Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 14, chapter 82

FAWS

The new discussion thread (part 15) is here.

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 82. The previous thread passed 1000 comments as of the time of this writing, and so has long passed 500. Comment in the 13th thread until you read chapter 82.

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.)

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: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.

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:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

The new discussion thread (part 15) is here.

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:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

If that is the case, then I agree that that is fair use. But I see that as different from fanfiction. If you don't, I don't want to get into a detailed argument here about what the difference is. But, in short, if the primary purpose of MoR were to serve as commentary on Rowling, I would see it as fair use. As it is, however, it seems to me that that isn't the primary purpose of MoR (although it does do that among other things). Primarily, MoR is another great and compelling story by Eliezer Yudkowsky, but which happens to have used J.K. Rowling's universe as its setting in order to take advantage of the popularity of the Harry Potter books in order to attract readers. Now, I don't think there's actually anything inherently wrong with that (and even if I did, I would make an exception for MoR because it's just so damn good) but it is my empirical opinion that current copyright law is in fact (unfortunately) designed to make this kind of thing illegal.

I don't think that's quite right.

MoR can be construed as parody of Harry Potter - in fact, a lot of reviewers point specifically to where it pokes fun of holes in Rowling's worldbuilding, and (as noted elsewhere hereabouts) a major theme is the reversal of Rowling's stance on death.

But that's just a special case of transformativeness:

Transformative uses may include criticizing the quoted work, exposing the character of the original author, proving a fact, or summarizing an idea argued in the original in order to defend or rebut it. They also may include parody, symbolism, aesthetic declarations, and innumerable other uses.

In practice, it lets the courts say "I would make an exception for MoR because it's just so damn good".

MoR can be construed as parody of Harry Potter - in fact, a lot of reviewers point specifically to where it pokes fun of holes in Rowling's worldbuilding, and (as noted elsewhere hereabouts) a major theme is the reversal of Rowling's stance on death.

Actually, I will say that I thought of it as a parody myself at first, and even described it to other people as a "spoof". However, I feel that it has grown into more than that over time, as the story has developed. At this point, the original seems almost irrelevant. (My personal familiarity with ... (read more)