I'm running with the theory (from Donny) that the prophecy was planted by Dumbledore as a plot to lure Voldemort into a trap, where Lily completed a dark ritual to protect Harry and destroy Voldemort should he attack Harry.
Objection. I don't believe Lily completed a ritual. She's not the one who spoke the words in the correct order. I don't think Voldemort would accidentally confer a protection upon an intended victim, either.
My version of this theory has Dumbledore creating the same setup as in canon because he thought it would lead to the same result as in canon. Not because he'd read the novels or anything, but because it looked like the logical outcome to him. He's brilliant, but no rationalist, and he fell prey to the conjunction fallacy, formulating a complicated plot with lots of plausible-sounding detail.
Still, he got two out of three right. Lily and Snape acted as expected. If only Voldemort had been a little dumber.
ETA, just to be clear: I think Dumbledore expected Harry to be protected and Voldemort to be defeated by the power of Lily's love, as in canon. He thinks Voldemort would be blind to an attack from this direction, because
"it is evil which does not know love, and dares not imagine love, and cannot ever understand love without ceasing to be evil."
ETA2: Actually, the part about the conjunction fallacy is wrong. I mistook Snape's involvement for an extraneous detail, but it's not. For the protective magic to activate, Lily needed to have been offered the chance to survive. Snape's role was to beg Voldemort to spare her. So every piece of the plot has a function.
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: