Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 15, chapter 84

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The next discussion thread 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 84. The previous thread has passed 500 comments. Comment in the 14th thread until you read chapter 84.

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, 14.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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 next discussion thread 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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

He wants Evil to be taken as Good.

I think it's the other way: he wants good people to be seen as fallible and fallen.

My model of him is like: "So when I tried to be the hero, people disrespected me, but for some reason the same people respect Dumbledore, Hermione, Harry. Why?! Oh, they are probably better at signalling. So let's manipulate them into difficult situations where even if they choose good, it will either ruin them or send bad signals."

He does not want to redefine the words with capital letters. That's a fool's game. He is just jealous that other people succeeded in having a good image, where he failed despite his cool plans. He wants good people to have bad image, so that he can become a person with the best image, which is his preferred way to rule the world; probably because it seems safer in long run than being an evil overlord.

I believe his frustration at his inability to become a credible hero. But at least he is learning. He has learned that "a single super-heroic action" is not a good plan, so now he is trying "a child with magical destiny" plan. He cynically believed that he could fool all people; now he is even more cynical, because he believes that he cannot fool them by something that makes sense (killing a few Death Eaters and saving a princess? meh.), but could do it by a superstition (to kill Voldemort while being a baby? cool, and nobody suspects anything!).