
It looks like readers didn't get this. They were overdosed on age-inappropriate romantic hopes or did not notice the gap between Harry's idea and MacGonagal's.
Is this the sort of thing you respond to by changing the chapters that are already out? The whole service thing will probably be explained in the next chapter anyway, along with Lucius's "certain rights."
Waitwhat.
I did not think anyone thought Harry was marrying McGonagall. Or am I missing something here?
Marriage at eleven is inappropriate.
Aha. Missed the cultural context. Thanks!
Well, I mean that romance at eleven is inappropriate. I suggested marriage was seen because it would signal romance and signals of romance were desired because of hopes.
But thank you, Perry. If you hadn't responded I would have answered the wrong question. I thought he misunderstood when I wrote about the gap between Harry's marriage idea and MacGonagal's fealty idea. And then maybe I would not have been clear enough again and there would have been more confusion and we might go on until one got fed up and both simply logged the other as 'dense' and left it at that.
Ah, that makes sense. I forgot that Lucius thinks he's dealing with Harrymort (and expects him to have a pureblood bias). Hm, that implies that Lucius didn't use Veritaserum on Draco after all (or he's really blinded by his bias). Well, either way I imagine Lucius is extremely confused right now...
Oddly, people seem to be assuming that "Lucius used Veritaserum on Draco" means "Lucius knows everything Draco knows". Which wouldn't follow even if Draco was given 3 drops, let alone the 2 he actually got.
I think that's a reasonable default scenario. Truth is entangled (and Draco/Harry/Hermione's dealings is more so than usual); I would expect that as soon as Lucius asked a question with an unusual answer, he'd keep asking questions until he figured out nearly all that Draco knew. If Lucius used Veritaserum and managed to not ask any such questions, then he might as well have not used Veritaserum at all...
And I believe he was interrogated by aurors investigating this crime - in which Harry was not involved - not by Malfoy.
"What have you been intentionally hiding from me, in descending order of importance?"
That first, while Lucius was primarily concerned about Draco's safety and what happened that night?
And it seems like a major breach of trust to ask that directly, which Draco will remember so that it will harm their bond permanently.
Also, I wonder how long Draco would be able to ponder which thing is the most important before starting to answer. It might be a moot point, since I'm pretty sure Veritaserum tends to make people think out loud.
"Well, I hide a lot of things from you intentionally. That's what you taught me after all. But which one is the most important? I'm not even sure how to rank things like this, so I suppose I'm solving a problem. Harry would say that in this sort of situation, one should hold off on proposing solutions. So let me think of the salient features of how to sort a list of secrets in order of importance..." (no effort on my part to make this in Draco's voice)
No, not that first. But I'd expect him to get around to it eventually. And it won't harm their bond if Draco doesn't remember it- the Hogwarts wards only protect students from being Obliviated while they're in Hogwarts.
And since we know no one has the idiot ball, that suggests that the fealty vow (or possibly wedding vow) to Harry was totally unexpected. My impression was that the Wizengamot was stunned by the events.
Yes, they expected Lucius to extract something similar from Hermione. They weren't thinking of Lucius's debt to Harry, so until Harry mentioned it and stunned the room, McGonagall's actions wouldn't have occurred to them.
I meant that it should have occurred to everyone immediately after Lucius's statement "...The girl is no part of House Potter..."
True. Maybe they were just so stunned by everything.
On the other hand, Lucius gets 100,000 gold and Potter in his debt, which apparently gives him some kind of control. And maybe he realized Hermione wasn't the actual killer, but couldn't back down at that point because he'd lose face. So it's not like he ends up with a bad deal.
Alternatively, if he thinks Harry is his real enemy and Hermione just a minion, maybe having Harry in his debt is just as good as putting Hermione in the clank, according to his utility function.
"to obey its Master or Mistress"
I don't think it's totally inconceivable that the wizarding world has marriage vows that sound like that.
It sounds more like a oath of obedience.
So was the traditional wedding vow... "I promise to love, honor, and obey."
“I promise to love, honor, and obey you”, not “the master or mistress of your house”.
Well, yes, agreed that points more towards an oath of servitude. But I could easily imagine someone marrying me and promising to obey "the master of my house" as a poetic and formal way of referring to me. My point in the comment you were responding to was that obedience is hardly foreign to wedding vows.
Point.
Yes. I agree. I was just saying that the gender-inclusive language specifically isn't a good reason to think that, given Wizarding Britain's displayed attitude toward homosexuality.
It's not the "gender inclusiveness" that's the problem, it's the vagueness. Harry is male, why not call him "Master" instead of "Master or Mistress"? It's because the oath is a fealty oath sworn to the House, and after Harry dies, the mastery of his house may pass to a daughter of his (which Hermione would then be still sworn to obey).
Marital oaths are between specific people. In this case obedience was sworn to House Potter, and Harry accepted it as the heir and last scion of House Potter.
Yes. I agree.
The problem is that I don't know enough about Magical Britain's culture and customs to make a good estimate. There's so much weird stuff going on there that there's not much that would surprise me.
You are correct that taken completely out of context like that, they sound like service vows. And I'm biased because I want them to be marriage vows; after reading your posts I've updated in favor of service vows.
I don't think P(marriage) > 50%. But you're offering me 10 against 1, and I am sure P(marriage) > 1/11. So I accept your bet. I'll put up $30 against your $300, to be judged either by an unambiguous statement in a future chapter of MoR, or by a comment on LW by Eliezer.
It's a deal on my part -- but I'll also understand/forgive/excuse you if you don't pay up, because I think Eliezer has effectively already confirmed my position in a comment, before I got to say "Deal".
This one?
It was posted after I said "I accept your bet," so I am honor-bound to pay up. But if you feel bad taking the money I can always donate to SIAI instead.
Yeah that was the comment I was talking about, and nah, I am okay with taking the money, if you also consider it fair enough. I'll PM you paypal detail. If paypal is not convenient for you, we'll figure some other way.
Sent via paypal.
Someone make more bets with me so I can come out ahead ;)
When you do that you are robbing Blueberry of a valuable and inexpensive learning experience.
This blew my mind.
What do you mean? Which part?
The part where I totally didn't notice that they didn't get married.
But I'm still confused; why not? What are the benefits of servitude over marriage?
I'm also confused about what actually happened.
Did he actually say anything? Or did McGonagall come up with the idea right before? And then didn't mention to Harry that she was making Hermione his servant instead of his wife?
Fewer shrieks of horror from their parents? Also Hermione doesn't need to change her name into Hermione Potter-Evans-Verres-Granger.
He didn't. It was right before. Harry knew of only marriage as a way to induct Hermione into his House. McGonagall knew of a somewhat simpler way, and one less emotionally charged than marriage.
I think he realized it the moment he heard the words McGonagall was having Hermione say. Keep in mind that it's not as if McGonaggal realized Harry was considering marriage at all.
I personally would find marriage to be vastly preferable to indefinite servitude. Servitude would definitely be emotionally charging for both of them, as humanists. And they're already deeply in love.
I find it quite astonishing how often I have to remind people that they're eleven years old.
I didn't forget that (but sometimes I do). We can have a 12 year old be a slave to an 11 year old, but we can't have them get married?
Welcome to feudalism.
Legal system do not have to be consistant. In Germany you can inherit since the time of conception, but still legally aborted afterwards.
That is seriously weird.
They're not, mentally.
But yeah, they may not be able to get legally married. Surprising that they can get legally enslaved, though.
Feudal vassalage is a few steps up from slavery, I think.
Yes, but there's no verb that means to put someone into it...
They are, mentally.
The mind is the body, and this is a rationalist fic.
Precocious children have a history of demonstrating they are not socio-emotionally prepared for some adult situations they are capable of confronting on an intellectual level. However smart or clever we are, we are still wet machines and we still grow in particular rhythms at particular times.
Non-violation of bigamy laws if you marry someone else.
Before McGonagall's stunt, I was worried the marriage would require consummation to be legally binding.
"I told you, no kissing!" and then some.
This doesn't strike me as much of an issue. Considering what was at stake it would be an utterly trivial cost and a requirement comparatively easy to fulfill. Just another taboo tradeoff.
"Let's see... is drastically underage sex with my girlfriend better than her death by torture?". Death by torture really makes decision making easy at times!
Well, yes. I mean, a canonical purpose of torture is to simplify decision-making.