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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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Comments (1099)
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.
Yeah, it would not have occurred to me that romance at age 11 is inappropriate, as I knew a lot of romantically-inclined people at age 11, and I tend to think of Wizarding Britain as a backwards, medieval society so "marriage at 11" doesn't ring any alarm bells. Plus, 11ish-year-old characters have already talked at length about romance in the story.
Plus... polyjuice.
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.
I doubt that's true in the purely consequentialist sense, and I don't expect Lucius to think like a consequentialist.
A major violation of trust from the person Draco cares about and respects most of all, seems like exactly the sort of damage that could survive Obliviation (as McGonagall hinted in Chapter 6).
And my model of Lucius would not want to violate Draco's trust, even if Draco couldn't remember it - he genuinely cares about being a good father to Draco. Old-fashioned nobles believe in virtue ethics, if any.
So, for what reason do you believe you have a better model of Lucius than Dumbledore does?
Did Eliezer say that Lucius interrogated Draco himself? I can't find it - I had assumed it was aurors, who in the course of investigating this particular crime would have no reason even to mention Harry's name.
I don't think so, no.
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.