Spurlock comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 14, chapter 82 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: FAWS 04 April 2012 02:53AM

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Comment author: Spurlock 07 April 2012 06:12:28PM 18 points [-]

I'd like to predict that whatever actually happened with Dumbledore and Narcissa, it will turn out to have been foreshadowed by whatever happened in Chapter 17 between Dumbledore and the chicken.

That is, I can't actually figure out whether he seriously burned a chicken alive, made it look like he burned a chicken alive, or that actually is what a Phoenix looks like right before regenerating. But he appeared to set fire to a chicken, and I predict that he used essentially the same move on Narcissa, as suggested by the law of conservation of detail.

I don't think its possible that he just whisked her away with Phoenix-travel, as this apparently doesn't actually look anything like someone burning alive, viewed from the outside. But whatever he did with the chicken at least looked enough like burning to fool Harry:

The chicken's beak opened, but it didn't have time for so much as a single caw before it began to wither and char. The blaze was brief, intense, and entirely self-contained; there was no smell of burning.

Comment author: bogdanb 07 April 2012 08:46:08PM * 6 points [-]

But faking her death (and even the type of death) doesn’t really match the rest of the story. There’s no obvious reason not to return her after he thought Voldemort was gone, or at least to let Lucius know what happened in case she’s alive and didn’t want to return—which is unlikely, we had no indication that she was really unhappy or didn’t wish to be a part of her son’s life—or if she died in some much-less-objectionable way (he could give Lucius the memory).

Not doing this led to the last ten years being rather complicated due to Lucius’ enmity; Dumbledore mentions to Harry he’s quite constrained in his political actions. Eliezer also seems to write his stories such that serious actions have serious consequences.

None of it proof, of course, just strong evidence IMO that she really is dead and either Dumbledore or an ally he’s protected did it.

Comment author: Desrtopa 08 April 2012 03:25:39AM 10 points [-]

But faking her death (and even the type of death) doesn’t really match the rest of the story. There’s no obvious reason not to return her after he thought Voldemort was gone, or at least to let Lucius know what happened in case she’s alive and didn’t want to return—which is unlikely, we had no indication that she was really unhappy or didn’t wish to be a part of her son’s life—or if she died in some much-less-objectionable way (he could give Lucius the memory).

But he never thought Voldemort was permanently gone in the first place. The Hogwarts inner circle knew Voldemort was still around as of the beginning of the story. And in any case, he's still maneuvering against Lucius, so he has an incentive to uphold the notion that he will not cooperate with blackmailers and that he will resort to equal retaliation, even while his greater enemy is absent.

Comment author: Eponymuse 08 April 2012 04:03:53AM 6 points [-]

I'm not saying I think Narcissa is alive, but...

There’s no obvious reason not to return her after he thought Voldemort was gone

Except that Narcissa could then testify in front of the Wizengamot that Dumbledore kidnapped her.

or at least to let Lucius know what happened in case she’s alive and didn’t want to return

Dumbledore believes Voldemort will return. This would limit his ability to threaten Death Eaters in the next war.

Comment author: bogdanb 09 April 2012 04:27:51AM 3 points [-]

Dumbledore believes Voldemort will return. This would limit his ability to threaten Death Eaters in the next war.

Point. I forgot he knew about the Horcruxes since basically the beginning.

Comment author: Spurlock 07 April 2012 08:53:00PM 5 points [-]

I don't think Dumbledore would risk leaving her as a loose end, what I suspect is that he really did kill her, but only appeared to burn her alive.

Comment author: bogdanb 08 April 2012 02:54:51AM * 20 points [-]

Oh, no, he did much worse:

He switched her brain with that of a chicken (with Magic!), then burned the chicken alive—in her body—so that the chicken’s thrashing around in horrible agony left marks around the room (while he forced Narcissa to watch, with Magic!). Then he kept Narcissa alive (with Magic!) in the chicken’s body, to keep company to Fawkes; he kept her hidden (with Magic!) right near his perch, so that every time Fawkes re-spawned she was reminded of what her captor was capable of. Then he burned her in front of Harry (with Magic!) just because he thought it was funny :-)

By the way, Lucius is not actually mad because he killed her—Dumbledore told the first part the above to him, but he kept silent about the details because it was embarrassing to have his wife turned to a chicken. That’s why Dumbledore had trouble during the trial; he felt a bit embarrassed about having killed Narcissa after all.

Also, Draco actually picked “fire” as his army’s symbol because he’s secretly fantasizing about being burned alive.

Comment author: moritz 10 April 2012 07:49:58AM 4 points [-]

It's chickens all the way down, isn't it?

Comment author: thomblake 09 April 2012 05:44:23PM 3 points [-]

This fits together so well I'm going to have trouble remembering that Dumbledore didn't switch Narcissa's brain with a chicken.

Comment author: pedanterrific 08 April 2012 03:14:26AM 6 points [-]

It all just clicks seamlessly into place!

Comment author: Alejandro1 10 April 2012 04:51:28PM 5 points [-]

Surely, you mean it all clucks seamlessly into place.

Comment author: Alsadius comment score below threshold [+] (12 children)

Comment author: TheOtherDave 08 April 2012 04:08:01AM 2 points [-]

And frankly, there's no humane way to die, so it'd be criminally stupid to murder a woman "nicely" and then fake torturing her

Wait... are you arguing here that we oughtn't value different types of death differently... that I ought to be indifferent between dying painlessly and painfully, for example?
Or have I misunderstood you?

If I've understood you right, that claim probably is worth supporting rather than just asserting as a premise.

Comment author: Alsadius 08 April 2012 05:04:08AM 3 points [-]

I'm saying that killing someone and then trying to feel good because you did it nicely seems incredibly hollow to me. It's the same reason why I've always thought that restrictions on classes of weapons because they kill "inhumanely" are a bit ridiculous. The difference between a really painful death and a humane one pales in comparison to the difference between living and dying, so placing more emphasis on the former than the latter is terrible preference order. The value is not literally zero, but it's smaller than the disutility Dumbledore would gain from being caught out as having faked it.

Comment author: Desrtopa 10 April 2012 03:11:21PM 3 points [-]

I'm saying that killing someone and then trying to feel good because you did it nicely seems incredibly hollow to me.

It might seem a bit hollow, but it's better than killing someone in a slow, excruciating way, and telling yourself it doesn't matter because they were going to be dead at the end of it anyway.

Comment author: Alsadius 12 April 2012 10:08:05PM 2 points [-]

He's killing for a reason, and if we assume that Dumbledore isn't lost to morality(as he seems not to be), then he certainly believes that the reason justifies an innocent death. If you're paying that sort of price though, you've got a pretty serious obligation to ensure that you get what you're paying for - in this case, an end to the murder of your family and the families of your allies. If killing her nasty does a better job of that than killing her cleanly, then light up the BBQ. It's better than killing her for nothing.

Also, before I sound like too much of a psychopath, I should point out that I'm well aware of how slippery a slope this sort of argumentation is, and how incredibly careful you need to be in applying it. But war involves lots of death, and if you're paying in lives either way, you really should try to get the best price you can. It sucks, but it was the best choice open to Dumbledore in the situation, so I won't fault him for following that path.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 08 April 2012 02:22:36PM 0 points [-]

I certainly agree that the difference between living and dying is typically much greater than the difference between being tortured for a while and not being tortured.

OTOH, situations do arise where killing X becomes necessary but torturing X remains optional. I completely agree that it's typically far far far better to avoid such situations altogether, but once I've tried and failed at that I still see no reason to torture X.

Agreed that if D's chances of being caught out are high enough, the expected cost of faking torture might well exceed the expected cost of torture. But I suspect that if we eliminated the death from the equation, and his choices were to fake her torture or to actually torture her, and he chose to torture her because the expected costs of doing so were lower, most readers (even here) would censure that choice.

Comment author: Alsadius 09 April 2012 01:55:39AM 4 points [-]

But the whole point of killing Narcissa is to shock the Death Eaters. If you've gotten to the point where it seems like a good idea to murder someone for shock value, you don't do a half-assed job, you do it nasty. To do otherwise would be a waste, because if you murder her and it doesn't have the desired effect, then you did it for nothing.

Comment author: Percent_Carbon 10 April 2012 05:12:27AM * 0 points [-]

There is a difference between killing someone in a messy but expedient manner, like a weapon deemed inhumane, and torturing someone to death.

1) the killer must sustain killing intent throughout the torture

2) the killer is vulnerable to counter-attack while torturing when, instead, they could be done and absent

3) the things we do change us, a torturer is likely to (almost must) become less empathetic than one who quickly executes, and empathy is a valuable skill in many activities

Comment author: Alsadius 12 April 2012 10:02:25PM 1 point [-]

Most weapons deemed inhumane are the sort of thing that would be about as unpleasant as being tortured to death. The de facto ban on poison gas in WW2, for example - if I had to choose between mustard gas and napalm, I'm not sure which way I'd go. For that matter, plenty of people are burned alive in ordinary wars(naval combat is particularly bad for that, along with the aforementioned napalm), and that's never been deemed worse than any other death in any legal sense.

Also, all we know is that she was burned to death. Ordinary fire deaths are not the sort of torture you're suggesting - they're relatively quick in most cases(minutes, and not many of them), so 2) in particular doesn't apply strongly.

Comment author: wedrifid 08 April 2012 11:45:46AM 3 points [-]

And frankly, there's no humane way to die, so it'd be criminally stupid to murder a woman "nicely" and then fake torturing her in order to torment her husband.

That doesn't seem to follow. If the faking has the same expectation of success and torture of noncombatants has some degree of negative value then the fakery is superior.

Comment author: Alsadius 09 April 2012 02:57:33PM 2 points [-]

But faking does not have the same expectation of success. There's always a chance that the fake may be discovered, whereas if you do it for real, there is no such chance.

Comment author: thomblake 09 April 2012 05:46:21PM 1 point [-]

There's always a chance that the fake may be discovered, whereas if you do it for real, there is no such chance.

Trivially true only if you're not counting the chance of the real death being erroneously discovered to be a fake.

Comment author: Alsadius 09 April 2012 05:57:17PM 1 point [-]

But that can happen if it's actually fake too - getting the right answer from the wrong argument is hardly unprecedented. In any case, the odds of it being believed to be fake(with the consequent effects on Dumbledore's reputation as someone who is willing to go to great lengths to protect the Order's families) go up if it's actually fake.

Comment author: 75th comment score below threshold [+] (5 children)

Spurlock comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 14, chapter 82 - Less Wrong

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