Ah. See, my prior probability that Trelawney's prophecy was genuine is not very high.
This story has an epidemic of false prophecy. This looks to me like it's intended to prime the reader to accept that an apparently true prophecy is actually false. I also think this is a consideration, but that appears to be a minority view. I'm expecting a false prophecy, and I'm looking for a reason for it to have occurred and apparently been fulfilled despite its falsity.
I think Dumbledore expected the story to play out as it did in the novels. He would get a hero who was bred with the heroic qualities of his parents, bullheaded but pure of heart. Snape, who in HPMoR is terrible at riddles, would fail to solve this one, and his guilt at causing Lily's death would cement his status as a lifelong soldier of the light. Lily would die a martyr, and her sacrifice would ensure Voldemort's defeat. From canon:
"It was love. You see, when dear, sweet Lily Potter gave her life for her only son, she provided the ultimate protection. I could not touch him. It was old magic. Something I should have foreseen."
This is a complex plot that hinges on storybook logic, but that's not out of character for Dumbledore.
"There was a great rivalry between students, and their competition ended in a perfect tie. That sort of thing only happens in stories, Mr. Potter, and there is one person in this school who thinks in stories. There was a strange and complicated plot, which you should have realized was uncharacteristic of the young Slytherin you faced. But there is a person in this school who deals in plots that elaborate, and his name is not Zabini."
(Yes, it's Quirrell saying it, but remember that he was right.)
The plot is not too complex to be Dumbledore's, but it is too complex to succeed. That's why it didn't. Snape is no longer Dumbledore's. Instead of canon!Harry, he got HJPEV. Harry's mother attacked Voldemort, so her protection doesn't exist; Quirrell can pass the wards around his house at will.
And although it failed, it has the outward appearance of having succeeded, because that's what Voldemort wants Dumbledore to believe.
Apologies for repeating things I've said upthread. I wanted to set my beliefs in their proper context. I hope I've addressed your objections. One that I missed was Dumbledore's apparently genuine interest in discovering the "power [Voldemort] knows not." Dumbledore's relationship to storybook thinking is something I still don't understand. He seems to genuinely believe in the pattern, the rhythm of the world, but also acts as though events need to be nudged into following it. I'm not sure whether this is a dragon in my garage situation of conflicting beliefs and anticipations, or that he thinks you can cause storybook outcomes by setting up storybook premises, or something else I haven't thought of.
My working theory for Dumbledore's emphasis on story logic is that it's a pragmatic decision supporting several different lines of influence.
First, we know he's pretending to be a lot crazier than he is: he acts like a character in a roleplaying game with "Insanity" marked down in the flaws section of his character sheet, not someone with an actual personality disorder, and going out of his way to act like Gandalf fits in fairly well with that.
Second, he spends a lot of his time working with kids, who're probably a lot more familiar with stor...
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 81, which should be published later today. The previous thread passed 400 comments as of the time of this writing, so it will pass 500 comments soon after the next chapter is posted, if not before. I suggest refraining from commenting here until chapter 81 is posted; comment in the 12th thread until you read chapter 81. After chapter 81 is posted, I suggest all discussion of previous guesses be kept here, with links to comments in the previous thread.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.) When posted, chapter 81 should appear here.
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: